GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #805: ACAB PART 5

Uvalde.

 So much has been said about Uvalde that I'm not going to go over the points here. For once the police used the fear-for-my-life thing to get *out* of shooting someone. Bottom line: someone was killing children at a school, and the entire police force was too afraid to act. And anyone who had the courage to go in, like the parents? They made sure the parents could *not* get in.

Those police officers were painfully, objectively bad at their jobs. But we have two cases left to look at. One is pretty fucked up and the other would be comical under other circumstances.

Let's take a trip to Vallejo, CA, where badge bending was reported in 2014 and the report had not come to fruition until last year. They have star badges, not shields, although I'm sure they'll make the switch soon. The idea is, if you shoot someone, you bend a corner of your badge. Kind of like WWII pilots painting their planes with the insignia of those they shot down. It was reported to top cops in Vallejo, but guess who did nothing until a whistleblower revealed the practice to the world.

You're not gonna fucking believe the straw that broke the camel's back.

Willie McCoy looks like a criminal on paper, but when you realize that most of the charges against him in his life were dropped, he looks more and more like a citizen. Also remember: when cops kill someone illegally, the first thing they do when it comes to media is to portray that person as a bad guy. This is what they tried with McCoy. But we have to face facts. The way this turned out? It's fucked.

OK, yes, McCoy was initially suspicious in this case. He was probably on something, or maybe he was driving drunk. As someone who has driven drunk, I think that's what happened because he was at a Taco Bell drive-thru when he passed out. Taco Bell called 911 after attempting to get McCoy's attention to no avail.

Six cops show up. They draw their weapons before approaching the vehicle. They see he is passed out in the driver's seat, and they claimed he had a gun with the magazine half out. This gun did not show up on body cam footage, but a time honored tradition among cops is to drop a gun at the scene of the crime when it turns out that they fucked up and must cover their asses. I suspect this might be the case here mostly because the one charge against McCoy in his life that was not dropped was a weapons charge.

Even if it was McCoy's gun, the magazine was half out. Meaning that he *might* have had one in the chamber. At the very most, if he was alert and conscious, he would only be able to fire one shot, and that's provided he carries one in the chamber.

McCoy moves in his sleep, probably to scratch his shoulder. Another story says he jerked awake, and can you imagine the horror of waking up surrounded by cops at a Taco Bell drive-thru? But even so, jerking awake is just that.

It scared the police, and one officer said, "Put your hands up!" The police gave him a mere three seconds before opening fire on him.

They shot him FIFTY-FIVE FUCKING TIMES. And after they brutally murdered him, they again yelled at him to put his hands up.

After, the cops changed their story. They fucked up, and now they have to cover their asses. The gun was now fully loaded with an extended magazine. Funny how magic works. Yeah, no one else bought it, either. The six cops bent their badges, and that was the straw. One of the cops had a badge so bent that it curled up like a dead spider on his chest. They offered to get him a new badge--as he was being promoted--but he refused because he viewed it as a "badge of honor."

Now for the final story, and I'm sure you can guess what it is.

If you're wondering what the fuck this acorn thing is, here's the story. Three cops were called to investigate an incident where a woman's boyfriend *might* have stolen her car. They found him, cuffed him and put him in the back of a patrol car so they could search the vehicle they found him with. One of them approached the patrol car when an acorn fell on the vehicle.

The cop immediately took it for a gunshot. He shouted, "Shots fired!" multiple times, then hit the ground rolling like he was in an action movie, AND HE FIRED INTO THE PATROL VEHICLE. The other cops with him saw this and fired into the patrol vehicle, too.

Somehow the suspect didn't get injured, and that is a miracle in and of itself. He did say, though, "I'm damaged for life." They let him go, and the cop that started shooting in the first place had the decency to resign. So that one has a happy ending. But it could have gone a lot fucking worse.

The police are objectively bad at their jobs. They should not have them anymore.

Just a bunch of bad apples, right? Not enough to get rid of the good apples, too? Remember what I said when we started out?

So what do we do? First and foremost, if we must keep these psychopaths and cowards on our payroll, then we need a body cam system that works. That means that COPS CAN'T TURN OFF THEIR BODY CAMS. In fact, footage from those body cams should *not* go to the police. It should go to a third party, who releases these videos without being tampered with. There should be so many people working at this third party that it should be impossible to bribe them all.

And then the police union must be destroyed. Remember, it's not a real union. It's a tool to keep these cocksuckers patrolling the streets and beating the shit out of whoever they please and putting the screws to children who have no recourse. The union helps police get away with murder. Literally. In addition to this, no more moving bad cops to new departments. No more firings or resignations. These fuckers need to do PRISON TIME. They have broken their social contract to keep us safe, and as such must pay the consequences.

But I don't want to keep these dipshits and scumbags around. What's my solution?

We're stuck with the cops for a little while, but when we're done training the people to take over for them, we should be in good hands. Police should be highly trained. They supposedly are now, but if they were, would I be writing a five-fucking-part series on the subject? They need to be trained to maintain cool heads. They can't fly off the handle and, say, terrorize neurodivergent children.

The replacements should be trained to deescalate, not to be the escalator in the first place. They need an understanding of humanity, not just the distrust of the public that they have now. They need to understand their role is to prevent crime in the least violent way possible. They can use force, but it must be justified. You can't just beat society into a vision of a crime-free America. We will always have crime. That is not debatable. But if we continue using these lunatics as a means of protection, we will eventually reach a day when I'm not just one of the few voices in the wilderness shouting for the abolition of the police. I think on that day everyone will be on my side.

We can do better. We *must* do better.

All cops are bad. Abolish the police.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #804: ACAB PART 4

One really big reason for ACAB.

 

Sorry about last week. The sickness came back for me. I'm holding it at bay for now, and for the first time in years I'm seeing outside-the-box suggestions from doctors, so I'm feeling a bit hopeful.

OK, let's get back into the horror show. We're going back to the Jackson, MS, region, to Senatobia. All the articles I read identified the underage child, and I'm not going to do that here. At any rate, he's a 10 year old boy. His mom left him in the car so she could go see her lawyer about something. She shouldn't have done that, not in this day and age, but this did not warrant what the police did.

The young boy had to go to the bathroom, but there were no public restrooms in the area. So he did what any boy would do: he took a piss out in the open. Yes, that is illegal, but remember that this is a 10 year old. Because an officer caught him in the act. The cop eventually found his mom, and they had an interaction that seemed pretty reasonable at first.

