GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1104: AN ANOMALY IN THE MATRIX

 "Every accusation is a confession." It's a phrase that has become popular with people criticizing Donald Trump. It seems like every time he opens his mouth to accuse someone of doing something, it turns out that he was the one doing it the whole time. Is it misdirection? Or one of those, if-they-can-do-it-so-can-I situations? Who knows? But it's a thing. For example, every time protests are organized against him, he accuses the attendees of being paid protestors. And then this happened, leading up to the January 6 insurrection.

That makes me think about his constant claims of the 2020 election being stolen, because it is my considered opinion that he stole the 2024 election. There is no hard evidence for this, and I'm sure if there was, he wouldn't be punished for it. He never gets punished for anything despite being the human equivalent of dogshit squished between the treads of a sneaker.

But there is some circumstantial evidence. A while back I read about Ashley St. Clair's claims regarding text messages between her and her then-boyfriend, Elon Musk. Any story you read about this is going to make a big deal out of him using his "space lasers" to hack voting machines, thus getting 2024's election results before anyone else on the planet, but I think there's more to it than that.

She said that before the election, he texted her that he felt positive about Trump winning a second term because "tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix." When she asked for clarification, he advised that he had ten thousand lasers in space, and he was going to use them to activate that anomaly, whatever that means. He adds that "this is not a piece they'll see on the chessboard." She says she doesn't want to know any more than that because she doesn't want to be interrogated about it later, and he texts back that it's a good idea.

There is a documentary about this, and Musk is currently threatening to sue the director over it. There is video of St. Clair's claims, and in the news story showing the video, the reporters confirm that they have validated these texts as real. So Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, is threatening to sue someone to abridge their freedom of speech.

Then, on Election Night, it is known that Musk left Mar-a-Lago early because, according to a text he sent to St. Clair, "Yeah, I knew hours ago that Trump won. My team has the best real-time data anywhere." So the news stories are all running with that part, suggesting that Musk might have been using Starlink to keep tabs on the voting machines, just so he'll have up-to-date info to work with.

Those same stories, and you'll see if you read any of those links, do mention the possibility that he used Starlink to hack those machines to change votes. They don't pursue that line very far, I imagine because that's a Pandora's box just waiting to be opened, but I believe that is exactly what Musk did.

Look at the way he said these things. You don't "unleash" anything when you simply use tech to take a peek at how everyone is voting. If you're reading a book, do you "unleash" your eyes on it? If you're just looking at those things, there is no need to refer to it as an unexpected piece on the chessboard. It sounds to me like he was bragging about his ability use Starlink to steal an election for Donald Trump.

A lot of people voted for Trump. I don't imagine Musk used Starlink to steal, say, Texas or Florida or some such. I imagine he only used it in swing states to clinch uncertain victory in those places. So I believe his lawyer when he says:

"Starlink was not connected to vote tabulation. Election officials in multiple states, independent cybersecurity researchers, and fact-checkers publicly refuted the Starlink vote-rigging claim in November 2024, and nothing since has revived it."

So I'm assuming he consulted election officials in multiple states, like Alaska, Idaho, Montana, etc.

Will this ever go to court? Probably not. If Musk goes through with his threats to litigate, discovery could reveal a lot of stuff he'd rather the world didn't know about, so no, I don't think it will. We may never know for sure. But it is something to think about as we head into next month's mid-terms . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1103: [REDACTED]

 I don't usually go with content warnings for these, but if you're squeamish, or if you don't want to hear anything about my dick*, you might want to skip this one. This is your last chance, because the actual title of this one is . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1103: DICK CHARCUTERIE

Not long ago I received two sausage, cheese and crackers packages from a couple of friends. It came from a place called Farmers Market, I think? I'm usually a Wisconsin Cheeseman man, but I love cheese and crackers. And sausage. And it also came with fancy mustard.

Not to be confused with this.

When I first opened the sausage and got ready to slice it up, I noticed something very strange. This sausage was the exact thickness of my cock, and it was three-quarters the length.

I had a crazy thought as I held a knife to that sausage. What if I'm not in my kitchen? What if I'm in a psych ward somewhere? What if this is really my dick, and I'm about to cut it off? And then slice it up and eat it? Oh, and I'll be eating it with cheese and fancy mustard. I'll bet my penis tastes really good on those crackers.

