GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1087: THE FUTURE IS NOT YOUR FRIEND

 The laundry room where I live recently swapped out their old washers and dryers for new models. I later learned they did this because they were selling the complex and wanted to get a better price, but that's not today's gripe. The old machines used cards for payment. The new ones require an app.

Because the future is not your friend, I ran into a terrible problem yesterday. I filled up the washer with my clothes and put the liquid detergent (DO NOT USE POWDER!!! says the taped note at the top of each unit) into the tray, and then went on the app to get it started so I could get my reading in for the day.

The app gave me a spinning wheel. Oh no.

I logged out and back in with the same result. Uninstalled and reinstalled and ditto. Called the customer service number. Lo! and behold! The app was down across the country. Did they have an ETA for when service would be restored? Nope!

I ordinarily do laundry on Wednesday, but since I was in Dixon I had to do it yesterday. Luckily I'd taken today off for a three day weekend, or my laundry might not have gotten done, and my coworkers would have to deal with me wearing the same stuff for a few days in a row. I checked the app before I went to bed last night, and it was still down.

So if this were any other week, I'd have been fucked. This turned out to be a mild annoyance, but then I turned my thoughts to the more egregious things the future has in store for us.

Picture, if you will, losing your sight and then having it restored by a chip in your head. You get used to it, but then you experience your first outage. While you're driving. And you're approaching the school crosswalk at lunchtime.

Or, more likely, you didn't pay your bill, so Elon Musk remotely bricks your device. While you're driving.

So yeah. Keep "updating" everything so you have to do it on a goddam app. And another thing! Those dang kids with their dirt bikes messed up the courtyard grass and HEY! WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! Hmpf. Some people. OH GODDAMMIT, THOSE KIDS ARE BACK!

*sigh* Yeah, I know. All the same, I stand by it.

It meaning the whole app thing, not the thing about the dirt bikes. Although the dirt bikes are a real thing, and there really is a bunch of grooves in the grass outside my window. I found myself staring at it with disgust the other day and realized, oh shit. It's happening. I'm officially getting old.

I'll be 48 in a few hours. My physical therapist once pointed out that I'm pushing 50. I thought I was kind of borderline on that phrase, but now there's no denying it. I'm pushing 50.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1086: READING LINEAGE

 If you were to ask me for the best word to describe myself, I'd choose "reader." I do not remember a time when I was not constantly reading. My mom told me my first word was not mama (much to her chagrin) but book.

I've often wondered why reading is so important to me. I suspect it was because both Mom and Dad were voracious readers. Dad didn't read around me because he only had me for an occasional weekend, so he had other things he wanted to do with me. But I saw Mom read all the time, and she encouraged me to do the same.

But how did they become such readers?

Dad is easy. His mom was a teacher. There's no way she didn't get him reading. In case Mom and Dad failed me, Grandma Laurette sent me a steady stream of books, all on history, dinosaurs or Ireland. In fact, one day I told her I was having trouble finding a particular book. She said she'd been using this great online bookstore, and they always had hard-to-find stuff. I didn't want to go online. I hadn't embraced the internet yet.

She did not live long enough to see her grandson's books for sale on that very website, which was called Amazon.

Mom didn't live long enough to read my first book. Dad read a few of my books, and it made me proud to know he liked them.*

But Mom's parents were not readers. Though Grandma loved crosswords, I never, in all my life, saw her pick up a book. As for Gramps, he only ever read the newspaper until the last ten years of his life. He started reading the books in my bedroom while I was at work. Believe it or not, his favorites were both by Richard Laymon: Island and Body Rides. But that wouldn't have helped Mom become a reader when she was a kid.

I suspect it was her grandmother, Grandma's mom. As I went through Grandma's books near the end of my time in Elmhurst, I discovered that they were her mom's books, instead. She lived with my grandparents and Mom and died when Mom was pregnant with me. My great-grandma liked to read hefty novels, LIT-rit-chure.

Now I suspect there might have been someone else, too. Gramps's cousin wrote many letters to him, and one of them contained a photocopy of a family picture from Greece. I'll talk about that at some point, but the accompanying letter mentions Gramps's dad and uncles. Apparently they were all readers. She mentioned that my great-grandpa liked to hang out at the library all the time.

I mentioned this to my aunt yesterday, and she said that she was always apprehensive around Gramps's mom as a kid. My great-grandma couldn't speak English, so my aunt couldn't understand what she was saying. I learned from my research into the family stuff that she couldn't read or write in any language, so knowing that her husband, my great-grandpa, was a reader surprised and delighted me.

So. How did he become a reader, then? I don't think I'll ever find out. I know only one thing about his father and nothing about his mother. Sure, I could find out their dates of birth or maybe what they died of, but what are the odds that I'll ever find out something anecdotal about them? And if I did, say, find a letter from one relative to another talking about what a reader my great-great-grandpa was? How would I read it? It's all Greek to me . . .

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*Yeah, I heard that. You know what you can do with your comments about his bias?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1085: FIND YOUR FUN

 I always talk about how the world is currently the tire fire to end all tire fires, and I'm not the only one. I'm not in the habit of pointing out the obvious, but I say it because I'm always trying to remind people to find their fun. Fun isn't going to knock on your door and present itself, wearing its Sunday's finest and giving you a firm and vigorous handshake. Unless you're into that sort of thing. I don't judge.

You have to go out and find it. Or, if you don't want to go out, you can make it at home.

