A Few of My Favorite Things

I'm giving a bunch of those books away, FYI

This is a public post going out to everyone, but by the end you may say fuck it ima pay money and subscribe.

That photo is the top of my messy as fuck desk. But I keep that area clean cuz favorite things. The carving of the axe in the block of wood was made by my dad when he was in his 20s. I coveted that for decades, and he gave it to me on my 50th birthday. The skull a close friend made for me in high school art class. The little plexiglass trophy was when I tried (and failed) to run a 10K in under 40 minutes (My Los Angeles Times story about that race is here). There is also an alligator Loki that my daughter’s boyfriend made using his 3D printer, and the beer stein on the right has a story that I’ll tell at a later date (for those who pay). And yes, that is a Motherfucking Bearodactyl that fans of The Oatmeal may recognize. My best friend made that for me.

And the new casebound hardcover of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down is of course my new favorite thing. I’m gonna give a bunch away. But only for paying subscribers. I’m gonna do it soon, picking a bunch of you fuckers at random and saying hey guess what I’m mailing you a signed copy congrats n’ shit. But you have to be a paying subscriber, so …

There are more reasons to pay, of course. One is to help me pay for the cover photo for Volume II. Damn but that’s a fucking racket. The cover for V1 of the Montparnasse train derailment I didn’t have to pay for because it was from 1895 and therefore in the public domain. But the photo for V2 was within the last 95 years so it cost me over a thousand bucks US. I wouldn’t feel so bad if it went to the guy who took the photo, but he died a while ago. It’s just some corporation cashing in. I didn’t hesitate to pay it though, because the photo is fucking perfect. It’s the epitome of historical shit going down.

And if you’re a paying subscriber you get to see what the new cover is gonna be real soon instead of having to wait until late September when the book goes on sale. So, again …

In other news, phew. Mega-fucking-phew.

Volume II is longer than VI. It’s almost 180,000 words and just yesterday I finished my second-last edit. Now it’s with the proof-reader and then I’m gonna to do one last go through in July but that will be less stressful. Things is, when I’m editing all day it’s hard to write cuz hyper-focus ADHD brain bullshit. But that’s done and I’ve been writing shit all goddamn day and wow did I miss it. That means the—ahem—paying subscribers are about to get a bunch more cool shit coming their way.

I already did the subscribe button thing twice. I’m sure you can find it. Another reason to want to become a paying subscriber is that I’m about to start doing AMA—ask me anything—sessions, both text-based and zoomy whatever video shit kind. Announcements about that are coming soon.

If you don’t want to subscribe but still wanna give me money you can buy my sweary fucking history book here. The hardcover is better. I mean, just look:

And the font size is bigger in the hardcover too:

So buy the big fucker.