Is that insane? On the face of it, I imagine you believe I'm crazy, but I don't think it's all that far afield from sanity. How many times have drunk people gone into the closet to piss, thinking they were in the bathroom? I don't drink anymore, but it's the same principle. When you do something like that, you're dead certain you're doing something else. Can our senses be believed?

How much of reality is augmented by perception? All of it? And how faulty is perception? What color is the sky? No, it's every color except for blue, but blue is the color it reflects back to our eyes.

How many people do you come into physical contact with on a weekly basis? No one? Our skin never touches someone else's. What we feel is the force of the space between us pushing away.

Think about all the optical illusions you've ever teased your brain with. I scoured Google looking for the specific one I had in mind and couldn't find it. I had a He-Man activity book when I was a kid. One of the things they had you do is stare at a black dot for a bit. Then you were supposed to look at a black silhouette of Stratos with a white dot in the middle. The white dot vanishes, and the silhouette is complete.

As a philosophy major in college, I'm all too familiar with quandaries about how real our lives actually are. What if we don't even exist? You can ask Descartes about that one. There's a reason he had to invent the phrase "cogito ergo sum."**

So who's to say I'm not back on the psych ward, slicing my cock into thin sausage wafers?

It worries me, but I cut it up, anyway. The sausage, not my dick. (I think.) Later, as I eat everything, I grab myself through my pajama bottoms, just to confirm I'm still intact. I mean, the sausage didn't taste like dick, but I've never had dick before, so how would I know?

Whatever I ate?

It was pretty good.

___________________________________

*I realize this is funny coming from me, a guy who used to have a picture of his dick on his website, but here we are.

**Don't come at me with the "well, actually" stuff. I heard you think it. Don't.

***What do you mean, there isn't a third asterisk above? Anyway, yes, I'm high. It's been a rough [checks watch] couple of decades.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1102: THE FUCKERS

 Okay, I've heard the rumors. I've been trying to ignore them, but they're persistent, so I feel I need to address them so we can all move on with our lives.

I've known Bill--his friends get to call him that--ever since I guested on his show when I was a child actor in the late 'Sixties. I haven't seen him in a while (we got together again for the film, Spplat Attack, a couple of decades ago), but I know he's a loyal fan of Goodnight, Fuckers. He joshes me about the title all the time. It's good natured ribbing, all in fun. But the media circus around this controversy has to stop.

So please believe me when I say the fuckers I write these for are not the same as Bill's band, the Fuckers.

There's a lot of crossover, sure, but quite frankly Bill is tired of being asked about stuff like "corporate overlords" and "techbros" and my catchphrase, "History is never far behind." He's asked me as a personal favor to publicly announce this so we can put the rumors to rest. Please respect his time in this manner.

Goodnight, fuckers. And Fuckers. Just in case.

I haven't forgotten you, either. Goodnight, Bill.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1101: THE BACKROOMS

 Last week I went to Superdawg with my buddy, Fitz. By the time we got there, I had to piss bad, so we went to Walgreen's and sought out the restroom.

Ever need to use the bathroom at any Walgreen's? It's weird. As soon as you push through the door, you're in an area that looks like it's for employees only. You usually walk past the breakroom and lockers before you get to the men's room.

It was the same for this one, except we had to walk down a hallway, make a turn and go down another one. It really felt like we weren't supposed to be there.

I took the urinal, and Fitz took the stall. He asked if I'd seen the movie, The Backrooms. I hadn't, but I was aware of it.

I'm probably aging myself here, but I don't understand the concept. I'm not sure why people are so affected by "liminal spaces." I do not feel unsettled in such areas. It doesn't feel weird. I just see these as places where something used to be, but it's empty now. That emptiness does not get to me at all. Oh, this is where the Sears backroom used to be. There's nothing here now. Anyway, moving on . . .

So I told Fitz about this, and we went across the street to Superdawg. As we stood in the enclosure, waiting for our food, I noticed they'd taken down all the framed notices for whenever a newspaper or magazine featured them. I asked Fitz when they'd done it. He didn't know.

"We could be in an alternate universe," he said.

Had we crossed over in the Walgreen's bathroom? I checked my phone. "What are the odds that our cellphones are compatible with this universe?" I asked.

