Huck Fumanity

The Gonzo Journals

March 1st, 2023

Have any of you fine people ever heard of Slasher? It’s a social media horror app aimed specifically at horror fans and enthusiasts! I’ve been a part of it for a couple of years now and I absolutely love the community. Why do I love them? Because I’ve already been loving them for a decade under a different name.

Yesterday, I posted a scanned polaroid photograph of the great Lon Chaney Jr. aka The Wolfman that I got from a trunk of his personal memorabilia. For a while, I was married to his family and that digital copy of that scanned photograph is pretty much all I have left of that marriage. Being a huge horror fan myself, I was sure the members of the Slasher community would LOVE it! Meh…

Girl selfie taken for the sole purpose of spreading her cleavage all over social media = 100 likes. One of a kind photograph of a horror icon at a family birthday party = 6 likes. Perhaps if Mr. Chaney had unbuttoned his shirt a little bit, things would’ve gone a different direction. The moral to this story is it’s all the same. All of it. Facebook, Twitter, Slasher…it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing but “look at/oh woe is” me posts spreading negativity and misinformation to all corners of the globe. Rebranding it is futile. Polish a turd and it’s still a turd.

It’s a stormy Wednesday morning in North Texas and things are a little gloomy. I don’t know of any other way to tell the pan handlers at 7/11 that I haven’t carried cash in twenty years. It’s 2023! Most of us don’t! So, what have they done? They’ve adapted and created PayPal accounts. No. Just No. Especially when you’re panhandling outside of a business with a huge Help Wanted sign. Go inside and get a job, dude. Your shoes are already much newer than the people who work there. Hell, you probably make more money than they do!

I’m not harping on all homeless people because I’m actually pretty lenient with how much money I give them. However, I can usually spot a fraud from a fucking mile away and I give two pokes and a poop about the lazy guy with a car parked around the corner who dresses down for sympathy. This is modern society in a literal sense as far as I’m concerned. I’ve watched eleven years of the Walking Dead so the stumbling, drugged out people don’t even bother me anymore. Stay classy, Dallas.

It doesn’t stop there, though. Modern society’s laziness has rolled over into the virtual world as well. Every morning I wake up to millionaire YouTubers who livestream themselves playing video games. They don’t need a regular job because YouTube and their legions of fans send them money to do so. Kids don’t want to play the games anymore because they’d rather watch some monotone basement creeper do it for them. To be more precise, my son watched a guy this morning as he opened packs of Pokémon cards which had been professionally graded by an art auction house. Really? Have our lives become so mundane that we get off on watching others perform random daily tasks? Also, why in the fresh hell are art auction houses grading Pokémon cards? I’d be a little insulted to go from a Rembrandt to a Pikachu in the period of a single work cycle.

What’s next, society? Will the next generation be amazed by livestreams of people having their morning coffee? Can I look forward to 4K Dolby Sound videos of constipated nerds on the toilet attempting to painfully shit out a load of Monster Energy Drinks and Flaming Hot Cheetos in between Minecraft marathons? Will convenience store panhandlers just buy fake mannequin hands, nail them to walls, and expect passersby to put cash in them? That’s an innovative idea, actually. I should get in the fake hand business. Dibs!

Perhaps I’m just working too hard. I always have a dozen or so projects in the pipe and continuously looking for the next. I’m more concerned with the contribution I make to the world as an artist rather than the money. In the end, I can’t take that green stuff with me, but I want people to read my dirty words fifty or so years after I’ve taken a dirt nap. Should I start taking cleavage selfies before my body wrinkles up? Maybe I should pick a spot outside my neighborhood 7/11 and get rich quickly. I do play guitar from time to time. That must be worth a dollar here and there. No one ever tires of “Wagon Wheel”, right?

I’m certain there’s an easier way to make ends meet but I’m not that guy. I’m too fat and ugly for nude modeling, I have too much pride for panhandling, and I believe the invention of Minecraft was the worst technology step back since the double-sided dildo. Just scissor like a normal person!

Anyway, I’m going to stop ranting and get to work. This video game isn’t going to write itself, although AI is already drafting novels and blogs for talentless hacks who want to reap the fruits of success without any labor involved. It’s disgusting. This is why old people aren’t afraid to die. Fifty years into human and technological evolution is too much for the brain to calculate. Give me a pad, a pen, and some Guns N Roses. I’ll run circles around your Minecraft videos.

Oh, and if you want to see the Lon Chaney Jr. photo, find me on Slasher @howlgrowlsnarl. There are some lovely women on there who can’t wait to show you their tits, I mean new haircut!

Peace.