GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #517: NATIONAL POETRY LIBRARY

 When I was but a wee lad with no significant publications to my name I fell for one of the oldest tricks in the publishing industry. I know there are some aspiring authors who listen to the gibberish I spout at all times, so this might help someone not fall into the same trap that I did.

I'm not known for my poetry. Well, except for both volumes of Shit Poems. But for a brief period of my life, around high school and college, I tried my hand at writing serious poems. The reason I don't do that anymore is because, not to put too fine a point on it, they sucked donkeyballs.

So imagine my surprise when a poetry book--full length, not some zine or journal--wanted to publish a poem I'd won a minor award for during high school. I've hit the big time, baby!

Shockingly enough, the National Poetry Library is still around ripping off young poets who are wet behind the ears. The way it works is, you submit a poem for one of their contests. You don't win the contest, but they want to publish your poem anyway. No charge to you. However, if you want a copy of the book, it is extraordinarily expensive. $80 for one copy, if I remember correctly. I'm sure inflation has driven that up into the triple digits by now.

Everyone I talked to said this was a scam, and I ignored each and every one of them up to and including my creative writing professor at the time. Whoops! But I got the book and was surprised by how many poems were in it. Looking back, I'm not that surprised. You know what PT Barnum said about suckers, and one of them was definitely born on July 25, 1978 to Frank Bruni and Kathy Kopoulos at Elmhurst Memorial Hospital at around 2 am.

But I wasn't entirely stupid. Just, you know, mostly stupid. I decided to test everyone else's theory by writing the absolute worst poem I could possibly think of and sending it to their contest the next year. It was so fucking atrocious. I might have posted it a while back just so people could gasp in horror and say, "My word." But I'm high and don't feel like looking for it. It might not be there, anyway.

If they rejected me, I prepared to howl my vindication at all the naysayers. But you already know what happened. They accepted this piece of shit poem that doesn't even rate being included in a chapbook called Shit Poems. I was soooooo angry. Back then I really fucking hated being wrong.

So. Lesson learned. No harm but certainly some foul.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #516: FORBIDDEN PLACES

I'm certain this thing lives under Jefferson Elementary.

 I love going to forbidden places. Meaning, places no one is supposed to be. I'm almost certain I've written about this here before, but I'm too high to go back and search.

I don't know why I was thinking about this tonight, but there was a place around back of the elementary school I went to that was just such a place. It was close to the building, far from the playground, so no one really hung out around there. It was a grating that led down into a subterranean level. It reminded me of Jabba's palace, where he had the trapdoor that led to the Rancor's pit. So I remember playing Star Wars there a lot and imagining I'd been sent down to fight the Rancor.

Nowadays it reminds me more of the place where the neo-Nazis in Breaking Bad kept Jesse Pinkman when they had him captured. So if you're looking for a frame of reference, it's like that.

I never got to go down there because it was always locked. I've always liked exploring, and it irritated me that I couldn't get down there. If the zombie apocalypse ever happens, I'm grabbing some bolt cutters from the hardware store, and I'm going to find out what's down there once and for all. It's probably not exciting, but what the hell?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #515: I'M SOOOOOOO HIGH

 Maybe I'm just really high right now, but there's a certain light quality to my bedroom right now that reminds me of the early 'Eighties. Like, really early. Maybe 1981.

I don't know why it is, but my memory of being a very small child is that everything was in yellow. There were a lot of browns, too, but mostly yellow. That's what my room looks like now. I feel like I'm time traveling. It's kind of like how certain smells will bring on a wave of nostalgia.

I think it's because I'm packing my books, and I no longer have four towers of books in front of my lamp. Everything seems a bit brighter in here. Also, I'm pretty sure that my edible had something to do with this feeling.

Weird.

NOW ANNOUNCING DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN AND OTHER PORNOS YOU CAN'T JERK IT TO!

 

A while back New Kink closed its doors, and Dong of Frankenstein went out of print. It's a shame because it's the one I'm asked about the most. Well, it's back! This volume also contains other horror erotica stories that are out of print:

-"Zero Recall"

-"A Market for All Things"

-"The Knot That Binds"

Check it out here!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #514: CYCLES OF FAT

When I was a kid in elementary school I was in pretty good shape. Skinny. Athletic. I played baseball and was hell on an obstacle course. So how did I become the fat ass I am today?

