GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1000: THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC IS DECADENT AND DEPRAVED

Blood, Patriotism, and Eagleshit
By Rob Tannahill

Fifty years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid. Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947. Place: White House Cabinet Room. Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders. Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only if he first "scared the hell out of the American people" that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congresses and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues. We complain of terrorism, yet our empire is now the greatest terrorist of all. We bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine. We the unrepresented people of the United States are as much victims of this militarized government as the Panamanians, Iraqis, or Somalians. We have allowed our institutions to be taken over in the name of a globalized American empire that is totally alien in concept to anything our founders had in mind.

--Gore Vidal, "A Letter to be Delivered" 

We'll possibly never know who first said, "No taxation without representation," but it is currently attributed to one of our forgotten Founding Fathers, James Otis, Jr. Unfortunately he was "raving mad" according to John Adams and a drunk to boot. He died by being struck by lightning. And so he was abandoned by the cause he championed. But everyone in this country, whether they like it or not, know these words. I just read the essay I quoted above, and it pleased me to see that Vidal had come to the same conclusion I did.

Why is the country the way it is? Historians and sociologists and anyone else who want to try a hand at answering that question can list off any number of terrible things about our country and government, but everything comes down to that one thing: NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. It's true that we still send these clowns to Washington, but they do not do our bidding. They only answer to their corporate overlords, and THAT is why we are all so fucked. THAT is why we live in an oligarchy. THAT is why America is coming to an end.

We'll still toddle on for a while. It'll still be called America. But it won't be any such country. It will have died an ignoble death at the hands of Trump's Horrible Terrible No Good Very Bad Bill.

But this is not about Trump and his pack of assholes. This is about America, and we've been fucked for much longer than he's been haunting our presidency, not like some grim specter in classic lit-rit-chure, but more like Slimer from Ghostbusters.

In a fit of rage I thought that maybe the income tax should be eliminated. Instead we should be taxing corporations an eye-watering 99%. If they want to run the country, they should pay for it. But no, that would just make things worse.

I have a solution. Three, in fact. One is good. One is, mmm, not so good. And one is flat-out terrible. More on that later.

A SIMPLER TIME

Before we go any further, we must first reject our thoughts and prayers begging for a return to a simpler time. The world has never been simple, not since we gained sentience. I know. I get it. The first thing that I do, whenever shit gets crazy and complicated, is wish for simpler times. Do not have, to paraphrase the Dead Kennedys, nostalgia for an age that never existed.

We all have our own experiences to go by in this regard. The illusion of simplicity is that we were kids at the time, dammit. How aware of world events is an eight year old? I assure you, the world was just as complicated back then. The only things that have changed are technology and style. I follow several social media accounts "covering" history in real time, and one of them was from when I was in junior high and high school. The stories were just as fucked up back then as they are now. I'd just never read about it.

And don't tell me about how, when you were a kid, you could leave your house unlocked, and no one would bother it. Maybe that worked for *you*, but try doing that in a different neighborhood. Not everyone had that privilege. The experience of an era does not mean that everyone had that exact same experience. Maybe you danced the Charleston and drank bathtub gin and had the time of your life in high society balls. Were you under the illusion that everyone experienced that in such an era? Let's ask the WWI veteran who returned with his face blown off so he has to wear a mask just to not be noticeable in public. Did he have the time of his life back then? These boys came home and became the first socially recognized junkies. Not exactly the time of their lives.

Full disclosure: I really wish to return to the pre-Trump era, but not because it was a simpler time. It was a time with less cruelty.

ORIGINAL SIN

Another thing we're going to have to understand is, our role in the world's cruelty started pretty much day one, when the first Europeans washed up on the Atlantic's shore. Some tribes sensibly made war with us, but others were foolish enough to think we could be bargained with. Because of their aid, our virus of unrestrained greed infected the land, and here we stand today, sea to polluted-as-fuck sea, greed leaping from our eyes and mouths, the buzz of it in our ears constantly. Oh, and those tribes? I think it was Garth Ennis who originally wrote in Preacher that converting the natives to corpses was cheaper than converting them to Christianity. Hundreds of thousands of native people thrived here before we arrived. Now they're limited to reservations and make up less than 2% of our population. Our hunger for genocide is baked into the land.

And then there's slavery. We held on to the peculiar institution for a very long time. We brought it to the New World where it grew strong in the cotton and tobacco fields. To say nothing of our oppression of women and our urge to prey on the helpless.

How could the Founding Fathers, who extolled the virtues of freedom, have let all this happen? It's all in how you define "man." Generally we think of that today as a catchall term for "humanity." Back then a man was someone who was male, white and a landowner. That sounds like something a lawyer would throw together. The scourge took hold early.

Still having doubts? Just about the only land we got without conquering someone was the Louisiana Purchase. When we wanted the southwest territories, we invented some reason for war with Mexico to simply steal them. And then there was our lust for lands abroad, especially the Philippines where we killed so many Filipinos (after betraying them, of course) that Mark Twain observed that the American flag should be a skull and crossbones. There are no exact figures, but it's hundreds of thousands to a million Filipinos we killed to subjugate them. Genocide = America.

Cruelty and inhumanity are thus inherent parts of our identity as a nation. No one likes to hear that about their own country, but you can't deny it. Once you face it and understand it, we can perhaps move towards changing it. (He said ever-so-hopefully.) The first step in AA is the only one I agree with, and the only one I ever took. You have to admit you have a problem. America needs to do this, because our problem is set so deep in our structure that an entire overhaul of the system might be needed. Wish in one hand.

THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM

Anyone can run for President of the United States. *I* did it once as a book promotion. And every once in a while we get a hopeful third party candidate, like Perot or Nader, but that person will never win. Because in this country we have two choices for president: a Republican or a Democrat. Some choice. Doesn't it seem to anyone that this is exceptionally unfair to people who want to see some real change? The two political parties are well funded, which means that no matter who gets into office, we're fucked. Why? Because the Republicans and Democrats are owned by the same people who own us: the corporate overlords. How much money do candidates spend to get the White House? Do you think a couple of grand would do it? Of course not. So the only people who are electable in this system are the people who have a shit ton of money, ie. people who don't have We the People's best interests at heart.

It's even worse in Congress. More political parties and independents have a chance there, but it all amounts to the same thing. The only reason they got elected is because of the corporate money that got them elected. The corporate money EVERY politician got, just to ensure that our needs are never satisfied by anyone in office.

This land touts freedom more than just about anything else, but your freedom is limited to a choice between two people as president?

Choice is the problem. We don't have it, but we think we do. You've all seen the charts that prove that three to five corporations own every fucking company in the country, so I won't bore you with that. You might say that's not bad as far as selection goes, but these companies don't compete. They chopped up our nation and each owns their own piece. This means they set the prices. It also means they get to abuse the fuck out of you. What are you going to do about it? Hence the enshittification of products.

But that's a topic for a different day. We essentially live in the land of the free where we barely have more freedom than the Communist nations we needlessly fear. How did this come to pass?

It happened in 1962. The Committee of Economic Development. 75 of the most powerful corporate officers in the country. They were mostly in charge of the food supply, but they were also represented by other interests: oil, insurance, retail, etc. An Adaptive Program for Agriculture. That's what they called their plan to "eliminate farmers and farms" according to Joel Dyer, author of Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning. So naturally they told Congress that "the biggest problem in agriculture was too many farmers." They were aware that farm kids who go to college don't return to the farm, so why not encourage that trend? All the better, the federal government covered the grants. These corporate assholes got together and fucked as many farmers as possible by paying them less than it cost to grow their product. Those farmers then had to go to banks, also represented by the Committee, to get loans they would never be able to pay off until they had no choice but to foreclose on their farms. And guess who gets those farms?

That is what started the merger-mania that consumed this country until we're stuck with those 3-5 corporate owners. Eventually it became easier to just sell out than to fight the mega-conglomerates.

Planned obsolescence should be a fucking crime. "Just go somewhere else," the capitalist says. "Where?" I say. We can't go elsewhere. We're held in thrall to our corporate overlords, who will never make quality products so long as they have the freedom to abuse us.

These are the guys who pay for our elections. They're the ones who shovel money in each and every time, and everyone gets a piece. It would be terrible if an unbribed candidate accidentally won. This is necessary to our corporate overlords. Those who control the people in Congress, controls any laws that would be made in regards to business. The house, in other words, must always win.

None of these assholes have an interest in changing the way things are. They are the beneficiaries of our current system. To turn down that much money would be unthinkable.

