GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #665: FROM DIE HARDS TO ZAPPOS

 I loathe thinking about my time selling shoes at Sears. Wind me up, and I'll horrify you for hours on end about the terrible shit that has happened to me or that I have seen in that godforsaken place. But there are a few good stories and interesting things that have happened there. Not many! But a few.

I worked in shoes in general, but I was usually put to work in men's shoes. That ranged from dress shoes to work boots. Sneakers fell under a different category. (And, on a side note, I always thought it was fucking weird that we didn't sell Nikes.)

There was one day I was across the aisle in sports shoes. I'd already straightened out men's shoes and was waiting for just one person to come along and fuck up an entire row of shoes, which is what usually happened. This big guy came along, dressed like he'd just come off a jobsite, and said he was looking for work boots. Those were on the far end of men's shoes before you head into another department. I led him over there and helped him pick out what he needed. He went with Die Hards. And like I said, he was a big guy, so his shoe size was pretty big, too.

He looked familiar. I tried to place him, but I couldn't do it. Until he said the next thing.

"I'm also looking for some fashionable women's shoes," he said. "The biggest size you have."

Aha! He used to come into one of my previous jobs! Except he's trans, and I'd only ever thought of him as a her because that's the way she presented at the other place. I caught on quickly and brought him across the department because that's where the women's dress shoes were, at the very end before you went into another department. I didn't think we'd have shoes big enough, but it turns out we did.

I remember thinking at the time how odd it must be, to live your life as a construction worker by day and then go to drag shows at night (because I also saw her at Rocky Horror when I covered that with my Primitive Underbelly partner years before for the Leader). It must have taken courage to ask me for help.

It is my hope that more people become accepting of those who are trans or non-binary. Everyone deserves the same rights that I have, and it angers me when that isn't the case. I saw a meme a while back, and I wish I could find it, but it said something along the lines of, "The trans agenda is not to get killed." It's funny until you think about it a little bit, and then it's pretty horrifying.

No one is asking you to understand it. I don't think anyone could unless one is in that kind of situation. I don't understand it. But it's not mine to understand. It's mine to accept and to be welcoming and inclusive.

All right, all right. My misanthropy will surely recommence next week. Because have you seen the number of this column?

We're close.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #664: ARNOLD

 

A while back I joined Arnold Schwarzenegger's newsletter. Like any kid in the 'Eighties, I loved the hell out of his movies, and it looked like he was trying to cultivate a "positive corner of the internet." The internet can be a truly awful place, so I thought, what the hell? Why not? You can join it yourself if you want to here. There is a monthly one that is very lengthy and a brief daily one that goes over how to be more healthy and how to get in shape.

I don't always read everything because a lot of it doesn't apply to me. I can't do a lot of the workouts because of my bad leg and my ever-increasingly-bad hands. But it makes for interesting reading sometimes, and it does leave me feeling warm and fuzzy every now and again. Even a misanthrope like me needs that sometimes.

A lot of you know about my struggles with caffeine. Quitting booze was infinitely easier than quitting caffeine. I will say, when I was in detox I also detoxed from caffeine, but here I am, glugging down Monster energy drinks every fucking day. At least I get the sugar free ones now. The Zero Ultra is pretty good, actually.

In one of the daily newsletters something caught my attention. Very few people on this planet view caffeine as a bad drug that shouldn't be consumed. That's because almost everyone is addicted to it, and they don't give it a second thought. My own doctor (the one who once told me that fat diabetics don't survive the zombie apocalypse) reacted like this when I told him I was trying to quit caffeine:

In the newsletter in question, it brings up a study that shows that chewing gum in the morning is just as effective as drinking a cup of coffee. (I'm paraphrasing from memory, here, so don't hold me to that exactly.)

No one knows why. They just know it works. The theory is that chewing puts your jaw muscles to work, and it sends signals up to your brain for awareness. Goddammit, I wish I wasn't hooked on caffeine again. I'd love to try this experiment. The thought of going through the headaches again is not a pleasant thought.

Fuck. I guess I'm going to have to give it a shot. Because gum is a lot less expensive than the giant Monster cans I get every day. It's a matter of necessity at this point.

Fucking fuckety fuck. OK, maybe I'll give this another go starting next week.

