Godforsaken Bastards and Why They Suck Ass

The Opening: A Season in the Shade

We have entered the era of the Godforsaken Bastard. It is a time defined not by leadership, but by the violent curation of chaos. A period where the traditional guardrails of decency haven't just been ignored, they’ve been sold for scrap. This is the portrait of a collective that thrives on the friction of a world in collapse, a rogue’s gallery of the high-born and the low-lived who have mistaken their cruelty for courage and their greed for a mandate. They move through our culture like a virus in a designer suit, insulated by billions and emboldened by a mob that has been taught to love the sound of breaking glass. This zine is the shadow to the saints; it is a jagged, unwashed look at the architects of our current misery, the enforcers of our fear, and the loud-mouthed parasites who provide the soundtrack to the demolition of the common good. Welcome to the wreckage.

The Unwilling Statistic - OR - Fuck That!

I’ve got a list of diagnoses a mile long, including diabetes, afib, and sleep apnea; however, it’s the COPD (which is just a pretty way of saying emphysema) that’s trying to put a timestamp on my life. They say three to five years. That’s the math. The worst part of that math is knowing I wrote the equation myself. Forty-five years of heavy smoking has caught up to me, and now my lungs are paying the debt I racked up. I have nobody to blame but the person in the mirror.

But here’s the thing: I’m not willing to die this young. I’m not done yet. Fuck that!

No, Jesse Welles is NOT pro-Charlie fucking Kirk

Yes, Jesse Welles wrote a song about the killing of Charlie Kirk. NO, it was NOT a pro-gung ho-Charlie is a martyr song.

It was a song about gun violence and freedom of speech...

Tolkein's Vogon Poetry

I've been trying to read Fellowship of the Ring again.

I read the series 35 years ago, and it was like slogging through Boston after the great molasses flood. Just agonizing.

Tolkein couldn't write poetry if a gun was held to his head and he was under threat of death to write a decent poem. And every chapter has one, two, or more of his awful fucking Vogon poetry.

I'll be just getting into the rhythm of the story when fucking JRR decides it's time to pull out his Prostetinic Vogon Jeltz mask and begin:

When I was seven, my family put on an Easter Egg hunt for all the kids on our street. Most of them were 10 and up. My sister and I didn't get baskets that year, because we were having the hunt instead.

I didn't find a single thing until our housemate showed me where he had hidden one hard boiled egg. I remember feeling miserable and watching all the other kids crowing about their loot. I spent most of the afternoon crying in my room. And my Easter consisted of a hard boiled egg, which I didn't even like back then.

I never ever EVER put on a neighborhood hunt for my kids because I'll be damned if one of my kids would ever feel the way I felt that day. 

We did baskets and inside the house egg hunts, just for our kids, and each kid got one room to search, so they would each get a fair share.

The Weight of Forty Years

Forty plus years ago, I spent one spring and summer where I had no job and couldn't find one. I was stripping one night a week and paid $25 for that, plus any tips customers stuffed in my g-string, which was usually about $10-15 a night. So my income was no more than $40 a week. I had to eat, and I needed cigarettes, which I considered a priority.

During that time, I ate nothing but one  $1 hot dog a day, loaded down with ketchup, mustard, relish, onion, and kraut, because toppings were free. I ended up losing over 90 pounds. I was emaciated, I was weak, and jesus FUCK was I hungry.

When I finally got a job, working in a diner/ice cream parlor, with a 50% food discount, I ate everything in sight. I worked 7-2, and would eat breakfast during my 15 minute break, lunch during my half hour, and then another meal after work.

This was all fried food, burgers, fish and chips, fries, chicken fingers, and oh, yeah, frappes and sundaes. Fully half my paycheck was deducted to pay for all this, and I was bringing home $100 or so a week, including tips.

I gained back everything I'd lost. And the weight kept coming. I got bigger and bigger as my eating got out of control.

Bigger and bigger and bigger over the course of forty years. It affected my health, my mobility, my self-esteem, my mental state. Don't let anyone tell you "healthy at any size", because that weight inevitably catches up with you and overwhelms your physical state.

I finally topped out last year at 370 pounds. At that point, I knew shit had to change. I went to my doctor and got on Ozempic.