My first fat began in junior high. It really started in fifth grade because I broke my leg and had to stay off of it for a while. It irritated me because we were having our last obstacle course that year, and I had to sit it out. I loved doing that shit, and when you leave elementary school, you no longer get to do obstacle courses. I also missed out on getting my Weblos badge from Cub Scouts, which I really enjoyed doing. I learned a lot as a young lad in uniform, and it sticks in my craw to this day that I never got my final badge. And there were a few other factors.

So I learned to accept my sedentary life to the point where I started kinda liking it. I got no more exercise, and because I sat around and ate like shit all the time, I put on some weight. I was pudgy in junior high. I continued my first fat through high school. I'd decided to eat nothing but McDonald's every night for five straight years. That did not do well for my physical wellbeing.

When I saw my graduation video I looked like Chris Farley. It horrified me, so I spent that summer, before going to college, on the fast track to lose weight. I started off at 245 lbs., and by the time I started college I was down to 205. I looked pretty fucking good back then. I still needed to lose a bit more weight, and my target was 200 even. I never got that low. The closest was about 202, maybe.

Through a set of awful circumstances, I began my second fat while finishing up college. I blew up to 306 lbs., and no one believed me when I said I weighed that much. If we had cell phones capable of taking pictures back then, I would have taken one of me on the scale. (And I would have had all ten toes!) I guess I carried it well. And hey, I still managed to get laid, so it must not have been all that bad.

I got back to yoga and exercise and jogging, and while I managed to get back down to 245, I've never been able to get lower than that. I'm currently on my third fat, and I'm usually anywhere between 250 and 270. Unless I've been in the hospital for my stomach issues. I've been able to get down to 235 in those moments, but they don't really count. When I can eat again, I shoot back up to 245.

Yesterday my endocrinologist told me that I'm 249 lbs. It's better than I expected. Getting out of detox, my food consumption has skyrocketed. I thought I was back up to 270. Still, I could lose some weight. Most definitely. I hope to fuck I don't wind up doing a fourth fat. Cannabis makes me very hungry, and I've been eating more than one dinner. I've got to stop doing that.

Because with my bad foot, I can't exercise anymore. I have to stay off it as much as possible, or I risk losing that foot. So if I start that fourth fat, I'm pretty sure that will be the way my corpse will look when I die. I'll be fat Elvis again.

Did I ever tell you that my nickname way back when was Elvis? Back then I had sideburns that somehow grew beyond my control and became muttonchops. I looked like fat Elvis when I was young. It would be horrible to be fat Elvis when I'm old.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #513: A RAW AND THROBBING ASSHOLE

 

[NOTE: This was supposed to be last night's entry, but I had more time then, so I decided to write at length about my Lyft experiences. I have less time tonight, so here we go. I edited it slightly so it would appear this is what I did today.]

I needed to get lunch this afternoon, but I didn't have any money. I'm broke and payday is tomorrow. However, I had a survey coupon for two free cheeseburgers from White Castle, so I thought, why not?

Side note: always take the surveys if there's free shit involved. I've kept myself fed through such cunning and devotion. I get angry if the survey doesn't have a reward for taking it. What, there's not even a sweepstakes entry for this? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

So I got my White Castle and went back to work. Shortly thereafter I remembered why people call these things gut-busters. I felt the all too familiar gurgling in my guts, like a Predator was nearby, and my butthole started burning slightly. Whoops! I got off the call I was on and rushed to the bathroom where I shat my guts out in a horribly violent manner. If this was a scene in a movie, there would be people picketing the film for its grim and ugly violence. No kid should have to see this.

And then, as I sat with my raw and throbbing asshole, the stink hit me. It smelled like a chemical burn. If someone lit a match in there the entire building would have gone up in a mushroom cloud, and I would have died like I've always expected: on the toilet, Elvis-style.

