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.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #440: HAVING A BAD LEG SUCKS BALLS, BUT IT COULD BE WORSE

 Today there was a fire alarm at work. Our office is on the third floor of the building, and you know what that means. Yeah, I had to go down three flights of stairs in order to comply with that alarm. In my experience, we don't do drills. There is too much money that we'd lose if we did. So I was fairly certain this was for real, and for a moment I almost hesitated, thinking, "Fuck it. I'm not going down. I guess I'll burn."

To our VP's credit, he joked at first. "Who wanted a break so bad?" he asked. But when people weren't going fast enough to suit him, he said, "I'm the last one out. Let's go!"

I struggled down the steps and told people to go around me. I know my leg's bad. I didn't want to back everyone up. At the bottom my leg felt like it was on fire. I went out to my car to collapse in the passenger seat for a while. The firetrucks showed up, and after a while, it was determined that nothing happened. Except someone pulled the alarm lever. I used my cane to get back upstairs and spent some time hyperventilating in the kitchen, waiting to see if I might have a heart attack.

I swear, if it was some jackass just being a dick . . .

And if I get my foot cut off because of this . . .

But it could have been worse. What if someone in a wheelchair worked in the office with us? What would that person have done? If that was me, I'd be fucking psychotic right now.

It reminded me of something from a few years back. This was when I'd first injured the foot, and I figured that it would heal and I'd be able to get back to my life as usual (silly me). I had to get around on crutches. And this is one of the things my old pharmacy fucked up that CVS does well. The old pharmacy had a handicapped space, but they didn't have a dip in the curb. I was fresh from the hospital, on crutches for the first time since I was in fifth grade, learning to use them all over again. I thought it would be a breeze. Like riding a bike. But it was a lot harder than I thought.

So I managed to get up on the walk, and that was when I noticed for the first time there isn't that dip I just mentioned. I wondered what it would be like to be in a wheelchair and need to get in here. I hoped I never had to find out.

I had to wait for my meds. That was fine. They were just prescribed. So I found a chair and waited, and wouldn't you know it? A guy in a wheelchair went past me to the counter. He needed to wait for his meds, too, and he saw me in a similar predicament. We talked for a while, and I mentioned the lack of a dip in the curb, asking him how he'd gotten up it.

"There is a dip," he said. "It's just all the way down that way." Pointing down the way toward a cafe and a dentist (who is actually now my dentist). The point being, it was so far away from the handicapped space it was barely worth the point of putting it there.

Not enough people think of this shit. I remember when America started making places handicapped accessible, and people started telling jokes about it. Kind of like when we decided to make seat belts mandatory. The resistance to change is strong, even if that change has got nothing to do with that.

That's an awful way to live, which is why I groan every time I hear some dipshit complaining about so-called "woke culture," which doesn't really exist.

I'm stopping now because I promised myself no tangents tonight. Last night got out of control. Believe it or not, I actually cut a tangent from last night. It--nope. I'm stopping.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #439: WHERE YOU ALWAYS SAVE MORE MONEY!

 If you grew up in Elmhurst at the time I did, then you know these guys almost as well as your own parents. Funny thing. My grandmother used to babysit one of their kids. I'm not sure if it was Celozzi's or Ettleson's. I think it was Nick Celozzi. When I was younger, back in the VHS days, I watched a movie which I'm pretty sure was Slaughterhouse Rock, and my grandmother walked through the room and saw him and recognized him. Oh yeah, Nick Celozzi went on to become an actor for a while. Mostly he's a producer now, but he was on a few quality shows like The A-Team and Walker, Texas Ranger. He was even in Marked for Death, if you can believe that.

Whoa. I've barely started, and already I'm off in the weeds. Weeds. Weed. Cannabis. Yes. Cannabis should be mandatory. The old Bill Hicks joke goes that it's impossible to get in a passionate argument while high. Since I've been imbibing I've found that's true, but I'll go one further. If you got into an argument while high, it would be impossible to finish it. Everyone involved would get lost in their own tangents.

Tangents like this one. The reason I used the phrase, "Where you always save more money," is because that was Celozzi-Ettleson's mantra, and I'm going to tell you about a sale that's going to save you a lot of money. Well, maybe not a lot. But definitely some.

It's kind of weird that after all these years this advertising slogan is still in my head. Like "plip plop fizz whizz" or "Food, folks and fun" or "Where's the beef?" That's kind of disgusting when you think about it. But hell, that's what religion and government and every authority figure has been doing for years, right? It shouldn't be all that surprising. How many thoughts do you have that you think are your own that you can trace back to something someone put in your head when you were a kid?

I swear this next part isn't a tangent. It'll seem like that at first, but I'm getting down to why I'm offering this ridiculous sale.

Christmas is the only holiday I care about. I mean, beyond getting a day off of work, that is. I don't give a shit about Halloween, even. And I can hear you saying I'm a blasphemer, but I just don't give a fuck. I like Christmas, though, and it's got nothing to do with Christ or Santa or even the tree Christians stole from the Druids. And fuck the unrepentant capitalism that whips out its dick this time of year. It's not even about my own greed. I think I stopped caring about getting presents when I turned forty.

For me, Christmas is about giving. There! See? I told you it wasn't a tangent. I was building up to something.

