So, my brother in New York finally got his copy of Beer Run. He saw my dedication of the book to my father “progenitor of much fine beer and annoying siblings.” He apparently took some half-hearted offense to that dedication and texted me a picture of his middle finger, along with an obscene caption. Ahh, brothers. I don’t think it will surprise many of those who have read the book that Isaac is directly inspired by my two brothers.
If you haven’t read my book…why haven’t you read my book? It’s on Kindle Unlimited, and if you don’t have that, the ebook is really cheap. Check the link here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5
Alright, since you have all now read my book, you know Isaac, or A-1, the first sentient android in my universe. Unlike certain other androids in science fiction, Isaac is self-centered, egotistical, career-obsessed, and neurotic. Isaac hates being treated like a machine. Then he builds another android and proceeds to boss her around. Isaac talks down to Bill for running a brewery rather than a robotics lab, and then rats on his brother to the authorities because his “legacy” is at stake. But he’s the first person Bill sees after nearly dying and follows Bill to the end of the story, teaming up with his adoptive brother to get them out of a hostage situation. (If this makes you want to read the book, the link is above!) That’s siblings for you. You hate them, you love them, and somehow you do both at the same time.
Isaac is mostly based on an exaggerated version of my brother, Joseph, who’s currently working as an architect in Brooklyn now. Joseph is irritating, narcissistic, and one of the only people who kept my grandmother and a lot of our other elderly relatives company as they passed away. Don’t worry, he mocks me in a very similar way. (In my family, I am known as the destroyer of chairs) But, we’re glad to have each other around.
I based the character Isaac off my brother because the typical android character is just too dull, too robotic. (Well, I guess that’s the point) I wanted an android who was more like a person, not just trying to be a person, like a Pinocchio made of steel. Isaac is too flawed to be a Data, and that is what makes him real.
I bring all this up because I have two brothers. The other is named Nathan, and his birthday is tomorrow. Since I haven’t created a character based on him, I thought I would dedicate this blog post to him. Happy 34th Birthday Nathan! Many more years to you.
I am happy to present to you my predictions for the year 2023! Please note that these predictions are guaranteed to be 100% wrong (God, I hope so.)
January
Georgia cruises to its second consecutive national championship, beating TCU 56-3. Players on the TCU bench migrate over to Georgia’s sideline in order to avoid being put in the game as the Horned Frogs are beaten so badly, several of them are declared sterile after the game. In an unrelated matter, after missing the playoffs this season, Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban summons Satan and demands that his soul be refunded to him.
In international news, as the war in Ukraine approaches its first year anniversary, Russian President Vladimir Putin admits that the war hasn’t gone as planned, but asserts that he expects imminent victory as he has appointed “General Winter.” Putin and his Cabinet enjoy a Dr. Evil-like laugh session until one of Putin’s aides tells him that General Winter was assassinated by Ukrainian sharpshooters when getting too close to the front line.
February
In a massive upset, the Cincinnati Bengals defeat the Philadelphia Eagles to win Super Bowl LVII. Starting QB Joe Burrows proclaims he’s going to Disney World before the fabric of the universe tears apart and swallows the entire stadium whole.
In entertainment news, James Gunn announces that in his new DCEU, Superman will be played by Jim Parsons of the Big Bang Theory, the Flash is really just a nudist who can run a four-minute mile, the main villain is the Penny Pincher, and each movie will be at least 95% CGI. After an ensuing riot, Warner Brothers announces that Gunn will also be put in charge of the next fifteen Harry Potter movies and the planned Tom Bombadil trilogy to begin in August 2024.
March
March begins with one last winter flurry, knocking power out for the entire state of Texas. As the state struggles to bring its independent power grid online, Elon Musk suggests that they drill a hole to the Earth’s mantle and unleash a flood of magma to melt the ice. When the state government turns Musk down on the basis that this would destroy all plant and animal life in the state, Musk tries to buy all the land in Texas. However, Musk is denied credit as after running Twitter for six months, he now lives in a cardboard box on the streets of Houston and babbles endlessly about “terrorism coordinates.”
Pope Francis dies suddenly in his sleep. After a one-week enclave, the cardinals elect Tobias Forge, founder and lead singer of the heavy metal band Ghost, as the new pontiff. Dedicating his reign to Lucifer, Forge pledges to be the worst pope in world history or at least the worst pope since Alexander V.
April
In a run that would make Cinderella blush, the Arkansas Razorbacks make it to the NCAA Championship Game…where they lose by one point when Davonte Davis bricks a three-point shot so badly, it flies into the other basket at the opposite end of the court. Statisticians claim this is one of the least likely events since the Big Bang, yet Arkansas Razorback fans merely shrug their shoulders and say “them’s the breaks.”
The race for the Republican Presidential Nomination for 2024 heats up as Ye West throws his hat in the ring, as he abandons MAGA to forge his own cult of personality. Media commentators are stunned as the platinum-album performer cobbles together a weird coalition of rap fans, neo-nazis, and the clinically insane. As he watches his own supporters abandon him in favor of Yeezus, Donald Trump endorses QAnon and accuses Ye of being a tool of the international Satanic child-molesting conspiracy. In response, Ye appears on Alex Jones’ show with a twelve-year-old prostitute and says “I Like Satan.” His favorability among Republican primary voters goes up by two points.
May
West Virginia Attorney and aspiring author Jack Willems and his wife Rachel welcome their second child into the world. At the same time, Jack’s first novel, Beer Run, available on Amazon, becomes a New York Times Best Seller, propelling Jack to instant stardom! (Okay, maybe I do wish this happens)
Elsewhere in the world, protests in Iran enter their ninth month. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announces a new concession that women will no longer be beaten to death for failing to properly cover their hair but will instead be given a quick clean death by gunshot. The protestors respond by walking down Pasteur Street in bikinis.
