Battling Private Bureaucratic Automaton Armies

I hate bureaucracy. Partially because I can't spell bureaucracy correctly the first time ever. It doesn't matter how many times I see Mulder and Scully's faces on their FBI IDs in my head, I will never spell it correctly the first time.

There are too many kinds of bureaucracy. I'm not even talking about government bureaucracy. I'm talking about the bureaucratization of our entire lives. You have a problem with something you purchased? Here, dial a million numbers into a phone as an automated voice continues to ask you seemingly pointless questions. I just want my damn bulk order of Cheetos, man. Where the hell are they?!

It used to be that you could dial '0' at any point during an automated session to get to a real live operator but half the time I try to pull that shit on the phone now, the Voice of Order says, "I'm sorry. That entry was not recognized. Let's start the fuck over so you will contemplate gouging out your own eyes before we can be bothered to resolve this."

I've moved recently. Not far, just a few blocks down on the other side of the highway. The good side of the highway. The side of the highway that doesn't have a 24 hour Whataburger and sirens blaring throughout the night. The USPS has this great program called mail forwarding. You change your address with them and they forward all your mail to your new address for the ludicrous price of less than $2.

I've used this service before and it works great when it actually works. I'm going on a month without any mail forwarded. Luckily, I changed my address with all my creditors so they know where to find me when they need to kill me for not paying them. I use mail forwarding to figure out who I forgot to change my address with. It happens. We have too many masters in our modern life and some are more forgettable and less scary. Let's just say some are more Jesus while others are more Old Testament jealous, angry, vengeful God.

Sitting on the phone for more than fifteen minutes is my idea of Hell. Sitting on the phone, hitting numbers, and, worse, being forced to say something to a robot is like going to Hell and getting each pube ripped off by a pube ripping maniac only to have them grafted back in and ripped off again. I'm talking full-pube. Taint pubes included. The robot couldn't understand the word, "No." I had to say it over and over again. It failed each time.

Worse is when the robot doesn't tell you what to say. It just says, "Hey, man, say some shit into the phone and we have a less than one percent chance of understanding you because AI is still stupid as fuck right now."

It's not like talking to people is any better. I don't even have a strategy any more. I used to be very good at getting people to listen to me and I used to be very understanding. Now I just sob into the phone and hope they can pity me in the short time before it takes them to get aroused by an innocent person's pain.

Can I battle bureaucracy? No. I have given up on any kind of idealism and passion when it comes to the modern world. We have accepted our overlords and their desire to have as little contact with us as possible. We have GMail and Facebook and Amazon and they make life so much easier. They work 99% of the time, too. It's when they don't work when you realize how faceless everything is.

GMail, cool. Take my private conversations and send it to the government as long as I can get an email from whatever most of the time. Facebook, sweet. Tag my friends automatically in my photos. I don't have any so your job is very easy. Amazon, sweet. Give me 25% off of something that's worth 50% more than it's being sold for but where the fuck is my bulk order of Cheetos, man!?

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest: Super Fun New Year Deluxe Happiness Edition Plus 1!

It's a Hilbert Heckler tradition! Sporadic posting of my own New Yorker captions that I will never enter. I'm not Roger Ebert, folks (may God rest on his soul). 

Has anyone ever laughed at a New Yorker cartoon? Has anyone ever said, "That's funny," while reading one? If you have, you are an automaton. Good night. 

Oh, look who's fucking here. The crocodile that ate my wallet. Are you going to say sorry or do I have to send you back to the crocodile killing robot?

We finally convinced him that it tasted like chicken.

We oughta just jump off this fucking ship right now, mate. 

Starting the new year off on some kind of foot

Howdy, folks.

If you've spoken to me or seen any of my online conversations, you'll notice I've been using the excuse of, "I'm in the middle of a move," quite often. I love having a built in excuse for everything. It's like blaming the rain. But it's also a valid excuse for me. It's hard to pack everything you've accumulated over three years into a Honda Civic and into a storage unit.

