Greetings friends! The NFL season is so close that Biden can almost just lean in and sniff it. The leaves are already changing colors a bit and my nipples can feel a chill upon the breeze. Autumn, the time of Pigskin, has arrived.

Since last year ended with the NFL writers just recycling a couple of old storylines from the last few seasons, not much has changed in NFL Land. Pretty ho-hum offseason for the Packers. A couple of QBs moved to new teams. A draft happened. And the Washington Football Team announced that their name will be the Washington Football Team, at least for another year (How can this be so hard? Just call yourselves the SaunaBoys and get it over with!)

In the preseason, the NFL refs have been penalizing players for taunting. This is another “point of emphasis” rule thing that they seem to just throw in to ruin the first couple games every season before they eventually peter out. Usually, at least, they are at least ostensibly safety rules. Remember a few years ago when Clay Matthews kept getting HORSE SHIT penalties for…sacking a quarterback? What the HORSE SHIT was that? This new HORSE SHIT rule will I’m sure cause an untimely 15 yard penalty for a guy flexing after a 15 yard run or something. Bunch of HORSE SHIT. I don’t know why I just thought of this memory, but once I was walking across the street after a parade had gone through and I stepped in a pile of VOMIT.

This year, I’m choosing to not give specific team records, but will instead list what order each team in a division will finish. Two reasons: First, I don’t think most people are as Autis-I mean, nerdy about football enough to care about whether I think the third place team in the AFC South will have 5 or 6 wins. That’s just too much specificity! Second reason is in protest of the stupid no good seventeenth regular season game this year. The NFL owners, in their infinite greed, have decided now to go from the classic 16 game format that’s persisted for forty years, to a 17 game format. It’s dumb. Now you don’t have an even number of away and home games. Now it’s basically impossible to break even on wins and losses. I refuse to publish such ugly and ghoulish records as 13-4, or 7-10. Shudder.

Many longstanding regular season records could be surpassed just because of an extra chance at surpassing them. Maybe most people aren’t as Austi-I mean puritanical to care about this stuff, but it’s just changing it for the sake of it. Well, for the sake of being able to sell tickets and beer for one more home game every other year. These rich owners, I tell ya. Somebody ought to give them a knuckle sandwich.

Anyway, lets get into it:

NFC WEST
1st: ARIZONA BLUEJAYS (3rd seed)
Most predictions have one of the three other teams winning the west, but I like Arizona. Kyler Murray is a quick little fella with a good arm, Deandre Hopkins is one of the best WRs in the league, and the ancient flesh golem JJ Watt just arrived. I can see it all working out.
2nd: LOS ANGELES CURLHORNS (5th seed)
The legendary QB Matthew Stafford is finally where he can succeed. You know, not like in that shithole Detroit where he never had a Megatron-like receiver, or a dominant nose tackle on the defense. Anyway, the team is mostly good.
3rd: SAN FRAN RENTGOUGERS
Did you know that San Fran had a lot of injuries last year? Uh-huh. Yep. They did. It’s true. But they were in the Super Bowl the year before. That means they will contend for the Super Bowl this year, because they will have no injuries but be exactly the same team as two years ago. That’s the take all these ESPN fucking clowns have anyway. Eat my fucking bottom. Mediocre team.
4th: SEATTLE SPERMBIRDS
I long for the inevitable collapse of the Seattle team. Can you blame me? They keep drafting like shit and trading away valuable picks and somehow they string together a season that barely lands them in the playoffs. The luck has to run out. Like when my luck ran out when I kept saying “Stupidsayswhat?!” to people really fast and then someone eventually just punched me in the stomach instead of saying “What?” I just regret it was my boss.

NFC SOUTH
1st: TAMPA BAY BOYKISSERS (2nd seed)
Welp, I mean we all saw it. The Trump-friendly, son-kissing-on-the-lips-for-way-too-long guy who got caught cheating at least twice before hoisted the Lombardi Trophy last year. And this vulgar blaspheme was cheered on the ghouls in sports media, throwing palm fronds before their false Greatest of All Time QB. Be dazzled as he throws an accurate 7 yard slant! Gaze in wonderment as he bitches for a roughing the passer call on a clean hit, and gets it every time. Kali Yuga rages on.
2nd: N’AWLINS PO’BOYS
The age of Drew Brees has ended. Jameis Winston will throw probably triple the interceptions that Brees would have. But they have Alvin Kamara, who is like a jumping spider with the ball. Maybe like Nightcrawler, the X-Man. They should be a tough out, but you can’t win games when every other pass is a pick.
3rd: CAROLINA VAGINA
Interesting little rebuild going on here. I’m kind of digging the vibe. Focusing on defense in the last two drafts, but with an offensive minded head coach. I bet these guys get good in the next couple seasons. More teams should work from the ground up instead of just flailing like an epileptic carp at an undersea rave.
4th: BARBARA STREISAND
Julio Jones wanted out. Matt Ryan is 56 years old and a known corprophage. They had the #4 overall pick in the draft. Sounds like a good time to bite the bullet and start a full-blown rebuild, right? Apparently not! If I’m handing out dunce caps, these guys are first on my list.

