GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1110: KORO SYNDROME

 I can't say it enough. The world is a fuckin' strange place. I don't know how the rest of you handle existence with such restraint and, sometimes, boredom. I am never bored, and I constantly feel like I'm on a roller coaster with no seatbelts, all because of the sheer lunacy of mere life.

A Koro, by the way, is a tortoise. The syndrome I'm about to explain is named after it because of a tortoise's head retreating into its shell. This will make sense in a moment.

Several African countries have been in a state of panic recently because, well, I . . . there's no other way to say it, so I'm just going to say it. Penis thieves are running rampant, and everyone is scared shitless that they're going to be next.

I swear I am not making this up. It sounds like something I'd create to mess with you guys, but I promise this is not my invention. I can't tell you how many news stories there are about Koro because, just to remind you, I'm not joking about this. This is a very real thing, and a lot of people in Africa are worried that it will happen to them.

The idea is, you could just be going about your day when someone touches you. It could be a handshake. It could be someone touching your shoulder. Or maybe someone accidentally bumps into you. And then BLAMMO. Your cock is gone. Or it's shriveled so much that you can barely see it.

As a man, I can confirm that's a scary thought. Genital injury sticks out for us. Like, for example, if someone in a movie gets their penis hurt in some way, we will always remember that scene, even if we've forgotten the rest of the movie. Ben Stiller's zipper from There's Something About Mary is forever burned into my brain. I can't think of Cemetery Man without thinking about THAT SCENE. Even something small, like Bill Pullman getting his nutsack nailed to a chair in Serpent and the Rainbow, is very, very memorable for us.

TL;DR: yes, a vanishing or shriveling dick is very scary for those of us who have them. All the same, when I'm going about my day and someone touches me, whether it's a handshake, a touch on the shoulder or an accidental bump, my first impulse is never to turn on that person and demand that they give me my cock back.

But apparently in Africa this is somewhat of a common response. And it's not just a recent development. Almost 20 years ago, the Congo had a similar issue. And it apparently goes back further than that, across not just centuries but millennia. And as funny as this has seemed so far, penis theft has very real consequences. Such thieves have been arrested, sure, but a few of them HAVE BEEN LYNCHED. Very real violence has stemmed from this ridiculous notion.

There are one of two things happening here. Either these penises have actually been purloined (get it?), or the victims are lying. The case for the former is very hard--difficult--to prove, as these members are always restored to their owners afterward. The case of the latter is rife with possibilities.

I find it difficult to believe that not one single solitary person, when confronted with accusations of penis theft, said, "Oh yeah? Prove it. Let's see your lack-of-dick right now."

This situation brings to mind the witch trials of old, or more recently, the McCarthyism bullshit from back in the day. The only reason I can think of for this shit running rampant is the same reason anyone accused someone of being a witch or a Communist: I dislike you and want you gone forever from society, so I'm going to make up this thing about you and let violence take its course.

Long story short, if I ever meet Elon Musk, I'm going to let him shake my hand (which I will not stinkpalm, like I did Ollie North), and then I'm going to scream that he's stolen my penis. As a South African, I'm sure he'll understand and will be struck with the requisite amount of horror at the knowledge of what is about to befall him. Penis snatching is a serious offense,

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1109: VOICE OF A BOT, PART 2

 For almost twenty years I have worked jobs that required me to talk to a lot of people every day. Now it's about 100, but two decades ago it was around 1000. If you talk to that many people, you tend to notice the speech crutches everyone uses.

And they start to annoy the fuck out of you.

And then you start to notice it whenever you do it, yourself.

And, if you're anything like me, you do something about it. I managed to get 99% of the ums and ahs and uhs out of my speech. If you're in sales, I highly recommend you do so, as well. Confidence is what sells stuff, and confident people don't typically use crutches like these.

I also have a very good phone voice, as I've said before. That also helps sell stuff, but in this day and age, when nearly every company on the goddam planet uses AI to answer inbound calls, these two things combined have led to me getting a particular question at least once every other day or two.

