GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #762: SKULLS

 I was about to get up on my soapbox again about the failings of American journalism in this day and age, but maybe I'll just settle for pondering a little. Besides, this isn't about my usual complaints when it comes to reporting the news. This story was not shoved out there in an attempt to beat everyone else to the scoop. It's just a lack of follow up, that's all.

Last month in Goodyear, AZ, a Goodwill store reported to the police that someone had donated a human skull to them. Just Google "Goodwill skull," and you'll get a lot of hits. A bunch of articles about this one story, all dated Sept. 6-8. You won't find any new developments after those dates because this news story, apparently, wasn't important enough to get more details. The media all got together and decided this one was just worth the shits and giggles and nothing else.

Here's what we know. Someone donated the skull. Who? Eh, an unimportant detail. Not worth looking into. The skull was examined by the ME, and it was determined that it was human and that it was not involved in a crime. At least not recently. This, as it turns out, is an historical skull. Possibly ancient. We can get answers, but no one is willing to ask the questions. Also, we know that it had that glass eye you see above. So we know that whoever this person was, he only had one eye.

If I was just one (1) of those journalists, I would have circled back to find out more about this story. It's fascinating. Why would anyone drop off an ancient human skull at a Goodwill? Did the police even investigate? I don't imagine they did. Once they found out it wasn't evidence of a crime that could be prosecuted, they understandably lost interest. It's not their job. But surely someone must have wondered where this fuckin' thing came from. I get it. It's difficult to go to a news site and find any headlines not about Trump or Israel vs. Hamas or the speaker of the House. Everyone's focusing on these things, which is why I would argue that someone *should* investigate the skull. A lot of journalists are covering those three things. Put someone else on the skull thing.

I told a little tiny lie earlier in this piece. If you Google Goodwill skull, there is one hit that stands out from the rest, and it's this li'l guy here. Almost ten years ago three (3) human skulls were donated to *another* Goodwill, this one in Washington State. Was it the same person who donated one in Goodyear, AZ? And is Goodwill a decent place to get rid of a skull if you have one taking up space at home? At least there was some follow up with that story, but if you'll allow me to revisit last night's topic a little, that was nearly a decade ago. Our attention spans have dwindled since then, have they not? So maybe that's what's happening here.

Does no one have a healthy sense of curiosity anymore? I hate to end on a trite note, but while curiosity may have killed the cat, satisfaction brought him back.

So let's not end on a trite note. Instead, let's talk about something this news story reminded me of. Maybe twenty-five years ago I heard a story about a guy who bought a smoker from a yard sale. When he got home and decided to fire it up, he opened it and discovered a human leg in there. The original owner of the smoker had only one leg. It turned out that he'd used the smoker to store his amputated leg because he didn't want to get rid of it.

Goddammit, they let him keep an entire leg? But when I wanted to keep my first amputated toe, they said it would be impossible? That it had to go in the incinerator or to a funeral home to hold onto it until I die? What the fuck?

Anyway, the guy tried suing to get his leg back. I was about to say that I didn't know how it all turned out, but I Googled it right now and HOLY SHIT THERE'S A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THIS ONE! It's called Finders Keepers, so I'm going to have to watch that sometime soon. It turns out that my memory's bad. It was more like 20 years. And it wasn't a yard sale. It was a storage auction. Ordinarily I'd go back and rewrite this portion with the corrections, but I wanted to illustrate how you can get it wrong sometimes. If I was posting this to a news site, I would have gotten it wrong because I would be in a hurry to beat the others to the scoop. I would have then had to post a correction that no one would have read, so everyone who read the original article would go the rest of their lives thinking that was the truth.

THAT'S why it's important to get it right the first time. THAT'S why you can't rush real journalism.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #761: ATTENTION SPAN

 Remember a while ago when I begged you all to stop multitasking in order to live a better life (and possibly make my square job a little easier)? Tonight's topic is related because a majority of people lack focus. Not too long ago I read another of Arnold Schwarzenegger's newsletters, and now maybe I'm thinking this lack of focus isn't entirely a choice.

You really, really don't have to read this. It's long and academic and kind of dry, but the reason I'm putting that link there is because that's where he gets his numbers. 20 years ago, he says, our attention span lasted approximately 2.5 minutes, and over time it's continued dropping. Now it's at a depressing 47 seconds (and others say it's a mere 8!). Not even a full fucking minute. The study says that technology is to blame, specifically staring at phone and computer screens and spending time on social media.