June
President Biden’s aides walk into the Oval Office to find the President hunched over his desk, having apparently died from natural causes in the middle of the night. The staff of the White House quickly call Chief Justice Roberts to administer the Oath of Office to President Biden’s corpse. The White House Press Secretary immediately calls a press briefing to assure the American Public that President Biden, while no longer breathing, is still in charge and will run for president in 2024 as the best morticians in America are working to preserve his body. She cannot confirm reports of Vice-President Kamala Harris banging her head against the wall of the Eisenhower Executive Building.
In China, with COVID infections reaching new highs and the Chinese economy buckling under the pressure of increasing debt and an aging population, President Xi Xiping makes a nationwide address on June 5 to remind everyone that nothing happened on this day in 1989. “I just wanted to remind you all that the CCP knows what it’s doing and certainly doesn’t view you all as expendable,” President Xiping said. “Some people might look at our actions and assume we’re purposely trying to piss you all off. However, these people just don’t understand. We’re playing 4-D Underwater Chess here. Your rulers are very competent and deeply concerned for your welfare. Make China Great Again!”
July
Audiences flock to movie theaters to see this year’s Summer Blockbuster: X-Men Infinity: Rise of the Reboot. Breaking Avatar’s record for the highest-grossing movie of all time, audiences describe it as “Okay” and “mildly entertaining.” Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, yet again, though Hollywood magic must be used to digitally remove his walker from each scene. Meanwhile, an unreleased Hayao Miyazaki film is discovered in the vaults of Studio Ghibli, which when screened in America, makes animation enthusiasts weep tears of joy. It fails to survive the opening week.
Having finally found a way to completely stretch out the NBA season to July, the league championship is finally awarded to the Memphis Grizzlies. Head Coach Taylor Jenkins credited the team’s victory to solid defense, his coaching staff, and a well-placed bribe to Commissioner Adam Silver.
August
Temperatures rise to 110 degrees in southern states as the U.S. faces one of its hottest summers on record. As construction workers and returning football players die from heat exhaustion, several localities consider letting people go outside in the buff to relieve the effect of the sweltering weather. Not any of the places like Texas or LA mind you. We’re talking Minneapolis and Milwaukee where it never got above 90 degrees. They just don’t know how to deal with the heat.
Sam Bankman-Fried pleads guilty to fraud, along with everyone else at FTX who worked with or for him, everyone at Alameda who lent FTX money, everyone who ever invented a cryptocurrency or NFT, anyone who ever trading cryptocurrency or NFTs, and anyone involved in the creation of the internet, and anyone who owned a digital anything anywhere.
September
As students head back to school, a new report from the Department of Education finds that Americans are increasingly falling behind other nations in all major subject areas such as math, science, and whether you can talk and write good. Standardized test scores show the USA has fallen behind Uganda, though that might be due to putting the results in alphabetical order. President Biden vows, once someone lifts his arm up and moves his mouth, to redouble the national effort to improve our public schools.
Meanwhile, the competition for the Republican nomination entered a new phase with the beginning of debates. With no fewer than 53 candidates splitting the vote, Ye and Donald Trump take the lead with five percent and four percent respectively. Fox News commentators are split on Ye, as on one hand, he is certifiably insane, and on the other hand, he is currently ahead and they know how their bread is buttered.
October
The New York Yankees win the World Series, as their bizarre strategy of spending billions on getting the best players in the game breaks through. They then rename the team to the New York Wildcats, the blandest name imaginable, in order to placate a group of Red Sox fans who find the word Yankee (originally a term for New Englander) to be extremely offensive.
An ancient group of Pagans come together on Halloween at Stonehenge to celebrate Samhain with the sacrifice of children and succeed in the resurrection of the Old Ones, plunging the Earth into a thousand years of darkness. No one can really tell the difference, however, so life goes on as usual.
November
Feeling left behind with all these protests, Kim Jong-Un arranges for a protest against himself and then has the protestors shot just for the Hell of it. He then blames both the protests and his executions on South Korean capitalists, Japanese Imperialism, and the U.S. The party praises Dear Leader for his far-sighted vision.
Pastor David Portenoy of the Jesus Kiss Me Church predicts the End of the World will occur on November 29, 2023. The day comes and goes without anything happening. When asked about his prediction, Portenoy explains that the world has ended, spiritually, but it will end physically next May. He then takes his ministry’s entire trust fund and migrates to Bermuda, where he will spend the rest of his life.
December
With a plurality of three percent following the addition of another 44 different candidates, Ye West takes the Iowa caucuses. This is in spite of massive headwinds from Republican voters who polls say find Ye racist and also, black. Donald Trump pledges to fight on to New Hampshire, where he is currently polling in first place at two percent of the vote.
On the Democratic side, the desiccated corpse of Joe Biden defeated his former Vice-President Kamala Harris. Harris’s dark horse candidacy, with the famous slogan, “At least I’m alive” failed to gain ground against Biden’s campaign. “He hasn’t explained how he can continue to be commander-in-chief in his condition,” Harris complains. “He can’t talk at all. He’s been dead for six months. “
I’ve made my opinions about Christmas as compared to other holidays clear in other posts to this blog. I’ve also talked about adding other gift-giving holidays to take the pressure off Christmas. Nothing I have done approaches the idea of giving Christmas its original meaning as developed in medieval Christendom. That would be like Horace telling the Romans to abandon their city and find a distant land to settle in to cure their corruption issues.
Today, I’ll cross that line and talk about a real old-fashioned Christmas: drunkenness, feasting, and role reversals. During the Middle Ages, Christmas was a two-week-long binge of beer and bacon. The twelve days of Christmas lasted twelve damn days. Everyone had to get the time off. Serfs, apprentices, students, lower officials in the church. Not only were lords required to give their serfs time off, but they were also expected to throw a party for the peasants on their own dime, complete with booze, roast boar, and even entertainment. Cross-dressing, practical jokes on the nobility, and getting completely plastered were all par for the course.
