Cookies and Books.

Wandered out into town this morning.  Shyam had made some Christmas fudge for our friend John and his family.  His family likewise participates in something they call "Cookiegeddon" in which dozens of types of cookies get made and sent around the world to people at the holiday season.  It's a labor of love, but definitely a labor.  John's mentioned that as he and his family ages, it gets a little more difficult.  This year was doubly so, since John had the fun time of a ruptured appendix early this year, which has kept him out of work since the spring.  

He's been on the mend though, and he's looking at returning to work in January.  

I gifted John a copy of Dynamite Nashville, by Betsy Phillips.  Betsy's an old blogging pal, and you can still read her stuff for the Nashville Scene.

That one's been a project for her for a while, and it published earlier this year.  It's a very readable, very conversational book.  Betsy's been working on a mystery (or mysteries) in these Nashville bombings for years.  I highly recommend the book, if you can get ahold of it.  I just saw that it popped up on Audible, this week.  I bought my physical copies for gifting from Parnassus Books in Nashville....

And I gave one to John.

In which Time Does Fly

 Five years ago, today, in 2019, on what was also a Sunday, I got probably the most disrespectful phone call I've ever gotten.

A little background.  In 2018, the store I was working, where I'd been an assistant manager for 10 of the 14 years I'd been in the position, was hiring a new Store Manager.  5 people applied.  4 of those people had a combined 80 years experience as salaried management for Food Lion.  The fifth had less than a year.   

Much less than a year.

They got the job.

They were bad.  I went from working 45-50 hours a week to working 55-60, right off the bat.  I would be working that schedule, the new manager said, until I learned how to run a store.

This despite being pulled aside and being told that I would need to show her the ropes on a great many things.  And successful and happy completion of said task would be a great feather in my cap toward the promotion I was just denied.  

For most of a year, I was the bigger man.  Not reacting to baiting arguments.  Working extra hours while she worked fewer.  Getting thrown under the bus.  Having to apologize to customers for her demeanor.  Until I popped in September of 2019, after she had told several people that I was sleeping in the office during my closing shifts.  We all had a sit down with what was supposed to be the Director, but was pawned off on one of his lieutenants.  That day was one of the worst days in my life.  Nothing was resolved.  What should have been  confidential complaint was very much public.  It was difficult for John, the guy who had to handle it.  It was chickenshit by the Director, who pawned the whole thing off on John.  And it made our working relationship even more difficult.    Between my manager and me.   Between John and Me.  And especially between the Director, Jim, and me.

Cut to 3 months later.  She left the company.  Whether it was voluntary or involuntary depended on who you asked.  But I returned from a trip to Florida to having to run a store during Christmas short another salaried manager.  I didn't get a day off for 16 days, counting that Sunday the 22nd.

I was checking a grocery order, when the director called.  He saw that I had bid on the recently opened position.  And he was calling to inform me that I would not be considered for the role.

I asked why not.

He said that he had too many questions about my work ethic.  

When I asked for elaboration, he hemmed and hawed and there were too many times in the past year when I had left my former manager hanging.  He wouldn't in good conscience put me in charge of a store.  When I asked if I could have examples of leaving her hanging, he declined to offer any.

I was mystified.  To call a person, 3 days before Christmas, when I was running myself ragged.  It was an either the most mystifyingly ignorant move, or a willfully cruel one.  I've bounced back and forth for years between the two, and I actually think it's a little of both.   The fact is, though, that the aforementioned aide John's job was being eliminated, and he was going to have to be a store manager if he wanted to keep employment.  Jim could have shot straight with me and said that.   But he didn't.  

I've spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about why I didn't walk.  And wishing that I had truly recognized how badly I was being treated.

And kicking myself for being a coward.

And I don't know if it's cowardice or not.  But in my low points, that's where I land.

Maybe it's just pragmatism.  I mean, I had a decent job, with decent pay, and a lot of vacation time.  Looking for a new job sure is fun.

But the job wasn't that good.  And the pay really wasn't that decent (and would become less decent over the next 3 years).  And the vacation time was really more of a hassle than it was worth.  In a store with a lot of experienced staff, you could go 26 weeks out of the year short an MoD because of vacations.  And when you returned from vacations, you often had to spend 2 days cleaning up the messes.

Anyway.  

Today was much better.  Nobody called me at the beginning of a uber busy day 3 days before a huge holiday to tell me what a lazy piece of shit I was.

I don't know why I still fret about this things.  Why shit like this bothers me when it really shouldn't.

It's not like I'm losing sleep over it.  But I do have a head for dates.  And it just kind of stuck with me.

Maybe writing about it will help.  If I can get it out on paper (or computer pixel), maybe my thoughts will organize enough that they aren't rolling around inside my head like an out of control freight train.

A minor postscript.  On Christmas Day that year, we lost refrigeration at the store.  The way we were set up, we checked refrigeration twice a day on Christmas Day.  Once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  I checked in the afternoon.  And we were losing refrigeration for our meat department.  I kept restarting the system, which would keep it going, but it would shut off after about 30 minutes.  I iced the department down, and covered it up, and waited 3 hours for a tech to show up.  Turns out, it was an easy fix that should have had him in and out in 30 minutes, but he took another 3 hours to fix, soaking up a nice bit of holiday overtime.  So, all told, I worked about 7 hours on what was going to be my first day off in 19.  And missed Christmas dinner.

