Month: March 2024

Would You Like A Glass of Whine With That, Sir?

It’s been a while since I added a post in the Adventure Blog category.

And that’s mostly because I’ve been tethered to “full-time” employment for faaaaar too long a stretch. And by full-time I mean a consistent 50+ hours a week trading my soul for plastic dollars. My last real taste of freedom was many moons ago, touring Central America with nothing but a backpack and a reckless disregard for self-preservation. Fuck that was a good time.

Lemme backtrack here a second — the word tethered I used earlier is actually quite incorrect. That’s more of a word some whiny fuck (me?) might use to somehow suggest “I had no choice in the matter!”

But I most assuredly did.

No one backed me into a corner and said flip eggs or die. No one put a gun to my head to work 16-hour days when people quit or got fired. No one guilted me into working an additional 2 years after my 9-month notice came and went. All that shit was on me. There are no true have-to’s in this world, there are only choices.

The have-to people are the ones perpetually befuddled by the differences between entitlement, comfort, and free will…

“I HAVE TO pay my bills, or they’ll cut off my hot water!”

Uh, no, asshole. Incorrect. You don’t have to do any such thing — except maybe admit to yourself you prefer hot showers over cold ones, and then shut the fuck up about paying for services you’ve intentionally contracted.

“My rent went up again, I can’t believe I HAVE TO pay another hundred dollars a month!”

Um… you don’t, fucker. Maybe it’s more honest to admit you prefer a roof over your head versus living in a box in the woods. Surviving without a fixed address is very possible, just not high on your entitlement list.

It’s the same complaints with rent, cars, Netflix subscriptions, grocery prices, and all the worthless baubles shipped to us from Amazon in 24 hours or less. So you can either figure out a way to pony up the dough for the perks you’re addicted to and quit your incessant bitching, or learn to live without.

Granted, one might make the argument that choices are “easier” to make when a healthy bank account is involved — this I concede— but one must also realize that each and every previous choice we’ve made has determined either the robust health, or COVID-like fragility of our present-day finances.

I made a choice a decade ago to squirrel away a few bucks every month with the intention of funding an improbable (and somewhat idiotic) dream of buying a sailboat and traveling the world, and that decision has finally paid off, leaving me in a position where I can comfortably say Fuck You to the next taskmaster offering me some bullshit minimum wage gig. Suck my balls, massa.

Wanna know what I like about unemployment? What I like more than working 50 hours a week at a job I’ve lost passion for?

FUCKING EVERYTHING!!!

The air smells sweeter. The birds chirp more happily. Hell, even my roommate seems less irritating when he talks about leveling up his Ewoks to fight his Ewoks.*

[*Editor’s Note: That’s a complete lie. Conversations about weather patterns in Texas annoy the fuck out of me too, Johnny. Get a fucking life!]

I feel like my baseline has been reset. My atrophied sense of adventure and wonder has returned. Although no palm trees are currently involved in the equation, my waking days feel a lot like they did when I was wandering Guatemala for 2 months.

And one more unexpected quirk happened… I quit da beers. I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol since the day I left my job. For a junkie like me, that ain’t too shabby.

Now don’t get me wrong here — I’m not mentioning this because I consider myself some superior, enlightened asshole who’s gonna start preaching to you the evils of running ethanol through your liver. Fuck that. There ain’t nothin’ worse than a reformed alkie talking about their 10 years of sobriety like they’re some kinda fucking hero. That’s almost as loathsome as trying to have a conversation with a hardcore vegan who just discovered CrossFit. Shudder.

This ain’t no “game-changing” moment in my life, just another choice.

So why mention it?

Because the timing was more than coincidence.

I probably sucked back, on average, 6-12 beers a night for the last 5 years. No embellishment. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Mostly more. The habit was part of my routine to numb my brain and escape the daily drudgery of my chosen commitments.

Breaking the habit was a simple realization:

Create a life for yourself you don’t feel the need to escape from.

I like those words. When you go to bed excited about the nutty things you wanna do in the morning, and wake up in that same mindset, there’s a good chance you’re on the right track.