This all culminated in the Feast of Fools on January 1 celebrated by the clergy, known in Paris as Topsy Turvy Day for the complete inversion of any hierarchies within the church. Choir boys were appointed as bishops. Priests would eat black pudding on the altar and wear obscene masks during mass. Subdeacons would give their superiors orders. All of this derived from ancient pagan festivals where slaves would treat their masters as equals. Occasionally, you can still find signs of these role inversions, such as in the British Army where the officers serve dinner to the enlisted men.
See, that’s the real Christmas spirit. The King of Kings was born in a manger, not in a palace. The king who lived in a palace killed every male infant under two in Judea trying to get rid of him because Herod was afraid of any challenge to his power. Jesus escaped to Egypt, and if old Herod knew that people would use his birthday as an excuse to tell their superiors where to shove it and then say “feed me,” Herod may have killed all the girls just to be safe. The term “public servant” isn’t meant to be a sad joke and your employer has a moral responsibility to be a leader of men and not merely a consumer of services, whether he accepts that or not.
So, sorry, Charlie Brown, I don’t think we’re recapturing the Christmas Spirit anytime soon. I’ll believe we’ve recovered the true meaning of the Yule Tide season when Elon Musk shines my damned shoes.
About a week ago, someone on Twitter asked “Why do no fine restaurants serve turkey as a meal?” I naturally responded, “Clearly, they are part of a freemason conspiracy to prevent people from eating turkey because it disrupts their mind control waves.”
Got a few likes on that. Yeah, it’s funny, but lately, I’ve been thinking. I mean, it’s bullshit. That’s right, horsehockey. Restaurants serve turkey on sandwiches and as complete birds on golden plates if you come on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Go to Subway. Go to Jimmy Johns. Sit down at a restaurant and ask for a turkey club. You’ll get it.
Then, go to a grocery store. Turkey is everywhere. Butterballs. Sliced thin deli meats. They’re even turning out ground turkey these days. Whoever eats that stuff should be put in a mental asylum, but it’s there.
Who likes it? I mean, other than the Dad in the Christmas story. Sure, turkey is good when it’s deep-fried, but so is everything else. Pickles. Twinkies. Zucchini. Carrots. Everything tastes better deep-fried. Based on what I’ve heard, some people in Scotland even stomach Mars Bars that way.
The Powers that Be aren’t hiding turkey from us, they’re pushing it on us. The only thing I can’t figure out is why. What’s that you say? Maybe turkey is a filling meat, easily reproducible, which is so bland that, much like vanilla, no one will really object to it? Sure, that’s what they want you to think. Who are “they?” Oh, come on. They. The Illuminati. The Bilderbergers. The Elks Club. The people really running the show. Why these shadowy globalists, by which I mean people who use globes rather than maps and not a veiled reference to Jews, are forcing this bland bird meat down our throats, I cannot fathom.
So I’ll make something up. I know two things about turkey: everything I’ve said so far and that Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be America’s official bird, not the bald eagle. This supposedly had to do with the fact that the turkey is a farm animal representing hard work and prudence while the bald eagle is a lazy scavenger. There you go. I blame Benjamin Franklin.
Not alone, but he was a Freemason. And he did help create the current federal government with the whole writing the Constitution thing. I’ll blame them. Particularly the ones with the funny hats. Yes, the Freemasons and the Federal government have forced turkey on us to control us. It’s MKULTRA 2.0. How do I know that turkey causes mind control? Once again, why else would people eat it?
Of course, there was this one guy. Who I met. At a bar. And is not made up. He told me that the federal government started promoting turkey in the 1960s around the same time they killed all the birds. The flying birds that is, not the turkeys. Flightless birds can’t be replaced with cameras. Check that out here. https://birdsarentreal.com/ They injected the turkeys with LSD as part of their mind control experiments. Because as we all know, the main thing LSD does to users, is make them want to go to sleep. It has nothing to do with tryptophan y’all.
Now, this guy I’m telling you about: I never got his name. Two men in black suits swooped in while we were making boilermakers and took the guy away. That’s the federal government for you. They are so omnicompetent, any attempt to squeal on the numerous conspiracies against the public they run: like the time the world ended and they force us all onto ships, blasted us all into space, and then tried to hypnotize the stupider among us to forget it. You don’t remember that. Well, the hypnotism worked. The government always knows what they’re doing and they’re perfect at it. They wanted you to think there were no WMDs in Iraq because it made them all look so stupid, you would never believe how smart they were.
You might say “Jack, listen to yourself. The federal government isn’t that competent. Haven’t you ever dealt with the post office?” or “I think you’ve made a big logical stretch saying that because people get sleepy after eating too much that turkey has LSD in it.” or “What do the Freemasons have to do with this? You never explained that. This is just silly.” To which I say, you’ve missed the point. Of course, it makes no sense. If it made sense, the sheeple would figure it out rather quickly, wouldn’t they? Yeah, it would be reported in the news and written down in history books. Everyone would believe in it, not just me. I wouldn’t be special.
That’s how I know it’s true. It’s true because I believe it. I’m special. I’m certainly not a failed attorney, sitting on his couch, pounding away on a keyboard in hope that someone will care about me more than the people I actually deal with in real life. I’m special. I matter. I’m important. I am.
Alright, now that I have posted all of Beer Run and advertised my interview with Terry Bartley, I will now completely destroy my reputation and write about the dreaded Cancel Culture.
I will begin by laying my ideological cards out on the table: I’m a recovering Republican. This is a member of the Harvard Federalist Society speaking here. I started reading the National Review when I was in 8th Grade. What changed? Well, with me, nothing really. I still believe what I used to: free markets, a strong national defense, and the radical idea that judges should interpret the laws the way they were written. The problem is that the GOP changed what they believe, which is now protectionism, isolationism, and that Democrats and John McCain eat children. I voted Libertarian in 2016 and haven’t stopped.
So what’s my opinion on Cancel Culture? I’m not a fan, but it’s nothing to whine about. In every age, there are certain things you can’t say without becoming a public pariah, even where free speech is operative. Try talking about sex the way a normal person does today during the Victorian age and see where it gets you. George Carlin famously said there were seven words you couldn’t say on television. Today, if he did the same bit, all those words would be racial slurs, which I think counts as an improvement given that Carlin’s words were merely crude, not demeaning. Our age is as sensitive to race as past ages were to sex. That’s not obviously wrong.