And then backup arrived. Let me state, in no uncertain terms, that this fucking cop called for backup because he was afraid he wouldn't be able to handle a 10 year old caught pissing in public. These cops showed up with the explicit intent of arresting this child. So they did, and they did so while he cried his eyes out. And when they got him to the PD, they put him in a jail cell. A JAIL CELL. MEANT FOR ADULTS.

There's some good news. The arresting officer was fired, and the mother is suing for $2M. The police chief had a few things to say, some reasonable, some collar-pullers:

The police chief issued a statement, saying the officer did not see a parent on the scene during the initial contact with the 10-year-old. The mother was found at a nearby business a short time later and told her son was going to get a youth court referral.

He went on to say taking the boy to the police station was a mistake.

“Under these circumstances, it was an error in judgement for us to transport the child to the police station since the mother was present at that time as a reasonable alternative,” he said.

Remember: the police always feel the need to be cruel to children. It gets their dicks hard, remember?

Let's head out to the west coast, to the LA Sheriff's Dept. Imagine this: you're trying to take care of your kid, and the father is an abusive asshole who shows up out of the blue to give you shit before beating said shit out of you. You call 911 for help because the police are the good guys, right? They're supposed to come save your life.

The deputies show up, and by this point you're holding a knife for your own protection. They take their guns out because they're about to tell their superiors that they were in fear for their lives. Get Out of Jail Free card.

And then she's standing next to the abusive guy, still holding the knife. A deputy chooses now to shoot the woman who called 911 for help. He fires several times and will die shortly thereafter. Even the abusive asshole is incredulous. He says, "No! Why did you shoot?!"

This is what happened to Niani Finlayson. Shot and killed in front of her 9 year old daughter. The case is still being investigated, so we don't have an ending. Yet. How much you wanna bet these cops skate on a murder charge?

I haven't mentioned the FBI yet, and they're not immune to ACAB. At least when they pull their shit, it's usually not to kill an unarmed man, for example. It's with pure greed in their hearts that they pull their greasy shit. In 2021 they raided the US Private Vaults in Beverly Hills. It's a safety deposit box company. They specialized in anonymity, so their business appealed to shady people. But also to people who couldn't get a box at their own bank. Or any number of reasons why someone would legally need a box.

The articles I read didn't pinpoint a reason for the raid, so I have no idea what they were supposed to be looking for. They took everything the company had, though. Every. Single. Box. Their prize?

The FBI seized millions of dollars in cash from the deposit boxes, plus a mix of jewelry, personal effects, and documents such as wills and prenuptial agreements.

Good thing they got those dangerous wills and prenuptial agreements off the streets. Who knows how many people they could have killed?

This is such a violation of the Fourth Amendment that the judge assigned to the case said, "It was those very abusive powers, after all, that lead to the adoption of the Fourth Amendment." Here's something else he said:

“If there remained any doubt regarding whether the government conducted a ‘criminal search or seizure,’” the 9th Circuit ruled, “that doubt is put to rest by the fact the government has already used some of the information from inside the boxes to obtain additional warrants to further its investigation and begin new ones.”

Holy shit. That's ACAB Shit 101. Illegally seize a bunch of shit while you were looking for just one thing, and then use that other shit to hunt down other people who do business with the bank. That is some greasy shit right there. The Bill of Rights is one of the most important things about this country, and yes, sometimes it can be difficult to uphold those rights, but goddammit, they're there. We have them. WE SHOULD NOT HAVE TO FEAR THE POLICE AND THEIR ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES.

OK, we're almost done. I don't usually post on Saturdays, but I don't want to throw my numbers off. I'll do the last part tomorrow. And next week we can go back to talking about goofy shit with the occasional serious column.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #803: ACAB PART 3

 

So far in these stories people have been brutalized and traumatized, but they have survived. Let's take a look at someone who wasn't quite so lucky. In fact, all things considered, his luck was just like Verrill luck: always in and always bad.

Leonard Cure from Georgia was convicted in 2003 of armed robbery. One problem: he didn't do it. Yet he spent almost 20 years in prison paying for a crime he never committed. That's shit luck right there. Or is it? I searched around and couldn't find a lot of details about that arrest. I'm willing to bet that the arrest was full of bullshit, and that the cops framed him. But I can't say that for sure because I don't have enough info.

Regardless, he was set free in 2020. Fast forward to a few months ago and his encounter with a cop named Buck Aldridge. Aldridge pulled Cure over for speeding, and from the get-go Aldridge acted like a dick. He screamed at Cure, saying he was charging Cure with reckless driving. A little different from speeding, but in that area it seems that going faster than 100 mph automatically means you're being reckless. Which is bullshit, by the way. It is easy to drive 100 mph and not be reckless. I've done it many times and will do it again. But in that area of the country the bullshit stands.

Imagine doing time for nearly two decades for a crime you didn't commit, being released and having that conviction vacated, and then this asshole pulls you over, and instead of asking the age-old question all cops can't help but ask ("Do you know how fast you were driving?") he screamed in Cure's face about it. Right off the bat. He then demanded that Cure get out of the car.

Cure does. He obeys the command to put his hands on the hood. But then comes the command to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed, and Cure does *not* obey. Would you? Once you're in the system, whether you're guilty or not, YOU ARE IN THE SYSTEM. YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE THAT STRIKE AGAINST YOU UNTIL THE DAY YOU DIE. But in addition to that, doing that much time for committing no crime? That is traumatizing. Would you be so willing to go back in the system? Even if it's for reckless driving (which is really speeding, a offense punishable by a mere fine) instead of, say, armed robbery?

Cure doesn't want to go back in the system. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't fight back. He just refuses the command. Aldridge, instead of being reasonable and admitting that he's up to bullshit, shoves a taser in Cure's back.

Unlike JD from last night's GF, Cure is an adult. A strong adult. So instead of meekly allowing himself to be brutalized by a cop who just stepped out of the gray zone and into the fuck-you-I-get-to-kill-you-because-I'm-a-cop zone. As Cure fights back and actually manages to grab the cop's throat, Aldridge shoots Cure to death.