In the spirit of Christmas, I'm offering a sale that will probably baffle my fellow authors, or at least have them doubting my sanity. But it's been a rough couple of years for us all, and I thought to put some positivity out there (with my overwhelmingly negative books, naturally). So here it is. Do you want one of my books? You can have it. All you have to do is ask (kinda). I'll list what I have available in a moment. There is a slight price that I'm sure you'll find reasonable, and there are a few rules.

First, this is only available to people in the US. Sorry, everyone else. If you live outside the US and you want something from me, tell me. I'll send a digital copy of something of mine for free. I honestly don't know what I have at this point, so it'll be a surprise even to me. Warning: it's probably going to be either John Holmes, Vampire Slayer or 6669: Demon Porn. I'll see if there's anything else first, but I make no promises.

Next, if you live near me (the Chicagoland area, if you didn't know), and I can physically put that book in your hand, then the price is very simple. A review on Amazon or Goodreads (or both, if you're feeling generous) and one (1) American dollar. Some of you might get that joke. Back when I published Tabard Inn, my payment for stories was one American dollar and one contributor's copy. I was broke, but I didn't want to pay just in cc's, so that was my compromise. Now you can pay me one American dollar for my work. The universe has a habit of evening out.

If you live in the US, but I have to mail it to you, the price is just slightly higher. We'll call it at one (1) American dollar for the book and two bucks for shipping. And a review, as stated above, if you would be so kind.

This offer is good from the publication of this post until December 25, 2021.

One more rule: limit one book per household. Oh wait, one more rule. First come, first serve. Let me know what you want any way that you know me: social media, email, phone call, whatever. You can post a comment below, but I might forget about that and not see it (as has happened before), so if you have another way, try that instead. I'll do my best to keep an eye out, but I'm often high and forget things.

Having said that, here's what I have available:

--AND JESUS CAME BACK 2 copies

--BLOOD 3 copies

I know it's not a lot, but if you want something, now's the time. Strike while the iron is hot, and I'm being this stupid.

Wow, I'm glad that I wrote the important parts of this one before taking my edible instead of now. I don't think I could have made it through this one without that pinch of foresight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #438: MY READING LIST

 So I'm perpetually ten years behind on my reading list, and I'm slipping even further back. Books that had just been released when I added them were published in 2009 now. It's irritating, but there's nothing I can do about, and like the fucking idiot that I am, I keep buying more and more books. I know for a fact that I'm not going to live long enough to get to them all, and it's probably just going to be a hassle for my relatives when I die.

But I can't help myself.

Not too long ago I found myself looking at that reading list. When I finish a book, I put a dot next to it. I have three notebooks filled with a book on each line. The first notebook is done. I'm halfway through the second. And then I thought that once upon a time this list was only one notebook long. In fact, once upon a time that list was one page long.

And that led me to another strange thought. Once upon a time I didn't have a reading list. I just let chaos guide me. I'd go to the library and pick whatever I wanted to read next. Thinking about the lack of a plan back then shocks me. It's very unlike me. But at the same time, I kinda miss the freedom of something like that. Back when I first started putting this reading list together I fantasized about finishing it and then going back to what I did before: going to the library and letting chaos guide my hand.

That's never going to happen again. Probably. The odds are staggeringly against me on this one. Then again, I figured I'd be dead by now. Death has come for me a few times now, and he always goes away without me. Sometimes he takes pieces of me, like my gall bladder and my toe, but he hasn't gotten the whole package yet. His John Bruni collection is incomplete. It's gotten to the point where sometimes I have this irrational thought that I might not actually die. That I might live until the heat death of the sun. I know that's stupid, but when you've beaten death like I have, it makes you kinda cocky, and we all know what Han Solo said about that.

But what if I do finish the list? What if I got my book habit under control and stopped buying books whenever I felt like it? Just stick to the new releases of a handful of authors. What then?

Just kidding. That's never going to happen. The only reason I didn't buy a book yesterday was because I'm broke. And I spent some time with a friend getting drunk and seeing Ghostbusters: Afterlife. By the time I got home, I was pretty out of it, hence the lack of a GF column last night. I just wanted to watch TV and pass out, which is exactly what I did.

And I'm going to bed now. Goodnight, fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #437: THE EXPANSE AND THE DARK TOWER

 

There is a sensation that goes beyond melancholy and doom and the feeling of a world that has moved on. The perfect phrase comes from the final book of The Dark Tower: "O Discordia!" You've seen me use that one before, but I'm going to explore it a bit deeper now, especially how it relates to The Expanse book series.

There will be spoilers for that one ahead, so if you just started the first book or are planning to, or you're at book six, maybe skip this one.

I was reluctant to check out The Expanse TV show for one reason and one reason alone: everyone kept saying it was the Game of Thrones of space. I hate it when people describe something as "the Game of Thrones of (whatever)." It's never a good description, and nothing ever lives up to it. I usually skip everything people describe as that. But! In this case, a lot of people I respected said that it was one of the best SF TV shows ever. For the first three seasons, I agreed that it was the best SF TV series not called Stargate SG-1. By season four? I decided that they were right. It really is the best. And it is pretty much the Game of Thrones of space. There are just fewer people calling each other a cunt. (It probably helps that the authors are friends with GRRM.)

