It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Tonight the classic cartoon It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown was on television.  In my mind, this is a stamp of legitimacy on the season, and that means it's okay to have Halloween decorations up. As the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day, and somebody who leaves their Halloween decorations out all year is seasonally appropriate for a few weeks out of the year.

I keep my Halloween stuff out all the time.  I like the colors and I like the symbolism, the art, and the decorations.  It's just who I am.

But the holiday of Halloween itself is something far different.  The day, the season, the time of year, has a lot of memories for me.

Halloween is when the depression comes.  It's when the melancholy seems to manifest like a heavy fog over everything.  I used to be really excited about Halloween.  I would have this special giddy feeling when I saw those first Halloween decorations and candy displays.  But in recent years I just haven't felt that way.

Instead, I get this feeling of dread.  I know what's coming.  I know the real horrors that will spring from behind the bushes.  No amount of candy will fix that.  Believe me, I've tried.  Have you seen my pictures?  I've tried to eat away a lot of things in my life and it's never worked.  I mean sure, for a short time, that's why I keep doing it.

Or maybe I don't know a better way.

I've been pro-active about a lot of things this year.  I've faced some very ugly truths and some incredibly dark memories.  I want to enjoy life again.

In the back of my mind, I've seen the final chapter of my life, and I know how this story ends.  So much of my life has been Fate kicking my ass from one corner to the next, never letting me get settled, never allowing me to simply relax when things are good.  And if I get attached, then it gets taken away.  There are rules Fate has set down.

I'm trying to avoid that final chapter I've seen.  Being pro-active has part of those efforts.  I'm not sure what to do about this Halloween's melancholy, but I'm working on a few things.

October has always been about the Pagan interpretation for me.  It's when I take inventory of myself and what I've done right and wrong.  It when I allow myself to be proud of accomplishments.  The new goal I've recently added is to not beat myself up for the things I did wrong or wasn't able to get done.  No more of that.

In a few hours, I'm going to call a guy about a job.  That's how serious I am about change and October is the perfect month for it.

In a weird sort of way, I'm feeling positive.  Sure, it's almost 4:30am and I can't sleep, but it's okay, because in a few hours I'm going to do something to push things forward, and that always feels good.  And really, that's what Halloween is all about--something dies, something is born, and somewhere along the line there's candy.

The Legend of the Russian Beer

I guess it's time to write this story and be done with it.

But I'll never be done with it--not really.  Some shit haunts you.  It's like a skidmark that never washes out in our lives and it's just there.  It says we've lived.  We've done something and we were able to make it back and tell others about the journey.

So yeah, it's time to tell this story.  It's not a pretty one.  Most of my stories aren't pretty anyways.  My life has never been pretty.  I've had moments.  Beautiful moments where people have come into my world and brightened it beyond anything I could achieve on my own.  Those are the moments I cherish and keep safely stored in my head.  I re-visit them only on special days so somehow the memory never changes or is corrupted by time.

But this story isn't one of those memories.

Sadly, it's one of those stories that is so ugly, it left that aforementioned skidmark on my brain and maybe even down to my soul.

That day didn't start off like that.  They never do, though, right?

My friend Nickus and I were on an adventure in Madison.  Our adventures always included restaurants we'd never been to, cuisine we'd never experienced, stores we'd never shopped in, and anything else we'd never done before.  Back then, the people at the Asian markets would follow us around the store and wonder just what in the hell these two freaks were doing.

Now, when we show up, the old Asian ladies look up at us and mutter, "Oh, it's these two assholes again."  And then they wait for the durian products to be placed on their checkout counter.  But that's a different story for a different day.

We weren't there for the spectacle of it all.  We didn't go isle to isle and make fun of the food we found.  The cans of freshwater dace, the bags of star anise, the dried mushrooms.  No, we showed respect and a certain degree of knowledge.

We ate that stuff when we could get it, and on some level, knew what we were doing.  Nick had been overseas, too.  He wasn't a stranger to new things and foreign cuisine.  And we were always looking for something new.

