GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #447: 2020, MY YEAR OF SHIT

 I think this will be the last GF column of the year. I'm going to take it easy this holiday season because I'd rather not spend it in the hospital for any reason. 2021 may not have been a great year, but it was at least better than 2020, or at least in my experience. This time last year I was in pretty rough shape. I'd made some bad decisions, and sometimes bad decisions were made for me, but only because I put myself in those situations.

This time last year I'd been out of work for a few days short of an entire year. I'm not one to say that I define myself by my job, but I do need some form of structure in my life, and employment usually helps fill in that particular gap. As such I felt myself slipping away pretty badly. Some of you were there for those bad decisions, so you remember.

So yeah, I had a lot of regrets. Suicidal thoughts and the psych ward. Hospital stays. Drugs. The booze took over more than I'd like to admit. A loosening of my personal morals. Accepting things I would ordinarily never have accepted under any other circumstance. To say nothing of the fucking plague. Writing probably saved my life. Without it I'd undoubtedly be dead. Probably cannabis, too. If the State of Illinois hadn't legalized recreational use, I'm sure I'd still be drinking myself crazy.

And I intend to write a GF column about the booze. I had an experience a while back that helped shed some light on some of that. Not that I'm against alcohol. It's too useful. I still drink, but not every day, sometimes not even every week, and never in the mornings anymore. Well, unless it's going to be a fuck off day where I do absolutely nothing but read, watch movies, etc. But that's a rarity for me and a topic for another day.

A friend told me that she'd never seen me so low in my life, and she would know. She'd been around for half of it. She was right, though. 2020 brought me lower than I'd ever been, and I've been through some low periods of my life. Startlingly low for people who don't know my story.

Yeah, 2021 sucked. I've still had a few hospital visits (the problems with my guts aren't, it turns out, alcohol related, so ain't that fucking grand?), and I totaled my beloved Honda Civic. I've had battles with the State of Illinois (and there's one starting up right now, come to think of it). But I have a job, so I'm not left to my devices on a regular basis. And I've stayed out of the hospital so far this month. I have a ridiculous amount of writing getting published in 2022.

But I learned a lot during 2020. Especially about me. I thought I'd had it all figured out, and boy, was I wrong. I'm still an undiscovered country to myself, and that's kind of interesting to me.

Anyway, that's all for now. Merry fucking Christmas, everyone. And Happy New fucking Year!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #446: BIG MAC PRISON

 I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but when I was a kid, I loved the Big Mac prison. It looks like the above picture, but the one I went to was in Villa Park, the location of the first McDonald's Playland or Play Place. There's a difference between the two. One is outside, one is inside. I used to know which was which, but I can't be bothered to look it up right now. Mine was inside and a lot taller than this.

I wrote about it very briefly here. I might have gone into more detail elsewhere, but again, see my attitude toward the above conundrum for more details.

In that GF column I mentioned a field trip, but the simple fact of the matter was, if I went to that McDonald's with anyone, then I would hide in the Big Mac prison to avoid having to go home. If someone found me, I would argue like crazy to not get out of it. Since those who brought me here were adults, they couldn't fit inside, so they had to threaten me until I started crying and climbed down to be dragged home.

The more I think about it, the more I have no idea why the fuck that was. There's the obvious reason of a child having fun and not wanting to go home, but was that really it? There had to be a different reason. I had lots of stuff I could have done at home. That's where my Hardy Boys books lived.

When I was a young man, I'm told I got into a drunken altercation that the cops had to arrive for. I have no recollection of this, but I'm told that I surrendered and said that the cops could bring me to jail. Is there some weird thing in the back of my head that wants to be behind bars? I have no fucking idea. The cops didn't bother arresting me due to the intervention of the friend I got into that altercation with. All I know is that I woke up hours later, sober and wondering why my neck felt so horrible (long story for another day, perhaps) and where the afternoon had gone. Did Big Mac still lurk in the back of my head at the time? Is he there now as I type this?

My Big Mac is long gone. Historical significance apparently didn't apply to McDonald's, so they tore him and his buddies down. But maybe he's still out there. Waiting. For me.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #445: SNAKE-EYES

 

I still think about the new Snake-Eyes movie and how it contrasts with the character I knew and loved as a kid. But I'm not going to say much about the movie. I liked it, but it makes me appreciate the character from my childhood more. Although I will say I was happy to see some horror elements in the movie. I loved the giant snake. Most people forget that a lot of weird shit happens in the GI Joe world. Especially that animated movie from way back when.