So I got into the books, and as with most shows and movies, the books are better. My favorite of them was Cibola Burn, which was season 4 of the show. It made me very happy. A space western that feels like it could actually happen. And there's no rescue from guys like Murtry and his RCE because what can you do? Report them to earth? How long will that take? The message first has to travel through the Ilus ring gate, then through the Sol ring gate, then through all the space between Uranus to earth. Then the UN has to figure out what to do about the situation before they send help. To Uranus and the Sol gate. To the Ilus gate. Yeah, we're talking months, maybe even a year. Maybe more. If you thought police arriving late for a 911 call was bad, you're not even close to the reality of the Ilus situation. So yeah, I fucking loved it.

And then came Tiamat's Wrath, which is hands down the best so far. I'm almost done with Leviathan Falls, so I can't say for sure, but Tiamat's Wrath is an absolute heartbreaker of a book, and it's the pinnacle of the feeling of O Discordia for me.

Just think. The first thing it greets us with is Avasarala's death and Laconia's hijacking of her funeral. Does her beloved earth get to host it? To even bury her body? Nope. Laconia fucks that all up, and it's hosted on Laconia, the heart of the tyrannical Laconian Empire.

James Holden, now a lot older than when we met him, has been Laconia's prisoner for years since the end of book seven. He's more or less treated like a dancing bear, like the Russians used to have bears in their court with their teeth and claws removed. Because why not hang out with a fucking bear? When I first read the back of the book, it mentions him as "Mephistophelian" which I truly didn't understand until his conversation with Elvi and Fayez. I didn't get it because I never thought Holden was capable of it. The morals he used to have before his captivity apparently changed. Not entirely, but still. Considering what he's been throughout the series, he's so moral he was reckless with it. Remember the Cant?

Meanwhile, Naomi Nagata has to survive without her beloved for years. Imagine the person you love the most in the world. Now imagine that this person was taken away from you for years. So many years that you figure that you'll never see that person again. She's given up on ever seeing Holden again, and she's grieving his loss.

Alex Kamal is bittersweet. He's now a father, and that makes him so happy that not even divorcing that kid's mom can make him feel bad. But he's just lost his best friend. Bobbie Draper died the way she probably would have preferred: a violent and victorious explosion. But she's still gone.

And then there's my favorite character, Amos Burton. When he was growing up as a criminal and child prostitute in the worst parts of Baltimore, back when he was still Timothy, I'll bet he never thought he'd wind up being a part of the biggest conflict humanity has ever faced. He certainly didn't expect to be undercover on Laconia for years, sitting on a pocket nuke, waiting for the chance to blow up the bad guys after trying to rescue Holden. He probably didn't expect to befriend the daughter of Laconia's god-emperor and her dog. And there's no way he would have expected his life to end at the hands of an authoritarian military on a planet so far from home that it hadn't even been known to the world he'd come from, and that he would be calling himself Timothy again would have blown his mind.

And even if he could have guessed any of those things, it's impossible to believe that he would have known what the "strange dogs" would do to him after his death.

It is a stark book. All you can feel is hopelessness. Despair. O Discordia!

And it's good to feel a lot of that in Leviathan Falls. I've reached a turning point where the feeling has shifted, but until that it still feels stark, especially when Tanaka faces off against Holden, Duarte's daughter and her dog and the thing that used to be Amos and might actually still be him. He has the same attitude as Amos. The same speech patterns. The same way of looking at life. But then there are his pitch black eyes, his off color skin and the way he sometimes pauses before saying something. But it's probably still him, right? Even after he's killed again by Tanaka, right?

I'm going to be sad when I read the last sentence of this one. There's going to be another novella after it, but when the main story is done? I'll miss it. It's been one of the greatest joys of the last few years for me.

And goddammit! How do Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham manage that feeling? If I could write what I call "O Discordia," I'd be a much happier writer. I feel so jealous right now. Do you know how rare that is for me?

(And yes. I took a break from the cannabis in favor of drink tonight. That's probably why this is so long, and it makes more sense than my high GF columns.)

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #436: NICK CAVE BIOPIC

 OK, this is going to be a short one. Because I'm higher than usual, and it's taking me longer to type this. Just look at the title of this one. Got it?

This is a picture of Nick Cave, in case you don't know who he is. Got it? Good. Now look at the next picture, and I think you'll get a complete understanding of this GF column.

'Nuff said!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #435: EXISTENCE IS A FUCKIN' WEIRD PLACE

 I mean, when you stop and think about it. Just about everything is an illusion, but that would make sense, wouldn't it? When a camera sees stuff, it translates data into an image, and that's kind of what our eyes do, anyway. We just do it with more meat. Think you're looking at something green? Sucker! It's all the colors EXCEPT for green! That's just the color the object reflects back to you. And you never really get to touch something. All you can feel is the sensation of trying to touch something. Your atoms won't let you actually touch something.

And fucking electric fucking eels! A living creature that can deliver a serious voltage to whatever it touches. Something that can hurt us and kill smaller creatures.

And the platypus! Did God sneeze when making that fucker?

I mean, look at this fuckin' thing!

