GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #607: 200

 

It's my 200th day from booze, and while I was taking a break from writing GF columns, I found the first bottle of booze I ever drank.

Yeah, all right, I save weird things sometimes. I'm a pubic hair's width away from being a hoarder, and I guess my discovery of whiskey had enough of an effect on me that I knew I'd want to remember the bottle that started it all.

Except the whole thing got out of hand pretty badly. I've gone over that before, so I won't ramble about it again. Suffice to say that I don't think I became an alcoholic until my mid-thirties. I bought this bottle in my early twenties. I might still have been in college at the time.

Look at that! Only six faces on the label! Booker Noe was still the distiller back then. That would be the guy Booker's is named after, and that is my actual favorite whiskey in the world. Wild Turkey 101 is my favorite that I can afford. Booker's probably goes for $80 a bottle now.

Jim Beam was my choice back then because that was Gramps's favored drink (since no one could ever make a Manhattan to his satisfaction). Near the end of my boozing days I recognized how out of control things were getting. I was drinking Canadian whiskey that I bought at five bucks a handle, for Christ's sake. I made the decision that I would never drink anything cheaper than Beam. A lot of drinkers scorn the Beam choice, but it's fairly inexpensive, and it gets the job done.

Although if I could afford better, I usually got that instead.

I miss booze, but I'm a rare alcoholic who actually enjoys the taste. This seems like heresy, but I'm wondering if there are any non-alcoholic bourbons out there. That might be nice to look into.

Anyway, my next stop on the no booze wagon train is my year mark. Let's see if I can get there.

This man has no idea how awesome he's going to be in Zardoz.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #606: REREADING POOR BASTARDS AND RICH FUCKS

 

I found myself recently in a position where I felt it necessary to reread one of my books. For reasons. Reasons that may or may not become clear at some point in the near future. Anyway, that book was Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks.

I haven't read it since I edited the final draft, so it was . . . an experience. I've come a long way since writing this book, and it really wasn't published all that long ago. I found myself grimacing at times. Not at content, mind you, but at wording and phrases. Stuff I'd never do today. I kind of wanted to go back and do it all again, but I'll refrain from that. Once a book is out there, it's out there. Unless you're Stephen King, in which case go ahead and do it.

But I'm not Stephen King, and there will be no revised Gunslinger edition of Poor Bastards and Rich Fucks.

I also caught a few typos, which embarrassed me, and you know how difficult it is for me to feel embarrassed. It was kind of rough.

The good news: it's still the ugly, graphic book I'd always meant it to be, so that's good. It's merciless in its pursuit of poking at the class war that is constant and never ending in America. All in all, reading my own book did not make me feel too much like a loser. Just awkward. I imagine this is the same feeling parents get when their kid does something odd. Not necessarily evil or wrong, just unusual. Yeah, that's my kid. He's . . . weird, but he's OK.

Perhaps soon you will learn why I had to do this. There are things in the works . . . Stay tuned.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #605: ANDERSON'S

 You've heard me mention Anderson's as my favorite bookstore before. There are three locations. There is the original in Naperville, which is where authors usually go for signings. I've met a lot of people there, from Clive Barker to Weird Al to Penn Jillette to Dave Barry to Sarah Pinborough to . . . hell, I've met a lot of authors there. It's a great place, and their signings are always worth it.

There is another location in Downers Grove, which is also a pretty good store. It's a good backup if I can't get out to Naperville. And then there's the LaGrange location which I've only ever been to once. Parking is annoying, and I have to walk a distance to get there, which is never good for my bad leg. I also don't like the layout there.

Once upon a time it was easier to get to an Anderson's because there used to be one in Elmhurst a mere ten minutes from my place. I miss that one a lot. Back when I was still doing Tabard Inn I even got issues one and two in there on consignment. It was a great place. Elmhurst really needs a bookstore.

But Anderson's hasn't been in Elmhurst for maybe 20 years. Before that there was this great used book place called the Thrifty Scholar, where I got a lot of awesome books before they disappeared almost overnight. And then there was Ye Olde Book Worm, but I've mentioned that here before a few times. That really was the best bookstore Elmhurst ever had.

Now Elmhurst doesn't have a bookstore. Not really. There's A Book Above behind Mama Maria's on Vallette five minutes from me, but I've only ever been there once. It's more or less a children's bookstore with some stuff for any adults who may be waiting for their kids. It's not a great place. The only time I was there I bought a book just to be polite and left.

We need a real bookstore in Elmhurst again. Every once in a while I fantasize about opening a bookstore of my own, but I know it would fail in no time flat. I know books very well, but business? I have a rudimentary understanding, and that's no way to run a bookstore. Besides, the rental costs for apartments are out of control in Elmhurst. I can't imagine how much it would cost to rent a store.