Private equity firms buy up good companies and turn their goods and services to shit in order to raid the company's assets, leaving it an empty husk. This is exactly what Musk and Trump did with DOGE. They wanted to transfer all the money in the country from those at the bottom of the economy to pad out the wallets of those at the top. And they pretty much succeeded. I suppose that is a capitalist's wildest wet dream, to financially raid the federal government. Is Fred Christ Trump looking up fondly on his son?

Ordinarily the corporate overlords wouldn't have gotten so greedy. To ensure the status quo, they let a lot of things go. But since they have a real prick in the Oval Office, why not butcher the government like a hog?

HOW DO WE FIX IT?

First we must get over the idea of horrifying the Founding Fathers, who aren't even here to be shocked, anyway. Some of them did time, so a modern day MAGA would dismiss them as criminals, when technically the American Revolution was a criminal enterprise . . . to the British. To quote Vidal, "I fear the United States has always been a nation of ongoing hustlers from the prisons and disaster-areas of Old Europe." He might be thinking mostly of Thomas Paine, here, but how about a quote from another FF, George Mason?

"The government will set out a moderate aristocracy: it is, at present, impossible to foresee whether it will, in its operation, produce a monarchy, or a corrupt, tyrannical aristocracy. It will most probably vibrate some years between the two, and then terminate in one or the other."

But none were more pessimistic than Benjamin Franklin, who was caught leaving the Constitutional Convention and was asked what kind of government they'd created. "A republic," he said, "if you can keep it."

Thomas Jefferson was equally dubious. Everyone knows about his "tree of Liberty" quote, but he went one step better on this one. He built something into the Constitution that might just save us.

Our empire is drawing to a close. It has been falling since 1950, but now that private equity has taken over, the process is rapidly deteriorating.  Entropy is swallowing us whole. The end really is near. I never thought I'd live to see the end of this nation.

There are three ways this can go. The first option is to simply let it burn out and die. The second option is bloody revolution, which will take part as the Second American Civil War. I don't like the sound of either option.

But the third. Oh, the third! A dream! A hope! A vision! But a lot of people have to make financial sacrifices.

Remember when I was Evil John Bruni, writing Evil Goodnight, Fuckers? I lampooned the Constitution, interpreting it as a MAGA would. But I left one part alone. I'm a little surprised that no one mentioned anything to me about it. I hereby draw your attention to . . .

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

The Constitutional Convention! Jefferson recommended having one every generation, which is a great idea that never happened. Provided that 2/3s of both houses or 2/3s of state legislatures can agree to this vote, we can hold a Convention to RESHAPE THE ENTIRETY OF OUR NATION. This is our best shot of getting out of this alive with a republic.

Such conventions have happened a few times over the years, but those involved made sure to restrict the topics that could be discussed. For our purposes, NO TOPIC MUST BE RESTRICTED.

Voters are apathetic, I hear you say. Sure. Out of 340.1M Americans, 245M are registered to vote, and little more than 150M did so in 2024. The reason for this is, those who didn't vote recognize that voting is useless. Nothing ever changes here. Never. It's always the same shitshow year after year, decade after decade. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer. What middle class? Repeat until the heat death of our planet.

But if these people knew that this one time they could make a difference?

They would all show up for their vote--their REAL vote--to be counted. The risk is that we might lose liberties. The truth is, we won't, provided everyone shows up and demands the reform we need to turn back the tide. Empire is never the answer, but a sustainable country? Where everyone counts? Where everyone's well-being is considered? Where how much money you have doesn't mean a goddam thing?

With real consequences on the table, they'll show up.

When I was a kid I loved my country. I said the Pledge of Allegiance with hand on heart like my other classmates until I started noticing something didn't ring true. That was around junior high, when I started paying more attention. By that point I'd moved from plot to characters in figuring out how to tell stories. I'd discovered the unreliable narrator in elementary school, but the knowledge only kicked in at this moment. Which is the long way to tell you that I discovered the world was a lot more complex than I'd thought, and that not everyone worked towards a better world. When I started seeing that America stood for FREEDOM, but only for a select few, I started mouthing the words instead so I wouldn't get caught not saying anything. More and more evidence kept piling up until I knew to a moral certainty in high school (early on, too, I'd say near the end of freshman year) that America did not encourage freedom for all Americans.

I still do love America. Not what it actually is, but what it promises. We can change our country's betrayal of us. WE CAN WIN BACK OUR COUNTRY. This time we can make it live up to its own promises. Can you imagine it? An America FOR EVERYONE. All of us, not just the corporate overlords. Not just the oligarchs. And, on the lower levels, not just for white heterosexual men. No matter the color of your skin, no matter your background, no matter your genetic makeup, no matter your sexual orientation or even whether or not you were born a different gender. No matter your financial situation. For the first time ever, America will belong to We the People as it was intended from the start.

Something must be done. The United States of America is disintegrating rapidly. The only other options result in misery and murder and woe and tears and destruction and bloodshed and, possibly, ever-lasting fascism. The fascism is already here, but we're still in a position to stop it. The only reason Trump would never act against Article 5 is because he could never, in a billion years, imagine politicians willing to sacrifice their own money for the greater good. He's probably right, but fuck him. We need to do this.

You know it's the right thing to do. INVOKE ARTICLE FIVE. RESTRICT NO TOPIC OF DISCUSSION. It's the only way to save ourselves.

THE ROAD TO HELL

 Remember a little while ago when I got a cage installed on my bad foot? I remember thinking at the time, I'd better not suffer my mystery illness. If I do, I'm fucked. How am I going to get to the bathroom on time to puke when I'm dragging this thing around? (Dragging. In reality, I'm on a walker until the doc can take a look at my foot.) I feared it more than anything.

So of course it happened. I had just joined the BWA online meeting on Sunday morning when I felt my guts go south on me. I suddenly had to drop off and shuffle to the bathroom, where I puked for the first time over the next few days. I had my liquid vicodin, but for some reason it wasn't working this time. (I had a lot of time to think about it, and I suspect it was because I was on stronger pain medication for the foot. That has to be the reason. It's the only different thing in my life at the time.) I drank a whole bottle of the stuff trying to stop the illness, but it was a no-go.

I dreaded going to the ER down here because they didn't know me, and I suspected it might take a while to get the treatment I need, as it is on the unusual side. I never imagined the horrors to come.

I first tried St. Joe's, which is easily the worst ER I've ever been to. They had zero wheelchairs on hand even though there was no one else in the waiting room. When they got me to triage, I was surprised to learn that this would be my ER room. They gave me an EKG sitting shirtless in the triage room. That's a bad sign. They also tried to get 5 IVs on me. One of them worked long enough to give blood before it blew. By the fifth attempt I noticed, while puking in the bathroom, that the IV just sort of fell off. That was the last straw for me. I did something I tell everyone to never do: I pulled my own (the third one that might still be useful) IV out like a TV character. I suffered zero blood loss from it.

Then I tried Silvercross. They're bad, too, but only because they insist on the mystery. They had to poke, scan and prod me even though they could have just called Elmhurst for my records. I told them to do this, to talk to someone over there, so they don't cover the same territory. My reason was, they wouldn't give me morphine until they were certain I had a problem. I wanted them to know that they wouldn't find anything on my CT scan or anything else.

After eight hours I got an ER room, and then they said they'd hold on to me overnight, and they admitted me. However, they left me down in the ER. And kept me there. And kept me there. They did give me Zofran and morphine, and it did stop the sickness, but they wanted to run more tests. They told me there's a GI doc who wants to see me. When? To be determined. My sickness was coming back because I hadn't been allowed to go home and recover on my own.

I told them I was leaving before things got worse. They advised me that wasn't possible, and I checked myself out AMA.

I swear to fuck, if this happens again, I'm making the miserable drive to Elmhurst's ER. My family thinks of my experiences at Elmhurst and thinks they suck. Compared to these other ERs? Elmhurst is top notch, and they at least know me there. They can actually help me.

So I got home, and the sickness was ramping up again. I had nothing more to puke up. I'd been dry-heaving all day at that point. It got so bad that I wrote a note, put my IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH envelope underneath it, and I stared at my insulin pen a while in the dark. It's never fully dark in the basement in Joliet, so I could see that I'd turned the pen up to 40 units. These incidents always drive my blood sugar up through sheer stress alone, as I'm incapable of eating anything when I'm having an attack. I realized that 40 might not kill me, so I notched it up to 50. That should do the trick.

