So much of TV is drek nowadays. There are very few shows that leave me wanting to watch more than one episode, even less that make me want to watch one episode right after another. The ones that make me want to watch it all twice are rare and this is one of them.
For those who don’t remember, Squid Game Season 1 was a surprise hit in the fall of 2021. It had a lot going against it, mainly because it was a South Korean show that Americans would have to watch either with subtitles or with English voices dubbed over. Most English speaking viewers will give a hard pass to a show like that, but the content was something to be hold.
There’s no way around it. It’s violence porn. The body count is substantial and downright disgusting. And yet, there’s also a metaphor for the game of life, how every day we wake up and play a game within our own little world. If we screw up badly, catastrophic events unfold. We lose our jobs, our families, our livelihoods, all that and more can happen with a single error in judgment.
True, it’s unlikely that an error will get you instantly shot (although sadly that often does happen) but as Squid Game players are turned into cannon fodder over insignificant errors while playing kids’ games (i.e. drop a marble and you’re dead) the message is clear – life is a game and if you screw up, you lose big time.
I thought the first season would be a one and done. The game was presented as so vile and treacherous, the villains as so ruthless and cunning, than anyone, such as the protagonist Gi-Hun, who manages to escape with his life and a big bag of money would run as far away from the game as possible, never to return.
But darned if they didn’t find a way to make the new season interesting and watchable. Here, Gi-Hun has gone from pathetic doofus in S1 to hardened tough guy in S2. Surviving the Squid Game will do that to you. He has used his winnings to recruit a legion of mob flunkies to search for “the recruiter,” that ne’er-do-well who tricks unsuspecting rubes into joining the game.
Gi-Hun manages to connive his way back into the latest iteration of the game, hoping to take it down from the inside. But along the way, he will have to play, and with a new cast of players, including an old friend, a mom/son duo, a trans ex-soldier, an evil rapper, an expecting mom to be, a crypto coin fraudster and more.
Detective Hwang is back, still leading the chase to bring down his brother, the evil “Front Man” behind the games.
If I tell you much more, I’ll spoil it all. But I’ve watched it twice and even went back to watch the first season, all since S2 dropped the day after Christmas. To get that much attention from me is something.
Holy smokes, 3.5 readers, have I been holding my water on this one a long time.
So much so that I’m ready to pee my pants.
In the wake of the pandemic, when I became addicted to online food delivery because it was verboten to go shopping yourself, I wrote a novel based on some of the wacky hijinx I experienced as a customer. (Order a pastrami sandwich on rye and they deliver you a Velvet Elvis painting? WTF?)
Anyway, last summer, your favorite proprietor of a blog with only 3.5 readers was contacted by a representative of a website with 3.5 bazillion viewers. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Yes, that’s right. Pornhub. No, just kidding. Netflix.
Initial e-mail exchanges went like this:
NETFLIX GUY: “Hi I work for Netflix. Are you Bookshelf Q. Battler? I know you write under a pen name but I’d like to talk to you about your book, Shop Buddy. I really enjoyed it.”
ME: “Ah, so you’re the one.”
NETFLIX GUY: “Ha ha. I’d like to talk more. Can we speak on the phone?”
ME: “How do I know you’re a real Netflix guy and not some weirdo trying to steal the rights to my book?”
NETFLIX GUY: “How do I know you’re the real Bookshelf Q. Battler and not a chump posing as BQB?”
So after a long round of emails and phone calls where we sufficiently verified each other’s credentials, we were off to the races, and as scary as it was, I, as in the “man behind the curtain” of BQB very nervously identified my true self to people who gained my trust that they wouldn’t reveal my identity and discussions began.
Initial negotiations were over video conference calls and that was surreal. They were nice enough to understand I was a true novice to the industry and suggested I get an agent before things continue. That did slow things down as I had to seek out an agent and I got turned down a lot until I was savvy enough to start mentioning I have a potential Netflix deal.
Frankly I was little skeeved by the whole agent hiring process. It felt like I’d already done the work of landing the tuna in my boat but after several interviews with different potential agents, I found one I liked and as she explained (I used the tuna in the boat analogy with all of them), she was wise enough to point out that that yes, I’d landed the tuna but she would be the one to knock it out, skin it, and fry it up with lemon pepper and basil.