Since I've been on the full dose, I have lost more than 40 pounds. My goal is to get to at least as low as 250. I think at 250 I'll be able to walk to the damn bathroom again, at least.

I am addressing my very complex and fucked up food issues with my therapist, because it is time. Time to take control and time to put the damn fork down.

Time to reclaim my life.

The Bustiers and Bullshit of the Far Right

The "Freedom for Me, but Not for Thee" crowd is at it again, and the irony is thick enough to choke a horse. Conservative Americans love to wrap themselves in the flag and scream about liberty from the rooftops, but that liberty apparently comes with a "Members Only" sign.

They want the freedom to stockpile enough firepower to arm a small nation, the freedom to vote by mail while simultaneously trying to dismantle the post office for everyone else, and the freedom to indulge in whatever private kinks they fancy behind closed doors. We see the hypocrisy in real-time: a certain president casts his own ballot from the comfort of a gold-plated mailbox while he and his followers scream that mail-in voting is a scam.

If Bryon Noem wants to spend his weekends in a bustier and heels, that’s between him, his mirror, and POSSIBLY his wife, though an argument could be made that it's only her business if he decides that's okay.

The Myth of the Neutral Platform

In her own hateful words

There is a common misconception that providing a stage for extremist viewpoints is an act of "objective journalism" or "free speech advocacy." However, when you give a KKK leader, a Nazi, or a bigot a microphone, you aren't just observing them; you are participating in their expansion.

Fuck YOU, David Gerrold

Let me make this infinitely clear.

I have three kids, Lis, Ian, and Ava. They are my pride and my joy. I support them in their identities, their lives, their very beings.

Two of my kids are transgender. I am their number one ally. I will go to the mats against anybody who wants to tell me my kids are mentally ill for that, or that they are the gender that they were assigned at birth, or that they should be forced to use a room full of urinals instead of toilets, or any person who SUPPORTS somebody with those fucking ideas in their head (David Gerrold, I am looking at YOU, motherfucker!)

Ink, Strings, and Serenity OR Happy Little Clouds

There is a specific kind of silence that happens the moment I cap my pen after finishing a Zentangle. My hand is usually a bit cramped from the precision of the patterns, but my mind is finally quiet. To keep that peace from evaporating, I reach for my ukulele. The transition from the visual rhythm of ink on paper to the literal vibration of strings against my fingertips is where I find my center.

It’s a world of tiny, deliberate wonders. One hour I’m watching a Shrinky Dink curl and toughen under the heat, and the next I’m assembling an angel keychain, bead by bead. These aren't just crafts; they are anchors. In a world that feels increasingly loud and disposable, these small acts of creation are how I claim my space.

Marshmallow Peeps Are Proof That God Has Forsaken Us

I don't know about you, but when I look at a Marshmallow Peep I don’t see a treat; I see a chemical glow that has no business existing in nature. It’s a neon warning sign in the shape of a bird. Then comes that first bite - that weird, gritty mouthfeel where the sugar crystals scrape against your teeth like fine-grit sandpaper, followed immediately by the soul-crushing squish of a marshmallow that feels less like food and more like a damp, sugary tire.

Beyond the Lip Service

 

I remember the first time I saw Boy George. It was 1981 or 82, I honestly forget which. I was in a bar with my guy, Scott, having a beer, and they had MTV on. Do You Really Wanna Hurt Me came on, and I saw Boy George and my jaw hit the fucking floor and I started laughing in hysterics.

I was utterly astounded that this queer looking guy had the sheer guts to be on TV dressed like a woman. I was amazed that MTV allowed it on their programming. I was too caught up in staring at him and being half amazed, half grossed out, to notice that that motherfucker could SING. I think back now to how I felt, how I was kind of horrified and freaked out, and I think...

Jumping the Shark: The Fonz’s Funeral and Henry Winkler’s Last Laugh

It's a classic case of a show becoming a victim of its own success. What started as a grounded, nostalgic look at 1950s Milwaukee - centered on the Cunningham family - eventually morphed into the "The Fonzie Show," and that’s where the wheels started to come off.