But I like to go out. Today my aunt invited me to lunch. She lives about as far west as you can get in Illinois without being in Iowa, so our mid-point is Dixon, the hometown of Ronald Reagan. I imagine that's why they call I-88 the Reagan tollway. I drove past his childhood home, and I'm sure it didn't look that nice when he lived there.

I mention it because it was a 45 minute drive through beautiful land on a lovely day. For the first time in weeks, it wasn't hot as balls out, so I could drive with the windows down, the wind making my hair dance like one of those inflatable things you see at dealerships.* I felt good, so I turned up the music and enjoyed the trip. And for just a bit, I could ignore the Great American Tire Fire (TM).

Fun shouldn't be a project, but when you find it, you should enjoy it, no matter how little it might be. I'm sure a lot of people are reading this and thinking, that is your idea of fun? It's not capital F fun, but sure, I had fun. It lightened my spirits.

Sometimes that's all it takes. Speeding down 88 at 100 mph through farmland as far as the eye can see.

Added bonus: when I got home I discovered a shipment of Tang from my friends, Alicia and Chris Stamps. It wasn't just a container of Tang. They got me TWO GIANT CANISTERS!

This is only a little shorter than my thigh, and I'm a tall dude.

Also! I won a Goodreads giveaway! That always cheers me up. All in all, it was a good day.

So yeah, sometimes fun really does show up at your door. But it doesn't happen a lot, so make sure you seek it out.

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*Yes, I'm sure it's called something. Also, I am high and do not wish to look it up. You can always write your own blog about these things.**

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**Yes, you can call your blog Goodnight, Fuckers 2: Electric Bugaloo. You're welcome.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1084: PLAYBOY 3

 I have a shit-ton more excerpts from my Playboy collection that might be of interest to us now, in the modern world, as opposed to, say, 20+ years ago when I first got them. So here's a few interesting images:

You can probably guess that was written by Hunter S. Thompson. It was a letter to Hef celebrating the 50th anniversary of the magazine, but it might as well have been written 5 minutes ago. Nothing has changed. Or maybe we're currently living in the future he predicted . . . ?

Alfred Kinsey is a subject of fascination for me. If you've never read TC Boyle's The Inner Circle, I highly recommend it. But good luck scrubbing these pigfucking stats from your brain.

That is a lie from a lying liar. Not one year later he was running for Congress, so . . .

My Favorite Playmate is usually a pretty boring feature, but every once in a while a celebrity says something so outlandish I can't help but laugh. All the same, he didn't choose Nicole Narain?

That's a pretty good author photo of Irvine Welsh. It encompasses his subject matter and tone very well.

Nine. The answer to Edward Bunker's question is nine.

The Beef's got some serious problems. When you're going to Harvey Weinstein for advice, for example, it might be a good idea to keep your mouth shut and your head down instead of doing a Playboy interview.

Speaking of Tarantino, I forgot that he did this. He also did one for Django Unchained.

Any guesses as to who is telling this story? I'll put the answer at the end of this.

I bring this up because this is possibly the worst timed bit in US comedy history. This was published just a couple of months before 9/11. *pulls collar* In case you couldn't tell, this was written by George Carlin.

Ah jeez.

Speaking of Silent Bob, Kevin Smith also did the 20Q feature. That Michael Jackson idea is absolutely insane. Considering *that scandal* I'm glad it didn't happen, because HOLY SHIT.

Tarantino says something here that I identify with 100%. I've read so many books that I'm bored with the things that many people find enthralling. That's why I write outlandish things. The reason I do that is because I hate boredom, and if I ever bore someone with something I've written, I would consider that a crime against humanity. Every book has slow parts, but I try to make them at least interesting.

I used to be a Ron Jeremy fan. Ever see Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy? I thought he was funny in a cornball sense ("How big is my dick? Three inches . . . from the floor!"), and I was fascinated with the fact that he came from such a high pedigree (look up who his parents were). I even learned how to detail my pubic hair from him (shave the shaft and balls bare, trim the bush until it matches the rest of your body hair). But . . .

Knowing what we know now? Define "boink," please. 

Well. He turned out to be a huge piece of shit. Also, if you looked at that and thought, uhhhh, pandering? It has an interesting legal definition. The hell with it. Don't look that up. You need some sleep.

That ended on an ugly note, but I'll have more for you in a bit. Donald Trump and Mark Cuban did the big interview, and I'm probably going to dedicate a night to a compare/contrast of the two and what they said. I've got a long way to go before I'm through with my collection, so who knows how many more editions I'll have for you? To be continued . . .

____________________________________-

I almost forgot: It was Denis Leary. That's right, Dean Martin called Denis Leary a pussy. I have two words for you, oh-KAY?! That's fucking funny.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1083: FOUR YEARS

My first author photo.

Whenever I talk with a friend I haven't heard from in a while, as I did recently, they inevitably say something along the lines of how they thought for sure my drinking was going to kill me. There are a lot of people out there surprised by the fact that I'm still alive. I am one of those people. As of today it's been four years since my last drink.

It's been four looooooooong years. I thought maybe I'd still drink for special occasions, like my birthday and Christmas and so on. In fact, I lied my ass off so I could get out of detox and get something to drink in time for my birthday. I planned to buy a fifth of Wild Turkey 101, but when I went to the liquor store, I drove right past without stopping. I still have no idea why. All the same, that special occasions plan would have failed. That was my SOP for maybe a year back in the early 2010s, and I strained to find ways to qualify stuff as a "special occasion."