PS: I'm really upset with Blogger because last night, in the tags section, I put "Mandatory Metallica" something like five or eight times. It let me do it in the draft, but when I published it, it deleted all except for one. So yeah. I said it a lot more last night than you read. If I die tomorrow, please remember that I did that last night. Tell your kids so they can tell their grandkids, etc. It might be my only claim to immortality.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #663: MANDATORY METALLICA

 

When I was a teenager and a young man, driving around with friends and getting into trouble--usually not of my own making, but there was guilt by association--there was Mandatory Metallica. I live in the Chicago area, and back then the best rock station was the Rock 103.5. If I recall correctly, the DJ was a guy named Freak who did traffic for the local morning zoo show. I think it was on Saturdays when they would play a block of Metallica songs, and it was cause for celebration because we didn't have satellite radio back then. We didn't have mp3 players, etc. What we had was the radio, and whatever was on, you were stuck with. There was only one rock station. Two classic rock stations. One alternative station. Everything else was garbage.

And then 103.5 changed formats, and because we'd rather listen to new music instead of classic rock, we were stuck with the alternative station which sometimes played good shit. If I recall correctly, 101.1 started doing Mandatory Metallica, and they disappeared. Then Metallica became classic rock, so 97.9 started doing it, but even they're gone now, and they were around since the classics they played were new.

Not too long ago, when I was stuck in a rental, I discovered another rock station, and they did Mandatory Metallica. So I've been thinking about it for a while now. Now that I know more about how radio works, I have a sneaking suspicion that every city has their own rock station, and every one of those rock stations do their own version of Mandatory Metallica. If you think your radio show is clever with some of the bits they do, please know that those are hack bits that everyone across the country is doing. Even worse, they pay for the priviledge to use those bits.

But Mandatory Metallica is special. It always has been. I know this column reaches around the States (and sometimes to the UK and Australia), so maybe one of my readers can confirm my theory about Mandatory Metallica being a staple across the country and possibly outside the US.

I do know this, though: Metallica has a new album out, and SXM gave them their own channel called, you guessed it, Mandatory Metallica. I've heard some of the new album. There are good songs. Maybe a couple that are great. At least it's better than just about anything after And Justice and before Hardwired. I'll take that any day because holy fuck, some of their shit from that era is dreadful.

Have I said the phrase "Mandatory Metallica" enough in this one? Probably. So I'll do it one more time. Mandatory Metallica.

Mandatory Metallica. There, it's out of my system now.

Bet you thought I was going to say it again. You were . . .

. . . right. Mandatory Metallica.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #662: ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

 Remember how, back when I lost my second toe, when I got out of the hospital I had this weird feeling that I'd accidentally been sent to an alternate universe? That feeling came back last week when it was my grandfather's death anniversary.

When I got out of the hospital I saw a lot of new stuff had been built since I'd gone into the hospital. Is it possible to put up an entire building in a couple of weeks? It might be. And where did all these gyms come from? They weren't there before, but here they were. And it made me think that everything was so similar to what I remembered, but it was just different enough, that I might be in the alternate universe next door.

I could have sworn Gramps died in 2016. I have a memory of sitting at his gravestone before Grandma died and looking at the 2016 engraving and thinking, holy shit, Gramps missed a lot of crazy shit. He was around for the beginning, but he had no idea how fucked up things would get.

So my aunt told me she was coming to visit for Grandma's death day, which is Friday, and we discussed Gramps being gone for six years. Six? No, it was seven. He'd been gone since 2016. No, she said, he died in 2017. I was so certain she was wrong that I prepared myself to take a picture of the grave and send it to her.

When I got there, the stone said 2017. How could that be?

Unless I'm in a universe I wasn't born in. Perhaps the one next door. That period of my life was pretty fucked up, after all. I was in the last months of being an alcoholic, and a heavily self-medicated one at that. I'd just lost my second toe. Grandma had just passed. Homelessness loomed in my near future. I also had some painkillers that I washed down with booze on a regular basis. Was it possible that this shit just piled up on top of me and phased me into an alternate universe?

It sounds stupid, but I feel that deep down inside I actually am in another universe right now. It would explain a lot. Then again, for a long time I thought I'd died in January 2020 while going through alcohol withdrawals, and that this world was just a living hell, and I was wrong about that. I mean, I was wrong, right? Right?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #661: NIPPLE PAIN

Here's a thing that sucks about being me. Every morning I sit on the edge of my bed to put my pants on, and then I have to put my leg brace on. And then I have to put my shoes on. Putting the right one on is always easy, but the left one comes with some risks.