Part of our adventures included eating at a restaurant we'd never heard of or seen before.  And the more obscure, the better.  Our last trip included a stop at a dirty hole in the wall I'd never take anybody else to because it was so grimy.  The food was damned good, though.  He and I might visit again, but that was for us, and not somebody afraid of adventures.

This is probably how we got our asses in trouble in the first place--seeking adventure.

Finding world-class booze isn't easy in the Midwest.  You have to go to Chicago for the good stuff.  But we couldn't afford that and didn't have the time, so were in Madison at Woodman's grocery.   That was the closest we had to finding foreign beers, ales, and liquors.  Sure, we could go to some snooty wine boutique but that's not our style.  We listen to Amon Amarth and we don't wear skinny jeans.

Woodman's is decent.  It's employee-owned and the one in Madison carried all kinds of European beers.  Madison is a college town full of enlightened (read:  yuppy/trendy/hipster) people who enjoy variety or were well-traveled and wanted what they found in their journeys.

Nick had spent time in Europe and knew the Europeans beers very well.  I usually relied on his advice because he knows I hate IPAs.  Seriously, beer shouldn't taste like fucking dirt or smell like my grandmother's perfume.  What the fuck is wrong with these hipsters?  How could anybody drink something like that, much less call it "artisanal" or "crafted?"  Crap is crap.

On that trip, I was able to capture some Chimay Blue, a Belgian trappist ale that was super-expensive but well worth the price.  I found it to be heavenly and to this day is my favorite ale of all-time.

The conversations we always had were asking each other back and forth if the other had tried this or that.  Nick's tried a much larger variety of beers than I have so I'm usually asking him about various labels.  And it was in that beer section where we found our poison--the Russian beer.

Woodman's was running a special.  Plastic 40-oz bottles of Russian beer were stacked in the center of the isle.  It was hard not to bump into the two islands of beer and knock over bottles.  There were a couple of varieties, but they were all in Russian, and Nick and I can't read Russian.

But giant bottles Russian beer for $1.99 a bottle?   According the rules of our adventuring, that fits every criteria of being a Great Find.  We struck gold.

So obviously we loaded up and were happy to do so.  Neither of us had tried Russian beer before, nor have we even heard of Russian beer.  Obviously we knew they made the shit, but we'd never found it anywhere, and we were so very curious.

By the way, if you've ever spent time reading horror or watching horror movies, you'll notice a long list of tropes.  Blissfully ignorant indulgence, lack of logical thought, absence of critical thinking.

Nick and I had become the two college girls who took their shirts off in the dark forest for no apparent fuckng reason.  And we were going to pay for it.  You know that's coming, right?  Just wait.

True to any horror trope, there was a final opportunity for us to turn back.  Of all the luck, our checkout girl was Russian.  She was pretty, too.  Blonde hair, blue eyes.  I liked her right off the bat.  She even had a thick accent.  She was so Russian she seemed completely uncomfortable just being alive.

And of course, we asked her about what we were buying because we didn't have a clue.  She even pronounced the names for us even though they were too difficult to remember.  And that's when she said, "This beer...it's not so good, I think."  She shook her head slightly as she bagged our bottles.

But did we listen?  No, of course not.  Why would we?  We were having a great day.  We hit the Asian grocery stores and had these massive burritos at a Mexican hole in the wall called La Bamba's. We were away from work, and we were having an adventure.

Oh, what cruel mechanisms our universe has in place for such arrogance!

We got home with our goodies.  Chinese noodles, Korean kimchi, some frozen Indian food from an Indian grocery store that had just opened up.  And our beer.

I dropped Nickus off at his place and went back to mine.  I put the beer in the fridge to cool and a few hours later, I opened up my first bottle.

It didn't smell so good.  It had the faint aroma of battery acid and metallic flakes.   But that's okay, I said to myself.  Let's give it a try.  I'm adventurous, right?  I love new things, right?  This is the backdoor to Hell nobody ever talks about.  In fact, I'm sure right now, at this moment, there is some asshole burning in hell who is pleading with a demon, "But I just wanted to try the Russian beer so I could tell my trendy asshole friends I was more hipster than them!"