Until someone thinks to bring a real bookstore back to Elmhurst, I guess I'm stuck driving great distances to get my fix. There's also the Frugal Muse in Darien, which is great, but also it's quite a distance. There's always Half Price Books, but I'd much rather go to indie bookstores. Ah well.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #604: FUCK IT

Child of Rage by Jim Thompson

 

A while back--A LONG WHILE BACK--I wrote about how I was saving Child of Rage by Jim Thompson as the last book I will ever read. Now that I'm older (and possibly wiser) I think maybe I've made a terrible mistake. And according to that old GF column I knew exactly why it was a terrible mistake, and I decided to go ahead and make it anyway.

Well. Fuck it.

Considering all the shit I've been through, there is no way to guarantee that I would know when I was dying. I mean, I've been there before. I survived one death sentence, and I've survived a dozen brushes with death. I could have gone at any moment, and I would have not gotten to Child of Rage. I don't know how I'll die. Right now I'm not certain that I will die. Surviving all the crazy shit I have? It's a shocker that I still walk amongst you. Yet here I am. Maybe the world can't kill me? Although for a while I thought that I had died, and that I was living in the afterlife. 

(If you missed it, when I got out of the hospital in 2020 after going through king hell alcohol withdrawals, I thought I might have died in the hospital and that I was going through the motions of a very boring and annoying afterlife.)

I'm fairly certain that when my time comes, it will be a heart attack. It's the way I'd prefer to go. I don't want to linger for months on end. I don't want to be a burden to others. I don't want to suffer. A heart attack puts you down nice and quick, and you don't have to deal with long goodbyes. So if I'm right, I'll never read this book. What am I going to do, stop a heart attack so I can read a novel?

And remember, I wondered if it was possible that the book was bad. Thompson wrote a lot of great books, but there were a few stinkers in there. I'd feel like a dumbass if I saved this as my last book and it turned out to be shit.

So fuck it. I'm reading Child of Rage now. Watch, it turns out to be Thompson's best book and definitely worth saving it for last. Ah well. We'll find out soon.

I may have said this before, but I'll say it again. Once upon a time I drank a half a fifth of whiskey and wrote a story called "If I Drank as Much as Hemingway." It was a very funny and spot on parody. Then I finished the bottle and wrote "If I Drank as Much as Faulkner." It was funny, but it was also a mess. I told myself that one day I'd drink two fifths and write "If I Drank as Much as Jim Thompson." But I'm pretty sure that would have killed me even at the heights of my boozehound powers. Jim Thompson was a rare alcoholic. He made it to his seventies, boozing at full force. He literally died from drink. So yeah, maybe it was a good idea that I never did that one.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #603: A QUANDARY

 Whenever I see a Kindle book for free, I pick it up. I have a library of unread books on my phone, but I will get to them all eventually. It takes a while because I only read them when I'm on lunch at work (I don't want to soil the pages of a book with my crumby fingers, so I use my clean pinky to swipe at the screen) or when I'm waiting at a doctor's office or something along those lines. But I feel it's important that when I pick up those books, I leave an honest review. That is the unspoken cost of a free Kindle book, and I never want to ignore that.

So now I come to a quandary because I'm currently reading a really, really bad Kindle book. Whatever you're imagining, it's waaaaaaay worse than that. I don't really want to leave a review because it could only be harmful, but at the same time I don't want to shirk my responsibility.

\

It occurs to me that a few of you reading this might think I'm talking about you. Don't worry. I'm not. I'm not naming the author, but I'm 99.9% certain I don't know this person, and this person doesn't know me.

Anyway, I thought maybe a wishy-washy way to get out of it and still complete my duty would be to leave a one star review and say that it didn't do it for me. But a part of me feels that it's not fair.

What I really want to do is leave constructive criticism. Because I get the feeling that this is the author's first book. Or, possibly, the author is a teenager who doesn't know what they're doing yet. There is a statement at the front of the book about how the author wants to become a better writer, so why not offer my assistance?

Except I've been told that when I give writing advice, I can be very abrasive. I swear I don't mean it that way. I try to be as nice as possible, but for some reason, almost every time, that person tells me I'm being a dick. Considering how I have a somewhat known name in the writing community, it would probably look like I was punching down. That wouldn't be my intention, but I feel certain that would be how it would be taken.

I'm probably going to finish the book during my lunch break on Saturday, so I have that long to figure out what I'm going to do. I could just not finish it and delete it from my Kindle library and pretend I never saw it, but that would be the coward's way. I'll probably figure something out. Maybe.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #602: FAILED IDEAS

Can't stand my work? Blame this book.

 

So here's a peek into my thought process behind ideas, in particular ideas that I should not have had. This happens to me often, sad to say. I come up with this great idea before I realize that it already exists in a very blatant way. This is the most recent idea that went south on me.