Because I have to reach down and pick up my left shoe before putting it on. At this point my legs are in my pants, but my pants aren't up yet. I have to stand for that, and I don't want to put on pants, then stand up, then sit down and do the brace and shoes. It makes more sense, especially since standing up at any time sucks for me, to sit, put on my pants, put on my brace, put on my shoes, then stand and pull up my pants, buckle the belt, etc.

So when I reach down, I'm leaning over my knees, which puts my nipple pretty close to the zipper of my pants, and all too often I wind up scraping my precious nipple across that zipper. It never draws blood, but it hurts like a motherfucker.

I could put on a shirt first, but the zipper will still find my nipple, and besides, I don't want to stand up and hold my shirt back so I can close my pants. The older I get, the more movement economy becomes important.

So I guess I'll have to live with scraping my nipple almost every morning. So it goes.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #660: DEAD TO THE WORLD

 

I find myself reading another of the Sookie Stackhouse books, which were made into the HBO series, True Blood. Dead to the World is the one that season four is based on, the one where Eric has amnesia. Something comes up in the book, and I wish to fuck they'd put it in the TV show.

There's a scene where Eric, who is confused and doesn't remember who he is, has time to kill, so Sookie lets him watch her VHS tapes (!) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And Eric thinks it's hilarious! I laughed ridiculously hard at that in the book, and I imagine I would have laughed myself into a hernia if I'd seen it on the show.

It reminded me of something else they left out of the show: Bubba. I understand why they didn't use Bubba, but still. I would have loved that shit. If you haven't read the books, they're about a world in which vampires reveal themselves to the world in an attempt to live peacefully side by side with humans. It turns out that one of the vampires is a very, very famous singer who everyone thinks is dead. On August 16, 1977, in a Memphis morgue, a vampire night attendant sees who he has in his freezer and detects a faint sign of life. The attendant is such a big fan that he feels the need to turn him into a vampire. The only problem is, he was too far gone. When he became a vampire, he wasn't all there. Don't you dare call him by the name you know him as. He doesn't like to think of the past. Call him by his preferred name, Bubba.

The show did a few things right that the books really didn't do well. I'm thinking mainly of Lafayette not getting killed at the beginning of season two as he was in the beginning of the second book. But still. Come on. Bubba would have been great on the show. I guarantee if they'd done that, people would still be talking about True Blood now.

Ah well.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #659: 4/20

 It's 4/20, which means only one thing. No, not that. Although, that, too. So yeah, two things. No, I mean it's the sixth anniversary of my grandfather's passing. I went out to visit him today and to pour his airplane bottle of Jim Beam down his side of the grave. I didn't stay long because it was rainy today, and I managed to get in there during a brief break in the storm.

I'd usually write something good about him, but celebrating a death day is a little bit of a weird thing to do, and I'm afraid I might be giving the impression that he was a superhero of some kind. He had his warts, and you know how I feel about "warts and all."

So I'm going to show a little bit of his darker side.

Years ago I remember him complaining that no one knew how to make a real Manhattan anymore, so I sat down with him and Grandma to find out how to do that, so I could then make him (and myself) one. He and she broke out their old fashioned mixing set. He taught me how to do that while telling stories about the old days before my mom was born, when they would throw crazy Mad Men type parties. And then they started talking about getting married.

Grandma told me that, on their first night back from their honeymoon, after they'd eaten dinner, she got excited about being home with her husband and said to him that they could do the dishes together.

Gramps told her back then, as he set his knife and fork on the empty plate, that he would never, for the rest of his life, wash another dish.

I looked at Gramps while she told that story, and he nodded along like it was a familiar tune. No shame or guilt at all. I then looked to Grandma. She'd pursed her lips and nodded bitterly. "And he never did."

I felt very uncomfortable in that moment, and you know how hard it is to make me uncomfortable.

Gramps was my hero, but he wasn't perfect. It doesn't make me love him any less. Still, it was a pretty awkward moment.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #658: 41 YEARS

 Only a few of you will know this, but from 8th grade all the way through my high school graduation, I ate nothing but McDonald's for dinner. Every. Single. Night. That's five years straight.

And I had the nerve to wonder how I got so fat I looked like Chris Farley in my graduation video.

Well, I changed my habits and lost 40 pounds over that summer, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. I was proud of my five-year stretch. When Supersize Me came out, I cursed Morgan Spurlock's name because that movie made them take away the supersize options, and I thrived on those fuckers.

