GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #144: THE AGE OF AQUARIUS

I'll be honest. I don't give a fuck about AQUARIUS, if not for David Duchovny. I liked RED SHOE DIARIES when I was a kid and looking for spank material. I loved X-FILES just like most of you did. And of course there was CALIFORNICATION, which I loved the shit out of. But AQUARIUS? I would not have watched it if not for Duchovny's portrayal of the main character.


The show is bad. Sorry. As a lifelong Duchovny fan, I wanted to like it. Every cliche you can think of is thrown into this show. Even the soundtrack is predictable. FUCK!


But the idea for the show? I love it. Pit Mickey Spillane against Charlie Manson? That's fucking perfect. That's what interests me about the show. Everything else sucks. Duchovny does the best job he can do with the shit he's given. Even the guy who plays Manson does his best. But fuck. I want to see Spillane vs. Manson. That's awesome, even if it's not the true story.


I don't want the true story here. I want the bizarro version. Spillane and Manson. To the death. Celebrity Death-match style. I won't get that, but I like that. It's better than what we're getting.


Although I do like the entire series being available on demand. That's pretty cool. I'm rooting for the show, I really am, but so far, I'm not impressed. I want to be. I want to believe. (Sorry. I couldn't help it.) But the cliched garbage keeps getting in the way.


The Manson rape scene is very good. It's highly unusual. But that's it.


I hope this show has more to offer. I want to like it.

POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS GOODREADS GIVEAWAY!

I'm giving away a signed copy of my third book, POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS, at Goodreads! Get in while the getting's good. Check it out here.

HEY FUCKERS #22: THE WORLD NEEDS A BIZARRO SOAP OPERA

My hero

When I was a kid, I envied George Newman, Weird Al's character in UHF. I wanted to have my own TV station where I could play shows about whatever the fuck paraded through my mind. Hell, I would have filmed me playing war games with my GI Joes, because I thought my adventures were rad. I wish I could be a programmer for my very own station.


Yesterday I saw my grandmother watching a compilation of popular scenes from DAYS OF OUR LIVES, except there was some weird storyline about a demon or a vampire or I don't know what the fuck. I could have sworn it was PASSIONS, I asked her if DAYS OF OUR LIVES really had a horror story arc. She said it had happened in the 'Eighties. I guess they were trying to capture the interest of people who missed DARK SHADOWS . . . ?


And then it occurred to me that there should be a bizarro soap opera. Why the fuck not? I thought I should write that book, but it wouldn't appeal to me much in book form. No, I would want it to be a TV show, for sure.


I started thinking about the characters, and I'm pretty sure I have a few winners. Obviously, the show has to revolve around a wealthy family. Husband, wife, two kids (one boy, one girl) and a pet. I'm thinking the husband is a Batman type of superhero, and none of the family knows about the secret headquarters their mansion hides. The wife is a serial killer, and she's being hunted by her husband, but neither one of them knows the other's identity. And she's just brutal. Cannibalism. Sex torture. You name it. Their girl, the older of the siblings, is incredibly hot, but she's got an insane, Monk-type list of phobias that keeps her confined to her bedroom where she spends her days eating spiders because spiders are the one thing she's not afraid of. Their boy tries to run an Encyclopedia Brown kind of detective agency, except he's profoundly stupid and can't do the job. Their pet is a dragon who routinely burns down neighbors' houses and constantly gets the family in trouble. Speaking of the neighbors, one of them thinks he's the action star version of Liam Neeson, but he's a clumsy motherfucker, and he never knows what his prostitute daughter is up to for real.


And then there's the extended family. A vampire uncle who tries to hide the fact that he's a vampire, even though EVERYONE knows he's a vampire, and his pedophile caretaker. Their wacky grandfather is Charlie Manson. A cousin is a writer who, instead of spending his time writing, is obsessed with his Twitter numbers and all the fights he gets into with people online. Another uncle is a deformed guy who has a normal sized head, but the rest of his body is super-tiny, like, the size of an ice cube, and he constantly tries to hatch I-shall-rule-the-world schemes which are usually foiled by his tendency to over-think things.


I think their neighborhood needs an Irish cop walking the beat. Nothing fancy, just the stereotype times a thousand.


What do you think? Do any of my readers have the kind of money and connections necessary to make this happen? I'd do a Kickstarter, but what network would give me the chance to air this show?


Maybe we could get Rex Hamilton as Abraham Lincoln in there. What's he doing these days?

[EDIT: Ah, fuck. Looks like Rex Hamilton is dead. Never mind, then.]

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #143: A DAY WELL SPENT (?)

When I took this week off, I did so with the understanding that I would do next to nothing the whole time, that I would stay off my ass due to my broken tailbone to give it a chance to heal before I had to go back to my desk job, where I spend 8 hours a day sitting on the broken bone that should be healing. A lot of shit came up. There's some shit that I'm not ready to talk about yet. It's fucking grim, but I . . . I'm just not ready to go there yet.