All told, I probably should have just taken that as another sign from Heaven, or Hell or WhatHaveYou to go hunt up another job.

But then, the name of the blog is Big Stupid Tommy.

In which he gets old

 Well, friends.  Today, I got a CPAP machine.  To help combat sleep apnea.  

Had a therapist show me how to use it.  

We'll see how well it took.

Especially considering I stopped at the grocery store for dinner fixings, and forgot to pick up the distilled water for the CPAP.  

We'll see.

Have I talked much on the blog about my visit to the hospital in 2022?

For a couple weeks in August of 2022, I was feeling extremely run down, and I wasn't sleeping well.  I had one particular night where I went into the store on about 2 hours sleep.  About that time, some light chest congestion popped up, and I decided to go see a doctor, to make sure I wasn't carrying around some bronchitis or Covid or some other bullshit.

Well, I was carrying some other bullshit.  My blood pressure was through the roof, and I was in AFib.  

I got to spend a couple nights in the hospital, get my blood pressure back down to normal.  I got to undergo a Cardioversion in the fall. 

It was scary.

We attempted to get a sleep study done that same fall, but my work insurance wouldn't cover it.

Since then, new insurance, and we got the sleep study done.  At home, which was a travesty in and of itself, and it involved our smoke alarm randomly going off at 4:15 in the morning of the second night.

So, it's come to my having a CPAP like many thousands if not millions of Americans.  To lessen the chances of my dying in my sleep.

Which is good.  

I guess I do need to go back out and find distilled water.

Rambles

 Well, my intent to try to post daily was a good one, but not entirely sustainable.  Because even in December, things get busy.  

And I'm forgetful.

And sometimes there are things on TV that are fun to watch.

And sometimes there are things to go do.

----

My buddy Micah and I wandered out to a Mexican joint we frequent for their Trivia Night.  We usually do well.  And we like the fact that we can beat the team with eight to twelve members....the rest of the room usually likes that, too, as they tend to be the Big Dog in the Room for that particular branch of pub trivia.

Last night's game took a weird turn, as it became an unannounced Christmas Movie Trivia game.

At first, Micah and I felt comfortable.

It was soon apparent that our confidence was misplaced.

It would seem that I need to revisit a couple of the classics:  Miracle on 34th Street, which I didn't care for the last time I watched it decades ago, and White Christmas.  (We performed admirably enough on It's a Wonderful Life).

It was the more recent faire that we struggled with, to be honest.  I have never seen a Santa Clause movie.  And I know that I've seen Polar Express, but I retained zero from it, it would seem, and this despite it being my mother's favorite Christmas movie.  This became troublesome because the night contained no less than 3 different questions about plot points.  Just as a hint, at no point is a 24pack of Busch Light a plot point in Polar Express.

We managed a 4th place finish despite being a distant 7th at half time.  So, we were pleased, even if our Xennial proclivities seemed to limit our Christmas Movie knowledge to A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Die Hard and Elf.

I would like it noted for the record that there were no questions about Gremlins, which is as much a Christmas movie as Die Hard.

------

I've seen it noted in a meme that the one bit of Christmas merchandising that is missing is a dark green Gremlin with glowing red eyes that you can hide in the middle of your Christmas tree.  I need somebody to get on this, in addition to the Kiss Kiss Bang Bang commemorative ornaments mentioned in a previous post.

-----

Thursday, the trailer for James Gunn's Superman movie drops, and I'm gonna be honest, I'm kinda stoked for it.

I'm rooting for it.  There is part of me that very much wants somebody who cares and understands what Superman stands for to knock it out of the park.  

Too much of that film legacy got mucked up rolling around in the mud with Zack Snyder.

I'll also say that I recently started the Superman & Lois show, since it's in its final season, and I'm kinda digging it, too.

-----

A couple of Cubs trades to speak on:

I'm really stoked about Kyle Tucker coming over from the Astros.  That's the middle of the order bat they've needed since 2021.  That's the middle of the order bat they hoped Cody Bellinger might be.  I'm just hoping this isn't a one-year rental.  I'm not real sad to see Isaac Parades go, and I'm happy Hayden Wesneski will be in a position to get some regular starts, something he wasn't going to get in Chicago.  I'm nervous about giving up Cam Smith.  I was excited to get to watch him play in local Double A ball this year, so it kinda sucks that he's moving on....but I also had a feeling he wasn't going to stay in Knoxville long.  I thought that there was an outside chance you saw him playing in Chicago in late 2025, especially if no real answer showed up at third base.  

That all said....Cam Smith is a heavy price to pay if Tucker only sticks around for one year.

And I'm not real confident that the Ricketts family will go all in on Tucker when he starts looking for 25 or 30 or more million dollars a year.  The Ricketts are perfectly happy fielding a just over .500 team so long as the Polyanna Crowd keeps visiting the Friendly Confines.

The rest of us, who visit the Friendly Confines once a decade or so, could give a shit about the amusement park atmosphere.  

Build me a winner I can watch on TeeVee.

-----

I haven't been to Chicago in more than a decade.  

There's something called SporcleCon in Chicago this year.  It's a Trivia Con.  I'm interested.  The Cubs are in town that same weekend.  I wonder if I can swing in financially......

