bokonomnomnom

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Anyone noticing a lot fewer n@zi parades now that they all have jobs with ICE?

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My favorite little bit in The Cask of Amontillado is where Fortunato’s all-in to stomp through underground tombs for wine, but is briefly worried whether Montresor is a mason because he didn’t know the secret hand gesture after drinking.

“You do not comprehend?” he said.

“Not I,” I replied.

“Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

“How?”

“You are not of the masons.”

“Yes, yes,” I said; “yes, yes.”

“You? Impossible! A mason?”

“A mason,” I replied.

“A sign,” he said.

“It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.

“You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us proceed to the Amontillado.”

I feel like that’s the kind of little joke that lets you in on what kind of person Edgar Allan Poe was.

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May the Fifth be with you ✌🏻

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You know how I know the set designer for TJ Hooker loved fanfic?

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Picturing Grant in awe of the old men after reading “but fudge!”

Grant was so funny when he was a teenager back in West Point. I mean look at this snippet of a letter he sent his cousin.

I interpret him as saying “Ugh I miss seeing girls as a boy in puberty who’s feeling horny but fuck the girls anyway here’s some great men I’ve seen”. I know our pookie would never but that’s all I can hear when I read it.

Oh here’s the rest of the letter btw

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For context: Ukrainians took to the streets in 2013 to oust pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and restore 2004 amendments to their constitution that weakened presidential power over their parliament. They blocked up the streets of Kyiv with tires (as well as bricks and anything else they could get their hands on), building barriers that prevented the military from removing protestors.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_of_Dignity

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The Hottest

“Daddy? Come back to us, Daddy, please …”

A bright light faded from Dave’s eyes as his daughter softly emerged from the blinding whiteness. He tried to speak through a dry, cracked mouth that felt to his tongue like the surface of the Moon. It dragged along the insides of his cheeks as he whispered to his little girl, who still looked blurry.

“Emily? Wha- where am I …?”

“The hospital, Daddy! Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

“Missed me?”

As Dave’s eyes adjusted to the light, Emily and the background behind her focused into shapes and colors. The walls were white and tiled a light septic green. He heard the beeping of his heart rate monitor. It was definitely Emily, but she was no longer a kindergartner.

“Oh, Daddy. You’ve been in a coma for four years,” Emily said. “But you did it!”

“Yes, honey,” came another voice from the side. “You did. And we’re all so proud of you.”

It was his wife, Jennifer.

“Jen? I did?” Dave asked, once again having difficulty seeing, but now through tears. The room began to fade into soft, watery lighting.

“And not just your family. The whole country has been watching, praying that you would come back to us.”

Dave heard a phone buzzing.

“Yes, he’s awake,” he heard Jen say. “Dave, it’s the President. He wants to speak with you.”

“What? No, fuck that guy!” Dave attempted to spit, but his dry mouth managed only a silent fart.

“No, Daddy. He’s not the President anymore. It’s Joe Biden.”

Dave considered it for a second, shrugged, and motioned for the phone.

“You’re on speaker, Mr. President,” he rasped.

“Dave? It’s Joe. I think I speak for all Americans, even the ones who didn’t vote for me, that we’re all so relieved that you’ve pulled through. The U.S. needed this win, Dave. Thank you, and god bless.”

“He’s having trouble speaking right now, Mr. President,” said Jennifer.

“No, I understand. Take care, Dave. Come by the White House when you’re able. The next batch of wings are on me.”

Dave winced at the mention of “wings.” His stomach knotted, but the President hung up before he groaned.

“He’s not wrong, Dave,” came another voice from the room. It sounded familiar. Dave turned towards it. No, was it really …

“Zendaya?”

“Yes, Dave. I read about your story in an Instagram post. That’s right: I read the captions and all of the comments, too. And I immediately fell in love with you and needed to be by your side.”

Dave looked over for his wife. Jennifer smiled.

“And I’m perfectly okay with it. In fact, she’s not the only one.” Jennifer motioned toward the door. Shakira and Lucy Liu were standing just outside the ICU entrance. “J-Lo’s out in the parking lot, breaking back up with Ben Affleck, but she saw my text and will be up soon.”

“Batfleck … What’s going on? How are you okay with this?”

Jennifer took his hand in both of hers, carefully avoiding his IV input.

“Dave, when you ate the hottest chili pepper wings in the world, I knew right then that you would either die or belong to the world. I figured that, either way, I had a choice to make: lose you or love you with everyone else. And I’m just so glad that I didn’t lose you.”

Everything went watery-blurry again as Dave heaved sobbing tears. His nose ran freely into his beard and mouth, much as it had when he ate his twelfth Satan’s Jizzberry Napalm Death Wing.

“So, yes,” Jennifer continued. “I love you. And so does Zendaya. And Shakira. And J-Lo. And Helen Mirren, too. And we’re all ready to take care of you.”

Dave couldn’t believe it. He really had eaten the hottest wings in the world, survived, and now he would live the rest of his days with the hottest women in his surprisingly milquetoast internet search history. He could almost get up to dance …

Almost …

His legs would not move. Or hips.

“Honey, am I tied down to the bed?”

Tears welled up in both Jennifers’ and Emily’s eyes.

“No, Daddy,” Emily said.

“The capsaicin burnt through your nervous system,” Jennifer said. “You can’t feel anything from the ribs down.”

Dave began crying again, looking from Jennifer to Jennifer to Zendaya to Shakira, wondering now if he had truly survived. As his doctor walked in, he swore he saw two sets of eyelids blink.

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Big Riker at Angel One Energy

Continuing my toxic Dragon Age trait of never upgrading this man's armor unless it's the kind that shows his tits.

