Clearly, a squirrel jumped from the fence, down into the snow here. There can be no doubt. You see the impact crater in the snow of a squirrel, tail imprinted into the white powder and all, with no footprints leading to it. This crazy little rodent belly-flopped down onto that snow from the fence behind him. There’s no other way to get that impressive front arm/back-of-body/tail splay like that just showing up right there.
Clearly something like this.
Then he ran down toward the porch, got maybe a little discouraged by the rough snow pile caused by our shoveling, made an about face and hopped his way back southeast a few strides, before noticing the tree branch in our brush pile. He considered this maneuver only for a second, then veered to his left, to approach it at an optimal angle…
Like Family Circus only funny.
The squirrel, realizing that dragging your hairy belly across 7 inch deep snow sucks, decided to go airborne again, and to ascend the tree branch back up to the fence. Gotta get up into the sky, use that third dimension, gotta have a higher vantage point to navigate this cruel February. The tracks lead to the branch, and then disappear.
Well thanks for stopping in, little squirrel man. Next time you’re in my neck of the woods, just ring the doorbell and we’ll have some beers and pizza man. We can listen to some squirrel music, which I can only assume is insane. We can crack a couple of acorns open and reminisce about the old times. I know all of our cats and our dog will try to kill you but I can just yell at them. Stop in man, it’ll be chill.
Thanks for being a Beard Bite Man reader. I really appreciate you. I’d put my hand on your shoulder and say “Yeah, thanks, brother.” Or whatever. I’d like to take you on a tour of BBMHQ (Beard Bite Man Headquarters) now, and show you the backrooms of all this stuff. Sometimes, I will write something and it doesn’t make the cut. It happens. I get the germ of an idea and then the antibiotics of common sense squelch that fuckin’ thing. But I haven’t written a new thing in a few months, so I’ll dredge up this old crap and submit it. Why not? Please give me money. You can tell I’m a real artist because I am constantly begging for money.
SPOKEN WORD
The casino on the reservation is a house of lascivious and licentious mirth and whimsy of an un-Christian sort Spades and hearts foretell Your body going underground with a shovel and you walk into a club wearing diamonds
wishing for something anything everything it all
But the house only brings booze and bad odds A man can thirst and drink and only end up more dried out as he tries to call “hit me” his lips purse into puffs of talc and it clouds to obscure everything it all
The roman soldier Vaginus flopped on the riverbed, turned in his guilt wishing that river would wash him wayward
he hoped it would all be over
but the mollusks and clams and other bivalves rested against his pale skin as he awoke
clearly oyster season
i’d love to have another chance he said i’d really like to wet my whistle back there at The casino on the reservation
MEDIA THAT MISSED ME
We’re living in an era that the media has called “Peak TV”. A sort of golden age, where there are seemingly limitless options of streaming services and each one is competing to be the head honcho. And movies, well, honestly, movies have seen better days.
But there’s myriad choices for streaming content for you to put on when you get home from work, as you decompress on the couch and fart and relax.
Almost too much. So much that a lot of it just goes right on past your awareness. I’m not going to sit down and start watching an 8 season TV show just because somebody said it starts getting kinda good in season 4. Are you crazy?
So this column is about that. I’m going to bring up various TV series and movies that I have heard about, but have not consumed. Consumed. Christ. I mean viewed. Imbibed. Drank, whatever.
Because of general cultural osmosis, because of the connecting viscera that is the internet, I probably have a baseline knowledge of most of these intellectual properties. So I will make an educated guess about the plot, tone, and general vibe of the thing. If you are a fan of one of the things listed below, and you want to give me some feedback on my guess, please send a telegram to Beard Bite Man Headquarters, care of Beard Bite Man, in Two Harbors, Minnesota.
Shrinking, Apple TV 2023
Jake Harding (Harrison Ford) is your everyday man, more or less enjoying retirement. He was a psychologist in his working days, but he’s glad to have moved on. He can tend to his lawn and watch his re-runs of Cheers. His world is turned on it’s ear when he discovers he can read mind. That’s right. Not a typo. he can read mind, not minds. His daughter comes to Thanksgiving with her new beau, Jimper Flousette (Ryan Gossling). Jake can read Jimper’s mind, but only when his daughter is not close. Oh yeah, and Jimper is unfathomably wealthy; the heir to the Flousette Mayonnaise empire. He’s an earnest enough man, but he’s dumber than a dog. In an iconic scene, Jake says “You’ve got more dollars than sense!” and Jimper says “Haha, yeah.” Then ten minutes later, Jimper follows up “Actually, I have more cents than dollars, because there’s a hundred cents in every dollar, so I have way more cents.” Jake tries to mold Jimper into his perfect son-in-law, but he has to take him away from his daughter, so his mind-reading will work. This leads to fishing trips, poker games, and other wacky things while he secretly hates the guy. He always can tell that Jimper truly loves his daughter though. Cause he’s psychic for him.
BLOOD
wait like lightning mother of gods with blood in her teeth the silence cannot hope to reach what is coming
it will not hold the animal ignominy pause before the thunder clenched teeth seeping blood this thing will end it all
it is the new universe it is blue
PAPAL CONCLAVE
THE PAPAL CONCLAVE OF 2324
Cardinal Khloe Uno shifted uncomfortably in her chair. It was probably one of the last wooden chairs in the world. The Vatican had kept a stash of them, like they stashed all kinds of antiquities. Mostly useless but somehow priceless relics. Fingerbones of saints, strips of cloth that an angel supposedly farted on, and now little wooden structures that survived the Beetle Plagues of the early 2200s. Frankly, it sucked. The chair was uncomfortable. She would have much preferred to be conferencing in from her home on Cathedral Station 434, her ass floating on her new I.O.Flo Suspension Grid. But if anyone clings to old traditions, it’s the Catholics. They were all ordered to come back to Earth, back to Vatican City, to sit in congress on these shitty wooden chairs to elect a new Pope.
