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 #851: CICADAS

 When I heard we were getting two hordes of cicadas this year, I wasn't too thrilled. I remembered from when I was a kid, and the little fuckers got everywhere. You couldn't enjoy a car ride with the windows down because you were likely to get peppered in the face with cicadas. You couldn't leave your windows open unless you wanted cicadas moving in with you. Hell, just going outside is temptation enough for them to get on you and follow you wherever you go before you notice them.

But so far I haven't seen many of them, and they've been out for a while. I can hear those loud fuckers in the trees. They are so loud I can hear them inside with the windows closed, and it doesn't sound like they're outside. The sound is relentless. So why haven't I seen many of them out and about?

Well, most days I *do* spend inside due to work, but I have Thursdays off. I go to forest preserves to read on my day off, and I've not seen many of them much to my surprise. I've seen more dead cicadas than living ones. This afternoon when I got home from work I saw one perched on a package on my stoop. The other day I saw one hanging out in the bushes by my car. But that's it, really. Although I do see them buzzing around through the window when I'm at work. I expected a lot more of them, though.

Is it possible that I'm misremembering because I was a much smaller person at the time? I've stood in rooms that struck me as huge when I was a kid, but as an adult they're not very impressive. Do I just have a child's memory of the little bastards getting everywhere?

I remember seeing my lawn covered in the buggers when I was a kid. Not so much now. Did there seem to be so many more of them way back when? Or maybe there's just not that many of them this time? Anyone else in the area have similar memories and experiences? Let me know.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #631: BULLSHIT

THAT'S RIGHT, BULLSHIT.

 I posted the picture above because whenever I post links to these columns, the social media website usually chooses the first picture as part of the post, and I don't want the picture I had in mind to be the one showing. It's about a ChatGPT scam that is comprised of a staggering amount of bullshit, so I thought Penn & Teller would be a good picture to lead off with. Anyway, I've stripped the link to the YouTube video because I don't want to drive any traffic to it.

(Also, I'm cheating a little. Today was a rough day, and I want to be in a good mood--and high--for History of the World Part 2, so I wrote this earlier today. But I thought this was important to do today since it was brought to my attention only a few hours ago.)

MORE BULLSHIT.

ChatGPT was probably not meant to write books, so of course people are going to use it to write books. Students are already using it to write class papers, so why the fuck not? Let's put aside the question of whether or not a chatbot can produce art. It's not even the question we should be asking, anyway. Let's look at the realistic practice of this.

Can ChatGPT be used to write a book? Yes. And let's say, for the sake of argument, that it's a good book and sounds like it could have 100% come from a human. Let's say you take that book and format it for, say, Kindle and publish it, just like any other piece written by a human.

Can you really make that much money selling those ebooks?

Not just no, but fuck no. Unless you're already a big name author, but that's not why you want to click the link, right? If you already have a big name, then you wouldn't be wasting your time thinking about this.

The average price of a Kindle book is $9.50. That's a bit expensive, and I have my doubts about that (I'm pretty sure the reality is closer to $4.99), but let's accept that as fact for now. KDP, which you would be using because you're not getting published by a New York publishing house, states the average royalty rate is 60%. That means that for every book you sell, you get $5.70. Again, that's a little high end, but we'll go with it for now. How many books would you have to sell in one week to make $2500?

At this point I feel it's important to point out that math was my worst subject in school. I probably maintained a C- average throughout my academic life when it came to math. I'm simplifying things a bit for an approximate understanding, so when I say what I'm about to say next, know that it's not exact, but it's close. Very, very close. Close enough for my purposes here.

If you round up, you'll need to sell 439 ebooks to make $2500 in a week. And keep in mind, that is, in my opinion, the high end because most ebooks aren't that expensive, so you would probably have to sell even more. Who is going to spend that much for one ebook from an unknown author? But let's stick with $9.50. Is it possible to sell 439 ebooks in one week? Sure. It's also possible that I'll win the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, but that is not very likely. But let's say you have a lot of friends. Or your mom bought at least a hundred ebooks. I've been doing this long enough to know that your first week of sales is probably going to be your best week. After that your numbers will dribble off week by week until you're surprised if you sell one copy of your new book in a week.

Even if you somehow succeed at selling that many books in your first week, and the odds are astronomically against you, then there is no way you can keep up that level of sales, not enough to quit your day job. Unless you have ChatGPT cook you up another book next week. And the week after. And the following week. Etc. You'll reach a point where not even your mom is going to want to buy every book you put out, and that's assuming you're not telling her that ChatGPT is the actual author.

There is another thing to think about: cover art. If you're not looking to spend any money, then you're using KDP's cover creator, and I'm pretty sure no one buys anything with one of those covers. But if you're really trying to sell that many books in one week, you're going to need a cover artist. That can run you a few hundred dollars per book, which cuts into that $2500 that YouTube video is tempting you with. So now you'll have to sell more.

I didn't click on the link, either, so I'm not sure what the endgame is for that scam. I can only assume that they need human beings to format the books ChatGPT is going to spit out, and that the lion's share goes to whatever company is trying to tempt you with that bullshit. Which means that the $2500 is probably a fraction of a bigger number, so you'll need to sell a lot more than 439 copies to get what you want. Because they certainly won't want you to have 60% of any ChatGPT ebook you publish. The stuff before this paragraph is logically why you shouldn't click on that link. This paragraph is just me wondering how the fuck anyone could even think about taking part in it. It makes zero sense. Do people see the dollar sign and the number that follows and just get horny for it? I guess. But even if you think to yourself that you can do this without whatever bullshit company is advertising this bullshit plan, it still makes no sense.

It's baffling. It's absurd. It's crazy. And, of course, it's . . .

Indeed.

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

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

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

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

Lo and behold.

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

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

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

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

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #16: SPIDER-MAN

On my way home from work, I saw a van with those stupid stick figures on the back window. You know the kind. They're supposed to symbolize who is in their family.


Except this one had a spot missing where the father should be.


That's got to be awkward. What does one do in such situations? You can't just leave it, but when you remove one, it's very conspicuous. Not only that, but I have to wonder what happened with Dad. Did he cheat on his wife and that's why he's been removed? Or did he die? What would you do if your kid died, and you had to do something with the stick figure of him or her on the back of your van?


However . . . well, there is one other possibility. Next to the stick figures was the Spider-Man emblem. Is it possible that Dad is Spider-Man?