Snake-Eyes is a dude who no one truly knows, except maybe for Storm Shadow and Scarlett. He's always kept to himself, and up until recently I was under the impression that either he couldn't speak or he refused to speak. It turns out to be the latter, because in a recent issue of the comics (the continuation of the original by the same author), it is revealed that Snake Eyes talks to Storm Shadow, who he met during Vietnam.

They became really close, and Storm Shadow, then simply Tommy Arashikage, invited him home to learn how to be a ninja. He met a lot of bad people during that time, including Zartan and Firefly, but that's a story for another day. Snake-Eyes learned quickly and became a badass. But before that happened, he was in a horrible incident that blew his face off while he was trying to escape from the LZ where he and Stalker were taking fire.

So naturally he joined up with the Joes until his untimely death a few years ago. That's not a spoiler by this point, I don't think. There's a new guy who calls himself Snake-Eyes these days, but while they are similar, they're not the same.

That comic book up there? That was supposed to be the big reveal. All these masked characters are finally going to show their faces! But no, that didn't happen. Destro and Cobra Commander took off their iconic masks and put on different disguises. Meanwhile Snake-Eyes has a mask of his own, and it looks like he did before he got his face fried.

But they did eventually show Snake-Eyes without any mask on. See?

And that was after years of reconstructive surgery.

The point of me rambling about Snake-Eyes is that I remember when I was a kid, and I had the toys, and it was always fun to play wargames on hot summer days with water pistols. And what did I do?

Here's another thing you may have never noticed or have forgotten, but there was a brief era of time when GI Joe toys came with little paint packets that were supposed to be used for camouflage. I took the red ones, and can you guess what I did?

Yeah, I think you know what I did. I'm not one to feel nostalgic this late in life, but sometimes a little bit sneaks through the borders. I miss running around as a kid with this image painted on my arm and a water gun in my hand (along with a backup which I kept hidden in a back pocket, just in case).

I'll grant you, the ninja stuff wasn't my favorite part of the Joe franchise, but if there were rubber shuriken or throwing knives, you couldn't keep me away from that shit. And yeah, I loved TMNT and Karate Kid. What I really love, though is Cobra Kai on Netflix because those characters grew up with me, and now almost all of them have some kind of perspective on what they did back in the day.

I'll take my life now over then any day, but those were fun times.

Seriously. That movie had some crazy, crazy shit in it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #444: THE CCC

 So when I have the day off, I like to go read at forest preserves. It gets me out of the house, and if it's timed right, I don't have to run into too many people. There are times where I have the whole place to myself, and I like that best of all. But my favorite to go to is the Fullersburg Forest Preserve. In particular the Graue Mill end of it.

This place was built (if you can build a natural place, I guess) by the CCC, which was one of the best things FDR came up with. It served two great purposes. First, it preserved the natural beauty of this country as an extension of Theodore Roosevelt's creation of national parks. Without the CCC I'm sure there would be a strip mall where the Graue Mill stands. Hell, some people are trying to tear it down even now but for different reasons. And I hope they fucking fail.

The other great purpose was it created millions of jobs during the Great Depression. So when you wander down forest preserve paths or cross the bridges there and so on, the CCC built that for you.

The CCC was short lived, sadly. It was created in 1933 and was a casualty of World War II. The government needed the money to beat the shit out of the Axis, so they took it from the CCC. It's odd thinking these forest preserves are, in the big picture, kind of new.

Considering the amount of energy drinks and water I consume, it should come as no surprise that I've had to use the outhouses at these places. They're fucking horrible places, but that's the way it's supposed to be. I remember thinking, as I stood at the urinal, shocked at how overpowering the stink in there was, I realized that I was pissing on decades and decades worth of shit. Maybe some of it belonged to the CCC that built this Satan's black, hell-besmeared, farting hole.

I'm sure their shit is buried a lot lower and might even have fossilized by now. (It should be noted that I own a petrified dinosaur turd. Because of course *I* would.)

No wonder it stinks so bad in there.

Yeah, I know. You didn't expect a Warlock reference tonight. Neither did I.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #443: MY BUNGHOLE

 I've got a problem. It's . . . it's my bunghole. It's exposed, and you never want your bunghole open to the world. Anyone could come along and peek into it. Or even stick their finger in. And if they touch what's inside? You never want that.