I really shouldn't eat White Castle unless I'm in the privacy of my own home.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #512: LYFT ADVENTURES

 So a while back I found myself in need of Uber. It irritated the fuck out of me because my car was in the body shop at the time. I didn't want to download the app, but I had no choice. I tried to get Uber, but for some reason the are-you-a-robot question kept deciding that yes, I am indeed a robot. It's one of those things where you're supposed to select every square that has stoplights in it. Or buses. Or boats. Whatever it was, I kept failing it, and I knew for a fact that I was getting them right. There were no ambiguous squares like you usually get.

Fuck Uber. I signed up for Lyft instead, and they're absolutely stellar. They also have some interesting drivers. I usually appreciate silence during such a ride, but the talkative guys have been kind of weird and had a lot of experiences that I wouldn't have expected.

One guy, for example, was born in Jamaica but had lived in Europe for a while before moving out to the Pacific Northwest before moving to little ol' Elmhurst to be a State Farm rep. Kind of an odd job for someone who has traveled the world that much, but it seemed to make him happy. He actually lived a few blocks from my work and told me I was the first ride he'd ever delivered to his own neighborhood. Small world.

Another guy talked to me about workouts. This was back when I could still exercise, and I was describing what I usually did. He told me this crazy story about how he would do animal moves for his own workout. He'd lunge like a cougar, for example. I thought he was out of his mind, but the very next day, as I was watching the news, they did a piece on Chris Hemsworth's workouts, and holy shit, he was doing the exact same thing this Lyft driver was talking about.

Another guy talked about his brushes with the law. We were approaching a turn on Palmer in Elmhurst where it was prohibited to turn left between 3-6. It was 5:35, and he started to make that turn. I advised him that cops keep a close watch on this part of town because almost everyone ignored the traffic sign. He was fine with that. And then we got pulled over. The cop eventually let him off with a warning, and as we drove away he said, "It always makes me nervous when they look at my license. I'm Mexican, and so is my name. If they can get past that, they look back up at my face. I can pass for white, so they don't try to deport me or anything."

And then there was the time I legitimately thought I was being kidnapped. This was when my bad foot was still broken, and I had every expectation that it would heal. I needed a ride from my office to the train station, and this little old lady picked me up. She didn't say a word to me the whole time, which I usually appreciated, but when she started deviating from the usual route I started wondering. Well, maybe she knows a way that's less congested. But then we kept going north, away from the train station. And she didn't show any signs of turning back toward my destination. She didn't look like much, and I thought I could take her in a fight if necessary. I'd already missed my train and the one after that, so I finally asked where she was going. She pointed vaguely at her phone. I had to give her directions so I could at least get home in time to eat and sleep before getting up to do it all over again. I finally got home, but wow. You hear horror stories about these situations, but you never think it will happen to you.

You know. Like Letters to Penthouse.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #511: WRITING AT WORK

 

A while back I read Jeff Strand's The Writing Life, which I found very enjoyable. There was a part he wrote about writing while at work, and that struck home with me because I've done that very same thing in the very same way. And I'm going to tell you about it now.

I'm not counting the time I worked for my dad at his restaurant when I visited him out in Vegas while I was maybe in eighth grade. I will never forget my stepmom looking at him incredulously when he did this. "He's on vacation, and you're putting him to work?!?!?!?!"

And I can't tell you about writing at work now because there is no downtime. There isn't a moment where I can take a breath except when I'm on lunch. I've written while on lunch, but it is impossible to do so while on the clock.

Let's start with my first job, as a page at the Elmhurst Public Library. If you don't know what a page is, that's someone who shelves books that have been returned and that have been left on tables throughout the library. They also make the shelves look orderly and make sure the books are actually in order. I was able to write in short bursts while in the stacks, but I had to keep an eye out for supervisors. I could fool the patrons but not the sups. This got a lot easier when I graduated to the circulation desk. That's where I learned that when you're writing something down, you look busy. Looking busy means that you're doing your job. When you're doing it at the desk, especially if you're at the library card registration part, you can also fool the sups. They sometimes stationed me at the greeting desk, which made things even easier because no one checks on you when you're there. I could have probably written while I was working A/V repair, but part of my duty was to watch movies I'd just repaired.