I’m not saying I’ll never have a beer again, but for now, I’m good. If I do choose to partake in a tall, bubbly, golden, delicious beverage somewhere down the road (stop it Mike, stop it! haha), then I’ll do so with conscious intention and full awareness of the inevitable consequences that always follow.

Oh fuck, now I totally sound like a holier-than-though douchebag.

Sorry, my bad.

.

The name of the game in this post is still adventure, so let’s end with a quick (not so quick) story…

Just as I was on a roll getting my electronics installed in the boat, the weather took a turn for the worse. Or is it the worst? I don’t fucking know, but let’s just say the weekly forecast sucked some serious ass — too cold to work at the marina, and definitely too cold to mix epoxy on the boat.

The typical Mikey reaction might’ve been to brood about how Mother Nature’s timing was COMPLETELY FUCKING UNFAIR (possibly triggering a visit to the purveyor of spirits down the road to purchase some “mood-enhancing” juice), but an alternate choice of action presented itself in the form of a schizophrenic conversation…

Me: Fuck! Why a cold spell now? I’m in the fucking zone, this ain’t fair!

Other Me: Dude, shut the fuck up. You want s’more cheese with your whine? Do you own a generator?

Me: Yeah.

Other Me: Do you own a portable heater?

Me: Um… yeah.

Other Me: Super. And are you now able to deduce the course of action I’m suggesting without me slapping you upside your stupid fuckface?

Me: Hmm. Wait. Holy shit, I have a great idea!!!

Other Me: Christ what a moron. I don’t how I dealt with me all these years…

So I packed up my gear and off I went — into the sub-zero windstorm at the marina, hellbent on making whatever progress I could, glass of whine forgotten.

I fired up the genny, barricaded my cabin opening, and before I knew it, it was a balmy 8 degrees inside the boat. Sweet. As the windstorm raged, I felt oddly soothed. The vibration of the boat on my trailer felt a lot like just another day bobbing on the water. Double sweet!

As the gas in my generator dwindled down, and the sun (what sun?) began to edge t’ward the horizon, it was time to call it a day. I felt smugly satisfied for being the only nutjob at the marina getting a jump on an early lift-in.

What I hadn’t realized was that the accumulating snow was a tad more voluminous than anticipated.

Driving up the hill made me immediately aware of that.

The first leg leaving the marina is a modest incline, followed by a small, level landing, and then one more steeper grade before reaching the exit.

And so the adventure began…

Me: Fuck. Am I seriously spinning my wheels here?

Other Me: Yeah stupid. You’ve never actually driven this road in heavy snow before, what did you expect? Calm the fuck down, let ‘er roll backwards, and try again.

Now here’s something new I learned — fishtailing is a phenomenon that occurs both forwards AND backwards when you’re traversing a snowy hill. Apparently gravity is some kind of twisted sorcerer.

Other me: Just steer, stupid. You’ll be fine. Reassess the situation when you reach the flat part.

Some bonehead once told me that driving on winter tires in the summer eroded the rubber faster than in winter due to increased friction during hotter months. After I was done laughing, I thanked him for the physics lesson, and drove the fuck away.

Well, it seems Captain Physics may have been onto something. As I checked out my front tires (the winter tires that’ve been on my front-wheel drive car for a year and a half), they appeared to be balder than Patrick Stewart’s ass. Fuck, I hate when smarty-pants people are right.

Me: Okay, I’ll just back up as far as I can, and get a decent running start this time. Should work out fine.

Other Me: HAHAHAHA, I fucking love this moron!

Round 2 wasn’t much more impressive than the first run, but I definitely churned more gravel than snow this time…

Other Me: Oh boy, round 3! This should be worth the price of admission…

And the spectacle didn’t disappoint.

As the tail of my car oscillated left and right like a pendulum on crack, the peak of the hill inched agonizingly closer. Did I have the momentum?

Me: I got this.

Other Me: I dunno…

Me: No, I got this!

Other Me: You sure?

Me: Fuck. Fuck me! No wait, I got this, I got this!!!

And I gunned the motherfucker like no tomorrow as I laughed maniacally while reaching the top. The rush of adrenaline that hit me made me realize that naturally occurring body chemicals were a really cheap way to get high, no beer necessary.

Me: (still laughing like a psychopath) Yeah!! Fuck yeah! I’m gonna do that again!