Still, the flip side of that is it makes having a public debate about something really difficult. When I was in college, professors talked about the need for this nation to have an honest conversation about race. It’s difficult to have an honest conversation about anything when you make so many opinions taboo, particularly when those opinions aren’t really outside the norm.
There’s a reason I keep using the Victorian era as an example: a failure to have an honest conversation can have real consequences. Take a look at some of the anti-masturbation devices of that time (but don’t blame me for the nightmares). Right now we’re having a public debate about transgenderism which could potentially have a wide-ranging impact on the way our society works, from public restrooms to women’s sports to women’s prisons. That debate is marred by the fact that one side says there’s no debate to have. For some people, any suggestion that transgender women can’t be treated the same as biological women is akin to endorsing eugenics. This convinces nobody, but it shuts a lot of people up.
On the other hand, Kanye. Yeah, Kanye. I don’t think I need to say much more. When you make your white supremacist handler and Alex Jones look like the reasonable people in the room, you’ve achieved a new level of offensiveness. It was really something seeing Jones, who declared that parents who lost their children to a school shooter were crisis actors, trying to moderate someone else’s opinions. It couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person.
But I think it encapsulates what’s wrong with our political conversation. Amidst all this political correctness, it doesn’t stop a multi-platinum recording artist from saying “I Like Hitler” live. All the outrage in the world didn’t stop Donald Trump from claiming a judge was biased against him because the judge was Mexican (he was born in Indiana), or that he saw Muslims in New Jersey cheering after 9/11, or denying he lost the 2020 election, or telling people to sterilize their insides with bleach, or meeting with Kanye and his groyper twerp buddy. Gosh, there are so many examples.
All the political correctness in the world hasn’t kept these people from being racist in public. Maybe, it’s because that kind of stigma doesn’t work against people who don’t have any shame. Honestly, that was probably part of Trump’s appeal. I have to admit I left the GOP because I couldn’t understand how Trump fit into the party’s values unless we really were the racists and idiots the other side always accused us of being. He wasn’t even consistently a Republican. Trump has been a registered Democrat in this century.
Were we the racists that we were accused of being? Some of us were. I underestimated how much race played into the opposition Obama faced. However, I wonder if a lot of support for Trump came from the theory that he could beat the censoriousness with his pure shamelessness. Political correctness is really just the attempt of the left side of the aisle to use the Overton Window ( a shorthand term for the bounds of acceptable political speech) as a weapon to knock the other side out of the debate. Maybe what people were looking for in 2016 was someone who would drive a steamroller right through that window and shatter it into a million pieces. Conservatives started to believe that society was better off without an Overton Window.
Once again, what’s the problem? It didn’t work. The past six years have seen both the normalization of white supremacists like Richard Spencer and Nick Fuentes speaking at mainstream conservative events and the widespread condemnation of figures like J.K. Rowling for taking very mild positions against admitting transgender women to women’s prisons. The terms “Alt-right” and “Woke” came into being at roughly the same time in human history. Trump’s offensiveness did nothing to stop the censoriousness of the Left, and their censoriousness did nothing to make him less crude and bigoted.
You may call this BothSidesism, and that’s true, to the extent that humans are flawed regardless of where they are on the political spectrum. However, I would argue that what I’ve described are the two polar opposite attempts of both sides of the aisle to drive the other out of existence, and neither are effective. Liberals believe they can make racism and homophobia disappear if they just stigmatize enough. Conservatives think they can defeat the stigma by being patently offensive. They just talk past each other.
We end up right where we began: of course, society has limits on speech considered acceptable. It always has. That’s true even where there is a First Amendment (which only applies to the government anyway). If you make those limits too restrictive, it makes important conversations difficult. Make it too loose, and things that really ought to be settled, like whether or not Nazis are evil, suddenly are up for debate. What’s the way forward? If you’re a liberal, the next time someone says something offensive, maybe consider just letting it go and moving on. If you’re a conservative, the next time someone gets canceled in public, consider the idea that maybe they deserve it. Some people ought to be pariahs. The fact that you have to explain that to “conservatives” is a depressing fact of modern life.
That’s my totally boring, totally offensive opinion for the day. Let’s hope I don’t get canceled.
