Dear Mgmt,

What is your deal with waking people up on Sunday morning?  Pestering and hectoring decent folk on the Lord’s Day is unbecoming and smacks of a blatant desperation.  I know you people are desperate, but must you be blatantly so?

And never mind the fact that it’s Sunday, but you people have no idea what kind of day I’m having.  But I’ll get to that momentarily.  First, you’re demanding something funny.  I’ll give you something funny.  But it’s going to be brief and inappropriate, because today is shaping up to suck, and I don’t think any kind of significant mirth is called for.  So here:

What does a burnt pizza, a pregnant woman, and a frozen beer have in common?  Someone forgot to pull it out in time.

Here’s one for Easter, just in case one or both of us is no longer existing next Sunday (and in the hopes you’ll leave me alone):  Why does the Easter Bunny hide his Easter eggs?  He doesn’t want anyone knowing he fucks chickens.

And that’s it.  There shall be no more frivolity today.  Today has been oddly ugly, and I’m afraid my mood is unsalvageable.  I had two things on my to-do list.  One of them is none of your business, but the second one was to file my taxes.  To that end, I’d scheduled a meeting with my tax preparer, Manolo, relatively early this morning.

Manolo has only been in the country for four days, and has only been my tax preparer for two (I am (was) very proud to be one of his (maybe the) first clients.  I know nothing about him (not even his last name), but he seems like a trustworthy guy.  And since Gov. Newsom signed legislation that allows any illegal immigrant to be automatically instantly licensed in whatever field they choose, I assumed I could  trust him, at least from a legal standpoint.

Well, so much for that.

I prepared a fine continental breakfast and bottomless mimosa bar for Manolo…after all, it’s Sunday morning, and we are both decent people.  Perhaps the only thing I know for certain about Manolo is that he likes to drink.  He’s been completely plowed on blue-agave tequila during every interaction I’ve had with him.  I’ve excused this as a very understandable coping mechanism for what must be an unbelievable amount of stress: sneaking into a country, learning a new language and a massive tax code in one day, and starting a new business as a licensed tax preparer the next day…that’s a lot, to be sure.

But as soon as he got here this morning, I knew something was off.  I mean, other than the fact that he had clearly not learned English on Thursday like I was assured he would.  I don’t think he had even tried…he didn’t seem to have learned a single word this morning.  Which is why I had to resort to physical violence: when your tax guy is unable to understand your concerns and questions about your return, there’s really nothing else to do than throw hands.  Or feet, as was the case this morning.  Not speaking, he handed me a tax return that alleged that I owe the federal government of these Divided States of America just north of $140,000.  As soon as I saw that number, my right foot rose quite involuntarily and quickly, and I kicked Manolo hard in the huevos.  This, of course, caused him to double over in pain, and that’s when I brought a crushing elbow down on the back of his head.

It’s too early to be certain, but I think that finished him as a tax preparer.  I know enough Spanish to understand he was mumbling apologies as he exited, but somehow, that just made things worse, and I continued to beat him as he crawled out the door.

It was an entirely unpleasant scene, and almost completely ruined my Sunday.  But tax preparation is a dangerous and often bloody business – almost as much as writing – and you’d better be prepared when you step into that ring.

This also upsets my Monday, which was already rather intensely scheduled.  Now I have to add “Find a new tax preparer” to my list, which is something I had allocated neither time nor energy for.

I think it might be time to get out of California.  You should too, if you know what’s good for you.  I took a lot of shit from last week’s post suggesting we drive the entire rotten Gen Z into the sea, but in all honesty, I’m pretty sure the entire state of California will soon break off from the mainland and sink into the mighty Pacific.  There is a greater-than-zero chance that both Oregon and Washington State will be dragged into the murky depths as well.  This entire stupid coast would quickly sink into eternal darkness, and all residents will be quickly eaten by sharks and orcas.  The geography of these three states was never meant to support this amount of incompetence and stupidity.  It seems natural and necessary that the entire thing collapse in on itself and sink into a dark, watery death.

I think we’re at the moment in our history that Henry Miller was talking about when he said. “The enormous and elaborate machine  which is America will go haywire.  It will be the aurora borealis which will usher in the long night.”  Indeed.  The long night started the moment our befuddled and beclowned president mumbled and slurred the Oath, but the real darkness is only now starting to appear.  And the Really Scary Ugliness has yet to be even previewed.  But it is coming.

There are blinking red lights everywhere, and it remains a mystery to me how the Shit has yet to actually hit the Fan.  But the longer it takes, the worse it’s going to be.  Because we’re already three months into this most dangerous year, I’m feeling more comfortable making certain predictions.  There are five events I’m looking at that now have a far-better-than-average chance of happening this year.  Any two of these happen, the results could be catastrophic.  Three would be orders of magnitude worse.  The shitty thing is if one happens, the chances of another happening is doubled.  That would then triple the chances of a third thing happening.  At this moment, the two I think are most likely to happen are these:

• China moves on Taiwan by the end of the summer.  Most likely in the form of a naval blockade.  Regardless, this, combined with other conflagrations and world events, likely begins WWIII, which will be disastrous.
• Civil violence in the winter.  The entities that have been dividing the United States will achieve critical mass, and one side will break and go to guns.  The other side will respond in kind, and whatever happens then will be disastrous.

This is the shit that keeps me up at night.  I wake up each morning and instantly think: “Has it happened over night?  Is today the day?”  And while I’m very pleased that it didn’t happen overnight and today was apparently not the day, I’m not comforted.  As I mentioned supra, I think these are inevitabilities, and the longer they don’t happen, the worse it will be when they finally do.

Okay…enough of the apocalypse…I have to get to work on these goddamn books.  You know, it does take some of the proverbial wind out of the sails knowing that the end times will be arriving at the exact same time I’m hoping to get these books on the shelves.  It might behoove to wait a year, see if there’s still anyone around who can read.

Brace yourself, or get out while you can…
You Know Who

N.P.: “Free Bird – TOTEM Remix” – Lynyrd Skynyrd