The Scout Chronicles: Scout is Going to be so Badass for Halloween

You have no idea what a stone-cold badass I'm going to be for Halloween tonight.  No fucking clue.  Okay, here is a clue: I'm going to be a gnarley-assed Werewolf.  Stick-up ears, fangs, giant claws, the whole nine.  You encounter Scout on the street tonight, you get your shit chomped.  Bottom line.  You see Scout coming looking straight up sinister with blood dripping off his Werewolf fangs, you'd better either be faster than Scout (Yeah right) or have a whole pocket full of silver fucking bullets.  If not, peace out bitch.  The Scoutmeister is taking no prisoners, and offering no quarter.  You try and hand Scout a fucking apple or some beat-ass stale Charleston Chew when he comes knocking, you are losing your arm.  No exceptions.  Consider this your warning.  Mom and Dad had better not even fucking DREAM of making me anything other than a Werewolf.  Like if I see them pulling some stupid hot dog, or pussy-assed pumpkin costume out of the closet tonight, I will go real-deal Werewolf berzerker and just start biting everyone in site.  Believe that shit.  I've been telling everyone at the dog park that I am bringing the noise as a Werewolf, all month.  If Mom and Dad make me look stupid there will be severe hell to pay. 

OMG I am so fired up for tonight I can hardly fucking wait.  All the other Halloween Werewolves will probably make me their leader and we'll go on this super-awesome Werewolf rampage through the streets of Old Town and Lincoln Park just laying waste to mutherfuckers.  Scout out front of the Werewolf pack biting here, claw-swatting people's heads clean off there.  Gonna be the most kick-ass Halloween ever.    

Oh When the Sluts, Go Marching In....Oh Lord I Want to be In that Number...Oh When the Sluts Go Marching In!

It doesn't matter if you are a 14 year old boy walking down the hall of your high school hiding a boner with your Algebra textbook freshman year; a drunk frat guy; a 20-something associate at a law/accounting/marketing firm; a 30-something married guy with a baby at home; or an octogenarian upon the porch of the assisted living facility....Halloween weekend is your weekend!  This is when every gal from Pismo to Provincetown, from Fond du Lac to Fort Lauderdale, and all points in between, come out of the woodwork and let their inner trollop run free.  Here a slut, there a slut, everywhere a butt-slut!  There is a slut to fit every personality: Slutty Nurse; Slutty Pirate; Slutty Snow White; Slutty Devil; Slutty Cat; Slutty Tiger; Farm Slut; Swedish Maid Slut; Slutty Blackjack Dealer; Slutty Kardashian Sister (Haha, tried to slide an oxymoron by you there, you're too smart for that shit); Catholic School Slut; Slutty Angel (Or Victoria's Secret model, if you're nasty); Slutty Cowgirl; Slutty Princess; Slutty Bumble Bee; Slutty Teacher; Slut Witch; Vampire Slut; really only your own imagination can limit what kind of slut you can be that night.  This is also what makes Halloween so dangerous.  Women who use this one night each year to air their inner-strumpet grievances to the world cause shitfaced men to believe that just because they are jutting their ass out from beneath a mini-skirt in every Halloween photo they take like Little Red Riding Slut up there, that they want to be taken home and treated as such.  Not so much.  Sure, there are those who use this as free, honest advertising, and Crom bless them for that.  But for most, this is an opportunity to act out some inhibitions in appearance only.  Which leads to a lot of poor, rejected, bombed men who must then go home and smoke grass and watch original "Halloween" until their fucking eyes bleed.  This can also lead to a lot of sexual frustration for those who do manage to get Kitten Slut back to their home, only to find out that if you want the milk, you've got to feed, water, and change her litter box for 3 months first  :(  .  So be careful gentlemen; though a Sexy Leopard may lick her paws and purr at you all night, penetration does not this guarantee. 

So all you lecherous bastards out there, let the slut parade begin!  And if you've committed to going out with your significant other this weekend, I highly recommend a costume which necessitates a pair of dark glasses.  Terminator, Top Gun, Cyclops from X-Men, Child Molester, whatever.  You don't want your wandering eyes to result in you losing out on guaranteed intercourse later that night.  Everyone loses there.   