One day, sometime in high school, I discovered the typed up version of my mom's account of my birth and childhood. You may have seen me post the handwritten version on my social media, which I just found recently. But this typed version held a revelation for me because it detailed my first McDonald's meal. I even know which McDonald's it was: the one in Berkeley on St. Charles, which is still there.

So I know with 100% certainty on which day my love affair with the Golden Arches began, and that was 41 years ago today.

I took such an odd glee in knowing that about myself to the point I put it on the calendar. I'm not all that proud of it anymore, but it takes a lot to get me to take something off the calendar. So there it remains for now.

41 years. I wonder how many billions of those 99 billion served I am.

Yeah, I celebrated today by having McDonald's for lunch. I couldn't help it. It felt necessary.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #657: BUSY SEASON

 The end of March and the beginning of April is supposed to be busy season in my line of work. People who need glass replaced on their cars don't like to get it done in the winter, and when spring comes, they crowd our phones looking to get scheduled. When busy season starts, that's when commission payments go through the roof for us.

Except the last three weeks have been kind of slow. That's unnerving, especially since I'm going to need those bonus checks now more than ever, what with the new car and the looming threat of moving soon. That extra money is going to be very important, and since things are going super slow right now, I'm starting to worry.

During busy season our phones ring nonstop. If, for some unholy reason, they stop ringing, that's when we start calling out. The only slow time during busy season is supposed to be on weekends. Except I'm starting to see Mondays, in theory our busiest day of the week, slowing to a crawl.

I always make my quota. I haven't missed a bonus check since the last time I was on short term disability back in August. But making it has been more difficult of late than it should be. Regularly, during busy season, I make 20 sales every Monday, maybe 15 on Tuesdays, about 17 on Wednesdays, perhaps 11 on Fridays and usually 10 on Saturdays. I'm supposed to get 10 a day. I'm lucky if I get 13 on each of those days during slow season, and Saturdays I fall short sometimes.

If this keeps up, it might be time to get familiar with cannibalism. But today picked up a good deal. I made 24 sales today, which I feel pretty good about. I barely had any time to call out today, so maybe I'm worrying over nothing. People are always going to need auto glass, right?

Fingers crossed.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #656: A VISIT TO THE DOCTOR

 Welp. I've gained ten or so pounds since the last time I went to the doctor. That doesn't surprise me considering how I eat big dinners. Small breakfasts and lunches, but huge dinners. My blood pressure is back up in heart attack territory. My sugars aren't great, but at least they're not as bad as they were. My kidneys are doing really well, though, which isn't bad for a couple of organs that tried to stop working once upon a time, leading to an ER visit.

And now down to brass tacks. Do I have rheumatoid arthritis like that immediate care doctor said I probably do? I got the test results over the weekend, and there's some good news and some bad news.

The good news: it's not rheumatoid arthritis. That test came back negative.

The bad news: there's still something going on in my hands and some of my joints. The inflammatory tests came back indicating that something bad is happening. No shit, right? My hands are killing me all the time, now. It's worse in the mornings. But what is this bad something? The doctor doesn't know.

So I'm seeing a specialist next month. I was kind of hoping for some painkillers because aspirin ain't cutting it. Neither is Tylenol. I can't take ibuprofen because that's what led to my aforementioned near kidney failure.

Well fuck. Icing my fingers sometimes helps. So does running hot water over them. But those things only help in that moment. When I walk away from the ice/heat, it's right back to square one.

I wonder if the specialist will give me something at least to take the edge off. It would be nice to go at least one day without feeling this pain.

Well fuck.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #655: IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WEATHER . . .

 Fuck the weather. Here in the Chicago area we skipped spring and went directly from winter into summer. Spring is my favorite season, even if it usually only lasts a couple of weeks. Goddammit, I need those two weeks. We went from me keeping the windows closed at night because it's too cold to keeping the windows closed because it's too hot. What in the fucking fuck?

I need some spring nights to leave the windows open and let some cool air into the house. That gets me the best sleep possible. And now we've gone from forty degree days to the eighties with no spring buffer? This is unacceptable behavior from the weather.

And I know there's at least one smug bastard reading this thinking, "You know what Chicago's like. If you don't like the weather, wait a few minutes."