Mmm. Lemon pepper fish. Rich in omega 3s.
Anyway that slowed things down till January, but then the really nitty gritty stuff began. Hooray for Hollywood! Yours truly actually got on a plane and flew out to Tinsel Town. I met my agent. I met with Netflix people. I met crackheads on Hollywood Boulevard but that’s irrelevant.
To my great surprise, I did things that only a person with balls would do, so apparently I am a baller now. I said to my agent. “Should we shop around? Should we see if Hulu wants to be in the Shop Buddy bidness? What about the fine people over at HBO Max? Can I get a meeting with the good people at Amazon Prime and rub Jeff Bezos’ bald head for good luck?”
Agent agreed. We shopped. No interest from Hulu or HBO. Amazon had enough interest for a meeting but not enough to invite Jeff so I would not get to rub Jeff’s head which is a shame. I deserve to as my books have made him upwards of 17 entire cents. I made the point in the meeting that, you know, my book is hot right now because I self-published it on Amazon so if you guys let someone else snap it up, they’ll be significant egg on your faces. I worded it nicer than that but you get the drift. Frankly, I couldn’t believe I was able to say such things to such important people. They nodded graciously and saw the point but thought the whole thing was too weird. A book written by a guy with a weird pen name? Too weird.
So ultimately, that’s why I went with the Flix to the Net. They really understood my vision and the cool thing is they agreed to go along with the whole Bookshelf Q. Battler mystique. In fact, we’re in development in on a BQB’s Twisted Shorts series and we’re all in agreement that there’s more free publicity, fanfare and, well yes, cold hard cash-o-la to be made if the man behind the curtain remains a mystery for now and people are left wondering who the heck wrote all this schlock? Who is he? What’s his deal? Why so mysterious?
How would a BQB series work? We’re a little vague on that but basically someone would play me and introduce each story in the anthology with some quips and one liners. We all agreed I’m too gross and disgusting to play myself. I agreed. They were nicer about it. Various euphemisms were employed to avoid telling me I’m too gross and disgusting to do the job myself and that a handsome person must be hired to play me so I appreciate that. BTW this is all theoretical at this point so I should mention no deal on BQB’s Twisted Shorts has been made at this time though it is in the works. They liked my short stories and think they could sell with the tag line “Black Mirror meets Monty Python.” Sounds about right.
But I digress. The point is Netflix will a) give me money and b) keep my ID a secret. Personally, I’m fine with that because you know, this could all be a flash in the pan and if so, I’d just rather keep my little old life as is. What Netflix offered for the movie deal was generous, but not life changing. Perhaps in time we’ll get there but all good things come to wait.
Look at me rambling. So, back to the main point. The movie! Finn Wolfhard! Yes, Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things fame has signed on to play Steve Anderson, the titular Shop Buddy, who, post-college, can’t find a job to save his life so has to go through the indignity of slinging grocery bags for an online shopping service. In doing so, he has to deliver a lot of strange, questionable items to a disturbing old man, all while a series of high-profile kidnappings is putting his town in the news.
I gotta tell you, the funny thing about life is, it’s weird how you think a thing will impress people and it doesn’t, but then something else will. I have only shared this info about a potential Netflix deal with a very small handful of close friends and family the past year. Having kept this info close to the vest, I assumed not too many people knew but holy crap, once it got out that the Finnster was involved, it came to my attention that the BQB friends and fam network has more leaky holes than a siv, because I am, quite literally, no word of a lie, getting damn calls like the one below every day. No one in my small social circle was impressed I had a movie deal under way, but once it came out that this famous ferret faced kid was involved, it was like I became the second coming. (It’s ok, I got permission to call him a ferret face. “We like the cut of your jib, BQB,” they said. “Do your thing,” they said. We’ll see how long that lasts.)
SIDENOTE: OK I’m sorry I called you a ferret face, Finn, but it’s this blog, so everyone gets made fun of here with me being the biggest butt of all the jokes, pun intended.
RANDOM DUDE: “BQB! Hi! This is So and So. Remember me?”