Christmas flicks

 Watched a pair of favorite Christmas type movies last night.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is one that we don't miss.  I have to thank Shyam for bringing me back around to this one.  I remember getting the disc from Netflix a year or two after it came out, and it just not grabbing me.  I didn't think it was bad, but for whatever reason, it didn't snag in my consciousness.  But the way the blogosphere was working in the late 'aughts, and with Shyam mentioning how funny she thought it was when we started going out, I gave it another chance.

Yeah.  Quality flick.  Highly quotable.

A few years back, our favorite little indie cinema Central Cinema, in Knoxville, did a Christmas double feature for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys,  right around Christmas.  Shyam and I caught it on the tail end of the 3 or so day run, and had the theater almost to ourselves.  It's a small thing but it's one of my favorite memories, actually.

Hallmark does commemorative ornaments of Everything, anymore.  One of mom's favorite gifts to give is Christmas ornaments every year.  I took her up to one of the stores up in Knoxville a couple years back, and just marveled at the licensing.  Disney, Snoopy, all the major sports.  We like the Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas stuff.  

But I would give much money for an ornament of Harry hanging from the overpass by the hand from the coffin.  Or perhaps the dog with a finger in its mouth.

Or a talking ornament saying, from above:  Merry Christmas, sorry I fucked you over.

We also watched Office Christmas Party, which I don't think gets enough love.  Fun ensemble piece.  

I could probably watch Jennifer Aniston cussing the girl in the airport lounge all day.....

A few random thoughts about driving...

 I drive a lot.  It's a good portion of my job.  During the busy part of the year, I can drive 600 or 700 miles in a week.  I have a few observations.

These are largely brought on by a trip to Chattanooga yesterday to do a little Christmas shopping, and a little browsing at a bookstore (if I'm being honest).

Just a few free floating thoughts, almost none of them new in general, or on this blog in particular:

• If you have to make more than one attempt at backing up into a parking spot?  You're defeating the purpose of backing into a parking spot.  And you're making people wait on your ass.
• If you're driving a heavy duty pickup truck?  Maybe backing into that first space in the row because it's open isn't the best option, anyway.  If it's me, and I'm driving a truck that costs as much as my parents' house when they bought it in 1988, I'm going to part on down the line, anyway.  I won't be that douche who takes 4 spots...but I'm gonna grant you that you take up 2 spots as long as you're pulling through.
• Don't be the douche who takes up two spots if you can fit in one.  
• Don't be the douche who parts in the diagonally lined spots next to handicapped spots.  My mother and I ran into that last Christmas time.  We'd stopped to get a bite to eat, and parked in the handicapped spot, since she was on a walker last Christmas.  We came back out from lunch to find a Porsche parked on those diagonal lines.  Those are for people with van side access.  Don't park there.  There's a spot in Hell for you where they play Holiday Road by Lindsey Buckingham on repeat until Kingdom Come.
• I'm not a fan of Dodge Rams.  I'm generalizing, and that's probably wrong, but there's a special breed out there driving Dodge Rams.  There's a large portion of our society who has completely bought in on the "alpha male" mentality.  They tailgate.  Try to intimidate.  They LOVE passing transfer trucks on the right.  And they treat every excursion onto the roads like it's some kind of race.  I do have a worrisome story that's happened in the past month or two where I ended up having to call the cops on a guy in a Ram acting like a fool on the interstate.  Tailgating.  Swerving.  And he took a particular ire in me when I honked as he cut me off.  I'll tell that one at a different time.
• Ford F-150's of newer vintage have a lot of the same problems.  I'm not sure where the cutoff is, but I'm usually pretty cool with older F-150's.
• I hold Kia and Lexus drivers in a lot of the same regard.  In general, they are the least likely drivers to understand the rules of the road.  They do things out of ignorance, rather than any sort of malevolence.  They are the most likely to cut people off because they don't understand where their car is in the road.  
• Tesla and Genesis drivers are moving high up on my list of cars to watch out for.  Their drivers are most likely to drive distracted.  I don't know if it's because they take safety systems for granted, or what.  But there's a lot of swerving, and a lot of driving slowly in the left lane of the interstate with these guys.  Teslas are also the least likely to brake for you in the parking lot of a shopping center.  
• Brake for people in shopping centers, guys.  That's a holdover from the old job, but it comes into play every now and then still.  Pedestrians have the right of way in a lot of those areas, anyway.  And it costs you nothing to not be a dick.  You're not in that big a hurry.
• On ramps are for acceleration.  You're supposed to be close to traveling speed by the time you reach the interstate.  I know it's not always going to work that way, especially when there are a lot of cars getting on at the same time.  But a lot of the time, it gets to be hazardous because one car is toodling toward 70 mile an hour traffic at 45 miles an hour.  Get up to speed before getting on the interstate.
• Off framps are for deceleration.  Stop slowing down ridiculously before you get off the interstate, unless there's a cloverleaf designation.  And even then, you don't need to go 45 on the interstate.
• If you can't get up to speed, or aren't comfortable traveling at the average speed of traffic on the interstate?  You don't need to be traveling on the interstate.  90% of the time, if not more, there's a parallel highway nearby that will get you where you need to go at a speed you're more comfortable with.
• Everybody who travels 75 South between Knoxville and say...Loudon and Sweetwater?  You can go faster than 63.  We don't need to go 90, but if we could go the speed limit, that would be awesome.