This is the final excerpt of my book that I can make available for free. If you want to read the full book, check it out on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5
“Oh, I just don’t know if I’ll ever find anyone.” Morgana leaned on the bar, her hand cupping her right cheek. Bill poured her a Tripel and placed it in front of her eyes. Mario had just dumped her. “On the house,” Bill said. “Thank you, you’re so kind,” Morgana said. “I thought Mario was the one. We never fought.” “He seemed rather full of himself. I mean, that’s how he came across to me when he was in here.” “Oh, yes, Mario did think very highly of himself. I like a man with confidence.” A man with confidence, Bill thought. Maybe now was the time to take his shot. “Do you have anything scheduled for Monday? That’s my day off and there’s a showing of Hamilton at the Zorbak Fine Arts Center. There’s a Vietnamese restaurant I know right next to it.” “Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Morgana said, sipping the Tripel. “I’m not much for works of antiquity. I prefer more modern art.” “In a few weeks, Sorvasen’s got an exhibition of his art. You know, being a waiter here is just his day job. He’s quite the sculptor.” “Oh, it’s a wonderful idea, but I just don’t think I’m over Mario yet. You’ll always be a good friend, Bill.” Morgana took her drink and went outside to the benches in front of the brewery, leaving Bill alone in the bar with his employees. Lucia giggled at Bill’s failed attempt to land the big fish. “I always wondered what would happen if you caught that car you’ve been chasing, Rover,” she said. “Dinner and a show. How old fashioned.” “I’m an old-fashioned guy.” “Which is why I’m wondering about the other girl you took home recently. You know the one in the back?” “Lower your voice,” Bill said, scanning the bar for eavesdroppers. “Who told you?” “Zota told me, don’t you blame Jimmy for this,” Lucia said. “Like I wasn’t going to find out.” “Hopefully we aren’t that bad at keeping secrets. You realize the government will be looking for that thing.” “And if they apply the same competence and integrity that they do in chasing down criminals and paving roads, we’re in no danger. Hey, you’re not going to replace me with that thing, are you?” “I’ll tell you after I get it working.” “Oh, if that’s the case, maybe I call the authorities.” Lucia raised her eyebrows at Bill, and he rolled his eyes to the back of his head. If the authorities found out, Bill would be in deep trouble. What would he do with the android if he got it going? This was potentially a very deep philosophical question, thankfully delayed by the television hanging above the bar. The TV had been broadcasting a debate on trade between an economics professor wearing a tweed jacket, and a large, burly Lunatic, wearing a Tuxedo T-shirt and a tie with Daffy Duck on it. “We need to stop all trade with the outside world,” the Lunatic said. The caption beneath him identified him as Jethro Duff, one of the main organizers of the referendum. “The Moon loses two-hundredmillion jobs a year to off-worlding.” “The Moon only has three hundredmillion people on it,” the economics professor said, barely able to form words. The screen shifted to an image of a starship on fire, floating in dead space. “We interrupt this program to regretfully announce that over one thousand people are dead,” the anchor jawed in a thick non-regional accent. “The U.S.S. Starstorm, an S-level spacecraft with a crew of 1,072 people, has now been burnt to a crisp after colliding with the Terran sun.” “Oh, shit,” Lucia said. “The Starstorm was the flagship of the third fleet, commanded by Captain John Krieger,” the anchor said, as a picture of Krieger appeared on screen in full dress uniform, pointing off into the distance. “Captain Krieger is counted among the dead. While the investigation is ongoing, initial analysis of the black box indicates the ship attempted to warp through the star.” Lucia pointed at the image of the burnt husk of a spaceship being towed to port by several smaller spacecraft. “Isn’t that the guy who wanted to speak with you last night?” she asked. “Yeah,” Bill said. “I wonder if Krieger relied on the hull design to protect him from that one.”
An Old Memory
“Put it back in, careful now.” Bill’s father guided his hand as he placed A-1’s emotion chip back into the carefully constructed positronic brain. Bill heard the chip click. A place for everything and everything in its place. Prof. Stiltson turned to his son and offered him a high five, which Bill gladly took. The good professor then closed the hatch on A-1’s head, made to look like the professor’s own, and flipped the switch at the bottom of the android’s titanium skull. A-1 blinked twice and then turned his head to smile at Bill. “You have improved me,” A-1 said. Bill giggled at the thought he that improved A-1. His father beamed at him. “You may have had a little help, but very good for an eight-year-old. Now let’s see what this thing can do. A-1, I’m going to show you a film. It’s called Bambi. I’ve equipped you with tear ducts. Now let’s see if we can make you cry.”
Here is the third part of Beer Run. We are only doing the first thirty pages, per my publishing contract. If I’ve gotten your interest, the full book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLSVRZN5
***
Years Long Past “Stiltson, please explain to me why you thought this was sufficient.” Commander Krieger looked at the electronic pad displaying Bill’s schematics for the next shuttle with an elevated contempt. Bill looked quizzically at the same mechanical drawings. The other officers in the room just looked at each other and snickered as Krieger wound up another lecture against Bill. “I don’t understand, sir,” Bill said. “I ran a simulation. That model works.” “I know it can fly, Stiltson,” Commander Krieger said. “This might shock you, but I expect a little more of that from my acting Ensign.” Why Krieger would expect anything in the field of spacecraft design from a fourteen-year-old boy with a made-up title was anyone’s guess, but Bill thought he’d done pretty well. “Stiltson, I believe the purpose of this exercise was to design a shuttle that could withstand the radiation from inside the corona of a star, was it not?” Krieger asked. “Yes, I believe that’s what we’re doing,” Bill said. “Is anything about this model you’ve created designed to do that?” “No, I didn’t think the design of the ship itself would accomplish that. I assumed the shields would be the primary line of defense.” “You assumed? So, you made an ass out of you and me, is that what you did?” The young officers in Krieger’s crew started to openly laugh at Bill. His cheeks burned bright red. “Let them laugh, it’s funny. So, you concluded that there was nothing you could do to insulate the ship from radiation in terms of the structure?” Krieger asked. “I never thought about it. By the time we’re relying on the structure, that means the shields have failed and anything you could put in the hull of the ship would be a last gasp measure.” “A last gasp measure that could save a man’s life, Mr. Stiltson!” Krieger shouted. “These schematics are worthless to me! Try again and this time, think about