GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #474: THE WORST PIZZA

 Tonight's topic reminds me of a classic joke. Have I ever told you about the worst blowjob I ever got? It was still pretty good.

Everyone is of the opinion that there is no such thing as bad pizza. I beg to differ. Papa John's is pretty bad. I like their cheesy bread with their garlic sauce. That's good. But their pizza? It's kinda gross. But it doesn't hold a candle to the horror that is 7-Eleven pizza. Holy fuck. It looks like pizza, but that's about it. I have long held the belief that 7-Eleven pizza is probably what Judas, Brutus and Cassius are forced to eat in Satan's mouths.

Well, I got desperate lately. I didn't have much money, and I really didn't want to go to the grocery store. But I wanted a frozen pizza. I gave in and got one from 7-Eleven, telling myself I was making a terrible mistake the whole time. When I cooked it, though, it turned out to be pretty good. Surprisingly good. If I'm eating pizza, I'm shoving everything except one or two slices into my mouth. I ate the whole fucking thing.

So yeah. If you get the frozen pizza and make it yourself? That's a good meal. But don't even think about getting it from the glass display in the store. Who knows how long that's been sitting there? A day? And when was the last time the inside of that display has been cleaned? What the fuck could possibly be festering in there? I swear, it's like biting into a piece of slate with dry flakes of pizza sauce on it.

Don't get me wrong. I probably won't buy it again. If I'm doing a frozen pizza, I'm sticking with Tombstone. Or if it's deep dish, Gino's East has a good frozen pizza. Or I'll just make my own pizza from scratch. I'm good at that.

Except that means going into the grocery store and dealing with people, so . . .

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #473: THINGS I DO WITH MY LEFT HAND

 "I'm right handed in all things except for one." Roland Deschain said that in The Drawing of the Three, and I've been parroting that amazing line ever since I first read it decades ago. Because it's true for me. I'm right handed in just about everything I do except for jerking off. That's lefty's job all the way.

But having recently had a splint on my left hand I've discovered that I do a lot more with lefty than I ever thought possible. Here is a list of these things while they're fresh on my mind. (I'm not including typing on this list as that is a given.)

I aim my dick with my left hand when I piss.

I steer my car with my left hand.

I open cans with my left hand.

When I need to go up a step, I brace with my left hand. (Also, when I stand up from a chair or from bed, I brace with lefty.)

I hold my phone with my left hand (mostly).

I squeeze the toothpaste tube with my left hand.

When I don't have a letter opener, I open envelopes with my left hand.

When mopping the bathroom floor, my left hand is dominant.

When throwing devil horns to metal I use my left hand. (That looked fucking weird with the splint on my ring finger.)

I hold the panhandle with my left hand when I cook.

OK, this is getting boring. You get the idea. I've been dexterous my entire life, but it turns out I've been a lot more sinister than I thought . . .

It should be noted that I can't jerk off with my right hand. I tried when I was younger. It goes all right until the money shot. When I cum it feels too weird and weak and awkward. Kind of like the sudden need to sneeze while pissing.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #472: THE SPLINT AND THE GLUE

That's a lot . . . that's a lot of blood.

 

A few weeks back I got pissed off when, as I was cleaning the shower walls, a group of tiles fell off, and one of them broke in two. It took me a while to stop by Ace Hardware, but when I did I came home with rubber cement. It had worked before on two other tiles that had fallen off a year or so ago. I got pissed off again when, after I tried cementing one of them back in place, it fell off immediately and took another tile with it.

Fuck. I remembered seeing commercials for Gorilla Glue, and while I know commercials are 99.9% fake, it seemed like a compelling argument to buy their shit. What they don't tell you in the commercials, and I found out in the middle of the process, was that in order to get that strong bond you had to hold the two things you're gluing together tight . . . for two fucking hours. I didn't have time for this shit. I had things to do. So I glued some of the tiles in place, and then I got to the one that was broken in two. I squeezed out some glue and held it in place. It seemed to stick pretty well, so I put it down to let it dry.

And it promptly fell apart.

Irritated, I put them back together and gave it some pressure. Too much pressure, apparently, because my hand slipped, and the tile rode up the ring finger of my left hand. It hurt like hell, but it took me a moment to realize that I might have hurt myself more than expected.

Yep. A flap of knuckle stuck up. A thick flap, I might add. The tile didn't go down to the bone, but it was close. And the fucker just wouldn't stop bleeding. A lot.