NFC NORTH
1st: GREEN BAY PACKERS (1st seed)
I say it every year, but the Packers could win the Super Bowl this year. Really seems like it. Feels…oh…in the air? We have really good players at the following positions: QB, WR, RB, LT, LG, TE, DT, OLB, CB, FS, SS, K. That ought to be enough, right? It better be! The team is inevitably going to look a lot different next year. The clock is ticking.
2nd: GRIZZLIES (6th seed)
It was New Year’s Eve, 2012. My roommates and I were hosting a party. About a week prior, I had found the old website for the Baha Men, of “Who Let the Dogs Out?” fame. I sent an email to the address listed on their Booking page, offering them a deal. You come play a show at our New Year’s party, we give you $200 and a case of beer. They never showed. Instead a bunch of metalhead guys I’d never met showed up. It was still pretty fun.
3rd: MINNEAPOLIS NORSEMEN (7th seed)
Minneapolis? In the playoffs?! I know! I was surprised, too. But the NFC is rather top heavy. There’s only about 3-4 really good teams and there’s seven playoff spots. Hopefully we don’t let Dalvin Cook trample over us, as a horse or elephant might do.
4th: MOTOR CITY MADMEN
This team deserves no respect. No respect, I tell ya. They run the ball worse than Stephen Hawking! Their defense gets burned more than my wife’s meatloaf! Their roster has more holes than an Eyes Wide Shut masquerade party, I tell ya! No respect!

NFC EAST
1st: WASHINGTON TALL UNCLES (4th seed)
You wanna talk about a good defense? Oh, no? Well what do you want to talk about? Oh. Sexy Latinas. Of course. That’s all you ever want to talk about. Listen, you goober, I’m talking about a good defense. Great players at all levels on this D, and the offense has some intriguing pieces as well. Playing in a weak division, I expect them to run away with it.
2nd: PHILLY VANILLY
Doug Pederson, the Super Bowl winning head coach (and former Brett Favre backup), was fired because he had a bad year. Just three years removed from hoisting the Lombardi. Now they have a boyman or a manboy named Silly Serrano or something. He’s got bad facial hair and probably drinks apple juice from a spill-proof sippy cup. Speaking of baby-like head coaches…
3rd: TEXAS STARFISH
Ol’ Mike McCarthy. I’m obviously posting this after the kickoff game, which saw this team get sodomized by the refs. But it was kind of nostalgic to see a Giant Baby Mike McCarthy offense operating. Too bad the team will be hamstrung by Lich King Jerry Jones and his insistence on being the Main Decision Maker until someone finds and destroys his phylactery. It is no doubt something tasteless, like a diamond-encrusted cowboy hat or something.
4th: NEW YORK BLUE PORK
Daniel Jones was the perfect successor to Eli Manning. In the way that they are both big dumb doofuses who never fully close their mouths. Jones turned the football over, by fumble or interception, by hook or by crook, FORTY FIVE times in his first two years in the league. That’s a lot! He’s been in 32 games and he has 45 turnovers! Also he did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrVxqBCEniI&ab_channel=SportsProductions and if that don’t make ya laugh, what will?

AFC WEST
1st: KC KETCHUP ARROWS (2nd seed)
These guys are good, and will continue to be. Seeing them in the Super Bowl would surprise no one. Andy Reid likes Uncrustables. Not much to say, really.
2nd: LOS ANGELES THUNDERBIRDS (7th seed)
I was totally wrong about young QB Justin Herbert. I looked at his college film and he looked quite bad. I dunno if the Chargers injected him with some Captain America serum in the offseason or what, but he had one of the better rookie seasons ever. Will he have a sophomore slump, or will he have a sophomore become-even-better-thing?
3rd: COLORADO HIGH HORSES
Hard to find any real position of exceptional strength on this team. Von Miller is becoming aged. Soon he will be one of those snappily-dressed old black men, who knows a lot about boxing and says things like “Yes indeed,” and “Thank ya kindly” and stuff. I wish one of my neighbors was a cool old black guy.
4th: LAS VEGAS ACES
Gettin’ to be about shit or get off the pot time for this franchise. John Gruden came back to head coaching after a ten year hiatus, during which time he said really weird commentary on Monday Night Football. This will be his third year back, and his team is not making much progress, despite being fairly strong on paper. QB Derek Carr has been so-so since his debut in 2014. If they miss the playoffs (they will), I suspect heads will roll.