what you’re doing!” Krieger pressed a button on the electronic pad and deleted the schematics for the shuttlecraft. Back to the Present Bill woke up. Another bad memory expressed in dream. Just seeing Krieger brought back the trauma. Bill shook his head and looked at his clock. Eleven a.m. Shit. He slept in, past the time for the auction. By this time, the good stuff was likely gone. He rolled out of bed, threw on some jeans and a collared shirt, and ran out of his apartment. As soon as he got out the door, he had to shield his eyes from the blinding light coming from the lunar dome’s projector. The artificial sun put out by weather control was a little bright today. He’d filed a complaint with the city about turning the sun down a few months ago, and he got a form response from the city council about taking his concerns very seriously. Bill scrambled down the stairs outside his apartment and into his car. He pulled down the sun visor. He programmed the address of the park where the auction was being held into the car’s computer. The vehicle lifted off the ground and floated in the direction of the road. Fifteen minutes later, he jogged through the park on what would normally be a beautiful Saturday morning, trying to get to the auction to see if anything could be salvaged. Green grass. Lush trees. Birds singing. A blue sky. Tough to believe this was all man-made. Bill’s father showed him pictures of the surface of the Moon outside of the terraformed bubbles. It was a desert at night. Bill spotted the stage where Scott Ross, the local bankruptcy trustee, banged a gavel on a podium next to a large fermenting tank. At the foot of the stage, a crowd of Bill’s local competitors conversed with each other as Ross closed the auction. Jimmy and Zota waved their hands in the air. Bill walked over to them. “It’s all gone,” Zota said. “Mr. Ross has disposed of the inventory.” “I can see that,” Bill said, watching helplessly as his competitors gobbled up the last of the equipment from the dissolution of Over the Moon Brewing. “Well, Jimmy, you’ve learned something today. Set an alarm.” Jimmy took out a notepad and actually wrote the advice down. Bill would have told him to stop, but his train of thought was interrupted by someone poking him on the shoulder. He turned around and found Scott Ross, a squat pig of a man with pepper gray hair. “Sorry, I couldn’t hold off the auction,” he said. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other bidders.” “No, this is what happens when my past comes back to haunt me for an evening,” Bill said. “I should have just stood that ghost up.” “That’s a shame. Because there’s a special item I have that would be right up the old Bill Stiltson’s alley.” “You’re not going to sell me that canning machine?” “No, I’ve got something else actually,” Ross said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Not from the bankruptcy. I found it in a junkyard yesterday.” Ross motioned his head in the direction of his car. Bill knew Ross well enough to realize this likely involved something illegal. The last time Ross offered him a deal on the down-low, it was five cases of Latinian Rum, which had been illegal for eighty-six years under the embargo. It might seem odd for a bankruptcy trustee to be involved in such shady practices, but Ross was the kind of Yankee hustler who built the Moon and it’s not like the DUP could find anyone else who knew how to get top dollar for a bunch of dented brewing tanks. Bill decided to at least take a look at the illegal merchandise. As long as it wasn’t drugs, it couldn’t get them into too much trouble. “Stay here,” Bill told Jimmy. “And do as I say, not as I do.” Bill and Zota followed Ross to his ancient car, covered in scrapes and duct tape. Ross popped the trunk. Bill looked inside to find a human face looking back at him. Blue eyes, red hair, pale skin, female features. The face was human but lifeless. Bill snapped his fingers in front of the human face. Unresponsive. “It’s inactive,” Ross said. “Doesn’t work.” “I figured,” Bill said. “If it worked, it would be reporting you to the Intergalactic Navy via its internal server for stealing it.” “I stole nothing. As I said, I found it at the junkyard yesterday.” “It’s illegal for private individuals to own androids,” Bill said, rolling his eyes. “Given the possibility that they are sentient, supposedly it’s slavery. I guess it’s okay to be enslaved by the government.” “I think they normally call that conscription.” “Or imprisonment, which is what we could be facing if we’re caught. I don’t think federal agents will believe that someone in the IN would just dump an android in a junkyard and run.” “That’s the only story I have,” Ross said. “No, really, it is. Will you take it?” “How would I use it? Even if I got it working, it would report me.” “Not if you wiped its memory. I assume you can do that.” Bill looked at Zota and bit his own tongue. “Can I speak about this with Zota alone?” Bill asked. “Sure.” Ross walked over to Jimmy to shoot the breeze with him. Bill turned to Zota. “What do you think? Could we use the extra help around the brewery?” “Another helping hand? Always, but can you fix this thing and wipe its memory like Ross claimed?” Zota asked. “I can do both. My dad taught me how to fix a positronic brain before my tenth birthday. However, even with the memory wiped, I’m still worried about getting caught.” “How would we get caught? Ross is right. This looks like a human woman. I mean, to me at least. Like I said last night, I can’t always tell humans apart.” “So long as you don’t look too closely, it looks like a real woman,” Bill said. “Why would someone in the IN just leave it?” “It’s defective. It doesn’t work.” “When androids stop working, the IN has a place to fix them. They’re constantly offering me a job. Whoever threw this android away could be court-martialed.” “I mean, it’s a mystery, but I could use some help beyond what Jimmy can do working part-time. It’s your call.” Bill looked deeply into the android’s lifeless blue eyes. A flash of memory crossed his mind: his father fine-tuning in his workshop, A-1 getting up and walking across the room, A-1 singing the scales, A-1 learning to dance. He hadn’t spoken to A-1 in a while. Last time Bill checked, A-1 was still teaching in Cambridge. “No, I hate to leave it like this,” Bill said. “I grew up with androids. They’re almost like little people to me. Just leaving her broken doesn’t seem right.” Bill noticed that he referred to the android as ‘her.’ He was beginning to get some of those old feelings again. To hell with you, Krieger. Let me show you disappointment. Zota went to Jimmy and told him to bring the car around. Jimmy did just that, backing the car up to Ross’s trunk. When Jimmy came out to help Bill move the android, he freaked. “Shit! Is that…?” “No, and you never saw it,” Bill whispered. “Now help me get it in the back of the car.” Jimmy nodded. Bill lifted the android by the arms while Jimmy got it by the legs. They transferred the body from one trunk to the other discretely. Bill felt slightly amazed at how light the body was. A-1 was made from much heavier metals. Once they had the android moved, Bill whispered to Jimmy, “I’ll explain later.”