ME: Who?
Dude: So and so! You know! I sat behind you in third grade. I ate all my boogers and stole your lunch money. We were thick as thieves!
Me: WTF?
Dude: Ah, BQB you old kidder. Anyhoo, I made the mistake of mentioning I was in third grade with a guy that knows Finn Wolfhard.
ME: I don’t know him. Never met him.
Dude: Even so, my daughters wont shut up about it. Any chance you could get them a meeting? Maybe he could pose for some selfies and sign some autographs?
ME: Dude, sign my ass. :Click:
OK, I never was that rude. I let everyone down gently by reminding them, hello, I have never met this freaking kid. Yes, I’m even nice to the bullies who used to throw spitballs at the back of my head in school and now pretend like that never happened and that we were best of friends because they want me to intro their kids to Finn F’N Wolfhard.
And yes, God help me, ex-girlfriends including the literal one I thought I would marry only for her to tell me to drop dead and never contact me again, they tracked me down, found my number, call me up to ask if I can arrange a meeting between their kids and Finn.
Actually, they start high. Can I arrange a meeting between their kids, Finn and all of the freaking Stranger Things kids plus Winona Ryder and David Harbour but if that’s not possible then just Finn is ok. Oh, really? Just Finn is OK? Thanks Ex-Girlfriend Who Dumped Me Over Nonsense 20 years ago and left my life a shambles. That’s really nice of you to say that Just Finn would be ok to meet your ugly mutant offspring.
Sigh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called her kids mutants. They’re blameless in all this. Ugly? Well, facts are facts. Oh, alright. Fine. They’re not ugly…that I know of. They could be. I mean, they share genetic material with their mother so there’s a statistical probability that…you know what? I’ll shut up.
“BQB write one of your patented, non-sensical, rambling blog posts to tell everyone about the movie,” the Netflix suits said.
Mission accomplished.
Anyway, without further ado, see below for what you’re all waiting for. Finn’s early test screenings where he reads his lines which, well, they’re my lines! I wrote them and it’s pretty cool. My agent tells me that Finn’s agent tells her that this has the potential to be a good project for Finn, that though he’s already super famous between Stranger Things and Ghostbusters, this will give him a starring vehicle where he gets a lot of screen time to be himself outside of a science-fiction role, so whodathunk a schmuck like me could make that happen?
Check this out, 3.5 readers. I called it way back on March 31, 2016:
The Russians.
Oh sure, they say they want to be our friends but then as soon as we aren’t looking they kick the Ukraine in the balls and give East Europe a wedgie.
See that? Ahh, if only the head muckety mucks over at NATO HQ had bothered to read my fine blog, we could have avoided Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine and be putting our focus where it needs to be, namely, why the hell does the Academy keep nominating movies we have never seen for the Oscars?
I try to avoid getting political on this fine blog, largely because the Internet/social media has ushered in a whole new era where people debate, not by the Marquess of Queensberry rules of old, but rather like the pro-wrestlers of today.
In other words, in the past, two parties would show up, debate, stay relatively cordial, and then agree to disagree.
Today, it’s pretty much you’ll inevitably say something that offends someone and rather than explain their side, they’ll just conk you on the head with a folding chair, Hollywood Hulk Hogan style. OK, they won’t use a chair, but they’ll use fighting words. They’ll get personal and at some point, it will be implied that your mother wears combat boots (less of an insult today than it was 30 years ago, but anyway.)
I digress.
Our political system sucks and politicians aren’t motivated to do the right thing. TV and social media means the politicians react to the headlines of today, while they are happening right now, and in life, whether it is a disaster or a suspicious lump on your nether regions, what you did in the past to prepare for these sorts of things is more important than what you do once disaster strikes.
Think about your own budget. Do you spend recklessly? Maybe you do. We’ve all been there from time to time. But still, you have a general awareness that you need to save. You need to pay bills on time. You need to keep some money on hand for a rainy day. Sure, you’ll see nice things and want them, but hopefully, some voice in your head reminds you that it might be easy to charge it on the credit card today, as if that credit is free money, but the bill will come back to haunt you.