Writing last week about Vivian Schurfranz made me feel nostalgic for the kinds of things I used to write. My first stories were imitations of the Hardy Boys, so I started thinking about those books on Friday and throughout the weekend. I kind of wanted to go back and read some of the classics. 

If you don't know, the Hardy Boys were created in the early 20th Century. They're brothers who follow in their father's footsteps to become detectives and go on all sorts of adventures.

Then I started thinking, why don't I do something like the Hardy Boys today? Except they'll be actual teenagers instead of the sanitized all American clean boys that we know. These teenage brothers would think about things like sex all the time, just like actual teenage boys. And hey! What if they hunted monsters instead of criminals? Wouldn't that be cool?

It would be cool. Except at that moment I realized there already was a duo of young brothers following in their father's footsteps, hunting monsters. Supernatural, in other words. Whoops!

Although that goes a long way towards explaining why I enjoy that show so much. It's not just a love of horror. It brings back a feeling I used to have often as a child. It scratches that same itch.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about the time I came up with the idea to have a detective tracking down aliens and bigfoot and other monsters while accompanied by his skeptic partner . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #601: WELL, THAT DIDN'T WORK

 So once again I'm rethinking my self-promotion plan. When I started pimping one thing every weekday, there were mixed results. Sometimes it worked out. Most times it did not. Plus it started to become a bit of a hassle. Sometimes I'd even forget to post something. Or I'd remember and get annoyed at it.

So maybe I'll try something else. Here's what I'm thinking. I have copies of my own books, so I figure I'll pimp those. One a week. If someone buys from me, there will be some additional incentive. Not sure what that is yet. I'll figure it out. So I'm taking a week long break from promoting my own shit while I sort out the details.

Ah! Maybe a sampler package of my work! That could be a good incentive. I'll put together something digital. Put a complete short story in there. Maybe novel excerpts. Things like that. Would anyone be interested in that kind of thing?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #600: HAVE I REALLY WRITTEN 600 OF THESE FUCKIN' THINGS?

 Wow. I've written a lot of these. I had no idea that this would last quite so long, but here we are. I wondered what the hell I should write about, and I thought why not write about writing? A lot of you know that I decided to become a writer when I was a little kid reading Hardy Boys books, The Haunted Fort in particular. And I may have mentioned this before, but considering my interests, I had a very unusual first mentor.

Vivian Schurfranz wrote historical novels geared toward young adults, usually girls. When I was in junior high, she visited our school to talk about writing, and I got super excited. She was the first author I'd ever met. She also made a presentation on the subject at the Elmhurst Public Library, which I also went to. As she signed a copy of one of her books for me, I got to talk to her about writing. She wanted to see some of my work, so she gave me her address in Evanston, and I started sending her stories to see what she thought.

She encouraged my writing a great deal, probably more than she should have, and I got to know what writing for a living was like at an early age. It helped me a great deal in my development as an author, and I owe a great deal to her generosity. I can't tell you how great she made me feel as a kid whose sole ambition was to one day have a book out there with my name on the cover. She made me think like this was something I could actually do.

Lo and behold.

I don't know why our correspondence fell off. I found a lot of old letters recently, one of which can be seen above, and I used to write to a lot of people back then. For some reason during high school I fell out of the habit. Out of curiosity I looked her up online. I doubted that she would still be around, and it surprised me to find out that she passed as recently as 2018. I wish I'd continued our letters. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have liked the stuff I write about now, but it would have been nice to check back in with her.

I wonder if, without her influence, I would be an author today. I'm certain I'd still be writing. That's not in question. But would I be a published author? I don't think so.

Inspiration comes to us in strange ways. I'll bet you didn't expect to learn this about me today. Here's to #700 . . .

OK, I just remembered I did touch on this before, but I didn't go into a lot of detail. And that was waaaaaaay back before I even hit my 50th GF column. This one's better anyway.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #599: MORE SHITTY NEWS

 You might remember when I wrote about my pain recently. That tennis elbow? It turns out that it might not be that at all. Because I got sick of the pain today and went to immediate care. The doctor examined my hand in particular because that was the worst of it. I figured maybe there was an issue with a tendon or something, but it turns out to be shittier than that.

I have a very short list of things that would make me drink again, and this near diagnosis is on that list. It's not certain yet. I haven't been tested. But the doctor said that all signs are pointing to one thing in particular.

He says, in all likelihood, that I have rheumatoid arthritis. He has advised that I try not to use my hands very much. That is horrifying news since typing is very important to me, not just as a writer but also as a salesman. I spend eight hours a day typing, and I have to be fast because often people talk fast when they're looking for something, not realizing that someone has to take that information down.

It's not definite. That's probably why I didn't stop at the liquor store on the way home. Not yet. I wouldn't be surprised that if it does turn out to be true, I might not make it a full year without a drink. Because I am not going to stop typing. I'm going to have to type faster to get it all in before I can't do it anymore.