"If we're in the universe next door? Pretty good." We both used to work in telecom, but he'd left the business last year. I hadn't worked in it since 2020, so he was probably right.

"Let's ask someone who the president is," I said. "Who knows? Being trapped in an alternate universe might not be all that bad."

We got our food, which was excellent (of course), and on the drive home I realized we'd forgotten to go back to our universe.

And then we drove past a sign declaring one's fealty to President Donald J. Trump. I sighed. "It probably doesn't matter."

"Unfortunately," he said.

Also, I was very high.

Out of curiosity, anyone here get creeped out by the concept of the backrooms? Can you explain it to me? Is it, like, a feeling of dread? What do you experience in these places? Is it an odd sensation?

What am I missing?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1100: PRIMING THE AI PUMP

 We continue to use "AI" as the term for the technological breakthrough the techbros are pumping every available dollar into. It's not the correct term, at least not now. When we're talking shit about AI, we usually mean the word prediction machine. What we call AI is mostly a machine's attempts at supplying the next word in any given sentence based on all the literary evidence that is shoveled into it. It also serves a purpose similar to the old dog search engine. I forget what it was called. You tell it what you want, and it goes to "fetch it." Whatever it was, that dog was ahead of its time.

That might be artificial, but it's not intelligence. I will grant you, it is a fledgling step towards real AI, but we're nowhere near close to that. So why are we getting stories like this? Or this? Or how about this? Or, to put it another way, why are the techbros, previously hellbent on forcing their idea of AI on the rest of us whether we want it or not, suddenly warning us that we have to slow down, or AI will escape human control and convert us from living beings into corpses, much like changing a Word document into a PDF (Pretty Dead Fucker?)?

No, I highly doubt they have suddenly grown a conscience. I find it more likely that they have finally run out of investment funds. People are wising up to their tactics, and they're no longer eager to give their money to this technology that is obviously in a bubble that is about to pop.

I find it more likely that they are lying. Something dangerous is clearly something that works, right? If AI is so dangerous that it can slip its leash like that, then clearly the techbros are on the right path. So forget the naysaying. Pump more money into this fucking thing.

As stock manipulation goes, it's a pretty good scam. How could you prove it was bullshit? Tell society something is dangerous, and the next thing you know, society is taking that thing very seriously. Take a look at aspirin bottles. I remember a time when you could simply open those things to get what you need. Now they have a seal to ensure that no one has tampered with the contents, because there was that one time . . . Not many people died in that incident, but it was so big that any OTC medication comes in tamper proof packaging now. Not to mention the reason why we have the childproof tops . . .

When was the last time you had to fly somewhere? When you go through the metal detector, what do you have to take off before they let you pass? Your shoes. Why? Because one time a guy had a bomb in his shoes. One time.

(Don't forget the underwear bomber. At least the FAA doesn't make us take off our underwear, too. That must be their line. Looking at x-ray imagery of you is totally fine, but don't make me investigate the underwear fresh off your body.)

I'm not saying these are unnecessary measures to take. These are good things. I'm just saying that it takes very little to freak out society. A white lie about AI escaping our clutches goes a long way to convincing people we need to keep spending more and more on AI. Maybe we even need to spend EVERYTHING on it.

As bad and lazy as the AI we currently have is, actual AI would be even worse. I can't believe anyone wants this. I mean, I get why the techbros do. No one can ever hold a computer accountable for terrible decisions. That's a feature, not a bug, for them. But the rest of us? Have you ever gone to battle with a corporation before? Now imagine that the corporation didn't have flesh and blood humans in their employ, that you had to reason with a computer instead. Fellow humans understand. If you're polite and try to explain your situation to them, they can respond sympathetically, maybe even empathetically.

A computer will never do that. It will never give an inch, much less a mile. It will never feel the need to do their good deed for the day.

Think about a future in which corporations abuse you, and when you call them on it, you're faced with a cold, merciless machine instead of a fellow human being who has thoughts and emotions. What happens then? They will abuse you, AND YOU WILL TAKE IT. There will be no recourse. And you can't sue us because you checked on the terms and conditions, which means you can't take it to a court of law. It has to be handled by arbitration. Who is the arbiter? Uh . . . we are.