I thought about how scary low blood sugar is, and I decided that it was worth it to never have to be this sick again. One hurdle to jump, and the fight would be over. I thought about the chorus for Ensiferum's "One with the Sea":

No more fighting
Just the abyss
Soon I'll be
One with the sea

No more pretending
Only the bliss
Soon I'll be
One with the sea

That bliss sounded amazing. But as with my last suicide attempt my survival instinct kicked in, disgusted with what I'd been thinking about.  I gave myself 25 instead (because the hospital said I was up to 380) and tried to sleep.

For a marvel, I did. And when I woke up the next day I felt normal. I was able to eat, which was a miracle on its own. This morning I took a shit, and that's usually the indication that the episode is over.  I might even take a shower today.

Sometimes waiting is the best option. Action demands instantaneity and is always full of confusing emotion. I'm glad I waited because I feel things are about to turn around for me. I really hope so.

Here's something that always cheers me up. I'm glad I'm alive to listen to it this afternoon. It feels like I'm constantly walking the road to hell, thinking I'm making my way through the worst of it at any given time, and that the rest of the walk will be easy. My flesh is scorched and blackened, my eyes blinded by the flames, cognizant only of the pain, kept alive by the hope that my endless walk into the flames is almost over. It never is, though.

Live for the Kittyman.

DON'T GET THE 'BEETUS, KIDS: PART 1

 Not a Goodnight, Fuckers. I should be in bed because I have to be up super early for my surgery, but I'm still wide awake. They did not forbid smoking weed, so I'm about to do a bunch of that to get to bed. In related news, I've just taken my last regular shower for possibly 3 months. I changed my bandage for hopefully the last time. And I thought you might want to see what the horror looks like. The first picture is safe. So is the second. The third is a bit iffy. The fourth should not be viewed by anyone who doesn't want to see a hole in the bottom of my fucking foot because holy shit, it looks bad. If you're into gross shit, then that one will scratch the itch.

The freshly changed bandage! By the way, if you were to look at this part of my body tomorrow night, you'll see a cage installed around that leg with pins going into my bones. I'm going to be pretty sloppy on painkillers the first week as a result. Now, prepare yourself for my horrible toenails, which are impossible to cut with clippers at this point.

And now let's get inside that bandage. Let's take a look at the hole on the side of my foot. I can't see that side very well, but I was told by the doctor that she could see bone through it. Thankfully that is not visible here.

I'm not allowed to clean my foot, by the way. Anything above the ankle is fine, but below is a no-no. Only Wound Care can do that. And here's the final picture, the really fucked up one. I'm used to it by now, but holy shit. Last chance. If you don't want to see this, look away.

The white crescent is the callus growing back, a common problem with those of us who have Charcot.

Speaking of, while the surgeon is in there, she's going to do the Charcot Reconstruction I talked about before. She's going to shave some of the bone off so the callus doesn't get so padded, and if everything goes according to plan, by the time they take the cage off my leg, my foot will be somewhat normal-ish. It will never be normal again, but it will look a lot better. I might not even need my brace anymore! I don't think I'll ever be able to take up running again, but walking! I might be able to go out for night walks again! And I'll have a new neighborhood to explore when that happens!

My first alarm tomorrow morning is 3:30. Holy shit, I'm fucked. All right, they're going to keep me overnight tomorrow, so I won't be posting again for a while. Probably. When I'm sane enough, I'll take pictures of what everything looks like and do part two. Where did I put my pipe?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #999: A BREAK

 My Thursdays are usually busy, and the next one is going to be super fucking busy, but after last night's dark thoughts I needed a break. I got good news from Wound Care today: both holes in my bad foot are smaller. Progress. Finally. If all the bad shit that I expect to happen really does happen next week, I'm sure that progress will backslide. But it's good to have at least some good news.

I checked out a hotdog place with a friend today, and it was pretty good. The hotdog was decent, and the burger reminded me of Hamburger Heaven. Good, not great.

I also got exceptionally high and had great conversation with friends. I needed to be away from my thoughts for a while, and it was good to take a break from everything. The calm before the storm.

Starting tomorrow I'm going to fight the good fight and try to make that miracle happen,. As long as there's a chance, I've got to try.

It came up in conversation today that I have no idea what dipshit thing Trump said today was. I know there's something. There's something every fucking day. But I don't know what it is for a change. I'm sure I'll find out, but well.

I'm free for now.

One more Goodnight, Fuckers remaining. This is the last one that will be posted as intended, as the final thoughts I have before I go to bed. The next one will take some time to put together. I'll let you know when it goes live.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #998: ROLL THE DICE

I did it again. Deleted a full GF, no editing needed. For a different reason. Next week is going to be very bad for me. Something terrible is going to happen, and I know what it is. And there's nothing I can do about it. Yes, it's on the list of things that will make me drink again. It's currently the second most likeliest thing to do the trick (number one is losing my bad foot).

The day it will happen next week is going to be two years and three hundred and three days since my last drink. There will not be two years and three hundred and four days. When it happens, I'm going to drive straight to the Corner Cottage and surprise the hell out of a lot of guys there who probably thought I'd died.

In the scenario I'd just deleted, I talked about skipping the good shit and going directly to Wild Irish Rose. I'm sure even in this economy it's dirt cheap. Not even having the decency to send myself off to the drunk tank on quality bourbon. But when it happens next week, I'll get a bottle of Wild Turkey 101, my old friend. I can always throw my life away on the cheap shit later.

I'll go back to my Elmhurst house, and if the locks haven't been changed, I'll take up residence on that broken down couch again and drink myself through the night. If the electricity hasn't been shut off, I'll be able to plug my phone in and watch some of my shows while doing so. I hate watching shit on my phone, but it'll get me through the night.

The next morning, if I've left myself any hair of the dog, I'll self-administer it and go to 7-Eleven to seek out Monster. I'll get the one with the sugar. Fuck it. By the time I'm in Joliet I'll still be hungover, so I'll stop in at McDonald's for a Double Cheeseburger. Those are the perfect cure for a hangover. By the time I'm home, I'll feel normal. Hell, I might not throw my life away on Wild Irish Rose. If Loudermilk can start over, so can I. Day 1 might happen. So might day 2. I'm sure it will. I'm not entirely stupid. Maybe falling off the wagon will smack some sense into me.

This dread is like a rock in my guts. Maybe I should just get the bottle now.

No. There's a slight chance the thing won't happen. I'm talking a 0.9999999% chance, but I could pull off a miracle. Anyone remember my DUI Diary? What did I say? Always roll the dice. I rolled them then and am the only person I know who was arrested for DUI and was found not guilty.

So yeah. I'll roll the dice.

Two Goodnight, Fuckers remaining . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #997: THE MARCH OF TIME OR . . .

 Not too long ago I found the cache of photos Grandma left behind after she died. I'd seen many of them before, but this was the first opportunity I had to go through everything, and it surprised me to find a lot of pictures of my ancestors. It's interesting to scrutinize their faces, trying to find any trace of what would become part of me. I also found pictures in our old house and the apartment I lived in with my stepfather, and I never thought I would see that place again. I saw a picture of me with his weird fish tank, the one he put in a glass cooler that sustained itself until one of my brothers accidentally knocked it over and broke it. I also found pictures of that kitchen and even of the phone bench. Yes, phone bench, a bench where you are meant to sit when talking on the phone. The phone in question was a candlestick type. My stepfather was an asshole, but he also had very interesting parts of his life. He was a scientist. Did I tell you that before? A biologist to be specific. The last job he had was at a paint store, if that gives you any indication of his employability in his chosen profession.

But the thing that struck me most was seeing pictures of my Illinois siblings, three brothers. We didn't grow up together, exactly. I'm the oldest, and their father is different from mine. When I escaped that apartment, I'd lived with two of my brothers for years. Then I was on my own for a while before the other two and Mom moved in to escape my stepdad, too. Soon a third brother was born into that house, and they'd all moved back in with my stepdad in the town next door. At least until things went sour again, and they moved back in with us until their dad lured them to Crystal Lake to finish their upbringing. That third brother eventually moved back in with me and our grandparents . . . to escape his dad.

But I'd forgotten about those days when we were all living under the same roof, and our lives were different. Much different. I marvel at these pictures, at the innocence on their faces. Because they really did have good lives at some point. I had a good life at some point.

But I know how my brothers all turned out, and it actually twists the knife in my guts a little. Because the brightness in their eyes has died out, dulled by tragedy and just plain old life. They will never be as happy as they were back then. Neither will I, but unlike them, I had a small part to play in the destruction of their innocence.