Cardinal Catprince Dunkers, a man whose skin was somehow visibly flaking and still shining with oil, was droning on and on and on. He had the floor, and was pointing out how Cardinal Dreef McDougal was not fit to be the new pontiff because of his stance on Space Abortion. He much preferred Cardinal Riffik Qibbin for the post. Riffik had never wavered in his convictions, and had shown nothing but compassion for the Afflicted.
Khloe Uno was about sick and tired of hearing about the Afflicted. You made you own bed with those brain implants, she thought.
Maybe she was just crabby because she had to sit on a solid chair. Maybe she was just wishing she hadn’t inherited her position in the church when her father died. Maybe she was just a bit hungry.
She had a pack of Skits in her robe pocket. Skits, of course, was the new name for what was once called “Skittles”. We all know that the suffix “-ttles” is now highly offensive because of all the horrible, horrible speciesist things that happened around it, but anyway. Khloe wondered if she could sneak a few Skits in this very solemn and serious Papal Convention without anyone noticing. Her F.U.K. interface gave her a 79% probability of being able to sneak a few of the candies without being found out. So she blinked twice to summon them from her pocket to her hand.
ALL GOLD PLANET
an all-gold planet don’t mean a dick in a divot if you can’t sell it to people
he said, rubbing his hands together
so you go out there and you tell the people they want it
clapped his hands, standing
they gotta have it!
CAMERA OBSCURA
Camera Obscura
The highway is a hundred yards away I hear the trucks through my cracked window the sound carries in the cold Interstate driving is good for thinking I could drive somewhere far away Let’s see how much gas I can afford
I could quit my job change my whole life Every morning i wake up and look in the mirror chapped lipped and bag eyed Sunshy mornings of dry heaves Downdraft
Each day my darling is a gift A white elephant I want to see into you I want empty roads and Your thoughts escaping my lips The sun may never come back Pellet rain bounces off the windshield as we hammer over the roads toward whatever destiny we make up
The window is cracked and the light from the outside upside down on my wall I have to get up to go to the bathroom to puke Oh darling we’re only happy every now and then because of brain chemicals the rest of the time it’s tough sledding time cannot be loved only earned I say as I kiss you on the forehead and we wait for the next chapter
“This sandwich will have three slices of chimkin, and three slices of roast beef,” I thought to myself. Yes, a combination sandwich. For the road. The long journey ahead. Each sandwich I prepare will have a slightly different combination of ingredients. Chimkin or roast beef as the meats. Cheddar or muenster for cheese. Mustard or mayonnaise for goop. All on wheat bread. I will not compromise on the bread. White is for babies. Wheat is the Adult Bread.
A tiny swirl of anxious and unctuous thoughts spiraled around my brain pan. Too shallow to ladle any sort of deeper meaning but deep enough to redden nerve endings and dendrites in the gulliver. I had taken long road trips before. To the west coast, twice. I flew on an airplane from Minneapolis to London. I took a boat from Florida to the Bahamas. Traversing the globe was not a new thing. I recently had a birthday. Turned 37. I didn’t think I was the type to settle into a routine, put on a pair of slippers and drink a hot cocoa and fear the wider world. So what was this little tingle of dread? Why did a finger of unknowing work it’s knotted knuckles into my brain’s bum? Was it because I was travelling with my girlfriend and future wife? I wasn’t the freewheelin’ Bob Deelan of my younger days? Was it a cultural memory of a Wisconsin boy travelling to the Confederacy, but without the fearless leadership of Sherman?
We were headed down there for a wedding, and for a vacation. One of my girl’s college friends was getting married to her longtime beau, and we were also going to explore another part of the country with our paid time off.
The next sandwich I made had six slices of roast beef and cheddar cheese and mayonnaise. “I feel like I’m forgetting something,” said my beautiful wife as we were about to disembark. “Probably nothing that we can’t go a couple days without or buy while we’re there,” I replied. She nodded. We left.
We rented a vehicle for the drive. A mighty steed, a great black beauty of a Jeep. We didn’t want the miles on our own vehicles. I sat in the drivers’ seat. My daily vehicle is 20 years behind in technology. This thing had a tablet affixed to the dash, and many buttons. I sat high-up, as though upon a horse. My mighty steed had very touchy brakes. Well, probably normal brakes. My car has a very different sensitivity. The giant black Jeep even had little lights in the side view mirrors to indicate someone was in your blind spot. We listened to podcasts as we departed Minnesota into Wisconsin. We had a paper bag of snacks (chips, trail mix) and a cooler full of snacks (sandwiches, beef sticks).
We drove through the familiar Northern Wisconsin wilderness. The pine unknowing. Unknown. However, because of our lifestyle of being long-distance lovers of nigh-unto two years, we were quite well-acquainted with this coniferous plantation stretch of US highway 53. The first several hours were routine.
Somewhere around Tomah, cop lights started flashing in our rearview.
“Is this fucking fascist pig, this fucking instrument of capital, this goddamned foot-soldier of the Shit Empire attempting to detain me?!” I asked aloud. At least, that’s what I felt in my heart. I actually asked my wife “Is he pulling me over, really?” I looked down at my speedometer and I was going 73 miles per hour. I rolled over to the side of the road, in a very cool way. I opened the windows and waited for the cop to address me.
“Hey,” he said, rosy-cheeked and probably 24 years old.
” Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
” Your tail lights aren’t on.”
“Oh, okay,” I replied.
I started fumbling around on the steering column of this rental. Jeri explained that his was a rental, and we didn’t know the workings of this machine yet. He was grinning and shining a flashlight around in our car. I eventually found the lights. He went to the back of our car to make sure our back lights were on. He smiled, cutely, and then told us we were free to go, but also he printed out a written warning for me. I could write a written warning for him for being a fucking buzzkill. But then as he was walking away, we made sure he confirmed our booty lights were on. You’d probably imagine my mood was all sorts of fouled-up by this encounter with the police. However, I was relieved. Because he didn’t arrest me for being Too Punk Rock. I didn’t have any warrants for being too much of a rebel.