There are some people who think mushrooms are extraterrestrial because they're unlike anything else from our tree of life. Maybe. I mean, it sounds kinda stupid, but it's possible, right? God's an astronaut. Oz is over the rainbow, and Midian is where the monsters live.

I keep thinking about how most people reacted to learning that humans evolved from monkeys. They were so furious. No, we couldn't come from monkeys. We're creatures of God, shithead. Actually, that's not what I keep thinking about. What I really keep thinking about is what if they made the next logical step? What if they were told that monkeys evolved from bacteria? Ergo . . .

Hey, all this planet needed was a handful of single cell organisms and a few million years, and now we have 9-5 jobs, mortgages and a bunch of other shit not even nature could have come up with.

I'm going to stop talking about this now before I start pondering how magnets work, but I gotta say, I love writing these things while hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh as fuck. I almost forgot what writing them while drunk felt like. Maybe the next time I decide to drink. We'll see.

It should come as a surprise to no one that this guy was my favorite Midianite.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #434: APOLLO 13

 

So I watched Apollo 13 again recently. I didn't mean to. I was cleaning up a bunch of shit in my bedroom, and I wanted something on in the background. I'd forgotten how much I liked this one, so I got sucked back in. I like movies like this. Humanity trapped beyond the known needing to use science to survive and get home? Count me in. You know, like The Martian.

But near the end, after the astronauts get home (spoiler alert), I noticed something, and I had to wonder about it. So they come down in the ocean and are rescued and brought back to America, where their first public appearance shows them wearing hats with the mission details for Apollo 13. That implies that the hats were made before the mission and were waiting for its completion.

But what if they didn't get home? What if they died out there? Or burned up in the atmosphere? What happens to those hats?

Here's the thing. There is someone, possibly a few someones, who knows the answer to that. Space missions are fucking dangerous, and NASA has an unfortunate history of getting astronauts killed. So I can only assume that there are Challenger hats somewhere out there, just as an example. What happened to them? Were they buried or destroyed out of honor for the astronauts who lost their lives? Are they mothballed somewhere? In a museum?

Before I started getting drunk (and now high), this was the kind of thought that would keep me awake at night.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #433: THE PLOT AGAINST ME

 There is a horrible plot against me. I don't know who or what started this, but it's been plaguing me for years, and I know it will continue for the rest of my life. There is no way to stop it. There is no way to even fight back. I'm doomed, and I know it is all because of this nefarious plot.

Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, it strikes the hardest. I wake up two minutes before my first alarm goes off, but I don't check the time. I don't have to. I already know the Sword of Damocles is hanging and ready to run me through.

The alarm goes off, and I hit snooze. I grumble to myself because I'm tired as fuck. I can't get out of bed yet, and I tell myself that I'm not going to fall back asleep because then the pain would be worse. I tell myself I'm going to stare at the ceiling until the second alarm goes off. But then I close my eyes. And I start to dream five minutes before the second alarm goes off and ruins the rest of my day. Because I will never be fully awake, and I'll feel miserable at least until I get out of work, and I'll probably not feel much better even then. And then I go to bed so it will all start over again.

Thursdays and Sundays I don't set an alarm because I plan to sleep in. Not that it matters. I wake up at about the time my alarm would have gone off. You'd think that the same thing would happen as on the other days but without the misery. Yeah, I'll close my eyes and go back to sleep and wake up whenever. That sounds glorious.

But that's not what happens. I could tape my eyes shut, and I'd never go back to sleep. Because now I'm awake, and there is nothing I can do about it.

When? When, O Lord, will I get my own Stargate so I can murder the gods that did this to me?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #432: DEATH THROES

 Its finally happening. Years after planned obsolescence, my phone is in its death throes. It's been dying a slow death, but its built in life span has reached the very end. I'm going to need to get a new one, and that sucks.

Whenever I get technology, I get the top of the line because I know I'm going to use it until I literally can't anymore. Most of my writing is done on a desktop computer more than 15 years old. It glitches sometimes, but it still works. The phone, on the other hand, is losing most of its capabilities. Asking it to access Twitter is an exercise in futility. Facebook still works, more or less, for what that's worth. Texting is not reliable, especially if it's a group text. Sometimes I can get a text but can't respond to it. Going online with a browser? Ha! Don't even ask.

The only things that work are actual phone calls and my alarm clock. And the alarm only works under a specific set of circumstances which I've perfected. At least for now.

The problem is, I can't afford a new phone. Well, this upcoming payday I can afford either my car insurance or a phone. Considering my bad luck with the car, I'm paying the fucking insurance. Hopefully the payday after that I will be able to get a new phone.

In the meantime, if you have my number and need to contact me, don't bother. I will probably not even know you tried to text me. If you're on my social media, the best shot is to get my attention there. I may not respond right away, but I will respond.

I've been on a decade plus of bad fucking luck right now, and I'll probably never pull out of it at this point. Did you hear that?!

RIP Mr. Lahey, sorry the shithawks got ya, bud.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #431: HOUSE 2: THE SECOND STORY

 

So the other day I had some time to kill, and Ty Franck mentioned a movie on Ty and That Guy that sounded right up my alley. It was something akin to a slasher movie where no one dies, but I couldn't remember the name of it for the life of me. All I knew was that it was on Shudder. Well, I have Shudder. Let's see if I can find it.

