Don't You Forget About Me

Also, Lethal Weapon IS a Christmas Movie

Happy Holidays to my 56,000+ subscribers. Been a while, hasn’t it? Let’s start things off with something I recently wrote, because I have been writing. Just not publishing it here. Here is a small sample of what I’ve been up to:

If Die Hard is a Christmas movie, then so is Lethal Weapon.

They both take place in Los Angeles during Christmas, and share a core message about the importance of spending the holidays with family. The two heroes also carried the same gun, the 9mm Beretta 92F, which resulted in a boon for the company’s sales. Not just the same model, but the exact same prop gun that Mel Gibson made smiley faces on paper targets with was also the pistol Bruce Willis used to punish Alan Rickman for what he did to Emma Thompson in Love Actually with that Joni Mitchell CD bullshit. I know the timeline is backwards. Shut up.

On December 4, 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was shot and killed outside the New York Hilton Midtown hotel, and much of the nation celebrated because America’s health insurance system is a criminal clusterfuck that kills people. Just like many enjoy watching bad guys get their comeuppance on the silver screen, when it happens in real life a lot of folks consider it worth celebrating. I’ll refrain from passing judgement, except to say that the reality of taking a life isn’t anything like what you see in a typical action flick. A more accurate representation can be found via a line in the 2000 film My Dog Skip, when the character Dink Jenkins speaks of his PTSD from fighting in the Second World War. “It ain’t the dying that’s scary, boy,” he says. “It’s the killing.”

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That’s the draft of the opening to Chapter 9 of a new book I’m working on titled Greedy Sexist Religious Bigots: A History of Humanity. The chapter is about the will to combat, and how ancient societies transformed commoners into killers.

My brain hurts.

It hurts from writing this book, because holy shit.

I knew when I pitched it that it was going to be a mofo to write. But, again, holy shit.

I say this as explanation to why I’ve not published much in the way of free history stories of late. There is a deadline. I gave myself far more time to write this book than anything I’ve ever done before, and it going to be right down to the fucking wire. You think I’m taking a break over the holidays? Hah. Not if I want to make the deadline. It’s not a matter of want, but must. There is a timeline. I gotta get this shit done.

Please don’t forget about me. I’m still here, still writing, still hammering away. The only other writing besides this book, which incidentally I spent over two years researching and murdered countless highlighters in preparation for writing, is that which I do for my paid subscribers. There are actually a lot of new stories there if you wanna give yourself a gift (and help me pay my Christmas bills):

Or you can give a gift to someone else:

I will be writing more free posts in the not too distant future. I started off behind but feel like I’m finally catching up. I have another phone call with my editor this afternoon to talk about some stylistic choices in the latest chapters I sent her. She’s been amazing in guiding me through this mega project. Speaking of my wonderful editor at Bantam Books, she was the one who I worked with on the improvements to Volume I of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down. And she just let me know that it has gone into its THIRD PRINTING. The book continues to sell well, especially at this time of year because it makes an awesome gift. Volume II is also available, and you can get them both at JamesFell.com/books.

Anyway, I just wanted to remind you that I exist and appreciate you and that more free sweary history posts are coming. I just need to get a little bit of breathing room with this project first. Because, as I said, it is a mofo.

It’s my magnum opus. The first one, at least. Those aren’t supposed to be easy to create. Better get back at it.

Talk soon.