It's not hard for me to shed things, though. I can take one look at something that used to mean something to me and say, "Fuck it," and throw it in the trash. I can't do that with books. I've donated some books, sure, but the majority of books I have stay with me. And books take up a lot of space. A boxful of books is also pretty damn heavy. When I put a box of books on my front passenger seat, the seatbelt warning goes off.

So it's taking a long time to get moved.

2015 was a good year. Death Thing was published, it was well-reviewed, and seemed to be selling well. I met a lot of good folks thanks to Death Thing including Danny Gardner and Will Viharo. Both these guys are top class writers. Look at the bottom of this blog post for some buy links. You really should read their work.

One thing that binds us is we all wrote for Double Life Press. Craig McNeely picked Death Thing up and commissioned a great looking cover by Dyer Wilk. I'm convinced the cover is half the reason a lot of people picked up the book in the first place. Alas, as with a lot of small presses, Double Life Press couldn't keep on in the midst of uncontrollable circumstances outside of the press. Any bystander could see the quality of work Double Life Press was putting out and think that DLP would be around forever. Hell, I thought they would be.

It should be made clear that I am incredibly grateful for the work Craig McNeely put in for me. Death Thing getting published was a career milestone for me and I am grateful for the experience. DLP closing means I have regained all the rights to Death Thing and am free to do what I want with it. At first, I thought I was going to try to get it republished by another small press but it's already been published and a lot of mileage it got early on is probably about as much mileage as it's going to get. It probably wouldn't be worth it to republish Death Thing unless something big happened (I'm working on getting something big to happen).

Instead, I've decided I'll probably have Weekly Weird Monthly reprint Death Thing to keep it in print and available for people to buy while hopefully retaining the reviews that were left on the original printing. I will try to get the sequels to Death Thing published at other small presses because there are a few more Death Thing tales to be told.

I read at Malvern Books in Austin, TX last night to promote Death Thing and Cat Food. The reading went very well. Before the event started, I was looking through the Facebook event page to see who all had RSVP'd. I saw the name MP Johnson and turned to Nina and said, "That's gotta be a mistake. He lives in Minnesota." It was no mistake. He pulled up and came to the show. He's escaping the winter in Minnesota in Austin; a wise decision. I first read MP Johnson's work at Out of the Gutter with a story called "Woods Porn." It was the weirdest fucking thing Out of the Gutter has ever published and I loved it. Unfortunately, I can't find the link to it either because I'm inept or I've slipped into a parallel universe where that story never existed.

MP with me and my unruly beard. I really hope he digs the books. 

It was also nice to see some old faithfuls come out to hear me read when they've heard the same bad joke ten times. They know who they are. 

2016 is going to be a big year. There's a lot planned for Weekly Weird Monthly. First up is Cheryl Couture's chapbook Beauty Pageant. After that, Sam Trevino's chap of poetry, Let Me Take Off My Wolf Mask and my own novella, Bangface. 

It's going to be a good year. Start it off right with some reading material:

Death Thing

Cat Food

Toilet Stories From Outer Space

Hard-Boiled Heart by Will Viharo

A Negro and an Ofay by Danny Gardner

Cattle Cult! Kill! Kill! by MP Johnson

Holy damn, it's almost Thanksgiving

Hot God. It's almost Thanksgiving. Time flies.

Nothing much new to report. I'm nipple-deep in a new project I'm working on. I alluded to it in Long Beach, CA but now that it's almost done I can't finish it. It's a space-time, teleportation, truck stop kind of private eye novella.

Other than that, I'm working on a whole lot of stuff. Weekly Weird Monthly is getting set to launch Cheryl Couture's debut chapbook, Beauty Pageant. It's going to be a good one, folks.

Austin artist and photographer, Josh Verduzco, approached me about doing my portrait. He said he was going to throw tomatoes at me. I love tomatoes. I couldn't refuse. One good shirt later, my portrait was taken. We made a lot of ketchup and we're currently trying to sell it to Whole Foods to sell as "Organic, Hand Pressed, Tomato Dressing."

Here are the portraits.

