Life Is Over (If You Want It)

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I didn't feel particularly thankful this year. It's been harder and harder to come back to this blog over the past year. My heart just hasn't been in it. Obviously you can tell, Dear Imaginary Reader, based on my dearth of posts as of late. I've never been a particularly optimistic person. If you've followed the blog for any amount of time, then this comes as no surprise. But these days, I just don't see any reason to be hopeful.

My country has elected a climate change denying, misogynistic, xenophobic, homophobic, delusional, narcissistic bully to be our 45th President. And every passing day, with every piece of news that drips down this open sewer we call out mainstream media regarding our forthcoming commander-in-chief, I am given a brand-new reason to fear and despise the future. Each dismal cabinet pick, every inane tweet, and all of the inevitable conflicts of interest that this irate cheese doodle of a man will face the moment he is sworn into office, fills me with dread.

None of this is okay.

On election day, the moment I noticed the poll returns swinging in this monster's favor, I cracked open a new bottle of 120 proof bourbon and started drinking. I woke up the next morning on my bathroom floor, my head feeling like it had been split open with a railroad spike, the bottle in the sink, nearly empty. My phone was clenched in my right hand, and I wearily lifted it up to check the time. I was confronted with a notification informing me that Hillary Clinton had conceded, and Donald Trump was the next President of the United States of America. I vomited, then passed out.
I'm still wondering if I actually drank myself to death that night, and that all of this is simply my own personal Hell. I certainly haven't ruled out the possibility.

I have no hope for the future, not anymore. If the American people are stupid enough to elect this grossly unqualified lunatic to the highest office in the land, then all bets are off. I've always subscribed to the philosophy that if you're naturally pessimistic, then the bad stuff will never surprise you, and if something good actually happens you'll find yourself pleasantly surprised. I didn't think it was possible to shock me with bad news, but recent events have turned me around. Each turn of the wheel delivers another fresh horror, and I'm rattled every time. No hope for the future? I'm not even sure we have a future.

Unrelated scene from Jim Wynorski's Chopping Mall.

When I created this blog, it was with an intended audience of two, being my best friend Titus and his brother Josh. I didn't get to see those two very often, and I decided to use this as a platform to share my ridiculous thoughts with them on a regular basis, because they actually seemed to care about what I thought. I know it's crazy, but that's friendship, right? So I spent five years complaining about the terrible movies I'd seen, rambling about various holidays for no good reason, and just generally polluting the internet with my bleak worldview.

After Titus died, I made myself scarce around here, really only returning in December of last year with the idiotic concept of watching and reviewing twenty-five holiday-themed, made-for-television family movies in as many days, in a feature I lovingly called Twenty-Five Days Of Schlock-Mas. I did this stupid thing to accomplish two things: to try and rediscover the Christmas spirit, which had disappeared with the loss of my friend, and to entertain Josh, to hopefully make him laugh a little each day. Ultimately, I think I accomplished both goals, despite my struggling to reach the finish line with the truly execrable Christmas Land.

At the conclusion of last year's month-long marathon, I promised I would never attempt anything like that again, and at the time I meant every word. But time has a way of smoothing away the rough edges of our memories, leaving us with idealized versions of the way things really were. Did I really loathe the ritual of watching and reviewing a movie a day during the busiest season of the year? It wasn't that bad, was it? Never mind the fact that I can just re-read the last few reviews from last year's Schlock-Mas feature to find out the unvarnished truth. We don't have time for rational solutions.

Anyway, seeing as how I've got nothing better to do, and by this time next year we'll all probably be piles of glowing bones in a barren and irradiated wasteland, why not torment myself one last time with Twenty-Five More Days Of Schlock-Mas?

Now with extra screaming!

After all, I'm already in Hell, so things can't really get much worse. So starting tomorrow, I'm going to tune into Hallmark Channel (and maybe Lifetime at some point, because I like to keep my options open) at some random point during the day and watch one of their fine holiday-themed, made-for-television motion pictures. Then I will bitch about what I've just seen on this blog for the entertainment of my dwindling readership, but really just for Josh, because he finds joy in my pain. Come back tomorrow, and we can begin our countdown to extinction together.

YOUR TIME IS RUNNING OUT!

It's true. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.