Other Me: Sigh. Go the fuck home, junkie.

How Not to Market Yourself 101

It’s been quite a while since I did anything to alter the layout or aesthetics of this website, and for good reason — I subscribe to the philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fuck with it.” Updates and plugins and new apps always seem to cause a host of issues, so I keep things here simple.

But one thing I did change several years back was my homepage. I updated the text to reflect the “wee” bit of rage I was feeling during the fake-virus-propaganda-campaign-lockdown-horseshit era.

But I kinda like the ring of it now, so it stays.

The reason I bring this up is because I used to have a little blurb about the meaning and motivation behind the (now tragic) name “BonerFruit.”

Lemme explain…

Oldey Timey English was way more fun. Words like gay, diddle, boner, etc. used to be commonplace, and were quite innocuous. The Flintstones used to have a gay ol’ time, musicians used to diddle all night long on under the stars, and every once in a while people regretted their boners. No big whoop.

Today, there are people out there who’ll lose their fucking minds if you use words like “woman, mother, or breastmilk” in a sentence. And that’s no embellishment. The mental sickness enveloping our society is on an exponential curve to reach a full-blown meltdown before this decade ends, and I don’t foresee any miracle vaccine popping up on the horizon any time soon to alleviate the politically correct psychopathy plaguing our media-driven culture.

But back to BonerFruit…

bōn·er  noun

Meaning:
1. An embarrassing mistake.
Example: “When I kissed my boss’s hand to greet her, she immediately pointed out my boner.”
2. One who bones food.
Example: “I caught a mermaid once fishing, and I spent all evening boning it.”

I had to do a search on the good ol’ Wayback Machine to track down my original introductory greeting, and here it is:

A strange name you may say? Perhaps some background…

No one is given a manual to guide them through this strange reality. Perhaps the fun of the game is going into it blindly. I dunno. One thing I do know for certain – mistakes will be made. Each and every new thing we delve into becomes a learning curve molding the being we are constantly becoming. Each boner we make teaches us something invaluable about ourselves. And, hopefully, sooner or later, each boner will bring to our efforts the fruit of our labours. BonerFruit is the exploration of those journeys. Always remember – To Err is Human, to Boner, Divine…

What I’m ultimately getting at here is that the BonerFruit moniker is actually far more profound than it is vulgar. Sadly though, the marketing community doesn’t see it that way. Most of my writing is blacklisted on search engines, and book distributors outright ban me from any extracurricular advertising.

Of course it doesn’t help that I chose a cucumber as my mascot, and it definitely doesn’t help that the serifs in my logo might be described as “phallic-like, in varying degrees of rigidity,” and the endless Daily Bread jokes about midgets fucking donkeys doesn’t really endear anyone to consider I’m any more mature than the average 6-year old making fart noises.

Such is life. But I don’t regret my marketing boners in the least. In fact, I’m moving forward, and happy to announce that audiobook versions of my library are finally in the works! As much as I’d love people to enjoy the feel, the smell, and the meticulous formatting of a real, physical book, the writing’s on the wall when it comes to print material, and I accept it.

I tried my hardest to get Morgan Freeman to narrate at least ONE of my chapters, but the fucker won’t even return my calls anymore. New daily freckles are clearly fucking up his judgment, so sad.

Ultimately I know I’m gonna end up completing the audio myself, despite hating the sound of my whiny voice, but I do have a few feelers still out there for a professional narrator with the right accent…

I considered a dry British tone as the perfect ironic complement to my writing, but this is the dude I really want to read my shit…

Text-to-speech AI is definitely not the way to go, but I found a website with some varying accents that gave me a feel for what I was looking for. After I stopped fucking laughing my ass off, I managed to download a sample. It ain’t quite right, but you’ll get the idea:

That was the start of a chapter in God Has a Plan For You that I picked at random to test out, but, in the spirit of being offensive and unmarketable, here’s the rest of the chapter (in print) as a perfect ending to this post.

Enjoy!

 

PC Used To Be My Bank 

Remember back in the good ol’ days when politically correct talk was called faggoty, retarded, gay-speech?