"Uh . . . are you a human or AI?" Or something similar.

Pro tip: if you can hear breathing on the other line? It's a human. They haven't thought to program chatbots to make a breathing sound yet.

Do you know what I found myself doing recently? PUTTING THE UHS AND AHS BACK INTO MY SPEECH. That's what I've come to. I fucking hate living in the future.

Because the crutches are already out of control, which is why it's painful to watch that recent video I did for my book promotion. If you want to win a Hawthorne Village Nightmare on Elm Street house, check this out. And then count how many fucking uhs I make.

I'd actually prefer if you didn't listen to it, but there's a prize at stake. You should absolutely listen to that video. So far, comparing entries I've received and the number of views that video has, there is a very good chance that if you enter, you might actually get the Freddy house. If you want your shot, act fast. The contest ends on Halloween. Good luck!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1108: LIBERTY . . .

 

. . . Biberty has upset a lot of people recently. I find this little blob exceptionally annoying, but a lot of people have taken to social media to air their grievances. Unless their name is John Oliver, in which case he has an HBO show on which to air his grievances. 

But what none of them realize is that Liberty Biberty's crimes get a lot darker than tickling everyone's rage boner.

Did you know, for instance, that Liberty Biberty comes from the Biberty crime family? His grandfather was the guy responsible for making Jimmy Hoffa disappear. His dad introduced Donald Trump to Roy Cohn. Liberty Biberty himself was the real killer. You know what I'm talking about. Don't pretend you don't. Do you know how many people died screaming the family name as someone sawed through their throats with piano wire?

It's unfair to hold a man's family against him, though, right? Not in this case. Liberty Biberty, during the secret society ceremony in which you have to drink from Geronimo's skull, accidentally killed a fellow pledge. His family made it go away, as they usually did for him. The less said about the Cocaine Shotgun Incident, the better.

I don't know how they managed to cover up his close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but I know they dumped a ton of money into making his "locker room talk" interview with Billy Bush go away.

Anyway, long story short, Liberty Biberty is running for US President in 2028 with Limu Emu as his running mate. I don't have a lot of time to go into all the human beings Limu has eaten over the years (RIP Doug), so let's just focus on getting Biberty off the ballot. We can't let the Biberty crime family get away with stealing the US presidency.

We must stop Liberty Bibety. Before it's too late.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1107: DEKALB CRIME

 I took today off so I could drive to Elmhurst and let a doctor stick needles into my spine. My back feels better already, and it was nice to have a sort-of three day weekend, so why not write a Goodnight, Fuckers?

I've been making a few jokes on social media about whether or not I live in a dangerous neighborhood, and the answer might actually be, in all seriousness, yes. There are two Flock cameras across the street from my apartment complex, if that gives you any indication. More on that in a moment.

I'm from Elmhurst, and while Elmhurst has crime, it's not like DeKalb's crime. Shootings in Elmhurst, for instance, are rare. And when violence happens there, it's usually from out of towners robbing a gas station or what have you.

DeKalb crime is in your face, though. For example, I recently had to give up eating at one of the best pizza places here because I learned that the co-owner was a pedophile. It doesn't say what he did, but the sex crimes registry mentioned that the victim was twelve years old. So fuck that place.

A few years ago, someone robbed one of their delivery drivers at gunpoint, if you want the example to continue. Every once in a while we get a drunken act of violence, like where they say the NIU student who stabbed a guy outside a bar on Lincoln Hwy (which, if you keep driving east, turns into Roosevelt Rd for those of you closer to Elmhurst.)

And then there's the guy who . . . hell, just read the article. Warning, you probably don't want to read that. And if you wonder how it could have started at the library, then you've never worked at a library.