Our politicians have zero motivation to NOT spend foolishly. They have no motivation to prepare for a rainy day. They have no motivation to keep borrowing low and they definitely have no motivation to keep some money on hand for a rainy day.
Think about the coronavirus. I hate to break it to you, but we aren’t in a situation where everything is going to open up in May or whenever and we no longer have to worry about catching a dreaded disease. This shutdown was never about that. It was a fear that our hospitals weren’t up to snuff, that they didn’t have enough medical equipment, beds, and space to take care of a large influx of sick people. Thus, if too many sick people flood the system, the medical staff can’t respond to patients fast enough. This leads to more people getting sick and not being cured and before you know it, wammo. It’s the Walking Dead world, and we are all Rick Grimes. Actually, I’m awesome, so I’ll be Rick Grimes. You nerds will be Shane at best.
Why didn’t the politicians prepare? Swine flu happened in 2009. That wasn’t as deadly as corona, but it was still bad. It was bad enough that it scared Hollywood into making a movie called Contagion where Gwyneth Paltrow’s virus fighting doctor character (SPOILER ALERT) dies and gets his face cut off so her body can be studied for science.
But the politicians weren’t that motivated. Politicians don’t get applause for making sure hospitals have enough beds. They don’t get praise for making sure hospitals have enough ventilators. They don’t get likes for making sure hospitals have enough masks and gloves or space.
Politicians get applause for dissing their opponents. They get applause for dishing out free money and why not? If you’re dumb enough to give me your credit card and tell me its ok to spend whatever I want, then I’ll gladly buy a round of drinks for every schmuck at the bar, take the applause, then stick you with the bill. Am I going to buy equipment to make sure people can be helped in the event of a crisis? Pfft. No. Where’s the applause in that?
Think about how you run your own household. You probably have some kind of a budget, even if its in your head. You keep track of bills and expenses. Maybe not on a nice flowchart but you have a general idea. You have an idea of what in your house is broken and falling apart. You have an idea of how much longer you can use this not so good appliance before you have to cave in and buy a new one. You want to buy that fancy watch, sweet leather jacket or go on that awesome vacation, but you balance those wants with the needs of maybe some day you’ll need a new dishwasher, or your fear that a pipe will burst and you’ll need to hire a contractor to fix it and you wont be able to if youve spent all your money on comic books and bubblegum.
Unfortunately, politicians look at tax revenue as free money. Free money to use to reward allies and punish opponents. Free money to waste and why not because more free money will always come along. And I hate to break it to you, but the money you give them today was already spent a long time ago. The nation is being run on loans, or if you think about it, on a massive credit card.
When you see the US helping everyone around the world, that’s nice, until you realize we ran up the credit card to do it. If you use your credit card to buy your neighbor’s kid an XBox, people will think you’re a nice person…for about five minutes, until everyone realizes your own kid doesn’t have shoes and your credit card bill is so high and your free cash is so low that your own kid will have to run around barefoot.
Overall, I wish there was a better system where politicians of both parties were inspired to keep costs and debts low, and to save, save, save for a rainy day. To spend money on necessities rather than wants, to prepare for disasters ahead of time.
Long story short, 3.5 readers, unless you poop a crazy amount, you probably were always keeping a few spare rolls in your closet, so when the corona shit hit the fan, you didn’t have to run to the store and do a battle royale with all the people who didn’t keep enough rolls of butt wipe handy. You did it because you knew you had to take care of yourself. No one else will.
Politicians don’t think like that. Spend, spend, spend. Ignore potential looming disasters. Someday, some other schmuck will be stuck with the bill and the blame while they’re chilling out on a beach somewhere…with all our toilet paper.
End of BQB rant. Thank you.
PS – Imagine you are a parent. You send your kid off to college. You give them a prepaid debit card and tell them this is for important things only. Your kid comes home and tells you they spent all their money on booze, parties, and they bought gifts for their dumb friends. But then they tell you that they don’t have any money for text books, clothes or basic necessities.
Next time a politician gets on TV and tells you they spent your money helping out some OTHER country, maybe remind them that they were supposed to make sure the kids in America had shoes and textbooks and food first.
As you are aware, I have long been a steadfast supporter of improving rights of the physically ugly.