It tasted like shit.

I mean, it didn't really taste like beer.  No, I would say it tasted more like the fizzy version of the fluid they use to clean the gunk off of parts in a machine shop.  Somebody carbonated it for better effect, and eventually bottled it, and some jokester asshole thought it would be funny to call it beer.

But I kept drinking.  I got half a glass choked down and something happened--my stomach began to protest.

Let me review really quick here--I'm an adventerous eater, I like spicy food, I've eaten all kinds of weird crap, and this Russian beer was causing a problem.  Not the Korean food.  Not the large burrito.  No, those were all good.  But this Russian beer?  This was kicking my ass.

But I didn't care.  I was adventurous.  And I'm not a sinner who throws away alcohol.  So I kept choking it down.

By the time half a glass was gone, I was sweating.  My stomach was making so much noise I could hear it over the heavy metal music I was listening to.  And it wasn't the "I'm gonna puke" noises or the "Hey, this doesn't match" sounds.  No, it wasn't even the "let's just get through this, shall we?" noises some of the hotter foods I've eaten will cause.

The noises my stomach was making seemed to be saying, "Holy shit on a stick!  What the fuck did this asshole just do to me?  This isn't even food!  Goddammit!  And wait..what's that smell?  Can you smell that?  What the fuck makes a smell like that?  What am I supposed to do with this?  He can't expect me to actually digest this shit, can he?"

I curled into a ball on my bed for a moment but the pain was so excruciating I had to get right back up.  And that's when I realized I needed to warn Nickus.  He couldn't drink this beer--somebody had to stop him.

I dialed his number and a very unhappy Nick picked up the other end.

"Are okay?"

"No, man.  I think this Russian beer doesn't like me."

"That's because it's not Russian beer, Nick--it's wastewater from Chernobyl."

"That makes sense.  I've only had a glass of it and I don't think I can handle any more."

"Me, either.  We're gonna have to share this stuff with our friends."

It's at this time I feel I need to make a note in our defense because Nick and I generally aren't the murderous sort and we certainly don't feel our friends deserve to be executed by Russian beer.  But this Russian beer produced a reaction from our bodies that could never be believed and we needed to share this wonderful sensation with the people we care about most.

Sharing is caring.

Our next trip to Woodman's was to find the Russian clerk.  We weren't mad at her, but we had forgotten how Russians are a group of hardcore motherfuckers who understate terrible things.

This beautiful woman might have said, "This beer, I think...it's not so good."   But what she really meant was, "Holy shit, this is poison from a crashed Soviet nuclear submarine and because NATO has been up our asses over every little thing we do, we had the great idea of putting this toxic brew in plastic bottles, calling it beer, and sending it off to a college town with a cheap sticker price in order to get rid of it while poisoning some of the best and brightest of an entire generation."

But we had forgotten that important bit of international diplomacy.

The shake of her head could best be translated into, "I hope you fuckers don't plan on having children because if by some miracle you survive ingesting this, your genetics will be permanently fucked up and the best you can hope for would be a six-legged, three-headed monstrosity with the strength of a silverback gorilla on a twenty-day meth binge and the intelligence of a four year-old child."

But she wasn't around any longer.  Our best guess was she was only there for a few days as part of her KBG assignment to ensure deployment of this terrible NBC weapon from the diabolical minds of the darkest Soviet laboratories.

What we also noticed was how all of the grass around Woodman's was dead.  Obviously, a bottle must have broken outside somehow and that was the end result.  We figured one bottle took care of at least the three-acre parking lot and with the amount leftover, that was used by the City of Madison on their eyesore homes before being demolished.

But we had to share this with our friends.  We just had to.

Nick's birthday is April 20th.  At his birthday party, we made sure we had a bottle of this toxic brew to share with everybody.  I kept the bottle in my trunk because I didn't want to risk it breaking open in the driver's area or getting on any of my passengers.  I figured if the accident was bad enough to open the trunk and then that bottle, a swift death would be merciful.