Writing on the job at the City of Elmhurst Public Works was a lot harder, considering that my job was being the parts driver. It's hard to write and drive at the same time. However, if I was sent out on a long drive I could stop off for my break and use the extra time to write because they didn't expect me back for a while.

I worked for two weeks selling ad space for a few local newspapers. I sucked at the job and was fired pretty quickly, but they knew I was a writer and published three of my stories. I couldn't write at that job, though, because it's where I learned that sales jobs really had no downtime. BUT! I worked at the Drury Lane Oakbrook Theatre selling season tickets. I did a lot of writing on break (drinking free Coke because that was a great perk), but I did even more when I got there before anyone else did. Make a few calls, write a page, make a few more calls, etc. The same for when I got to stay late. You can't call anyone after 9 pm, which was quitting time, but they let me put together Excel spreadsheets for sales leads. I'm a fast typist, so I was able to sneak some writing in there, too.

Working at Conference Plus was easy writing time. I was a conference operator, meaning I introduced and concluded calls, and I ran the Q&A sessions. Polling, too, if needed, but that was a rarity. The rest of the time I wrote during those calls. That's anything between 30 minutes to 3 hours. Very few calls made it that long, but some did. When I graduated to the tech support team, I still got writing done. The reason was, we answered calls from people who needed web or audio help, and that was it. I wrote between calls, and there was a lot of time for that. Unless, of course, there was an outage. Those sucked.

When I worked at Call One, it was more of the same. As long as I didn't miss any calls and kept my tickets up to date and kept customers updated at the expected times, then all was good. Once again, writing at work makes you look busy. Looking busy means you're doing your job.

I miss having downtime. That was when I usually got to know my coworkers to the point of becoming friends outside of the office. The job I work now? I don't really know my coworkers. I know their names and I say hi to them, but there isn't time for conversation in a sales environment. Maybe someday . . .

I left out the time I worked at Sears selling shoes. I didn't write on that job. It was so fucking miserable that I wasn't even in the mood to do so while on lunch. Fuck that job.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #510: REDEMPTION

The true hero of The Walking Dead

 

I'm a sucker for a great redemption story. The farther a villain goes, the better before they try to bring themselves back to humanity. The purest form of it that we're going through right now is Negan on The Walking Dead. He brutally and graphically murdered the second most beloved character on the show, and now that he's seen the error of his ways, he's trying to be a good man. To say nothing of poor Abraham. No one remembers that part. Everyone cares about their sacred baby Glenn.

So I've adopted the same stance through much of my writing. I'm bringing Dong of Frankenstein back into print, hopefully before the year is done, and it will be accompanied by other out of print stories. One of them is "Zero Recall," in which I detail the crimes of a horrible rapist/murderer, and yet I somehow bring him back from the brink to the point where people who have read the story feel bad for him. I'm doing this on a much grander scale with my forthcoming SF novel, Eye Cutter. You'll see what I mean when it's released.

So I found myself wondering a while back why that kind of story is so interesting to me, and when I was preparing my piece on why people hate the Star Wars prequels, I figured it out.

Darth Vader has done a lot of horrible things, up to and including the murder of children. Does he deserve redemption? Maybe. Just maybe. Because he fell under the sway of someone far more evil than he. Many of the things he did were done because he truly didn't understand the situation. It was easy for Palpatine to manipulate him into becoming the ghastly thing known as Darth Vader.

Who sees this possibility of redemption? His son. Luke tries to save his father, and holy shit, it actually works. (Spoiler.) It works to the point where Vader saves his son's life at the cost of his own and kills Palpatine. Yes. Kills Palpatine. Because that guy never comes back. Ever. If they made a ninth Star War, he absolutely, most certainly wouldn't come back as the villain because Vader definitively kills him in Return of the Jedi. Permanently.

The end of Return of the Jedi infected me with a joy in this kind of redemption arc. I can safely say that it changed my life. Because I've done some pretty bad things over the course of my life. I've said vile shit that I shouldn't have. And I'm trying to be a better person every day. If someone like Darth Vader can come back from the evil he committed, then my own redemption should be a breeze.