I mean, I’m not leading any marches or sit ins or anything, but I’m happy to write about it on my blog that is only read by 3.5 readers.
Do you have any ideas on how to improve rights for the ugly? It’s one thing to brainstorm big ideas but another to focus on actual initiatives.
For example, I’d like to propose a Constitutional amendment that would prevent the government from forcing ugly people to wear paper bags on their heads. Sure, you say well that isn’t happening now but you never know if the winds will change and maybe in 50 years an anti-ugly regime will take over. Ergo, it would be great to get freedom from mandatory head bags into the Constitution.
Thoughts? Would any of you endorse this initiative?
Has there ever been a more stunning fall from grace than the one happening to VA Gov. Ralph Northam right now?
When you’re confirmed to have appeared in a yearbook photo and you might have either been a klansman or a guy in blackface, your career should be toast. I fear the media will have his back though and nothing will be done.
By the way, I was just a kid in the 1980s. There were definitely some things in the pop culture that would make us cringe today. However, that time period wasn’t exactly the Jim Crow South either. I don’t recall a lot of fully grown adults walking around in blackface or klan robes, either in earnest or as a tasteless gag. Frankly, I’m surprised the school allowed that photo to appear in the yearbook. Mind you, this wasn’t a college or high school yearbook (though you should know better at those ages so it wouldn’t be excused) but this was a year book for fully grown adult professionals graduating from a medical doctor program.
Up front, I want to say I’m not making fun or light of or disparaging the 27 year old missionary who died recently on Sentinel Island. What happened to him is terrible and I can’t say that enough.
I am, however, going to use this as a springboard to bitch about millennials, one of my favorite pastimes on this blog.
I’ve noticed that millennials tend to put life experiences over material possessions. Ergo, they (and not all but a good amount) prefer to spend money on vacations to exotic lands instead of say, putting a down payment on a house.
Not going to lie. There are times when I think about spending my meager savings on a trek around the world but alas, the thought of having to eventually come back and live with my pain in the ass family when I go broke makes me want to gorge myself to death on avocado toast.
But perhaps there are millennials with fams that are more tolerable than mine. At any rate, fun is for the young and I can’t blame a youngster for wanting to see the world. Hell, if you’re older and in relatively good shape, you should see the world too if you can.
I think social media has something to do with this. When I was young, the most you could do was try to impress a date with your story of a far flung expedition. Now you can take photos of yourself in an exotic locale and post them and make your friends hella green with envy. Not saying that’s why millennials do this but I mean, come on, surely a few do.
Unfortunately, sometimes the millennials go a little too far. Otto Warmbier, for example. Now, I’m not saying in any way that North Korea is excused for what they did but whenever I hear about an American who was caught and imprisoned and tortured in a hellhole that is constantly on the news and known well to be a hellhole my first reaction is, “Damn it. Did these people not see that Carnival Cruise commercial? Did Kathie Lee Gifford sing her heart out for nothing?”
Look, my vacation time and funds are limited. If I get to go away, it is going to be to a tropical paradise and my preferred form of torture will be to ogle hot babes in skimpy outfits that I will never be able to obtain (unless 1 million of you buy my book tomorrow).
Where was I? So this young missionary went to India. Off the Indian coast, there’s a series of islands. One of them is Sentinel Island (I could have my facts wrong so see the news for better info) and there is a long isolated tribe. This tribe knows nothing of modern ways. They live off the land. There are documented cases where they open fire with bow and arrow attacks on all trespassers.
At any rate, this guy hired some fishermen to take him to the island even though doing so is against Indian law and though he hoped to preach the gospel, it sounds like he was arrow attacked and killed pretty much instantly.
Part of me says the tribe were dicks for doing this. Part of me thinks this is like putting your hand in the tiger cage at the zoo and then thinking the tiger is a dick when it rips your arm off.
I don’t want to make fun of this kid. His death is tragic. I don’t blame him for wanting to experience great things while he was young. Personally, I look back on my youth, wishing I had great stories to remember and am saddened that it is largely a cloud of me on the couch playing video games and eating doritos, so I hand it to this kid that he did more with his life than I did but still…I just hope millennials will chill out a bit.