Nick had small cups passed out to everybody and all were given just a bit.  About twenty people each had in their hands a small cup of this Russian "beer" and the countdown started.  Then, everybody drank this "beer" in unison while a picture was taken of their reactions.

Nick and I had a great laugh about the whole thing.  And while that day was a few years ago, we all remember it well.  A few of the people present have begun to talk to us again once their ability to speak had come back.  The human body is an amazing thing and it truly is incredible what we can endure.

In retrospect, I'm not angry.  I'm proud.  I feel like I survived something very few people have attempted and lived to talk about.  I'm still looking for that Russian woman who worked at the checkout counter at Woodman's.  If you do happen to see her, approach with caution, as she is far more dangerous than Chuck Norris.  But when you do finally get close enough to speak to her, please tell her I miss her, and would do anything to see her again.  

Stupid? You're Soaking in It!

I deal with stupid people every day.  It's a painful part of my job.

I deal with idiots who really shouldn't have been allowed to reproduce and judging by the spread of stupidity in our society, they are taking over, and soon we'll be swimming in a sea of idiots.

The shallow end of the gene pool is a tsunami washing away our sanity.

I've always been a fan of eugenics just because I don't give a shit about some idiot's right to reproduce.  When I'm paying higher taxes and more money for basic things to cover the costs of stupidity my humanity goes out the window.

Oh, I can hear people with their rustled jimmies whining about human rights and blah, blah, blah.

Fuck human rights!

Humans are just ugly bags of mostly water anyways.  Reproducing is a privilege and it should be reserved for those who are smart so future generations actually move forward instead of the regression we're seeing now.

It used to be, shitheads would do something stupid and kill themselves before they had a chance to breed, removing themselves from our gene pool.  Self-flushing turds, really.  Everybody knew Gums the Village Idiot would get kicked in the head by a mule before he reached the age of adulthood.  Or he would somehow dive head-first into the sawmill.  It was just a given, really.  And Gums did us all a favor by doing that.

The education system should make it clear that you're not there for just an education but also to prove yourself.  Besides, it's a joke now anyways.  No, the system should make it clear to kids they are working to earn the right to breed.  If they fail, then no future generations from them would be allowed.

Some bloodlines should have ended decades ago anyways.

But no, the same assholes who think we should pay for these idiots are the same assholes who couldn't imagine a society actually doing something to control the spread of stupidity.

Stupidity is a disease and it is destroying us.

But that doesn't mean we can't shame stupid people publically.  Stupid Shaming needs to be a thing. If for no other reason than to make stupid people realize they're stupid and if they kept their mouths shut, fewer people would realize just how stupid they really are.  It would be like somebody hiding in a crowd, like a stoned person in church, keeping their head down and not making eye-contact with the priest to avoid being busted.

It's time to call stupid people out.  Especially in public service jobs where you have to deal with stupid people all the time.  Their money isn't nearly as valuable as the social benefit of removing them from our community.  It's time we post pictures of stupid people online and a detailed accounting of their crimes.

Enough of this shit!

I've done call center work for more years than I care to admit.  In those years, I have dealt with some of the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet and the worst are the ones who think that somehow they know what they're talking about.  They might be angry but they're only angry because they don't understand something simple.

I've started using the phrase, "I know, it's complicated."  I say it with a very patronizing tone, like I'm talking to a child.

I wish I could post recordings of my calls online.  I would have a commentary going along with the recording so you would know what's going on and why they're so fucking stupid.

What bugs me the most about stupid people is that we allow them to get away with their stupidity because somehow we're supposed to be nice to them.   Usually, they are encountered in some kind of business setting, like in a store.  How many times in our workplace have we encountered stupidity? For people like myself, it is an hourly occurrence.  But because of the setting, I have to be nice.

That's the whole problem with our country right now--capitalism breeds stupidity because we kiss the asses of idiots for their dollars.  We are way too nice to stupid people because we want their money. Corporate America has made the acceptance of stupidity commonplace.  

You might think the clerk at the gas station who says, "thank you, come again," somehow means it but I promise you they don't.  They're saying it because they have to and they know their company has secret shoppers who come around to check on them and make sure they say it.