Nope. No luck. But while flipping through movies I saw an old favorite. That's right. House 2: The Second Story. (The first House movie was fucking awesome. The fourth? Ehhhhhh, let's forget about that one. For many years I thought they just skipped three, but when I was in Ireland back in 2000, I found it in a video store over there. I believe I rented it and thought it blew, but that might be the Mandela Effect. I've discovered this phenomenon has been working pretty heavily on me as of late.)

So why not watch this one again? It's been probably 15 years. Let's see if it holds up.

Long story short: It does. And I forgot what a massive influence it was on me from when I saw it as a child. It's a weird western tale, and I love those. Love writing 'em, too. It's batshit crazy, and I'm a huge fan of that kind of thing. It's got Royal Dano in there and holy shit, is that Bill Maher?! Yes it is. Once again playing an asshole. (Probably not acting, either.)

And that shit with Cliff from Cheers? Goddam, I forgot how much ridiculous pulp action fun that was! Why did they not make any more movies about the electrician adventurer? I would have watched more than a dozen movies about his adventures alone.

It felt good to go through this one again. If you've never seen it, and you have Shudder, what are you doing reading this? Go watch it. And if you've seen it, go ahead. Watch it again. Doctor's orders.

Bill Motherfucking Towner!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #430: IMPENDING DREAD

 A while back, you may remember that I had to have my garage torn down since it was a neighborhood eyesore and a hazard to anyone who might be standing inside of it at any given moment. I really didn't want to tear the garage down for a variety of reasons, but as the weather gets colder, some of the secondary reasons have become primary.

Every day I go to work I have to defrost the windshield of my car. And I can't use a scraper because the frost is too fine. I have to sit and wait for the moment when I can finally see just enough of the world outside my windshield. I never had to do that when my car had a roof over it.

And very soon we'll be seeing snow. Fuck snow. Now I'll have to start brushing my car off every morning, too, but I'll have to wade through snow where once a roof protected the floor from it. And I'll probably have to start salting that platform that stands testament to what had once been there. I do not look forward to shoveling out the alley, too. Last year proved I no longer have the physical ability to do this due to my bad leg. I can't imagine how horrible the next few months are going to be for me.

Welcome to the End Times. Time to get familiar with cannibalism . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #429: AN UNDERSTANDING OF HISTORY

 I'm sure you recall my obsession with Gore Vidal's Empire books upon my escape from the psych ward. I found myself in a Half Price Books in Orland Park on Sunday, and I picked up a couple more Vidal historical novels. (And a crime novel he wrote under a pen name before he was Gore Vidal. But that's a story for another day.)

To borrow from Dan Carlin, I'm not a historian. I'm a fan of history. One of the things I truly enjoy about this series is that Vidal didn't rely on history class notes. He went out in search of the Truth (before the age of the internet, no less!) and wrote these books from that perspective. That got him into some trouble. For example, his theory that Hamilton accused Burr of fucking his own daughter. Or Lincoln's plan that, upon abolishing slavery in the US, he would send all former slaves to Grenada. Ending racism by deporting all former slaves, thus making US a white only country, is a very bizarre plan, but it was also a very real plan.

I wonder if I would have been upset by these "revisionist" theories if I hadn't learned distrust in what I was told as a teenager. Because I bought everything I learned in history class up until Mr. Tourney's class, where I was introduced to 1984 and the concept of doublespeak.

Try an experiment. Try sitting through ten minutes of Fox News sometime. My grandmother watches it religiously, and I pay attention when I'm with her. The biggest boogeyman these nutjobs have right now is something called Critical Race Theory. They are appalled that propaganda is being taught in schools.

And they're right. Just not the way they think. First off, CRT is not taught to children but to college students. But never mind that for now because I have a problem with the propaganda being taught to children as young as 5 years old.

If you know me, then you know my go-to move, which is a pop quiz, hotshot. Who discovered America? A lot of people will say Columbus. Those who are smarter than the average bear will mention the Vikings who got there long before that Italian asshole. But that's wrong, too. It's hard to discover a land where people had already been living for thousands of years.

And if you dare to suggest that Columbus was a slaver and a rapist and a murderer, then God's mercy on you. Why is that idea so difficult for most Americans to digest? It's because they were indoctrinated at an early age. Gotta get 'em when they're young and impressionable, as the cigarette companies used to say. It's a very powerful form of brainwashing. It's so sugar-coated that it makes me want to hurl. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Most people find it hard to believe that the Founding Fathers who said that all men are created equal, didn't actually mean that, but they did. Who counts as those "men?" You gotta be white, male and a landowner. I'm sure if they would have thought about it, those men would also have to be heterosexual. Hell, by their standards most of us wouldn't be able to vote, either. Renting an apartment? Stay at home, non-landowner.

I believe that we're in this mess because of this propaganda that we were all--ALL--exposed to as children. It never occurs to most that what they learned in school might actually be a nefarious plot to force your allegiance to your country. But those godless Commies in China? They need to stop their propaganda and teach their kids the truth!

It's a fucking mess. It really is. Land of the Free really is the biggest lie we were ever taught in school. Because it never has and probably never will be. I'm all for teaching CRT to children. Otherwise this problem is going to continue ad infinitum.