It would also put the final coffin nail in my plan to exercise. Try to work out without using your knees and elbows, places where I'm feeling all that pain. Who would have thought that my bad leg would eventually become the least of my pains?

I'm starting to feel a little sorry for myself, so before I talk myself into getting drunk, I'm going to sign off for the night. Hey, tomorrow is gonna be GF #600. I'll try to be more cheerful for that.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #598: CHOCOLATE

 A lot of you know I'm diabetic. I came to it a little differently than most, though. I don't eat sweets. I don't eat cake or pie. No chocolate. No candy. Nothing. I got to this place because of the sheer massive amount of Coke I drank for most of my life. However much Coke you think that is? You're not even close to half of what I drank in those days.

People always look at me weird when I say I don't like chocolate. It's just not my thing. I'll have it every once in a while, but for the most part I don't care for it.

A while back, while I was still in IOP, one of my fellow addicts said that since he quit drinking he also can't stand chocolate. He asked us if we'd ever heard of something like that. I had heard the opposite, actually. I was warned a couple of times that if I ever quit drinking, I would suddenly become a chocoholic.

Here I am on my 187th day from my last drink, and holy shit. I love chocolate. I have no idea how this happened, but I find myself buying Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (the Big Cups, no less) all the time. I stopped and got a couple of packages on the way home from work today. I also get Snickers with almonds. Also, I get Hershey's with almonds. And every once in a while I'll get a Mr. Goodbar.

Holy shit, this is horrible news for a diabetic like me. I've gone through a lot of my life not eating chocolate. And not even caring for it! I force myself to not indulge myself on most days, but when I have the following day off from work? I can't help myself. On those days that I don't get anything, I miss it. For the love of fuck, it actually bums me out.

I gotta do something about this. At least when I was drinking my blood sugars were low. I didn't really eat much of anything back then, and the booze didn't have sugar in it. Is it possible that quitting drinking made me less healthy?!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #597: A SAD DAY

 It is a sad day indeed. So I've still been working through my reading list, but I've also been packing my things up for my inevitable move. I thought I was being forward thinking when setting books aside that were coming up on my list, but I fucked that up. As a result I had to check those books out from the library (because there's no way in hell I'm unpacking anything at this point).

While doing so, I learned a horrible thing.

The Elmhurst Public Library. Where I toiled for almost ten years of my life. Where I was proud to point out a Chicagoland library that has some of my books in it.

Where my books are no longer in circulation.

That's right, I discovered my books are no longer in my hometown library. A very sad day. Did no one check them out? I wonder if they're in the sale room right now as withdrawn books. I hope so. I'd hate to think that they won't go to a loving home.

Or maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe they'll get donated to the local historical society! I don't think there are many authors from Elmhurst, so maybe they're pieces of history?

Yeah, that's a long stretch. Ah well.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #596: THE PLAN

At the beginning of every year I come up with a plan for my career as an author. What I want to do. What I want to work on. Etc. I thought I'd tanked 2022 in that regard, but over the weekend I took a look at that plan and saw I didn't do half bad.

There were two anthologies I knew I'd be in, so I didn't worry too much about those. There were two other anthologies that were in the works at the time, but I had high faith in them, and sure enough all four came to pass with very little effort from me outside of writing the stories.

I got IT CHANGES A MAN out there, which I'm very glad for. I also got DONG OF FRANKENSTEIN AND OTHER PORNOS YOU CAN'T JERK IT TO published, too. It was originally supposed to be something silly like BRUNI'S BIG BOOK OF SEX, but I'm glad a better title occurred to me.

Also, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HIERONYMUS ALOYSIS ZIEGE came out just in time for Printers Row, which I was a little worried about. I'd written it specifically for Printers Row, and I had a lot of copies of that one. Too bad we got rained out the second day. I still have copies of that and Shit Poems Number Two, if anyone is interested.

But here's where my plan fucked up. I wanted to get my splatter western, TRAIL OF BLOOD, out there. I even had a cover by Luke Spooner for it, but I ran into a lot of problems and had to delay it.  I have almost everything worked out, and I hope to have it out by February. I also wanted my splatter SF book, EYE CUTTER, out at the end of last year. TRAIL OF BLOOD was supposed to be spring, EYE CUTTER winter. Whoops! Now I expect to have EYE CUTTER out no later than Halloween. If you enjoyed IT CHANGES A MAN, then you'll be glad to see Stork is still around.

But that was my big fuck up of 2022. I missed a few other things on my list. There were stories and other things I wanted to work on but never got around to it. I don't consider that too much of a loss. These were mere suggestions to myself if I somehow found myself with a surplus of time on my hands, which did not happen, by the way.

And then I came up with a list of things I'd like to think about for 2023. One of those things I actually got to before the end of 2022. I don't know how that happened, but there you go.