Remember, I'm the oldest. As the oldest brother I felt it was necessary to terrorize them on occasion. It's what older brothers do.

I try to tell myself that the march of time is actually responsible. There would have been no way to maintain that innocence. William Blake wrote a book about comparisons between innocence and experience and how the latter must kill the former. The world's job is to make adults out of children. But I shouldn't have taken to my older brother duties so efficiently.

I think last night's essay might have gotten to me a little because I dreamed that I went back in time to visit my brothers back then. I told them I was Future Me, and I just wanted to hang out for a while. It felt good to watch them hang out and have carefree fun. Bright eyes and easy smiles. For a moment I almost told them what happened to them in their future. But that, too, would destroy some piece of their innocence.

Instead I settled back and watched them play.

Only three GFs remaining . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #996: KILLING BABY HITLER

Baby Hitler

 

It's the age old question, isn't it? No, it's not. The question probably doesn't go back any farther than the 1930s, but for me, a 46 year old man, it's an age old question. If you had the ability to time travel, would you go back in time and kill baby Hitler?

I'm a firm no for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is, doing so would completely change your present. It could be for the better, sure, but it could also be for the worse. Is that a gamble you're willing to make? Remember, the world you're returning to will be completely alien to you. From a time travel standpoint it makes no sense.

Also, there's a very real possibility that Hitler was going to grow up to be a fine upstanding citizen if some weirdo hadn't tried killing him when he was a baby.

But Jesus Christ man, you're talking about killing a baby. What kind of asshole kills a baby?

Oh right, this asshole killed a shit-ton of babies.

If you must use time travel to kill Hitler, go back to when Nazis started running things in Germany. Pop into his bedroom at night and kill him then. Maybe you'll even find him stroking it, caressing a one-balled sac. (The other is in Albert Hall.) Think how embarrassing it would have been for him to get killed while rubbing the one-eyed wonder weasel.

I bring this up because I thought of something horrible earlier today, and because I've suffered with this in my head, I must infec--er, I mean *share* it with the rest of you.

I know a lot of the Magas are Nazis, but there's probably a bunch of them still in denial who think Hitler was bad. Do those people ever think about this question?

The rest of them don't. For sure. Their big question is, if they could time travel, would they go back in time and kill baby Fred Rogers? He was a man who taught empathy and compassion to generations of children, and we know the Magas hate those things . (Empathy and compassion, that is. They love children. They make excellent victims.) Think of all the lives who could have been saved by cruelty without Mr. Rogers and his neighborhood!

I hope I've not given them ideas. Not that they could figure out time travel. That's not even on Musk's mind, and he's the only one of them with the wherewithal to find someone to figure it out and then steal the idea from them.

Four more Goodnight, Fuckers left . . .

Thank you for your service, Dean Winchester.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #995: THE CORRUPTION PERCEPTIONS INDEX

 Ever wonder how truly corrupt your country is? Luckily there's a website that keeps track of these things! It's called the Corruption Perceptions Index, and there's a pretty good method of scoring each country. The one unfortunate thing is, it's not very up-to-date. Right now the most recent data is from 2024.

But what you really want to know is how badly the United States is doing. Not nearly as bad as you would think! On a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is exceptional corruption and 100 is corruption-free, we scored 65. We're down four points from 2023, but that's still not as bad as I'd expected. But what I really want to know is our score now.

I wonder how many points Trump 2.0 has cost us. Before he was sent back to the Oval Office, corruption was something to be ashamed of. It had to be hidden somehow. Swept under the proverbial rug. But now? He's flat-out saying everything that the other presidents have kept to themselves. Corruption is not just allowed now, but it's encouraged. If you're clean, you're doing it wrong. Corruption is the word of the day. The bolder, the better. Remember when Trump said he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and get away with it? I'll bet he could. I wonder why he hasn't. Perhaps he doesn't want his pristine hands to get dirty. Let that filthy drunk*, Hegseth, do it for him. Hegseth almost hurt someone with an axe on live TV once. He would probably be into it.

In a world where old folks and veterans are treated like shit, where we're currently rolling back the civil rights movement possibly to the Jim Crow days (or further back; when will Trump retcon the Emancipation Proclamation?), where authority figures are trying to outdo each other when it comes to cruelty and hatred, corruption is the biggest problem we're dealing with now. Number one with a bullet that sadly went astray in Butler, PA. Not that his death would end any of this. We're going to have to put the goddam leeches on them. ALL OF THEM. To get this to stop. ICE is the new SS. The American way of life is almost over and done. If you don't think we live in a fascist society, then you haven't been paying attention. The only thing keeping the country I grew up with alive are a handful of judges and, holy fuck, comedians doing parody news shows.

The Fifth Amendment guarantees us due process. Due process no longer exists. I mean, it does, for certain people. But if due process doesn't apply to everyone, then it applies to no one. An argument could be made that those who had due process taken from them were in the country illegally, which makes them criminals. But the people who make that argument are using laws as an excuse to abuse people who have no recourse. If they're criminals, then we can treat them as poorly as we want.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Every single person on the planet has broken not just one but many laws throughout their lives. We're all criminals. Should we all be sent to El Salvador? Speaking of, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is never going to come back. Trump and Friends have a vested interest in keeping him there. I think things would look bad if they pulled an Epstein on him, so he'll probably stay alive, but if they brought him home? He'd be the face of a movement strong enough to destroy Trump. Hence his continued absence.

Trump advised that asshole in El Salvador to build more prisons because he wants to send a lot more people. I believe it was he and Marco Rubio (Little Marco?) who said something along the lines of, citizens should be deported if their beliefs don't align with the administration's. So I'm sure I'd be on that list of people to send to El Salvador. You might be, too, just for reading this.

I don't know how often the CPI gets updated, but I'm guessing we'll have our numbers at the end of the year. If the US is still there, that is. It's already on its deathbed. Perhaps the patient will have passed by then.

I hope not.

______________________________________________________________________________

*Yes, I was once a filthy drunk. But unlike this prick, I have never, in my deepest and darkest depths of drunkenness, thought I should be the Secretary of Defense.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #994: MT. RUSHMORE

I'm a little higher than I expected tonight, so this is going to be super short.  

I've never given a single solitary shit about Mt. Rushmore. Four presidents who were supposedly great. They were, I suppose, in their own backwards ways. Even Lincoln was a bit of a tyrant, getting rid of habeas corpus as he did. Sure, it's a wartime power, one I'm sure Trump lusts for. It would explain why he keeps referring to being at war with illegal immigrants. All the same, it was pretty nasty of Lincoln to do that. To say nothing of his idea of sending all the former slaves to Grenada so they can have their freedom far away from a white America.

But I recently learned something very, very important about Mt. Rushmore, and I suspect that not many others know about it. So . . . this is what the back of Mt. Rushmore looks like: 

*sigh* All right, it doesn't really look like that. I tee-heed for a while over it until I looked it up to be certain. It would have been poetic if true. There's even a joke about that being LBJ's cock. This is true: he used to give press conferences from the toilet. He was apparently very well endowed according to the White House Press Corps . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #993: THE DEVIL AND TUCKER CARLSON

 Lest ye think I've forgotten about Tucker Carlson, I assure you I have not. Especially this one story from November of last year that nobody seemed to give much of a shit about. I get it. No one wants to hear about Tucker Carlson. Not sure how his own family stands him and that horrible laugh of his. Does his wife forgive him for wanting to fuck the green M&M?

At any rate, this asshole made a claim that he was attacked by a demon. He hedges his bets by adding "or something unseen." The attack left claw marks in his flesh, and he bled from them. He claimed to still have the marks on his body. I have no idea why no one asked him to show them off. I would have. But that's neither here nor there, as there are no such things as demons.

He said he was sleeping with his wife and four dogs when he was "mauled." Except, according to the story, he must not have felt it because he only discovered the wounds and blood later. From what he said, he woke up being unable to breathe in a state of confusion. That right there makes me think he was experiencing sleep paralysis, not a demon attack. But then he said that he went out for a walk, came back to see his wife and dogs were still asleep, and only then discovered his injuries.

I call bullshit. When crime authors write stealthy murder scenes, what's the question they usually ask themselves? What about the dog? I currently live with two dogs who flip out every time a mouse farts three blocks down. You mean to tell me that Tucker Carlson was attacked by a demon, and none of his dogs even stirred in their sleep?