This is a shirt I actually own. It's in my house somewhere.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #428: AL CALAVICCI

 

Dean Stockwell recently died. I thoroughly enjoyed just about every role I saw him in. It's hard to believe now, but back when he was in stuff like Night Gallery, he was considered a sex symbol and was touted to be the new James Dean. Weird, right? But that's how it went.

Of course my favorite character of his was Al Calavicci, Sam's best friend and holographic partner on Quantum Leap. The things that I always dug were the ridiculous outfits he would wear in the long distant time of the 'Nineties. Goddam, look at that picture above. Al would wear any crazy shit he could think of, and sometimes his outfits blinked. The most normal thing he ever wore was his Navy uniform.

And it reminded me and my brothers of Gramps. Whenever there was an important event--like a graduation, funeral, etc.--he would dress up in this ridiculous suit that hurt the eyes. He was either fucking with us or he really loved that fucking outfit. He was a vain main when it came to clothes, so I think it was the latter. It was so crazy we called it his Al Calavicci suit. Al would have worn something like that.

I didn't have much to do with the final arrangements for Gramps, but I had a sneaking suspicion that turned out to be true for his own funeral. I went up to the coffin and saw that, yes, he was wearing that suit even in death. It made me smile.

Then I sat with my family while we waited for my brothers in Crystal Lake to show up. When they did, they both laughed and pointed. One of them said, "He's wearing the Calavicci suit!"

I wish I had a picture of him in that get up. You wouldn't believe the lunacy of it. But when we get down to it, the littlest things sometimes bring us the greatest joys. Yeah, I know, I'm not the first to say that, and I won't be the last, but conversely the littlest things can anger us the most. It's a testament to their power.

Enjoy the little things. They'll help you get through life.

Bonus Al!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #427: BATTLE OF WITS

 So every morning for the last few months I would walk out my back door to head out to my car. Every morning there is a tiny bunny out there waiting for me. Kind of.

The reason for this is because my front yard is a breeding ground for rabbits. So is my neighbor's backyard. This happens every year.

Every morning that bunny and I have a battle of wits. I just want to get to my car so the little fella doesn't freak out. The little fella wants me to go away so he doesn't have to freak out. And every morning, every single goddam morning, he freaks out and runs toward my car so that when I get closer, he freaks out again.

Then there was one time I came home from work, and there the little fella was in my backyard. Except this time, when I start for my back door, he has a choice. Run away from me and at a furiously barking dog two doors down or run from the scary dog toward me.

The fucker chose to run toward the dog. Am I that scary, little fella? At least I never barked at you, buddy.

I haven't seen the little fella in about a month. I hope nothing ate him.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #426: THE NOSTALGIA OF SMELLS

 So yesterday I saw Dune in Bolingbrook. I had to drive through Darien to get home. As I did so I caught a whiff of something I haven't smelled in a long time: burning leaves. And it filled me with a warm and comfortable feeling.

Yeah, I know. Burning leaves is bad for the environment, which is why I don't do that and I'm not going to start. But it fills me with a nostalgic feeling because I remember when my dad lived in Winfield, he would do that every fall. This scent took me back to my childhood for a moment, and I kind of liked that.

It also reminded me that people used to burn most of their garbage, but that's a story for another day.

(Seriously. When you're in a town where sidewalks are scarce, you're probably seeing ditches in front of houses with drains at the end. That's where leaves and garbage were burned.)

I thought about all the other smells that bring me back. Old Spice will bring my grandfather back from the dead for me. The smell of gasoline will always remind me of when I was a kid and loved inhaling those fumes. My grandma would always tell me not to do that because I was killing brain cells. Keep in mind that's the same kid who wanted to go swimming in trash.

Certain perfumes or shampoo will bring back the memoires of women who have been kind enough to sleep with me. Well, I could go on forever.

The thing I think of mostly is how a lot of authors ignore the sense of smell in favor of sight and hearing. Why do that? Use all five senses when describing things. It enhances the experience for your readers. If you're writing a horror story about a guy in a pit of corpses, are you going to focus on the gross visuals and the squelching sound as the character sinks in? Sure, and that's fine, but if you're leaving out the stink? You're missing a step. Wouldn't you also like to describe the feeling of rotten flesh slipping off the bone? Or what if the character accidentally gets corpse goo in their mouth? Wouldn't you want to describe that taste?

I didn't mean this to become a writing tip type thing. It was just something I was thinking about since Sunday, and I'm high right now. Goodnight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #425: MY THOUGHTS ON DUNE

Dune and I go way back. I'm a big fan of the series. Eh, let me walk that back a little. I'm a fan of the first four books. After that, I lost interest really fast. I gave the first prequel book a try, but I didn't dig it. My favorite is God Emperor of Dune because it's so batshit crazy. I liked the David Lynch version but found it lacking. The Syfy version(s) are pretty good. When I heard there would be another version I thought maybe we didn't need it.

It turns out we did. I saw it yesterday, and while I enjoyed it I found a lot to not like about it, too. It's a good movie, but it's not as great as everyone seems to think it is.