Nobody fucking cares if you come back to that shitty gas station.  Either you will or you won't. Having some shitbird behind the register tell you they appreciate your business doesn't make a goddamned bit of difference.  It's not his store, it's not his company, and we all know he's making minimum wage and for that shitty paycheck, he's forced to say things he doesn't mean.

I've worked at gas stations and it's a miserable job where stupid people come in and make your life worse by the nature of their breathing.  Their parents should have never been allowed to reproduce.

It's time we brought Eugenics back on the table.  It's time we discussed it as a means of saving our species from ruin.  It's time to clean the gene pool because there are too many turds floating in it.

The Beginning of The End

This week I discovered hope.

I cannot remember having this feeling of genuine hope and optimism about the future.  It's new to me.  I feel as if I'm on the right path and doing the right things, and they will actually work out and blossom into something wonderful.

In recent weeks, my OCD tick of making ice cream went into over-drive.  Normally OCD things are bad, but in this case, it has been wonderful.  I have made some of the most incredible ice cream anybody has eaten.  White chocolate raspberry that was so rich and decadent people will crave it for years to come.  Brown sugar banana with walnuts that tasted like creamy banana bread.

I even made a white chocolate strawberry with Bischoff's cookie butter that was so rich I could only eat it a few spoonfuls at a time.

And I've shared with friends.  In fact, I make it and get rid of it, because I want the room in my freezer for the next batch.  Friends and neighbors have been enjoying the best ice cream available.

People who are special to me have been well taken care of.  The toughest part has been being so far geographically from those who are close to my heart because I would love to fill their freezers with what I've been making.  I cook for those I care about.  

Pretty soon, I'll be selling ice cream locally to a small circle of people.  Proceeds from those sales will go towards buying equipment so I can start my Youtube channel about making ice cream.  I'm incredibly excited about that and I can't wait to make it happen.

Writing has been going well, too.  In fact, once I get this posted, I'm going to get back to editing a short story because my goal for this week is to get two stories submitted to two different places.  And I'm excited to get back to work.

I can't wait to get working these goals and move forward towards having more of my fiction published. More importantly, to the goal of having more finished, because finishing is more important than starting.

I haven't felt this good in a long time.  Despite the insomnia and not being able to get a decent night of sleep, I feel great.  I feel like life isn't so bad and maybe I could hang around for a while longer.   I have not felt that sense of hopelessness or being trapped.  I have not felt as lonely or as depressed as I had been.

This is where the darkness comes in.

I haven't said much about my previous landlord but the sad story, in a short version, is that he was an old man who was dying of colon cancer.  Before he knew he had cancer, he was dealing with all kinds of ghost problems.

He was tormented most of his life by ghosts and spiritual warfare.  I'm not sure why or what he did, but he was always mentioning it and it really upset him.  I got the impression his family had as well and it was something he experienced as far back as he could remember.

I rented the basement apartment from him.  In his final years, the level of activity was hard not to notice.  I would constantly see them out of the corner of my eye.  Faces would be looking in my window, dozens of them, clamoring over each other in a large pack.  They would move through my apartment only occasionally, being respectful of who I am, and what I'm capable of doing.

The activity built and built until the day he killed himself.  The pain from his cancer was too much so he shot himself in the head.  And the rest was silence.

I never saw or heard a single entity once he died.  They were there for him and they knew what was happening.  They knew the end was coming and they were waiting for it.

They were waiting for him.  The harbingers were growing stronger as the final moment came.  And once it did, they were gone.

This week, in my own apartment, the level of activity has increased.   In fact, before this week, I only had one visitor.  It was just after I'd moved in and he seemed just as surprised to see me as I was to see him.  I never saw him, or anything else, again.

The other night, my dehumidifier kicked on and ran for a minute.  It was unplugged.

I am hearing voices.  Conversations and muffled outbursts.  I'm hearing things get moved around.

Books are being shuffled, pots are being moved, and I can sometimes hear breathing.  Last night, I heard a bottle of vitamins move with enough force I could hear the pills inside shuffle.