And darling, I’d love to tell you that was the nadir of the journey. However Hurricane Helene was riding the Appalachian ridge and circumstance was about to bite my buttcheeks. I had eaten about 3 sandwiches by this point. They were pretty good. I think Jeri only ate one of the six sandwiches I made. The mustard was good. Hot in the way that horseradish is, not that jalapeno funk.
The night turned into day, and the rain was falling hard. I had been awake for a long while. We stopped at a sketchy gas station somewhere in the middle of Illinois. I wanted to get gas and smoke a cigarette. Some methed out weirdos appeared at the gas pump next to ours, and I waited for them to leave before going in to pay for my gas. Why? Because I was certain they would ask me for a cigarette, and then also try to sell me some heroin. That was the type of gas station we were at. This was a place where the hard liquor was behind locked cages and there were rolling papers in a display stand at the front counter. You understand.
The rain fell like Noah’s deluge. I drove on. Jeri and I listened to the audiobook of The Mothman Prophecies as the pancake of middle Illinois rumpled up into Appalachia. I only hydroplaned a couple of times for a couple of seconds in our big fat black Jeep.
As we rumbled on into the former confederacy, passing towns with names like Peach, Grampaw’s Pipe, and Black-People-Don’t-Deserve-It, we eventually found a slight clearing in the rainstorm. A six-lane highway met me, and some goddamned trucker’s blown tire sat in the middle of the road. I swung wide of the obstacle as best I could, but a coil of wire somehow found our tire, and we got a goddamned flat tire on our 2000 mile road trip.
The modern Jeep is smart enough to alert the driver “You are losing tire pressure,”. “Fuck,” said I. “Goddamnit,” intonated Jeri. Not good.
We were losing about 3 pounds of pressure every half mile. I calculated in my mind that we could probably make the next exit and ask Enterprise for help. Jeri wasn’t so sure. We managed to bomb our mangled Jeep into a Speedway parking lot and call the owning company. “Hewp,” we said. ” Some wires fucked up our whole thing,” It was again raining hurricane shit, there in that bullshit town. Were we going to make it? Well yes. Obviously yes. Obstacles tasted like candy to me at this point. “We’re gonna make it,”
We went to a new Enterprise location after a beer-bellied boy put a donut on our Jeep. Just to clarify, I know how to change a tire. I could’ve done it, given the proper tools. But we didn’t have a jack, or jack-shit in the back. I was fucking soaked at this point. I’d been outside in a lot of rain.
We went to a new Enterprise location and the guy there was like “We have a very small, tiny, little, itsy-bitsy car for you, if you want it,” Yeah. Whatever. I’m fine with it. And it was some gold-colored little Mazda thing. It was incredibly small.
“Oh, Jeri!” I ejaculated, and then I exclaimed, ” It’s low to the ground, a quick little fucker, like my everyday vehicle, except not shitty.” Jeri was not in love with how small it was. But it still fitted all of our shit.
We got to the wedding venue, and it was really nice. I had been hallucinating just a little bit on the long drive, the red warning lights on radio towers far in the distance turned into angry eyes, as the divots in the landscape were jagged tooth mouths, etc., but eventually we made the scene in Tennessee. The couple that was marrying were cute and sweet like a fine peach cobbler. The husband ranted an 8 page typed speech that he swore he pared down from 17, and the wife had a speech explaining her vows as well. But it was cute, you could tell they were in love and destined for each other for a long while. The venue was a little valley in a wooded area you could only get to by gravel roads.
I ate some fried chimkin and Jeri had the brisket. It was a dry wedding reception, which explains why 90% of the crowd had left by 9 PM.
The next day arrived on schedule, and in our little yellow dart of a car, we went to Rock City, Tennessee. Or no, I think it was Georgia. It straddles the border.
We tried the regular road to the place, as described by our GPS. However, what with the hurricane and all, a giant tree was splayed across the road, making it impassable. “Jeri,” said I, “Try a different typing in that machine. Let’s go up north of here and then swoop back down,” Jeri held her lip in consternation. “Fuck this tree,” she seemed to say, “And it’s road-blocking shit.”
We made it to Rock City within an hour, and in doing so had bombed around little weird streets the likes of which I have never encountered in a proper city. A big ass tree was laying across the road and they just chainsawed it in half and spraypainted orange on either end, like “yeah, whatever.” “Don’t hit this tree limb, we are not paid enough to move it off the road.” The road names were seriously things like “Princess Blvd.” and “Fairy Wy.”
We got to Rock City before anybody else. We were the only people in this place. It was foggy, a mist obscured everything. It was an interesting mixture of geographical oddity and curated camp. The landscape was great slabs of stone and twisting trees. We walked down into moss-hewn caverns. Hidden speakers played sparse acoustic guitar music. I was walking into a dream. Each earthen step lead to more grey crevasses, and we walked up and down the trails to find lichen and swooping trees over the trails. Blinking red lanterns hung in places just out of sight. I felt the mystery of the world again like when I was a child. Something wonderful and profound was happening. I crossed a hanging rope bridge. I stood at the edge of cliffs. I squeezed my body between great walls of grey stone and all the while I was looking back into the beautiful blue eyes of my wife.
Then there was some trippy weird fairy tale underground hell world
Don’t want to talk about that much
The next day was beautiful as well,
Makes sense to have Giraffes as the first animals you see in a zoo. They will necessarily look down their nose at you. Look a bit like they are judging you. They are telling you they are not amused. You’re there to see them, they’re not there to impress you.
I also had beef with an exotic bird, and felt a humanoid connection with a gibbon. We ogled their many tortoises and turtles and terrapins and Teenage Mutants. It was a good time.
We drove back home, many hours. A thousand miles in one crack. I’m not afraid of it. I’ve found I can drive a long time if I’ve got the right circumstances. I need to break about every three hours for a smoke and to stretch my legs. I need a really great person in the passenger seat. I had the best co-pilot on this odyssey. I’m lucky to know her. I’m lucky in a lot of ways.