He then told an assistant about this, who replied, "That happens, people are attacked in their beds by demons."

I have never been attacked by a demon in my bed, but I *have* had sleep paralysis. I think Carlson had an episode, and he thought it would help Trump's campaign if he talked about being attacked by something from Hell, ie. what his voting base would believe despite the fact that Trump is probably an atheist. If he believes in a god, I'm sure that god is himself. Isn't that essentially an Anton Lavay kind of thing to say?

I thought I'd end this one with a little advice. I no longer have sleep paralysis, and that's because I found a cure. I'm not a very fearful man, so your mileage may vary on this, but give it a shot. My sleep paralysis doesn't involve demons or old hags or anything. However, there is some creature under my bed that wants to drag me down to Hell. Every time I tried to fight, but I was paralyzed. The panic came from not being able to save myself. One time I knew I was having an episode, and I knew that what I was experiencing wasn't real. So I said fuck it, take me. I stopped trying to fight, and I felt myself get dragged down to the floor and pulled under my bed, which was a physical impossibility at the time. I would never have fit under there. But I came back to myself immediately, and I haven't had an episode since.

Give it a shot. It might be scary for a moment, but it also might help.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #992: A NEW AGE OF FORGOTTEN KNOWLEDGE

 Ever watch LOTR: The Rings of Power? I honestly can't recommend it as a show. For the most part it's a slog. A boring slog. And I've read the Silmarillion twice! But there are some truly great moments on the show. Like, mind-blowing moments. True moments of greatness. My favorite part so far has been in season 2 when Celebrimbor is glamored by Sauron. While Celebrimbor's people are fighting a grim battle for survival outside his walls, Sauron has him believing that everything is fine, and that he's doing great work in creating the titular rings of power. But soon Celebrimbor figures out that he's been tricked, and that his patron is actually Morgoth's ol' lieutenant. And that's when shit gets real grim.

Celebrimbor turns against Sauron, and for his efforts he watches as his life's work is thrown into a fire. It's one of the most horrifying scenes in the show. I know that might not have much of an effect on others, but to see knowledge destroyed is the worst crime that can be committed, I believe. This knowledge is written only on those scrolls. Celebrimbor also has that knowledge in his head, but, well.

(Spoiler alert)

Human progress is really the most important thing we're capable of. Rape used to be a common tool of war back in the days when battles were fought with swords and spears. When you invade an enemy, you're supposed to kill every man in sight and rape every woman you can find. That was not just socially acceptable, it was encouraged by warlords. That horrible feeling you've got in your guts right now, reading this paragraph? That's human progress. Because you *don't* want to think of rape as something that's supposed to happen. Humanity worked a fucking long time to get to this point (tens, possibly hundreds, of thousands of years), but we got there.

When you destroy knowledge, you don't just stop human progress. You regress. If you don't believe me, think about the Dark Ages. In England, for example, the Romans had been gone for so long that no one knew how those roads were built or by whom. Without that knowledge, things turned to shit. When the Renaissance came, it was a breath of fresh air. Human progress was back on the menu.

I know this may come as a shock to you, but I'm offended by the mere existence of the Trump Administration. He and his court of lowlifes and scumbags and fuckfaces and dipshits are guilty of a lot of horrible crimes, but I think one of the worst is what he's doing to America. He wants to reverse human progress. I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to make rape a common tool of humanity, not just of war, where men rule and women obey. White men, that is. No one else need apply. And there's another thing right there. We've come so far with race. If you say something racist in public (in most places, I should amend), people are going to stare daggers at you. Unless you're in the current White House, of course.

His attack on the Department of Education and putting RFK Jr in charge of healthcare is the equivalent of destroying knowledge. Trump's chief tool is lying relentlessly so those of weaker minds, the ones who fall for his Jedi mind trick, hang on his every word. When you lie so often and so hard, knowledge is your real enemy. So why not put an antivaxxer in charge of keeping people healthy? Vaccines are proven to work. If they didn't, we'd still be succumbing to small pox. When was the last time you saw someone in an iron lung? But the guy in charge of health has decreed that we're regressing to the old days when disease could kill you at any moment. As for education, I think this says everything for me:

By destroying the Department of Education, Trump is trying to trap you into a shit life with no hope of escape. You will obey. You won't know any other way.

And it sucks that everyone destroyed their files and went digital because now you can twiddle that shit on the back end, like a corporation changing prices on a digital sign when they know you've just been paid, or a fast food restaurant in their app. Except now the authorities can change our perception of reality by just changing digital documents.

I think the real reason Trump moved the Declaration of Independence to the Oval Office was so no one could actually read the original document. Meanwhile, they can change what the document says because who is going to go to the library to look up the Declaration of Independence if they want to read it? In this day and age, you're going to google it, and Google can just tell you what Trump wants it to tell you. They already changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico, and they did that before our very eyes. Imagine the digital shit him and his band of assholes can get up to now.

If we don't impeach him (or give him the Mussolini treatment) we're going to wind up in a world where no one knows anything. They have to go to the authorities to get that info. And there is no way of fomenting a revolution to save ourselves at that point. Revolution? What's that? America was always here, from the start of civilization. King George III? He had nothing to do with us. He tried to invade us once, but we were too strong for him and sent his redcoats packing. Per Trump, we've been allies of Rome since the ancient days. How long before something like that ends up in a history textbook? If he has his way, not long.

Knowledge is one of the most important things we can have. We need more of it, not less. Those who would throw Celebrimbor's scrolls in a fire are the lowest scum on the planet. Perhaps El Salvador has room for Trump?

That would ordinarily be the end of the column, but I was looking for a meme that would show Trump talking about being allied with Italy since Ancient Rome. Instead I found this. It's very interesting. I enjoy comparing our modern life to Ancient Rome, particularly the Decline and Fall. But there's one throwaway comment in there that made me think about Trump's obsession with the border. I mean, we all understand why he's going off on Mexico, as awful as that might be, but the shit he's pulling with Canada? That's left field shit. The article talks about the black market created by Ancient Rome's tariffs and how traders got around them. I anticipate a new black market being born. It may already exist! But more importantly, cracking down on the borders would, indeed, make it harder for those traders. As my character, Slate, likes to say, "It's something to consider."

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #991: AMERIGO VESPUCCI AND A NEW DRUG

 Ever wonder why, if Columbus supposedly discovered the Americas, why they're not named after him? Why "America" anyway?

First, let's dispense with Columbus post haste. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, you can't "discover" a land where hundreds of thousands of people already lived. Not to mention the fact that the Vikings got to Greenland hundreds of years before Columbus, who tortured the locals so poorly that the King of Spain sent people to arrest him and bring him home in chains. Oh, and syphilis ran rampant in Europe after the first time he came home. Hm . . .

Not long after this "discovery," Amerigo Vespucci realized that Columbus was not in Asia as he'd thought. Instead he was on a new continent. The New World. Cartographer Martin Waldseemuller accidentally thought that meant Vespucci discovered the land and so named it America after him.

Whoops.

And if Columbus brought a bounty of syphilis back, what did Vespucci find in the New World?

Back then he'd noticed the natives chewing coca leaves, which seemed to be a magical substance with curative powers and the ability to keep one's energy up. Fast forward a few hundred years, and it will be known as COCAINE. A new drug from the New World. Generally speaking cocaine was invented in 1859, but now that a couple of 17th Century Milanese mummies have tested positive for cocaine, we now know that Vespucci didn't keep it to himself in South America. Nope. He had to have brought some back. It sounds like he brought back enough to share with everyone. If you want to read about it, here's a great article. It's good to know that "let's do cocaine about it" is a lot older than people think.

History class would be a lot more fun if this kind of thing was taught.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #990: [CENSORED]

Holy fuck, everyone. I just wrote a fucking heinous GF column. I decided to do the erotica thing I mentioned from last night, but it would be a real life thing, somewhat along the lines of the Shit Poems. Not the ones about Nic Cage or drinking. More like the ones about morning wood and when the hole in your boxers wanders, making it hard to get your dick out.

I'm flabbergasted because I deleted all of it ON PURPOSE. Because I think I went too far.

STOP THE PRESSES! STOP THE PRESSES!

Anyone who knows me in real life is probably reeling in shock right now. Wait, John Bruni thought he--himself--went too far? Is that even possible? I mean, this is the guy who thought of writing a book called [HOLY FUCK I SHOULD NEVER SAY THAT IN PUBLIC OR EVEN THINK IT], which would really be about [I MEAN IT, THE STUFF HERE IS REALLY BAD]. And *he* thinks he's going too far?

