Almost twenty years ago today, surveillance technology companies and defense contractors got a gigantic boost.

What were you doing nineteen years and thirty nights ago?

Me?

I was shitting my pants.

I lived in a studio apartment and owned this orange- and purple-striped easy chair, purchased from a thrift store.

On the night of September 11th, 2001, my existentially-terrified ass sat parked in that butt-ugly chair as I watched the news on my pre-flat-screen TV while chain-smoking Camel Lights and power-downing beers.

I kind of have memories, thinking back. But that night blurs together with the next few weeks or so.

It’s weird to realize that while I had thoughts about the world ending, Wall Streeters and hedge funders were watching the same news coverage and muttering thoughts under their breath like, “Hmmm…Raytheon or Lockheed…which one do I buy first?”

And in Silicon Valley, techbros were watching the coverage, saying things like, “Surveillance capitalism sounds so much more lucrative than regular ol’ boring, unregulated capitalism…hmmm…I need to start looking into divorce lawyers.”

And down South, rich, Evangelical ministers were yelling, “Praise the blonde, blue-eyed Jesus! Islamophobia is gonna buy me a jet!”

And there I was. In my crappy chair in Denver, Colorado, losing my shit.

If you’re reading this, I hope you were losing your shit.

It’s what humans do.

Earlier posts:
• Romeo Whiskey Tango
• Bros: America’s new Jews.
• Swiftboating, seventeen years later.
• Before MAGA and QAnon, there was Doc.
• Open letter to a selfie of my drunk-ass self, taken on August 11th, 2001.
• If we go to war, Steve Bannon’s call sign absolutely, absolutely, absolutely needs to be “Cameron Alexander from ‘American History X.'”

I write fiction. I have two dark comedies available, Fearkiller (Volume 1) and Notes from Trillionaire Island: Fearkiller (Volume 2), as well as Revolutionizer Alpha, the first book in a sci-fi series. I also wrote a story about God. It was weird, but then I decided to make the story and its sequel free. And all of the sudden, it didn’t seem as weird. Writing about God is much less weird when you write about God without charging money for it. Here’s my professional site, my trade.