Go on fun exotic vacations? Yes. Go to places where you are most likely going to be killed, tortured or imprisoned? No. Please don’t.
Sears got its milkshake drank. Will yours be next?
Ahh, Sears. Back in the day, no trip to the mall was complete without a trip to this anchor store and let me tell you, my Aunt Gertie used to get Sears catalogs in the mail all the time.
They were big ass tomes the size of 10 bibles that weighed at least 10 pounds and oh, as a kid I’d turn through the pages and dream. I want that toy, I want that toy, and oh my, why do these bra models give me a tingly feeling?
Jeez. I think I might have a few of those catalogs lying around. I wonder if they’re worth anything. I’d go fap to the bra models but I won’t out of respect, given that all those models are probably either dead or super old and in nursing homes now. Sigh. Oh time, you cruel bitch, you.
For the uninitiated, Mr. Sears, way back in the 1800s was the first businessman to realize that since there were parts of America that didn’t have any stores, he could make bank by sending out catalogs and taking orders for goods by mail. As the years went on, Sears stores became the pinnacle of every mall and as credit cards came into style, they dominated the catalog sales market. Shit, Aunt Gertie ordered all my clothes as a kid from Sears. You think that was why I was so unpopular? Oh well. Water under the bridge.
So, I guess I don’t get it. The Internet came into great popularity in the 1990s and Jeff Bezos, blessed be his most revered name (and I’m not just saying that because he has the power to snuff out my self-publishing dreams) saw the potential of the Internet to sell stuff.
Wal-Mart saw the potential too and though I don’t believe it has reached Amazon lengths, it does a brisk online sales business.
JC Penney, Sears’ longtime rival in the box store/catalog game has kept afloat by doing online sales as well.
So, to repeat, I don’t get it. Sears basically invented the whole concept of taking pictures of products, organizing them into catalogs and giving them descriptions, product numbers, listing the prices, making it easy for people to call on the phone, read off the products they wanted to an operator who took their order, credit card number and address and they even mastered how to complete orders through the mail.
Why didn’t anyone at Sears have the vision, the foresight to say, “Hey, I think this Internet thing is here to stay and we should take our catalog…and hold on…think about it here…put it online!”
Now, I don’t know. I believe they did. To what extent I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the lack of putting it online so much as getting you anything you want the way Amazon can. I mean, there are so many times when I think something like, “I would like a can of farts excreted by an East Peruvian Water Buffalo in July” and then go to Amazon and do a search and get, “Here are twenty choices for farts excreted by East Peruvian Water Buffalos in July.”
I don’t know. I’m not sure what Sears’ downfall was. Either they didn’t get into online sales early enough, or maybe they didn’t make online shopping as cool as Amazon did. Maybe they didn’t think of nifty little ways to grab your cash the way Amazon does. Shit, Amazon thinks of new ways to get your money all the time. You can get a little button to stick in your kitchen and push it when you’re out of toilet paper, chips, insert household staple here and they will put it on your tab and send it to you. You can get Alexa and say, “Hey Alexa order me a can of East Peruvian Water Buffalo Farts” and she’ll order it for you. Maybe it was that. Maybe Sears just didn’t think of enough ways to be cool.
I know Blockbuster could have gotten into the streaming game earlier and could still be around in an online form today. Borders could have embraced e-books earlier and still be in the fight today.
So, let’s apply this to you (because I never apply good lessons to me, I just continue to do the same dumb things and let them blow up in my face over and over again and never learn anything like Wile E. Coyote.)
What is something that you could begin doing today that will be hard, will require hard work and sacrifice, will unlikely yield results in the short term, but in 5 years, you’ll be glad you did it?
I bet the people in charge of Sears wish that 5 years ago, they might have made their website cooler. Maybe they might have gotten more exclusive product deals available only on their site. Maybe they could have come up with a little robot that sits on your desk and speaks in a British accent, like your robot butler who says, “Pip, pip, cheerio, you want me to order you some more raisin bran, fuck face?” I don’t know. All I know is they didn’t do it, and now much like in that film, There Will Be Blood, Bezos is drinking Sears’ milkshake. “I drink your milkshake! I drink it up!!”