But here's the situation. My bung became horribly warped. It just wouldn't fit back into my bunghole. No matter how hard I pushed and twisted, it just wouldn't get back in there. I put up a great effort, but sadly my bung was destroyed. Never to fit a bunghole ever again.

I tried to buy a new bung, but who the fuck sells bungs, really? I had to make do with a cork. But it's not like I could test each cork at the hardware store, sticking them all into my bunghole to see if it would fit properly. No, so I had to buy a bunch of corks to bring home and test them each in the privacy of my home.

It took five corks before I found the right one. The others were too small, and one was too big. I found the Goldilocks cork to fit just right into my bunghole. Now I don't have to worry that it's open and available to just about anybody.

Just in time, too. I really wanted my whiskey barrel to be able to age properly, and if you don't have something to cover up that bunghole, it just doesn't do the trick. Plus you risk losing booze to evaporation. Wait, what did you think I was talking about? Oh. Oh! You . . . you dirty so and so's.

Heh-heh.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #442: THE ENDING OF THE EXPANSE

 So the ending of The Expanse book series is still sitting in the back of my head, and I think about it often. Here there be spoilers, so if you're still reading it or plan on it, skip this one. Seriously. There are major fucking spoilers from here on out. If that didn't get your attention, maybe I should add this giant fucking SPOILERS sign.

Now we know Winston Duarte's plan on how to beat the creatures that killed the protomolecule creators. It's a crazy fucking plan, and when I first read it I felt horrified and disgusted. The idea was to create a hive mind for humanity, meaning that we would lose all concept of who we are, individually, in favor of becoming one. Not too far from Jung's Collective Unconscious. In fact, it's an extrapolation of that theory. Can you imagine no longer being you but just another tentacle in the Cthulhu of life?

But I stopped and thought about it. Honestly, it's a hell of an equalizer. If you start out as individuals and become a collective, you suddenly know everything about everyone. You know all their secrets, and they know all of yours. Not just that, but you remember their secrets like you'd lived them yourself. It really would bring peace to the human race. Even the lowliest KKK piece of shit would hesitate in an act of violence upon realizing that all are one. You'd be attacking yourself.

At the same time, there's no point to peace in a hive mind situation. When no individuality exists, then what's the point? So fuck Duarte. I'm super glad that wasn't the route the authors took to resolve everything. They did something even better. As those creatures try to press in from an alternate universe, our heroes (one in particular) simply destroy the ring space, sealing humanity into whatever ring gate they went through to escape death and destruction. Humanity is cut off from each other, millions of light years apart, and the enemy is shit out of luck. I really liked that.

The characters. I'm really glad to see Miller again. The last we saw of him was in book four, and only some of that character was him. To paraphrase a great quote, I'm sure a certain character was glad Miller was with him, here at the end of all things.

Alex Kamal. It only seems fair that he has the Roci at the very end. He leaves the family he's been with for decades to be with his son and grandson in a part of the galaxy that would ensure he would never see his crewmates again. And the fact that he got no argument from the others made perfect and beautiful sense.

Naomi Nagata. Losing the love of her life all over again, this time on a permanent basis. Going back with Elvi and Fayez and Cara and Xan and all the other Laconian scientists back home to Sol. And she has no idea that her son Filip survived the incident that ended the Free Navy all those decades ago. I like to think they eventually found each other again, and they all lived happily ever after. There's just one more piece of Expanse fiction left, a final novella. I would not be surprised if it's about the end of Filip's story.

The thing that might still be Amos Burton . . . hold off on that one.

James Holden. The man who once upon a time made a rash decision that put all of humanity at risk of annihilation once again makes a decision for the entire human race, and this one works out pretty well. He's the one who sacrifices his life to defeat the enemy by destroying the ring space. His final words to Naomi actually made me tear up. And my gut clenched when he injected himself with the protomolecule so he could make contact with Miller again. So he could enter the egg ship and help Teresa Duarte confront her father in a showdown with humanity's fate as the stakes. But there is one thing that Miller says to him before he dies. He reminds Holden of his own fate, stuck in this protomolecule Purgatory with the rest of those who died screaming on Eros. Is Holden there now? I hope not. But he probably is.

And Amos. Oh, Amos. That epilogue is fucking perfect. It takes place a thousand years later, and one of the far and distant human colonies finds its way back home to earth. And who does this emissary run into?