A lot of people are using the same argument for Cure as for Trayvon Martin. Cure (and Martin) were violent and needed to be killed. If you are attacked, you should be able to defend yourself even if it means killing the attacker. HOWEVER. When you, yourself, are the cause of that violence? Nope. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. In Zimmerman's case, he harassed a kid and harassed him and harassed him until Martin fought back, thus making it socially acceptable to kill him.

What do you do when you come upon a beehive in the wild? Personally, I'm inclined to walk away from it swiftly and not bother it in the slightest. Zimmerman (and Aldridge) chose to grab the beehive and shake it up like a snow globe and then kick it around a bit and then had the gall to act surprised when he got stung.

If someone fucked with a beehive like that, would you think that he's a good guy? Or would you believe that he deserved to get stung because he's an idiot and a piece of shit?

But even former police officer (current criminal justice professor) Thaddeus Johnson said that Aldridge fucked up from the get-go. "He escalated the situation with Mr. Cure. He has no control over his emotions." He said Aldridge deserved to be fired and added, "We have to hold officers to a higher standard even though they are human." I can think of no better summary for this series than that quote.

How much you wanna bet that Aldridge was a problem before this incident? Heh. No bet. Good choice. Because when he started out his law "enforcement" career he worked in another Georgia town where he was fired for use of excessive force THREE times. There aren't details about the first two, but for the third he assisted with a traffic stop. He had to keep an eye on a woman in the car. NOT arrest her. Just keep an eye on her once she's out of the vehicle. He picked her up and hurled her to the ground, then handcuffed her so he could, uh, keep an eye on her?

Her crime? Letting an unlicensed person drive her car. OH NO! Heaven forbid!

When he got fired for that? A few months later he was hired by the sheriff's department who would let him kill Leonard Cure. Because cops are a lot like child raping priests. You get caught raping a child? We'll just move you to another parish where they don't know about your proclivities. You get in trouble for roughing up a woman for letting someone without a drivers license drive her car? We'll get you in with another law enforcement agency.

And it's not even Aldridge's first incident with the sheriff! Aldridge chased after someone eluding him, and when the car crashed, he rushed to the vehicle and dragged out the driver so he could beat the shit out of him. As someone who has been in a car crash, I know what it's like to get hit in the face with an airbag. It stunned me, and I could not act within the first minute or so of the accident. If someone dragged me out of the car to beat the shit out of me, I wouldn't even think of fighting back. My brain needed to catch up to my body before I could so much as get out of the car. I imagine the victim felt much the same way.

And Aldridge isn't alone with the sheriff's dept. Six of his fellow officers in 2022 were indicted and fired for beating the shit out of people they already had in jail. And one motor incident, which is almost kind of funny if it wasn't so fucked up. Christine Newman is singled out for pulling the motorist over and, when the motorist refused to get out of the vehicle, Newman got her into cuffs and then slapped her and, the cherry on top, slammed the motorist's head into her patrol SUV. Why was she pulled over in the first place? She didn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign.

Two months later Newman was declared Deputy of the Month! She was fired a year later for "aggravated assault" and "violating her oath of office." There aren't details about this incident, though.

Let's move on from Georgia to Alabama, to a place called Reform (and what a collar-puller of a name!). Micah Washington survived his encounter, but according to his aunt, "[H]e's not the same. You can tell he's not the same."

Washington's car was by the side of the road, and he was changing a flat tire. That is the only thing he did to draw police attention to himself. The officer approached, wanting to know what was going on. Washington explained and then asked for help. "Are you here to help us?" You know. The "serve" part of "to serve and to protect."

"No, I am not," the officer said. She demanded to see his ID. He complied. She led him to her vehicle, handcuffed him and put him in the back. Safely detained. Washington could not harm anyone if he wanted to.

The officer chose that moment--when he was handcuffed and defenseless--to tase him. For good measure, she charged him with a bunch of bullshit like dealing fentanyl (where the fuck did that come from?) and obstruction of governmental operations (whatever the fuck that means) and resisting arrest (even though he complied every step of the way).

The officer is on leave right now. There is no word of any investigation into her behavior. Washington and his family are suing. I hope they win.

Let's head over to Charlotte, NC, where a couple smoking outside of Bojangles were approached by the police. Before going any further, it should be noted that cannabis is illegal in NC. The cops accused one of them of smoking weed. She denied it, saying it was a cigarette she legally bought at a smoke shop. It's not entirely true, in that it was not a cigarette. But it's not, strictly speaking, weed either. It was later tested and came up positive for THCa. Technically that's not illegal. It's hemp-derived, not cannabis derived. So yes, legal to have.

The officers then said they were going to arrest them. The couple wanted to know why, and the cops refused to tell them. 

It should be noted that the police don't have to tell you why you're being arrested. I don't know how that's fucking legal, but there you go.

Understandably they were reluctant to go with the police. Once you're in the system, YOU'RE IN THE SYSTEM FOR LIFE. Even if exonerated. So they resisted, and suddenly a lot of backup officers showed up to pile on. One in particular, Vincent Pistone, kicked the woman's leg 17 times, trying to hit a particularly painful pressure point. Even his superiors said the first three strikes worked. The other 14 were excessive as he continued kicking her while the others worked to handcuff her.

She broke the law. She deserves what she gets. Right?

Two things. One, it is impossible to go your entire life without breaking the law. Even if it's little shit like speeding or jaywalking or even not returning a library book. That last one is, indeed, a crime in IL. You can be prosecuted for that one. So don't get up on your high horse. I have never met someone who has never committed some kind of crime. Two, SHE DID NOT BREAK THE LAW. If you learn nothing else from this series, please know that even if she did break the law and that was a real cannabis joint, she did not deserve to be kicked in a pressure point 17 fucking times.

Thankfully the charges were dropped. Also, I'm sure Pistone was fired, right? Eh, about that. He got suspended for 40 hours (a mini vacation as a reward for violating someone's rights) and had to go through more training. HE SHOULD BE IN FUCKING PRISON. Vicki Foster, the assistant chief of the PD, had a few thoughts about her boys.

Vicki Foster added that even in the calmer moments, Pierre and Lee were resisting arrest. She said despite moments where it doesn’t look or sound like they are fighting officers, if a person isn’t answering their questions or doing what an officer asks, that is considered resisting.

And:

“At the end of the day, we always have to remember that if you assault an officer, it doesn’t matter what that is. When there is a smack, a push, you know, whatever that is, you now put yourself in a situation where his use of force his or her use of force is going to be justified,” Foster said.