Some of you might take the stuff I've censored above as hyperbole. Rest assured [he said with absolute horror], I'm not kidding about that stuff. The idea is so old I feel certain I've rambled drunkenly to three people about it. If I did, indeed, do this, and they are, indeed, reading this, they can confirm that I should not be allowed in public, nor should I ever be allowed to write that book, not even under a pen name.

But yeah, I was about to click on publish when something weird hit my guts. It felt wrong. In all my life I have done stupid things knowing that it felt wrong, and I got fucked each and every time. Maybe about the time I got away from the booze, I told myself that if I was about to post something or write something or do something that just felt wrong, I would stop myself.

Heh. This feels a little like my Primitive Underbelly days with Jesse Russell, the GonZo to my STRAIGHT. (Technically THE STRAIGHT, but that didn't sound right.) One time we wrote a story about not getting a story, and this is a GF about not having a GF. The funny thing about that story is, the college got a lot of angry letters over our non-story. Except . . . it wasn't over a single thing we wrote. We wanted to find out what strippers did for Easter or some holiday other than Valentine's Day (the point was that it *wasn't* that one), but they didn't want to talk to the press. So we wrote about that. The pictures that went with our story, on the other hand, were scandalous. (You may begin your pearl clutching.) They were censored pictures of strippers at work. Picked, by the way, not by any of us lowly journalists but by the conservative woman editor of the newspaper. It was such a surprise that I had no idea that the pictures were going to be in the feature. I don't know if Jesse knew, either. And we pay how much to send our daughters to your school?!

I hope to fuck I haven't told that story before, because it's late and I don't have time to go back and look. If so, it won't have been for naught. But I need to relax now that I've gotten over the horror of deleting an entire complete fully formed without the need of a rewrite HOLY SHIT WHY DID I DO THAT?!

OK. Calm. I popped a gummy. 100 mg? That sounds fair. Goodnight, fuckers.

But the really funny thing is, I talked with Jesse recently, and we spoke of our old feature column. We realized with some horror (and an odd grim satisfaction) that we're old because the last one we wrote was 25 years ago. He said we should bring it back for our 25th anniversary . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #989: OPIOID-INDUCED CONSTIPATION

 What happens when you spend the day in the ER, getting morphine injections, and then you go home (which is relative in my case), and you sip on liquid vicodin for about 24 hours? When you ingest that much opioid (why did we stop saying opium?), you're going to be backed up. It's an unrelenting thing called Opioid-Induced Constipation, and now that I've been taking them for years I can say I'm pretty familiar with the phenomenon, such as it is. But once upon a time I was a complete stranger.

The reason I bring this up is, you cannot underestimate the relief of taking a shit after the opioid is gone. It's one of the most fabulous sensations in the world. After straining and pushing for two days, the dam broke at work this afternoon. I felt every turd joint, every shit wrinkle, every fecal pockmark rub rockily against my stretching anus, and it felt amazing. The old joke about feeling 10 pounds lighter? That's no exaggeration for me, because I really *am* 10 pounds lighter than I was on Monday.

But I wanted to tell you tonight about my first brush with OIC, which happened maybe 10 years ago? Possibly? Maybe a little later. At any rate, I was staying the night with my girlfriend at the time, and she was on methadone as she was a recovering junkie. Her method of taking it was dissolving the tablet in orange juice and drinking it that way.

We spent the night doing pretty much the only thing we did back then: getting drunk as fuck and, uh, well, fuck as drunk. We'd take periodic breaks, and during one of these I drank what I thought was my orange juice. When she came back from the bathroom, she asked, "Did you drink my orange juice?"

Considering what we'd been up to, I wasn't worried about catching anything from her OJ. I almost never get colds or the flu or anything, anyway. Then she reminded me of what was in her orange juice. I asked what would happen, and she shrugged and said, "Things could get interesting for you."

How bad could it be? We went at it one more time and then fell asleep. The next morning, as was customary, she woke up ready to go another round. She asked me to get behind her, but when I did, I nearly pitched forward onto her back. I braced myself by putting both hands on her ass and trying not to fall over. She asked what was wrong, and I said I didn't know. Only then did she remember about me drinking her methadone, and she explained what was happening.

I'm advised that I slept through the best part of that drug and woke up in time for the horror. Because I had to shit desperately, and I could not. I heaved and hoed and did a couple of body twists and some stretches. Tried to change my stance so it seemed like I was squatting more than usual. Nothing came out. I could feel it knocking at the back door, but it was too fucking big to make its escape. It was one of the most miserable things I'd gone through at the time, and now it's business as usual.

The unfortunate thing is, sometimes the shit HAS TO BE RETRIEVED. No amount of pushing is going to do it. I've heard horror stories of the spoon, but I have never done that. The next day at work, I managed to push it a little bit out of me, but it wouldn't come any further. I couldn't suck it back in, so I knew, horror of horrors, I had to get it out of me AT WORK. There was only one thing I could do: I wrapped my hand like a mummy's in toilet paper and reached up in there to pull my shit out.

Getting a grip on it was difficult. Slippery and somewhat mushy. But I sank my wrapped fingers in deeper and managed to get a handle on the thing. I pulled it the rest of the way out, and it felt like a hard sack of marbles in my wrapped hand. But it was out, and the rush of afterbirth came out with it.

I could not wash my hand enough. None of it got through the TP, but all the same, would you let something like that go? When I got out of the bathroom, everyone saw the haunted look in my eyes. They knew something horrible went down in that bathroom, and my supervisor let me go home early.

I've only ever had to reach back up there once before, and it was a lot messier that time. Thankfully I was home with rubber gloves. But I've learned that laxative is the best way to go. I have mineral oil that works slowly but efficiently. There's milk of magnesia, which works fast and brutal. And if you put them together you've got yourself a fine recipe for instant diarrhea.

But sometimes that doesn't work, and thanks to my hetero lifemate, Rob Tannahill, I now use Senokot. So if you find yourself suffering from OIC, that's what I would recommend. I took that last night, and after a terrible struggle I'm back in tip-top shape, ready to beat the shit out of the world.

Pretty gross, huh? It's been a while since I got gross here. Gotta remember I'm a horror author sometimes. Hell, I'm an erotica author, too. Maybe I'll get sexy tomorrow night. It *is* Saturday.

Pleasant dreams, fuckers.

Should I do commercials for Senokot? I'd do it for free product. Do I know anyone who works for them? Or maybe their social media team took the wrong turn at Albuquerque and is reading this. Have your people call my people (ie. person: me), and we'll talk.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #988: THE BIG MOVE (the eye of the tornado)

 Today was my day off, so I got used to driving from my new home to Elmhurst for my usual medical appointments. It was a rough drive, so I can only assume my trip to work tomorrow will suck badly. I got a few things done while I was up there, but it was nice to come back to a place where I could relax a bit. I ate lunch and watched the end of Route 66. You'd think a show named after Route 66 would happen, more or less, on Route 66, but the show ended in Florida. There was a moment where Tod and Linc are doing what feels like a Dwight Schrute bit, dressed in disguise. It's ridiculous. But it's a show I started watching to help get through the early days of a lack of booze. It felt good to finish it.

On the way back to Joliet, I drove to my new home by memory for the first time. I did pretty well, I think. The trick will be getting back to I-55 tomorrow morning.

I got to sort through some of my stuff, trying to figure out what I need and what I can store for now. I think I'm going to just get paper plates and Solo cups and pack my dishes and glasses for now. I might pack up my pans and stuff, too. The books stay for now. Later the rest of my books are going to be in the garage here, but that's for much later, when I'm no longer in the eye of the tornado. So I'll need a bunch of books to keep me company for the near future.

I had to figure out which of my clothes were dirty and clean so I can figure out laundry for Sunday. This is a fun Goodnight, Fuckers. I think I may be boring the shit out of myself for now. But I needed the moment to calm my mind. My life has been in utter chaos for a while now, and I'm glad I can catch my breath for a bit.

Plus: I got to get through a few days without hearing jack shit about Trump or Musk or any of the usual gang of idiots. That was good for my soul. Tomorrow I'm sure I'll be inundated again, and regular programing will resume. Oh, and since I missed a night this week due to illness, I'll do one on Saturday.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #987: THE BIG MOVE, PART 2

 I woke up super early yesterday morning so I could move the last of my shit out of the hotel. I begrudgingly got dressed and went downstairs to get a handcart from the lobby. Except there were none. FUCK. I had to carry this shit out by hand, and my back was giving me troubles. It took me a while, but I got everything down. I had enough time to give myself a half an hour to rest before I got ready for work and to leave the hotel for good.