“Do not condescend to me, Nickelodeon,” I sneer, As I chew my flouride tablet over my bowl of cinnamon toast crunch “The other kids think this fucking goop is funny, they get their kicks from it,” I like the Adventures of Pete and Pete I like the more adult fare
I’m 33 years old and I accidentally shit my pants while I’m smoking my morning cigarette. “Damn,” I think. “Went a good long time without shitting my pants. No way will that record be broken. Went about 27 years.” Thought it was a fart, 100%. Had no doubts. Then it happened.
Am I never going to shit my pants again before the age of 60? No chance. That was it. That was the non-pants-shitting record.
Back in the 90s, I sat outside, waiting for the bus to pick me up. The beautiful orange and yellow and brown leaves were frosted in little crystals. A backpack full of paper hunched my shoulders. Burnstad’s bags served as bookcovers for my schoolbooks. What was life saying back to me? I was subject to so much, very little choice. If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t.
If I could turn back time, I wouldn’t, except to throw some punches.
I’m 50 years old or however old I am now. I can see that I have wrinkles, and they take the shape of whatever expressions you’ve repeated. Not sure what mine are. Looks a bit like confusion, a little like concentration. Gimme something. I’ll purse my lips to taste it. I’ll suck down that Nickelodeon goop.
Something like fear keeps kettling up around my periphery, but I don’t know if that’s quite the word. Could be more like awareness, something. I think I’ve moved beyond breakfast cereals, mostly. The interstitials of Nickelodeon are laregely forgotten, but they just change shape in the firbous web that is my subconciousness. We are more input and output machines than we’d like to admit.
Olmec was the big foam head on the legends of the hidden temple. I do not yearn for those days. They were not better. I remember them. There is a difference. Throw a punch and shit your pants. It’s all good here in the present. You’re accountable to yourself.
The King of Football belched loudly. His wet throat-rattle echoed throughout the banquet hall. It bounced into the dimly lit corners of stone, across the heavy oaken tables arrayed in rows before him. His mouth fart was so mighty, some swear it flickered the torches hanging from the pillars.
He slouched slightly in his throne. All these fucking people here. The Duke of Third Down. The Count of Safeties and Onside Kicks. Even the insufferable Taunting Penalty Princess was there. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, he remembered the aphorism. The crown was also made of pigskin and kicking tees, so it was quite uncomfortable.
The King of Football knew he must address these rubes. These gawping simpletons. He farted now, but it was a silent fart. He roused slightly. His robes were made of mink, fox, and beaver pelt. All of the muskiest animals. He smelled royal. His beard was a nightmare of red wine and chicken. That bastard Pope’s gonna have my balls in a vise before the year’s up, he thought. The money’s dried up. I was a goddamn fool for converting all of our gold reserves into cryptocurrency. And in this instance, cryptocurrency was bits of rock that were chipped off of crypts from graveyards, because they are in Medieval times, you see. The Pope lent him tons of money, and the King of Football had no way to pay it back. He picked a chunk of chicken out of his beard and put it into his mouth. Fuck it, he thought. I can kick the Pope’s ass. It’ll be okay.
He stood now, not sure what to say, but the charge of a royal is leadership. “Good evening!” he boomed. His voice was deep and loud and badass. That’s probably why he was king to begin with. “Friends, countrymen, referees,”
“Tonight, we celebrate the Kingdom of Football. This feast comes but once a year, and it is always my favorite day of the year!” The crowd’s response was somewhat muted. The Prince of Third Down Bootleg Play Action Passes was particularly nonplussed, shaking his head in disapproval. They all knew the Pope would have his gentleman’s apricots between two pressboards before long. This Pope was not forgiving.
Then a mandolin chord cut through the air. It shredded the dull heat of human bodies, ringing crisp and true. More mandolin notes began filling the air, a sort of contemplative, walking the scales sequence of notes. Up through the middle aisle of tables walked Grimgoop, the Jester. He plucked the mandolin as he walked, the music filling the hall. The King of Football stood agape, his mouth slackened and ringed by chicken and red wine, remember.
“Grimgoop, I can’t believe it,” the King of Football mustered, all the color draining from his face.
The mandolin plucking touched each note of music in different places as the jester paced steadily toward the throne. “My liege,” Grimgoop said, his voice sounding like a chorus of men, “I’ve come to tell you the future.”
The King of Football collapsed back into his throne. He drew his many-ringed hand to his forehead, took a breath. “I saw that donkey kick you in the head. You died. We painted dicks on your forehead before we threw you in the swamp. How are you back?”
Grimgoop smiled rictus, a revenant trick. “Jester’s privilege,” he answered. “This is what will happen this football year:”
NFC
EAST
Dallas Star (3) Dallas is usually good in the regular season, but remember when the Packers royally fucked them in the playoffs last year? I ‘member. It was cool. Dak Prescott is in his last year under contract, and they’ll probably move on from him after this season. What a clown show, a boner. He’ll lead another team to the playoffs over and over again. Zeke Elliot is back in town, just to showcase the ravages of time. Washington Warriors Washington has a hotshot new rookie quarterback, a cool running quarterback drafted at #2 overall. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Jayden Daniels will probably do well and then die on the field. Their defense might actually live up to their pedigree this year though, given the coaching change. Philly Cheesesteaks I’m baffled by how many NFL media heads think Philly is going to be good this year. Did you watch them at all in the second half of last season? They were absolute pig shit. A good draft doesn’t turn around a franchise in one year. Maybe they’ll be good when Kopmala Harris is our president. I dunno. New York Blue Pork The only franchise that picks their QB based on how much of a Nice Boy they are. Eli Manning, Daniel Jones, nobody seems to give a shit that they are horrible at the sport.