The Surrenderist Guide to Optimized Existing

 

Lets be honest, the rise and grind culture is exhausting, and most life hacks are designed for people who actually have goals. If I see one more suggestion about waking up at 4 AM to drink goddam lemon water and manifest productivity, I'm going to fucking scream into a pillow until I pass out for another six hours. We do not need to optimize our workflow or shred for summer; we need strategies for when the mere act of perceiving reality feels like a full time job with no benefits. This isn't about winning at life - it's about negotiating a peaceful surrender with the pile of mail on the counter.

The Script Never Changes: War Crimes in the Middle East

The script hasn't changed; only the resolution of the news footage has. We're still watching the same gray dust settle over the same shattered concrete, wondering how strategic interests always seem to require the calculated dismantling of a third grade classroom.

It is the ultimate, horrific groundhog day. We’re told these wars are necessary, but the only measurable output is a growing tally of war crimes and a generation of girls whose only education is learning the difference between the whistle of an incoming shell and the roar of a jet. There is no legal or moral framework that justifies turning a school into a gravesite, regardless of the acronyms used to defend it. It's not a "conflict", it's a fucking WAR! It's a repetitive, illegal slaughter that proves we’ve learned absolutely nothing.

“If This Goes On—”: A Side-by-Side Look at Heinlein’s Warning and the United States Today

I've been working steadily on this article since mid-January. It has been harrowing, absolutely frightening, and just a little bit too close to reality these days for me..

I just reread Robert Heinlein’s “If This Goes On—” for the umpteenth time, and I can’t stop thinking about how quiet it is. Not the writing itself, but the way the collapse happens. No sirens. No big moment where everyone agrees something has gone wrong. Just a series of choices that all seem defensible at the time. That’s what got under my skin.

Power Without Oversight Is Not Law Enforcement

In a constitutional system, enforcement authority is granted with an explicit condition: it must be constrained, reviewable, and accountable. When any agency operates beyond meaningful oversight, power ceases to be lawful in practice even if it remains lawful in name.

This concern is not theoretical. Repeated audits, inspections, and independent reviews have documented systemic failures in immigration enforcement agencies to meet basic standards of transparency, accountability, and humane treatment. These findings come not from advocacy alone, but from inspectors general, federal courts, and oversight bodies tasked with evaluating compliance with the law.

When Democracy Requires More Than Words

Democracy doesn't collapse in a single moment. It erodes gradually, through delay, complacency, and the comforting illusion that someone else will intervene before lasting damage is done. By the time the threat feels undeniable, the tools meant to stop it are often weakened or already gone.

This is the danger of treating civic engagement as symbolic rather than functional. Voting, representation, and institutional balance are not gestures of identity or expressions of mood. They are mechanisms. When those mechanisms fail to operate as designed, democratic systems lose their ability to correct abuse, enforce accountability, and restrain the concentration of power.

The Holy Trinity: Why I Keep Buying These Same Three Records

 

Most six-year-olds in 1971 were vibrating to "The Wheels on the Bus" or whatever upbeat nonsense was playing on the radio, but not me. No, I was already deep in the trenches of acoustic melancholy. I was sitting there in my kindergarten class, probably staring at a pile of blocks, while the haunting melodies of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, the earthy warmth of Carole King’s Tapestry, and the gentle drawl of James Taylor’s Sweet Baby James played on a loop in my head. 

I’ve owned these albums on vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, and every digital format known to man; at this point, the only thing missing is a reel-to-reel copy, and frankly, my wallet is grateful for that one omission. 

And now, the albums.

41 Pounds of Irony (And Zero Regrets)

I’ve been dropping weight since November. Just grinding it out, watching the scale tick down from 374. I hit 333 and felt like I was finally getting a handle on my own skin.

Then, a few weeks ago, the doctors decided to drop the other shoe: COPD. They handed me a three to five year sentence like it was a piece of junk mail.

Talk about a cosmic joke. I quit smoking two years ago, and let me tell you, that was harder than fuck. If I’d gotten this diagnosis back then, I probably would’ve gone straight out and bought another pack just to spite the world. But I didn't. I stuck it out because I like not stinking of smoke, and I like not having one hand permanently occupied by a cigarette. Most of all, I like not having to haul my ass outside 40 to 60 times a day just to feed the beast.

I spent two years reclaiming my time and four months shedding 41 pounds of gravity, just to find out my lungs are trying to quit the team anyway.