I Saw the TV Glow

 Sat down the other night to watch this movie I Saw the TV Glow.  

It reminded me of the early 90's.  Which it's meant to, by and large...shout out to the Fruitopia machine in the background in a couple scenes.

In the early 90's my family lived back in the woods, too far from the main line to run TV Cable to.  So, we were an antenna family.  The only two things I really missed, TV-wise, were baseball and pro wrestling.

I'd been a WGN kid, so I was a Cubs fan.  We moved in the 1988 season.  Not having WGN for 1989 kinda sucked, but thew newspapers still printed line scores (at least) and box scores (some did), so you could still follow, if a day or two later.

But without cable, there was little pro wrestling to watch.  Occasionally, you'd find a WWF or WCW show floating across syndication on some fuzzy UHF channel.  Even more rarely, you'd find some local show that had managed some TV Time.  But scheduling was sporadic, and sometimes you'd set the VCR to record something coming on at 1AM on Sunday night, only to find that somebody at WFLI or some other channel had decided to show Zardoz instead.  

I found a friend at church.  We were ushers together.  Which meant that we opened doors for people needing to enter or leave the sanctuary, so the doors wouldn't make a noise when they closed.  We also took the offerings, and helped older or handicapped church members to their seats, though thinking back on it now, there were only a couple of those, and a guy named Jim, who was older than us, usually did that part.  Legally speaking, that was probably wise, though I don't think that was even in the thought process.

Anyway, one of the other ushers was a guy named Brett.  He was a couple years ahead of me in school, and we'd never interacted much, but one day I made an Undertaker reference in the vestibule when it came to how the aforementioned Jim walked.  And a friendship was born.  We talked a lot of wrestling, and it became something of an arrangement that Brett would start taping WCW Saturday Night (and later Monday Night Raw) for me.  In 1992 and 1993, this is how I watched a lot of wrestling.

We would usually pick apart the wrestling shows in intense conversations that even though I really liked pro wrestling, I was always taken somewhat aback at how intensely he was into the storylines, and how cool it would be if there were some cross promotional show where Vader and the Undertaker could have a match.

Brett's fandom, I never could completely sort out.  By 1992, I was 15 and 3 or 4 years past my true believer stage.   I always blamed a Saturday Night Main Event match between Hulk Hogan and the Honky Tonk Man for being a nail in the coffin.  HTM hit his "Shake Rattle n' Roll" neckbreaker on the Hulkster, but I said to myself "he's gonna get up" not in any sort of fannish exultation, but in admission of a tired storytelling trend.  I was never a Hulkamaniac.

But around that same time, another tape of a Clash of Champions match between Ric Flair and Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat had popped into my hands.  The WWF was theatrical, my mind reasoned, diplomatically, but Flair and Steamboat were going at it for real!

Sometimes you just want to believe, I guess.

That was 1989.  By 1992, I knew it was all predetermined, but was still a fan of the theatrics.

Brett?  I'm pretty sure was the same way, but was just getting into the stories so much that he was like a true believer.

I never knew for sure, though.  I mean, he was Intense!

Now, it's not a lot like I Saw the TV Glow and their relationship to The Pink Opaque.

I mean, I don't believe I'm a wrestler.

(Admission:  I do believe with all my heart that I am Bret "the Hitman" Hart and I am forever locked in combat with Shawn Michaels).

As for the movie.  I liked it.  I felt like it hit its marks, and it made me uncomfortable, which was much by design.  I'm coming to like Justice Smith as a performer very much, but Brigette Lundy-Paine brought the weirdie angst.  I liked her very much.

We watched it a couple nights ago, and I keep thinking about it.....

In Which He Goes Christmas Shopping

 Dear Online Nerd Diary:

Today, I wandered north with my mother to do a little Christmas shopping.  

She got a little bit done, with a couple of ideas for things to grab in the next couple of weeks (which is advantageous, since Christmas is hurtling at us startling speed, and will be here in just over a couple weeks).

I have long since opined that the line of demarcation between child and adult, for those who celebrate Christmas, lies somewhere along the same place where the child looks at a calendar and says "Aww....Christmas is ___ Days Away!" while the adult looks at the same date and says "Damn!  Christmas is ___ Days Away!"

Working in retail all those years, knowing that I'd be working 5 and 6 (and 7) days a week in December, without a lot of extra time to shop...combined with a distaste for getting out in crowds, shopping, spending money in general and standing in line..... I do a lot of my shopping early, and online.

But there is always the problem of going into the place where I keep these presents, and occasionally wandering across an item and saying "Who the Hell is this Bucket of Drywall Screws for?"

(So early is my shopping that in 2017, when I went into my Christmas box, I found something that I'd picked up in February for Dad, a couple of weeks before he died.  That was a metaphysical kick in the nuts).

But the flip side is this:  sometimes there is one person that has gotten left out over the course of the year.  I will not name them here, but I have neglected to pick up anything for them.  Not out of any intent to leave them out.  I just....haven't seen that thing that makes me think of them.

And I did not find or see that thing that makes me think of them again. No anything for them today.

But there are ideas!

All the ideas!