“So, we’re set to put the extra special bitter on tap next week,” Zota said, pouring a small snifter and handing it to Bill. Zota, a Clothonian, rubbed the bright tank with his rubbery bat-like wings. Bill lifted the glass to his lips, tilted the amber liquid into his mouth, felt the sweet and burning sensation of a very special batch circle his tongue, and swallowed. He nodded his head. “We’ll call it the Professor’s Little Helper,” Bill said. “My dad’s birthday was in November, so I’ll dedicate it to him. Another excellent batch.” Zota beamed with pride. Some people in this business would scoff at hiring a master brewer from a planet where beer wasn’t indigenously made, but the bat knew his suds. Zota had worked for three other microbreweries before Bill found him. The turnover made Bill nervous until he tasted Zota’s product. After that, he didn’t care. “I’m putting a new batch of Porter into the fermenter tomorrow,” Zota said. “I’ve added cinnamon to this batch.” “Haven’t heard that one before,” said a voice from the back. Bill turned around and found Jimmy Park walking into the room. Bill had employed the twenty-year-old business major from Seoul to clean the brewery after hours. This was a ruse to avoid the regulators, who wouldn’t let Bill have an intern under the age of twenty-one in the microbrewery business. Jimmy wouldn’t turn twenty-one until two weeks from now. Jimmy cleaned the brewery for free. “Well, young man,” Zota croaked while letting out a toothy grin, “you keep at it and someday Bill here might trust you enough to make your own Frankenstein monster.” “My own what?” Jimmy asked. “Bill, this kid doesn’t know his own heritage,” Zota said. “Frankenstein comes from Britain and he’s Korean, actually,” Bill said. “Not the same heritage, though I suppose you think we humans are the same.” “Yes, I have to admit you all look very similar to me,” Zota said. “Except when it comes to sex. Lucia out there has the distinctive pissed-off look of a woman who has been made to wait.” Bill looked out to the front of the brewery. Lucia tapped her fingers impatiently on her arm. Sorvasen, his other waiter, sat patiently at one of the tables, putting his finger in a glass of water while his gills fluttered. Bill whistled loudly. “I’ve got to take care of this,” he said. “Jimmy, there’s an auction tomorrow morning you might want to be at. Good learning experience. I might pick up a tank.” “I’ll be there,” Jimmy said. Jimmy picked up a mop leaning against the wall, while Bill went out to the main serving area. Lucia eyed him the entire time as he made his way to them with their paychecks in hand. Sorvasen, the fish man, stood up from his chair as Bill came in, only now paying attention. If only Lucia was so easygoing. “I’ve got your checks,” Bill said, holding out two thin pieces of paper. “I’ve divided up the tips without taking anything out, as I’ve promised.” Lucia snatched the check out of his hand. She looked at it. She then took out a notepad from her back pocket to make sure nothing was deducted. Bill offered direct deposit, but Lucia wouldn’t have it, and she wouldn’t let Sorvasen take it either. She’d been screwed over before when she didn’t have a physical check in her hand. “Have I ever stolen your tips?” Bill protested. “You didn’t pay us once,” Lucia answered. “I paid you; I just didn’t pay you on time. I paid you a day later, and I had to take out a loan to do that.” “The billionaire needed to take out a loan to pay me one thousand credits?” “That was before my mother died. I hadn’t got the inheritance yet.” The room got quiet after that. Bill’s mother hadn’t been gone long. A few months. “It’s all here,” Lucia said, her lips pursed. Sorvasen looked at his own check and nodded. Sorvasen’s people shake their heads to say yes, so he needed some time to adjust when he came to work here. At the IT place where he worked before, they had a Coruscan liaison who helped him communicate with management, but at the bar, he had to relearn every social interaction. Like a lot of immigrants, Sorvasen didn’t know when he was allowed to be mad. Lucia knew when they could be mad all too well, so she negotiated for him. Sorvasen left. Lucia stayed behind. “Yes, Lucia,” Bill said, patiently. “I wanted you to know that a man came by and wanted to speak with you,” Lucia said. “He told me that he would be at the Crystal Palace if you wanted to speak with him.” “Odd place for a man to want to speak to me. Can’t imagine what such a high-roller would want to talk to me about.” “Maybe you could be a high-roller if you decided to work from an office instead of behind a bar. You ever thought about that? Maybe if you let someone else do the bartending.” This again. Lucia was pushing him to start canning beer and selling six-packs. Bill had told Lucia he wasn’t interested in expanding. Too much work. “What did this man look like?” Bill asked. “White man, white hair, both on top and his beard, Intergalactic Navy uniform, command red, seems like he used to be attractive before he put on a few pounds.” Michael Krieger, Bill thought, rolling his eyes. What universal force of cosmic unholiness brought that shit stain to my door? “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “Have a good evening.” Lucia turned and left. Bill looked behind him and saw Jimmy starting to clean the tanks in the brewing chamber. Maybe Bill would make that appointment.
“Bill Stiltson. I’m here to speak with Krieger.” The bouncer looked skeptically at Bill over his cheap sunglasses. Bill didn’t seem dressed for the Crystal Palace, as he was standing there in the jeans and a faded T-shirt he had sweated through during a night of serving people drinks. Of course, he was dressed like someone who worked for a living, not the sort of person who showed up at a nightclub at one a.m. on Lunar Standard Time. The people around him were. The bouncer looked down on the list with a smirk, which disappeared as he ran across a particular name. “I guess you get to come in,” the bouncer said, looking crestfallen. Bill figured he had never gotten to come in himself. Bill walked in and found himself blinded by the flashing lights emanating from the ceiling of a dark chamber filled with twisting figures of pink and green flesh. Bill’s father made him read Dante’s Inferno, so the scene rang a bell in his head. Music vibrated through the floors and walls. Bill also heard the music, but the screeching they called pop music today made no impression on him. He had always preferred death metal. Bill told the hostess he was there to see Captain Krieger. After repeating himself three times over the sound of the nonsensical noise, the hostess nodded and walked in the direction of a spiral staircase. Bill followed her to a platform above the main dance floor, where he found a ghost. Not literally, but a man from the past who looked like he was dead. Krieger sat between two women, who Bill assumed were escorts based on their attire. His legs were spread wide open with an Old Fashioned in his right hand, propped up on his knee. His uniform and medals indicated a Captain ranking, but Bill knew him as a Commander, so that’s what Bill called him. Krieger, whose white hairs revealed his age, appeared out of it, nodding off, perhaps under the influence of more than alcohol. “Commander, Commander,” Bill repeated. Krieger finally came to, seemingly recognizing Bill for the first time, pointing at him. “Stiltson. I wanted to see you.” “I know, that’s what you told my waitress. You could have just spoken to me. I was behind the bar. I think you would have noticed that.” “I did. I had to see it to believe it. You have just given up on life.” Krieger slurred his speech as he talked. Occasionally, the customers would bring in opiates and drop them in the beers. The girls couldn’t handle the larger men who did this, so Bill would have to come from behind the bar and throw the bums out. He’d seen this before. “You could have been something special,” Krieger yelled, losing track of the volume of his voice. “You could have been great!!!” Krieger’s drunken rant could have been whispered for all the effect it had. His screams were absorbed by the mindless music around them, but Bill could read his lips. “Calm down,” he said, motioning with his hands to lower the volume. “Now, you just get people drunk!” Krieger bellowed as he emptied his Old Fashioned down his gullet. “If you just understood what I was trying to do! You’d have made lieutenant commander by now.” Yeah, and I’d still be taking orders from you, Commander Dickhead, no thanks. “Goddamn it! Would you listen to me!” Krieger slurred. “We’re mortal, Bill! We only have so much time on this Earth!” You’re on the Moon, idiot. “I tried to make a man out of you! To be a father to you!” Krieger shouted, dropping his glass. “Like a replacement for your father!” “If you ever talk about my father again in my presence, I will knock your teeth out,” Bill said, getting up from his seat. “And this conversation is over.” “Don’t talk to me like that!” Krieger yelled while falling to the floor. Bill just flipped Krieger off as he walked away. Wow, a moralistic lecture from a whoremongering drunkard. Krieger hit a new low. Bill figured he’d better get home and get to sleep. He had work in the morning.