The night before, something knocked into my bed while I was on it.  It wasn't a hard knock but it was enough to shake the bed noticeably while I was trying in vain to sleep.

I'm not alone anymore and they want me to know it.

And I realize now who they are and why they're here.  They are harbingers and now it is my turn. They are here for me.

The end has begun.

I have been ignoring health issues for a while.  It's not something that can be easily fixed.  More to the point--I don't want to know.  That tickle in my throat tonight felt different than the usual sinus issues.  And there were a couple of other issues I won't get into here.

It makes sense.  It really does.

The last time I was happy, I was sitting on a nice warm floor holding my daughter and talking to my wife about how lucky we were.  We were talking about how grateful I felt for having so much and how happy I was to have them in my life.  And then things changed and they were taken from me.  It was a slow, ripping process.  It was a death I couldn't walk away from.  In many ways, it killed parts of me and I have felt partially dead ever since.

But I was happy once, goddammit.  I was happy.  And it was all taken from me.

I'm feeling happy again.  I'm feeling grateful for what I've been given.  I'm sorting out problems and dealing with demons.  I'm climbing out of pits and walking away from despair.   I'm putting to bed memories that hurt and I'm forgiving those who hurt me.  I am working towards happiness because happiness has to be earned.

So it makes sense that the end would come now.

I have always felt my fate wasn't to be happy.  Maybe I don't deserve it.  Maybe my karma from past lives is just too strong and maybe I hurt too many people.  Maybe I'm in so much trouble for the crimes my soul committed in those lives I will never be allowed to be happy again.

I tell you--it is no coincidence that just as I begin to find happiness, and the path to genuine future peace, harbingers arrive.  There are no coincidences.

This will all be taken from me.  The Powers That Be have decided it is time to once again come into my life.  I will be given a taste of what everybody else has and it will be stripped from me.

I'm the kid building a sandcastle at the beach who gets it knocked over by bullies every time.

And I'm ready.  Bring it.  I just don't care anymore.

I will continue my path.  I will continue towards happiness.  I will make as much ice cream as I can. I will make the best ice cream my friends and people I care about will ever have in their lifetimes.  I will write short stories that make people laugh and cringe.  I will stay with you in your hearts and minds.

You will remember me.

But when the time comes, so be it.  Fuck these harbingers and fuck The Powers That Be.

I don't know how much time I have left.  All I know for certain is the countdown has begun and there isn't a lot of time.  And maybe now that I've seen them and let everybody know I've seen them, the fuckers will let me sleep at night.  There was a time in my past when I would have tried to talk with them but right now all my communicating shall be done with one finger.

I am going to continue working towards being happy.  Making ice cream and getting it to people brings me peace.  Writing a story that is worthy of being published gives me a sense of satisfaction nothing else can offer.

The other day, a friend finally read a short story I had published two years ago.  She had avoided my work because she was afraid it was too scary, gory, or vile.  After convincing her it was a humor story, she gave it a try, and really enjoyed it.  Her enjoyment meant more to me than I can fully articulate and I carried that joy with me for a long time after.

The harbingers might think they're planning on taking everything away from me but they can't take my memories.  They can't unmake ice cream and they can't erase the published word.  I'm not afraid like my landlord was.

My only worry is not getting enough ice cream to the people I care about on my way out.  

Just Shoot Me

I often tell my friends to shoot me.

There's usually a qualifier beforehand, though.

"If I end up in coma, just shoot me."

"If I'm brain-dead, just shoot me."

"If I have a severe brain injury and I'm not the same old Ted, just shoot me."

My friends are all surprisingly eager to go along with it, too.  Worse, I think there's going to be a race to see who can get to me first.

Right now I work a job that is positively soul-crushing.  All day long I talk to people who are angry, bitter, old, dying, or the family members of somebody who is terminal or has already died.  I talk to people who cannot get their medications because of red tape, idiot doctors, and high costs. Sometimes, I can help them, sometimes I can't do shit.

It sucks.

And most of these calls involve them telling me about all their medical problems and how horrible it is to have those ailments.