AFC SOUTH
1st: TENNESSEE TEEN TITANS (4th seed)
You simply can’t bet against Derrick Henry. He’s eight feet tall, 400 pounds of dense muscle and with magma for blood. If you try to tackle him, he will break every goddamn bone in your stupid little body by sheer force of will. Also Tannehill is OK.
2nd: INDY CLOPPIN’ HOOFS (5th seed)
Pat McAffee was Indy’s punter for several years. In addition to having been one of the best punters of his era, he is a pro wrestler, a stoner, and a total chad. His podcast is great. Watch it. Oh, and Aaron Rodgers is on every Tuesday during the season for an extended interview.
3rd: HOUSTON BOOSTIN’
This team really boinked themselves in the doo-doo chute over the last few years. No cap money, no draft picks, no goddamn sense in their heads. Their QB is now in trouble for doing Cosby stuff, and they have no rookies starting. Old team of has-been and never-were vets. But maybe they’ll string together 5 wins or something. NFL is weird. I’m weird. I paint my teeth with nail polish. It makes me feel confident.
4th: JACKSONVILLE JAGOFFS
Jacksonville’s fans have really been embarrassing themselves. This team got the #1 pick in the draft, and used it on Trevor Lawrence. One of the more hyped-up prospects in recent memory. The Jacksonville fans apparently pooled money together to buy an engagement present for Lawrence and his fiance. What the fuck? Now they post things on social media like “Look at this absolute DIME thrown by Lawrence!” and it’s like an underthrown ball that the receiver has to adjust to. Like. I dunno. I think starting the year 0-6 is going to gentle them down some. I fucking hope so. Grow up you dinks.

AFC NORTH
1st: CLEVELAND ORANGES (3rd seed)
Whodathunkit? Cleveland is good. After two decades of humiliating failure, they have seemingly turned it around. No longer farting into their own mouths, they walloped their hated rival Shittsburg in the playoffs last year. The score was 28-0 in their favor after the first quarter. I bet every fan in Cleveland was creaming their jeans. This team has solid talent everywhere. Top 3 team in the AFC.
2nd: BALTIMORE CROWS (6th seed)
Their runningbacks all got hurt in the preseason. So they signed a bunch more. Some pretty good ones who were still available. The lesson? Runningbacks are expendable. Pound the rock! Who cares if they get hurt?! More Blood for the Blood God!! LET THE SLAUGHTER CONTINUE! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
3rd: SHITTSBURG STEALERS
TJ Watt, who the Packers -could- have drafted but didn’t, is an amazing outside linebacker. Does everything well. Probably will be the defensive player of the year. But we didn’t grab him. I’m sad. But also he just got a new contract where he’s getting $28 mil a season. That’s more than Aaron Rodgers. For a linebacker. I…I just don’t know about that.
4th: CINCINNATI SPANK-ME-DADDY
Um *looks around room* I don’t know what to say *looks at floor* carpet on the floor, yeah. Moving on.

AFC EAST
1st: BUFFALO YAKS (1st seed)
They made it to the AFC Championship last year, mostly because of their funslingin’, scramblin’ young QB Josh Allen. Unlike Brett Favre though, this kid doesn’t fax photocopies of his ass to the Pope, or whatever Favre did. He’s been out of the league 11 years already. Hard to believe. Time has a way of getting away from us.
2nd: MIAMI SPERM WHALES
Decent enough roster, but what exactly are they great at? I think these aquatic mammals will be competitive. I’m just not sure they are ready to take the next step yet. 2022 may be their breakthrough. 2022 will also be the year when I launch my new app. It’s going to be a point-and-click adventure where every point is a 3 cent microtransaction, and every click is 5 cent one. It’s so simple. I’m gonna make a fortune!
3rd: BOSTON FAWKIN’ WICKED RETAHDED SAWEDAS
I met a fawkin’ traveler from an antique land, who said “Two vast and wicked retahded legs of stone stand in Southie, queeah.”
4th: NEW YORK GREEN BEANS
Green is the color of envy, and this team will be plenty envious this season. Envious of every birthday clown who suffers a fatal unicycle accident. Because unlike those laffy, daffy clowns, this football team will have to live to feel the slings and arrows of their ignoble mode of being.