I miss the whole thing. I miss hanging out in bars and bullshitting with my fellow drinkers. I miss the fucked up adventures boozing used to bring. I even miss hangovers, the price to pay for greatness.

Who knows? Maybe I'll take it up again. There are a few things that might force my hand, like losing my bad foot or getting fired. Or maybe I'll live to one hundred and figure, fuck it. What's the worst that could happen?

Probably not, though.

I beat my alcoholism without AA, and that makes me proud. I think of all the court ordered AA people get stuck with and think, that sounds like a First Amendment violation. AA claims to be a non-religious organization, but they're lying. It pleases me that I beat this without the industry standard. All I needed to do was beat the physical addiction. The rest of it was a breeze.

I'm not condemning AA. It didn't work for me because Step Two sounds like a great excuse to blame my problems on something other than myself. Make no mistake, I am to blame for going down this path. But they do help people, so if you need help, give them a try. Or you can do what I did and go to RCA (Recovery Centers of America). From what I understand, they have locations across the country. I personally went to the one in St. Charles, which is pretty nice. It costs, yes, but if you have medical coverage, you'll be OK.

There is an added benefit to writing about this stuff here, and that's you lovely fuckers. I typically don't give a fuck what people in general think of me, but for some reason I do in this case. I think of all the people who congratulate me, and I realize I'd let them down if I started boozing it up again. That disappointment is one of the things that prevents me from drinking on shitty days, so thank you.

Have I done anniversary posts every year? I'm too lazy to check, but I suspect I have. Maybe I'll do one for five years, but after that? I won't bring it up again until the 10 year anniversary.

Unless I've been killed in a horrific car accident. I probably won't post if that happens.

Anyway, goodnight fuckers.

For many years I had that author photo on my business card, too. A friend of mine said, "You have a picture of you drinking on your business card?" I nodded, proud, and said, "Of course." Bliss in ignorance? No, bliss in stupidity.

Special thanks to Alicia and Chris Stamps, who always remember my anniversary.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1082: 12 MONKEYS

 

I remember when I saw the movie, 12 Monkeys, in the theater on opening night. It was a perfect time travel flick, and it made sense 100% of the, uh, time, which is unusual for such fare. If you want to impress friends with movie trivia, did you know that one of the two writers of this movie also wrote Unforgiven?

Anyway, when they announced a TV series was being made out of it, I had to wonder how. How could they stretch that story out over the course of a season, much less more than one? They did a pretty good job of it, and the show went off in a lot of crazy and unexpected directions.

But I lost Syfy before I could watch the final season. My provider dropped the channel for whatever reasons, and ever since I've wondered how they ended the show. When I gave up cable for streaming, I always kept an eye out, hoping someone would eventually have it.

And now, while watching the new season of From and the final season of Billy the Kid, I discovered MGM+ had it. At first I thought, I remember enough of the show. I can probably just plunge myself back into it with nothing more than the previously-on walkthrough.

That was a terrible idea. I'd forgotten so much about the first few seasons that I really should have started from the beginning, but I didn't have time for that. I'm not going to pay for another month just so I can do that. The problem is, I am a completely different person from the guy who watched those first seasons. Number one among the changes: I no longer drink three-quarters of a handle every night. No wonder my memories were hazy. I was probably blacked out when I watched a majority of 12 Monkeys.

Cumulatively I'm missing about a decade's worth of my life. It's not like I turned 30 and boom, the next thing I know, I'm 40. There are bits and pieces I recall, but booze effectively erased a lot of that decade. It's more like 33 to 43, maybe 44.

So picking up the show again after so much time was surreal to me. The time travel show sort of . . . sent me back in time. I had the sensation of being that person again for the first three episodes to the point where I reached for my drink once and recoiled in horror at it *not* being whiskey.

As for the show itself, I managed to get back into the correct mindframe when that feeling of time travel faded, and I understood the story again. I recalled more until I realized there was a plot twist I'd been waiting for when I watched back in the day. The twist did, indeed, come but it was not the twist I expected. Related, sure, but different nonetheless. I won't say what it was, in case you planned on watching at some point, but I thought Cole would somehow turn out to be his own father--like a test tube baby, not the other way--hence his importance as a paradox to the story. I was close, but that didn't turn out to be the case. The actual twist is pretty sweet, though, and you should give it a shot.

In fact, the whole show is just great. If you have MGM+, check it out.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1081: A SPECIAL BIRTHDAY

 We recently, as a nation, celebrated a most historical birthday. I can't believe such a concept has survived for this long. It really is astonishing, when you think about all the years that have passed since this grand notion found its feet and started to walk, then run. When I think about the whole thing, I stand mute in awe.

I am, of course, referring to Goodnight, Fuckers. Believe it or not, as of today I've been writing these things for twelve years. In another year it will be allowed to watch the PG-13 classic, My Stepmother is an Alien. Happy birthday, GF!

Twelve years ago I began this thing without warning. Usually if I start to do something, I at least introduce the concept so everyone knows what to expect. Nope. I charged in with something exceptionally personal that I should absolutely never have shared with anyone under any circumstances.

Don't click on this. Seriously, don't. If you must know, I'll TL;DR it for ya: I developed early as a child, and when I was writing one of my Hardy Boys rip-offs on my mom's piano bench, I had an orgasm. I wasn't doing anything other than writing. It just sort of happened. There. See? Don't click that link. There are more details if you do.