So I came up with my plan for this year. It's not nearly as ambitious as the one for 2022, but here's what it looks like so far, aside from TRAIL OF BLOOD and EYE CUTTER. I want to write another sex book for Kindle only. I have it narrowed down to two ideas. I also want to write another Kindle only splatter SF novella following the adventures of someone we'll meet in EYE CUTTER. I also have an idea for putting together the collection of my Slate stories with a brand new story as an incentive to buy. And then I'm thinking about maybe a chapbook of true life stories of getting drunk and doing crazy shit. It would be a bit more professionally put together than the two volumes of Shit Poems. Those were meant to look more like 'zines than chapbooks. This one would be more along the lines of what that term entails.

I'd originally planned for two other novels, but those will have to be delayed until 2024 for now. So yeah, hopefully this plan works out better than last year's. Also, since 2020 I noticed a horrible trend. With each new year, I should be making more money writing books, yes? That was the case until the Year of the Plague. Understandable, especially since the Plague meant no Printers Row, which is where I make most of my money in one go. Since 2020, though, I've been making less and less each year. This is a horrible situation that absolutely cannot be allowed to continue. So I'll be brainstorming a few things.

Like Patreon, for example. If I did one of those, what kinds of things would you want from me each month? Just putting some feelers out there. Let me know in the comments or on social media or email, etc.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #595: THE SMORGASBORD

 Tomorrow would have been Gramps's 96th birthday. It's hard to believe he's been gone almost seven years. I always used to think that if he died, I would completely lose it. I wouldn't be able to function. And while times have been pretty rough since his passing, and I've gone crazy a couple of times, I didn't completely lose it.

Since I don't do these things on weekends, I thought that this one should be about Gramps. I've told you all about him quite often, so I had to struggle to think of something. Maybe it's not all that glamorous, but here we go.

I remember when I was a kid Gramps had a very strict diet he adhered to. A veritable smorgasbord, if you will, of sandwiches. Every night he would make these towering sandwiches that would make Jughead drool. And he'd eat four or five of these giant things. I have no idea how he did it or even why, but he took great pleasure in his giant sandwiches.

And then after he finished eating he would pour one (1) shot of Jim Beam and take it down. "For digestion," he always told me.

I figured that's what adults did for dinner. Ate a bunch of absurdly big sandwiches and then have one shot of whiskey after. In imitation I would make a sandwich for myself (no more than that, I was still a skinny kid back then) and take one of his shotglasses so I could drink apple juice from it, thinking that when I grew up I'd switch from Mott's to Jim Beam.

I got the Jim Beam part right. A little too right, some might say. But I don't eat all that many sandwiches. Except for at lunch. And never more than one in a sitting.

It's too bad they never had sandwich eating competitions. Gramps would have been a stone cold killer at those.

Happy birthday, Gramps.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #594: A BOY SHOULD HAVE A KNIFE

 

Not too long ago I found my childhood knife, pictured above. I don't remember when Gramps gave it to me, but I'm pretty sure it was in first grade. Maybe third at the latest, but I think first. I remember he showed it to me, and I got excited because I was a child in the 'Eighties, and this is the kind of thing that did it for boys back then. That and Hot Wheels and boobs in horror movies and baseball. He told me that this had been his knife when he was a kid. He said, "A boy should have a knife." And so the boyhood knife was passed down.

I carried that thing with me everywhere. School, Cub Scout meetings, baseball games, you name it. I played in the woods a lot, and a knife could be pretty handy.

My cousin was there that day, and Gramps gave him one, too. It looked a lot different. I know it wasn't brand new, but it looked a lot more recent than the one he gave me. I think I got this one because I was the first grandson. My cousin was the second.

So my cousin's sister gave birth a while ago. I think that means her son is my second cousin. Not sure. I'm not big on categorization, in case you haven't noticed, so I don't really care to find out for sure. I think I have my cousin's knife somewhere, and it occurred to me that maybe my second cousin should have it if I find it. "A boy should have a knife," Gramps said to me.

But then I stopped and thought about all the mischief I got up to with that knife, and then I thought about how much time has passed since then. I'm talking decades. DECADES. The world has moved on. Some think that's a good thing, others a bad thing. I consider it a thing, nothing more. It's as inevitable as Thanos.

I thought about how different school probably is now. How if a boy carried a knife to school today, he would probably be arrested by noon and on the news by six. It wouldn't matter his intentions. Some things are forbidden now. That's probably a good thing.

So is it psychotic for a boy, who I think is in middle school now, to have a knife like the one pictured above?

(I almost typed junior high, but there is another thing that the sands of time has changed. And I'm not sure if he's in middle school. He probably is. But when I hit the age of 40 it started getting difficult for me to judge a young person's age. College kids look like they should be in middle school to me. High school kids look like they're ten to me. I don't know what it is. I wonder if that's the same way with others my age.)