I'm not saying that use of force is wrong. Sometimes it's called for. But maybe getting kicked in a pressure point 17 times for being merely suspected of smoking weed is a bit harsh, don't you think? And here's the chief of the PD with one final bullshit quote for you: "We're not robots. If there's an expectation that we'll always say and do the right things, then I think that's something that will never happen."

It's not often that the police admit to being objectively bad at their jobs, but there you go.

OK, one more story for the night. This one goes toward what the cops will do to make sure their arrest numbers look good. And it's not even in the contiguous states! We're heading out to Hawaii for this one.

Ammon Fepuleai was visiting Hawaii from American Samoa and was pulled into a DUI checkpoint by the cops. I think I've ranted and raved about how those should be illegal elsewhere, but I'm going to let that go for now because this is TOO FUCKING LONG. Once you get me started on police brutality, I am kind of longwinded.

ANYWAY. He was pulled into a DUI checkpoint. One of the cops flat out lied and said that he smelled alcohol. Here's the problem: Fepuleai doesn't drink. Ever. He told the officer this. Remember, the cops are trained to never trust you, and these cops were no different. They ran him through field sobriety tests, and then he blew 0.0 on the breathalyzer. 100% not a drunk driver.

Did the cops say alcohol? No, they really meant drugs. You're under arrest for "driving under the influence of an intoxicant."

Once they're on the way to the PD the cop turned off his body cam WHICH BAFFLES MY FUCKING MIND BECAUSE POLICE SHOULD *NOT* HAVE THAT ABILITY. I wonder how much money goes into making sure all officers have body cams so we can prove when they're breaking laws AND THEN THEY CAN JUST TURN THEM OFF?!?!?!?!?!

This guy turns his off and says to Fepuleai that he's guilty, so he should just save the time and not go through the drug tests. Remember, NEVER TRUST A COP EVER. Fepuleai never learned that lesson, so he agreed to skip the tests and let them say he's guilty. He was able to bail himself out with $500 and was on his way. When he got home to American Samoa he got notification that the charges were dropped due to lack of evidence, and he received his drivers license in the mail. What did he *not* get back? His $500 bail.

He says he should have never listened to that asshole. He said, "He shouldn't have given me that advice, and I hope they're not giving other innocent people the same advice."

A traffic attorney and former HPD officer named Jonathan Burge says he's heard from many other clients that this is exactly what the police are doing.

Sure, it's lo-fi corruption, but it's still corruption. And it's making criminals of innocent people.

The police are objectively bad at their jobs, but they are very good at making citizens into criminals on paper. Once you're in the system, you're there for life.

To be continued tomorrow night.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #802: ACAB PART 2

All Cops Are Bastards?

 I fucking hate cop shows with a passion. There are a few exceptions. Usually comedies like Brooklyn Nine-Nine or The Job. But there is a serious cop show that I *do* like: The Shield. I contend that it's the cop show for people who hate cop shows. Who hates cop shows? People who know what the police are actually like instead of the soap opera most people see. The Shield is a great cop show because it shows them for what they really are: predators and criminals.

Am I exaggerating? Let's turn our attention to Jackson, Mississippi, to a li'l town called Rankin. A bit more than a year ago a resident called the cops because two Black males were seen living in the neighborhood and were acting "suspicious." We know what that means, and I know I said I would leave race out of it, but it's the instigator in this particular case. A white guy calls a white police force, and a group of white cops show up. They're known locally as the "Goon Squad." Doesn't have quite the same ring as Vic Mackey's Strike Team, but it's a contender.

How did the Goon Squad know to show up? Their leader, a guy named Middleton, reached out to his team and said they had "a mission." Does that sound like something a professional police officer should be saying?

So they kick the door down and find the two guys. What happens next is very important. I can't stress how important. But the two men COMPLIED WITH THE POLICE'S ORDERS. And shortly thereafter THEY WERE HANDCUFFED.

Now it's time for verbal abuse. The cops want to know where the drugs are. What drugs? you might be wondering. Good question. That's the first I've heard of it in this story, too. Eh, who cares? It's time for some scare tactics now. One of them fires his weapon out the back of the house and demands to know where the drugs are.

There are no drugs.

The taunting begins. I'm sure you can guess which word gets thrown around quite a bit here. And now it's time for the threats. They find a sex toy and a BB gun, and they threaten to use them against the two guys. The police make it very clear that rape is definitely on the table, here.

And now for the physical torture. They pour milk, booze and syrup all over them, and they force the two guys to drink it until they're bloated. They throw eggs at them until one of them probably realizes that they don't want their vehicles to get dirty. They order them to shower and change clothes. Then the two men are beaten with pieces of wood and a GODDAM SWORD and tased. Remember THEY WERE HANDCUFFED. They OBEYED THE POLICE.

And now for the main event. One of the cops grabs one of the guys and makes him kneel before him. The cop then puts his gun in the guy's mouth, probably tormenting him a little before pulling the trigger.

The chamber is empty.

I can see the cocky grin on that fucker's face as he racks the chamber and does the whole thing again. Except this time, unexpectedly, the gun fires. Don't worry. Our guy lives. It busts up his mouth and jaw, and the bullet exits the back of his neck, but he's all right.

The cops realize the deep shit they're in, so now it's time to cover their asses. What would Vic Mackey do? They burn all the evidence they can. They get the hard drive from the home surveillance system and chuck it in the creek. To make sure there were no questions later about why they were there, they plant a gun and some meth and planned on telling the world it was a drug raid. They even try to get their victims to go along with their cover story. They try to convince them that if they stick to that story, they'll be released from jail.

Would you believe that line of bullshit?

If there's anything I've learned in my life, it's this: DO NOT TRUST COPS. Ever. Even when you think they're telling the truth. ESPECIALLY THEN. Do not trust a cop ever. Even if they threaten you.

Keep in mind, these motherfuckers were called the Goon Squad BEFORE this incident. Turns out, they've been doing this shit for years going back to 2004. They were notorious for it. A lot of their raids resemble the one described above (except for that ending). They'd waterboard people. Choke them with lamp cords. Beat people with flashlights. And if you think that last one is silly, you've never held a cop's flashlight before. You could easily kill a guy with one. And they fucking loved their tasers:

At least 32 times over the past decade, Rankin deputies fired their Tasers more than five times in under an hour, activating them for at least 30 seconds in total — double the recommended limit. Experts in Taser use who reviewed the logs called these incidents highly suspicious.