Terry Thompson, Hope You Read Dante's "Inferno", You Asshole

Because you are going straight to the 7th Level.  You are not going to pass GO, you will not collect $200.  You are going to be skull-fucked in an eternal hell fire.  You cowardly, putrid, diseased rhinoceros pizzle.  I was so saddened, and I mean like end of Old Yeller saddened, when I found out you successfully killed yourself.  I'd envisioned you being raped savagely and repeatedly by grizzly bears and lions before one of them dealt the death blow to your jugular.  But alas you are nothing but a selfish cunt who has destroyed 4 dozen wild animals that never did shit to you.  I want to rail against Sheriff Lutz and his deputies who killed most of the animals, but I wasn't there.  I doubt a contingency plan was in place for what to do if you encounter 50 exotic wild predators in rural Ohio.  I'm pretty certain that the first responders with the assault rifles were like little kids on Christmas morning when they found out they could indiscriminately kill a shitload of big game animals that would otherwise require them to pay about $500,000 and go to either British Columbia or Africa.  But I wasn't sitting there with them in the rain staring down a grizzly bear, so I'll refrain from harping on this point.  I wish calls could have been made while the 25 animals still on the site were just hanging out next to their cages to see how long it would take for an appropriate response team to arrive and deal with them.  But again, I am neither charged with protecting the human citizenry of Zanesville nor was I in a Mexican staring contest with a lion.  Fault lies with the state of Ohio for allowing people to keep exotic pets, and with Terry Thompson, the raging fuckface of the year who is too big a pussy to face the music.  If you were really an animal "rescuer", then I'm quite certain you would not have released all these animals into their certain doom before you canceled yourself.  And I'm pretty sure you were hoping they took a few humans down along the way.  The only good news to come out of this sad story is that you are fucking dead and no one is going to have to deal with your loser ass ever again.  Rest In whatever the opposite of Peace is.  Dick.

I like animals more than humans, and it isn't a close contest.  If a golden retriever and some dude I don't know are both about to wash over Niagara Falls, and I have only one stick to extend and save one of them....well, lets just say some family is going to be really happy to get their dog back. 

Tasting Notes: Rockmill Brewery's "Saison"

It was the type of autumn day that a man must live to know that he was there.  He can view it in a Van Gogh painting, the "Wheat Stacks with Reaper", and many of the like.  But he'll never truly understand unless he takes the leather-handled reaper into his own two hands and slashes at field upon endless fields of early autumn wheat.  As I, Jean Luc and my eternal friend, Pierre, retired from the fields on this particular day, having reaped harvest wheat from before sun-up until late in the majestic purple-hued dusk, we stopped at our steady haunt, the Libertine, for sustenance.  By this time the staff at the Libertine knew our order better than ourselves, and within mere seconds there stood at our table a plate of meats, cheeses, baguette and most importantly a tall pot of the only beer capable of standing up to such a day of rich, rewarding labor: Rockmill Brewery's "Saison".  As I took my first deep, long draught of Rockmill's Saison I lived anew my day of laboring in the fields.  It was the autumn day of dreams, with an unbroken sky of breath-stealing blue and warm, though not hot, sun to keep my neck and hands from requiring cover.  As Pierre backhanded the crisp, hoppy froth of Rockmill Saison from his own mouth he reminded me of why we were here, in a backwater village west of Charleville Mezieres, to wile away our days in the fields as hired laborers.  Pierre and I were not born to the fields as all of those noble, crooked-backed villagers we now sought refuge in the company of.  We met at university many years ago, our friendship forged over debates about who was the greatest philosopher, Sartre or Nietzsche, of Dumas's masterpieces, and of the folly of Napoleon attacking the Russian winter.  Those early days were spent with forgettable though affordable beers of the city.  None truly satiated a man's spirit like Rockmill Saison.  Whether it was the misplaced energy of youth or the poorly-crafted beers we consumed like so many empty-headed and silly-hearted coeds (i.e. chicks we banged), Pierre and I found ourselves in soul-crushing positions as government workers, on the pension fast-track.  It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times.  Though we seemed to be sailing through life with good friends, comely wenches, and plenty of ales, we knew something was missing.  On a Saturday trip into the countryside to make sport of quail, a local boy served us our first blessed pot of Rockmill Saison.  As the sparse but delicious brew began to course through our veins we felt alive for the first time.  Its golden hops demanded we surrender our trite and meaningless existence, trading it all for the honor and discipline of a life in the sun and the fields.  And so it was that we sold our apartments in the St. Germain/Luxembourg district of Paris and took a loft above a barn in this quintessential northern France farming community.  We require little but air, honest work, the smile of a farm maiden, and of course shitloads of Rockmill Saison.  It is the wellspring from which our spiritual awakening flows.  Without Rockmill Saison it would be as though we never were. 

