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
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