Once again, I get it. We're all busy. We've got stuff to do. But it is my belief that our dropping attention spans are ruining the quality of our lives. Schwarzenegger agrees: ". . . the less you focus, the more likely you are to experience stress and anxiety and have a harder time being present and feeling happy."

How often have you gone online to find more information about something? And then you see something else, and now you want to learn more about that? And so on and so forth? People call it "going down the rabbit hole." Think about every time you've ever done that. How have you felt afterward? How much info did you actually retain? Did you even get an answer to your first question?

No wonder we're having difficulty being present. There are too many presents, and we want a piece of them all, and we're not exercising the control needed to focus. I wonder what our attention spans will be like in 20 years. If the current trend continues, we might not have an attention span. In one ear, out the other. Or, more apropos of the topic, in one eye and out the other.

I've got a fairly good attention span. Another of Schwarzenegger's newsletters suggests that those who read have a better time of it, and I not only read a lot, I spend a lot of time in nature reading (weather permitting, of course). So what can you do to improve your ability to focus? He's got some suggestions. I'm just going to copy and paste them below. Good luck in applying these to your life.

1. Block off 2 to 3 times per day when you don’t use your phone. On some level, we’ve all become addicted. You must train your brain to go without your phone to break the cycle, just as you must train your muscles to become stronger.

2. Get outside and walk for 20 minutes. You can listen to music or call a friend, but try to stay off the screen or social media. Being outside and moving can help your brain reset and focus.

3. Do something quiet and mundane that requires some level of focus. It can be a crossword puzzle, the dishes, or laundry.

4. Read a book for 30 minutes. You’re not just training your brain to stay off your phone; you’re training to maintain focus for a longer time on a singular task.

Out of curiosity, does anyone remember this show? Do you remember the name? There are no prizes for this piece of trivia, but you'll have my undying respect if you do know.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #760: 1 YEAR AND 90 DAYS

 

It has been one year and ninety days since my last drink, and it finally happened. I was wondering when it would happen due to my habits back in those days. It couldn't possibly be that it wouldn't happen. I'd hidden too much booze around my bedroom for there to not be any stashed away. I was starting to think I'd done a good job of getting rid of everything, but yesterday I found this bottle.

And there was still some booze left at the bottom. And it's Wild Turkey 101, my favorite alcoholic drink. Well, the favorite I can afford. My actual favorite is Bookers, but that costs nearly $90 a bottle these days.

So . . . 

I didn't. Because shit's been even more difficult than usual around here. I feel like every fucking day is a struggle, and it's a struggle without victory. Sometimes I lose the battle and have to do it all over again for the sake of the war. Oftentimes it's a Pyrrhic victory. More often than not it's an ongoing fight without any end in sight. And it's wearing me down.

The only times I feel I'm not in a fight for my goddam life is when I'm reading or watching a show or movie. All other times I'm under a constant attack from every fucking problem I've ever had EXCEPT for booze. Until yesterday, I guess.

I don't think I'm going to drink it. If it's going to have any power to make my troubles go away, at least temporarily, then I'm going to need a lot more than that. But I think I'm going to keep it around. You might recall how I agree with Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid when he said that you have to test yourself every day.

Should be a good test.

TOY CRIME STORY PART 16

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Don Snowy sat in the middle of Joey’s bedroom, legs bound and arms tied behind his back. All of the toys circled around him except for Bunny and Fox. “I can’t watch this,” Bunny said. “This is too ugly.”

“Me, neither,” Fox said. His mittened hands covered his face.

Nightbeat stood in front of Don Snowy. “Any last words?”

Don Snowy sighed. “Yo! I did this for Bueno Excellente! It was revenge! Don’t you see that?!”

“Is that all?” Nightbeat asked.

Don Snowy glared hatred at him. “Yo, fuck you!”

“Cat?” Nightbeat asked.

Cat, the only one of them big enough to hold a pair of scissors, stepped forward. He’d gotten them from downstairs when Wally and Mimi were out. They gleamed next to Don Snowy’s soft white outsides.

“I’d say this gives me no pleasure,” Cat said, “but I’d be lying.”

Gleefully, he stabbed the blades into Don Snowy’s fat stomach. He snipped wildly, opening torn hole after torn hole. Don Snowy screamed, but Cat wouldn’t stop until the belly disappeared, showing only his stuffing.