So, after a day in a book store, and a Hallmark store, and a women's clothing store where I simply sat in the front of the store watching videos on my phone....

I have to go back out again.  And I'll be thankful that with the business, we're in the slow part of the year (until February or so), and I have the ability to wander back out into the Public at Christmas without fear of exhaustion because my job is to be In the Public at Christmas.

As we are verging on stream of consciousness here, I would like to mention that I miss my friend Marty.  He'll have been gone 7 years this coming January.  He's the one who used the phrase "In the Public."  It was a state of mind, and sometimes you're not fit to be "in the public."  I've borrowed it from him a lot since he's passed.  I often wondered what Marty would have thought of life events from 2019 forward.  I miss that guy. 

An Admission

 Hi.  Welcome to the mostly defunct Big Stupid Tommy blog.

I used to write here a lot.  

A LOT.

Over time, it got to be less.  Work, for one.  "Working like a Botard" was a phrase stolen from TechTV back in the day.  But there were other social media outlets.  The Facespace.  Twitter.  They took a lot of the same function, and provided a lot of the same dopamine that blogging did.  But I still did some writing over here.  For a while.  It doesn't coincide exactly, but there's a mental line of demarcation for when Dad died.  He was a big part of why I wrote here.  And then my friend Steve died.  He of Elisson fame.  And other blogging pals died, too.  Trace died this year, I was sad to learn.  and long time commentor here, and other places, Grandefille passed in the summer of 2023.  And byeond them, a lot of my blogging compatriots wandered away from it, or let it dwindle.  Bill.  Emily.  Rob.  Troy.  Even Eric.  I think Sheila is the only one from back in the day still doing her regular superlative work.

I've said it a few times over the past couple of years, but I need to start writing again.

But I said it with the same amount of conviction that I've said "I need to plant some grass seed up near the fig tree," or "I need to get some gravel for the driveway" multiple times in that span, and the results been just about the same.

So, I'm challenging myself just a little, to set up a routine.

And it's worked.  To a degree.

I've written a bit the last few days.  

And it's kinda angry.  Not the stuff I like putting up for everybody to see.

I may share it.  I dunno.  But, a condensed version, just so everybody sees where my mind's at.

A couple of years ago, I got fired from the job I'd been in for nearly a couple decades.  It came as a surprise, and the things I got fired over weren't 100% true.  I was fired for making "violent statements."  There were a couple things said....that I was tired of playing babysitter for my store's front end...that were said, and I owned that.  There were other things  that I was said to have said...that I threatened to beat an associate's ass if he didn't come to work...and that I wanted to line people up against a wall and execute them....that I didn't say.

It was sobering to have my words come back to haunt me.  It fucking destroyed me to have lies made up.

But a couple people signed a piece of paper saying that I said it.  So, I lost that job.

It sucked.  

It wasn't all bad.  It was a shitty job.  It ate too much time.  It was thankless.

I started working with Shyam's family business.  And after a year of doing that, she and I decided to purchase the business.  It's been a pretty smooth transition, if I can jinx things by saying so.  And I say so by saying there are still days I feel like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.  But she and her family are great to work with.  And the little dramas that drove me crazy  (Come to Work, America) aren't in play at all, now.  In fact, I think I'm the one that's missed the most work, after giving myself a wicked bone bruise about a month into my tenure.  Other than that, I don't think anybody's missed any work in two years.  And if I go someplace in my delivery routes (we deliver live fishing bait to stores), where there is drama, or tension?  10 minutes later, I'm in my truck driving away from it.

I can honestly say that for the first time in my life, I really like my job.

I close this post off this way.  With an admission.  I'm scared.

Of what?  I dunno.  That's anxiety for you.  

I was never a swaggering, confident asshole.  I mean, I know that's a huge surprise from a guy who named his blog Big Stupid Tommy.  But despite all that, I was able to keep an even keel for a lot of time.  Getting fired?  It fucked with my confidence a little.  Maybe a lot.  I've been very very sensitive, about screwing up, here lately.  Which plays somewhat into why I don't write more.  I enjoy writing.  It's a minor form of therapy.  Maybe blogging is just mental masturbation, but I always felt  a little better after I did it.  Like I've taken a mental shit.  But here lately, I felt like I was screwing that up too, somehow.  So, fair warning if I'm tentative.

I still like to try to be funny.  And I do have a couple things I've written in the past few months that I think are kinda funny.  Maybe if I can find my Norm MacDonald/David Letterman space to just post it because I think it's funny, and say "fuck all" to the rest of the world.

I'd like to get past losing that job.  I'd like to get past feeling like a fuckup.  So there may be a few posts about that.  I asked Shyam if it was normal to still be pissed 2 years later.  At the people who lied.  At the people who were all to ready to believe them.  

She says it is, until the next thing to be pissed about comes along.

(There are lots of things to be pissed about, by the way.  Have you seen the world lately?)

But I'd like to work past it.  If you'll excuse me, I think that's what I'm setting as a larger goal, beyond just making myself write.

So, thanks for reading.  Bear with me....

22

 22 years of this nonsense!

A New Computer

 We bought a new computer.  For the business.  I'm just test driving it.  Seeing how it types.  Seeing how quickly it moves around the world wide web.  

It moves quickly.  

Much more quickly than my old computer.  