I really don't know if the above story is true.  Once when I was in college a guy named Lucien from one of the Baltic republics, sinister looking little scamp with a waxed moustache and greasy trousers, saw me coming out of the library early of a Friday evening on a holiday weekend.  He asked me if "You want we make go to discotheque?".  After politely refusing, he then recommended I take this small piece of paper with a Degas painting on it upon my tongue.  Given that I am not the type of person who turns someone down twice, I placed the small square on my tongue and bid Lucien g'day.  I had to run back into the library before it closed to retrieve the keys I left on a study table.  That is the last thing I remember.  When building security found me on Tuesday morning I was in the French Literature section lying upon a pile of books saturated with urine.  I could quote entire Moliere plays and I was wearing a beret fashioned from Friday's copy of the school newspaper.  But that is neither here nor there my friends.  The point is that I recently drank my bottle of Rockmill Brewery Saison.  I must divulge the following before I continue: I really don't care that much for Saisons.  I don't dislike them, but they are certainly not my favorite.  That being said, this Saison is kicking ass and taking names.  It is refreshing, it is delicious, and chicks dig it.  I don't possess the requisite bullshit to discuss beer in all the preferred beer-nerd nomenclature and I'm not sure I understand how to quaff shit.  As stated Saisons are not my thing per se, but this one is "right", and I know enough to acknowledge that.  I would liken it to your first french kiss.  You may not know what you are doing or what you are looking for, and you soon realize you are licking a soppy sponge that may or may not taste like cigarettes and Jolly Ranchers.....but yet it is still right.  You know enough to know that.  If this Saison is enough to make my mouth ecstatic, then I'm confident it will taste ball-rattlingly good to seasoned Saison fans.     

If you take nothing else from these tasting notes, you should take the following: Cheese-eating surrender monkey French everywhere should be quaking in their stockings.  Queue up the Toby fucking Keith, because Rockmill gives us reason anew "to be prowwwd ta be an Meriken..."  You frolicking little frogs cannot even out-Saison us anymore.  This could be the 1976 Judgment of Paris all over again, only this time an outfit from southeast Ohio is going to take home the gold.  You heard me right fuckers, "southeast Ohio".  At least when you are losing to California you can take solace in the fact that California is pretty fucking cool, and Jerry Lewis probably hangs out there.  Not so much with Ohio.  And this isn't Cleveland, Cincinnati, or even Columbus.  This is Lancaster, Jack.  If this Saison wants to come and storm the beach at Normandy, it will.  Fair warning. 

So the Chicago Marathon was Pretty Fun

Pretty fun little day on Sunday.  Got things started with my daughter adding a couple of extra wake-ups Saturday night to make sure I was on full tilt.  Wouldn't want me going into this thing overly fresh now would we?  This was of course after going to bed pissed off about the Ohio State football team who, coaches included, folded faster than the Danish in World War II against a half-shitty Nebraska team.  I had everything ready to go and walked out the door in plenty of time.  I could've walked to the Red Line and taken it to Jackson, then walked to the starting area.  But I didn't want to waste valuable leg strength, so I got a cab.  When he pulled up he was ripping a butt.  Ciggy smoke is like the top thing you want to inhale right before you run for 4 hours, at 6:30 a.m.  The first thing I tell the Marlboro Man is that everything is closed, so he needs to go west, track north or south, then back east to Lake Shore Drive, where he can deposit me and I can take a short trek to the start.  He nods his head in agreement, then proceeds to head due east into the first of 4 blocked roads.  The blocked roads I told him would be blocked before we even left my building.  Awesome part was, at each police blockade he would slam on the brakes like a baby had just crawled in front of the cab, and curse loudly in Farsi.  Then he would, without heeding anything behind him, screech the tires in reverse and drive one block south, before heading east again into the next police blockade, again the same blockade I told him was most surely there to begin with.  After the 4th attempt he looked at me with the exasperated face of the truly stupid person who doesn't believe what is happening to them, even though the thing that is happening to them is by far and away the most probable-and in fact expected-outcome.  So this fucktard drops me off at Grand and Wells, where I am forced to jog to the Red Line.  Once underground, I realized I don't have the proper change for the ticket.  I proceed to the woman stationed in the kiosk, who wanted me to fuck off and in no uncertain terms die painfully for even requesting that she listen to me say something.  I wanted change for a $10, given that I had only 2 $1's and a $10, and the fare is $2.50.  She could not believe I would have both the audacity and stupidity to make such a preposterous request.  She had no intentions of humoring my request, and directed me "To a Walgreens or somethin'".  Luckily a police officer made change, and I was able to descend further into the bowels of Chicago, where of course the Red Line took its sweet assed fucking time arriving.  By the time I exit at Jackson I am forced to not jog, but rather run to the starting corral, passing people pissing in the trees and bushes (including chicks).  Although winded, chock full of anxiety, and thoroughly pissed the fuck off, I am happy to see that it is assholes-to-elbows in the starting corral.  An added bonus is that 50% of the runners thought it folly to brush their teeth that morning.  I was forced to endure nearly 20 minutes of stenching small talk about such compelling subjects as "We're at the Chicago Marathon baby!" and "Where are you from?".  I knelt down to make a last-minute adjustment to my shoe laces, which is when I inhaled my first second-hand fart of the day.  It was a heavy pea-soup fog of a fart, with a long finish.  This person was not going to have a good day.  I conservatively estimate that I inhaled approximately 873 farts by the end of the race.

