I’m A Casualty Of Mass Layoffs

For the past eight years, I worked as an editor for GameSpot and Comic Vine–and I was a freelance writer prior to that. During this time, I wrote and published thousands of news pieces, editorials, features, reviews, and listicle galleries that I often called, “Fun toilet reads.” Additionally, I had the role of host/producer/editor of a wrestling podcast called Wrestle Buddies. I had what many considered to be the dream job. Then, one day, it was taken all away, as I was part of a group of people that were laid off by our parent company.

This isn’t something new. Throughout my years working at GameSpot through various parent companies, I saw this happen a few times. It was never easy. You lose people you talk to every single day, as they’re no longer in your work Slack. And from there, you grow apart from many of them. But after surviving numerous rounds of layoffs and seeing people move on, I was brought into a meeting on a Thursday morning and told I no longer had the gig of a lifetime. It still stings. It still hurts. And it’s hard to pick yourself up.

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Can You Call It A Bed & Breakfast If There Isn’t A BDSM Dungeon?

Can You Call It A Bed & Breakfast If There Isn’t A BDSM Dungeon?

For the past three years, my wife, Moon Daisy, and I have spent our time traveling in a dilapidated seafoam green 1971 Volkswagen Bus. The interior was a faded checkerboarded material that looked like cloth but felt like a damp sponge that sat in a dirty sink over the weekend. The van smelled of sex, caviar, and Drakkar Noir’s most nefarious scent, “Voyeur Connoisseur.” Throughout my years as a prolific mountain climber, award-winning hiker, and tantric sex thought leader, I have had many luxuries. I’ve dined in the finest restaurants in Hanoi. Slept on 1,000 count Egyptian sheets in Sudan. I’ve celebrated the new year with world leaders and billionaires in Club 33 in Disneyland. But one experience that separates “me” from “you” is trying to make ends meet and traveling throughout America in a piece of shit automobile for “fun.”

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FBC 2023 Oscar Coverage, part V: Predicting the nominations

FBC 2023 Oscar Coverage, part V: Predicting the nominations

With the nominations less than 24 hours away, you can feel the excitement in the air, and by that, I mean the air around me!

I’ve been predicting the Oscar nominations for Fancy Boys for three years with a very respectable 80% success rate. I think 2022 has the chance to be the most unpredictable Oscars in years, but that could also make it the most fun. Every year, I have a pick from my heart, whether it is Lupita Nyong’o for Us or Nicolas Cage for Pig, and I’m gonna try and avoid that and just go with my gut of what I think the Oscar voter is going to say.

Unfortunately, that is challenging in 2023. This feels like the one year where every category has some wild cards. Each category has about 3-4 locks with then another 2-5 hopefuls going for the other spots. And there are some real dogfights here. Remember how I said Michelle Williams running for Lead Actress was going to ruin the chances of a worthy actress? I did not realize it, but the actress getting hosed was Williams herself! Universal should have listened to me.

So, here we go. The nominees will be…

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The Free Agency Dance of Carlos Correa

Oh, he was so sought after. One of the best shortstops available after the 2022 season, Carlos Correa had a lot of teams willing to pay an unfathomable price to secure his services. They came, they pitched, they waited as he and his agent, the very talented and very much loathed Scott Boras, pored over every offer until they made their decision.

Attention President of Baseball Operations of the San Francisco Giants Farhan Zaidi, we will graciously accept your team’s offer and come play for your fabulous team. Giants fans (I am one) were elated (not all of us).

We got Carlos Correa! The Dodgers killer! We’re off to the World Series again!

As Giants fans we generally aim higher. Frankly I don’t give a fuck whether any single player does well against the loathsome Dodgers, but some do. And he did well, very well. In the 2017 playoffs when Correa was an Astro (when they won their first World Series CHEATING against the Dodgers), his slash line was .289/.326/.561. For the season he was .315/.391/.550. Pretty lofty numbers.

Now if the name Carlos Correa doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps a bang-bang of your trash can might.

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FBC 2023 Oscar Coverage, Part IV: What the nominees SHOULD be (but most definitely won’t)

FBC 2023 Oscar Coverage, Part IV: What the nominees SHOULD be (but most definitely won’t)

So here we are, eight days away from the announcement of the Oscar nominations, and that’s gonna be a lot of fun for me. I’ll get to my predictions a week from today. But first, instead of writing about what the Academy is going to screw up, I thought I would talk about what would happen if there was one lone member of the Academy: me. I will be giving my nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, the four acting categories, the two screenwriting categories, and Best Animated Feature. Though, let it be said here and now: I would have nominated Jackass Forever for Best Documentary Feature.