The 2024 Read List, So Far

 Well, we're halfway through 2024....time flies when you're...something something.

Actually, it has been kinda fun.  Driving a lot of routes with the family business myself.  Lot more time to listen to books (and music, and podcasts).   Getting into the list for the year:

January

The Wishing Pool, and Other Stories  by Tananarive Due

A collection of short stories, which seems to be Due's true expert medium.  I've liked her novel work, but her earlier collection Ghost Summer was one of my favorite collections in years.  And I liked Wishing Pool even better.  Ranging across a handful of genres, there's not a stinker in the bunch.  Particularly effective, though were the dark speculative story "The Biographer" and the titular "Wishing pool" which hits home with Twilight Zone impact.  I also particularly enjoyed a pair of stories about Nayima, a survivor of plague that hits in the near future.  

This was a good read.

Practical Demonkeeping  by Christopher Moore

I read this almost entirely at the tire shop, when I had to get them replaced.  Moore's first novel, and one of his only that I hadn't read to this point.  Fun, though I had to look at publication date (1992), when it went so out of the way to make fun of a character communicating with someone communicating via modem....out of place in 2024, as Moore has maintained one of the most pleasing online presences among authors I follow.  Fun read.....

Ghosts of South Carolina by Tally Johnson

Snow Day read.  A gift from my buddy Dino.  Focuses more on the history and verifiable facts around stories being passed down in communities than on building suspense, which was a pleasant surprise, to be honest.  

Thunderbolts: Justice, like Lightning    by Kurt Busiek, Roger Stern, Mark Bagley

I don't normally include my comic reading in my book list, but out of all the Marvel superhero stuff of the last 60 years, this is probably my favorite.  Just your everyday story of villains masquerading as heroes, and then finding that they are suited to heroing.  Checks a couple boxes of stories that'll catch my interest....redemption arcs and people finding their niche.  There's probably no better writer for capturing the thematic essence of Marvel's stories through the years than Kurt Busiek.  I dig the epic collections in general, and this one in particular.

Bulfinch's Mythology  by Thomas Bulfinch

I'd been thumbing through this copy since September of 2023, when Mom was first put in the hospital for stroke treatment.  I finished it while snowed in at Mom's in a rare snow and ice event in January.

February

Head On by John Scalzi

The work listen.  A follow up to Scalzi's Lock In.  I was discussing Scalzi with a buddy who'd picked up a couple of his books, and I said that I dig Scalzi's SF concepts, and his humor often hits that same circle on the Venn Diagram Dartboard that Douglas Adams Did....sometimes the darts miss, especially in the dialog, which tends toward geek humor a little too strongly for my tastes sometimes.

This one wandered that way a bit, but I still enjoyed the story, and the concept of avatar bots beating the hell out of each other for points was enjoyable.....

Dark Tower VI: the Song of Susannah    by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project.  This was one of the books I was concerned about when I began my chronological read-through way back in 2017.   I don't dislike books 6 and 7 of the Tower, but I don't enjoy them, especially as much as I do the first 4 books.  Part of it comes in the length of time between volumes.  Each preceding volume has its own feel, as King's tendencies as a writer and concerns as a human being change over time.  Books 6 and 7 felt in 2004 like extensions of book 5, in many ways.  

I didn't hate it, but it's still not great.  There are character moments I enjoy:  Eddie taking the reins once he and Roland start tromping around 1977.  And I thought the interplay between Mia and Susannah was interesting, but could have used time in the oven.

King's insertion of himself into the story felt out of place in 2004....it's not as bad in 2024, and I think the inclusion of his journal adds something to the story itself.

The Breach  by Nick Cutter

The second of Cutter's I've read....and a sharp decline from The Troop.  I didn't enjoy this one.

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

The work listen, read by Andy Serkis, which ended up being a real treat.  While is performance was painted a bit by some of the performances in Jackson's movies (his Boromir and Gimli are lifted pretty much from Sean Bean's and John Rhys Davies' performances), he interpretations of the songs and lilts of some the accents brings much of the story to life.  I have a weird relationship with Tolkien....I love the story, and the attention to history, but the digressions in the story itself can tire me out.  Still, it's a hell of a good book.....

March

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest     by Ken Kesey

A re-read, though it may as well have been the first time.

I read this for a 20th Century Lit class the same semester I had ridiculous reading lists across 5 or 6 classes.  It was simply one of 22 or 23 books I'd read that semester.

Simply put, it's one of the best books I've read.  And the section with the boat "rental" might be some of the best writing I've wandered across in years.

A Serpent's Tooth by Craig Johnson

Johnson continues to turn a good phrase.  This one wanders a bit more into the weirdness of Abrosoka County than the last couple of books.  For a book that takes place out on the Great Plains of Wyoming, it's got cousins down in the Gothic South.  I didn't care much for the cliffhanger ending, but sometimes a soap opera has to rear its head....

The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team   by Joe Lansdale

Was tremendously pleased that Subterranean put this out on e-reader, as their limited edition priced itself out of my hands rather quickly.  Especially when short story collections can be such mixed bags, as a rule.  This one was fun.  I'm all about a Jedediah Mercer story, so the volume's opening tilt with the Wendigo was excellent.  I also enjoyed "Gorillas in the Yard" and "the Hoodoo Man and the Midnight Train."