The AI game has only two endings. The first is, the techbros win and rule over us all with an iron fist. The second is, we stop this shit right now before it gets that far.

Do not let the techbros scare you into giving them more money they will eventually use to oppress you. The danger isn't the singularity. It's the techbros.

I mean, the singularity will eventually be the danger, but for now? It's the techbros. If we can stop them, we can stop the singularity. Don't let it get that far.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1099: REMEMBERING HOW TO BE A HUMAN

 I try not to talk about the writing side of my life here anymore. That's what Good Morning, Fuckers! is for. This one is somewhat related, but this is not about writing exactly.

One of the things I value about Printers Row is, it makes me feel like an author. I can write every day for an hour or so for years on end, and that won't make me feel like an author, just a writer.

There is a difference. A writer writes, but an author meets fans (and potential fans), sells books to people, signs them, gets interviewed, etc. Going to cons and literary festivals makes me feel like the latter.

Printers Row is the only show I go to these days, even though I wish I could go to more. But Printers Row did something for me this year that I did not expect.

I used to have a robust social life. Then I quit drinking, and I had a regular sized social life. Then I moved to DeKalb, and my social life disappeared. Almost. I still see friends once in a blue moon. I have plans to see one tomorrow, in fact. But I've only had two visitors, and one of them was my brother, Dan. Family, in other words. The extent of my social life was going to work, and that really shouldn't count. You can't be yourself in the office.

So I was genuinely worried that I'd lost my social skills. How the hell am I going to sell books if I don't remember how to communicate with fellow human beings? And it is a skill. You don't realize it until you have interactions with people who don't have this skill, and I meet a lot of people who don't. I talk to 100 a day on average for work, and you'd be surprised by how many of them don't know how to interact with others.

And I'm not talking about people who say something awkward and then torture themselves thinking about it for the rest of their lives. Those people have a lot more skills than they think and should cut themselves a break. They're being too hard on themselves. They are at least trying. I'm talking about people who approach an interaction from an adversarial perspective. They are determined to "win" this conversation. They don't recognize that for people to be involved in a discussion, there should be a give and take, perhaps some compromise, in resolving whatever issue is at hand. Yes, there is talking, but there is also listening. They don't understand the goal is for both parties to walk away from the interaction without thinking stuff like, "What an asshole." Or, "Well. That was fucking weird." Things like, "What the hell is that guy's problem?"

Now imagine you're at Printers Row, and you're checking out the weird kids' table (ie. the BWA table), and the author you're talking to just keeps saying, over and over again, "Buy my book." No pleasantries. No how's-it-going, no inquiries into the stuff you like to read, how's your experience of the show going, nothing but BUY MY BOOK. Would you buy that book?

So you can see why I feared this.

Thankfully I was all right. I felt a little creaky when I first arrived, and it took some time to warm up and remember what this was supposed to be like, but I thankfully did not forget how to talk to people standing directly in front of me. So Printers Row reminded me of how to be an author this year, but it also helped me remember how to be a human.

Anyway, check out my Annual Post Printers Row Sale from earlier today. Let me know if you want anything.

Huh-huh. I said "hard on."

ANNUAL POST PRINTERS ROW SALE 2026

 It's that time of year. I sold a lot of books this year, but here's the list of what I have. I'm going to honor Printers Row prices: $15 each or 3 for $42. You can send any requests to tabardinnedgewoodent@yahoo.com. This is inside the US only. If you're outside the US, let me know, and I'll send you something digital for free, no charge, just to make it up to you. Offer good until Halloween.

MAIL ORDER BRIDE

TRAIL OF BLOOD

EYE CUTTER

POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS

BLOOD (only 1 copy)

TALES OF UNSPEAKABLE TASTE

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HIERONYMUS ALOYSIS ZIEGE (only 3 copies)

AND JESUS CAME BACK (only 1 copy)

TALES OF QUESTIONABLE TASTE

Notice any titles missing? Oh yes, I don't have any copies left of my new book, DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF LOVE? That makes me feel pretty special. I'm sure I'll eventually get more copies in stock.

Anyway, see anything you like?

It was good to see some old friends and to make some new friends, but special thanks go, as always, to Michael Allen Rose and Sauda Namir for putting this whole thing together. Without them, I suspect that none of us would be selling books at a major literary festival.