[Not for nothing, but there were other people humping their shit out to their cars by hand. I'm not the only one the handcart thieves put through hell.]

Something told me not to return both keys. I'm glad I didn't.

On the way to work I started feeling weird, like maybe I was about to get another bout of my mystery illness, except I didn't have any liquid vicodin. I'd used the last of it two days previous to stave off another attack. Not that I had a bed to retreat to, now that the hotel was gone.

I got to work, and before I could punch in, I felt the illness come upon me. I begged to leave work, and I barely made it back to the hotel in time to puke my guts out. Horrible. Horrible shit. But it happened, and I knew it would continue. I tried to ride it out in the hotel bed for the two hours I had left before checkout time, but I couldn't do it. I gave up and went to the ER.

Surprisingly the ER didn't have much of a wait time. I got to my room pretty quickly. The doctor took a little while, but when I finally saw him he agreed to give me my Zofran and morphine. I felt the morphine take hold, and the pain went away.

But not the vomiting, which was unusual. I kept getting up and puking more and more until I had to ask for help. I asked for anything stronger. They gave me another dose of each. That seemed to put off the puking, at least a little bit. Because the ER rush had begun, they had to get me out of there. Except . . . where could I recover? The hotel was done for real this time. I couldn't drive to my new home in Joliet. I wouldn't have lasted very long on that hour-plus trip.

One good thing: when they discharged me, my primary doctor must have seen I was in the ER. My liquid vicodin was ready.

I could only go back to my old house. So far no one had changed the locks or cleared out the stuff we abandoned, and I hoped that would continue. Because I was puking again.

I went home and saw that thankfully I still had access. The place was cold as fuck and smelled like the bathroom, but I went straight to the couch we abandoned--an uncomfortable affair, I assure you--where I found a couple of throw pillows and took my liquid vicodin.

I passed out for a while, but when I woke up I still felt pukey. I drank more of it and tried to sleep again. I repeated this dance until about 10 am this morning. I was feeling a little hungry, which was the first sign of the horror passing.

So I brought all my stuff down to Joliet, where I'm typing this in the basement. I live down here with a cat and two ferrets. I'll be sleeping on my air mattress. But most importantly, it's a weed-friendly house, so I don't have to go outside to smoke.

I'm glad to be out of the hotel, but my mystery illness is a prick, and it struck at the worst possible moment. But I have the cure for now. I don't expect to feel this bad for another two months at least.

Also, my three minute commute is gone. My new commute is going to be an hour and ten, possibly thirty, minutes. Maybe not on Saturday, but still, that blows. At least my regular day off is tomorrow. I only have two doctors appointments, and the rest of my day is mine to unpack the rest of my crap. I just have the essentials out now.

To quote a great man, "OK for now." I'm going to bed.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #986: THE BIG MOVE

 Tonight is the last night in the hotel. Finally. I will no longer be bothered by the screams and banging of my neighbors. "Banging," as in banging shit around, but one time I heard the sexual version while the parents' poor kid waited out in the hall. To say nothing of the dude who had to be dragged away in cuffs for beating the mortal shit out of his dog.

For most of my life I've made jokes about Joliet, as it is not a very nice place to live. There's a huge industrial area that shrouds the area in smoke, and the rest of Joliet doesn't smell good on a hot summer day. But that's where I'll be living soon. It's a nice neighborhood by a couple of forest preserves, so I'll probably have new places to read out in the wilderness.

I'll be sleeping on the air mattress again, but to be out of the hotel? I'm almost looking forward to it. I'll be living in the basement where a couple of friends live. They've taken mercy on me, so I have a roof over my head for the foreseeable future. So my nightmare is almost over. Not quite. I still have a ways to go, but for the most part, as Gramps used to say, it's all over but the shouting.

I've also been advised that I can smoke weed inside, so I won't have to go outside for that like I do at the hotel.

But I dread tomorrow morning. I'm getting up around the time I used to when I lived at home because I'm moving the last of the shit out of my hotel room and into my car. I'll then drive 3 minutes to work, and when I punch out I will head down to Joliet to my new home. It's been a long time since I've lived with pets, and they have dogs, ferrets and a cat, so that should be fun. But moving tomorrow will suck. I'll experience my first commute to Joliet at the worst hour you can possibly drive there. I'm already trying to think of a way to skip 83, but I think I'm fucked one way or the other on that.

But yes, my time here is done, and I'm grateful. I won't have a lot of privacy where I'm going, but that shouldn't be too troublesome.

I'm going to get to bed early so I can get up early. Tomorrow shan't be pleasant . . .

The kid upstairs is jumping up and down in place. He sometimes does that late at night in case someone is trying to sleep.

BORN LOSER, HISTORICAL FIGURE

 

Charles J. Guiteau was a man who strove for excellence. Unfortunately, all he could achieve was mediocrity, but in a seemingly impossible feat, his mediocrity is electrifying. It’s bold enough to have made him an historical figure. He thought the road to greatness was paved with political favor, with religious fervor, with all sorts of failed business attempts, and it didn’t help that he believed he was on a mission from God.

 

The J stands for Julius, which is sort of funny when you think about it.

 

He was born in Freeport, IL, on September 8, 1841. He got a windfall inheritance from his grandfather and wanted to go to the University of Michigan, but in his first extant run-in with mediocrity, he failed the entrance exam due to lack of preparation. While he was there, his father wrote to him about the Oneida Community in New York. Today, Oneida would be considered a cult and possibly a problem to be dealt with at some point, like David Koresh and his group. But back then they were a utopian society with a healthy helping of free love a century before the hippies arrived on the counterculture scene in America.

 

Their main belief was that Jesus already came back in 70 AD, and it was up to humanity to bring about the thousand years of sin-free life. The men practiced sex without cumming as a profession of their love. Property belonged to everyone. Everyone was married to everyone else. If someone wanted to reproduce, they would go before a committee to be spiritually and morally matched to someone. Once the kids are weaned off the tit, they’re raised by doctors, not their parents. Parents could visit if they wished.

 

They folded in 1881, for reasons soon to be evident, but a faction still survives today in an odd form. Oneida is currently one of the biggest silverware companies in the world.

 

Guiteau and his father joined the community. Guiteau was enthralled by the group so much that he said of its founder, John Humphrey Noyes that he had “perfect, entire and absolute confidence in him in all things.” He left twice. The first time so he could start an Oneida newspaper in New Jersey (which failed, as most of his attempts at anything did). The second time because he suddenly changed his mind about Noyes. The Oneida women did not want to mate with him, and the men rode him down with insults. They nicknamed him Charles Gitout. All this time he’d worked to help the Oneida Community, but he felt unappreciated by them. His anger raged so much he wound up suing Noyes. He thought the community owed him money for his work on their behalf. He was, in all likelihood, not familiar with how utopian communes work, possibly because he didn’t get into the University of Michigan.

 

Noyes, by the way, believed Guiteau to be “irresponsible and insane.” Guiteau would prove him right on both counts before his time on this planet was over.

 

Guiteau moved back to Illinois where he tried to be a lawyer in Chicago. It’s pretty evident that he did not have the credentials to do that job. He only tried one case in court and lost. Seeing the writing on the wall, he decided to try his luck as a bill collector, except he usually kept the money, himself.

 

He married Annie Bunn, a woman he abused on a regular basis, and they moved to New York to escape creditors, and here he became a Democrat and got into politics. In 1872 he supported Horace Greeley himself for president. Greeley famously said, “Go west, young man, go west and grow up with the country.” Guiteau wrote a speech on his behalf, but it was mediocre. All the same he became certain that if Greeley won the election, he would appoint Guiteau as ambassador to Chile.

 

Greeley lost horribly to Ulysses S. Grant, who was president at the time.

 

Annie had had enough. She wanted a divorce. Remember, at the time divorce was exceptionally difficult to achieve. In an odd moment of magnanimity he decided to help her get that divorce, except his method was to sleep with a sex worker to legally prove his infidelity. It is possible that this was how he got the syphilis that would plague him (or, more appropriately, plague the United States) for the rest of his life.

 

A year later he plagiarized Noyes by writing a book called The Truth. Guiteau’s father, more reasonable than Gitout, decided at this point that his son was possessed by the devil. Guiteau disagreed. He was on a mission from God, so he started traveling the country, preaching wherever he found people to listen.