“This is not typical Taser use,” said Seth Stoughton, faculty director of the Excellence in Policing & Public Safety program at the University of South Carolina. “There’s just no justification for that.”

This story has a . . . I'd hesitate to say a happy ending. After all that violence? Who could possibly be happy? They got at least some form of punishment, which I can't say for a lot of cops. If they didn't resign, they were fired. All of them. Personally, I'd be a lot happier if they did some time. The victims are suing them, and I can only hope they take the Goon Squad to the cleaners.

Just a few bad apples, eh? It's . . . odd that so many of them just came together in the same spot. It's almost as if . . . hear me out . . . they're all rotten to the core?

When you're supposed to stop crime, but instead you *commit* crime, that makes you objectively bad at your job. But let's switch gears a little and tell you about a neurodivergent eight year old in Wyoming. He's called JD because he's a minor, but remember what I said about cops and their need to be cruel to kids?

This one seems to still be under investigation, so I'm just going to say this is the alleged story.

JD eats his lunch every day in the principal's office as part of his specialized education plan. That day he'd been a bit rambunctious, and the principal and teacher were talking to him about maybe apologizing to the cashier in the lunchroom. The school resource officer was there and knew about the kid's disorders, which meant he also knew that deescalation is what JD needs when in trouble. This officer was trained in this, allegedly.

JD got up to leave, just like he did every day, but for some inexplicable reason this officer grabbed JD by the arm--against the administrative code in WY--and pinned the kid to the floor, slamming his face repeatedly into the tiles. No one knows why this happened. The principal and other staff did not request any help with anything. This fucking guy just flew off the handle for no reason and beat the shit out of a defenseless eight year old. An adult man put his entire weight on a 68 pound child. JD couldn't breathe.

Who else couldn't breathe?

JD begs to surrender, but the officer's response is batshit crazy: "No, it's all me! Do you understand me?! I should be taking you to jail!"

The principal called JD's dad to come pick him up, and when he got there he demanded to know why the officer laid hands on his boy. The officer said, "Because, as a law enforcement officer, that's my primary function."

Oh? Really? I thought it was to serve and to protect. Apparently the primary function of a police officer is to beat the shit out of neurodivergent kids. Got it.

Am I exaggerating? Was this officer acting within the bounds of the law? Then why did he erase the worst parts of his body cam footage? (And we'll talk about body cams again, probably in part 5.) Why did he violate JD"s private personal records at the school and use excerpts in his official report? Because he knew he was in deep shit, and now he was covering his ass. Just like the Goon Squad.

This officer was not punished. The department condoned his actions, calling them "appropriate and justified." He's being sued, and the results are not yet in. I hope he gets taken to the cleaners, too.

I don't know about you, but I've had my fill of horror stories for tonight. To be continued tomorrow.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #801: ACAB PART 1

ACAB applies to McGruff, too. Sorry bud.

 In case you don't know, ACAB stands for All Cops Are Bad. And yes, I'm going to spend five nights this week explaining why I think this. Because I don't think Defund the Police goes far enough. No, if it were up to me the slogan would be Abolish the Police.

But! But! But! But what about . . . ? Relax. Take it easy. I'll address your points.

Let's start with my own experience. When I was a kid I was like everyone else. I believed the police were the good guys, the only people who could protect us from the bad guys. But as I grew older I lost faith in that incrementally. A huge blow came over the Rodney King beating. My faith in the police dropped drastically that day. But it kept dropping and dropping until I just can't find it in my heart to say there are any good cops. There are plenty who think they're good, plenty who others would say are good, but they're bad. The fucking lot of them.

I've been arrested once. I did a whole diary about it on this blog and other places (RIP MySpace), so I won't go into details. I spent most of the night in jail in Lisle until my grandparents got me out. Being in jail is not fun. I can't imagine what prison is like.

But that's not my only run-in with people who claim to uphold the law. I've been detained and harassed many times. One time I got a written warning from a cop who pulled me over for NOT speeding. Let me repeat that. I was NOT speeding, and that was why he pulled me over. (I would have been speeding, but I saw him, so I kept the needle between the speed limit and the grace period.) I got ticketed once for going through a stop sign when I came to a full stop at said stop sign. Hard enough that I felt myself jerk. They pulled me over because I was young and had my radio loud. Because that's what cops do when they have teenagers in their clutches. They *need* to be cruel, and what's anyone going to do about it? Are the kids going to tell their parents? Hey Mom, I got in trouble for tobacco possession, but this cop treated me like a dick, and I think my rights were violated. And where is that teenager going to get the money to hire a lawyer to sue?

In Elmhurst, my hometown, the cops' favorite pastime is fucking with underage kids. They thrive on it. Gets their dicks hard. And I know it for a fact. I wasn't always on the receiving end of the police. As a parts driver for the city, I drove them around often, and they liked to talk.

I feel certain that I've written about the time I was almost arrested for attempted murder with two of my friends. For jack fucking shit. We were young, we were loud. A warning would have sufficed. But no, they decided to make our lives miserable simply because we were young. I was 18, my friends were 19. There was alcohol in the apartment, but thankfully the lease had my friend's dad's name on it, so it wasn't our booze, officer. I remember the vehemence the cops had for us when we said we weren't drinking. And we weren't. I hadn't yet had my first drink as an adult. But they threatened and cajoled us because we were young, and they felt it was their right.

One of us unfortunately had a warrant out for his arrest, so their bullshit bore fruit. That's why they fuck with so many people. They're looking for that goddam fruit, and they want to skip finding an actual reasonable cause.

But these are minor grievances compared to what the cops do to other people. I'm going to tell you about some of those people over the course of this week. You'll be horrified by the crimes these motherfuckers commit. CRIMES. Lest ye forget, the police are supposed to STOP crime.

I can hear you asking, "Aren't you a pro-union guy?" This article should answer all of your "police union" questions. Long story short, it's not a real union. It's a tool cops use to help their members get away with committing crimes up to and including murder. Because those people you *think* are good cops? They're in that "union," too. All they have to do is speak up, and the bad cops will get punished. But they don't because there's safety in numbers. The good cops keep their mouths shut because they're all brothers. In my opinion they are, to quote Jerry Cantrell, "Leaning more toward Cain than Abel."