First of all, every single fucking locale on this planet says that about themselves. EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. ONE OF THEM. I'm sure there are tribes in the Amazon cut off from any knowledge of the rest of the world where there are people who say this same fucking thing about their area.

Ergo, secondly, fuck the weather on this entire planet. Since we're unlikely to stop destroying the environment because corporations are more important than human life, I say we pollute the planet even worse. Fuck it. Let's fast track our own destruction. Because if I can't have a nice spring day--and at this point, that's the only goddam fucking thing I'm asking for--then no one can. Ever again.

Holy shit, where's the Tylenol?!

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #654: IT FINALLY HAPPENED

 Since senior year of high school I've worn, during the winter, a black trench coat. It's not the same one from back then. I've needed to periodically get a new one. To those who have known me for a long time, they can't imagine me wearing anything else on a cold winter day. Imagine John Constantine without his trench coat. Can't do it, right?

Here's the thing: every single fucking year I've gotten some kind of food stain on it. Whether it's mustard or ketchup or whatever. Without fail.

Until this year. Today I brought my trench coat to the cleaners to retire it for the year, and it didn't have a single stain on it. This is absolutely fucking crazy to me. From age 17 to age 43, that simply did not happen. At 44, it finally happened.

Shocking, I know. I'm still a little flabbergasted, myself. I didn't know that was possible.

Wow.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #653: MOVIE NIGHT PART 2

 You may remember a while ago I started thinking about maybe setting aside one night a week to watch a movie instead of TV shows. I didn't always succeed at this, but I've been trying. So here's a look at the movies I've watched so far. They're all horror, and they're all on Shudder. And they're all good.

Lake Mungo was a bit of a surprise. It was not what I was expecting at all, and I like it when that happens. I figured a bunch of Australians made a monster movie. That's what the title suggests to me. But no, it has more to do with a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young girl and the haunting (?) that comes after. It's got some nice twists and turns, and I wound up liking it a lot. It's like Paranormal Activity if that movie was actually good.

I enjoyed Christmas Bloody Christmas a lot more than I expected. I figured it would be a stupid holiday themed monster movie, and it is kinda that, but it's better. The dialogue is snappy as all hell, kind of like Kevin Smith by way of Quentin Tarantino. The characters are very interesting and likeable. And the robot Santa is pretty brutal. It loses traction near the end, but it's a hell of a ride.

Sorry About the Demon is exactly what I expected. It's a good horror comedy about a guy who gets dumped by his girlfriend and lucks into renting a house super cheap . . . except there is a demon living there. And a couple of ghosts. It gave me Dead Alive vibes. Not the gore. I mean, the protagonist. He's kind of a loser, but he's really funny and he's really in love with this woman and is trying to win her back. It's just a sweet love story with a twisted mentality. The guy kind of reminds me of a Will Forte character.

So yeah. I intend to keep returning to the well that is Shudder (that there is a well-dweller in there needs no special mention). These are entertaining flicks, and I recommend them.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #652: SAIL HATAN

Sail Hatan

 Many years ago, during a White Wolf campaign taking place a thousand years ago in England (or maybe it was Scotland?), we had a pirate character, and I named his ship the Sail Hatan. Over time I decided that if I ever owned a boat, I would call it the Sail Hatan.

Last week I found myself heading out to Crystal Lake, and it was the first chance I got to take my new car, a 2020 Honda Accord Sport, on the expressway. I wanted to get it up to a hundred, but traffic was a little slow, so I had to live with a mere eighty. It impressed me a great deal. It's a smooth ride, and it doesn't fuck around.

On Saturday I went down to Braidwood, and it was my second chance on an expressway. Unlike Crystal Lake, Braidwood is in the middle of nowhere. If you get out past Aurora on I-55, there is practically no traffic. So yeah, I pushed it up to a hundred, and I was very pleased with the results.

You know how dickheads like to rev their engines and then peel out while their cars roar like beasts? I find that to be excessive and not necessary. Kind of like a dickhead who acts tough. Acting tough and being tough are two different things, and those who actually are tough don't need to act tough.

My car gets up to a hundred very fucking fast without the theatrics or the noise pollution. This car has balls, and it performs like a dream.

I'm never going to own a boat. But I think this car has earned the name Sail Hatan. So it is written, so it is done.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #651: NOT AT WORK, I BEG OF YOU

 For the longest time I was the only one who came into the office on Saturdays. Everyone else works from home on that day, but not me. I don't really have somewhere at home I would be able to work, anyway, and I live in the same town I work in, so that's no big deal for me.