Taking it like a champ!

OK, some of you think Rick should have let Negan die when he slit his throat. And yeah, Negan did some bad shit, too. But think about why you like Rick and hate Negan. I call Negan the hero of the show because at least he has no illusions about himself. Rick and friends are absolutely delusional in thinking they're the good guys. If you hadn't spent so many seasons with Rick and Daryl and Glenn and T-Dog (RIP, you sweet bastard) and the rest, and the characters you followed for all those seasons instead ran into Rick and Co., you would recognize them as the morally bankrupt pieces of shit they really are. Negan said that his only regret, when he killed Glenn AND ABRAHAM, is that he didn't just kill all of them. I was kinda hoping he would. Hence the reason I call TWD Negan and Friends.

Also, when Negan comes to realize what a bad guy he really is, he genuinely feels bad about the horrible things he'd done. Can you imagine, even on Rick's most optimistic day, that Rick would ever even think about doubting himself?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #509: INTIMACY COORDINATORS

There's a "one does not simply" joke here, but I'm not telling it.

 

Sean Bean made news recently when he talked about his displeasure with intimacy coordinators. For those who don't know what that is, they're people on set for filming sex scenes in movies. They're there to make sure some actor doesn't try anything like, say, copping an unwanted feel, for example. His complaint is that it removes spontaneity from the moment. I wonder if he thinks that way about the rest of acting. Like, does he purposely flub lines for the spontaneity? Does he not hit his marks because he wants to feel in the moment? Or maybe he demands his stuntman play it fast and loose rather than safe?

I guess Skeletor is going to break his post-credits promise.

Frank Langella felt the very same way. He believes intimacy coordinators ruin the mood. Considering how he got fired for not playing by the rules, it's kind of a marvel that Sean Bean still got work.

I'm not an actor, but I like to know a little bit about everything, and I know this much: acting is a craft. Not just parts of it, but all of it. Hit your marks, say your dialogue and make sure to follow the rules of the intimacy coordinators. Because, well, Marilyn Manson didn't, and now he's been accused, rightfully so I think, of rape. And, well, also there are guys like this:

Please kill Mr. Kinski.

Yeah, Klaus Kinski was a creepy dude, but it went a long way past what he looked like. If memory serves, his daughter said that he used to sexually abuse her, but more to tonight's point, he liked to unexpectedly insert his fingers into actresses during sex scenes. Not cool, Mr. Kinski. Not cool.

So yeah, Sean Bean should reevaluate his motivation for his opinion. Does he want to be an actor? Or does he just want to make out with women on the job? The former is respectable, but the latter is kinda gross.

If you're wondering about why I said, "Please kill Mr. Kinski," you should watch this.

Also, I find it interesting that Langella, who I'd first seen as Dracula, turned out to be kind of a dick. Who didn't turn out to be a dick? His Van Helsing, Christopher Plummer.

Fuck Nazis.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #508: WHEN I'M GONE

I was working around the house a bit today, and it reminded me of something Gramps said when I was a kid. Whenever he had to do something homeowner-ish, he'd call out to me. "Dodge! Come here! I have to show you something!"

I always knew that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be fun. He'd show me how to snake a toilet. How to put in the fuses for the air conditioning (or the fuses in the basement, for that matter). How to tile a floor. And if I ever offered resistance, which I often did, he would say, "When I'm gone, you'll have to do this."

The only problem was, he kinda sucked at anything more complicated than switching out fuses. That tiling job, for example. He did such a lousy job that he was still around when we got tired of looking at it and ripped it back up to return the kitchen to its original tiles. So I guess I learned how to do things around the house badly. Maybe not the lesson he wanted to teach me.

He's been gone since 2016. While I was still physically capable, I did my best to work on the house. I also had dreams of fixing the hole in the garage's roof. Those survived even after I got my left foot all fucked up. But then Grandma wanted to tear down the garage entirely. I miss that garage, especially on winter days when I have to brush my fucking car off.

And it wouldn't have mattered, anyway. We're losing this house soon. I doubt I'll be here when Thanksgiving rolls around. We might as well have left it up as an eyesore that the bank would have to deal with. We've already decided that the property taxes aren't getting paid, that the bank will have to pay them. Because fuck the bank.