The Werewolf Dentists From Hell

In honor of Halloween and of my root canal horror story, I am posting my story THE WEREWOLF DENTISTS FROM HELL for free. Trick or treat. It was originally published in a Halloween anthology from horrornovelreviews.com.

THE WEREWOLF DENTISTS FROM HELL
by Andrew Hilbert

“Aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?” Carl asked the two masked men at his doorstep.

“Just give us some fucking Tootsie Rolls,” one of the men said. His voice was low and gravely and his eyes were bright red underneath his mask.

“Wh-what are you supposed to be anyways?”

They stood there. Their faces were covered by werewolf masks but they were also wearing scrubs and stethoscopes dangled around their neck.

“Dentists from Hell,” they both said and pushed their way into Carl’s house where his wife sat around the television watching The Simpsons.

“Television rots the brain, moron,” one of the men said.

“It’s a family tradition! The kids go out and get candy and we watch The Simpsons. What’s so wrong about that?”

“Turn off your porch light. You’re done giving candy to kids,” one of the werewolf dentists from Hell said.

Carl, realizing that he had no choice, obeyed.

“And turn off that noise!”

Carl turned to his wife.

“Honey, please turn off the TV. These nice dentists from Hell have something to say.”

Betty turned off the TV.

“H-How can I help you?”

The dentists from Hell looked at each other. Beneath their masks, they smiled.

“You got a La-Z-Boy?”

Carl nodded and pointed to his favorite reclining chair.

“You got some duct tape?”

Carl nodded and pointed to the kitchen.

“You got any Tootsie Rolls?”

Carl shook his head.

“Only Butterfingers and Twix, king sized,” he said.

“Fuck!” one werewolf yelled. “I wanted the Tootsie Rolls.”

“Go get the duct tape, you son of a bitch!” the other said.

Carl could feel a steady stream of piss roll down his leg. It showed through his khakis.

“Hey, look. This tooth killer pissed his pants.”

The werewolf dentists laughed.

“Get the fucking duct tape.”

Carl nodded and waddled to his kitchen. With each stride, he could feel his pant legs sticking and unsticking to the hairs of his legs.

“Kids ‘round the neighborhood must love your house,” one of the dentists said to Betty.

“They do, they sure do. We always give out the good stuff.”

“Heh, the good stuff, she says.”

Carl came back with the duct tape in his hand.

“Wh-what are you planning to do?”

“Sit down and shut up.” The dentists from Hell pointed to the recliner.

Carl nodded and sat down.

One dentist pointed to Betty.

“You,” he said, “What’s your name?”

“Betty.”

“Betty, I’m Pavlovius and this is my partner, Theolonius. Please duct tape your husband’s hands and feet to the La-Z-Boy.”

“Do whatever they ask! Do whatever they ask, sweetheart!”

Betty got up and brushed the popcorn off her sweatshirt. She grabbed the duct tape from Carl’s hand and started to bind him to his beloved recliner.

“Pliers,” one of the dentists asked. The other pulled out some pliers from his trick-or-treat goodie bag.

The pliers were rusted and disgusting.

“Open your mouth or we’ll lengthen your lips.” He pulled out a knife.

“I’ll open! I’ll open!” Carl wriggled as much as he could but Betty had much practice at binding her husband. They were BDSM enthusiasts.

“Say ahhh, motherfucker.”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.”

The dentist from Hell put the pliers in Carl’s mouth, grabbed his front tooth, and pulled. Blood flowed like the corn syrup surprise inside a Gushers candy.

“You’re rotting children’s teeth,” the dentist from Hell said and plucked another tooth out. “You’re destroying the mouths of babes!”

“You’re giving into the sugar industry like slaves!” the other dentist from Hell said as the pliers continued their work.

Carl screamed as blood sputtered out of his mouth and dribbled all over his shirt and khakis.

In no time, Carl was toothless. His mouth was a gaping wound of blood and spit.

“This is the future of all the kids you’re feeding king sized candy bars,” the dentist with the pliers said as he grabbed a compact mirror and held it up to Carl’s face.

All Carl could see was a mouth bleeding all over itself in the mirror. He couldn’t help but cry.