This would be my 2023 Oscars ballot. It is perfect. Come @ me, you film nerds:

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Ribbon on a Lexus: A holiday short story

Ribbon on a Lexus: A holiday short story

Lucy Chesterton slowly opened her eyes as her children came barreling into the bedroom she shared with her husband, David. Sure, her little boy and girl were coming in much earlier than they usually do. The sun was barely starting to rise in the cold December sky. But today, Lucy could not blame her little ones for being excited to start the morning. Today, after all, was Christmas Day.

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What was the damn Hurry? This could have Waited.

You sit down to write something poignant – or what you seem poignant – about a topic and then life hits you. The planned topic doesn’t fucking matter right now. Along with countless others, my heart aches.

Allow me a moment to talk to you about my friend, the amazing Steve Marshall.

Steve living it up in the early AM at Cesaroni’s Deli in Woodstock for a Hotspur match with (L to R) Tony, author (nice job with the mask) and Dave.

Steve Marshall’s friends list was wide and varied. Certainly, Claudia and all the stylists at International Hairways in Crystal Lake were among them, but the customers who went in to get their haircut were too. Occasionally I’d hear a customer exclaim to him “Oh, I didn’t know you did comedy.” Didn’t know? It was all over the place, just like Steve.

He had his comedy friends, those of us who’d dare travel with him to various gigs from The Atlantic in Chicago to far-flung exotic places like Janesville and Rockford. “Dare travel” is purposefully placed. Most of time, Steve would drive. Not that any of us really wanted him to drive, he had to drive. Steve had a bazillion props to bring. A prop comic is like a drummer – no one wants to schlep their stuff into their car and haul it around. Therefore, the prop comic becomes the driver.

Rules of the road, for the most part, were adhered to but they were sometimes stretched – as a Brit his driving could sometimes be challenging for the passengers (as Michael Wasz once stated “we’re just fortunate he’s on the right side of the road”). Once you got to your destination, you briefly became his roadie. “Grab that violin if you don’t mind there, Rick… and the painting… and that bag of Elvis clothes… and…” you get the picture.

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FBC NFL Power Rankings 3/4 Season Edition

FBC NFL Power Rankings 3/4 Season Edition

It seems like just yesterday that I lost interest in writing a weekly power ranking of NFL teams that you could find on literally any sports website (albeit less funny and witty). Then I blinked and suddenly the season is 75% done. If you are a Bears fan like me, the season was over the moment they chose to draft Kyler Gordon and Velus Jones over, you know, players with talent. If you are a Packers fan, your season didn’t end until Aaron Rodgers started acting like he had been shot every time someone touched him. If you are a fan of the Eagles, then your season is very much still alive.

Now that we are past Thanksgiving and headlong into the Mariah Carey soundtracked Christmas hellscape, it’s time to take a look at every team based on my patented Adam Gase Scale. For those that don’t remember, Gase is one of the worst coaches in NFL history, and managed to get hired by the Jets to be head coach even after he had been discovered to be a fraud. The more Adam Gases on the Adam Gase scale, the worse a team is.

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Thanksgiving 2022: The week that was conservative bigotry

Thanksgiving 2022: The week that was conservative bigotry

This past week, if you are a fan of hatred and being a gross piece of shit, then the GOP was just giving you all you could handle and then some. This is the kind of stuff that always makes me roll my eyes, but especially when you consider this: when people talk about the crazy ideas that the “radical left” has, it’s always things like socialized medicine, a fair tax system, working to make sure we don’t destroy the earth, a fair living wage, and removing student debt. You know, things only real pieces of shit would want. Oh, and also, it would be great if police stopped murdering unarmed minorities.

What are some of the crazy ideas of the “far right”? I don’t know, because it’s the same ideas as the mainstream conservative movement.

Let’s dive in:

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FANCY BOYS FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS : THE A24 FILMS ULTRA-DRAFT- ROUND 6

FANCY BOYS FILM SOCIETY PRESENTS : THE A24 FILMS ULTRA-DRAFT- ROUND 6

As A24 Films celebrates it’s tenth anniversary this year, every cinephile has to admit that this company has quickly risen to one of the most impressive studios releasing movies today. Their films are commercially successful, critically acclaimed, and adored by film geeks all over the universe. As an exercise, we gathered a group we loving call the Fancy Boys Film Society (Matt Drufke, Rick Copper, Kate Peterson, Riki Adams, Waleed Ismail, David Sitko and Joshua Chuboff) and while sports nerds were doing their fantasy football drafts, we had them create a fantasy A24 roster. For six rounds, each picked their favorite films from the acclaimed studio. Here is that draft.

For round 1, head over here. Find round 2 right here. Round 3 is here. Round 4 can be found here. And Round 5 is found here.


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