And I'm still packing my books. Those are the most important of my belongings. If I lose everything else, I guess I'm fine with that. I'd not like it, but I can let it go. But those books are important. And the bank is the reason I'm packing them up. So double fuck the bank. And why not? Triple dog fuck it. 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #507: POWER OF THE DOG

"I need the best."
"Wade Garrett is the best."

 

So a while back, Sam Elliott stuck his foot in his mouth and said some stupid things about a movie called Power of the Dog. I think what he said was homophobic, but he tried to frame it in a way that a director from New Zealand shouldn't be making westerns because she doesn't know a thing about westerns. However you take it, he's flat out wrong.

And it's a shame. I really like Elliott in everything, in particular as Wade Garrett in Road House. He has since apologized for these statements, and I more or less believe people can change, so I'm willing to leave it at that, at least for now. But the thing that stuck in my craw the most is how he adheres to what he believes a western should be and nothing else.

Horseshit, I say. First, anyone can make a western. It doesn't matter where they come from. If I wanted to write a swords and sandals epic, would it be necessary that I be an Ancient Roman? Because if that's really the problem, I wonder what he thinks of the movie Gladiator. Or even Spartacus. The only requirement for creating art about something that one might not be native to is a desire to write about that thing. I think it would be really interesting to see, for example, an African's idea of a western. I almost said Japanese, but I held back because their samurai stories are pretty similar, especially if the main character is a Ronin. After all, without Yojimbo we would never have gotten spaghetti westerns. And what do Italians know of making westerns, eh, Sam?

And if homosexuality really was Elliott's problem, and I believe it was, that is also horseshit. Westerns can be about any character you want regardless of race, gender, sexuality, anything. Sometimes it's even better when it's not just about hetero white men doing shit. I've seen that a million times, anyway.

In fact, I'll go one step further. Westerns don't necessarily need to happen in the west. Back in James Fenimore Cooper's days, he was writing westerns. The thing was, back then Ohio was considered the wild west. And some of Young Guns 2 happens in NYC. Hell, I'll even put forth the possibility that Gangs of New York is a western. Watch that one again. It feels like it should be happening in Arizona.

You know my western is coming out soon. It's part one of a trilogy. I already have part two written. Part three is still a mystery to me, but I'll be damned if I'm not seriously considering setting it in New York. So fuck it, that's what I'm going to do.

A western can be just about anything, kind of like horror or bizarro or SF. The more we play with it, the longer the genre might live.

I love the shit out of Road House, but this might be my favorite line.

"I used to fuck guys like you in prison."

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #506: FUCK THE MAN

 The other day, while I was at work, someone called in and gave me enough information to look up a work order. As he continued talking, it suddenly occurred to me that he was not the customer. He was the customer's boss. His employee needed to get a windshield replaced, and it needed a recalibration, so the tech had to drive the vehicle around to get that done.

Turns out, the boss has a tracker on his employee's vehicle. The employee said he couldn't come in to work because he needed this auto glass job done. The boss was checking up on the guy to see if he was lying. When he saw the tracker moving around, he assumed that his worker had lied to him just to get out of work.

No way, motherfucker. That job needed a road test. He legitimately called in that day. So I backed the worker and possibly ruined the boss's day. What kind of bastard does that, anyway? He had to have a reason for checking on this guy, right? Like, he wanted to fire this guy but didn't have a real reason to do so.

Even if there was no recal needed for that, I would have lied about it. Because FUCK THE MAN.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #505: VISITING GRAMPS POST DETOX

You and me both, Billy. You and me both.

 Today marks the 31st day since my last drink. A whole month! Holy shit! And it's not February on a non-Leap Year, either. It's like a July or a December. The last time I did something like that was probably 15 years ago. I've been drunk almost every day since.

That means yesterday was Day 30. How did I celebrate? I went to a liquor store and a bar.

