American Madness Journal

 You ever find yourself watching the news, and suddenly wondering if somebody maybe gave Jake Tapper some bad acid and replaced his notes with long-lost outtakes from Naked Lunch? It can’t be just me. One of the ways we know we’re in Hell, like the Hell, and not just...

 I’ve certainly developed greater empathy for every old-witch-who-lives-in-the-woods/crazy-old-man-in-a-shack-outside-town I’ve ever encountered in fiction, now that I too spend my days in twitchy solitude, cackling to myself at seemingly random intervals. 2020 will...

 So, I see Dr. Fauci says we might have to live like this for another year or more, and I’m like, “don’t be silly, my vocal chords couldn’t possibly hold out that long,” as yet another news cycle reduces me to baying at the moon like a stray dog that got into Uncle...

 Longtime readers will recall that in previous posts, I’ve described life under the Turd Reich as like being trapped in a dryer filled with hammers and badgers. After all these years, I stick to that assessment, and I have to admit I’m impressed at the way they keep...

 I got stung by a bee last night, so there’s a chance that I’ve had an allergic reaction, and hallucinated this week’s news. I understand that it’s a fairly slight chance, but nobody’ll mind if I cling to it like a big ol’ o-shaped cartoon life preserver, right?...

 I feel like I’m trapped on a deserted island with nothing to eat but clown meat, and the clown meat has started to go bad, y’know? Anybody else feel like that? So, we’re finally at the place we’ve sort of abstractly feared from the beginning: Government Cheese...

 Life has been grating and unpleasant for quite some time now, so whoever decided we needed a solid week of the drooliest maniacs in the world, reciting their Mad-Max-by-way-of-Tucker-Carlson’s-White-Power-Hour fanfic, mid-meth overdose, in prime time...that was a bad...

 Look, I’m not saying quarantine is getting to me, but lately I’ve taken to writing EAT ME on everything in the fridge, because at some point, something has to make me magically grow right out of Shitty Wonderland, and I’ll wake up safe in my bed, right? RIGHT? C’mon,...

  Say, that DNC sure was a nice change, wasn’t it? Like pressing a cool cloth on America’s fevered forehead. A cloth damp with decency. And yea, alongside this cloth shall we offer the Barf Bag of Restoration, that the nation might purge herself of her Nazi loser...

 After all these weeks trapped in my apartment with no company save my own, one thing I’m increasingly certain of: that turtle I kept in a shoebox back in third grade must’ve fucking hated me. ‘Course, the turtle didn’t have the unceasing madness of the 24-hour news...

 Oh wow, things sure are zany these days. Zany zany zany. There’s this zany fascist destroying American democracy from the inside out, which is totally wacky and not at all terrifying. Well, I sure hope I’m not living through the Constitution’s dying days ha ha ha...

 You’ve probably noticed that I always start this blog with a little paragraph that goes, “golly, things sure are nutty,” but for real, it’s come to organized looting and surprise tornadoes up by me, so if I’m a little late posting this week, know that I’m probably...

 I’ve started sleeping with my head in the dryer, in an effort to keep the sensation of following the news going 24/7. Honestly, it didn’t do the trick at first, but then I added some bricks and an opossum from the dumpster out back to the dryer, and I have to say,...

 Welp, pretty normal day, honestly. Of course, lately “normal” means “a complete and total failure of government has left the United States utterly paralyzed before a pandemic much of the rest of the world has contained, also there’s a debate about whether or not to...

 Trying times, friends. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m right on the brink of discovering precisely how many licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of my fragile sanity. Ah yes, I believe I feel the beak of the owl crushing down on my skull even...

 I really don’t understand how we got here, friends. I think one overlooked possibility is that somebody found a magic lamp and wanted to see what it would look like if Gordon Gekko sold Wonderland to the shittiest people he knew. I’m certainly open to other theories,...

 I was gonna write “TGIF,” like the day of the week still matters at all, or the weekend brings some sort of release from the insanity that carpet-bombs our consciousness every minute of every day, but I decided against it. Fuck. It’s raining golf ball-sized batshit,...

 Hey there, Resisters, hope the federal government hasn’t abducted you into an unmarked van, but if they have, I hope you’re getting good enough reception in there to read my shit. Things’re just gonna keep getting crazier and crazier out here, so you may be better...

 The news sure is somethin’ these days. It’s been kind of interesting to discover that the worst people in the world are also the stupidest. It probably would’ve been more desirable to uncover that little nugget in a game of Scrabble, rather than by giving them...

I dunno how much more of this I can take, Resisters. I keep buying calendars and tearing off all the pages between now and next January, hoping I can trick time into letting me skip ahead because the only thing I want from life anymore is one week where I don’t have...

You guys, it is so beautiful out today. One of the maybe three mathematically perfect spring days Chicago gets per year. Weather that cries out for day drinking. But alas, I must remain faithful to the vow I made to the original, Golden Age Shower Cap, when he...

With all due respect to my regular readership, I’m addressing this week’s post directly to the alien archaeologists excavating the ruins of our stupid, stupid civilization, which I don’t see lasting past Thursday. Okay. Greetings, alien archaeologists! Have a Twinkie,...

You’re probably seeing the term “mad king” all over the place this week, but I honestly don’t think that’s fair. What we’re dealing with here is a stupid king. A dumbass. An imbecile. A bag-of-hammers, thinks-a-cognitive-test-measures-intelligence,...

Golly, online dating sure has changed. Once upon a time, the worst you had to worry about was an unsolicited dick pic; nowadays, seems like you can’t log in without half the dang Cabinet sliding classified war plans into your DMs. Yes, in the Turd Reich, OPSEC stands...

Following the news these days is like watching the shittiest people alive furiously pound away at a Hungry Hungry Hippos board, where the marbles are, like, massive chunks of the federal budget, or our fundamental human rights. Ukrainian oblasts. Hopes for the future....