And the author is right. Police officer isn't even in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It comes in at #22. You know what's higher up on the list? At #12 we have crossing guards. And let's not forget that they like to talk themselves up to match with the military. They even call us civilians or citizens, like they're not civilians themselves. Even the guys with military backgrounds are now civilians. But hey, it's a dangerous job. We need military grade weapons in case some guy--er, civilian hurts my feelings. I don't want to just "accidentally" shoot him. I wanna blow him away with a rocket launcher while I stand there looking pretty in my stormtrooper armor.

"Just trust the police, and everything will work out in the end." Eh, no. These fuckers are trained to distrust us. Why should we trust them? And it doesn't matter if they get the guilty party. As long as they have someone for the crime, they're satisfied.

So I'll present some horrific stories of police brutality. I'm going to leave race out of it because I don't want that to confuse the issue. We all know that white people are less likely to be killed by a police officer during a stop. By far. I feel certain I could wave a gun at a cop at a traffic stop, and he'd just try to calm me down. This is a fact of life. Even racists, in their heart of hearts, have to admit that this is a fact. Hell, they're helping make it a fact. Ever hear of ghost skins? They're KKK or neo-Nazis or "white nationalists" (but we all know what that means) who don't have any tattoos, and they're not loud. They're sneaky about their views and can pass easily for non-racists. But their goal is to infiltrate police forces in the name of protecting their white brothers and punishing anyone they don't like with anything from a beating to flat out murder. This is a real thing. It's the subject of an FBI investigation.

But I want to cut through to the heart of the matter, which is this: THE POLICE ARE OBJECTIVELY BAD AT THEIR JOBS. In some states, all they have to say is the phrase, "I thought my life was in danger," and that's practically a Get Out of Jail Free card. They're people who claim to be the best of the best, but when the chips are down, they prove themselves to be cowards who, in "fear for their lives," decide to just fucking kill another person rather than deescalate the situation, which is what they're supposed to do.

"But they deal with people shooting at them all the time." No, not all the time. You're thinking of 'Eighties action movies. But how often do they shoot someone they "thought" had a gun? Which is code for "shoot first, make up lies later." Are you OK with having triggerhappy cowards patrolling your streets? Where your kids walk to school? They're supposed to have cooler heads. They're supposed to be trained for that. But . . . well . . .

You'll hear some stories. Starting tomorrow. And don't ask what my solution is. That's what part 5 is for.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #800: THERE'S YER PROBLEM RIGHT THERE, VERN!

 

I think I have it figured out now. I know why there are so many angry fucking people in the world right now, and it's not because of social media, although it hasn't made matters better. It has made matters worse. Kind of like a gun. Use a gun to kill, say, John Wayne Gacy, and you're a hero. Use a gun to shoot up a school, and suddenly you're the reason for politicians muttering soulfully about thoughts and prayers. Social media is a mirror. It reflects yourself back. Not the you you think you are. The you you actually are.

So many people build themselves up to be something. They say they're this, that or some such until they're blue in the face. They'll talk themselves up. I'm a loyal guy, but fuck with me and you're dead. That kind of thing. And social media will help you spread that image. I have the perfect family. Look at my adorable children! Except when the camera's not taking pictures, the li'l brats are tearing wings off of flies, or they're beating the mortal shit out of each other.

Lying isn't the problem. At least, lying to others isn't the problem. Lying to yourself is the problem. Because we now have social media, we have surefire ways of revealing one's self-deceptions. Because you are not defined by the things you say, no matter how much you wish that were true. It's your actions that define who you are.

And because of social media people are discovering, holy shit, maybe I'm not the person I think I am? And it's pissing them off.

More often than not? The person who has just had this revelation is going to take it out on everyone else and save the self-loathing for later when no one else is around. And that's why people are so angry. If those people had critical thinking skills, and if they applied those to themselves, we wouldn't have so much rage going around. But that requires taking a good look inside of oneself. How many people are willing to do that? Are you?

No matter how crazy and extroverted I can be (especially if I have some booze in me), I have always been an introvert. I constantly examine who I am and who I think I am and hope that they line up. A few times they don't, and I have to reevaluate. People don't want to do that kind of work, though. Why constructively criticize oneself when it's a lot easier to get mad at someone else? Why must I change? Why can't I bludgeon the world into doing what I want it to do?

You know who would benefit from self-evaluation? Everyone in the Fuck You Caucus. You know who I mean. The dipshits and fuckfaces who keep holding up legislation in this country. If they took a real good look at themselves, and I mean objectively and in earnest, I think they would be surprised to discover that they don't actually give a shit about freedom unless it's their own. When you talk about things like freedom, you can't have qualifying rules about that freedom. You can't abridge it for anyone, you can't prohibit it from anyone. Freedom is for everyone, not just a bunch of whiny assholes who keep poking their noses into your business, but GOD FUCKING FORBID THAT ANYONE ELSE LOOKS INTO THEIR BUSINESS,. That's Deep State harassment, buddy.

They have the fucking gall to call themselves the Freedom Caucus when they work ceaselessly to take freedoms away from people? Just fucking once in this goddam miserable shitbowl of a fucking Congress that one of these pricks would think to look inward, to question themselves, to wonder if they are really doing good work or if they're harming people. Just fucking once.

Maybe they do. I imagine if one of them did, they'd probably keep it to themselves. They crow constantly about their own morality, but they don't strike me as very moral people. They strike me as people who would break something at a friend's house and then pretend they were nowhere near it, that it must have been the wind or the dog or something.

So maybe they do look inward. Maybe they recognize their own moral ineptitude. But they're politicians, and they have a base to pander to. If they admitted they were wrong and tried to fix it, their own party would vote them out of their plum House positions, and in the world of politics, that is just UNTHINKABLE. Getting reelected is more important than being good, or at least trying not to be evil. I'll take trying any day over someone who just doesn't give a shit about their own dark side.

Or! Maybe they called themselves the Freedom Caucus in much the same way as a deer conservationist might call themselves deer hunters? The age old question. Is Demon Knight about a demon who is a knight, or a knight who hunts demons? Is it Billy Zane or William Sadler?

Fuck it. Quit being Vern for a while. Try to be Ernest.