NORTH
Green Bay Packers (2) Jordan Love is a golden god, a beautiful man. He is the Chosen One. The wide receiver room is overflowing with talent. We got Josh Jacobs, a runningback who won the rushing crown 2 years ago. The defense has athletic freaks everywhere, and the new defensive coordinator loves an attacking defense. Wake up and smell the roses babe. The Pack is back. Motor City Madmen (5) Sam LaPorta has a bad teenage mustache and I think it’s because he’s trying to emulate his new father figure, Head Coach Dan Quinn, and that’s just adorable. Grizzlies Bears fans continually gaslight themselves into thinking their team is good, now, finally. I don’t understand it. They went through it with Cutler, Trubisky, Fields, and now Caleb Williams. They try to do Magick, and speak into existence a good football team. It doesn’t work if your team fucking sucks. Sorry. The Bears Still Suck. Minneapolis Norsemen Injuries have already gullywumptered this team. However, their pass rush should be greatly improved. They got Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard, and drafted Dallas Turner. My wife is a Vikings fan, and I will tell her just to close her eyes when they are on offense. But they did steal Aaron Jones from us. Bastards.
SOUTH
Barbara Streisand (4) The Barbara Streisand have tons of talent. They have been drafting in the top 10 for the last like, dozen years and have always used that pick on an offensive player. You’d think it’d eventually pay off. You’d think. But then again, you’d think a retarded reality TV show host with no soul could never somehow could win the Presidency, so who knows what could happen. Tampon Gay Fuckin’ Queers (6) Baker Mayfield, assuredly bullied by clever bullies, probably called Gayker Gayfield, is a better QB than people think. The defense still invests in fast, rangy LBs, which is something that wins games. N’Owleans Po’Boys One of these years, I am going to talk about how N’Owleans finally bit the bullet and ate all of their contract money that they kicked out to future years. But today is not that day. Carolina Vagina Carolina is a victim of a billionaire owner, as are most NFL teams, but this dummy thinks he knows about football. He’s used to walking into a room and everybody acting like he’s the smartest guy in the room. Hey, you’re rich, you must know a lot about everything! Nah, this is proof that capitalism is a failed system. Carolina might win like 3 games this year, and that’s optimistic!
WEST
San Fransisco Illicit Disco (1) San Fransisco is a good team. I won’t deny that. I do think their fans are like, I dunno, wine-slurping millionaires. You can probably buy a hot dog at their stadium with bitcoin. You know what I mean? The dot com bubble burst, and then they keep trying to sell us shit that just kinda sucks. Like Brock Purdy. Drops his eyes when pressure comes. System quarterback. Los Angeles Curlhorns (7) Los Angeles will never be a football city. Too warm, too nice. No factories. All their fingernails are clean. Arizona Redbirds Arizona has been trying to rebuild for about 12 years. They keep doing it in the wrong order. Please build an offensive line. Seattle Spermbirds The gum-chewer is finally gone. Seattle feels like a defeated enemy. Where do the wins come from?
AFC
EAST
New York 9/11s (3) Aaron Rodgers is like, extremely talented. Probably the most gifted quarterback of all time. He is a singular talent. But also, he’s kind of a stupid dickhead? I dunno. It’s hard. World historical figures might just have that in them. I’m glad I don’t have cameras on me all the time. Look how they massacred my boy. Buffalo Soldier in the Heart of America Nobody wants to go to Buffalo. They got wings, yeah, we stole that everywhere else. Niagra Falls is probably p cool I guess. Miami Marlins “You fucking suck, you don’t deserve to be here.” That’s the kind of texts the former head coach sent to Tua Tongaloviaialailala, and man, that is really shitty. If I was a head coach, I’d tell my QB he was a good boy. Y’know? Their offense is light-speed, but their D gave up a lot of points last year. Boston Bean-Bastards How many years do the Boston Bean-Bastards have to suck before it’s okay for them to be good again? I think about 15.
NORTH
Cincinnati Spank-Me-Daddy (1) Cincinnati is continually misunderestimated, as George W Bush would say. Probably because the city sucks. They only have one thing, which is like putting chili on top of spaghetti? What? I do that when I’m high and drunk. Absolutely not a point of pride. Anyway, Joe Burrow is super accurate, he’s the new Tom Brady as far as running an efficient offense and hitting guys for 5 yard slants. Balmore Blackbirds (5) These guys try to act all cool, I dunno. Seems desperate, in some way. Shittsburgh Fucks Nobody knows who will be the week 1 starting QB. Will it be the shitty failed guy from Denver, or the shitty failed guy from Chicago? ^_^ Cleveland Steamers Again, a strong defensive team but I think the rapist QB will probably not perform well. I think I wrote a similar analysis about Shittsburgh in 2012 or so.
SOUTH
Houston Cows (2) Can’t believe the Packers vs. Texans game is a regular-ass noon game, and not a primetime showcase. CJ Stroud is a really good QB. The Packers and Texans are brother teams, wherein our offense is young and promising, but our defense is….ehhh. This game will be high scoring. Tennesse Poop ‘n Pee (7) Tennesse weirdly made a lot of really strong moves in this offseason. I saw all of them when they happened, but afterward I was like “Damn shawty, okay!” Indy Cindy Don’t play a runningback at quarterback. North Florida Retirees I don’t even care. Honestly. People in northern Florida are fucking mutants. This team doesn’t even make sense. Most of the locals are way more into the Florida Gators college team. They think Tim Tebow is good. I will not care about them.
WEST
Kansas City Arrowheads (4) I’d imagine the breakup would cause a wave of political unrest. Buildings burning. Horrible optics. Vacant Stadium Chargers (6) Jimb Harbaw is a fucking piece of shit and I hope he gets eaten by fucking bugs. South Park Cows South Park looks like they have a good QB. Bo Nix has a short name, but a big arm. He might be the future in the mountain west. Las Vegas Gamblers I’d rather be a loser team for a decade and accumulate good picks than be in this weird mediocrity that Las Vegas has been in. These guys can’t win any important games.
The Jester descends his chords, and the lights from the torches slowly flicker into nothing.
Grimgoop smiles widely, almost too widely, and he walks away from the castle.