PLAYOFFS!!
WILDCARD ROUND!!
(Winning teams are BOLDED, duh)

MINNEAPOLIS NORSEMEN (7th seed) @ TAMPA BAY BOYKISSERS (2nd seed)
GRIZZLIES (6th seed) @ ARIZONA BLUEJAYS (3rd seed)
LOS ANGELES CURLHORNS (5th seed) @ WASHINGTON TALL UNCLES (4th seed)
LOS ANGELES THUNDERBIRDS (7th seed) @ KC KETCHUP ARROWS (2nd seed)
BALTIMORE CROWS (6th seed) @ CLEVELAND ORANGES (3rd seed)
INDY CLOPPIN’ HOOFS (5th seed) @ TENNESSEE TEEN TITANS (4th seed)

DIVISIONAL ROUND!!

LOS ANGELES CURLHORNS (5th seed) @ GREEN BAY PACKERS (1st seed)
ARIZONA BLUEJAYS (3rd seed) @ TAMPA BAY BOYKISSERS (2nd seed)
BALTIMORE CROWS (6th seed) @ BUFFALO YAKS (1st seed)
TENNESSEE TEEN TITANS (4th seed) @ KC KETCHUP ARROWS (2nd seed)

CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS!!

ARIZONA BLUEJAYS (3rd seed) @ GREEN BAY PACKERS (1st seed)
BALTIMORE CROWS (6th seed) @ KC KETCHUP ARROWS (2nd seed)

SUPERB OWL LOL!!
GREEN BAY PACKERS (1st seed) @ BALTIMORE CROWS (6th seed)

And as Rodgers, Davante, and Jaire hold up that beautiful trophy, our trophy, I will run out onto the field and onto the stage. I will slap Rodgers on the back. “Goddamn it, you old son-of-a-gun. Almost didn’t think you had it in ya anymore. Hell, I thought-” and then stadium security will fracture my skull with a baton. But hey, GO PACK GO!

The sun was relaxing into the horizon
Embers glowing behind blue-black hills
I walked through my neighborhood as the grizzled vet
of this shitty part of town
every neighbor in my building has changed at least once,
twice or three times, some of them
But the five-year and maybe-lifer me strides across the grass
freshly cut and smelling it
The heat shimmer that rose from the parking lot is long gone
and some chill is in the evening
Autumn watches us from over those hills
Gently nudging through time

Autumn watches, gliding in from the west
and her mournful aria will soon shake loose the leaves from my maples
will kill the ants that worked so hard in my yard
will give way to Mother Winter
harbinger to the high unholy queen of this land
bursting pipes and cracking concrete
with nothing behind the eyes but reality
and I walked through my neighborhood in shorts
and the whisper of that chill danced over me

The moon hung in sharp contrast, lit up against that indigo sky
I carried my quarry past four dining room chairs arrayed near a dumpster
thought about picking them up but I don’t have a place for them
Seemed pretty nice to just throw away

And a garage door was open to the evening, no car parked in it
Just a cube of white-yellow light beaming into this dimness
I walked past it and just peered to the back wall that sheltered the apartment behind it
Knowing that a lifetime happens in there
Friends and lovers and accomplishments and deaths
are all past that door, through the tunnel of pale light that I will never know
The square of light facing the street
and far past my imagination

Tomorrow morning I will smoke on my steps
I will see my across-the-street neighbor Jim
He’ll be smoking weed and sitting in a wheelchair
I might walk over and see what’s on his mind
I probably won’t

I came home from work and went to my desk. I have an old-fashioned computer desk in my bedroom, with drawers and a desktop computer and a monitor and everything on it. I sat down in my chair. On the corner of the desk to my right, I noticed movement. It was a little jumping spider. He jumped, or maybe hopped is the better descriptor, he hopped 1-2-3 times away from me. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a jumping spider, but they don’t look all gangly and gross. They look like a PR group tried to re-invent spiders to make them look cute or something.

So he hopped his little centimeter long hops, and then was on the side of the desk. I leaned my gargantuan, planetoid head around the corner and looked at him. He hopped around the corner to the back of the desk. I get that he wants privacy. I’m rooting for him. I hope the cats featured in the banner above don’t merk him. I certainly won’t.

About an hour later I met a different spider

I was outside smoking and I felt something on my forearm. I looked down, and a tiny little spider was crawling on me. By tiny I mean like the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Very small guy. I watched him negotiate my arm hair for a couple seconds. Must have seemed like the flora of an alien world. I considered just ignoring him. I’d never feel it if he bit me. But I thought about it some more, and I didn’t want him getting the lay of the land and crawling into my ear or nose and then into my brain. He’d end up controlling my body like a ratatouille. I’d be the immense slave-beast to a tiny arachnid, living out whatever his eight-legged will would be, with him so diminuitive as to elude detection by even the most sophisticated brain scanning devices. Can’t have that.

With my other arm, I activated my hand. Took my thumb and forefinger and made the most gentle little pincher I could manage. I hope I don’t kill you by grabbing you, I thought. I plucked him from arm hair forest and took him into the airspace above. Turning my fingertip pincher, I saw he was alive still. He was on the platform of my pointer-finger-fingerprint, and I decided to flick him away from me with the broad surface of my thumbnail. I tried.