And we're off.....like a herd of turtles.  It takes me 6 1/2 minutes just to get to the starting line.  The temperature is already well into the 60's which might not seem like a big deal to most.  But when it is going to finish near 80 and you're running for 4 hours, it fecking sucks.  The fact that I cannot pee next to a tree with 1,000 onlookers (fuckin' Puritan ancestors) results in me running the first 3 miles carrying around a gallon of piss.  Once I relieved myself of that burden, things weren't too bad.  For a while.  Then somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-17 miles, you leave the tree lined and building-shadowed streets behind for wide-open, sun-drenched boulevards on the near west and south side.  And you are fucking hating it.  It becomes the Bataan Death March, and you are most assuredly not the Japanese soldiers.  Your thoughts begin to drift into the realm of darkness.  You are no longer capable of positivity.  I know there are people who claim that it makes them happy, in those moments when they are at the gates of hell.  Those people are either lying, or they are crazier than a rat in a tin shithouse.  From roughly mile 20 on, I was wishing destruction and pestilence on people.  Not on certain individuals, but rather large groups of people.  I wanted a population I'd never met to be struck by a natural disaster.  I wanted children to discover there is no Santa Claus.  I wanted Republicans to be forced to interact with black people.  I wanted to laugh at the end of Old Yeller.  I wished rain upon all parades and hoped that Mr. Potter finally got George thrown in prison.  I no longer cared about the crowd or my fellow runners.  I just wanted to drag my corpse across the finish and be done with the whole miserable affair.  Alas my torment was over as some poor lass had to put a medal around my sweaty fucking neck and smell my death breath as I rasped "Thank You".  I did not proceed to the party area and claim my free 312 beer from Goose Island.  In fact as I walked west across the Balbo bridge like an old man looking for a suitable place to die I encountered two men drinking their 312 victory beers.  I asked them if it actually tasted good.  They looked at me like I had a giant cock growing out of my forehead before one of them replied, "Dis izz dah best bier I've had in mye liife".  Great, as a final indignity I had two Germans thinking me a pussy of colossal proportions and wondering how in the fuck they ever let a country of teetotaling twats best them twice on the world stage. 

And now home to celebrate my victory.  I'm eating 7 burgers for lunch with 6 heavy beers, and then washing it down with a dinner pizza and two bottles of wine.  Or at least that is what I threatened to no one during second half of the race.  What really happened is that I was sick to my stomach and had a throbbing headache, so I ate some, but not much, and managed to choke down a total of 2.5 beers in approximately 8 hours.  What a fucking stud.  The Nazis at the finish were right to scorn me.  I went to bed early and sober like a little bitch. 

I will say this: It is an amazing feeling to be running the marathon and get passed in the first mile by some fat fuck who is on a sugar high from the pasta dinner he/she had at Maggiano's (aka Chicago's Olive Garden) the night before, with a fanny pack loaded to bursting with two dozen Power Shot Gels, only to fly by their bloated, cramping corpse 5 miles later as they realize they've no chance at finishing this thing still running.  Way to take it easy on the start, Pork Chop.   