LAR (7) @ GB (2)* TB (6) @ DAL (3)* DET (5)* @ ATL (4) TEN (7) @ HOU (2)* LAC (6) @ NYJ (3)* BAL (5)* @ KC (4)
DET (5) @ SF (1) DAL (3) @ GB (2) BAL (5) @ CIN (1) NYJ (3) @ HOU (2)
Each generation takes its slings and arrows and wants to claim ownership This is a unique trauma, it has Happened to Me As a young person, you begin to internalize the future, externalize yourself in that place And inevitably, something scuds it into termination dust The world kicks back hard, stubborn, a cruel mule. Cruel Mule is the name of my new band.
This baited-breath current events trauma is the gloss in the eyes of a blue-eyed poet. Behind every cynic is a wounded dreamer, right? Jung said no one finds conciousness without pain
Trauma of a second birth, almost. The world is not what we imagined it would be, coming from childhood and seeing possibilities ascending. Then the engine rattles, chokes, and a lot of the reassuring make believe of childhood falls off and you say simply “What happened?” “Whuh happeh?”
And at the top of the hill, we see ruination, simple, stupid, selfish, scattered arrays of tiny people made of money and fat and brain death. And constellations of these confident idiots ring the planet, and this has been so for generations. And you suspect that a human life is just a little bit too short to transmit this information to a new generation and change the thing. Life is pain.
Easy to reach a point in your life where you lie in bed all day, depressed. Dreaming commercial jingles, about your father, about walking up to a sheer cliff. Don’t know if it’s day or night. Death can take me or not, I don’t know I’d notice the difference.
I say this not with a fake smile, with whimsy or unearned positivity, but there is a better way. You are only captured by this world if you allow it. We are immutable ripples upon eternity, and if you capitulate to the suffering, you have lost sight of something True.
It’s very easy to do, it’s constant bombardment over all of your senses. It’s torturous media and culture shoving this selfish, ignoble message into your eyes and ears and mouth. Old times are quaint, funny. The future is unknowable, we can’t make anything happen. Buy shit. Become your own brand. The things you like and consume are you. Eat it. Take things. This is you. You are just a collection of keywords. Buy shit. The Cruel Mule would love to kick you into believing you are alone. Fear, anxiety. Whatever. Gotta make something of yourself. Don’t be a loser. Make money. Buy shit. Eat it.
The last two days, I was outside, and it was hot as hell. I was sitting on the concrete steps leading up to the house I share with my future wife and our pets. Each day, a tiny little bee flew up to me and buzzed around my elbow. Watching me, she bobbed around. I looked back at her. The grass is vibrant green in the yard. We have a streak of unmowed lawn that has blossomed into little yellow and purple flowers. The bee investigated me. She was smaller than one of my fingernails. She left. I was happy. I am happy.
A woman is born with all of the eggs she will have in her lifetime. This necessarily means that whatever ova came out to be me was extant in the world in 1967, when my mother was born. She was a physical thing in the world back in the 1930s, when her mother was born. And on and on back in time until we went from monkeys to people, from when we went from fish to shrews, from when we went from one cell to two. The physical matter that I am can never be destroyed, it will be reconstituted into time immemorial. This existence is not a block of concrete. Life is a wave, and the threads of eternity are woven through you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be small. You’re made from better stuff.
A generation looking to the sunset wishing for a sign Remembering the nightmare under the stairs as you ran up from the basement and it didn’t grab your ankles the terror of the dark was all in your head and the sky sighs slight beautiful but with nothing new
We are a people in need of a sign A generation of children with a catch in our throat Eager to change Wanting to train our sights on the thing that will fix it
awkward and clunky and crashing into anything that seems like salvation
don’t run up the basements stairs in a blind panic take each one, slowly if it’s gonna grab you it’ll do it then what will you do? but that will never happen and you’re afraid of Nothing
If it grabbed you, it would be a relief cause then you could fight instead we wait for the sign the sigil in the sky that says now, finally now we can live
Grampaw Sycamore patted the sweat from his forehead with a rag. It was a hot and humid day. The occasional breeze seemed to lose motivation and sag in the air, rustling leaves briefly and then sinking down into the heat shimmers glowing off the grass. Insects buzzed. “Got-damn,” said Grampaw, folding his rag to find dry squares “Might have to start cutting my whiskey with lemonade if this heat don’t break.”
He slowly bobbed in a rocking chair on his front porch. His grandson, Portugal Sycamore, was on the other side of the house, finishing up mowing the backyard. The distant mechanical buzz of the mower cut out and descended, leaving the rising buzz of the insects in contrast.
Grampaw heard Portugal huffing and puffing as he came around the corner of the house, pushing the old mower. He smiled at his grandson and shifted in the rocker, reaching into his pants pocket for his checkbook. “All done?” Portugal, a heavyset boy of twelve years old, nodded. He was short of breath. His t-shirt was soaked through with sweat.
Flipping the checkbook open, Grampaw produced a pen from his shirtpocket. As he dated the check, he asked his grandson “You did a good job? You got close around all the trees this time?” Portugal nodded emphatically. “Good,” Grampaw smiled, “Now how much do I owe you?”
Portugal was standing with his hands balled into fists on his hips. He spit onto the grass. “Last time you gave me forty dollars,” he answered.
Grampaw turned his head and raised his eyebrow. “Really?”
“I think so. Pretty sure. Maybe thirty.”
Grampaw whistled sharply, said “Damn, boy! Your rates went up?!”
“I dunno,”
Finished writing the check, Grampaw tore the perforation and held it out. “Well, I don’t mind paying more if you got up next to the trees this time.”
“Yes Grampaw,” Portugal walked up the porch steps and extended a hand to take the check.
Grampaw teased the check to Portugal’s fingertips, then took it back suddenly. “Right up by the tree trunks, right?”
Nod.
“Good boy,” Grampaw leaned back in the chair now, taking the check with him. It lazed into his lap. Portugal involuntarily started toward his grandfather to grab it, but caught himself and stood straight with his hands behind his back.