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #593: IT FINALLY HAPPENED

 Well, I hate to say it, but it finally happened. I gave in to my addiction. I slipped and fell and I still have not gotten back up. I decided to give in entirely because I've discovered that I can't live a single day without my drug.

I'm back on the caffeine.

Wait, what did you think I meant?

Just kidding. No, I'm drinking caffeine again, and it aggravates the shit out of me. I started drinking it again during the holidays because I really needed a pick me up, and there were free energy drinks at work. So why not drink a few of them? Just to get through my shift without constantly yawning. Barely being able to keep my eyes open while on the phone with about a hundred customers a day. Literally.

I found myself graduating back up to the giant cans this week. The ones you could club someone to death with. At least I'm sticking to the ones that don't have sugar in them. For the most part.

Quitting caffeine is going to suck. Again. And again. Why not give in? It's the one addiction no one on the planet has a problem with. You could mainline caffeine 24/7 and no one would talk shit about it. Not unless you got hyperactive. Even then they might let it slide. Besides, getting Caffeine Free Diet Coke, my drink of choice these days, is getting harder and harder. The store never has it in stock anymore. I've had to settle for the Pepsi version, and it's just not all that great.

Ah fuck. Well. Here we go again.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #592: RIP KEVIN CANDELA

 The family wanted some time before anyone talked about this, and I held off on this one out of respect for that. Yesterday morning I learned that my friend, author Kevin Candela, passed away the previous night. I'd heard about some of his medical issues, but I thought he'd beaten it all. He's the kind of guy who didn't want to burden others with his own problems, so it came as a surprise to a lot of us when he passed. I still can't believe he's gone.

I've never met him in real life, but it felt like I had. He was on the other side of IL from me, but we talked often about writing and movies we loved. He was the one and only person on this planet who could talk passionately about Quatermass and the Pit. I love the movie, but he brought it to a whole new level. We liked talking about Whedon shows, but oddly the one that most people think of wasn't one of them. It was usually Agents of SHIELD and, sometimes, Firefly. He loved Miracle Workers, and he was looking forward to the new season. I find it hard to believe that he and I won't talk about it when it comes out.

I've shared a lot of TOCs with author friends, but I shared the most with Kevin. Hands down, no contest. We worked together on the Hunter S. Thompson tribute anthologies we did with Kent Hill. We were also in all four volumes of the Straight to Video anthology series. We did the Bukowski book together. And many others. I always kind of wondered what it would be like if he, Kent and I did another HST book. I don't think we'll ever know. It wouldn't feel right to do it without Kevin.

And he was prolific. I thought *I* wrote a lot. Kevin had so many books to his name, it's ridiculous. I'm told that he was working on his final story on his death bed. That's a dedication to one's craft that I don't think even I could match, and I was writing in my hospital room after getting my toes amputated.

I put him in one of the HST stories once. I didn't tell him about it. I wanted him to find out as he read it for editing purposes. He told me after that I'd gotten him down perfect. I think it made him happier than he'd let on. I hope it did.

Here's the thing that gets me. The week before he passed I thought to myself, hey, I haven't heard from Kevin in a while. I should check on him. I'm not sure what happened. I had my phone on me, so I could have easily sent him a message on Facebook, but I didn't do it. I really wish I had. It would have been nice to hear from him one more time before he left us.

I don't believe in the afterlife, but if it exists, I hope he's there already watching the rest of Miracle Workers. Because it is unthinkable that the afterlife doesn't have complete runs of shows, even if they haven't been finished on the mortal coil yet.

Goodnight, Kevin. I miss you already.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #591: ELVIS

 Yesterday would have been Elvis's 88th birthday. Or actually was his birthday depending on what you believe. Personally I think an impersonator died on that Graceland toilet, and the real Elvis went down with JFK fighting a mummy at an old folks home in Texas. It costs me nothing to believe this, and it hurts no one, so there we go.

Anyway, let's put Elvis on hold for a moment. We'll get back to him.

Read this first. Then read the rest of this to the tune of this Megadeth song. (Not "Holy Wars . . . The Punishment Due," in case you're wondering before you click the link.)

That picture is from, I think, Halloween 1997. None of these people are CJ or Eric, but that's Rob with the innocent look of childlike wonder on his face, which was very uncharacteristic of him. Those are my hands on the right.

Yeah, our Call of Cthulhu games got pretty fucking wild. I remember the night of the mercy killings. I think the argument was actually over how bullets would impact a lesser Great Old One. 

On another night, during the dread campaign known as The Mask of Nyarlathotep, Rob got arrested. The cops were there because they thought there was a murder in progress. It was a hot summer night, and CJ didn't have air conditioning, so we took a break from the game and went up on the roof. Rob felt the need to tickle me so much that a struggle ensued (and yes, I'm very ticklish), and one of the neighbors thought two of us (Rob and CJ) were trying to throw the third (me) off the roof. She called the cops, and they sent out almost the entire force.