Do you remember earlier in the books when someone joked that no matter how ugly and brutal a fight would be, Amos would be the last man standing? It's a bit of a running joke early on, and lo! and behold! Who should be the last man standing in these books? Amos fucking Burton hisownself, that's who. And it is Amos. He might look different. He might have odd new twitches, but I firmly believe that is Amos.

The final line of the book is perfect. "Now we got that shit out of the way, follow me. We'll grab a few beers and get reacquainted." It's such an Amos thing to say, and it's actually a pretty optimistic way to end a series of books that focused so much on the negative aspects of humanity.

In short, I'm happy with how it ended. Satisfied. I hope the show can live up to it. I'll bet it can.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #441: THINGS I'VE FALLEN OUT OF LOVE WITH

 OK, so here's that tangent from the book sale GF on Monday that I cut. I was talking about falling out of love with Halloween, and it had me thinking about other stuff I'd fallen out of love with. Here's the thing: when you're young you have all these things you feel passionate about. If you're as old as me, we didn't have the phrase about dying on a hill, but you have lots of hills you would die on when you're just a kid. The older you get, the less you care about things. Looking back, I had a lot of hills I'd die on. Hell, even as recent as a few years ago, I would have died on the hills that Constantine, Jonah Hex and Drive Angry were shitty movies, and I can't see why people would like them. I relaxed on Constantine fairly early because not many people read Hellblazer as religiously as I did. Today I don't give a fuck about the other two. These are stupid hills to die on, anyway.

Here's a tangent within a tangent. Here's how I got over things that I felt had betrayed its source material. I think it was Chuck Palahniuk who mentioned it first, but I started viewing adaptations of stuff I liked as an alternate universe version of it. While the comic book, Preacher, is my favorite in history, I was iffy about the TV show, Preacher, at first. It deviated pretty quickly from the books, but that was OK. I prefer the books, but the TV show is a Preacher. Not the Preacher, but a Preacher, and that was fine. I got to enjoy the show on its own merits instead of comparing it to something else. Once I took that perspective on all things, I found I didn't feel all that betrayed anymore. I stopped giving a shit about it.

Back to the main subject. Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I was pretty obsessive about it. And I wanted to dedicate my costumes to as much realism as I could. The prime example of this is when I was in high school and decided to go as George Stark. Complete with a straight razor. A *real* straight razor. I had no intention of harming anyone, but I felt dedication to a costume was important at the time. Thinking back, I realize how utterly insane that was and how much trouble I could have gotten into. But that's how big I was into Halloween. I also had a yearly ritual of watching the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia at the end of the night. I didn't do it this year. Or last year. I think I skipped it the year before, too.

I don't know what it is. I just stopped caring. And I still have no idea how Christmas unseated Halloween's rule over me. But that happened.

I also fell out of love with gaming. (The RPG ones with dice and character sheets, not video games.) I mostly played White Wolf games, but I loved Call of Cthulhu and a few others. For a brief time I thought The Expanse roleplaying game might bring me back into the fold, but it didn't. I used to game every Sunday night with friends, and I haven't done it in ages. I just don't care to do it anymore. Still unclear as to how that happened. But that happened.

I *do* know how I fell out of love with comics conventions. When I first started going to them, they were still about comic books. Now they're multimedia events with the comics shoved off into some corner. The moment I saw well known writers and artists in Artists Alley instead of at their publishers' booths (remember when publishers had booths?), I knew that I was no longer interested. It lost its appeal. Sometimes I think about going to a show just to hang out with my comics friends, but hell. It would probably be better to see them at an off-site after party. It would definitely be cheaper.

Along the way I also fell out of love with horror cons, and I know how that happened, too: I ran out of money. Then the plague happened, and that just cemented me not being able to go. But it also made me start missing horror cons. I think I might be falling back in love with them. I want to go back to horror cons in 2022 if we can just get this fucking plague to go away.

Speaking of horror, and I'm shocked to be saying this, but I feel my love of horror movies slipping away. Not reading horror books. That love is still strong and passionate as ever. And certainly not writing horror. That still brings me a lot of joy. But horror movies? I don't know. I watch a few of the newer flicks, and some of them are OK, but most of them just lose me. For example, I started watching Fried Barry, which should have been right up my alley. Something just wasn't connecting for me, though. I haven't finished it. And my thoughts on Prisoners of the Ghostland will have to wait for another day, because I have a few things . . . to not go off on a tangent on. On? Have I said on enough? Did I need another one?

I'll talk about that in another GF. Right now, I'm just going to sit here and hope that I'm not really falling out of love with horror movies. That would suck.