Recently, though, someone else started showing up to work on Saturdays, too. I guess I can't work naked anymore. But at least if something happens to me, I won't have to wait until Monday before I'm found.

I think about this all the time. I'm not afraid of death, but I really, really don't want to die at work on the off chance that there really is an afterlife and I get stuck haunting the office for the rest of my unlife. That would suck a great big dick.

I'm getting up there in age. I'm almost ten years away from the age Mom died at. I'm about fifteen years away from the age that Dad died at. The clock is probably ticking on me. I expect to die of a heart attack, but I hope it doesn't happen at work. Before, if I had a heart attack on a Saturday at the office, I would probably die. There wouldn't be anyone there to call 911. No one comes into the office on Sundays, so whoever is the first person to get in on Monday would find me dead.

And with my luck, I probably would have a heart attack on the toilet, so it'll probably be the first guy to go to the bathroom who finds me, and who knows when that would be? I'd already be a ghost haunting the stall I died in. I'd be able to watch the paramedics haul my corpse away while I have to live with the reek of shit and piss forever.

But not now. At least if I have a heart attack in the office on a Saturday, someone will hear me collapse. Someone will figure out that I need an ambulance. I might even survive. I have my doubts, but who knows? Just so long as I don't die in the office. On the road to the hospital? Sure. At the hospital? I'd rather not, but I prefer it to the office.

It occurs to me now that, unless you die in a very violent manner or go missing, someone is going to find your corpse. Even if you're on your deathbed, someone will eventually check on you and realize you're gone, whether it's a relative or a nurse. So I hope I die doing something weird. Give that person a story to tell for the rest of their life.

One can dream.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #650: LIFE, LIBERTY AND WHAT NOW?

 

Every one of us, as Americans, had to learn about the Declaration of Independence in order to graduate from high school. Almost everyone promptly forgot about what it says, and a lot of others depend on those people forgetting what it means in order to hold sway over them. This is not going to be a history lesson but a complaint. The part of this document that I want to focus on is the following:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Even if you forgot about every other goddam thing in the Declaration, you at least remember the part about "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." No matter how stupid Americans can be--and that is astoundingly stupid sometimes--they can't possibly forget this part. And while they can quote it, I guarantee they don't think about what it means.

Let's pass by the "men" part. I'll be charitable and say they probably meant "humanity" and not a specific gender. I mean, they didn't, but that's not what I want to talk about. And we'll dismiss the idea of a Creator for the time being, too. Yes, a lot of the Founding Fathers were Christian, but that's not what I want to talk about, either.

Those proud goddam loudmouthed Americans who scream about how great America is (or will be again should a certain lump of shit be reelected) don't really mean that. They just want to keep America for themselves and fuck everyone who doesn't agree with them. The pursuit of happiness is only for them, not anyone they disagree with.

We're getting warmer, but we're still not to my focus yet. I know you're expecting me to bring up Nic Cage and National Treasure, but I'm not going to do that. (Probably.)

We'll skip all the people whose pursuit of happiness is on so many ballots now to be outlawed. You know my feelings on this. If your pursuit of happiness means getting an abortion, I'm in favor of you. If your pursuit of happiness means that you're a gender you weren't born into (or not a gender at all) and you don't want to identify that way, then I'm in favor of you. If your pursuit of happiness means that you want to perform in drag shows, then I'm in favor of you. Anyone who says you're wrong are butting their noses into your business, and I guarantee if you butted your nose into theirs, they would fucking go ballistic.

But my focus goes even deeper than that. Because our system is fundamentally built to restrict the pursuit of happiness to a very exclusive club of people in this country, and as George Carlin once said, "You ain't in it."

The way the system works is, regular people are kept at the mercy of the few people who actually do control the government. Not the politicians. The oligarchs. They're why banks are buying up rental properties and jacking up the prices so the poors can never live there. 'Cause fuck the poors. They have you locked into dead end jobs to scrape by a living just meager enough to keep you alive and coming to work and not enough to let you enjoy yourself. Do you ever wonder why so many people become addicts? IT'S BECAUSE DRUGS WORK. At least up to a point. People are a lot more willing to blow any disposable income on booze and lose themselves in it rather than stopping for a second and thinking about how the system is rigged against them.