I tried to rationalize a way that I didn't have to go to the ER. I washed the wound. I put some antibacterial cream in there and pressed the flap down. I bandaged it with a knuckle Band-Aid. And I hoped for the best.

Naturally, I got the worst. Blood soaked through the bandage, and I knew there was no avoiding it. I had to go to the hospital.

Thankfully when I got there they told me it wasn't too bad, and it wouldn't need stitches. They needed to glue it shut and put my finger in a splint. As the nurse applied the glue, holding the flap of skin down, she said, "This is like Gorilla Glue. For the body."

Oh fuck, I thought. This can't end well.

At least I got a tetanus shot out of it.

It turned out all right except for my ability to use my left hand, which I'll probably talk more about tomorrow. The worst part was not being able to type, which is what I do every day at my square job. And every night at my writing job, including writing these GF columns. Hence my disappearance here for a bit.

I eventually glued the rest of those tiles back in place, but they needed assistance. I'm a lousy handyman, so it doesn't look pretty, but they haven't fallen out yet. Because do you know what commercial is actually very truthful? Flex Tape. That shit works like a motherfucker. It's the only thing holding my shower together right now . . .

Probably my favorite of the Flex Tape memes.

Except for maybe this one.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #471: ANOTHER ONE GONE

I live near the viaduct between Elmhurst and Berkley. I've mentioned that before, but I've noticed a lot of activity in the area of late. Construction workers doing their thing. Judging from the similar activity at the viaduct on Butterfield Road, I figure they're adding lanes to the interstate. One day while driving home I saw they cleared out the wild area where the residences stop. You know, the area where we all flung our dogshit when I was a kid.

It's a shame that's going away. I always kind of liked that giant valley between the interstate and the homes. It also sucks for the wildlife. I can't tell you how many times I've seen deer and coyotes shuffling along back there. It's how they travel from town to town without actually getting onto the interstate. Other animals are back there, too, and I can only assume their homes are going to be taken away.

It should be mentioned that Icky Sticky Poo Land was a part of this unofficial wildlife trail. It seems that progress and civilization exists solely to eat up the land I loved as a kid. "You can never go home." I guess that's true. It's a bit hard for me to see it since I've lived in Elmhurst my entire life. It's like looking in the mirror. You can barely tell you're getting older. You know it intellectually, but you have very little evidence of it until your hair starts going gray. But run into someone who hasn't seen you in 20 years? They know exactly how much you've really aged.

People who left Elmhurst and came back twenty years later? They wouldn't even recognize it. It's kind of weird to think about, but I'm not going to go too heavily into it because I think I'm going to talk more about it when I hit GF #475. It's been a while since I mentioned Gramps, and he'll figure into it then.

Shit. I guess they're going to have to knock down those giant walls on the interstate to add lanes. It'll be like the old days. For a while, anyway.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #470: HORRIBLE THOUGHTS FROM MY HEAD #1,290: AUTHORS GONE WILD

 Before we begin tonight, yes, I'm high. I'm near the edge of not being able to write this.

So a while back I remember someone came up with a joke (maybe?) of doing a calendar of hot male bizarro authors. I'm disappointed that I was not invited. It's OK. I get it. I have a mirror. I look plain with my clothes on. Take 'em off? It's a horror show.

But this being the week of Mardi Gras, I couldn't help but think of Girls Gone Wild and how it might apply to authors. What if we really, really wanted those Mardi Gras bead necklaces? Would we flash our breasts to earn them?

Probably not. Who the fuck wants beads, anyway? Unless you can cash them in for prizes like getting arcade tickets for playing skeeball. Fuck, I loved that when I was a kid.

But it's a great marketing idea. Imagine me at Mardi Gras, getting into the groove, and when I'm offered beads (or some other excellent incentive, like I don't know, Amazon gift cards) I decide to reciprocate. Now imagine me lifting my shirt to expose my tits. Except instead of my tits you see twin copies of TALES OF UNSPEAKABLE TASTE? That's right, now you're excessively horny AND you want to buy my most recent book. It's a win-win.

Or I've just lost the plot. I can't tell for sure. Probably the latter.

Fuck. I've not been sleeping well. Goodnight, fuckers.

By the way, earlier tonight while I was planning this column I thought it would be a wonderfully horrible idea to post a shirtless picture of me with a couple of my books covering my breasts. I thought better of it. You're welcome.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #469: HARRY? JOHNNY?

"How terrible is wisdom when it brings no profit to the wise?"