He hung in the air a couple of inches away from my finger and did not fly away. The crazy sunnuvabitch had done it. He’d planted a little spidersilk anchor on my finger. He was being held on his little web string in the breeze, many times his own bodylength away from my finger. Clinging on.

How the fuck, I thought. That was less than a second.

I started to bring my hand toward my other hand, not sure how to outmaneuver this guy, really, but I had to try something. Then the rolling hot breeze picked up and I think it severed his spiderstrand from my finger. I’m like 70% sure he flew away in a slightly stronger breeze. I think I saw that.

And I wish my tiny, brave explorer well. I hope he crushes it out there in the apartmentscape where I live. He’s certainly not going to give up without a fight. Orders of magnitude separate our size, intelligence, presumable significance. But he webbed me and held on against my will.

And he is definitely not inside of my skull controlling my brain right now.

Unrelated, but if you have any flies or ants or anything just laying around please mail them to me. The fresher the better.

Alright BeardBiteManners, today we’re gonna take a deep dive into architecture and settle once and for all, which is the best architectural style of all time!

So, first of all, what the heck is architecture? Wikipedia defines it as the aesthetic, structural, functional and stylistic choices used in the creation of permanent places of dwelling, commerce, or recreation for humans and also Greta Thunberg is a fat whore. Keep in mind, Wikipedia can be edited by anyone.

So what does Beard Bite Man think of architecture? It’s how buildings look, you clod! Here’s the rundown, ready or not, on the top five architectural styles of all time!

5. Brutalism

Brutalism generally took the form of governmental or giant corporate complexes post World War 2. Oft criticized now as “ugly” or “blocky” or “kinda like Minecraft”, these right-angled titans represented a sort of function-over-form simplicity. Both the Soviet Union and the United States did little bumps of brutalism, assuming that utilitarian life on earth would soon give way to the stars and space travel, once their empire triumphed. Instead they just turned into government housing where unspeakable crimes went unnoticed each day but I do kind of like the no-nonsense look of these big guys. Yeah, it’s the projects…now. But when spacemen were going to zap aliens with their ray-guns, life would be uniform and simple here.

4. Victorian

Uh-oh! If your house is haunted, it’s probably Victorian. Made to look church-like, with accoutrements and flourishes tackily pasted on every corner, this was the place to be if you were a brainless timber baron who thought that phrenology was cutting edge science. All wood and pointy, this kind of structure has nothing do with a man’s insecurities about his own penis.

3. Cave

Sometimes you gotta dance with the one that brought you. Caves were our first buildings, and I think we should honor that.

2. Mughal

India is a sub-continent, a world unto itself. A civilization outdating our Western understanding of the world by a good millennium. Monuments and lore dating back to time that dwarfs our American creation story that took place in 1776. Billions of people live there, and they sweat and strain and hope for a better future, just like you or I do. An elaborate history completely removed from my own understanding. A beautiful religion that stares into fractal recitations of our own reality and sees it all as temporary. Also, their buildings are like….whaaaaat?! Dude, the Taj Mahal looks like a boob, straight up, I’m not even joking.

1. Ranch House

This is the real thing. Who doesn’t remember riding your bikes with your friends into the yard and then leaving them lay there?! A completely kids-only night. Maybe you’ll eat some pizza in the basement, maybe you’ll summon the devil. Who even gives a fuck? Ranch house is the best kind of house. You kids better be in bed by 10 PM and we said “Fuck you, you stupid asshole,” as we did Mario Kart 64. The mom said “Are you swearing at me!?” and then I said “No, retard,”. But the retard part was like way softer.

Jack and George were going fishing.
Jack, being the older brother, lead the way.
George, wanting not to be a burden and to prove he was big and strong, took longer strides than normal to keep up.
They each had a fishing rod slung over their left shoulder and a tacklebox hanging in their right hand.
They walked a narrow but well-trod path through a pine plantation.
They were headed to a little backwater in the big river.
Some days you could catch bass, but more often bluegills were biting.
And bluegills were fun to catch because they fought real hard for how small they were.

“I hope there’s not a lot of bugs,” said George.

“Probably won’t be,” Jack said.
” There’s a good breeze going, and mosquitos
don’t like flying in the wind.”

They kicked the last few orange pineneedle clusters away from their path to come upon a steep hill.
A descent of spiraling brambles waited. Nearly to the river.
“You want me to grab your stuff?” asked Jack.
“No, I can do it,” George said.

And they crouched and slid down the hill, finding worn rocks and surface-peeking roots as their footfalls.
Spirals of thorny and angry red plants caught their shirts and shoes,
but they made the greasy descent.
They had to stop sometimes to un-catch their fishing line from a branch.
But they made it to the river bank.