Grampaw grabbed the bottle of whiskey from the wicker stand next to his rocking chair and took a mighty pull. Gulped to swallow. He and his grandson were silent and still for a moment while nature thrummed. Then, “Why did your rate go up, my boy?”
“It can just be thirty or whatever. Sorry.”
“Sorry!? No. Getting a new video game?”
“Well, um. Yeah.”
“Okay,” nodded Grampaw, then belched into his own lips a bit. “How much is it?”
“Eighty dollars.”
“What? Eighty?! Damn!”
“No, sorry. It’s okay. I don’t want you to-“
“Oh stop it. It’s just fine. I can afford to buy a video game for a hardworkin’ man like you.”
“Thank you so much Grampaw,”
Grampaw drew a big X over the check in his hand. Balled it up and stuck it in his pocket. He wrote a new one for twice as much and again teased it out to his grandson, only to pull it back at the last moment.
“You know how to cash a check?”
“Mom helps me do it.”
Smiling, Grampaw leaned forward, causing his wooden rocking chair to groan. “Why does this check get you a video game?”
Portugal frowned “What?”
“I’m giving you this piece of paper, and if everything goes according to plan, it’s gonna mean you’re having fun playing your game later, right?”
“Yeah, I guess?”
“Okay then.”
Grasshoppers flicked themselves from the tops of dandelion stalks.
“See, this, this right here is the MICR line,” Grampaw explained, gesturing toward the computer typeface digits on the bottom of the check, “See that?”
“…yeah?”
“Now, the MICR line tells the routing number, the account number, and the check number to the Federal Reserve. This is how your bank verifies where the money is coming from. You got that, grandson?”
“…yeah?”
“Routing number tells them the bank, okay? That’s the Georgia Stonecutters’ Credit Union. Okay? Then, the next batch of numbers means it’s me. Grampaw Sycamore. That’s my account. Right? So then this next bit,” he pointed, “That’s which check I’m writing to you for your video game. Understand?”
“Grampaw, I’m tired,”
“Okay,” the old man replied, ” Now we understand that this is basically a ticket. This is a written record to verify that I am transferring some amount of resources from myself to you, right little dog?”
“Can I have some of that lemonade, Grampaw?”
“No. Anyway-” Grampaw cracked a big smile, “Of course, grandson. Of course. Come take a sit next to me. Let me pour you a big glass.” Grampaw continued as Portugal sat in the other rocking chair, dead tired and just trying to humor the situation.
“These little symbols. It’s stains on pieces of paper. The shapes the ink makes, that’s a level of abstraction. Within your own mind, they become representational for something else. It happens so quickly and automatically, that you don’t even consider it. But written language is a technology that we haven’t always had. Animals certainly don’t have anything close to it. The contrast of the dark parts against the light parts on this little slip of paper imbue meaning to it somehow,”
“Grampaw…please,” Portugal pleaded. Now Grampaw was drunk. This could take hours.
“So the symbols create a code. You need an architecture of learned experience to make sense of it. It’s not innate. The code is also representational of other things. The symbols become a designation. It’s a kind of true-name for an institution. And institution that is not tied to any one person, it’s a malleable thing that shifts over time,” Grampaw burped up a bit of whiskey here, then continued, “So you have many layers of abstraction. So, so, sooooo….many junctions for loss. Latency.”
“Grampaw, I mowed your lawn really good. Can I have-“
“Don’t get too worked up over bullshit, grandson. That’s really what I’m trying to tell you,” Grampaw half snorted as he wiped his whiskey lips on his shirt sleeve. “So much stress is imaginary. It’s built upon the brittle lattice of social bullshit.” Crows on the roadside stood with their beaks wide open, dissipating the heat. “The more ‘official’ something seems, the more pretend bullshit it is. We’re animals. Don’t get too bummed out about anything that doesn’t involve eating, shitting, fucking,”
“Jesus, Gramps,”
“Abstract thought causes so much misery, my son. My grandson. It’s a fun place to play in. If it causes you misery, just remember: you’re alive. That’s gonna end soon. Why worry?”
“I mowed your grass-“
“When I was your age, I always wanted candy for breakfast. I wanted to eat a Crunch Bar as soon as I woke up in the morning. Sometimes, I’d get one. The last twenty years or so of my life, I thought it was somehow more repsonsible or something to eschew that. I thought it was more ‘adult’ to reject that. Now that I can do it, now that I’m the decision-maker for my own life? I want salad. I want that. I want salad for supper. The spinach and the cherry tomatoes. A little dressing,”
The sun began turning into a royal blue haze below the horizon line. Portugal held out his hand. “Can I have the check, Grampaw?”
“Here you go, grandson. Go get your game.”
Hours passed and the house creaked with the changing temperature as dusk chilled the landscape.
Tuesday afternoon. 2:30 PM. The sun was out, a beautiful day. The old lady said I was cranky, she had to put me down for a nap. Like I hadn’t downed a few slugs of formula myself to try to find some shut-eye.
I woke from my adjustable baby-walker thing with a bang. The door flew open, I drew my palm over my soft spot as I woke, and the police chief stomped over to me. Dry Cheerios flew off the tray onto the floor in the commotion. Damn, I could really use those right now…
“I had some trouble finding you,” started the chief of police, a plump old Irishman. He was too old by a decade to hold the post, but his round and rosy cheeks served him well. Never had any trouble with the politicking, but basic police work was apparently beneath him. I knew him. His outward nicety fell away when we were together. We’d had something of a falling out when he asked me to go to the Policemans’ Ball. The old Patty insisted that I put my shoes on, and I just utterly refused to do so. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to. Don’t want to now!
“Well, Sherlock Holmes,” I snorted derisively, “How’d you manage to crack the case of where I would be?”
He sat, took his cap off, and wiped his brow. “Figured you’d be in the Toddler Town part of the city,”
“Great insight,” I gruffed, reaching into my desk and grabbing a can of powdered formula.