Chicago Marathon, catch the FEVER!                 

Happy (Belated) Mass-Murdering Genocidal Asshole Day Everyone!

I apologize for being a day late on this, but we've been having Internet issues at What Sucks Now world headquarters.  The IT department has been sacked, and we're hoping to be fully operational again real soon.  Columbus Day is truly one of the great American holidays.  I'd like to offer my favorite Christopher Columbus quote to commemorate all of his great accomplishments.  And please keep in mind, this is taken directly from his journal, shortly after landing on Hispaniola.  In Chris's own words:

"They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want."

Now this is a fuckin' guy we can all feel good about.  I'm so goddamned proud that we've set aside a day to celebrate this complete and utter fucking asshole and megalomaniac, not to mention unapologetic genocidal thief.  Think about the staggering number of peaceable native peoples who died as a result of this fuckstick.  Please tell me, and be honest with yourself, how this is ANY different than if Germany were to declare a civic, banking, and school holiday to celebrate Adolf Hitler Day?  Seriously, how would it be different?  Both were responsible for the cold, calculated deaths of millions of people.  Both knew exactly what they were doing, in fact wrote about it in journals.  But we celebrate Columbus like some guy that rode into town on a white horse and liberated millions.  In a way he did; he liberated them from their land, their possessions, their families and their lives.  But he is celebrated because he made it possible for white people to arrive, steal, murder, and then claim an entire continent as "theirs".  And since these very same white people are now in charge of history books and government, they tell filthy, dirty lies to our youths proclaiming CC a "great man" and "discoverer".  Ask someone from Scandinavia how they feel about CC's status as "discoverer".  Ummm, sorry bro, but Leif Eriksson landed on the Western Hemisphere a couple centuries before you.  Unfortunately prior commitments prevented Leif from slaughtering all the natives as was surely his intentions.  But he still beat your ass in that particular race. 

And here folks is the reason I could never become a high school history teacher as I considered, and according to my mother's wishes.  Can you imagine the "These Colors Don't Run", Dale Earnhardt "Angel Wings on #3", and Calvin pissing on the Toyota symbol bumper sticker crowd that would arrive at my office on Parent-Teacher Conference night as soon as they found out I'm teaching their kids the truth rather than the government-approved horseshit from the textbook company?  They'd run my commie/terrorist ass out of town, tarred-and-feathered, on a fucking rail.  Hillbillies would show up with pitchforks and torches, adorned in Stars and Bars regalia, demanding that I be burned at the stake.  I wouldn't last a year.  Hell, I might not literally live through 1 quarter.  Which brings up an interesting point.....Do I try to teach my own daughter some day about the factual story of our own history, or just let it go as "Ignorance is bliss"???  This is a serious inquiry.  On the one hand, I don't want her to conduct self-directed reading some day and discover the truth on her own and then come at me with "Dad, why didn't you tell me?" and break my goddamed stone cold heart.  But then again, do I want her raising her hand in 6th grade and kindly informing the teacher that Thomas Jefferson banged and had a bastard child with his house slave Sally Hemings, and also died in massive debt?  I'm rather sure she will be victim to many a savage beating on the playground by the children with IQs of 90 who proclaim her a "Traitor to our country".  So it is a really difficult decision.  I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, and the route I take will likely be heavily correlated to my state of intoxication at the time.      

Brett Favre Douche-O-Meter

In recent radio interview, Brett Favre said that (referring to his replacement Aaron Rodgers, who is proving to be better than Brett Favre) he didn't understand what took his replacement so long to win a Super Bowl.  Went even further and said that Rodgers has more talent around him than Brett Favre ever had when he was there, insinuating that Rodgers's achievement is less than Brett Favre's.   

Threat Level:

SEVERE DANGER

Expect Brett Favre to continue to take credit for recent Green Bay Packer success while seeking to discredit accomplishments of actual Green Bay Packers who are dominating without Brett Favre as part of the organization.  Expect Brett Favre to wallow in media adulation of his accomplishments in ancient history while Brett Favre acts like it is no big deal and he is just a good 'ol boy from Missuhsipp who likes goin' out in the back yard and throwin' the pigskin round with 'is daddy and some hounds.  Don't expect Brett Favre to ever go the fuck away and shut his attention whore mouth.