Here's what I liked. The 'thopters. I had a bit of a hard time getting my mind around the concept when I first read the book, but seeing it here explained a lot. I liked what they did with the Voice and made it seem more menacing than before. I loved what they did with the personal shields. And the sandworms look fucking majestic, and seeing them filled me with awe. I never felt awe when watching the Lynch version, for example. They are forces of nature, and they are not to be fucked with.

In fact, it's a beautiful looking movie. You can't not say that about it, no matter what your problems might be. But you know how I feel about style over content. While I can dig some of that stuff, I don't think that kind of thing is capable of being great.

And that's where my complaints begin because the content does not match up with the style. It doesn't come close. While the concept is high and excellent, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The only characters who come off as people are in the Atreides group. We spend time with them. We get to know them. The dynamics between them are explored. But once you start to wander from that group things fall apart. What is Bautista doing? He's a big dude who kicks ass and yells a lot. And that's it. And while I appreciate the dread in every scene involving Baron Harkonnen, he's not doing much either. At least when Lynch did it, these characters had personalities.

I'm not going to talk about the Fremen much because they're in all likelihood going to be the focus of part 2. We don't get to spend much time with them, but we will, I'm sure.

So for the most part this movie is cool looking. Beautiful. Full of sound and fury. But, well, you know the rest of that phrase. I'm hoping this will turn out to be like Kill Bill. That first movie was Tarantino jerking off, but that second movie was where the truly good stuff was. Fingers crossed.

Oh! Here's another thing I enjoyed about the movie: the filmmakers don't feel the need to explain much. Like the scene where Kynes is making her escape and puts down the thumpers and takes out the hooks. I wonder what that must have been like to people who haven't had any Dune experience before. Those of us who have know exactly what she's doing. Too bad it didn't come to fruition. But it will in part 2. I can't see how it wouldn't.

But on the opposite side of that point, they *did* explain a bit too much when we get the narration in the beginning. I'm not a big fan of that sort of thing. There are exceptions (like the Star Wars crawl, as it was an imitation, like the rest of that first movie, of chapter plays), but I wish they'd started with the Atreides family preparing to leave home. They're arriving at this planet cold, knowing very little about what's in store for them. The audience should have been dropped in cold, too.

Don't worry. I liked it a lot. I will see part 2. But there are a few things that just irritated me about this first one.

I mean, could you imagine how much more interesting the Harkonnens would be with this guy around?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #424: THE ENDING OF DARK SHADOWS

 

So as many of you know I finally finished the original Dark Shadows series. I've seen a lot of people complaining that there is no real ending. I don't think I agree with that. I believe there are three endings. And maybe four. If Peter Jackson added in Frodo's return to the Shire and his battle with Saruman and Wormtongue for Hobbiton, he might have beaten out how many endings Dark Shadows had.

Oh yeah, spoilers, if you haven't seen the show.

So the first ending: Barnabas, Julia and Professor Stokes coming back up the stairway into the future. Honestly, this is where the show should have ended. I believe their actions in . . . well . . . ah fuck it. It's super complicated, and I'm not sure I get it. So way back, Barnabas and Julia went back in time, and when they came forward in time to the present(-ish) they discovered the Collins family had been torn asunder, and Collinwood had been burned to the ground. They went back in time to fix the problem and discovered why the Collins family has such bad luck. Turned out they killed a sorcerer during the times of the Witch Trials, and he cursed them forever and ever. Except they repaired that bit and went back to the future to discover a very happy and untroubled Collins family. An uncursed Collins family. On the one hand, I hate that it undid nearly the entire show. Hell, probably the whole show. But they succeeded at their plan, and that makes for a great stopping point. It is, at least, *an* ending.

The second ending: The forced ending. So back in the past Lamar Trask gets shoved into a parallel universe by Quentin Collins (kind of) where he dies before the eyes of a parallel 1840s Collins family, and they are still cursed but in a much different way. Everyone thinks it was a spurned lover whose body doesn't decompose and is displayed in an evil room in Collinwood. The family has a lottery as to who must go in that room and spend the night, and no one has ever survived sane. They've either died or gone crazy. Sure enough, the two who go in there come out bonkers. Gabriel comes out a stark raving murderer, and Morgan isn't even himself; he's possessed by the spirit of the spurned lover. And it turns out, that guy didn't curse the family. Brutus Collins was disgusted by the weakness of his own family and curse them himself! It takes a stranger, Kendrick, who is only there to find out who killed his sister, to break the curse. And everyone lives happily ever after, right? Well, no. Because one of the family is carried into the parlor with an obvious vampire bite on her neck. So they really did plan to continue? Probably. But before it aired, they knew they were canceled, so they added in a quick voiceover explaining that it was just a coincidence. A mere animal bite. No vampires here. The end.

But . . .

The third ending: Sam Hall's epilogue. He was asked after the show ended what became of the characters he'd written for years, and he gave very specific answers. One of them was granting my biggest Dark Shadows wish of all. Barnabas finally acknowledged Julia's love for him, and they got married. Poor Quentin never did find the answers he was looking for and walks the earth a tortured man/werewolf/Dorian Gray. Roger doesn't live long after that final episode. And so on. I found that ending to be the most satisfying because even with the curse lifted, Quentin is still fucked. Nothing changes for him.

