(You can find all of Aloysius’s articles here.)

From the personal ottoman of Aloysius VI:

“Who are you?” “I am Number Two.” “Who is Number One?” “YOU are Number Six.” “I am not a number, I am a free man!” (derisive laughter)

I write from a room my cousin once referred to, in very New York-beatnik fashion, as a “conversation pit,” a sunken living room in a cramped one bedroom apartment that constituted “spacious” in an era in which people still cared about Rockefellers. Through the window are the pedestrians and cars feet away, saving their loudest moments and insufferable horns for when the window is open. I, in turn, take my frustration out on you, the reader.

As with others here on Writers Without Money, I will a guide to the obsessive organization of themes–be they cultural, social, political, or otherwise–in the face of a relentlessly indeterminate world. With any luck, my background as a high-school drop-out (but I aced the GED!), a failed-but-sometimes-still-aspiring craftsman, and a disgruntled office drone will offer some insights on life as a mass media consumer.

Writing is a lifelong practice of mine, though has never been a profession (that honor belongs to “freelance job hunter”), and my tendency is to think things two-thirds of the way through and then write them about one-third of the way through. I got the opportunity, and it seemed like that formula might reap fruit more readily from the essay tree it has from The Great American Novel by The Great American Yutz tree. So far, I’ve been enjoying myself, and have been lording my editorial freedom over the other writers at the Writing Club.

I’m just kidding. They don’t let us in there.

I’m hoping you’ll find some of my write-ups on popular culture witty and, heaven forfend, informative, and I caution that you may encounter some overly-serious interpretations of bullshit (think a lot of that Dark Knight commentary Stan hates from a few years back, but not written by the thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters–I’m not that good), some teardowns of beloved dreck (I love rooting for the Titanic to sink, and I think the only good part of Gone with the Wind is when Rhett Butler leaves Scarlett), plenty of esotericisms, and pop culture rebukes to the sort of pop culture entries that try to talk shit about pop culture (the most recent Jurassic Park abortion comes to mind).

Finally, you can contact me at any time about rendering any of the following goods or services (fees vary):

– propulsion expertise (Kerbin-certified);

– shark repair;

– general pedantry;

– hunting of grammar nazis, the most dangerous game;

– tort reform;

– mayonnaising of buns the deli forgot to mayonnaise;

– fictional narcotics;

– historically-accurate military campaigns against the Formics.