Today, I promised myself I would do nothing but indulge my new Netflix habit. The only thing I did today was cash my paycheck. Aside from that, I spent the day in bed watching Netflix, and I'm very proud of that. I loaded down with painkillers and stayed off my ass. The only time I sat down was long enough to drive to the bank on my doughnut. And to McDonald's for lunch. But that's it. How did my day go?

Very nice, actually. I remember being an hour in and feeling very distant from myself, as if I were floating above my body watching me watching Netflix. Wonderful. My entire body was numb, and I didn't even want to move to dispel the feeling.

And then I turned over. Much to my surprise, I had a heavy dick. Usually that's a nice feeling, but today it was annoying. It was made even worse by the hole in my boxers, which I kept sticking out of. My dick got in the way of everything as I shifted around to make sure none of my body started suffering pins and needles. My balls annoyed me even more because they hung down waaaaaay lower than usual. I had to keep them out of the way when I took a shit earlier today.

By the sixth hour, the inevitable happened: my heavy dick turned into a full-on erection. Nothing prompted it, which is kind of weird. Usually, at the very least it takes a car ride to get things moving down there. This came as a result of nothing. There wasn't even a sexually suggestive scene on Netflix. It just happened.

I decided to get rid of this unwanted boner. It took me a while to find a comfortable position, and I started jerking off. Except . . . I didn't feel anything. My entire body, my dick included, felt numb. These painkillers took away the joy of masturbation. How horrible is that?

Not that bad, actually. I'd rather have no pain and an awkward hard-on than have a satisfied dick with horrible pain. Still, this marks the first time I've ever failed to jerk off. Although I am getting used to these pills, so . . . I wonder if I need to start doubling up on this shit. Ha-ha, just kidding. I think.

I just realized that it would have been very awkward if I'd died in that moment. How often do paramedics have to haul out corpses with full hard-ons? I keep thinking about the body bag tenting up in the middle, and reporters staring at it, laughing with their hands over their microphones.

Tomorrow is the last day of my vacation, and I have to do shit, sadly. But I hope to dedicate most of my day to further exploration of Netflix. That feeling of zoning out to nearly the point of paralysis? That felt pretty good. Peaceful. I'd like to experience that again before I have to go to work.

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE FOR THE BRUNI/DANGER 2016 CAMPAIGN!

Horror and bizarro author John Bruni is running for President of the United States of America in 2016. He has no money to put into this. He has very little reach to make this happen. He’s got no plan to save this country. He’s got no experience in politics. However, he’s a pretty funny guy. Charisma goes a long way, right? And he’s a published author. That’s got to count for something. Plus he’s promised not to lie during the course of his campaign. He’s been brutally honest about his life on Twitter @tusitalabruni for a long time. Why vote for candidates who lie every time their mouths are open? And since he knows how the government works, he promises to make no campaign promises because the president doesn’t make laws. Congress does. Mr. Bruni is available for interviews, which will probably be phoners, since he has a job. Please contact him at johnbruni2016@gmail.com for inquiries. www.talesofquestionabletaste.com

By the way, his running mate is Danger_Slater, another fellow horror and bizarro writer. He can be found here.

JOHN BRUNI FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES IN 2016!!!

You read that right. No joke. I'm really running for President in the next election.


This morning, as I ate breakfast, I watched the news and saw a story about the usual bunch of assholes gathering for some kind of thing called Politics and Pie, or some such shit. In that moment, however, I realized something: for the first time in my life, I can be one of those assholes.


There are three requirements to run for US president: you have to be born in the US, you have to have lived in the US for the last 14 years and you have to be a minimum of 35 years old.


I was born in Elmhurst, IL, which is firmly placed in the heartland of the US. Not only have I lived here for the last 14 years, I've lived here for the last 36 years. Which means, by the way, that I am 36 years old.


I can run for president, so I will, but not for the reasons you'd expect. I did a little research into what you need to do in order to run for president. One part sounds easy. The other? That's a bit more difficult.


The easy part: fill out this form. That is, if you plan on spending money for your campaign. Which, if you really want to win, you should probably do. I won't be doing this because I won't be spending any money. That's right, my campaign is going to cost me zero dollars. Any contributions sent to me will be returned posthaste.


Since I'm not going to spend money, I'm certainly not going to do the harder part: getting on the ballot. If you run for president and want to win, you will need to get 50 petitions together in order to get enough signatures to make it onto each state's ballot. (Unless you know a few secretaries of state. Some states allow their secretary of state to put you on the ballot without the petition.) You need something like 1% of the population to sign each petition. While I have the organization to do that, I know I wouldn't succeed at it. That's crazy talk, and it's a lot of legwork for something that's just not going to happen.


However . . . some states have write-ins on their ballot. If you feel that I would make a kick ass president, feel free to put my name on that line.


But chances are, I'm not going to win. Hell, I'm not even registered to vote, so not even I will be voting for me. Why am I running for president if I'm not going to win? I hear you ask. The better question to ask is, "Why run if you don't even want to win?"