I remember us looking down at Fellow's Ct and seeing a shit-ton of cops, us wondering if they were there for us. We decided to go back down when we saw even more cops pulling up behind the building. They were definitely there for us. They followed us into the apartment, and they found CJ's booze collection on a window pane inside. CJ was 18 at the time, but they didn't arrest him because his dad's name was on the lease, so technically it was his dad's booze. Technically.

I remember we had Double Gulps from 7-Eleven, and one of the cops said, "What did you put in this?"

"Coke," CJ said.

"I'll bet."

"You wanna taste?" CJ asked.

The cop did not want a taste.

They let us go except for Rob because he had an outstanding warrant at the time. He might still have warrants in this state. It's hard to tell when it comes to him.

But my favorite night of gaming came when we were still in high school. Both of us. He left during his sophomore year, I think. I remember we were in his old room on the south of Elmhurst. I forget the specifics of the game, but I remembered it was a time travel campaign. He was playing a Southern character who wound up fighting some kind of monster at Graceland. His Southern character worshipped Elvis, and when he got to meet the King, he loved every minute.

Then Elvis said, "I'll be right back. Gotta take a dump."

And Rob, in his most earnest voice, screamed, "NO! ELVIS! DON'T!"

"Whatssa matter?" I said in my finest Elvis drawl. "It's jussa dump."

I cracked up just typing this.

Good God! Those were fun times. I have a stack of our dead investigators that is impressively thick. Many of them died when I ran The Mask of Nyarlathotep because I allowed the players as many investigators as they wanted. They chose an army. I knew the death count would be high, and it was. Very much so. The investigators won, but at what cost?

It's been a while since I gamed with anyone. Sadly I've fallen out of love with it, but maybe someday.

Maybe someday.

NIC CAGE: 59

 It's been one year since you said, "Nic Cage can smooch!"

It's been nine years since you were Left Behind.

It's been twelve years since your last ghost ride.

It's been twelve years since you threatened to drink beer out of that dude's skull and then did it.

59, Big Daddy.

Remember, fourteen years ago, when you snorted heroin thinking it was cocaine?

Remember, sixteen years ago, when you graced the silver screen as Fu Manchu?

Remember, seventeen years ago, the horrible incident with the bees?

Remember, nineteen years ago, how you were our National Treasure?

59, Big Daddy.

Whether you're screaming about beating someone until they're pissing blood

or listening to Brian Cox tell you to avoid the deus ex machina

or sacrificing yourself for a Navajo windtalker

or simply bringing out the dead

it's 59, Big Daddy.

From snuff films

to angels

to Alcatraz

to being a Secret Service agent,

Whether you're leaving Las Vegas or honeymooning there,

or whether you're hanging in Red Rock West

or you're busy raising Arizona,

Please stay wild at heart.

It's been fifty-nine years since your debut on earth.

Happy birthday, Nic Cage!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #590: I JUST DON'T GET IT

 So I watched this a few weeks ago and enjoyed it a great deal. It's an interview between Brendan Fraser and Adam Sandler. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I can't stand Adam Sandler movies. However, I like Fraser a lot more than I can't stand Sandler, so I watched it. You might get a kick out of it, too.

I just don't get Sandler's appeal. What is it about him that makes you all like his movies? I tried. I really did. There is just something about him that rubs me the wrong way that no one else seems to notice. I can tolerate Little Nicky. The movie, not the character. The character is really super annoying. I only ever liked one Sandler movie, and that was Funny People. He was great in that. But everything else? I'm baffled.

I didn't even like him on SNL. How the hell did anyone think Opera Man was funny? A piece of my soul dies every time I hear him do this. His songs are OK. A few of them are even funny in their vulgarity. But I wouldn't listen to them more than once.

Yeah, Airheads was cool, but that's not an Adam Sandler movie. He's just in it. I can take it if he's just a supporting character, but if the movie wouldn't exist without him being there? That's a different story.

I know, I know. You're all disagreeing with me right now. And I accept that. Just you wait until I start talking about how I can't stand Friends and Seinfeld. Then you'll really get the pitchforks and torches and come after my ass. Guess I'll see you at the windmill . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #589: PAIN NEVER GOES AWAY

 Pain has been on my mind a lot lately. Not only is there the constant pain of my bad left foot, but now I'm discovering the pain of getting old. I thought I already had, but it's on a new level now.

And this pain doesn't go away.

Drinking always took the pain away. As good as quitting booze has been for me, I sometimes curse the day that I stopped drinking. If I had some whiskey right now, I wouldn't be thinking about this fucking pain. I wouldn't feel it, or at least it would be so far away that it wouldn't be worth noticing.