Angel and Spike stepped forward. “This is for Joey, you cunt,” Spike said. Both of them dug into Don Snowy’s gaping stomach and scooped out handfuls of stuffing. Don Snowy cried and begged and threatened and screamed until there was nothing left inside of him. His empty husk lay in the middle of the room.

“Justice has been served,” Nightbeat said. It didn’t feel like justice, though. In a just world, Joey would be alive.

The toys came together and cleaned up both Don Snowy and his team of goombas. They hid the stuffing and cloth shreds deep into the closet, where they were fairly certain no one would ever find them. The toys went on with their lives, and Cat retreated to the Catacombs. Later that night, when everyone slept, he came back with a bundle under one arm. He went to the closet.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #759: PEN NAMES

 I don't think I've ever done a thing about the various other names I've written under, so I thought perhaps I'd go down the list here. Compared to other authors I don't have all that many pen names. I probably should have written everything under a pen name, considering how my writing cost me a good job once upon a time, but what the hell. Here's the list.

In high school I tried writing stories under the pen name [redacted]. Ho-ho, why is this redacted? Because I actually use the name in my upcoming sex book. I just finished the first draft last week, and I thought it would be funny to throw it in there. I can only think of two people reading this who might recall that pen name, so I want to see if anyone else can catch it. It's kind of easy, though. Good luck finding it!

I also wrote gay porn under the pen name Anthony Haversham. It's a variation on the name of a character I used to write in high school. It's too long a story to go into here, but I used to write these horrible tales about an insipid masturbator's adventures in masturbation. He eventually morphed into another character named Richard Thruster (heh) cowritten with one of my friends who is probably reading this now and is one of the two who will remember that other pen name. I wrote "Bobby Yandell, Private Investigator" under this name, as well as its sequel, "My Dick is Quick." I also wrote "Cocksmoke," my porn parody of Gunsmoke, under this name.

I wrote another story under that name, but the editor decided to change it for publication. I'm OK with that because this one was a hetero porn story. I don't even remember the actual title because it was published as a letter to Penthouse. I was writing fiction for Penthouse, but Penthouse Variations picked it up instead, and they wanted it to be in a letter format. Haversham turned into Walter K. of Dallas, TX. Unlike many letters to Penthouse, this was actually based on a true story of what happened to me. Remember when I said I used to be a distance man? A girlfriend once made me cum in my own eye, and that's what this story was about. Imagine my disappointment when I read the published version to see they'd wrung all the humor out of it and tried to class it up. Ah well.

I wrote one story under the name Jack F. Graves. Yeah, yeah, I know. That's a stupid pen name. I'm the edgiest edgelord who ever edged. I thought it was cool and even kind of funny. I published "Pimp of the Living Dead" under that one. I'm almost certain I included it in Tales of Questionable Taste, but I'm too lazy to look it up. It was originally in the first issue of Tabard Inn, which I'd put together with the help of friends. I didn't want it to seem too much like a friends-only fiction magazine, so I made up Jack Graves on the spot.

Lastly I wrote the book [REDACTED AS A MOTHERFUCKER] under the pen name [also redacted] because if I released it under my name, I'm pretty sure someone would have killed me by now. I didn't even use Amazon for it. I had to use another company, one that doesn't strike me as all that important, because I knew I'd probably never be able to publish another book through them again. Surprisingly this book has yet to be pulled from that site, possibly because very few people know about it.

I'm fairly certain that's it, but I've been drunk for a solid decade and change, so something might have slipped through the cracks. Only a handful of people know who wrote that last book, and I'd like to keep it that way. But in all honesty, looking back on it, that book has my style stamped all over it. I'd be shocked if someone who knew me well read it and didn't think I'd written it.

Good luck getting that title out of me, by the way.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #758: THE CONSUMER FINANCIAL PROTECTION BUREAU

Say you're strapped for cash, and you need money fast. You don't have a structured settlement, so you can't call JG Wentworth. So you figure you might as well go to a payday loan company. And you see the interest rates are staggeringly high, but you're kind of stuck, so you have no choice. In order to borrow a few hundred dollars, you wind up having to pay back thousands.

I'm pretty sure the Mafia (not that they exist, Omerta) has a term for that kind of predatory loan practice . . .