So my list has grown.  On a daily basis, I'm telling friends, "Hey, man...if I ever have ________, please shoot me."

Right now the list is rather long and I'm afraid they'll end up shooting me for a hangnail soon.

One of these days I'll tell them I stubbed my toe on the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night and it really hurts.

"I'll be right over!"

One thing is very clear--I have no reason to grow old.  None.  And I cannot see a single benefit to being old.  I don't have a reason to wake up tomorrow.  I can't imagine being at the point where it hurts to pee and I'm having heart attacks and strokes.

I grew up with a grandfather in a wheelchair.  Half of his body was paralyzed.  I thought everybody in a wheelchair was grandpa when I was little.  My memories of my grandpa are of an old man in a wheelchair, mumbling because he couldn't talk well due to the paralysis, unless he cussed.  And all he would say was, "goddamned son of a bitch!"  At family gatherings, he would often be on the sidelines while the large family did their things.  He could cry because he was in so much pain.  I didn't realize the stoke messed up his emotions as well.  And I wanted to help, I really did, but there was nothing I could do and when I told my mom about it, she just downplayed everything.  The adults understood but I didn't.

There is no reason in the world to keep me around in that state.  None.

If I had money, I'd make a game of it.  I'd give a lawyer some cash and the condition was, whomever put me out of my misery would get that cash, and a letter from myself to the jury about how this was my idea.

But I'm broke as fuck so I have nothing to offer but my thanks and maybe my cookbooks or 21 year-old car.

I should post a list on here so everybody knows when to shoot me and when to let me deal with it.  I'd hate to get shot because I've got the shits but not shot because I have to wear a diaper.

Tonight I ate pizza with a homemade pesto sauce, cheese and mushrooms.  I'm not watching anything I eat and my ass has been planted in front of my computer all day.  I'm taunting The Powers That Be and I don't care.  But I'm sure they won't let me out of here that easily.

And with my luck, the dipshit with a .22 pistol and bad aim will be the first one to find me, and I'll end up with a few scars and a constant headache.  So bring something big and shoot to win, because if I limp away from this, you'll end up the back of the van on a one-way trip to a deserted barn in the middle of nowhere.

Good luck.

Came in Like a Creepy Van

Last night a group of people claiming to be my friends forced me to drink heavily and partake of other substances until I could barely walk in what I can only assume was an effort to scramble my brains.

It started off well enough.  It was a tribute for a young man who died way before it was his time.  His whole family was there, plus a few good bands, and I knew most of the people in the bar.  I started off conservatively with a white russian because when you're in a bowling alley, what else should one drink?

But then they started refilling my glass over and over again.  I kept trying to empty it and they kept filling it.  But I was smart and figured if I consumed all of the vodka the bar carried, they wouldn't be able to give me more white russians.

I lost count after six.

And then they started forcing me to do Jagerbombs.

I was good up until the seventh one.  After that, things became a bit hazy.  So, I went outside to get some air with friends, but they had other ideas.  

But before that, I saw somebody I just had to get to know better.  Ever have that happen?  It did for me.  I just had to get to know her.  So, I used my Sith powers to compel a friend to introduce us, and it all went downhill after that.  

She and I hit it off well, which in Van-speak means she didn't pepper spray me in the face and call the cops.  And while I normally wouldn't have anything to do with a woman who had standards so low as to want to spend time talking to a guy like me, things went well.  

She joined us outside, too.  

And the group of us talked.  

After that, I'm not sure what happened.  I remember this beautiful but evil woman forcing me to drink shots with her.  I think at one point she even told me her name.  I was in the deep end of the pool and not doing well.  

But not wanting to be rude, I drink the shots.  All of them.  

And there were some beers afterwards, I believe.  

The rest is hazy.  I remember being in a van that wasn't mine.  I remember coming home.  

But I've learned my lessons.  These despicable people will only get me into further trouble.  And this woman?  This beautiful woman who got my attention the very second I saw her?   I'm going to have to spend more time with her.  I'm assuming she's going to entrap me in some complex situation that will ultimately end with her trying to kill me.  That's understandable and natural.  But I'm curious how she intends to do all of that.  

