GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #409: I SPOKE TOO SOON

 Earlier today I mentioned on social media that my Pharmacy War ended with a pyrrhic victory. I would get my meds, but I would have to get them from fucking CVS. Well, I spoke too soon. The war isn't over yet. Why? Because I still haven't gotten my meds.

To ensure that CVS would have my meds, I called into my doctor's office and requested that all of my medications, especially my two 'Beetus prescriptions because I'm out of those, be sent to CVS going forward, and I would be stopping by after work because I've gone without Glimepride for three days and Metformin for one day. Guess who didn't have my meds.

Right.

And now I find myself with nothing further I can do. I'm at the mercy of my new doctor. I swear to fuck, when I finally die it will probably be because of red tape bullshit like this. Just watch. Tomorrow morning I will wake up in the midst of a fucking stroke. Or maybe I won't wake up.

This is taking a toll on me. I like my usual pharmacy. I walk in and they know me. They know why I'm there, and they keep products that I prefer in stock. It's a nice place with friendly people. When I walk in there, I know exactly what I'm going to get.

But this new insurance plan that demands I get my meds from CVS? It can suck my dick. I don't want to go to a megacorporation for my medications, but if I had to, I certainly wouldn't choose CVS. I'd probably go with Walgreen's. That's just a gun-to-the-head situation. CVS is awful. Every time I've ever been in one my skin crawls. Also, aisles are labeled very poorly. At least Walgreen's has well-labeled aisles and they all look more or less the same, so navigating their stores is easy.

This fucking blows. It would be nice if I could spend one fucking day where I don't have to think about my own mortality. With all the doctors visits and now this fucking mess, that's making it nearly fucking impossible. I'm angry all the time because of this shit. Here I was, thinking I'd mellowed out in my old age, and then 2020 broke down my door and clubbed me with its giant four-foot long cock. And then his little brother 2021 arrived with a five-foot cock destined for my face.

I can only assume 2022 will have a six-foot cock.

And in case I didn't say fuck enough in this column, here's one more: FUCK.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #408: MY LITERARY ESTATE

 I've had my literary estate for close to a decade, and much to my shock and horror, the older I get, the more I change it. You'd think that would be a straightforward thing, but it keeps changing, and I have to continue to get trusted friends to witness me signing these things. There are three groups that I switch out on that task so they don't get annoyed with doing this all the time.

Is that weird? That my literary estate keeps changing? I don't know, honestly. And it's not about the people involved. It's just that the circumstances of my life keep changing drastically often. It's so bad that I recently rewrote everything, but before I got anyone to witness my signatures, I had to change it again. I did some editing when I got home from work tonight. I'm a bit concerned that I'll have to change it again before *this* one gets signed. What the fuck?

It's also my changing attitudes. I used to think that if a work was close to being finished, it would be nice if, after my death, someone else finished it. I'm no longer of that opinion. When I'm dead there will be an entry on three (3) thumb drives (I used to think a redundancy plan was enough, but now I need two, just in case) called IN THE EVENT OF MY DEATH which will contain the only things I want out in the world. Finished things. I used to think Harlan Ellison was crazy for wanting all his unfinished work to be burned after his death. But then again, think about how many works are finished posthumously by other authors, and think about how a majority of them suck. Or even worse, a publisher decides to continue publishing works under a dead author's name but written by someone else entirely. I'm not into that.

I wouldn't necessarily say burn my unfinished work. I'm just asking to not have it finished. I'd rather not have my name co-opted, either. I doubt anyone wants to take advantage of someone so low on the totem pole as me, but I can't help but think of Bob Ross. Who would want someone to do that to them? Not me.

Ultimately I think the executor of my literary estate will not have much to do. I'd rather it be that way. It's a hell of a thing to put on someone else, and I don't want to be a burden when I'm not even alive anymore. The big things are taking care of the completed works in that folder I mentioned. Also, posting my last words on Facebook and Twitter.

And yeah. I wrote one final Goodnight, Fuckers to be posted after my death. You know my love of all things Gunsmoke. Every week James Arness, the guy who played Matt Dillon, US Marshal, would write a letter to his fans which was posted on his website. But as he got up in years, he knew he wouldn't be around much longer, so he wrote one last letter to his fans. When he passed, his wife posted it. I teared up while reading it.

Maybe it'll have that kind of effect on you. I hope so. If I die before you, you'll find out all about it.

So yeah. Goodnight, fuckers. As my grandfather used to say, "Sweet dreams, pleasant dreams and all that kinda gas."

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #407: CLAUSTROPHOBIA

 So yesterday I had to get an MRI. It's not my first, but this time was extremely awkward because I only needed my arm done. To anyone who has never suffered through one of these things, you have to stay still for 30 minutes. When they were doing my torso years ago, that was fine. I could easily make it.