“Then I just took to walking. Just walking around, looking around. And I got to a place where they were playing a lot of Cocomelon…”
“Sure,” I replied, now pouring water into my flask of baby formula powder. “Lotta kids like that show,”
“Yeah, yeah. They sure do,” said the police chief. “But you wanna know the thing that really tipped me off?”
I shook the flask around, trying to stir it, but I don’t have total command over my body functions so it just kind of flew off to the side of the room and I tried to play it off like that’s what I meant to do and I coyly answered “What?”
“You have a 15 by 15 foot billboard on the outside of this building advertising that you are the only Toddler Detective in the world. So I took that to be some kind of a clue.”
Maybe this Mick bastard was smarter than I thought.
“Alright, so what’s the case? Why are you disturbing my nap time?”
“Murder,” said the police chief, “I wouldn’t drag you out of retirement for some petty theft or something,”
“I never know about you,”
“Please,” said the police chief, his countenance suddenly becoming far more grim and serious as he leaned forward, “You’re the only detective that we can hire in exchange for a Ziploc baggie full of animal crackers that we can give this case to.”
I leaned back in my bouncy little roller thing, you know what I’m talking about right? Thought about the trauma of birth. About my brain growing at an exponential rate. Thousands of pathways being born, each moment of every day. Thought about how I could dunk on the fucking police chief if I solved this thing after I already told him to go fuck himself. Also I needed money. Babies ain’t cheap.
“I’m in. Goo goo gah gah. Just kidding.” I polished off the flask of formula and I don’t remember the cop leaving. Think I dreamed about Cocomelon.
I was still learning my numbers, but the math just didn’t add up.
Even for a seasoned P.I. like me, the crime scene was especially brutal. The departed had been killed, and then cannibalised. Partially eaten. Called to mind Dante’s Inferno, where the lowest layer of Hell sees its victims frozen upside down in ice and Satan continnualy gnaws on their legs, or the Very Hungry Caterpillar. Somebody was chewin’ on this stuff.
You’d expect them egghead dorks in forensics to come up with somethin’, but they were stumped. Just like I am when I have to try to put a square block through a round hole in a spatial awareness reinforcement toy.
“The perp was a ghost. Either he was the cleanest hitman ever seen, or I didn’t develop object permanence yet and forgot evidence as soon as it was out of my immediate field of vision. Either way, this was a tough walnut to crack,” said I.
“Ahh shit,” said the police chief, as we stood in the rain. “I would have assumed that with your unspoiled baby brain that you would have been able to see things that we may have missed, right? Like children are the most honest because they don’t have the social conditioning that forms their-“
“Hey!” I interrupted
He began trailing off “assumptions and…well, yeah, what?”
“I just shit my pants.”
The police caution tape snapped in the wind, and the formula in my flask separated into solid chunks and liquid whey in my pocket.
“Guess the map is not the territory, huh brother?” asked the police chief
“I don’t know because I am a baby.”
We shared a laugh in the rain.
Stay tuned for more adventures of The Toddler Detective but maybe not because it’s a pretty dumb idea
I wanted a pet praying mantis, because they are cool. You can’t order one praying mantis though. They sell ’em in little egg clutches of 250-500 little monsters. They send you a thing that looks like a piece of poop and you have to incubate it and collect the newly hatched bugs after a few days. People order them not so much as pets, but for pest control. It’s up for debate whether or not they are useful for this purpose, because they just eat any other insect they can catch. They don’t necssarily catch problem bugs.
So I was probably drunk, and I ordered some praying mantises. They arrived in a little brown bag. I’ve done similar things before; I have owned several venus flytraps because I love the idea of a predatory plant. I once sat a flytrap outside on my porch and watched a fly go into his little chomper mouth and get closed in on and it was beautiful to me. Dumbass fly touched both trigger hairs and it was all over. My chomper plant consumed him.
The acorn clutch of mantis babies arrived in the mail. I stuck it in a styrofoam cooler. I don’t know. They need several days of a constant temperature to actually hatch.
I came home from work each day and checked on my little guys. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. One day I opened it up and that shitty styrofoam cooler was brimming with life. Dozens of mantises arrayed all over the interior of the thing. “Oh shit,” said I, “We’ve got mantises.”
I grabbed three of them with my little pincher fingers, trying to be as gentle as possible. I put them in a terrarium. They were so small. Imagine the intricate architecture of a mantis’s body, but like one centimeter long. Tough to pinch them lightly enough to put them in a tank. The rest of the hatcherlings were going to be released into the wild. I was going to introduce this species to the south side of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Took the shitty styrofoam cooler outside, took the lid off and tipped it on its side. I watched the mantises walk to the edge, stop, and consider their situation, and then jump off into the grass. I swear to God. They were intelligent. They considered the jump. Some of them even tipped their head a bit, like they were thinking.
I released like 500 mantises into the Eau Claire area. If this is a crime, well, I didn’t actually. (But really I did)
My terrarium mantises died almost right away. I feel kinda bad about that, but I couldn’t catch prey small enough for them. I grabbed a couple of really tiny ants and threw them in there, but those ants were about as big as them. I don’t know what baby mantises hunt. I encouraged my pet mantises to attack those little bitch ants, but they just looked at them with their blank expression. Maybe man isn’t meant to have these things as pets, I don’t know. Should I have caught some fuckin’ aphids for them to eat or something?
I had imagined the hundreds of mantises would rule the school in southern Eau Claire. I never saw one again. Those smart little bugs just disappeared completely after I set them free. However
My friend, Hakey, said he saw a tiny little praying mantis in his kitchen. This was a few months after I got my boys. It was standing with its arms spread wide. They are not native here. It may have been one of mine. Maybe it grabbed onto his pantleg when he was leaving my house or something. I dunno. These are a great scythe-arm critter. They are an intelligent bug. Isn’t that interesting?
Sometimes an idea sparkles. A bug eats another bug. It’s really pretty.