 

In 1880 he moved to Boston, where he quickly fled because he owed people money. A recurring theme in his life.

 

In 1876 he got involved in a presidential election again. Today Republicans are divided between the MAGA assholes and reasonable people. Back then they were divided into the Stalwarts and the Half-Breeds. Guiteau, much to the later chagrin of the rest of his group, was a Stalwart, meaning he wanted former slaves to have rights, and he was for patronage. That is when someone is elected, instead of them getting qualified people for political assignments, they give them to friends and supporters, which also sounds familiar to modern ears. Not surprising that Guiteau was a huge fan of patronage. The Half-Breeds wanted to eliminate the concept and get competent people for important jobs.

 

Guiteau put his all into supporting Grant, who was trying for a third nonconsecutive term in the Executive Mansion (it wasn’t really called the White House until Theodore Rex’s time). Guiteau wrote a speech called “Grant Against Hancock.” Guess what he wanted in return.

 

Grant did not get the nomination. Instead James Garfield did, so Guiteau rewrote the speech and titled it “Garfield Against Hancock.” The only rewriting he did was to change the name of the candidate. That’s even lower than mediocrity. That’s downright lazy, but par for the course for Guiteau. He delivered the speech twice and printed it for distribution. Garfield won the election. So of course Guiteau wanted patronage. He repeatedly made his case to Garfield and his Cabinet to no avail. Guiteau at first wanted to be consul to Vienna, but then he got greedy and wanted Paris instead.

 

In those days, rather than stump for political favoritism, people lined up to receive jobs from the president, usually in person. The Secret Service thought Lincoln’s assassination was an outlier, so they never made policy changes. Back then, if you wanted to, you could have walked up to the Executive Mansion, knocked on the door and requested an audience with the president. And you might actually have gotten it.

 

Guiteau now lived in Washington, DC, so he could routinely request his patronage from Garfield, but Garfield kept saying no.

 

Guiteau’s life was like a George Thorogood song. He stayed at rooming houses and, to avoid paying rent, would leave out the window to avoid the landlord. Maybe throw some Nick Cave in there, too, as Guiteau had to get around in the freezing cold with just ratty old clothes to keep him warm, sans hat or footwear. He scavenged discarded newspapers from hotels, and he wrote letters to the president on complimentary hotel stationary, pretending to be a guest.

 

On May 14, 1881, he ran into James G. Blaine, the leader of the Half-Breeds and the current (at the time) Secretary of State. As per usual Guiteau begged for patronage, but Blaine had had enough of his bullshit. He told Guiteau, “Never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as long as you live!”

 

This was the last straw. Guiteau decided that since Garfield refused to grant him patronage, then he was probably working to outlaw the very concept. That would destroy the Republican party. It didn’t make any sense to him because Chester A. Arthur, Garfield’s vice-president, was one of the most devoted acolytes of Roscoe Conkling, the leader of the Stalwarts who would most certainly grant Guiteau his “much-deserved” patronage. If only there was a way to remove Garfield and replace him with Arthur . . .

 

Guiteau started keeping track of Garfield’s comings and goings with murder on his mind. He knew he couldn’t kill the president, a Civil War veteran, with a knife. That would be too risky. He said, “Garfield would have crushed the life out of me with a single blow of his fist!” So he went shopping for a gun. He decided that since God was running this show, it wouldn’t be an assassination. It would be “removal.”

 

Guiteau borrowed fifteen dollars from a relative and went to O’Meara’s in DC. He wanted a .442 Webbley British Bulldog revolver. There were two versions: wood grips or ivory. Like most men on a mission from God, Guiteau thought the one with ivory grips would look better in a museum. He couldn’t afford it, though, as it was on sale for sixteen dollars. He talked the shopkeeper down and got the one with ivory grips.

 

Maybe he really was on a mission from God.

 

Or maybe not. The gun was given to the Smithsonian, but no one knows where it is now. So much for being on display in a museum. But Guiteau would, indeed, get one of his belongings put on display in a museum. Just not in the way he would have thought.

 

The recoil was a bitch, but he went target shooting until he got a, uh, grip on it.

 

One day he trailed Garfield to the train station, but he decided not to act because the First Lady was there. She was ill, and Guiteau didn’t want to upset her.

 

It was a different time.

Guiteau vs. Garfield

July 2, 1881. The newspaper says Garfield is going to be at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station. He’s going on vacation, and he can’t wait to meet up with his wife and take it easy for a little bit. Guiteau is already there, killing time. He got his shoes shined while he waited. No one knows if he paid for the service.

 

Garfield enters the train station, and Guiteau sneaks up from behind. He fires at Garfield twice. The first shot gets his arm, but the second goes into his back, barely missing his spine.

 

Guiteau, in yet another moment of mediocrity, assumed the president was dead and declared to his captors, “I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! Arthur is president now!”

 

Cue the sound of every Stalwart’s butthole clenching. They did not survive what we, today, would call a PR nightmare.

 

Four of our presidents have been assassinated (so far), and of them Garfield was the only one to not die immediately or even the following day. He lived a pretty long time for someone who had a bullet in his back during a time when doctors thought washing their hands between patients was ludicrous. Garfield lived so long after getting shot that Guiteau, during his trial, claimed that he didn’t kill the president. The doctors did. It’s a fair assessment. Never mind not washing their hands. They didn’t have sterile gloves back then. Or sterile anything. So Garfield died of an infection on September 19, 1881. Many doctors now believe that if this happened today, with today’s understanding of medicine, Garfield would not have died. But these doctors shoved their fingers in the back wound so they could find the bullet. Gloveless fingers. Dirty fingers.

 

When Garfield died, Guiteau was charged. He pled not guilty. With the proud bleating of the mediocre, he declared he would defend himself, ensuring he had a fool for a client. The court recognized this, so they got him an actual lawyer. Granted, his specialty was real estate, but George Scoville was unfortunate enough to be Guiteau’s brother-in-law. He felt obliged.

 

Now that someone else was his lawyer, Guiteau decided to plea insanity, the first high profile case in US history where that happened. Guiteau claimed God took his free will. An alienist spoke on Guiteau’s behalf, and today would have made an excellent argument. Too bad they couldn’t have done an autopsy before Guiteau’s death. The evidence they found supported the alienist’s testimony.

 

Guiteau didn’t act very sane in the courtroom. He routinely cursed out everyone, including the judge. He gave testimony in epic poem format. He used his autobiography to try to get laid (not all that crazy, but still pretty inappropriate). It got so bad that he was almost assassinated. He tried to get Arthur to pardon him, since without Guiteau, Arthur wouldn’t be president. Dammit, Arthur owed him a pardon. It would be the ultimate form of patronage.

 

(Incidentally, Arthur was the one who rendered patronage illegal. It did not destroy the country or even the Republican party. However, so many politicians got angry over not being able to essentially sell positions of power to their friends that they went back later and killed the act. Hence our situation today in the current administration, where an anti-vaxxer is in charge of healthcare, for example.)

 

But Guiteau was found guilty. Even though the hangman’s noose awaited, he made plans for a lecture tour. He wrote about why he killed Garfield in a book called The Truth, and the Removal. He even decided to run for president in 1884.

 

June 30, 1882.

 

Guiteau reportedly danced up the steps to the rope, cheerfully waving to the audience. With scratchy hemp at his neck he told the world that God made him do it. He cursed the government with God’s “eternal enmity.” He called President Arthur “a coward and an ingrate.” He then got his last request: to read his poem, “I Am Going to the Lordy.” He’d wanted an orchestral accompaniment but was denied.

 

He dropped the paper the poem was written on, and the hangman draped his head in black. And finally Charles J. Guiteau danced the final time, a hempen jig.

 

The rope was torn to pieces and sold as souvenirs. They buried his body in the corner of the prison yard. Screws back then were much the same as they are today, and they plotted to dig him up and tear him to pieces to be sold as souvenirs. This came to light early, and his body was sent to the National Museum of Health and Medicine. They bleached his skeleton and put him in storage. They held on to his brain and his enlarged spleen. His brain is now on display in the Mutter Museum, where I saw it nearly a decade ago.

 

During the autopsy they discovered he had phimosis. Don’t Google that. It’s when the foreskin of the penis is so tight that the glans can’t escape it during an erection. They discovered syphilis, which can make people act insane during the late stages.

 

And that right there might be what actually killed the 20^th President of the United States. The only other suspect was a born loser.

Guiteau's brain.