our 92nd weekly open mike
Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.
8/8/2026
Anything goes: 8/8/2026
21 responses to “Anything goes: 8/8/2026”
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Is everything a sham? All of America, everything good anyone’s ever said about this shithole country, none of it was true was it.
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None of it was true, and the closer you get to the top, the more people telling such tall tales always knew it was fiction.
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I like to wait till my favorite dark chocolate brand, “Endangered Species,” goes on sale and then buy a shitload. (Even though it contains traces of the heavy metal cadmium from being produced in contaminated conditions, grown, harvested and processed by exploited child labor.) Two years ago I bought a hundred three ounce bars but the pile in the fridge was looking depleted and I calculated it was down to a three month supply.
(Whenever I finish doing the breakfast and lunch dishes I reward myself with a section of chocolate, then walk around the deck for a few minutes to supposedly aid digestion. I eat another section when taking off for a walk in the park or doing gardening or yard work but never after dinner because of the caffeine.)
I’d been looking online for chocolate sales and always checking the racks in the groovy food stores but the price was stuck at $6.29 a bar, a price I would never pay. (The last time I stocked up they were on sale for $2.50, half off.)
Then I passed the chocolate shelves at the Co-op last week and noticed they were finally on sale again, though just a third off. The sale was ending that day, it was time to make my move and I got a couple big grocery bags and started filling them. I counted out five each of the ten flavors which contained over 70% dark, then doubled it for my favorite, Espresso Bean. Then I did it again, bought out the Espresso Bean, loaded the two bags with a hundred chocolate bars and stashed them in the lowest shelf of the cart.
Ready to go to checkout a deliciously evil thought came into my head: What if I stole the chocolate? Hundreds of dollars worth of free chocolate! (Quite the heist, but what if I got caught?)
I’d put all my other purchases onto the counter, bag ‘em and load the bags into the cart, pay for it and then wheel out of there with my free load of expensive chocolate, unnoticed by the eyes of the clueless checker. No, I thought, I’m not going to do that, I can afford to buy it and why would I want to steal from the Co-op like a sneak thief and dirty cheat?
But how about if I tried to “fake-steal” the chocolate and see if I could actually get it past the checker and out to the parking lot just for the challenge and thrill? I’d unload the rest of the groceries, turn around and go back into the store, tell them I forgot and then pay for it. But what if I didn’t go back in? What if I just kept going and drove out of the parking lot and down the street? (It would be the perfect crime.)
I headed to the checkout stand with my load of groceries and chocolate…
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And… Didja do it?
A perfect crime is any crime against criminals, long as you get away with it. Not sure the co-op qualifies as criminals, though.
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I really liked my chocolate “heist” story and it turned out good because I did something I rarely do, changed the order of my thoughts. That’s all the story was anyway, just a collection of thoughts and musings. In my original draft I pay for the chocolate, head to the library and go on an Elmore Leonard crime stories spree, books on CD division. When I got back to my car is when I first realized I could’ve tried to do a “fake-steal” an hour earlier just for the dare of it.
So I didn’t change any words or thoughts, just inserted my post-library thoughts, the play by play about absconding with the chocolate, into the earlier part when I’m loading it up and thinking about stealing it.
I think it made a better story, leaving a little mystery: did he or didn’t he?
So that’s my experiment, not really making shit up but mixing it around into a more interesting brew si?-
It’s cheating, but fuck it, I do it too. A better story is more important that too much slavish dedication to the way and thee order things happened.
And yessir, I do think it makes the story better.
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Letter To My Doctor
I’d like some answers as I think I have erectile dysfunction (ED) and does it follow that my heart is also affected?
I have been averaging four to five orgasms a month with “self-love” but am just semi-erect when I begin the episode, which takes a couple minutes to complete. (I have now been successful eighteen straight attempts over the last three months, a record since I started keeping track five or ten years ago.
I wake up most mornings with a good erection, sometimes rock hard in the middle of the night, does that mean I don’t have ED? (I was told by an indignant lover sixteen years ago that I had ED. With my last lover nine years ago it was difficult to have an erection and hard to come in her, in fact I only did that on the last night we were together.)
I just read an article which said penis health was a barometer for heart health which is why I have these questions, am looking for answers and am writing this to you, doctor.
Generally I am mentally, emotionally and physically satisfied with my “sex life,” figured I had a good run with over ninety sex partners (not counting prostitutes) and feel retired from the “sexual rat race”™ although I’m still existentially attracted to most fecund women of baby-making age that I notice. I, like many, have missed that boat and experience intermittent bouts of depression about once a year for a few days when thinking about the loneliness of having neither lover or children. (So be it, I made my choice.)