Back to the point. Maybe you’re a fat fuck. Maybe in five years you’d like to be a skinny fuck so you can run, jump, hop, skip, do fun activities and if you’re looking good you might just score yourself some bomb ass pussy (or ladies, you might acquire some bomb ass peen.)
Maybe you’re having financial woes. Maybe if you start a plan of cutting spending and perhaps get a little side gig or a part time job, you’ll get those debts tackled in five years.
Shit. Take some piano lessons today and maybe you’ll be tickling the ivories in a concert hall in five years.
Hell, I spent the last two years writing a book about an alligator that eats people on the toilet. I hope to have it self-published next year. When I’m swimming in mad cash and bomb ass pussy thanks to all the fame and fortune I get when this book about a toilet gator goes gangbusters, I’ll be glad I put the time in on this fine book. I’ll be laughing at the other me in the alternate time line who will be a fucking loser because instead of writing a book about a toilet gator he did some weak ass shit like working extra hard on his cardio or volunteering to read to impoverished blind children or building hospitals in Ecuador or some shit.
Anyway, 3.5 readers. The takeaway? Right now, I know there is something you have wanted to happen for a long time. You never did it, but you know in your heart if you put the work in, you’ll have it in five years. Do you want to be like Sears? Do you want to be the hollow shell, the desolate remains of a once thriving business that was the brain child of a wise 1800’s business tycoon? Or, do you want to be like Supreme Overlord Bezos, violating the spent carcass of yet another fallen, wasted competitor over and over again?
If you don’t identify what you want and start acting on it today, then I guarantee you in five years, someone else will be getting it. You’ll still be fat and some other skinny person will be partying with the bomb ass pussy or peen, whatever your preference. Someone else will be playing the piano you were going to play. Someone else will be enjoying a debt free life while you’ll be giving handjobs in bus station bathrooms just to pay off the minimum payment on your credit cards. (You’ll be giving handjobs forever at that rate!)
The next five years will go by fast…in the blink of an eye. You can drink some other schmuck’s milkshake, or you can get yours drunk up. What’s it going to be?
(Note. Let’s all return to this post in five years and trade notes on how this all worked out.)
ADDITIONAL NOTE: It dawns on me that not all 3.5 of you have seen There Will Be Blood and I don’t advise it, because once you see a man get beaten to death with a bowling pin by a man enjoying a brownie, you can’t unsee that shit. Long story short, “I drink your milkshake!” comes from this scene where Daniel Day Lewis plays an oil baron who is bragging to a preacher about how he screwed him over in an oil deal.
So, to really motivate yourself, you need to a) picture what you want and then b) work on getting it for fear that in five years, if you don’t get what you want, Daniel Day Lewis will get what you wanted because he worked for it harder and he will ridicule you by laughing at you, telling you he got what you wanted because you’re a weak, pathetic loser and he was really strong and cunning and then he will beat the shit out of you with a bowling pin and eat a brownie.
If that doesn’t make you work hard on your goals then I don’t know what will.
EDITORIAL NOTE: I’ll just leave this here, for no particular reason.
And so, gentlemanly country lawyer Atticus Finch did call his client, Tom Robinson, into his law office. Tom Robinson, a black man, had been falsely accused of rape and since it was the Jim Crow south, no lawyer other than Atticus was willing to help the poor man.
“I swear I didn’t rape that woman, Atticus,” Tom said. “I swear, I didn’t. Do you think you’ll be able to save me at trial?”
“Well,” Atticus said as he sipped a mint julep. “I’m just a simple country lawyer who likes to sit on his rocking chair and enjoy a nice cool breeze on a summer’s evening, but I say, I do declare that whether we should save you is not the proper consideration but rather, the appropriate issue is should we save you?”
“Should we save me?” Tom asked. “But sir, I have been falsely accused!”
“Sir!” Atticus said. “Lower your voice! I shall not have such triggering hate speech in my office.”
“What?” Tom asked.
“You see, Tom,” Atticus said. “It doesn’t matter if you were falsely accused or not because all accusers have the right to be instantly and automatically believed. Why, if you don’t believe an accusation without further question or inquiry, then you are not just insulting the individual accuser in this case but anyone and everyone who has ever dared to stand up and accuse someone of anything.