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Per the (not Alt) National Park Service’s newly censored website for the Stonewall Monument:

"Before the 1960s, almost everything about living openly as a lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) person was illegal. The Stonewall Uprising on June 28, 1969 is a milestone in the quest for LGB civil rights and provided momentum for a movement."

[emphasis mine]

There’s also a link to learn more about “LGB” flags, which is a new one for me 🙄

Interesting, since the Stonewall Uprising started when NYPD performed yet another raid to round up trans women and drag queens for not wearing at least three articles of clothing that matched their assigned gender at birth.

Not for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual. Not even for being a trans man.

New York police and laws explicitly targeted trans women and drag queens by lining up the patrons to check their identification and having female police officers take patrons they perceived to be women to the bathroom to verify their sex.

And the full LGBTQ spectrum fought back.

There is no Stonewall without the T.

The Trump Administration is erasing hitory to rainbow-wash transphobia.

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Does it come in Cool Ranch flavor?

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Well, I was going to deliver a service this Sunday explaining how I, an atheist find value in attending my Unitarian Universalist church, but, uh, God had other ideas.

A story in three images:

1)

2)

3)

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When I Quit Movember

I started Movember 2024 with fairly ambitious goals. I was going to finally raise $2500 in one month. I would post every day. I had dedicated the year to a friend, coworker, and former Mo Bro (yeah, I know) who had just died, likely as a result of untreated mental illness and a history of alcohol abuse. I even shaved down to do it old school: growing a mustache from scratch and endure the weeks of Bad Middle School Mo’.

My last post about Movember was November 5 when I showed my barely pubescent stubble-stache back from the polls.

The next day, I woke up to the news with everyone else. I’d get back to Movember, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to start asking people for money again.

Then the demographics data came out:

I saw how many men decided that “I need Trump to feel secure in my masculinity, sorry everyone else, including women, immigrants, Black people, and the LGBTQIA community.” It was now impossible for me to consider unpausing my Movember campaign.

Since 2011, I’ve raised more than $19,000 for men’s health, $1,300 a year on average. But the vast majority of those donations came from women and people who identify with the LGBTQIA community.

In other words, women and queer folk care a lot more about men’s health than men—especially white men—care about their own health or anyone else’s.

So, I’m going to continue my pause on Movember. I’m grateful for the years of service I gave them, for the health outcomes we’ve changed, and how it’s changed my own perspective on health. Maybe I’ll come back to it when it appears men are ready to think beyond ourselves.

In the meantime, any charities out there need a mustache?

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Fairly Godmother

“Shit!” she blurted, having snagged a wing on the thorn bush she was hiding in. She caught herself a second too late, freezing to make sure she wasn’t heard. She had to wait until Cinderella was crying before making her grand entrance, and it was never grand if your entrance was preceded by “Who’s that in the bushes!” Or “Come out of there and get what’s coming to you, creep!”

It had been easier in the old days. Before Grimm and Aesop and that up-and-comer, Hans Christian whatever his name was. Back then, she could wait in nice cool creeks or rivers or under bridges, maybe as a talking fish or a beggar, and then pick randos for luck and fortune.

But not anymore! No, now she had to deliver Justice and ensure Moral Outcomes for the specifically downtrodden. Had to punch up now, that was what all the story writers told her now.

But then what good was magic if it only helped people? People used to know that magic was dangerous, and she’d handed out enough magic swords to would-be despots to make sure of it.

It was random, like fate ought to be. Not predestined. She didn’t need to do homework, and she definitely didn’t need to be sitting in a bramble in full makeup, trying to keep raspberry juice off her gown and thistles from stripping her wings.

Men put her in the predicament, but where were they when an orphan needed a ballgown? At the ball, waiting around for a pretty new wife to land in their laps. Or, like the Fairy Godfather, at home, sitting in dark smoky rooms, promising favors that others would have to deliver.

Meanwhile, she wondered what good a husband is when Cinderella’s problem was already too much housework and too many conspiring minor nobles tearing her down. At least there would be a better class of animal to keep her company in a palace. Real thoroughbred horses, songbirds from all corners of the world, and well-fed mice.

And then, finally, the waterworks started. She saw Cinderella hunched over a stone bench by her parents’ graves, crying in a badly made dress that looked a lot like her own wings felt. She supposed it was pretty good work for varmints, but probably not much of a loss. Unless you have nothing.

And so, despite wondering if maybe Cinderella would be better off running away and joining the circus, her Fairy Godmother lobbed a smoke grenade out of the bush and made her Entrance.

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This is probably an appropriate time to remind all federal employees of the time U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton arrested his scab replacement and barricaded himself in his office so that President Andrew Johnson couldn’t fire him and end Reconstruction.

Trump and Musk wouldn’t try to buy you out if your job wasn’t worth it.

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Oh, to be a reader in an old painting.

The Reader (c. 1770) by Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Reader (1861) by Fantin-Latour Henri The Reader (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir The Reader (1877) by Mary Cassatt The Reader (c. 1877) by Robert James Gordon The Reader (1882-83) by Albert Anker The Reader by Alfred Stevens Reader (1892) by Luděk Marold Reader (1908) by Miloš Jiránek Dostoevsky Reader (1907) by Emil Filla

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Me: [cussing]

You: [cussing]

All of us: [cussing]

Urinal cake salesperson: Yes! Cuss! Cuss, my children! Cuss for asparagus!

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Cracks snake down the walls

in front of my eyes

and in the periphery,

When someone behind me yells

about cracks I cannot see,

or saw and then forgot,

or nails that have popped

but I cannot feel.

None of us can

hold the pieces together on our own

as they tear the house down

over our heads.