 

Unsurprisingly, Angel Heart is one of my favorite movies ever. And then I learned that it was based on the book Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg, and I got very excited. Because the book is always better than the movie, right? What kind of sick, fucked up shit was I about to read?

I wish I had this beautiful edition.

I think I was in high school at the time. Either that, or I was freshly a college student. One way or the other I went to my favorite used bookstore of all time, a place that is sadly no more (an old man owned the place, and when he died, no one in his family wanted to pursue his passion), and I found a paperback copy for maybe a dollar, possibly less.

This is the one I have, and it still looks pretty fucking cool.

It was the first time in my life that I discovered that sometimes the movie is better than the book. I still enjoyed it a great deal, but I liked the movie better. I shelved it and forgot about it until something was mentioned in horror news a few years back. I'll get to that in a moment.

Around that time I reorganized my paperback horror books so that the ones I'd read were on the bottom shelves (which were difficult for me to get to) and the ones I hadn't were up high and easy to reach. I almost filed Falling Angel at the bottom when I thought about it more. I'd been a kid when I read it. I wasn't even old enough to drink yet. What if it means something different to me now that I'm a middle-aged man? More to the point, what if the book really is better than the movie, and I just didn't notice it?

So I kept it up top with the idea in the back of my head to reread it sometime soon. Good thing I did because that news I just mentioned? It came to fruition.

I don't know if you all use Book Bub. It's too expensive for me to use as a writer, but it's pretty nice to use as a reader. I saw today that there was a discounted Kindle option for something called Angel's Inferno.

By William Hjortsberg.

Hell yeah!

So the news I mentioned. A few years back, when Hjortsberg died, it turned out that he'd been working on a sequel to Falling Angel. It didn't sound like he finished it, though. I figured it would be relegated to the could-have-been pile of books writers couldn't finish before they died. And yet, here we are. It actually was finished. This pleases me greatly, so naturally I bought the book. A physical copy, in case you were wondering.

Because goddammit, I'm finally going to reread Falling Angel so I can read the new one. I'm very curious and excited. Let's see what happens.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #468: HORRIBLE THOUGHTS FROM MY HEAD #1: WELCOME TO CUM WORLD

 OK, I'm pretty sure this is the most horrible thought I've ever had. Number one with a bullet. Some background first.

Remember when I was busting my ass, saving every cent I could to get the third and final issue of Tabard Inn published? I often had the Sobriety Clock going because I had to do without precious alcohol in the name of fiction. I remember when I was down to my very last dollar, and I asked you all for help with something. I needed to cast a spell on the world, and I'd heard Grant Morrison had done something similar. I was desperate. I had to try it.

So I named a date. I named a time. I named a task: we must all masturbate on a dollar bill and cum at the very same time. That would clearly convince the universe to send money my way. I would find out for sure when, after I'd spent my seed on that dollar bill, I used it to to buy a scratcher from 7-Eleven. And I think some of you might have actually done as I asked because I won enough money on that scratcher to get a couple of airplane bottles of booze.

Regardless, I was thinking about this last night, and it infected me. It's probably extraordinarily illegal (writing on money is surprisingly illegal; could you imagine what the government would think of cumming on money?), but what if we just started to cum on money? Not small bills like ones or fives, but on bigger bills. Hundreds. Bills likely to get into the hands of the more affluent. What more horrifying way to disgust the world than to cum on every single hundred dollar bill that comes into your possession and then unleash it into the world?

Yes, I know that's a horrible thought. That's why it says so in the title of this GF column. I'm not actually going to do it. But what if hundreds of us did? Or thousands? Or, dare I say it, millions? What if every hundred dollar bill in the world came with a cum load on it? In some cases, it could actually be deadly. I don't know what the life of the AIDS virus is after it leaves the body, but it can't be measured by seconds, can it?

I originally called this Welcome to Cum City, but I changed it to Cum World because, well, how often do hundred dollar bills travel on their own? Surely the load can transfer to adjacent bills. One cum sodden bill can suddenly become three. Or seven. Or nine. It could go up exponentially like when people use a plague simulator to see how fast, say, the zombie apocalypse could spread.

Everyone wants money. Even though it's technically only worth something because we say it is, people would much prefer cash in hand. It feels secure. So cum bucks could spread across the country--nay, the world--pretty quickly.

Every time someone asks why I think I'm a horrible person, I think of things like this. Don't worry. If I owe you money, I'm much more likely to Paypal you.

Probably.

I warned you this one would be gross.