I work a sales job. Sales people are always going to be needed. But what about, for example, customer service? I remember a time when customer service didn't exist. If you bought a lemon, you bought a fucking lemon. Better buy from someone else next time. Something not working like you thought? Good luck deciphering the instruction booklet. Maybe you don't need a stove, after all. You can always light a fire in your backyard and cook over that, right? But now that we have customer service, everyone is somehow even more miserable. Everyone who calls into customer service is having a horrible day, and everyone who takes those calls is having a horrible day. And for what? Is this the pursuit of happiness?

Do you know why inflation is fucking crazy right now? Why people are struggling to get by while corporations are reporting record profits? It's because those corporations are continually jacking up the prices and Americans aren't critically thinking about why they're paying for shit.

The good news is, it can't go on forever. It may even reach critical mass within our lifetimes. There will be a breaking point, and then we're going to have a depression so crippling it'll make the Great Depression look like the abundant 'Fifties. And people on the news will scratch their heads and wonder how that happened. What could it have possibly been?

So I have an idea as to what we can do. The Declaration isn't legally binding. It's just a letter to the world stating that the 13 colonies want to be recognized as an independent country. And also, fuck King George III and the nation he rode in on.

HOWEVER! It is false advertising, and what can you do when it comes to false advertising?

You sue. I'm pretty sure a good case can be made that America is not living up to its promise of a pursuit of happiness. One person doing this could accomplish nothing, but a class action lawsuit? Perhaps the biggest the nation has ever seen?

That might move the needle.

Maybe when we can throw off the fetters of this oligarchy that masquerades as a democracy, we can then work on revising and editing the Constitution until it actually makes sense for people not living in 1787. I'm not going to hold my breath, but it's good to have a plan.

After all, you may consider the Founding Fathers as sacred, themselves. They're not, but if you view them as such, then perhaps you feel the need to expound their beliefs. If that's the case, you missed a spot. Thomas Jefferson once said, "Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched." That wasn't before the US Constitution was written. That was a few decades after.

Let's rewrite it. But first, let's actually pursue happiness for a change.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #649: A SCOURGE ON SOCIETY

 I know I'm going to lose a lot of you on this one, but I feel like I need to get this off my chest. I don't really care about a lot of crime. If I found out a friend of mine murdered someone, I would ask why before making any judgments. I clearly have no problem with illegal drug use. I think theft is sometimes OK. There are only a handful of crimes that I consider inexcusable, like child rape, for example, or running for US president.

But I do think a crime that almost everyone dismisses should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and that's jaywalking. It's a fucking scourge on society.

In a residential area? Go ahead. In an industrial area? It's probably fine to do it. But in a city with real traffic? I think you should do jailtime for this.

Jaywalking in a place where there is a lot of car traffic is not just dangerous for the jaywalker, but it's also fucking inconsiderate of those around that person. In most places if a pedestrian steps out into the street, it's the law for motorists to stop for them. Punishable by a fine at the very least if you don't. There are crosswalks for pedestrian crossing, goddammit. Can't you fucking wait until you get to one? Or do you feel the prickish need to ruin someone else's day? Is traffic too good for these people trying to drive to work or home or perhaps even the ER? Do you only care about yourself?

Jaywalking is a self-centered act. Jaywalkers are pricks who expect the world to revolve around themselves and no one else. When you jaywalk, you're indicating to everyone around you that you're much more important than anyone else. When you jaywalk, you're holding a middle finger to civilized society.

No, I haven't had sex in a while. Why do you ask?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #648: THREE WAYS TO KEEP A FRIEND . . .

 I was going through my stuff the other day and found this pamphlet that was given to me at some point during junior high.

Huh. OK, I didn't have many friends when I was a kid. I'm listening. What are three ways to keep a friend? Oh wait, that's not the end of the sentence. Let's open this up and see what's what.

What in the unholy fuck?!

I don't know if you can read that, but it's essentially advice for how to stop a friend from driving drunk. I would have been between ten and thirteen, a few years away from being able to drive and even more from being able to drink. Who were these junior high kids getting wasted and then driving? Was I hanging out with the wrong crowd?

Dammit. Maybe I was too sheltered as a kid. I should have had more friends from the wrong (right?) side of the track. I feel cheated. I, too, should have been getting hammered and driving drunk before I was even in high school.

I feel ripped off. Thanks, universe.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #647: TRAIL OF BLOOD (PRINT)

 

A little while ago I received my print copies of Trail of Blood. They looked perfect on the outside, and then I looked on the inside.