Yeah, I know, you can’t write shit like that anymore. Why? Because self-righteous motherfuckers get extremely offended by words — regardless of context, and regardless of whether or not you truly harbour hatred or resentment toward others “different” from you. 

They’re just words. And, to me, funny fucking words.

I have no issues with homosexuality. I don’t hate cripples. Skin colour doesn’t trigger me. Cultures different from the one I grew up in don’t offend me in the least. So why should any so-called “derogatory” words be banned from my vocabulary?

They shouldn’t.

You wanna know what brings out the hate in me?

Stupidity. Closed-mindedness. Holier-than-thou bullshit. Self-imposed mediocrity. Simply put — idiots.

Let’s pull up a quote from good ol’ George Carlin:

“There’s a different group to get pissed off at you in this country for everything your not supposed to say. Can’t say Nigger, Boogie, Jig, Jigaboo, Skinhead, Moolimoolinyon, Schvatzit, Junglebunny. Greaser, Greaseball, Dago, Guinea, Whop, Ginzo, Kike, Zebe, Heeb, Yid, Mocky, Himie, Mick, Donkey, Turkey, Limey, Frog, Zip, Zipperhead, Squarehead, Crout, Hiney, Jerry, Hun, Slope, Slopehead, Chink, Gook. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of those words in and of themselves. They’re only words. It’s the context that counts. It’s the user. It’s the intention behind the words that makes them good or bad. The words are completely neutral. The words are innocent. I get tired of people talking about bad words and bad language. Bullshit! It’s the context that makes them good or bad. The context that makes them good or bad.”

Brilliant insight. But, in our politically correct times, context doesn’t mean shit anymore. We’re now living in a world of full-blown censorship. Racial slurs are the least of our concerns. We’ve gotten to the point you can’t even share a dissenting opinion on social media if it goes against the “government-approved” narrative. A doctor promoting a safe, effective medical treatment — one that doesn’t conform with what the latest “science” dictates — is quickly labeled a quack or whacko, then unceremoniously blacklisted from participating in future reindeer games. If a virologist with 20 years of experience  voices concerns regarding overreaction to the latest fake plague de-jour, his expertise is scoffed at as “misinformation.” Expertise is now only valid when it agrees with whatever bullshit the media is currently spouting.

And what the fuck is a “racial” slur anyways? I always thought we were all part of the Human Race. When did a word denoting a category of creatures also become the same word to describe their differences? I’ve never heard anyone ask me: “Hey dude, what race is your dog?” They’re all fucking dogs. Just because humans breed them into different shapes and sizes to suit their whims, doesn’t mean they’re not all still dogs, fully capable of inseminating one another no matter how pure-bred or muttified they may be.

Exactly like humans.

Just because you grew up eating rice on the Pacific coast doesn’t mean your gash can’t be filled with my European-derived jizz to produce a slanted-eyed communist. We’ve always been part of the same group. It’s the fucking media that wants to tell us otherwise. “Racial” division is just one more psy-op in the Divide and Conquer strategy our psycho overlords love implementing.

North American media looooves creating division among “ethnicities.” Whatever PC terms they’re using these days, whether it’s African American vs. Black, or Mexican vs. Latino, the agenda’s always been the same — keep reporting the predilections of people who grew up within a specific “culture,” to foster an Us vs. Them mentality, as if we weren’t all living in the same fucking cage. Keep the inmates at each other’s throats, and they’ll be less likely to turn on the guards and warden. Simple. And psychopathically brilliant.

There’s nothing wrong with propagating cultural traditions. Nor is there anything evil about choosing to marry a girl steeped in similar upbringings. Preferences aren’t profane. If Muhammed Ali wants to fuck black chicks exclusively cuz white bitches don’t know how to cook grits, more power to him. His predilection doesn’t make him evil or racist, it simply denotes the greatest power humans have — the ability to choose.

So if you feel offended anytime I write fag or homo, or feel the need to write an Amazon review that I’m a racist misogynist, might I suggest you get the fuck over yourself. I love cock-suckers. My girlfriend is wonderful at it. Doesn’t even matter she has a bigger dick than I do.