I never quite intended GF to become what it did. I thought I was mapping out who I was in case any future archaeologist wanted to know. That kind of stuff still happens, but I never intended the political stuff and the history lessons and the oh-look-at-this-weird-shit profiles to be more than just points of interest instead of the whole point.

All in all, I'm proud of all that stuff. I'm glad this is how it worked out. Not all 1,081 of these things are good--can't all be zingers--but twelve years of purposely spilling my brain on the internet is pretty good, all things considered.

And GF cannot be killed. I've tried to stop on several occasions, but it's more stubborn than *I* am, and that is saying a fuck-ton. So I guess I'll still be writing these for the rest of my life.

Brace yourselves. To quote Frank Reynolds(ish):

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1080: PLAYBOY 2

 I've gathered a few more images for my ongoing revisit of Playboy magazine. I've been going through my collection, saving the issues that are important to me, rereading about what life was like in the early 2000s. So here's more of what I've found.

President Creep doing what he does.

Looks like this was a new article published posthumously. And no, wrong Robert Crane. That one died a long time ago.

Ah jeez.

I wonder if Vidal would still say that if he was alive today.

Vidal really knew how to charm our corporate overlords.

"MADLY IN LOVE WITH BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I like to think that Elvis would have appreciated having Nic Cage as a son-in-law. He probably knew, too. After all, Elvis is probably still alive . . .

Jim Carrey is going to turn 90 in 2052. I'll obviously be gone by then, so someone planning to live that long: please check back on this. And then have your kids check back on him when he turns 120, please and thank you.

This is how I first read Chuck Palahniuk's infamous story, "Guts."

Speaking of the Joker . . .

OK, I think that's enough for now. I'll get back to this again some other time. I did find quite a few doozies including the Donald Trump interview . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1079: HYALURONIC ACID

 I don't give much of a shit about sports of any kind, so this sort of news flies waaaaaaaay under my radar, but when I saw a headline regarding skiers who have found an innovative way of cheating, I had to take a look at it. Quite honestly, I think these guys shouldn't be punished. They've suffered enough.

Because ski jumpers have learned to inject hyaluronic acid into their dicks. A lot of it, from what I understand. That's got to be punishment enough.

How the fuck does this help a ski jumper cheat? An excellent question, one of the first I asked, myself. It turns out that, much like fighters in boxing or UFC, skiers have to be weighed and measured because the regulators want to ensure that their outfits have a tight fit. If they don't, then a loose flap of cloth will help them out aerodynamically, giving them more distance.

So if you walk in with a fat hog for your fitting, when your equipment sheds the acid it will be back to normal size, and the cloth between your legs will hang just enough to give you that advantage.

I have no idea how the hell anyone figured this out, much less got caught. How did that go down, exactly? Perhaps a trainer one day said, "Dude, if I shove this needle into your dick, it's gonna swell up so much that" etc. So of course the other guy has to say, "DUDE! That's awesome! Stick me, bro!"

And then a judge has to go, "Hm. That's weird. He got more distance than he should have. I think his crotch is flapping in the breeze. Hey, wait a minute! Did he inject his cock with hyaluronic acid so it would swell up and we'd get an inaccurate reading of his crotch area during his fitting? Now if only I can catch him red-handed so I can prove it . . ."

I watched Cemetery Man. I didn't need to see the needle go into his penis to feel the pain. But even that's not the worst of it, because if you get the dosage wrong, you might disfigure your dong. It might not stand at attention anymore. It could cause you "penile discomfort," whatever the fuck that means.

You could also get infected and have to have your dick amputated.

Could you imagine having to explain that to your friends? "Yeah, I got gangrene and had to get my dick removed."

"Jesus Christ, man. How the hell did you get gangrene? What did you do to yourself?"

"I wanted an extra meter on my ski jump, so I stuck seventy cc's of acid into my . . .  you know what? It's a long story."

It brought back memories of the guy who went in for a circumcision only to wake up from the surgery without his glans. The doctor at the time said he'd found cancer in it, so he made an executive decision. What I think happened is, he cut a little too far down by mistake. It would have been a simple matter of asking the patient's wife for permission to amputate, which he didn't do despite the fact that she was on hand.

Which reminds me, John Wayne Bobbitt is back in the news. People Magazine thought to ask what he's been up to. Turns out, he lost a few more body parts. This is allegedly related to his service as a Marine . . . at the dreaded Camp Lejeune.

I did not expect this to be heavy on penis trauma. I just thought it was pretty funny that the Winter Olympics had a scandal called Penisgate, which was going to be the title of this GF, but I didn't want you to know that off the bat. At least now you know . . .

You know the rest.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1078: PLAYING MUSK

 It's been a staple of SF for so long I'm not sure I even remember when I first heard about the concept of terraforming a planet. I suspect it was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I don't know for sure. All the same, it seems like the only way we'll be able to live on planets within our reach. Because outside of our solar system? That's a pipe dream, at least for now.

The most obvious subject would be Mars, and Elon Musk has been jacking himself off thinking about making that planet habitable for humans. Whether he's doing it for altruistic purposes (for humanity) or dictatorial purposes (the first private person to make it there gets to rule the planet), I'll leave up to your imagination. You know my thoughts on this.

But how likely is it to actually transform Mars from the wasteland it currently is to a thriving planet-wide metropolis? Is it even possible?