“But ifn’t prue fhat rotting peefh are your bread and bupper?”

The pliers fell to the ground. The werewolf dentists from Hell looked at each other.

“No, shit,” one said.

“We didn’t even think of that.”

“You’re the guy who gives us business.”

“Shit.”

The werewolf dentists looked at their feet and shook their heads.

“Fuck.”

“We’re really sorry about this.”

“Here’s a business card for a real good oral surgeon. He can fix you up with teeth implants or dentures or whatever you prefer.”

They handed him a card.

“Shit,” one of them said. “We’ll just turn on the porch light on our way out.”

“Again, we can’t apologize enough.”

They backed out of the house and closed the door behind them. The porch light was on.

Carl sat there, still bound, as Betty collected his teeth from the ground.

Their doorbell rang.

“Trick-or-treat!”

BUY

BUY

BUY

Reviews and other such nonsense!

Yo!

I will have you know that I have been keeping up with the Simpsons and there will be reviews and thoughts posted soon but what everyone really should be watching right now is the new season of South Park.

Some friends came into town for a bachelor party. Two friends are getting hitched this year and, luckily for me, they decided to come to Austin to celebrate. I got to catch up with everyone and one of those friends informed me that South Park this season was killing it. He was right. I work in the service industry by day and by night and the Yelp episode is spot on. Do yourself a favor and watch it. 

Anyways, I haven't been posting recently because I'm going through quite an ordeal with my tooth after a root canal on top of getting sick at the end of October every year.

Here's a roundup of more recent reviews and mentions of Death Thing:

Austin Monthly recommends Death Thing as a spooky read

The Elements of Revenge Lit

FreezeRay reviews Death Thing

You can always purchase a signed copy of any of my work through the Weekly Weird Monthly here. 

If you've read Death Thing, Toilet Stories, or Cat Food, please review them on Goodreads and/or Amazon!

It's Halloween time, bozo. Here are some links to some of my freely available horror stories.

The Simpsons and How They Embiggened Me: Simpsons Season 27 Premiere

Simpsons, Season 27, Episode 1: Every Man's Dream

If the rest of the season is like this, it's bad news.

Last thing's first. It ends with a referential joke that is mind boggling if you aren't aware of the reference. Early Simpsons episodes referenced and parodied and it wasn't necessary to even know what was being referenced or parodied to laugh. Sure, you might laugh more if you knew the reference but you'd still laugh because the Simpsons was funny.

The Simpsons excelled at referential and self-referential humor because the joke didn't live and die on the reference. The joke was funny regardless of the reference. There's this whole genre of humor that is solely referential. It's not funny on its own. Sorry. Randomly spewing a piece of TV trivia is not funny regardless of how many people put their nose in the air and laugh as their eyes dart around looking for the people who don't get it. There's nothing to get.

I GOT THE REFERENCE, THOUGH! IT WAS ALL A DREAM IN AN EPISODE OF GIRLS AND HANNAH HORVATH SAYS SOMETHING FUNNY ABOUT BROOKLYN.

The episode, surprisingly, started off good. Homer and Marge have had serious marital problems throughout the series. I did not understand the uproar over the episode before it aired because this is a tried-and-true episode formula for the Simpsons. It's not as common as a Sideshow Bob formula but it's still common throughout Simpsons' history.

There's really not too much to say about the episode other than it lacked jokes. Bart was also weirdly psychopathic. He's always been a brat, he's always been vaguely psychopathic, but I don't recall him ever trying to kill his father and have that be played up for laughs. It was bizarre. It was too over the top, even for Bart.

The drug scene wasn't super visually interesting. Homer's already had some great drug episodes (when he meets the coyote voiced by Johnny Cash, when he starts smoking medical marijuana) and this one just seemed to go through the motions. Maybe it was a deeper commentary on millenial culture - we're so boring that even our drugs produce nothing more than minute long filler in a cartoon. I doubt that, though.

The episode was cheap and used an Inception-like series of dream endings to quickly wrap up a story that should have never been unwrapped.

Hopefully this isn't a sign of the rest of the season.