The Dark Tower   by Stephen King

The story ends like it needs to.  He just rushed the ending a bit.

I'll never forget how mad my Dad was in 2004 when Eddie Dean died.  Dad saw a bit of himself in Eddie.

Catastrophe: Europe Goes to War, 1914    by Max Hastings

Good Read.  Takes Barbara Tuchman's Guns of August and wanders further into the war itself.  Looks a bit harder at its impact on the common man, in terms of both society and at those fighting the battles themselves in the trenches.  I liked this one.

April

Kayfabe: a Love Story     by Dave Reuter

My buddy Stephen Silver interviewed Reuter a while back about this released, and I picked it up for the Kindle.  It wavers back and forth between approaching the stories presented in the wrestling ring as real, to commenting on the medium's absurdities in others.  Maybe I'd have liked a bit more consistency on that front.  Still, the book made me laugh, so I recommend.

The Angel of Indian Lake   by Stephen Graham Jones

I don't champ at the bit often for new releases but I was really looking forward to this one.  The third of a trilogy following My Heart is a Chainsaw, which I kinda liked, and Don't Fear the Reaper which I loved, I was really excited to grab this one.  I guess I've been reading Jones's stuff for long enough now that I can stop thinking of him as a favorite new-to-me writer.  His horror is imaginative with a current of melancholy that few can match.  And his shit moves!

It's always gratifying, too, when something lives up to expectations and pays off.  I mentioned in a twitter comment that Don't Fear the Reaper moved with lunatic speed almost from the outset.    Angel of Indian Lake starts a little more tentatively, but kicks into a high gear that outstrips even that previous novel.  The last 150 pages of the book are a fever dream of forest fires, chainsaws, secluded cabins, bear attacks, cave-ins, underwater towns, crossbows, pervert murders and boat collisions. 

In the best possible way.  Probably my favorite thing I've read this year, so far.

The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus  by Bev Vincent

I thumbed through this after finishing the Tower.  I don't understand my own fascination with the Tower.  I guess I'm just glad that other people share the obsession enough to write something like this.  Vincent's book is a good one.  Good take on the metafictional aspects.  Also enjoyed Vincent's impression on the Crimson King, whose depiction in the last volume of the Tower was one of the more confounding aspects of that rushed conclusion....

Infinite Tuesday: an Autobiographical Riff    by Michael Nesmith

I won't lie.  There's part of me that calls the scant few minutes of the book devoted to The Monkees pure balls.  But then, The Monkees really were just 2 or 3 years of the man's life.

Interesting read, with a couple passages into religious thought that I've not read much into, prior to this (Nesmith and his mother were Christian Scientists).  

I ended up being more interested in the musical efforts Nesmith made outside of the Monkees.  I always thought he was a better singer or songwriter than critics gave him credit for.  This volume ended up making me wander through the First National Band and other efforts, which ended up adding a few more songs to the catchall soundtrack.....

A Rule Against Murder  by Louise Penny

I need to summer around a lake in Quebec.

Poor Things  by Alasdair Gray

Picked this copy up for Shyam when we heard that Yorgos Lanthimos was adapting it for the big screen.  Ordered it from England, since there weren't American printings yet.  Amused myself with images of a shopkeep having to fight off cats in stacks of a Dickensian book shop to find this volume, when a google search showed that the book was coming from a warehouse not far from the Taskmaster house in Chiswick, near the Heathrow airport.

The film, I can report, is largely faithful to the book.  I will say this, and Spoiler Warning:  the book's ending (as a poor fool of a man myself) a little cold.  It shouldn't, I suppose.  But then I tend not to shun whimsy, if it's well enough spun....

Quakeland: On the Road to America's Next Devastating Earthquake   by Kathryn Miles

Interesting look at how little we know, seismologically speaking.   The great bulk of quakes come from faults unknown until the point they shift.  Good look at the increase in seismic activity that comes from wastewater injection.

Also a strong look at how ill prepared we are in terms of infrastructure and response readiness.

Also a takeway:  in December of 1990, my school was one of many that participated in Earthquake drills and sat under our desks on the assigned day that a forecast earthquake was to take place.  Even at the age of 13, I felt like the prediction was bullshit, but this was always refuted with the "fact" that Iben Browning was correct on the other 3 he predicted.  

No.  He was not.  He was a pseudoscientific crackpot.

The Colorado Kid   Stephen King

For the first time in a while, in my continuing project, a new one.  I'd tried this one at its publication, but it didn't speak to me.

It's not bad, but it's half a story.  

May

The Imprending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861    by David M. Potter

Strong read.  Threads the needle between the Polk administration and the Mexican War to the first shots fired at Fort Sumter.  Details the political pressures, and various crises created and allayed in that time.  I liked this one.

Supersize Island  by J.J. Walsh

Quick read.  Funny.   Scratches a lot of the same itch that Christopher Moore and John Scalzi do.....

Dead Detective Mountain    by John Swartzwelder

Not quite as effective as a lot of Swartzwelder's Frank Burly novels, but I still got a chuckle or two.....

Sharp Objects    by Gillian Flynn

I'd never read any of Flynn's stuff, despite several recommendations.  I liked this one.  A little pulpier than I expected.  Camille is a fine flawed character, who causes as many problems in her investigation as she solves.   Props to the book for keeping one clue that I thought was a grotesque red herring, and was actually the key to the whole thing.....