Why not try your hand at playing Musk? Nature put together a simulation. Go ahead. See how successful you are.

It's harder than it seems. I generally have a good understanding of science, and it was a lot harder than I expected. In fact I scored 50%, which would be a solid F- if I was still in school.

Brave enough to share your results in the comments?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1077: HOGAN'S HEROES

 I watched a lot of classic TV shows when I was a kid, always in reruns, as I wasn't alive for the first-run episodes. My favorites were the westerns, but I also loved stuff like Dennis the Menace and My Three Sons and Laugh-In, etc. I wasn't into Hogan's Heroes because, at the time, I believed history was boring.

Due to the recent political climate I thought it would behoove me to watch the whole series, and I got what I wanted, but I also got something very unexpected.

In this very space I've compared Trump to Schultz, in the "I KNOW NOTHING!" sense. It's a bad comparison, as Trump has more in common with the Dunning-Kruger-ish Klink, but even that doesn't hold up. I'll get to that soon, but what really impressed me was Hogan's MO.

In case you're unfamiliar, Col. Hogan is a POW in a Luftwaffe prisoner camp. He's the ranking officer, so he's in charge of his fellow occupants, among them Kinch, the comms officer; Newkirk, a horny Brit; LaBeau, an equally horny Frenchman; and Carter, an idiot who is somehow an explosives expert. They're not there simply because they got caught. Allied intelligence put them there as a sabotage squad, and they chose Stalag 13 because the commandant, Col. Klink, and his second in command Sgt. Schultz, are exceptionally stupid. So they have no idea about the comm tower Hogan has in their own flagpole, the network of tunnels under the camp and even the submarine Hogan has at his beck and call.

Klink and Schultz (and a few other regulars) are so inept that Hogan is able to easily pull off his missions. The first season is the best. The others are good, but the cons they pulled then required all the Nazis to be stupid. That first season? Even smart people would fall for the shit Hogan and his friends pulled.

Hogan's Heroes is about Allied prisoners tricking Nazis for a laff riot, but only on the surface. It's really about how to manipulate people into doing your bidding. I suspect the show's creators worked for the CIA--or maybe they continued in that capacity while filming!--they are that good at depicting manipulation.

There's a buzzword that I despise, but I'm going to use it because no other will suffice. Hogan specializes in "psyops."

A psyop is the use of propaganda to influence a person or group of persons into doing things they ordinarily wouldn't do. Short for "psychological operations," it's how the military approaches things in regions where American "interests" just so happen to belong to other nations. These days the phrase is almost exclusively used by YouTube con artists trying to teach you how to influence people.

Which is fairly simple when you understand human nature, and Hogan does, very much so. He knows to appeal to ego without sucking up. Never ask questions but make observations that offer opportunities to explain or correct. Give pieces of evidence but don't connect them, leaving your target to connect the dots and therefore feel clever for doing so. Etc.

The thing that stops most people from doing this is a lack of confidence, ie. the word "con" is short for in "con artist." It's shocking what you can make people believe if you sound like you know what you're talking about. If you're good at this, people won't even check your work.

Luckily Hogan's cup of confidence floweth over . . . and spilleth all over the floor.* He's so confident he routinely tells Klink what he's up to *for real* and Klink always dismisses it as a joke. Hogan is digging tunnels under the stalag? Very funny. But confidence alone won't do it. The key to getting someone to do something they wouldn't normally do is to find a way to fit that thing into their worldview and feed them enough disinformation to make it feel like the righteous thing to do. It helps to also mold that worldview if you can help it, and in that first season, this last bit is where Hogan excels.

This show was on for six years, so it did get old after a while, but one of the reasons it lasted so long was because Klink and Schultz, despite being Nazis and exceptionally stupid, are kind of likeable. Or, at least, you can't hate these fools. It's clear they didn't know about the Final Solution, for example. Klink got his rank because of family connections, and his position keeps him safe from the horrors of the Russian front, where the deadliest fighting of WWII occurred. Somehow his cowardice redeems him, which would be next to impossible on any other show. The same goes for Schultz. He enjoys the simple things in life. Actually fighting in a war? That's unthinkable to him. All he wants to do is eat and relax. It's difficult to understand how he got so far as a sergeant. He doesn't know anyone in High Command, nor does he have important relatives.

Hogan's Heroes naturally didn't know they were getting canceled, so we never get to see the end of his operations. Over the course of the years, guests he helped escape to England always wanted to know why he never escaped himself. Hogan always said that when it came time to leave, he would walk out the front gate in full view of everyone. I really wanted to see that moment of victory. Ah well.

As with The Rat Patrol, I did find myself wondering what happened to everyone after the war. I'm not going to get too much into that. I like to think Newkirk and LaBeau remained best friends and spent much of their civilian life in pubs and maybe some brothels, too. Carter probably went home and became a cop. I imagine Kinch became an engineer. Schultz went home to his wife and had a passel of children exactly like him.

Klink probably got captured and put on trial for war crimes. Not that he actually did any of them, but I suspect General Burkhalter framed Klink for *his* crimes. And so he hanged at Nuremburg with Julius Streicher and friends.

As for Hogan? Who knows? Maybe I'll write about him, too, someday.