But for my arm? I had to hold a specific pose for that half-hour, and it was not comfortable. At first I tried to be on my side, which is a lot more comfortable, with my head leaning on the barrier they put around my arm from elbow to wrist. Then they tried putting me in the machine. My shoulders are too broad. They couldn't fit me.

So they asked me to be on my stomach. Not very comfortable. My head still had to lean on the barrier, which gave me a headache for the rest of the day. My arm also started screaming in pain about 5 minutes into the test. And when they got me out, my arm ached from shoulder to fingertips for the rest of the day. It hurt a lot more than the tennis elbow I initially went in for. I doubted the whole time that this was worth it.

But the main concern for the technician? "Are you claustrophobic?"

I'm not. And even though they had to stuff my six-one frame into this small thing, I never felt claustrophobic. I was just in agony, that's all.

The only time I've ever felt claustrophobic was a few years back. I went to pick up a friend of mine, and she didn't want to go, after all. She wanted to stay in bed with the covers over her head. That's fine. I planned to go back into the living room to read while she caught up on sleep, but she demanded that I stay. I really didn't want to. I'm not good at resting while I could be doing stuff. But she insisted, and I relented. We held each other under the blankets. They had to be over our heads. That was the rule.

I started panicking. I didn't feel good in that situation. I had a hard time breathing. My heart rate was so high I'm surprised it didn't keep her awake. I had to get out of there as soon as possible. The blankets weighed me down, and it made me feel like I was too big for a small set of clothes. I might have lasted twenty minutes before I just had to get out.

I tried my best to not bother her by leaving, but I couldn't have escaped without her finding out. That did wake her up, but only enough for her to grunt her displeasure.

But ordinary claustrophobia? Not me. I spent all my time in the MRI desperately wanting to move my arm if only to stop the pain for a little bit. If I moved, though, it would have all been for naught.

If I can get through the rest of my life without needing an MRI on an arm, I would be very happy.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #406: COOL SHIT

 Remember ages ago when I used to post a Cool Shit column every Thursday talking about all the awesome comic books I read the day before? I miss doing those, but they took up a lot of my time. I'm not going to do those ever again. That's what The Best Comic Book of the Week is for.

But every once in a while I get an itch, and I gotta scratch it.

As with those Cool Shit columns, there are spoilers. Tread lightly.

Yesterday I named Marjorie Finnegan, Temporal Criminal #5 as The Best Comic Book of the Week. I'm glad that Garth Ennis still has the ability to offend me, because this issue is deeply offensive, especially the abortion scene. I am definitely pro-abortion, but this took it a bit too far. The villain of this book is the most evil dude in history, and I can't help but think of him as Jesse Custer's evil twin brother. He even kind of looks like Jesse. I'm not sure if that was intentional. Probably not. But this guy was born a genius. He had coherent thought in the womb, and much to his surprise, there is a fetal twin. But the twin is just a regular person. Not a great conversationalist in the womb. When the mother tries to get an abortion, it surprises this dude and he manages to put his twin brother in front of him in order to save his own life.

So yeah. That's pretty fucked up. And there are other fucked up things in this book, which earned the title I mentioned earlier.

But the other books I read last night were really fucking good.

Stillwater # 10 had some seriously fucked up things in it. If you don't know, the idea of Stillwater is that it's a small shitsplat of a town where people who are born there live forever, and they don't age. Unless they leave. If they die in the outside world, then they're dead. If they age and come back, they will stop aging upon their return. So naturally there are a lot of kids in town who are middle-aged, and one of them murders someone in an adult body, which was pretty surprising.

And That Texas Blood keeps getting darker and crazier. I'm glad to see that the private investigator was heavily influenced by Kolchak. It makes a lot of sense, all things considered. I'm glad I'm finally caught up. The back matter is great, too. It feels natural, unlike what Alan Moore usually does. Moore is cumbersome with his extras. Condon's work is easy on the eyes, and straight to the point.

And then there is GI Joe #286. That's the one from the 'Eighties that Larry Hama took up writing again a few years ago. This issue answers a great question: how did Snake Eyes meet Storm Shadow? And I love the answer, especially when the unthinkable happens: SNAKE EYES TALKS. OK, he doesn't say much, and it's not as profound as something Silent Bob might say, but still. It genuinely surprised me.

So yeah. While a lot of weeks are dry, this one was pretty fruitful with great comic books.

PS: I saw someone bring up Matt Damon in the letters column for Stillwater, which made me laugh my ass off. It was something I first thought of when I saw the trailer for the movie, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one who noticed.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #405: THE DEVIL'S TRUE TASK

 OK, now I'll write the one I meant to yesterday. Just in case you didn't know, I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in the God/devil shit. Not a bit. But! I like to think about the nature of the devil. It's fun. It's also why I enjoy the show, Lucifer, so much. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the comic book it's based on. I mean, I liked the character when he was in The Sandman, but when he got his own book? Not quite so interesting. I even tried again when they rebooted the series. Still not interesting.