And then the fourth ending: the comic book series. Honestly I see no reason for Dynamite's series to exist. For some reason they decided that the story had to be finished. A story that had been finished no less than three times. But I'll say I enjoyed it. Even though Angelique (or Miranda, if you prefer) sacrificed her life to save the Collins family, she's back and evil in the comics, and she and Barnabas continue their love/hate relationship even though it ended in a very cool way on the show. Eh, it was a fun read, but you can skip it in my opinion.

I've seen all Dark Shadows has to offer. The original show, the two movies, the remake show, many novels (the best of which are written by Angelique herself, Lara Parker), a bunch of comic books (the original Gold Key books!) and even a few books written by the cast about their experiences and an album of the score. What I have not seen is the Tim Burton movie, and I dread ever seeing it. It looks like a parody of the show. Dark Shadows may have been unintentionally funny a lot of times, but the key word there is "unintentionally." They took their material very seriously. There were very few purposeful jokes in their scripts. I'm told there's a blowjob scene in the movie, for fuck's sake. On Dark Shadows, NO ONE HAD SEX. Was there romance? Sure. But as far as the show goes, sex is completely alien to the characters. I suspect it might have been in the bible for the show, like in the Batman bible it says that he's a virgin.

But yeah. I guess someday I'll see it. As I understand it Jonathan Frid has a cameo, and it would be nice to see him again. But the joke goes that he was so embarrassed by the movie that he promptly died just before it was released.

*sigh* Yeah, yeah. I'll watch it. Just not anytime soon, okay?

PS: If you like Barnabas Collins, and you like Carl Kolchak, you should probably read "Interview with a Vampire." I remember enjoying the short story more than this comic book, but they're both good.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #423: LASIK

 I've flirted with the idea of getting LASIK done for many, many years, but I don't think I'll ever do it. First of all, it's kind of weird to have someone shooting a laser into your eyes to do some good ol' fashioned eye-cutting. It was a scary concept to me, and years ago when I saw a video of Kid in the Hall Dave Foley getting it done, it did not help matters. If you're going to do that shit to me, you'd better knock me out first.

But I've had glasses since third grade. I would feel absolutely naked without them. I couldn't imagine going to bed at night and being able to see everything clearly. It would weird me out. And when it's raining, what if water goes directly into my eyes? My glasses prevent that from happening.

But then again, what if the zombie holocaust happens? Or a cannibal holocaust? Or both at the same time? If my glasses break, well, I have a back up pair that are almost as good. And if those break? I have a pretty shitty back up pair. And if those break? I'm fucked for the rest of my life. Which might not be that long. I remember my old doctor once saw me reading a Walking Dead book, and he said, "Do you know who doesn't survive the zombie apocalypse? Fat diabetics." Sure, a little mean, but it was on point. I am fat, and I am diabetic.

But I'm not a fan of stuff in my eyes, which is why I don't do contacts. My eye doctor, when dilating my eyes, has to pry my lids open to put the drops in. I would not do well with the Ludovico Treatment, for example. The scene in Fulci's Zombie? Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about. I first saw that at a young age, and it has stuck with me pretty clearly over the years.

So while it might be for the best, I'll probably never get it done even if I could afford it. That's OK with me.

See?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #422: DOWNTIME

 I miss having a job with downtime. The one I work now has zero downtime. Well, mostly. Someday I'll describe that last qualifier, but for now it's like this: calls come in constantly. I talk with approximately 100 people a day. If calls stop coming in, and it happens, then we start calling out. There isn't a lot of time to get to know my coworkers. Most of them I just know as someone I work with and say hi to every morning or bye to every evening. There are exceptions but not many.

All of my other jobs have had downtime, and as a result I've made a lot of friends with coworkers over the years. When you have downtime you can bullshit or tell jokes or just hang out or in one notable case watch I Come in Peace on company time. Then of course there is mischief to be had. Pranks to be played. I have to say my finest moment was when a coworker/friend left his computer unlocked. He absolutely despised Pulp Fiction (his love of the Fast and Furious movies explains everything), so I snuck by his desk and opened Chrome, his browser of choice. I then got an add on that changed how it looked. You know when Travolta and Jackson empty their guns in that one scene?

Yeah, that one.

From that moment on that image was at the top of his Chrome browser. He gave me credit for that one, and when he asked how to get rid of it, I said I didn't know. I was maybe telling the truth. The fog of memory . . . obscures . . .

(And if that prank sounds kind of mean, it's not. He drew first blood when he changed my background to an almost naked picture of Nic Cage that could have led to an HR conversation.)

But my favorite job for downtime was working at the library, especially when I was working behind the circulation desk. That meant that whenever someone checked out books, I got to see what they were interested in. If it crossed with my own interests, then a great conversation about books ensued. I can talk about books for a very long time. I think I might still be able to do it from beyond the grave. I have no way to prove that just yet, but don't be surprised if, after I die, I start hanging around your place talking about books.

I truly miss that job sometimes. But then again, a lot of weird and horrible shit happened in that place, too. I'm not sure if you ever read my two Tales from the Library columns from Tabard Inn, but if you have, you know what I mean. And it gets even worse. I'm talking arrests, convicted kid rapists, sexual harassment and assault. Crazy shit you would never expect to happen in a library.

But the pros outweigh the cons.

Hey, what is Brian Benben doing these days? Last I saw him he was in The Deer Woman