__________________________

*I forgot who I stole that joke from. I suspect it was Mel Brooks, as I am currently reading his memoir, but I don't recall for sure.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1076: OUR SECRET

 If you're reading this, it's our secret. Shhhhhhh. I'm testing something. To quote a great man:

As you were. Goodnight, you lovely fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1075: A CLOSED MIND

 It's a little surprising how easily an open mind can snap shut like a trap. You might not even notice it happen. And then one day you find yourself in an argument, and someone accuses you of having a closed mind, and after you think about it, you realize holy shit. They're right.

When I was a kid I swore I'd never grow up to be like an adult in a horror movie. You know what I mean. The guy who won't believe the kids that there's a monster on a killing spree. Usually it's a cop or a parent, but it could be anyone.

I wanted to be more like Gary Busey in Silver Bullet. He didn't necessarily believe Corey Haim, but he played along and got the surprise of his life. Because he did this and was thus prepared, he survived the fight (unlike, say, John Vernon in Killer Klowns from Outer Space).

(Spoiler, I guess.)

But the thing about getting older is, the more years that pass, the more you think you know everything, especially when it comes to what you believe to be impossible. Because you've gone through so much, you think you know what reality is like, and your mind closes to anything that can't fit into your worldview.

This is something I'm prone to, and I'm also an obstinate son of a bitch. I give no ground when I think I know something. Do you know how long it took me to recognize this about myself, despite everyone I've ever argued with telling me about it to my face? Forty fucking years. Unfortunately getting your mind stuck in this state makes you more likely to make knee-jerk reactions.

I recently mentioned in this space that not responding with a knee-jerk reaction is the key to a saner life. It's also the key to a better understanding of the universe, the key to having an open mind.

The Trump Administration specializes in causing knee-jerk reactions. This is what they want. They want people freaking out and saying angry things, and we easily fall into their trap. People I know for a fact who would never threaten someone's safety or lives routinely wish death on Trump or anyone in his Cabinet of Douchebags and Sychophants. Sometimes this extends to anyone wearing a MAGA hat regardless of their ability to influence those around them.

The reason they want you to do that to them is so they can point at you and say, "See? They're monsters. They think we're subhuman. They want us dead." They don't even have to incite violence at that point. Once that idea is in the MAGA head, the job is done. Any crime they commit against those who wish them dead is an act of self-defense in their eyes.

Knee-jerk reaction = falling into their trap. So the next time these assholes make you angry, stop. Think. What do they want me to feel? How do they want me to act on those feelings? And who benefits from how I act? However you respond, remain calm. Don't panic. You have to take this tool out of their toolbox because it's cheap and stupid, but more importantly it is efficient.

The MAGAs have been sold a bill of goods. They think the left wants them dead because [place reason of the week here]. When you respond to Trump with violent rhetoric, you're giving him exactly what he wants. The key to getting that prick out of office is in his followers. Almost everyone has turned their backs on him. All he has left is the very small group of loyalists who won't believe anything you say, anyway. The Iran . . . adventure? . . . is a major nail in his coffin. All appearances to the contrary, he's on the ropes. He knows he's fucked if the midterms don't go his way. He flat-out begged his followers to vote Republican or "I'll get impeached." And if that happens, he'll have nothing to fall back on but the dementia act I think he's trying to run on us so he can avoid prison time when this is over. He stole everything else from Reagan. Why not steal the whole "I don't recall" thing?

Nearly everyone now sees the man behind the curtain for what he really is, but there are still people who hang on his every word. Please. Stop giving him ammunition to use against us. Because when he's gone, those diehards will still be around. If the spell finally breaks for them, we want them back in the fold. Because this is America, and despite the last ten years or more? We are all in this together. We don't have to like each other, but we do have to get along.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1074: A SPECIAL REPORT

 I can't believe it. I achieved something I didn't think I'd live to see. Remember, I thought I'd be dead by now. This means I have a chance. I actually have a chance!

When I finished reading The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, I finished the second (of three) notebook of my reading list. The third is only half full, and since I haven't been able to afford many new books lately, I'm not adding much to it.

I might actually finish my reading list before I die. Holy shit, that's huge!

When I was a kid I put together a list of all the books I owned. That was the first page and a half of the list. I was able to add to my personal collection thanks to several factors. The Hillside Public Library usually had a good rack of used paperbacks you could get for fifty cents each. Then there was the Book Exchange in Berkley, my favorite used bookstore of all time. You could get used hardcovers there for a couple of bucks each, and paperbacks were usually a quarter. And then there was the single biggest contributor to my collection: the annual Elmhurst Public Library sales. They'd give you a paper grocery bag, and you could fill it to the brim with as many books as you possibly could, and you'd pay five bucks for the bag. Every year I'd go home with five or six bags.

When I got my first job (at the Elmhurst Public Library, by the way), I only had two expenses: my student loans and books, except now I could afford to get books at actual stores like Borders. And when I got my first big boy office job? Think of all the books I got in those days before I had real life expenses like rent and groceries, etc. By then I realized I'd never live to finish my list, and I didn't even have two full notebooks yet.

But now I have a new problem. I'm having sight issues. I'm not going blind, per se, but I have huge floaters in both eyes, and they're so big it's next to impossible to blink them out of the way. I'm starting to have difficulty in reading because of them. The only cure for floaters is to have a procedure done where, when they're finished, you have to lie face down in bed for two weeks with your eyes covered up. I can't afford to do that, money- and time-wise. If I do that, I will lose my home.