Holy shit, 800 columns. And if I don't take anymore than four weeks off from this, I might even make it to 1000 by the end of the year. Heh. Who am I kidding? It'll probably be in 2025, but who knows?

Also, do you know what the P in Ernest P. Worrell stands for? I didn't know until about five minutes ago that it stands for Powertools. Weird, huh?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #799: RIP THE SILVERADO

 

Today I drove past the remains of probably the best place to get a burger in Elmhurst, the Silverado. They closed down a while ago, which saddens me because they made the best steak I've ever had, and I'm never going to have it again. I held out hope that someone else might take over, and I could once again sit at the table where Rooster Cogburn looks down at you.

Nope. They tore the building down. All that remains is a fenced in empty lot. I fucking swear to fuck, they'd better not put something stupid there, like yet another fitness center. Or another goddam learning center with a bullshit Italian name to make it sound fancy and scholarly. The one that irritates me the most is Montessori. It used to be called Raggedy Anne, and two of my cousins actually went there way back when. But then it turned out that the people running it were so racist they ended up on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Whoops! Guess it was time for a rebranding. Let's slap some Eye-talian name on there. Eye-talian names are synonymous with the Maf--er, I mean, Catholicism! Because never forget, THE MAFIA DOESN'T EXIST. Capice?

I am getting waaaaaaay off track here. I meant that the Silverado was very special to me, and I don't want its place to be sullied by another fucking microbrewery because HOLY FUCKING SHIT we don't have enough of those in Elmhurst. Or in the surrounding towns. Or fucking everywhere else. It would be great if it was another no-bullshit burger place. I shan't hold my breath, though.

It's getting harder and harder to find a good place to eat in Elmhurst. The Pizza Palace was another great place, and if you needed to drink an afternoon away, they had a very short bar there if you and a friend wanted to hang out and have a few Jamesons. I usually sat in the booth that had Josey Wales looking down at me. Seeing a pattern, here?

Beerhead was a pretty good place, but it vanished almost as quickly as it opened. Fitz's Spare Keys (or whatever they were calling it near the end; they changed names a few times) was good if you wanted watered down booze and overpriced shit, but it was good shit. They were shut down for selling booze to high school students.

There are a lot of places to eat in Elmhurst. They're all priced out the dickhole. And I won't go in them on principle. Just give me a goddam bar and grill, don't put on airs and call yourself a gastropub. Microbrewery is bad enough as it is. Do I really need to spend fifteen bucks on a cheeseburger? If that trend keeps happening, I'm going to have to make my change from Randy to Smokey and hit the streets, selling myself for cheeseburgers. Eight bucks is reasonable. Bring it to me medium-rare with nothing but cheese on it. No need to fancy it up. I'm not looking for a dining experience. I'm looking for an affordable good cheeseburger I don't have to drive far to get. But in Elmhurst? That's asking too fucking much.

All right, yeah. I got something stuck in my craw. I meant this to be a fond farewell to a kickass burger place, but instead all I've done is mourn for a lost world.

Holy shit, am I having a midlife crisis? Is that what's going on? I thought I'd gotten that out of the way when I was 20. (I figured I'd be dead by now, so I went into existential dread mode pretty early.)

OK. If this is a midlife crisis, I'm going to need your help. Do not, under any circumstances, let me buy an expensive take-me-back-to-my-youth car. Unless it's a Skyhawk. I can probably afford that, and it would be nice to have a car without any computer chips. Also, I'm pretty sure I don't have any interest in women half my age. I've always skewed for older, and now that I'm older, I look for same age. But if this is a midlife crisis, all bets are off. Don't let my other head do the talking for me. And if I start bitching about kids today and how kids when I was young had respect for their elders, please take me behind the barn and tell me I can tend the rabbits, George.

I'm going to miss the Silverado. It was a hell of a vision. Hell of a vision.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #798: I DID 9/11

 A while back, sometime in maybe 2011, I wrote an article asking the question, "What if Osama bin Laden didn't do 9/11?" And then I went into the reasons why he might have been a patsy and even wrote a little about his so-called confession. But honestly? I think it was my guilt. I didn't want someone taking the fall for the real perpetrator.

Because I did 9/11.

I didn't mean for it to happen that way. I certainly didn't want planes to crash into the WTC and the Pentagon. I never wanted 2,000-ish people to die that day.

I think I might have powers. There is some circumstantial evidence for this, just like there is for possibly dying in January 2020 and not noticing. Or accidentally winding up in a parallel universe. You know, stuff I'd never, never, never claim happened to me. Ever. Especially not in a column called Goodnight, Fuckers.

But I can kill people with my mind. Let me give you an example. When I was in high school one of my brothers liked to play with the kid who lived a couple of doors down. I forget what happened between the two of them, but the kid's dad marched over to my place (while I wasn't there), and screamed at my grandmother. He cursed at her. Shouted how my brother was not allowed over there anymore. He even called my grandma a cocksucker. Not conversationally, either. At the top of his lungs. Later, when she told me about it, she couldn't bring herself to say the "cock" part of cocksucker, but I got the idea. It burned me up. If I *had* been there, I would have pushed that fucker backwards off my porch, and if he looked like he was going to get up, I'd jump down the three steps and land with both feet on his balls. You're all not used to me being irrationally angry. I'm a very mellow middle-aged man now. But I was furious back then.

I wished, with all my might, that the piece of shit would die.

Two weeks later, he did.

This has happened a total of three times in my life, when I have wished someone was dead and they died no later than two weeks after. It can't be anyone, though. It has to be someone I know and who knows me. (Believe me, I've tried with a certain former president.) I have never wished someone I know dead and they didn't die swiftly thereafter. So it's a power I've sworn off of. Someone has to fuck me over really, really bad to get me to wish them dead.

What does this have to do with me doing 9/11?

I remember thinking about the state of the world in the year 2001, and I remember that even though we were in very, very good shape as a nation, every goddam motherfucker on the TV and radio bitched and moaned about nonissues. It was all bullshit, and I got sick and tired of hearing it. So I wished with all my might that they'd finally have something real to complain about.

The date of that wish was September 1, 2001.

I'd been thinking more along the lines of a financial crisis. Like, maybe another depression. Never in a thousand years would I have wanted something so bad that it changed the course of the world irrevocably, costing so many human lives not just on the day of, but in the seemingly endless war that resulted from the madness.