Which brings us to my neighborhood. There were three recent bouts of violence. Two were shootings that happened a couple of blocks away from me, and the other was a stabbing that happened at the apartment complex next to mine. From what I understand, that stabbing happened RIGHT IN FRONT OF ONE OF THOSE FLOCK CAMERAS. And there still hasn't been an arrest. I kind of doubt these things are good at what they're supposed to be good at: catching criminals. They're really good at extracting our data against our will, though. Why do we have so many of these fucking things, again?

As far as I'm concerned, the jury's out. I've never been afraid to go outside. Nothing has ever happened to me here. Then again, I'm a pretty big dude, so not many people want to fuck with me. So what do you think? Do I live in a dangerous neighborhood?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1106: THE GRAMPS EQUATION

 How many of these things have I written? And how many have been about Gramps? A lot, and a lot, and I have the nagging feeling that I may have done this before. I searched key words on this blog to check, but nothing came back, so I'm only about 80-20 that I've never done this topic.

Gramps had a lot of sayings. My favorite was, "'Balls,' said the queen. 'If I had two I'd be king!'" But whenever he was frustrated, he had a good one: "Shit and two is eight." I took to saying it whenever I got annoyed with something.

When I got to high school, I took my first big boy math class, and I realized that Gramps was essentially cursing in Algebra. Hence his saying became: Shit + 2 = 8. Algebra tells us that to solve this equation, we have to subtract two from both sides of the equals sign, which will tell us: Shit = 4. The twos cancel each other out on the left side of the equation, leaving shit, which means the right side is eight divided by two, which is four.

So I'm not entirely useless when it comes to math. Just mostly useless.

The next time you listen to Slipknot, please keep in mind that they're really singing is that People = 4.

This GF has been brought to you by weed.

But not so much weed that I've forgotten I'm running a contest. If you want to win a Nightmare on Elm Street Hawthorne Village house, complete with working light and two Freddy figurines, then check this out here, and good luck!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1105: VOICE OF A BOT

 I have a pleasant voice, so if you follow me on social media, then you know I post about how often a customer at my square job will ask during a call, "Are you a real person?" I laugh as if they're the first person to have asked me that, and I tell them I get that often. It's annoying, but I don't get upset about it.

Yet earlier this week I did get angry about it. I'm not sure why, and I've been thinking about it since. This customer did not ask if I was a person. Instead he demanded to talk to a human being. In the middle of a sales pitch in which he did not like the price, he specifically said, "I want to talk to a human being."

I said, "I am a human being." I heard an edge in my voice, which surprised me a little, so I fell back on the old ha-ha routine. I'm not sure why that pissed me off, though.

This voice didn't come from nowhere. When I was young, I listened to a lot of old radio horror shows like Quiet, Please and The Hermit's Cave, and I loved the way people's voices were back then. I started imitating them so I can do a good impression, in particular of the commercials. "Try Ironized Yeast. They're the ones with the IY on the bottle and on each tablet." "Four out of five doctors recommend Camel cigarettes." In addition to that, when I was a parts driver for the City of Elmhurst and had to drive a lot of places, I listened to a ton of morning radio shows. As such, I kind of wanted to be a radio personality for a while, so I would imitate people I heard on the radio. "It's the top of the hour, and we've got traffic coming up in ten minutes." "This is John Bruni, coming atcha LIVE from such and such arena, where Megadeth is about to take to the stage." And so on.

Which was perfect training for when I got the job at Conference Plus as a conference operator, ie. the guy who introduces calls, runs Q&A and polling sessions, etc. So a lot of training went into this voice, almost all of it nonformal.

I have only myself to blame whenever someone thinks I'm AI on the phone. So why did I get pissed at this one guy?

I have no idea. I can't afford therapy, hence me writing Goodnight, Fuckers, so do you have any suggestions? Also, if you're looking for a voice actor to pay tons of money to, drop me a line.

DO YOU WANT TO WIN A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET HAWTHORNE VILLAGE HOUSE?

 It's Halloween, so I'm having a giveaway. For more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5j9zGGa0QU