So now it's just not a matter of living long enough to finish that last notebook. I also have to read it all before I go blind. This victory, though, has given me hope. I might actually succeed at doing this. And I've thought about what I would do if I ever finished the list. For the first time since I was a kid, I'd just go to the library and pick a book off the shelf. Or a bookstore, if we still have those in the future. It was always a pipe dream, but now that I have a chance?

Wish me luck.

In case you were wondering, the first book on my list was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The copy I had back then was an old hardcover from the 1930's that I picked up from my stepfather (and it had Twain's real name on it for some reason), but now I have a replica of the first edition, and if you didn't know it, nearly all of Twain's books originally came with woodcut illustrations. For some reason, scholarly versions of the text leave those pictures out. They're pretty amazing. You should read the books as the author intended, with those pictures.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1073: DIMITSANA

 

As you know, I've been going through the family pictures before figuring out who should get them. I've saved pictures of people I don't know for last so I can do some detective work to find out who they were. This picture, among about a dozen others, was in an envelope addressed to Gramps in handwriting I now know belonged to his sister, Helen. She and a few relatives went to Greece in the 'Eighties, to Dimitsana in particular.

Gramps and his two sisters were first generation Americans. Their parents came to America in the 'Twenties (and I have their dad and theo's naturalization papers!), and they referred to Gramps as "their American son." Dimitsana is where they were from.

And that house above? Take a look at the back of the photo:

The John in question is Gramps. I was named after him. How many people have a picture of their great-grandfather's childhood home? And to find out that it's 300 years old? Holy shit. I also have his death certificate, so I know my great-great-grandfather was named Zaharis Kyriakopoulos. (No mother is listed.)

That leg of my family comes from a mountain town with more buildings that look like that one. In fact, here's another picture:

And here's the back:

Not sure who Dave is. All I know is, Dave's not here. Not a lot of people live in Dimitsana. Not even 800 souls populate the town, and Kyriakopoulos is a common name there. I almost certainly have blood relatives still living there. There were times when I was a kid when I thought, wouldn't it be weird to go to, say, Greece and look up the Kopoulos family? (I didn't know they shortened the name until I found the papers back in 2022.) Or maybe go back to Ireland and look up the Dunnes? (I actually did go to Ireland only to discover Dunne is one of the most common names in the country.) And then, because I know the least amount about the Bruni family, wouldn't it be nice to go to Italy and look them up?

(Three of my four grandparents were 100% one nationality. Grandma had a lot of diversity in her background, so I can't really pick a country to go back to for her family.)

Now that I've seen The White Lotus? Maybe not. I think that's probably the most realistic way something like that would go down. But it's nice to think about.

I've gone down some interesting paths looking up my family history. I'm pretty good with Mom's side. I come from families with names like Cota, Friend, Noanes, Demeroukas and so on. I just wish I'd thought to ask all the questions I have now back when Grandma and Gramps were still alive. My aunt is the only one older than me on that side of the family, and I've found she unfortunately doesn't have all the answers I'm looking for, just some of them.

Is anyone else at all curious about where they came from? Have you done research without resorting to stuff like Ancestry, etc.? So far I've done a lot of detective work without it, and I've done pretty good, but I'm reaching the brick wall point in my research. Any thoughts on what to do without sending my DNA off to a corporation that is most likely to use it in ways I couldn't possibly imagine?

And now I have an added bonus mystery, this one from Grandma's side of the family. I was under the impression all my life that the one great-grandparent I'd come closest to meeting was Grandma's mom. The reason I had that impression was because Grandma told me, herself. I found something today which she might not have been aware of. I asked my aunt, "When did Grandma's dad die?" She said she didn't know and didn't think Grandma knew, either.

The thing I found? Grandma's mom's death certificate. On it she is listed as married, not widowed. I learned lately that Grandma's parents separated early in her life. I know her dad didn't go too far because I found a picture of him with Grandma's sister sitting in his lap at the 50th anniversary of Grandma's maternal grandparents. That was back in the 'Fifties, and her mom would die in February 1978.

Because next to that MARRIED space on her mom's death certificate? It says she was survived by her spouse!

It is possible that he and I lived on this planet at the same time. I have tried everything to find out what happened to him, and I've come up with nothing. The internet has no idea whatever happened to Harold McKinley Cota, Sr. All I can find is Harry, Grandma's brother. So yeah, any suggestions?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1072: BILLY THE KID

 

I recently got MGM+ again because FROM has a new season. I'm all caught up now. and I'm canceling after the season finale. But they also have BILLY THE KID, and I just watched the final season. (I also noticed they have the show, 12 MONKEYS. I lost cable before the final season aired, so I'm finally getting to watch that. I'll probably write about that experience at some point soon, because it's a little bizarre for me.)

When I first started watching BILLY THE KID, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was written by Michael Hirst. I love his historical shows, like The Tudors and Vikings. Now that he's turned his attention to one of my favorite western outlaws? I was all in.

And I watched as it did its best to distance itself from the Young Guns movies. I can't tell you how much I love those two flicks. But because they're such an important part of the legend, this show needs to steer the boat its own way.

Hirst obviously loves history, but he's not beholden to it. If it comes down to a decision between what really happened (or at least the agreed upon facts) and what makes more sense for the story, he will always go with the latter, never the former. So you can't watch his stuff and expect an accurate history lesson, but he gets the spirit of history rather than the letter.