There is only one thing standing between you and that situation happening today, and it's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created in the face of the fucking crazy shit bankers pulled that led to the recession in 2008. The CFPB is there to stop this shit from happening to you. So it's no big surprise that all sorts of money lending companies have been trying to put an end to the CFPB for the 12-ish years it has existed.

Except the scumbags might finally have the bureau on the ropes. It's kind of hard to justify shooting a child in the face, much like it's hard to justify suing for the right to abuse American consumers, so they had to take a different tactic, and they have. The CFPB is currently on the chopping block, waiting for a Supreme Court decision to figure out if they get to still protect us from the corporate greedheads.

They're trying to argue that the CFPB is unconstitutional because of the way it gets its funding, and they managed to flimflam a few judges so much that the government actually appealed this all the way up to the Supreme Court. I gotta say, considering the rampant corruption on that particular bench and how they destroyed Roe v Wade on a federal level, the corporate greedheads might actually have a shot at this. The Justices so far have come down in favor of us consumers, but the final decision hasn't been made yet. It's expected at the end of this term.

I can't say it enough: Public Enemy #1 in this country is Corporate Fucking Greed. And here it is again, trying to fart in our faces and call it a summer breeze. We're barely holding onto our shit as it is. If the CFPB falls, then we're fucked.

The supposedly unconstituional way they get their funding is that it's whatever they decide it is up to a certain point. The greedheads are trying to say that's like installing a dictator, but the past has showed that the CFPB has never, not once, abused this system. Not only that, but it's how the bureau maintains its independence. If it got funding any other way, they would be swayed by the interests of those who funded it, and then we have an Ouroboros situation, like most of this country is stuck with. We need to stop eating our own tail. We can't keep going like this. We need to take these corporate scumbags to task. I'd honestly prefer to abolish the very idea of corporations, but I'm sure that's never going to happen. So instead we have to regulate the fuck out of the swine because they've proven, time and time and time again, that if we don't, no one will. They certainly can't be trusted to do it themselves.

I really hope the Supreme Court realizes what killing the CFPB will do to the regular people of this country. A fox in the henhouse? It's more like putting KFC in charge of making sure chickens grow up and lead full lives and die of old age and get buried in a pet sematary, uneaten by the masses.

We've got a lot of time before the term ends. The Justices seem to be on the right path for now, but some of them love a good bribe. Who has more money to bribe a Justice with than the companies trying to kill the CFPB? 

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #757: THE PLATFORM FORMERLY KNOWN AS TWITTER

 I read a lot of news articles, and I've noticed an irritating trend that must stop immediately. In all honesty, perhaps what people say on social media platforms should not be news unless it's someone like a politician or a celebrity. It never ceases to disgust me when I see articles quoting regular people. How is that news? If I wanted to find out all the important details of, say, Israel vs. Hamas, should I just go down to the local Hobby Lobby and ask Chuck, the custodian? But then again, we know my feelings on the death of journalism, and this is yet another symptom.

But what I'm really talking about is X in particular. I've personally taken to calling it Ex, which makes a lot of sense to me, but every single news desk in the world (if we still have news desks, I have my doubts) seems insistent on doing this one fucking thing that bugs the shit out of me.

If a "journalist" is going to quote someone on Ex, it must be one of the Golden Rules of Journalism (up there with Who, What, Where, When, Why and Cover Your Ass, thank you Dr. Wiginton) is that they must refer to it as "X, the platform formerly known as Twitter." There is sometimes a variation, like, "X, formerly Twitter," but this is getting out of hand.

I get it. I don't really want to call it X either because it's stupid. It's the idiocy of a middle-aged rich white dude who thinks he's cool and edgy. Explore your midlife crisis someplace where we can't see it, please. But for fuck's sake, how long are we going to continue doing this? Is there anyone with an internet connection who *doesn't* know that Twitter is now X? If you were writing a story about Elon Musk, would you mention every time he fucking takes a breath? Fuck no, you wouldn't. So why are we doing this?

You know I'm frustrated when I ask that question. And you'll never know how deeply that frustration runs because I'm never going to get an answer that makes sense. Because a lot of what we do doesn't make sense, but we're not going to stop it because fuck it. Why would we?

All right. I'm going to bed. If I can get through tomorrow without reading about how X was formerly Twitter, that would be grand. But I'm not going to hold my breath.