Jack took a second to revere it.
The river murmuring, reflecting the sky, dragonflies skimming the surface.
He didn’t have and would never gain the language for it, but he held this as a holy moment.
George looked to Jack briefly, then crouched down. He opened his tacklebox and considered what lure to use.
He wanted to use the one that looked like a frog. A big fake frog, because he had heard that’s what muskies bite.
But he knew his brother would ridicule him for it, so he settled on a worm-looking thing.

With a “Zzzziiiinnnngg!”, Jack threw his lure into the river. He cast it sidearm, so as to avoid the trees.
It plopped into the water. He ratcheted it back toward the shore slowly.
George flipped his fake worm into the water, underhanded. He plopped it closer to the shore so as to not cross lines.

“No bugs so far,” said Jack.

“Yeah,”

So time went. The brothers cast into the river. Nothing was biting. The good breeze had a touch of Autumn rolling over the water. Summer was nearly over.

George cast his line into a shallow part of the bank. He tried to reel it in but the reel had no response. It was stuck. He cranked the lever but it just spun for nothing. Fuck. He tried to move the rod into different angles, reeling at differnet speeds, trying to free himself, but it was not happening. “Jack,” he said “I’m stuck,”

“Alright, no problem,” said Jack. “Gimme your pole. Just walk out there and unhook it. It’s right by the shore.”

George ambled along the shore, following his line. He traced it down into the water, and pulled it up.

He drew the string up with great effort and a putrid dead man rose to break the water’s surface. His hook was stuck into the empty eye socket of a rotting human corpse. George shrieked a mortal shriek, kicking his body away from it. His fishing lure was caught in the rotted skullhole of a corpse.

The corpse sat there, putrid, lapping aginst the rivershore. Fish hook and all. George panted, Jack tried. What words can be said?

The green grey zombie sat beside the river. Jack said to his brother “Don’t think that has anything to do with you,” If it wasn’t you, it would have been somebody else. No reason to feel bad about it,” The summer gave way, low in the desperate people’s vocabulary. Almost funny lowness.

They kicked more dead pine needles on their path home. “I’m going to see this when I’m trying to sleep,”

“I’m sorry. I know you’ll see it.”

666~BEARDBITEMAN~666

I’d like mornings more
if there wasn’t such an expectation
I woke up today and it was bright outside
I was worried I’d slept through my alarm
I don’t work today
I had a sense of relief
The earth turned enough to show me the sun again
and I was worried
Came back from the strangescape of dream to find
mother earth glowing
and I had a sense of alarm

The self is mostly autonomous
Walking anodyne and senseless
Pressurized and worried
The mind is pitilessly subsumed with bills and contracts and leases and the prestidigitation of a hollow sucking wind
Empty ghost in the rafters of my soul saying
This should be worry
This should be concern

My pink-goo-brain has been coerced
into panic at a sunrise
But
then again
screens amuse our boredom and cars will soon
drive themselves
leaving us free to do what we will
I click a few times and products are delivered to my door
what more could we ask for?
what kind of luddite would trade away Netflix?
What must the prize be?
Agency? Clarity?

Stewing in dissatisfaction, I sat in my car and smoked a cigarette. A woman walked to her mailbox, grabbed her mail, and walked away. She read a letter as she walked. Probably some problem. Some expected bad news. Why would you read it as you walked? But,

Her hips swayed in time with the breeze, her sundress over her curves. She walked away from me with ass swaying, exposed shoulders. I wonder what the letter was about. I can’t imagine what she read, striding down sun-dappled sidewalk in this summer. She could probably tell me hundreds of stories. The leaves were shaking in the breeze to match the birdsong.

I’m no longer a little boy turning over rocks to find bugs. I’m no longer an angry misanthrope, breaking peoples’ lawn decorations. I can’t remember what the skeleton key was. To see, understand, and form a way of living. I am a man with no idea what to do. I’d like to find the secret, the antidote to this dystopia. In the meantime, I’ll watch this stranger walk the sidewalk with her nice ass, and think “This is close.”

I’ve been driving 13 hours straight. The road, act of driving, part of my muscle memory now. I could close my eyes and feel the curvature of the interstate, make the corners, see the reflective green signs through my closed eyelids. This is nothing new. I’ve been driving all over the continent for decades. The berms, embankments, left-lane exit ramps are all second nature to me. I know them like my tongue knows my mouth. Drove so long today, drove so long in my life. There is a sort of meditative trance. The radio becomes white noise, mixed into the engine and the high-pitched whistle of the tires on the road. Metronome of striped lines before me. I’ve been driving for 13 hours, and a lifetime. My head is clear. Automatic behavior frees up the head.