So the whole time I watched this show, my biggest question was, is he going to go the Brushy Bill route? If you don't know, back in the 'Fifties, an old man named Brushy Bill Roberts claimed to be Billy the Kid, that Pat Garrett hadn't killed him, and that he'd been keeping a low profile for decades. He had a lot of scars that line up with injuries Billy the Kid was known to have had. There were still a few Old West outlaws alive at the time, and when they trotted Brushy Bill out in front of them, they more or less agreed: this really was Billy the Kid. But in an age where DNA testing didn't exist, and the actual location of Billy the Kid's corpse was unknown, it couldn't be definitively proved.

Here there be spoilers. If you're going to watch the show, you'd best stop here. If you've seen it, or you don't give a fuck, please continue.

After Pat Garrett shoots Billy and leaves, Billy still breathes, and a friend rushes to get him out of there. I thought, YES! They're doing Brushy Bill! Because I believe that he really was Billy the Kid. I think that's legitimately part of the story.

But Hirst actually *doesn't* do Brushy Bill. He takes a much bigger swing at history. Like, I'm talking a Babe Ruth kind of swing.

Because later, after Billy is nursed back to health, HE GOES BACK TO GET REVENGE ON PAT GARRETT. He flat out guns Garrett down, and that's it.

Holy fuck, that is huge. It then occurred to me that I actually didn't know how Pat Garrett died. I never had much interest in the guy, although I tend to agree with Young Guns 2, that Garrett was in on Billy faking his death. So I looked it up, and Garrett died under mysterious circumstances, much like the real life Johnny Ringo. In fact, it's very similar to the swing Tombstone takes when it suggests that Doc Holliday killed Johnny Ringo. I've read up on the subject, and the popular belief is that he committed suicide. I think that's the case. But we don't know for sure, just like we don't know who actually killed Garrett.

Could it have been Billy the Kid? If you believe the Brushy Bill story, like I do, then it's within the realm of possibility.

But then Hirst follows it with Billy going up against Thomas Catron, the local politician that was hellbent on eliminating Billy and his Regulators. In the series finale he shoots Catron in the head, which simply did not happen. Catron went on to become a US Senator and died in 1921. But that is par for the Hirst course. It made for a good ending to the series, something that ties up all the loose threads but wasn't necessarily true.

I'm certain that, if he went on for another episode, he would have depicted Brushy Bill. In the end Billy literally--and I mean LITERALLY, not figuratively as many people use that word today--rides off into the sunset with his wife and kid.

That last episode was good. It wrapped up everything. But I don't think it was great, which is also par for the Hirst course EXCEPT FOR THE TUDORS. That show had a final episode that was awe-inspiringly beautiful, one of those moments that takes your breath away. The only reasonable response is to stare in astonishment and silence.

BILLY THE KID was a lot of fun. I'd recommend it.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1071: FUCKED NEW WORLD

 

Can we please leave the horny spam to actual human beings instead of AI? I got the email above not too long ago. In case you can't read it, it's from Strong Dick, and the subject is SLAUGHTER HER PUSSY TILL SHE LOSES HER VOICE. What in the actual fuck?

I can't imagine that was written by a human being. When it comes to sex, one of the last verbs that would ever occur to me, if at all, would be "slaughter." But to "slaughter" someone's "pussy" until they're no longer capable of speaking? Number one: why would you want that? And two: why would you want to do that to someone?

At least when some financial prisoner in a call center half a world away sends me an email, I know it will be the usual. "Hey sexy" or "get hard with rhino horns" or "wanna fuck?" and so on. I almost said TEN BUCK PHONE FUCK, but that's not necessarily a spam email. It's more like an ad in a porno magazine.

And while I'm on the subject, porn sites need to stop with the AI advertising. It's creepy as fuck, looking in their fake eyes desperately trying to not look fake. I want to go back to the game that will make me cum in five seconds, or the lonely housewife in my area. At least I know that's a human being trying to take advantage of me instead of an AI trying to get me all horned up.

I get it. A lot of people are lonely. But there's no way anyone is falling for this shit, right? Right?

RIGHT?!

Wouldn't it be creepy if an AI left a thirst trap comment on this post?

UPDATE!

The day after I posted this GF, I got two more spam emails trying to horn me up. Can you figure out which one, based on the criteria mentioned above, I actually appreciated?

In case you can't read it, the one from Addison says, "She wants it now: Buy a beer, take a cock in my mouth!" The one from Emery says, "Fuck her till she screams." I'll give you a moment to think about it. Meet me at the bottom in ten seconds . . .

I did not appreciate Emery because I think he's AI trying to horn me up. I'm guessing it's trying to sell me boner pills. I'm guessing AI thinks fucking someone until they scream is something living, breathing people want. I *did* appreciate Madison, because I'm certain that's an actual human being trying to take advantage of me, like in the good ol' days. The weird phrasing is probably due to mistranslation. The smaller print refers to a meter as a "metre," and I think this person is trying to say, "Buy me a beer, and I'll blow you." Thank you, Addison. A+ for effort. Keep fighting the good fight. Don't let AI take your job.

Now there's more?

So . . . is your name Allison or Delilah? And my name is supposed to make you blush? John's probably not going to do it, but if I was named Alligator Fuckhouse?

Who is begging for my monster? Also, I have a monster? And she wants my monster to ruin her holes (or, for the more civilized, her pussy)? As for FUCK MY PUSSY TONIGHT, your pussy is boiling over? Surely you don't have boiling water--or anything else--in there, right? And I'm not sure if I can lend you my fucking. I don't like to let people borrow that. Sorry.