I guess I shouldn’t have said cocksuckers. I meant phallically exuberant hedonists. Or maybe proponents of penile savoury delights. How about long-shlong-mongers? Nah, too many Jewish overtones. Sayin’ that might get you put in jail in Europe if they suspect for any reason you have doubts over the veracity of a genocide contained in history books. Yeah, there are far more stories about indigenous massacres that don’t get the traction of a country that’s fine with raining white phosphorous on people building underground tunnels to smuggle water and razor blades into their pen, but let’s not go there. Well maybe later, I haven’t yet finished this bit about queers…

You can’t have a non-offensive discussion with anyone these days unless you keep up with the minutia of ever-morphing PC bullshit.

It used to be gay. Then homosexual. Then queer. And then cock-hoover dam collapsed, and a tsunami of insanity flooded into our once pristine neighbourhoods, filling our basements with far too much raw sewage for our sump pumps to handle…

Now it’s LBGTQ FM XL 304 SS THX 1138. I can’t keep track of the politically correct designation because a new letter seems to get added every day. I wouldn’t be surprised if our alphabet gets amended in the near future to add new letters and symbols to cater to the “oppressed.” 

So why exactly is the media so obsessed with providing a platform for lifestyles that represent less than 5% of “normal” society, while telling me I’m evil because my skin is pale?

You tell me, dude.

Oh shit, I shouldn’t have said dude. Oh shit, I shouldn’t have said shit! Fuck!

So now you get scenarios like this…

If you identify with “female,” despite your dangly, 6-inch cock that may make holistic women question otherwise, you can demand rights to walk into the women’s locker room at the gym with your semi-rigid member on full display for all the girls who just wanna drop a couple pounds off their ass in a comfortable space. You now have government complicity to put a business out of commission if they don’t cater to your “rights,” like building a separate LBGTQFM-blah-blah venue to cater to your needs. 

The cripples pioneered this shit…

I’m in a wheelchair, but I want to go indoor rock climbing. Build me an accessible ramp and gear, or I’ll sue your asses for discrimination.

Decades-run family businesses have been ruined because some tard in a chair didn’t have a special handrail, or a big enough shitting stall to make him feel like not having four functioning limbs was somehow the fault of the rest of humanity.

Why does a dance studio need a fucking wheelchair ramp to be legally compliant? Have we lost our fucking minds?

The restaurant I’ve worked in for the last two years has a wheelchair ramp, wheelchair washroom stall, a handicapped parking space, and a fold-out diaper changing station in the men’s room. Do you know how many men have changed diapers in there? FUCKING ZERO! (it’s essentially a coke-snorting platform) Do you know how many wheelchairs I’ve seen in the building? FUCKING ZERO! And there are only two types of people who park in the handicap spot out front:

  1. The losers doing it mistakenly cuz they’re loaded (drunk that is, not rich. No one with a healthy bank account comes to Chuck’s)
  2. The assholes who are perfectly capable of walking, but they have a legal tag from their doctor, because they have a pin in their spine, or they’re slightly deaf in their driver’s side ear, or some other made-up bullshit.

Me me me me me is the fucking cry of society. I say, Fuck these self-centred pieces of shit! If I decide to travel to a country that doesn’t speak English, or doesn’t allow me to carry a pocket knife or machete I was comfortable with back home, I don’t rock the boat. I adapt to their rules. I’m the fucking stranger, I’m the humble fucking guest. To demand turbans, burkas or scimitars be adopted into the rule-set of a profession in the country you’ve emigrated to is the height of self-serving hubris. If you’re unwilling to conform to the prescribed uniform, fuck you. Go find another job.

It’s the same bullshit over and over. If you’re a chick, and wanna be a firefighter, fine, just prove you can do the job. If you wanna drive the truck or work the hose, I’m cool with that. But if you love manicured nails, and have the muscle tone of an anorexic Kenyan runner, I’m guessin’ you ain’t cut out to carry my third-degree burned body down three flights of stairs wearing 60 pounds of air-breathing equipment. It’s not hiring discrimination, it’s common fucking sense. Get the fuck over it. If it makes you feel any better, rub-and-tugs are always desperate for staff these days…

On that note, let’s end this stupidity and move on to greener fields, if you’re still allowed to say green. I’ll leave you with a quote a drunken Indian (native?) said to me once in a bar:

“Hahaha, I like you, you’re fucking retarded.”