As promised, I’m posting the first thirty pages of Beer Run on this blog for free. The first section is posted below. Enjoy!
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In the year 2538, the galaxy is governed by the benevolent Democratic Union of Planets, a confederation of intelligent races united by the values of government by consent, freedom of expression, and the rule of law. The brave officers of the Intergalactic Navy explore the universe while defending the DUP from all foes, intergalactic and domestic. This is not a story about them. This is a story about regular schmoes who work at a brewery on the surface of the Moon in the outskirts of Luna Park.
Bill Stiltson tilted the pint glass at an acute angle and pressed the tap against the logo imprinted on the front. He pulled the handle down and watched as the Marzen flowed down the side to the bottom of the glass. Bill slowly lowered the glass from its angle until it was straight. Not too fast. You didn’t want it to come out all head, he heard his deceased father’s voice warn him. The glass filled with amber goodness. Bill admired his handiwork for a moment and then turned to give the glass to the Tuscanian who sat at the bar. Tuscanians tend to be large people. Big bones. Green skin. His mother saw a Tuscanian once and grabbed her purse. Bill’s mom had subtle prejudices. Sometimes, she would still call people from other planets “aliens,” a term that didn’t make much sense given that Earth and Tuscania were both parts of the Democratic Union of Planets and had been for well over a century. The Tuscanian smiled at him with long yellow teeth. He took a sip. “It’s very good,” he said. “And I’ve had a lot of beer since I moved here. We don’t have beer on Tuscania.” “I know,” Bill said. “I think you call your drink Frule. I had a little when I went on vacation once. It’s a little like rum.” “I’ll have to have rum sometime so I can tell you if you’re right or crazy,” the Tuscanian said. “I have a meeting on Earth tomorrow. In-person.” “Fancy. These people you work for couldn’t just do a teleconference?” “I’m supposed to be meeting the client,” the Tuscanian said, taking another sip. “I design artificial gravity systems for spacecraft, orbital stations, and lunar ecospheres. It’s a step up for me. I wouldn’t refuse.” A step up, Bill thought. He remembered when he had those. Now, he settled for the Moon. Couldn’t be happier. Well, he could be happier, if Morgana would give him a second look. She was sitting on the bench outside with her latest flame. Her dark, frizzy hair bobbed up and down as she listened to the wide-chested Adonis who had been driving her around in his Lamborghini. Bill thought his name was Mario, though compared to Bill’s thin figure and greasy skin, he could very well be Casanova. Thunk. The thudding of a flight holder, right next to him, woke Bill from his daydream. Lucia, one of the waitresses, had alerted him to an order, which Bill began to fill. An IPA in this slot. A stout over there. A Tripel in the middle. When he was finished, Lucia came and took the flight over to a group of men wearing military fatigues. Bill looked the rough men over. One of them was wearing a black trucker’s hat with the words ‘Full Moon’ on it. As in ‘Moon is full, no more aliens.’ “Yeah, I noticed them, too,” the Tuscanian said, looking straight forward as he finished the Marzen. “I’ll have the stout. Seeing a lot of them recently. You don’t think the referendum…” “No,” Bill said, filling up the next pint. “If we left the DUP, the economy would tank overnight. How those Lunatics ever got the signatures, I’ll never know.” The term Lunatic wasn’t an insult. Well, it was, but it was also the chosen term for people in the ‘New Moon’ movement, which sought independence from the Democratic Union of Planets. Most economists on the Moon warned that having the Moon declare independence from an intergalactic confederation that surrounded it would be the equivalent of voting for a depression. Somehow, the Lunatics scrapped up enough signatures to put Lunar independence on the ballot for the mid-term election next Friday. The polls said they were dead in the water. “I think the polls are wrong,” the Tuscanian said. “I’m seeing a lot of dark hats.” “They’d have to be very wrong,” Bill said, putting the glass down next to his green patron. The Tuscanian took a drink from the stout. He swished it around his mouth and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. Then he shook his head. “People here are very generous and welcoming. They wouldn’t tell you to go back to your own planet. Not to your face. That doesn’t stop them from wondering if they really would be better off if you weren’t there. Believe me. Maybe when I’m on Earth tomorrow, I’ll do some apartment shopping after the meeting. I’m Vardok, by the way.” The Tuscanian offered his hand, and Bill took it. “Bill Stiltson. I own this joint.” He spread his arms to signify his ownership of the palace that was Lunar Brewing Co. He was behind his bar and all was right in the world.
Jax Book Nook 