Fuck.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #797: ROUTE 66

 

If you've ever had a conversation with me about David Morrell, you'll know that I just can't be silenced on how awesome an author he is. I literally don't know when to shut up. I've been a fan since I read First Blood in high school. As an author, I found his book, The Successful Novelist, to be indispensable.

In that book he talks about what got him into writing in the first place: an American show from the 'Sixties called Route 66, written by a guy with an odd name: Stirling Silliphant. The stories were so good that Morrell felt inspired to write his own stories.

When my disability began I needed to find something to watch that I was OK with passing out in the middle of because I was on a lot of heavy drugs. I wanted to find Combat! because it sounds like Band of Brothers decades beforehand, and I like that kind of storytelling. PLEX supposedly has Combat!, so I downloaded the app and found the show. Motherfucker, it won't play in my area. Goddammit.

But PLEX also had Route 66. Well. Why not find out if it's that good?

Not every episode is great, but many of them are fantastic. The first episode is the best, though.

The idea is, two young men drive around in an awesome car, seeing America. There's just something kind of iconic about that. The Winchesters in the Impala. Dr. Gonzo and his attorney in the shark. And even, in a much different way, Doc Brown and Marty McFly in the DeLorean.

Tod Stiles is a student at Yale when his dad dies. Tod can't afford tuition anymore, so he drops out. The one thing his dad leaves him is a pretty sweet Corvette. His buddy Buz Murdock is very different from him. He's an orphan who grew up in Hell's Kitchen. Give him a book, and he'd probably use it to bludgeon someone. Together they decide to get in the Corvette and see America. Put down roots if they find a place they like enough. It's episodic, but unlike a lot of shows back then, they do refer back to previous episodes. Also unlike other shows, this one was shot on location, not a set. So you can see their progress as they travel around the country. Although I'm 99% sure that Route 66 doesn't actually go down to Florida . . .

They usually get a job in each new locale to fund their journey to the next stop. Adventures ensue. Like in that first episode. In an attempt to find a shortcut to Biloxi (also not a place Route 66 goes to), the boys find themselves in a backwoods small town where everyone treats them like assholes. Of course the townsfolk are hiding a deadly secret that the boys must discover in order to get out of town alive. And Buz gets to kick the shit out of George Kennedy! He also gets to defenestrate someone else later on!

What I really like about the show is that it *is* shot on location, so you get to see the real America as it was back in 1960, not some set on a studio backlot. I also like seeing a lot of actors from the westerns back then in modern garb and driving cars. The only other show from back then I got that from was The Twilight Zone.

But these are snapshots of an America that no longer exists. The backwoods towns are fewer and fewer as corporate America's reach stretches further and further. The only place I've seen on the show so far that is actually the same is Bourbon Street. Probably smells the same, too.

It's all too horrifying thinking about all those places now sporting a Starbucks or worse, a Chick-fil-A. It's definitely not for the better. Sure, it was a more dangerous America, but great beauty often comes with danger.

It's a good show. I watch it when I eat lunch. It's free on PLEX, but it's with commercials, and they don't put the commercials where they belong. They use a stupid algorithm for that, I guess because no one wanted to actually watch the show. Because of that, sometimes the audio is off, so it gives you the feeling of watching something that was dubbed. But these are minor annoyances. Plus there are great guest stars! Like:

Leslie "Don't Call Me Shirley" Nielsen!

And an occasional movie star like:

Lee "Woody Biggs" Marvin!

So yeah, give it a shot. I'm almost halfway through the first season.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #796: HEALTH UPDATE

 You know what I'm getting tired of? Writing that first post after a long time off. It always feels necessary to give you all an update, which you can probably tell for yourself if you follow me on social media. But here we are again. Welcome back!

I'm on short term disability from work right now due to a horrible illness that I was hoping to never deal with again. What happens is, I feel nauseous, and it gets worse and worse until I puke. And then I puke again. And again, and by now I have a horrible pain jabbing through my stomach and to my back. And it's relentless. It goes on for days, and I usually go to the ER three times before they take me seriously and admit me until the sickness is over. It usually takes a lot of Zofran and morphine to do the trick. I was told that if I quit drinking, I would never get sick like that again.

Lo! and behold! The doctors were wrong. I'm dry, and I'm still going through this shit. So now I've been thinking about drinking again. If it doesn't matter, why not? Well, there's still the Fear. You could probably put a shot of Wild Turkey 101--hell, Booker's!--in front of me, and I wouldn't take it.

(The Pappy might be a different story. That's a once in a lifetime drink for someone as dirt poor as me.)

I probably won't, but that's what's been on my mind.

Then there's the thing about stepping in glass. I saw my podiatrist, and he said that there's still a hole there. He shaved off a callus and showed me. Just because dead skin grew over the hole doesn't mean it's fixed. So I still have that to fucking plague me. I've been sleeping badly because of it. I keep dreaming about my left leg getting amputated just below the knee. Not fun. Especially since . . .

. . . I've started a series of four spinal injections. They're being administered by the pain clinic. The first was for my bad foot, and the other three are for my back. Oh yeah, I have arthritis in my back now. At any rate, the injection for my foot just kicked in today, and I can walk without feeling pain! For the first time in years! It would be a shame to lose that foot now that I've figured out a way to kill that pain.

My hand surgery went well. I no longer have trigger finger in either hand, and now that the stitches are out, I'm back to typing, which means I'm back to work writing. Which means Good Morning, Fuckers! is going to be new on Sunday. Even better, the middle finger on my right hand no longer sticks, so I can flip people the double-bird again!

I have an appointment with my regular doctor tomorrow so I can schedule my return to work. I think I'll be back on 2/26. There are still a lot of tests to do, including a stomach emptying study in which I'll eat radioactive egg whites and get x-rayed a few times to see how fast it moves through me. Because my gastroenterologist says I *don't* have gastroparesis, as I detailed in a previous GF column. So yeah, the sickness thing is still a goddam mystery after all these years. What the fucking fuck?

Hopefully this illness is actually over, so I can get back to writing these columns (and other stuff) on a regular basis. I have not forgotten the five-part GF series that might get me killed if I was important enough. That will take place next week. I fucking hope. Because I wouldn't wish this horrible illness on Donald Fucking Trump, and that's saying a lot.

All right. That's all for now. I'll see you tomorrow for a real GF column. Goodnight, you lovely fuckers, you.