*record scratch*

Why would I do that? Three reasons. The first covers both scenarios. Like Billy the Kid in Young Guns, I believe in testing myself every day. How am I supposed to stay away from booze in a world where booze surrounds me? I have to be used to it. If I can't accept that fact, then I might as well drink myself silly again. I didn't even think of getting something to drink at either place. Didn't even enter my mind.

The second reason applies to the bar. My aunt is in town, and she wanted to take me to lunch. She had her dog with her, and Fitz's Pub is pet friendly. We sat outside, but I went in to see if it was OK to do so. I spoke with the bartender, surrounded by glittering bottles of amber fluid, and I got permission and walked back out. Again, I didn't have any cravings or urges. Easy going.

The third reason is the biggest, though, at least for me. Longtime readers remember that whenever I visit my grandfather's grave I bring along two airplane bottles of Jim Beam, his favorite whiskey. I would pour one into the ground for him, and I would drink the other myself. It has been tradition for as long as my grandfather has been dead.

Just because I'm on the wagon doesn't mean Gramps has to suffer. So I went to the liquor store and bought one airplane bottle. Any other time I would have been salivating for a handle of booze even before I so much as touched the door handle outside. Once again, I didn't think of getting something for myself. Not even one iota. I got that airplane bottle and pocketed it and headed for the cemetery.

I told myself that I would at least smell it when I took the top off. Just to see my own reaction. They say that if you're away from hard liquor for a while, you don't even like the smell of it, and I wanted to see for myself.

So I visited with Gramps. This was the first time visiting Grandma since she passed, as she and her mom are buried on the same plot with Gramps. After spending some time with them I twisted off the top and poured it down onto Gramps's side of the grave. Only later, as I was throwing out the empty bottle, did I realize that I'd forgotten to smell the whiskey. So I never did find out if I'm repulsed by the smell yet.

I doubt it. Most alcoholics will say they don't even like the taste of liquor. They just drink it for the effect. I'm different, though. I revel in the taste of whiskey. Anyone who has ever had a few with me knows that I don't grimace when I take down a shot, and I will sometimes swish it around in my mouth before swallowing. For maximum effect, of course.

I'm sure I'll find out the next time I visit Gramps. If I remember to take a sniff.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #504: SPLATTER WESTERNS

 

Look at that! The cover of my next (probably) book!

Many of you may have been wondering where that splatter western I was talking about a while back went to. I swear, it's finished and almost ready. Even if I die tomorrow, it will still be published at some point, as it is waiting in the folder I have called IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH. And goddam! That's a beautiful cover from Luke Spooner! But oddly enough, that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

For a very brief period of time the splatter western was all the rage, and as I suspected, it ran out of gas pretty quickly. That's what happens with a lot of sub-sub-sub genre stuff. I thought the phrase was pretty laughable, and I still do. This is actually a book I originally wrote in 2003 and was doing a huge overhaul on, but I knew there was no way it would be out in time to cash in on the Great New Thing, which wasn't all that new, anyway. I much preferred it when it was called the Weird Western Tale.

Regardless, my topic for tonight is my disdain for publishing labels. Or any marketing labels, really. I think it diminishes the work because humanity just absolutely cannot stop themselves from classifying everything. I understand it when it comes to science, but when it comes to art? No thanks.

You may also recall me talking about my splatter SF book, and I'm here to assure you it was very much tongue in cheek. Who the hell writes a splatter SF book, anyway? You might mention the movie, Event Horizon, which would qualify if I didn't despise labels so much. But when you think of SF, you mostly think of hard SF or social SF, and even those labels are too much for me. To quote Heinlein, "Specialization is for insects."

I get the need for some categories. Horror, SF, mystery, fantasy, so on. But when you start splitting those up into sub-categories, that's where you lose me. Must we turn every single fucking thing on this planet into a marketing scheme? I guess the answer is yes, but very few see it as cheapening art, which it is doing.

I remember when I first heard of Korpiklaani, which I simply consider to be metal. But because everyone loves labels, I started going around calling them Finnish folk metal, just to see if anyone would bite. Imagine my surprise when, a couple of albums back, they had a sticker on their CD cover proclaiming them to be Finnish folk metal. I doubt they got that from me. I hope they didn't. But if I started something, I really need to stop talking about splatter SF before some fool takes up that banner and waves it like a lunatic.