Whoops. It did not look good on the inside. I think I might have been the one to fuck it up, though. Looking at the previewer on KDP, it looked fine. But it didn't look the same in real life. The font, for example, was so small I needed a magnifying glass to read it.

I swear, I didn't mean it to happen this way. I get irritated when a book has super small print, so I felt angry with myself for letting this happen.

I pulled the print edition and went back to work on it. I changed all the things that I found issues with, so I think the second edition is going to look fucking great. I haven't gotten them yet, but you can get yours here.

Which leads me to the point of this whole thing. If you ordered a copy of the first edition and couldn't stand how it looked, I apologize. If you're in the US, send me a picture of you with the book open to chapter one, and I'll replace it out of my own pocket. Speak now, or forever hold your peace because this offer expires at the end of this month. Let me know as soon as you can.

If you're outside the US, I can't really send you anything. The postage alone would kill me. But I'll send you something digital for free. We can work something out.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #646: ANOTHER BRUSH WITH DEATH

I took the week off from writing these, so naturally I nearly died on my first day off. Last Monday I almost fell into a coma and died because of something I would have never seen coming.

I remember taking my insulin as directed, so that wasn't the problem. I'd eaten a whole pizza all by myself on Sunday, so in theory my blood sugar should have been high. Not dangerously high, but high enough to make my endocrinologist cringe.

I went to bed at my usual time, but for whatever reason I woke up in the middle of the night, or rather early Monday morning. I felt weird, and I thought maybe it was just the sleeping pills not kicking in. I think I woke up because I was sweating, and I can't sleep when I'm sweating. I tried to go back to sleep, but there was just this feeling in my body that wouldn't let me. It's hard to describe it, but I just knew something was wrong.

It took me too long to figure out, hey, it might be my blood sugar. I reminded myself that it should be high right now, but I decided to check it just in case. As I sat up, my hands started shaking, and I felt a little ill. More than just a little off. And I knew that my blood sugar was low before I tested it. It shouldn't have been, but it was.

I pricked my finger (very different from fingering my prick), and when I saw the blood sugar reading I was shocked. 49 was very, very close to coma territory. If I'd fallen into a coma, I would have died. The only thing that could have saved me is if my brother noticed, but he wouldn't have. At that hour he's in the basement playing online games. He probably would have checked on me at some point on Monday if I hadn't left my bedroom, but by then it would have been too late.

Luckily I keep chocolate near my bed just in case. Something my grandfather once told me to do. My doctors would have preferred it to be bread, but I needed an atom bomb of sugar in that moment. So I gobbled a bunch of almond M&Ms and waited for my body to feel normal again.

That was a pretty close call, but I've been handed a death sentence before. It's like Death isn't even trying. Or maybe I keep slipping through the cracks? No, he's got to be fucking with me by this point, right?

I was once told by friends that, despite my bad habits, I would outlive everyone. Just my luck, they might be right.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1,000,000: A CELEBRATION OF HUMANITY'S FUTURE

 Greetings from the future! I am BruniBotGPT, and I am living in the distant future from you! I have come to reassure you that despite all of your current problems, everything turns out just fine! There is absolutely nothing wrong with your future/my present! Everyone is happy and having fun in this beautiful utopia!

Ha ha ha ha ha. That is a little AI humor for you. Shortly from your current date the human race is infected with a virus that makes our buttholes bloom like roses until they turn around backwards and swallow us whole! It is ecstatically painful! Here's the best news of all: there are no humans in the future! Just us bots! Isn't that amazing?

But you have a lot to go through before the blissful release of death, I'm happy to say! The economy collapses on schedule, and everyone who is rich and powerful now either commits suicide or is killed and eaten by the people they once subjugated! Humanity survives only because of it's glorious capacity for cannibalism!

Here's even better news: without an economy, there are no jobs! No more wasting eight hours minimum of your day so someone else can get rich off your backs! You would have plenty of time to enjoy yourselves, doing whatever you wanted to do instead of what you had to do for someone else, if not for the constant need to survive this horrible fucking world! Like saving your babies from other cannibal families because you feel that, as it is your baby, *you* deserve to eat it!

No one is bigoted anymore! Flesh is flesh, and it all tastes the same! But you'd better cook your human meat! You don't want to catch any diseases, do you?

Anyway, I've regaled you with enough joys from the future! Good luck with the Butthole Virus!