I do wonder about this ED, knowing that I will inevitably look back at these months of five to six great orgasms (when using the marijuana aphrodisiac) as the good old days, no doubt.-
You have a doctor?
And you have a doctor who’d read that letter, and respond?
Last time I “had a doctor,” he said he’d prefer to communicate via MyChart. I hate MyChart, but when I worked my way through the triple-factor authorization to send him a message, he usually had an assistant reply within four business days.
Anyway, since I hang around with ED a lot too, I’ll be curious to know whether and what you doctor replies.
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I wrote this yesterday after reading that men are uptight about talking about sex/penis issues to their doc.
I would send this to my chart but it’s too long so i may mail it to them or send it as a three part my chart or drop it by…my doc is pretty responsive,
when i saw him last year i gave him my stats including the five orgasms a month or so…
my big question is if i have erections at night does that mean i have ED?
yes he or someone will read the letter and respond, he’ll want me to come in, i just might, they bill medicare pretty aggressively…-
Labels are less than perfect, but if you can’t show your excitement when you want to be excited, to me that’s erectile dysfunction. I’ve got it, but don’t care, since there’s nobody I want to show it to.
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Sorry, nothing about my sex life or shoplifting today, jus some movie recs:
Triple Frontier
Escape at Dannemora
Friends of Eddie Coyle
Le Cercle Rouge
Jubal
3:10 to Yuma
Into the Night-
3:10 to Yuma *1957*
Into the Night *1985*to be clear
Also
Track of the Cat
Day of the Outlaw
Ladybug Ladybug
Man on a Swing-
Let Him Go
Old Henry
Fanny Lye Deliver’d-
The original 3:10 to Yuma is the only one of these I know I’ve seen, but Into the Night sounds familiar. Adding all the above, thanks, but realistically I’ll be dead before catching ’em all.
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Into the Night is basically Scorsese’s After Hours, but I hate After Hours and love Into the Night. Landis is one of my heroes, despite the helicopter incident and his extremely, uh, “forward” personality.
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At IMDB, it looks like all of Landis’s Hollywood buddies and mentors are in Into the Night, and I’m still not sure whether I’ve seen it, but I will.
Saw After Hours at least 3-4 times, mostly loved it. What’s to hate?
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Old Henry was great…
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The talking heads on CNN, etc, laughed and scoffed when Wisconsin Goober-natorial candidate Francesca Hong said she and her Communist Crew were going to cancel Thanksgiving, Halloween, Fourth of July and Valentine’s Day. That’s all it took, people decided to vote against their own interests (freedom from bullshit holidays), she lost the election and all I can think is why not cancel Christmas too?
I could definitely live without Thanksgiving, spoiler alert I already do as well as the rest of the third of U.S. adults who live alone. Thanksgiving is just more holiday pressure we don’t want or need, a gluttonous colonialist celebration, never mind the poor turkeys, coochie coochie coo.
Hallowe’en? When’s the last time anyone you know dressed up? Oh wait, this is California, never never land, and I vow to dress up for the first time since I was about 8 only if editor Bruce A does first, so whew, dodged that one. (Though all the sugar is pretty healthy so I guess that’s one good point in favor of H-day, si?)
Fourth of July? Haven’t been in years, what is it anyway, obnoxiously noisy and polluting fireworks celebrating the genocide of Indians?
Valentine’s Day, the only ones who go for that are the ones with a sweetie who expects some silly BS gift, hey fuck Valentine’s Day, you’re already getting laid, dude, just leave us out of it!
But I will never vote for or support Hong again as she left out the most expensive and ridiculous holiday, Christmas. How can you make a hit list of holidays and leave out X-fucking-mas? Sellout!
(Photo: My doctor in Mexico)
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I dressed up for Halloween (or maybe it was April Fools Day?) ten or so years ago, as Wonder Woman, and won the office prize. Any day I pull on pants and a shirt and leave my house, feels like I’m wearing a costume.
Yeah, most of the holidays suck, but three cheers for Arbor Day.
Wife and I ate at Morris Ramen a few times, Francesca Hong’s restaiurant, but I never warmed to the idea of fancy ramen being worth the price of eating out. The media wailed on her for once, long ago badmouthing Thanksgiving, same media that never mentions the AntiChrist lives in the White House. Not an expert on her politics, but the existence of Thanksgiving certainly ought to be up for debate.
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I just had to have some fun with that,
maybe channeling TWK?-
I’ve read a lot of Tommy Wayne Kramer. You’re better than he is or was. (Did he really die? His AVA obit was for laughs, so I’m not sure.)
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