All my joints are fucked. My right knee wants to complain every time I move the fucking thing. My tennis elbow is still killing me. My wrists are constantly bitching at me, and only one of them has any reason to. (I'm looking at you, Leftie. Jerking off didn't take too long today. What gives?) And now it feels like two of my fingers on my right hand are dislocated. I know they're not, but neither of them feel connected at the mid knuckle. Every time I flex them I feel them pop like they're almost about to get back into place but never do.

The only way I can stand is by groaning and cursing. When I stand at work, I keep my mouth shut, but I hobble for the first few steps.

Getting old sucks. 0/10. Would not recommend.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #588: WHILE I'M THINKING ABOUT BOOZE . . .

 . . . I feel like I should remind you that my job's Christmas party of 2021 was so lame I didn't even go. I'm used to crazy parties with free booze and food, and I didn't feel like driving out to the middle of nowhere to pay for my own drinks and food. I skipped it. This year it went differently. They had it in the office for maybe a half an hour before we had to go back to work. I kinda just went in for the toast and then went back to work right away. No time for love, Dr. Jones.

There wasn't any real booze, but they did have some champagne, and you could have one even if you were still working. They offered me some, and I almost took it out of habit. Then I remembered, oh wait, champagne has alcohol in it. Not much. Certainly not enough to make me feel it. In truth, if I was still drinking I probably wouldn't have taken it, anyway. Champagne really isn't worth the alcohol content in it. I mean, probably.

I caught myself at the last moment and held up my energy drink instead. It kind of surprised me how fast I almost lost my days. While there isn't much booze in champagne, it would have been enough to send me back to zero days. And who knows? Maybe it would have been the blasting cap to me getting a bottle of whiskey from Williams Liquors on the way home. When I fuck up, I tend to think, well, it's the same punishment no matter how badly I fucked up, so might as well fuck it up all the way to the hilt. Get my money's worth.

Maybe in an alternate universe I got drunk on New Year's Eve.

You probably should have read this GF while listening to this. Whoops.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #587: MEETING THE NEW YEAR HIGH

 So I've been laying off the cannabis for a reason. I've been keeping it on the down low, but I've been looking for a new job. Just because recreational cannabis is legal in IL doesn't mean that you can still test positive for it and get a job. That sucks, but that's the way it goes.

But I gave up on looking for a new job. I'm pretty sure I can make the one I have work out decently and still get an all right apartment if not in Elmhurst then at least close by. So I decided to get high as fuck to end 2022 and meet 2023. I went out to a friend's place, and we got high and watched a bunch of cool shit. Holy fuck, I was high. It was great. We went to sleep around 3-ish, and when I woke up the next day I was still pretty high. It was excellent.

I'm pretty sure I'm unable to find a new job because of my books. I've had amazing interviews where I knocked it out of the park. One interview even treated me like I was already hired. But then these jobs started ghosting me, which has never happened to me before. I can only assume they did the poor man's background check (ie. Google), and my books came up. Well, I can't put that genie back in the bottle, so fuck it. Let's see where I can go from here.

Although some of those jobs were pretty sweet. Some of them offered as much as $75K/year. That would have been awesome. Ah well.

This is all over the place. Not much cohesion. Perhaps I'm rustier at this than I thought. But here's something interesting that happened when I went to sleep in the wee hours of New Year's Day. For the first time in ages I had a booze dream. They don't happen often, but it happened pretty hardcore that night. Probably something psychological in regards to getting high after being sober for so long. But in the dream I was taking down shot after shot after shot, and it was great. And then I remembered, holy shit! I'm not supposed to be doing this! But then I thought, fuck it. Let's keep drinking. So I did until I woke up.

I could almost taste the whiskey.

Anyway, it's good to get high again. That's not going to be an every day thing going forward, but every once in a while. Like a treat to myself. I've been a good boy. Now for my edible.

I am not high right now. Perhaps I should be, considering how much rambling I've done here tonight.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #586: WARM UP

 OK, I assume I'm going to be kind of rusty at writing these things every night. I fell out of practice, but hopefully this will get the juices flowing. Welcome back! It's 2023, and against all odds I'm still alive. How about that?

I've got a few things to get off my chest as we get closer to the 600th GF column. I imagine I'll still be doing this after that milestone. I don't have any plans on stopping even though a lot of these recent columns had a readership that fell off drastically. If I wrote these for everyone else, I'd probably stop, but this is more like a journal. Sometimes it's shock value. Sometimes it's about writing advice. Maybe I'll do more of that. We'll see.

Anyway, if you have any recommendations for things you want me to cover, please let me know. For now I'll just do the usual bullshit. Tomorrow will have something more of an idea behind it than just me jabbering.

Or perhaps I'm jibber-jabbering. That's probably more likely. So I'll stop. Because we all know how Mr. T feels about that sort of thing.