And this is one cat curiosity ain't gonna kill.  

Namby-Pamby, Wimpy Horror Writers

I've become increasingly disappointed in my fellow horror writers.

In the recent weeks we've seen mass killings, people killed by cops, protests that have turned violent, an election where nobody wants anything to do with the candidates, and terrorist attacks overseas with huge body counts.

Each time, I see fellow horror writers post sad, depressing things on Facebook about how they just wish we could all get along and how we need peace.

Bullshit.

I say, we need more violence.  We need more bloodshed and more innocent lives ruined and destroyed.  We need more dictators violently putting down revolts and even crazier religions with zealots so insane everyone cringes at the mere mention of them.

It's time for the streets to run with the blood of infidels.  Or in this case, everybody.

Am I the only one cheering for chaos and war?  Am I the only one who wants to see the world destroy itself in a global self-destructive last gasp?

I say, we need more guns.  Guns everywhere!  And good guns, too.  Not those shitty Tech 9 spray guns where you might get lucky enough to hit somebody while you waste ammo.  Nope!  Assault rifles should be affordable and given to every citizen upon learning how to read.  It would be the best graduation ceremony ever.

I say, we dedicate one year to a planet-wide purge.  Just like in the movies, only for an entire year, and on the entire planet.  Total combat for everybody.  Kill, maim, rape, torture, and fillet as much as you'd like.  Burn it all.

I say, we stop pretending we're more than six and a half billion miserable assholes hurling through the cold of space all alone and removed from any other living being.  Nobody cares about us.  Nobody is going to save us.

What disappoints me the most is how so many horror writers would whine, cry, sob, and pretty much express all the sensitive outrage they could muster regarding these news stories.

Really?  You write about murder, death, torture, and all manner of monsters but when you hear about some idiot getting killed by another idiot your heart breaks?  You're outraged because somebody said some mean words to another person?  Fuck you!  

Those who follow The Way of the Van know this but it bears repeating:  I don't write to scare people, I write my fantasies, and if I could find a way to make the monsters a reality, I would do so without hesitation.

#nolivesmatter

Horror writers are supposed to look into the darkness of the human soul.  It's where we live.  And to see so many get upset when they get a glimpse of it in real life disappoints me.

Did you guys fall asleep in history class?  What exactly do you think humanity has been up to for the past 10,000 years?

We kill.  A lot.  And we're really good at it, too.  You write about it.  Some of you even make money by writing about it.  So stop with the whinging and consternation.  Let humanity be humanity because it'll help some of you who happen to lack imagination.  It'll give you those plot bunnies you keep complaining about.

Life is a meat grinder.  Once you accept this, all the horrible things that happen around us don't seem nearly as bad, and we learn to really enjoy the smallest of things.  Like the moment a person you deeply care about reciprocates just for a few moments, or when you find a dollar bill in your coat pocket in August, or when you make some ice cream and it turns out perfect.

Those tiny, fleeting moments of good seem like radiant lights of heaven.  The little moments mean so much more when you're knee-deep in blood.  That's when you appreciate a hug from a woman you adore and know will never love you back.  That's when you do things for her just to see her smile.

Stop whinging and enjoy the violence.  Take delight in all the carnage around you.  One of these days, some idiot will come up with a way to make it all stop, and we'll be left with the most boring existence imaginable.  It'll be like those 1950's sitcoms where the worst that happens is somebody rides their bicycle over some flowers, or the pie doesn't come out right.  Do you want that?

Nobody wants that.  That, to me, is the true horror we face.  A mundane, vanilla existence where nobody does anything but help each other.  We all wear button-up sweaters and have the same short haircut.  The food is heavy, greasy, and loaded with salt.  And nobody would dare read a horror story because it's just too extreme for them.  The scariest stories they ever read are The Hardy Boys.

So screw your moral bullshit.  Piss on your outrage at death and destruction.  Embrace the violent, chaotic reality, and stop trying to make everybody a namby-pamby, wimpy, marshmallow of a human being like yourself.