*ahem*
Sorry about the title. To quote Dr. King Schultz, "I could not help myself."
This column has run for six years. Six. Motherfucking years. And now we're on the 300th entry. Dear fucking God, have I really been doing this for so long? Have I no life?
I went down a rabbit hole of nostalgia tonight, rereading the first 100 GF columns. While I stand by every one of them, I don't think that I'm the same person who wrote that first column. That guy and me have a lot of years between us. A lot has happened. I'm not even close to that guy anymore. I like him (in all honesty, I liked him more than I thought I would), but the John Bruni of his late thirties is definitely not the same John Bruni of his early forties. There has been a lot of heartbreak and whiskey between him and me. If I told him that Gramps would die not too long after his 90th birthday, I think I would have broken him. If he knew I was such a huge fan of opioids that I sometimes lie to get them, he probably would have disapproved. He thought his hypocrisy had limits, but he has no idea that my hypocrisy turns out to have no bounds. He didn't even know how shitty 2016 would be, much less how fucking agonizing 2020 is. The idea that a lunatic reality show host with delusions of grandeur and the worst comb over in history as US President is completely alien to him. He knew Trump as a fraud and a conman and one of the most horrible people alive, but he had no idea that you chumps would actually let him be US President. He would be most fucking disappointed. He prayed publicly for the DeathBird to embrace us all, but he never would have suspected a fucking plague would do the job. He would probably find comfort in the fact that Keith Richards is somehow still alive. (Ah, but wait! The end of the year is at least a decade away.)
He would never have thought I would be unemployed for more than half a year and doing battle with the Unemployment Office the whole way. He would never have envisioned me cashing in on my 401k. But I think he would have been proud of his published work, especially BLOOD, which he had long ago abandoned as unwriteable but turned out to be pretty fucking good in final draft form. If I don't say so myself. (And I do, dammit. Allow me some fucking vanity, fuckers.)
Fuck! I wish I could go back in time and slap that son of a bitch in the face and tell him about all this shit. Especially about how wrong he is about the probability of the IT remake and Bill and Ted 3 happening. I think he would have found much pleasure and joy in that knowledge.
But here's something he didn't know at the time: how many good friends he will make in his journey through life. How many of them would stick by him despite losing his mind several times. Despite his time on the psych ward and his very regrettable suicide attempt. Despite all the people who would prefer he didn't drink and the disappointment he sometimes inspires in people, especially to his closest loved ones. He'd be baffled if he heard me call myself an alcoholic. He's still in the mindset that he's a drunkard. He hasn't gone through alcohol withdrawals yet. At the same time, I've inhabited the philosophy of early Gregory House: "I said I was an addict. I didn't say I had a problem." I wish he would have watched that show live because he would have recognized House as the voice at the back of his head that he always censored in order to be nicer or more polite.
Actual scene from the ER:
DOCTOR: You need to stop drinking, or you'll be dead by 50.
ME: Oh, moral platitudes. I love those.
Viewed just yesterday, an actual scene from HOUSE, MD:
WILSON: (saying whatever sanctimonious shit he usually says)
HOUSE: Oh, moral platitudes. I was running low on those.
Fuck, I even have the gimp leg to go with House . . . and I have a cane to use as a weapon.
And sorry to my past self, but your efforts to #SaveConstantine fail. Good news: he has a guest appearance on the CRISIS CW crossover, along with Lucifer, who didn't get his show canceled forever. The new season is on Netflix, which I will watch very soon.
Funny. I kind of thought I might make a very brief and non-professional speech about the Spartans and how Frank Miller was surprisingly faithful to history in his book. But better history fans than I have done that, and I'd rather keep GF columns personal.
This year has been the worst of my life. No job. No money. No prospects. Everything I write turns on me and throws me into a corner until I have to destroy the whole thing and start new. Even the shit I wrote on the psych ward bites back. Well, except for one thing that absolutely no one knows I'm writing. That's going all right. I spend most times driving to forest preserves and reading books. I just finished THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. My mp3 in my car has not worked for months, and it kicked on today, for no discernible reason, and played the score to the movie, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD. It was actually pretty gratifying. I almost finished EMPIRE by Gore Vidal. Before I got my own books back on the psych ward, I lucked out and was placed in a room previously occupied by a reader who left their books behind. Gore Vidal was the only author I'd heard of, so I started reading that one. It is a fucking masterpiece of historical fiction. I took it with me when I left the psych ward.
This has gotten long, and hopefully not too boring or self-referential. I'm just excited to still be here, even if I'm neck-deep in shit. 300 fucking columns. Six fucking years.
Fuck that ER doc. I'm going to beat his prediction. I'm going to be here at 51. And then? I'm going to beat both of my parents and actually make it to 60. After that? No promises.
I hope to write many more of these GF columns. I kind of regret calling these GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS. I was a younger man. I wanted to grab people's attention by the throat. But as noted in several (sometimes very drunken) columns, you're not fuckers. Not a one of you.
You're the best friends I've ever had.
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