Hemmingway said writing is easy, you just sit at a typewriter and bleed. Most anything is easy with that attitude. If you learn to sit and bleed you can work wonders with what is offered to you, always. You can hit the road in cold black night, and watch a day be born. The sun passes over you, and glares into your rearview mirrors after 13 hours.

I’m alone and still but I’m moving fast. It’s meditation and progress, sure, but every hotel room is the same. Every city looks the same. A city tries to exude character but they all have gas stations, McDonald’s, monuments, people, ugly dead grass medians, bridges, inside jokes. I wake up and forget where I am. I drive away.

Tomorrow I’ll be somewhere I’ve never been. A new place. I will forget it. I will drive to another place, feeling mostly the same.

The cruel plane of sand baked in the midday sun. Stark and still, the desert was motionless. A man on horseback pointed a gun at a man standing nearby.

“The war-dead of Antietam are calling in your debt,” the man on horseback said, ” And the living wish to see a deserter hanged.”

The standing man replied ” What debt can I possibly owe the dead? Their spirits have flown, and no acknowledgement can be made of my payment. The living surely can have no quarrel, as they fared as fine without my presence as they would have with it. Please, let me go.”

“I have no interest in silver-tongued philosophising or legalese,” said the horsebacked man, “My employers have been assured I will capture your body, one way or another. You will either lie on the dirt, and I’ll tie you up, or I’ll pull this trigger and you’ll lie on the dirt quicker. Then I will not have to tie you up. The only difference to me is what renumeration I will receive.”

The desert was hot and still, and heat shimmers danced on the horizon.

“Those men from Antietam want to watch you kick and dance as you’re hanged. It’s a hundred more dollars for me if they get you alive,” said the horseback man.

The standing man looked down at the sunbleached sand and put his hands in his pockets. “Spare me the shame,” he said “And shoot me dead where I stand. I have twenty dollars in my pocket, and I have a cabin with a new saddle sitting on the table there. A mile due south of here. Take what you want, and spare me the shame.”

The cactus blooms and the pale sand waited.

“As you wish,” said the horseback man, slowly squeezing the trigger.

I’m reading a letter from my ex-wife. The back of the envelope, where the little triangle of paper seals it shut, has a stain of lipstick. She kissed the envelope there where she sealed it. I can see all the creases and contours of her lips there, bright red.

I’m reading the letter and it is in her hand, hand-written, the words ambling along in black ink, her handwriting is almost lyrical with the loops and exaggerations and a kind of whimsy that she always tried to have.

She says she’s doing well, and that they are trying for a baby. She glides her hand across the page and tells me they went to The Bahamas for their honeymoon. She wishes me well, and asserts that we’re amicable and friends. The loops on her cursive letters seem drunk. She then writes smaller, more secretively.

She hopes I’m okay. She thinks I’m an awesome guy for another woman. She says she hopes we can see each other again. Just drunker and drunker she goes, putting her lips on the envelope and then actually walking it out to the mailbox. What a regretful night.

I take a drink of coffee as I walk the letter to the garbage can in my kitchen, and try to think of new ways to live.

The Stylites were Christians who would build a tall pillar and sit on top of it until they died from exposure.

They would build a like 20 foot tall column and then just sit up there on top of it and scream stuff about Jesus and then not eat, except for the stray fly or seagull that they managed to snatch out of the air. It was a form of asceticism that was very public. They eschewed the very basic human needs in order to demonstrate Christian Ideals.

There are documented cases of these Christian zealots sitting up on these towers and never coming down, asking for people to understand the true meaning of their performance art. Removing themselves from the material world in a literal way. I’m not sure it’s the best way to martyr yourself. But it is a way to do it. Certainly you do no harm unto others, removed from the goings-on, up there. Free to think and watch and listen. Pooping over the edge, probably.

And I picture a detached, awake stylite laying on his back, emaciated but thankful, watching the clouds as they slowly change shape against a blue sky. And he’s laughing about how simple it all is. He’s laughing and he’s grateful up in his tower.

I got a vaccine the other day. It was to innoculate me against The Deadly Wuhan-Coronavirus, COVID-19. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this? It’s a disease. It’s been around for a little while. Caused a bunch of problems. Just been a real bear. Cratered the economy, sent psychological shockwaves through whatever normalcy our society once had, murdered hundreds of thousands of people. COVID-19. You’ve heard of this, right?