Maybe I'm just being ye olde stick in the mud. Perhaps I am. But this situation is almost as bad as people calling art "content." I fucking hate that. If art really is content, maybe I should give up writing and become a YouTube star. To quote Jello Biafra, "Is my cock big enough? Is my brain small enough? For you to make me a star?"

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #503: MY GOODREADS REVIEW OF MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM!

 Another busy day where time got away from me. I will be glad when I no longer attend those three hour recovery meetings three times a week. That will give me back so much time. Also, I got my eyes dilated today, so reading and typing things is a bit difficult for me. Just typing this took about five minutes when ordinarily it would take less than one. Anyway, I just finished MAKE ROOM! MAKE ROOM! by Harry Harrison, the basis for the movie SOYLENT GREEN, so here is my Goodreads review. I should have something better for tomorrow night.

This was a fun read, and I'm glad 1999 didn't turn out the way Harrison expected. But it's still in the cards, especially now that Roe v Wade has been struck down by the Supreme Court. Andy Rusch is a cop in NYC, and his job is made worse by the economic situation of a city overstuffed with people. Murderers get away with their crimes everyday because the police don't have the resources to investigate them, but when a sleazy dude named Big Mike gets killed, all the politicians and mob bosses put pressure on Andy's boss to make sure he solves this one.

The thing I really liked, though, was Sol's speech near the end about how screwed the world is and how politicians use language to incite the mob to keep business as usual despite the fact that business as usual is atrociously horrible and changing it would make existence for everyone more tolerable. It's something we were probably suffering from back when Harrison wrote this, and it's certainly something we're dealing with now. It angers me that some politicians will defend the "lives" of unborn fetuses that are unwanted by their mothers. Not just because it will lead to the overpopulation Harrison describes, but mostly because it's a woman's right to decide what she does with her body. And yet those same politicians don't care about that fetus once it's born. By then it's just another welfare suck for them. The hypocrisy is practically blinding. The same goes for the reliance on fossil fuels. In the book, they're gone. We used it all up. We're on track to do that now, and what then? Just give up on cars, like in the book? It's really as simple as a politician's reliance on money from oil companies. They don't dare bite the hand that feeds. And the oil companies play it safe by paying ALL politicians. They don't care who wins, just so long as they paid for it. Therefore, because of this fear of not being reelected, these scumbags have doomed the rest of us and the future. I guess the oil companies haven't figured out how to monetize solar or wind power. Once they do, I'm sure we'll have a cleaner future, but they're still going to be horrible people who do things solely for the payday.

I'm getting off track. The big question on my mind while reading this is when do the suicide machines and Soylent Green come in? It turns out that they don't. An odd revelation, considering how famous that reveal is in the movie. And it does make sense that in an overpopulated world, the most reliable food source would be people. But that doesn't happen here. The book still comes to a satisfying ending, though, and for those who feel robbed by it, I would point out how low my opinion of bureaucracy is. Hint: It's lower than whale doo-doo.

NOW ANNOUCING SHIT POEMS NUMBER TWO!

 SHIT POEMS 

NUMBER 2 

 

 

BY JOHN BRUNI 

 

YES! It is finally upon us! I have just completed SHIT POEMS NUMBER TWO! And if you buy my new book, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HIERONYMUS ALOYSIS ZIEGE, you will get a copy of this for free! If you've already bought the book, you can send me a copy of the receipt and your mailing address, and I'll send you a copy of this for free. Limited to 30 copies, so first come, first serve. All of these will be signed.

If you haven't bought the book yet, you can do so here. I expect to have a bunch of copies of it myself soon, so you can buy directly from me, and I'll sign them. And if you're in Chicago for Printers Row on Sept. 10-11, I'll have copies of ZIEGE and SHIT POEMS NUMBER TWO.

And yes, there is a bunch more Nic Cage poems in this one, including one for THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT, which I think you'll like.

You can contact me in the comments below, or if you're on my Twitter or Facebook, you can get me there. Or, if all else fails, you can send an email to tabardinnedgewoodent@yahoo.com.