McSweeney's 71:  Horror Stories   edited by Brian Evenson

Starts with a mission statement of introducing literary and horror fiction to each other....it's not a bad collection, but I was ultimately underwhelmed.  Much of what's here is too....clean?  Orderly?  Too interested in setting atmosphere, as often as not, but shying away from the dreadful.  Yeah, I get letting your imagination do the heavy lifting, but every now and then horror needs to punch you in the gob.

"The Noble Rot" was fun.  I kinda liked "The Pond God."  Gabino Iglesias's "Dont Go Into the Woods Alone" is probably the best of the bunch.

June

Business is About to Pick Up:  50 Years of Wrestling in 50 Unforgettable Calls by Jim Ross w/ Paul O'Brien

I could listen to Jim Ross talk about wrestling any day of the week.  And I have.  

Which might be part of the problem.   I'd heard a few of these stories on Ross's podcast with Conrad Thompson. 

Still, a fun read. 

The Demon of Unrest   by Erik Larson

I don't know which of Larson's books won me over to become appointment reading, but I can't think of anything of his I've read that I didn't enjoy.  A good coincidental followup to Potter's book spanning the years between the Mexican War and the Civil War....Larson's work follows the various camps of the nation in the months between Lincoln's election and the shots at Fort Sumter.  

Strong read.   

Cinderwich by Cherie Priest

Fun read.  Heavy on atmosphere.  Was just happening to deliver around Nickajack Lake, the story's setting, as I listened.

Sho gun     by James Clavell

Started reading at the conclusion of TNT's excellent adaptation, which concerns itself a lot less with the size of John Blackthorne's penis than Clavell's book does.

Faithful   by Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan

Maybe the biggest surprise in my re-read of King's work, and in this year.  I enjoyed the hell out of this one, despite having read it back in 2005.  Funny how King's and O'Nan's complaints about that Red Sox team in May and June of that season would match my and my friend Ray's complaints about the Cubs this year (though as I write on July 7, I'll be the loudest to say the Cubs have next to NO CHANCE of turning it around in 2024.....and the way things look right now, 2025 might be a long one, too).

A lot of fun.  And should be considered one of the books in canon of great books about Baseball.....

Batman   by Craig Shaw Gardner   (novelization of story by Sam Hamm)

Listened to this the same weekend, plus 35 years, that the Batman movie was released in 1989.  

Notable for its narrator Roddy McDowell, being either unaware of the tone of Tim Burton's flick, or being completely uninterested in portraying it in his narration.  His portrayal is almost that of a more straightlaced adaptation of the 60's television series.....

The Nineties: a Book   by Chuck Klosterman

Nice sociological look at an American Era, where we as a culture were casting about for some meaning as the Cold War ended, and Generation X began to take the reins of popular culture.  Interesting because the 90's were my teenage and college years, and I too was casting about for some meaning.  Good read.....

Lapvona   by Ottessa Moshfegh

After the passing of Cormac McCarthy, Moshfegh might be my favorite user of the English language.   Her books are uncomfortable....vaguely sad....uproariously funny....grotesque.

This was is a bit of a departure, while being completely true to that form.  A fairy tale constructed out of horror imagery.  It is funny and depressing often in the same paragraph.  

A movie made starring people with the birthday same as mine

 A movie made, starring people with the same birthday as mine.

Rihanna and Trevor Noah play estranged siblings, each gifted, but neither having spoken to the other in at least a decade.  Their father is assassinated.  The father was was a gifted crimefighter, who often wandered into the gray areas to get things done.  He is played, using archival footage, by Sidney Poitier.  

Rihanna has become a fixer for the biggest mob family on the East Coast.  That mob is led by Chelsea Peretti.

Trevor Noah is a gifted cop for the NYPD.  His captain, who can't handle Noah's mile-a-minute banter, is NBA legend Charles Barkley.

The assassin is French Stewart.  Playing himself.  Sick of playing comedic roles his career.  

The soundtrack features work by Rihanna, Chris Thile, Olivia Rodrigo and the late Kurt Cobain.....

Time, and How it Flies

 38 years ago, the space shuttle Challenger exploded off the coast of Florida.

It was a snow day, in my little town in Tennessee.  My mother, who was a teacher, took my me with my sister to my sister's regular babysitter.  I'm not sure if my Mom went to school anyway to get work done, or just wanted a house without kids in it.  But I was at the house of a lady named Eleanor, and I was 8 years old, and obsessed with the space program.  The obsession was even stronger, since we'd had classroom material about Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who was going into space.  

I'm 46 now (almost 47!) and not nearly as obsessed with the Space Program as once I was.  But it's one of those moments and days I'll always remember.  Sitting in the den of Eleanor's home, even after the younger kids had been put down for a nap, watching the news unfold over the course of the day....

That might have been my first dealing with media saturation.  Or fatigue.  I remember going home and being somewhat aggravated that it was still the only thing on the television, and lamenting thus to my mother, who suggested going to read a book.  This being, of course, the days when we had only 4 channels, and I think the Challenger disaster predates my family's getting a VCR by a year or two.  

Anyway.  

I'm writing.  Or trying to.....

Mmmmm.....beans.....

 That's a good deal.....