“But Mr. Finch,” Tom said. “I’m not trying to tarnish the reputation of anyone who has ever made an accusation. I realize that for the world to keep turning that people need to be able to stand up and say when something bad happened. I’m just saying that in this case, when my accuser makes a false accusation, I need you to present my case and prove the truth. I didn’t do it, sir. I’m innocent and that fact must be presented to the jury.”
Atticus brushed a piece of lint off his clean, white suit. “Sir, I say, I do declare I’m sorry but I just can’t go on with this hateful discussion. All accusers are to be believed, sir and frankly, whether or not you are guilty or innocent is immaterial. If you do not skip this trial and skip straight to hanging yourself then your accuser’s feelings, as well as the feelings as anyone who has ever made an accusation against anyone since the beginning of all time will be hurt and we can’t have that, so please, go hang yourself now.”
Tom stood up. “Sir, if I may be so bold, if you’re not going to defend me against an accusation then why are you here?”
“Why, I do declare I’m just here to sip mint juleps and look good in this white suit,” Atticus said. “Good day, sir. Please go see the proprietor of our local mercantile and acquire a length of rope. I’ll see to it that your estate will handle the bill just as soon as you hang yourself promptly.”
Tom shook Atticus’ hand. “Very well, sir. You make a fine point. I don’t want accusers to feel bad and even if the accusation against me is false, my life must be over now because if it isn’t then people with true accusations will feel bad and true accusers just won’t be intelligent enough to be able to figure out that in this particular case, the accusation was false. I will go hang myself posthaste.”
“Glad to hear it,” Atticus said. “Enjoy your hanging, Tom.”
Tom left the room. Atticus’ young daughter, Scout, had been playing with a doll in a corner of the room the entire time.
“Daddy?” Scout said.
“Yes, dear?” Atticus replied.
“The world sure has gotten fucked up, ain’t it, Daddy?” Scout asked.
BQB: Hello, welcome to the BQB Network’s hurricane news coverage. First, because everyone at home is too dumb to imagine what heavy winds and rain look like, here’s some asshole reporter we lashed to a post in the middle of the storm. Asshole reporter, are you there?
ASSHOLE REPORTER LASHED TO A POST: I’m here, BQB! Boy, this hurricane sure does suck big hairy donkey balls! As you can see, the water is rising, rising, rising but I’m at the top of this post so I should be fine for awhile and…aw shit, the water’s at my waist, isn’t it?
BQB: You’ll be fine, Asshole Reporter. Moving on, here’s an interview with Some Dipshit Who Didn’t Listen to the Evacuation Order.
SOME DIPSHIT WHO DIDN’T LISTEN TO THE EVACUATION ORDER: Boy howdy, them government boys told me I got to leave but I said, no sirree, bob. I am staying put in this house because my great-grandpappy built this house with his bare hands and also I will be damned if I will allow looters to abscond with my precious collection of potato chips that bear a striking resemblance to Harry S. Truman. But I do thank the 50 emergency rescue team members who risked their lives to save me once the water got so high that I had to tap dance on top of my roof with my dog under my arm.
BQB: And here’s some Bubba who, well, we’re not making fun of him. I mean, it sounds like we are but he’s cool so we won’t.
BUBBA: My name is Bubba Bosephus Jones and I am from Kentucky and I done come here on my own accord so I could assist authorities in saving folks with my own rowboat and I done already saved 78 old ladies, 4 cats, 3 dogs and 1 hamster.
BQB: It’s like, I want to make fun of you, because the idea of volunteering to go to help people in a disaster is silly to me, but then when I say it out loud, I realize that you’re the good person and I’m the asshole. Anyway, let’s talk a Democrat to see the political fall out of the storm.
DEMOCRAT: Trump is a demon warlock who causes hurricanes!
BQB: And the president had this to say.
TRUMP: I will knock out the hurricane with my own penis. That’s right, people. My dong is so huge that it can knock out bad weather, believe me. The fake news media will tell you that it can’t but it totally can, believe me.
Bookshelf Battle 