Because I don't want to win. I have zero plans on how to make this a better country. Ask me how I'm going to reform our tax system. No. Seriously. Ask. Or how's about my plan to turn back inflation and return value to the American dollar? Am I coming for your guns? Am I going to legalize PCP?


I don't fucking know. I don't care, either. I'm really running for president because I have a new book to promote, and I can't think of a better way than to see if I can get on TV as a presidential candidate. Perhaps I can convince the American people that the secret to saving the nation is within the pages of POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS. Speaking of which, I'm looking for a running mate who also has a new book out to promote. Any suggestions? Volunteers?


And I can hear you Negative Nellies. "YOU CAN'T RUN FOR PRESIDENT! YOU'RE NOT MARRIED, YOU'RE AN ATHEIST, YOU'RE A DRUNK, YOU HAVE A PICTURE OF YOUR PENIS ON YOUR WEBSITE AND THERE'S A LONG HISTORY OF YOU DOING QUESTIONABLE THINGS." Well, those things only matter if I want to win. And even if I wanted to win, I wouldn't deny these things. I'm pretty proud of most of these things. There will be no lies from me. No cover ups. Nothing but the truth. Which means I'd make a lousy politician, I guess.


Anyway, I guess I'd better start writing my press release and start sending out requests to be interviewed. Maybe I can run on a platform of raising awareness of writers. Tell the people that we don't make as much as Stephen King. Maybe I can get a bill going requiring publishers to pay authors 20-cents per word for short fiction. We currently make the same (if not less) than the pulp writers of the 'Thirties, and considering inflation, that makes no sense. Got any more ideas for my platform? Let me know. I'll leave you with my campaign slogan:


ZERO LIES
ZERO MONEY
ZERO PLANS
ZERO CHANCE OF WINNING
JOHN BRUNI 2016


(I want to add on BUY POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS, but I think it ruins the flow. Maybe I can put that in parentheses at the bottom in small letters, so it looks like more of an afterthought.)

HEY FUCKERS #22: AN APPRECIATION OF TOM LEHRER

When I was a kid, I liked to check the same things out from the library so I could enjoy things over and over again. The items I checked out the most? Dr. Demento cassettes. Each one was dedicated to a decade, starting with the 'Fifties and going through the 'Eighties. Great stuff. I found a lot of gems in there.

One of my favorite discoveries, however, was Tom Lehrer. I'd already heard "The Masochism Tango," but I didn't know anything beyond it being a funny song. I didn't know the songwriter or performer or anything like that. And then I found it on one of those cassettes. More delightfully, however, I found "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" on another. Now that I knew Tom Lehrer's name, on a whim I looked him up and found TOM LEHRER REVISITED, which the library luckily had.

And so my life changed.

I can't tell you how wonderful it was to discover this treasure trove of comedic songs about brutal murder, dope peddling, the end of the world and many other topics. Plagiarizing mathematicians, boys pimping out their sisters (for a good percentage of her price, naturally), southerners who haven't seen a good lynching in years, these are the savages that prowl through Lehrer's lyrics, and they're all funny as fuck.

After hearing his music, it's hard to imagine that his true love is mathematics. He attended Harvard at the age of 15, and he worked at Los Alamos during the Cold War. He taught at MIT. Up until recently, he was teaching math in California. This is an incredibly smart dude, and you could see he poured a lot of that into his viciously funny songs.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've been posting some of my favorite songs of his throughout the day (it's his 87th birthday). Classically trained on piano since the age of seven, he has released songs that sound innocuous enough . . . just so long as you're not listening to the lyrics. Once you tune in to the words, you'd be surprised to find him, say, taking on the Catholic church in a ragtime song. Or maybe you wouldn't have expected to hear the story of a crazy woman who murders her whole family hiding in an Irish ballad. Or the guy, who cut off his lover's hand after murdering her, living in what sounds like a classical romantic tune.

He's also really good at writing songs that are incredibly hard to sing along with, like "New Math." Another song, "The Elements," is a recital of all the elements on the Periodic Table performed in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan. Even so, the songs are catchy as all hell.

He once talked about his humor in these terms (paraphrased, as I don't have the article in front of me): first you throw the baby in the air, and you catch it. And the baby laughs. Then you throw the baby in the air, and you don't catch it. Then YOU laugh. This is very true, and it explains my sense of humor pretty well, too. He was also fond of saying, "If after hearing my songs just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while."

Apparently, he stays pretty current. When 2 Chainz sampled "The Old Dope Peddler" in a song, Lehrer wrote to him, stating: "As sole copyright owner of [the song], I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this." And even though he's retired from music, there is a rumor that he's tinkering with a song about late-term abortion called "Bye-Bye Baby."

I can go on forever about my love of his work, but I think I've gone on enough. If you want to learn more, check this out. And then go out and buy all of his albums. The live ones are best, since he adds commentary in the introduction to each song. Also, on REVISITED, he introduces himself in a most unusual manner. I love the bit about translating THE WIZARD OF OZ to Latin, and his bit on doing impressions of diseases. If you're a sick and classy fuck like me, you will love Tom Lehrer.