So I went to get the vaccine. They give them out at Wal-Mart now. I got the Johnson & Johnson version, which is a one-shot, all-inclusive needle poke. And this vaccine is different. Vaccines of the past contained dead or weakened cells of the disease they were meant to protect you from. So you’d introduce the weakened contagion into your body, and your immune system would basically figure out a gameplan on how to beat this fucker down. But the COVID vaccine is an…uh..mRNA vaccine. Which is a brand new thing. Instead of pumping you full of beat up COVID cells, it teaches your body how to make the proteins that are found in the virus, and then your body learns how to combat them from that. Your own body creates a simulacrum of the enemy and then kicks its ass. Wowzers.

I went to Wal-Mart. I went to the Pharmacy area, because that is the medical part of Wal-Mart.

It is also pertinent to mention that I never had a smart phone until about 5 months ago. I had one of those little burner prepaid drug-dealer phones for most of my adult life. A TracFone that was about the size of a graham cracker and only needed to be charged once every two weeks. It had no camera, no internet access. If a text was too long, it would break it into multiple parts. Our modern smartphones started to become commonplace in or around 2010, and I purposely spent a decade not getting one because I didn’t like them. I mean, they’re neat and everything. But anytime a person has like, 30 seconds where they are not required to be doing anything, they pull out their phone. They don’t even know why they are pulling it out. It’s just the boredom cessation machine. Why look at the sky, or be quiet and think? Twitter is in your pocket and just a moment away…

So I had this piece of shit phone for like 13 years, and it became kind of a joke among my friends and me. I could send and receive texts, assuming they had no images or internet links. I would T9 my response back to you. In November of 2020, TracFone sent me some messages that were like “We are no longer going to be supporting your stupid phone. You have to buy a smart phone.”

I would prefer not to, but okay.

So I got one, some cheap beater phone because I am not one to need the newest and greatest thing. I got a crappy smart phone and went about my life.

I was in Wal-Mart. The medical wing. An older lady in front of me was also there for the vaccine. She talked to the pharmacist and then took a seat. I told the pharmacist I was there for the same reason. She told me it would be a few minutes, but to please stick around the area.

I stood in the little truncated aisle there. The shelves were full of Slim-Fast, and keto diet bars, and fat burning pills. I idly passed the time reading the packaging for banana flavored protein shakes and trail mix that would induce ketosis. After about twenty minutes, I got the shot. They took me into a little cordoned off booth and jabbed me and then I left.

Upon coming home, I fired up the old desktop computer and went to facebook. The first ad that popped up in my feed was for fat-burning pills. Let me repeat that the first ad that came up was for fat-burning pills.

I have never searched that, I have never clicked on links related to that. But somehow the Internet knew that I was standing in that aisle for like 20 minutes. Not just the store, but the place I was standing. The four-foot wide enclosure where products like that are sold. My new smart phone was broadcasting that I spent some time looking for fat burning solutions while I was idling there to stave off the plague.

People just act differently when they know they are being recorded. There is an aspect of performativeness, and therefore something dis·in·gen·u·ous. We all realize we are being constantly recorded now, whether by choice or by passive surveillance. This was not the reality that I was born into. And I think one of the strangest parts of it is that we don’t all completely hate it. We would like a document, a proof of our having lived and existed. To have some kind of an imprint on this world that ripples and looks back at us. To be seen and understood but this shit. This ain’t cuttin’ it. This is cynical.

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my parents’ house was on top of a hill
a sand mound surrounded by farm fields
in all directions
and at night sometimes you could hear
packs of coyotes
high-pitched yelping and barking and yowling
the sound travelling clear through the night
as they danced and celebrated a fresh kill
a rabbit or a barn cat
meat shorn from bone as the pack yipped in country dark
soybean fields
thin legs and thin snout stained red
looking black from the moon
they ate and chittered the kill
over rural Wisconsin

I was at my parents’ house for some reason,
not sure why
Maybe just a visit
It was 3 AM and I woke up on the couch
I went to the back porch to have a cigarette

The lights were on and illuminated part of the backyard
I slid open the sliding glass slider, stepped out as I drew a cigarette to my lips, then slid closed the slider behind me.

And a coyote howled at me

I knew it was at me
He saw me and gave this
piercing and baleful howl
To me
Loud and high and strident

The blood in my fingertips retreated back
into the torso
and my pupils sharpened hard and quick
as I watched the boundry where the porch lights ended
and the wild began
Some primacy took me as I watched
the edge of my world
surrender to that thing in the darkness

I never saw him
His howl cut to my animal-man instincts
He left without incident
Running over croplands and sniffing for prey
Ever under moonlight

After about two minutes of terror I lit my cigarette,
and my parents’ obese Orange cat jumped onto the porch
He looked at me with huge eyes
“The fuck was that!?”
I don’t know man
He figure-eighted my legs a couple of times
“I’m glad you’re around”

The next day I put on dress pants and sat
in a cubicle to earn money. I wanted to tell somebody the story, but coyotes are everywhere.