Which is why me enjoying the show surprised me quite a bit. I think a lot of the heavy lifting is done by the sheer charm and wit of Tom Ellis, the actor who plays Lucifer Morningstar. All the characters are great, though.

So I was watching an episode during the final season when something occurred to me. I planned to write this column then, when I still hadn't seen the series finale. I watched it last night after doing the 404 Not Found column, and I'm glad to see that my hunch was correct, but my thinking brought it a step further.

If you haven't seen the final season, step lightly. Here there be spoilers. You might want to skip out on the rest of this one starting now.

In case you're unfamiliar, per the show's rules you are not damned to Hell for your actions. You send yourself there because of your own guilt. The episode in question details what happens when Lucifer has to help someone he hates, and that person is in Hell.  This made me think that maybe the devil's true task is to help those in Hell heal, to overcome their guilt in order to help them finally enter Heaven. Maybe he has to do that for everyone in Hell.

Much to my surprise, this is exactly how the show ends. Lucifer is a therapist to the denizens of Hell. But here's where my thinking goes further. Why did Lucifer present the fruit to Eve? I think it's because he didn't learn his lesson the first time, when he tried to help save the angels from their father's tyranny. So he saw humans getting set up for the same suffering, and in an attempt to save them, he offered them Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I interpret that to mean that Lucifer, from that point forward, is responsible for humanity. Therefore, it is his penance to save everyone. He must go from person to person in Hell and help them recognize how they went wrong, and then to teach them how to let it go and become right for Heaven. And he has to do that for everyone. Only when Hell is empty will he finally be able to be forgiven by his father, and then he will be allowed to return home into the loving arms of his family.

See? It's fun to think about these things. Also, it's kind of a beautiful sentiment and an answer to why God would damn his supposedly beloved children to Hell.

Maybe the devil does have some sympathy coming to him.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #404: NOT FOUND

 

Yeah, technically this isn't a real Goodnight, Fuckers. I write and post these before I go to bed, but I'm not going to bed after I post this one. I had an excellent idea for a pleasantly thoughtful column tonight, but that has been superseded by bullshit.

I can't talk about said bullshit. Even if I could, it would be of interest only to those in the same industry as me, auto glass. And even then, they probably wouldn't want to hear it, either.

Something pissed me off today, and it's been a long time since something got through to me this badly. Usually when I leave the office, I don't think about it until I have to be up the next morning. But this bad, demoralizing experience continues to haunt me. I couldn't enjoy listening to music on the way home. I couldn't concentrate enough to read or do any of the things I usually do when I get home.

So instead of reading my musings on a particular episode of Lucifer, tonight you're reading this (unless you saw the image above on the link and decided not to click on it, which would be funny). As for me, I'm unplugging from the world to scrape this horror from my memory.

The sad thing is, when I get into the office tomorrow, I'm sure I'll have to relive the whole fucking thing. The day was actually a good day, but it was that last call of the shift. The one where I figured I could get through the next five minutes so I could get out of there. The one that made me stay almost 45 minutes late. It was so grim that I'm still pissed off right now.

So yeah. Radio silence for the rest of the night. Goodnight and . . .

If you recognize this, then you know the rest of the line.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #403: A WRITER OR AN AUTHOR

 Relax. Don't worry. I'm not going to say some stupid bullshit about what it takes to be an author versus a writer. Anyone who does that is full of shit. Whatever works for you is the real answer. The difference between feeling like an author or a writer is something that applies to me alone.

It's easy to feel like a writer. You sit down and write (or edit, or fucking hell, put together a synopsis), and that's it. I've felt like a writer for as long as I can remember. During the plague it was pretty easy to feel that. But I missed feeling like an author.

I got to experience that again for the first time in, what? Two years? Going to Printers Row this year was a lot of fun. I missed that kind of thing. Selling books. Signing books. Meeting readers. That's the shit that makes me feel like an author, and these were hard things to come by during these Covid Years. More importantly, I missed doing live readings.

Feeling like an author is difficult. I can't rely on just myself for that. I need the participation of others in order to get into that head space. And goddam! That felt good.

I really want to do more shows in 2022. I hope that we can put this plague behind us and have fun in public spaces full of people again. That would be nice. I'd like to do Days of the Dead again, for example. I'm still not back on board with comic book conventions. That would take a lot. But horror cons? I miss the hell out of those. And one day I'd like to table at Scares That Care. I'm pretty sure that won't happen next year, but maybe 2023? Who knows?

That would be pretty fucking cool.

Oh yeah, and sorry for almost creating a cult during and after the live reading of my story, "Butt Club," from Tales of Unspeakable Taste.