Author: Beau Montana

I’m four months behind on the rent and my credit score is 480.

Now available in paperback

Stop fartin’ around. Get out of your elderly uncle’s basement. Change your underwear. Take a shower. Wash your cock. Then hawk some of your uncle’s medications to help pay $9.99 for your paperback copy of Vanitas on Amazon.com

I bribed the Hartford Courant to call Vanitas a “solid work from a mentally incompetent author” while Dick Cheney said he’d “rather be in hell than finish this book” just before he died.

So what are you waiting for? It’s only $9.99! Don’t be a fuckin cheapskate!

Vanitas!

Now available on Amazon!

One rung above

Comedy is ass. And I don’t think I’m alone in saying that. The last great innovation in the medium, Cumtown, said it best: Donald Trump ruined it. It’s not because of his politics or his antiquated views on women and social issues. It’s because he treats the office of POTUS as one big standup routine. And the sad part is that it’s funnier and more daring and transgressive than almost all of comedy.

Comedians have struggled to keep up ever since.

But because the Trump era has created an unholy union between lowbrow entertainment and politics, certain performers, chief among them Joe Rogan, have mythologized comedians as modern day philosophers, or, to paraphrase Rogan himself, as the last line of defense for free speech. Hahaha! Isn’t that so funny? It’s getting high off your own supply. It’s aggrandizing your own self importance at the cost of comedy itself.

This explains why Stavros Halkias is having his moment in the sun. He’s offering a counter argument if you will; a return to tradition. His assertion is simple: comedy is good if it makes people laugh. Full stop. It’s not serious and the moment when you make it serious, it stops being funny. For Halkias, comedy is the lowest form of art. It doesn’t matter if that sentiment is valid though. What matters is that Stavvy doesn’t take himself seriously because seriousness is the polar opposite of comedy, which is his stock in trade.

It sounds pretty fuckin simple when you put it that way, eh?

But I suppose this gets at the heart of what it means to be a comedian. Who would subject themselves to being, as Stav said, one rung above a clown? Think about it. There is an ocean sized contradiction in the psyche of a comedian; to conceal their deep seated pain, they entice others to laugh at them. Or, in other words, the path towards standup comedy begins with a crippling superiority/inferiority complex. I’m sure even Rogan would agree with this. The best comedians can live with this gaping, unfilled hole in the hearts. They thrive on it. This is fuel for Nick Mullen and the legendary Cumtown podcast. Others give in to the anger and resentment and begin to smell their own farts. That’s the Rogansphere.

And others can successfully tread both worlds without fully reconciling them. Worse still, the gravitational pull of this calamitous spectacle can drag the entire universe into it. This is the mind of Donald Trump.

That one guy

Just to be clear, I don’t hate Joe Rogan because of his “politics” or because he’s an objectively shitty comedian. I hate Joe Rogan because he’s a bizarrely specific kind of guy. Any man who has ever had a friend has come across this type: the guy who floats on the edges of everyone’s friend group but is actually no one’s friend.

I know you know this kind of guy. Your girlfriend has probably referred to him as “that one guy”. You probably went to high school with him. You might’ve taken a couple of classes with him in college. But your conversations with him have never lasted longer than three minutes. He’s probably nodded a few times to something you said, and then uttered something along the lines of “yeah totally dude!”. Yet you never got the impression that he actually understood what you were saying. But that’s okay. While you get the distinct feeling that something’s off about him, he’s never done anything to warrant raising a red flag.

In the days before Internet forums, when this guy showed up to parties or walked into a bar, a few rolled their eyes and thought “there’s THAT guy”. But most shrugged and shared the same insipid conversations with him like everything was normal. Nowadays we know better. While we have no solid proof, we suspect that they have a prolific 4chan and a few faceless troll accounts on Instagram. But in the eyes of most, he’s simply a harmless and friendly piss ant.

And we go on assuming this innocuous perception until they show up fashionably, if not eyebrow raisingly, late to social gatherings. This is where they show their true colors. It’s almost always after midnight when they come sauntering in with their entourage of weirdos and outcasts. They drink your beer and smoke your weed and then embarrassingly try to fuck your girlfriend. Then they vanish, almost as mysteriously as they appeared. In the morning, your girlfriend informs you that he tried to spike her drink and that your wallet is missing. So you confront this guy. Usually he’s loitering around JC Penney or Shoe Carnival and you ask him “did you try to drug my girlfriend and steal my wallet?”. And he will lie to you, quite successfully. You don’t beat his ass because he’s too wormy. In fact, you will continue this vapid “friendship” because the man knows how to maintain a harmless and friendly facade. But deep down you know that he’s an empty vessel who ceaselessly moves from one hollow interaction to the next in a desperate effort to conceal his profound sense of inferiority.

That’s THAT guy.

That’s Joe Rogan.

What’s done is done

Vanitas is now available on Kindle for $4.20. It will be available in paperback form on November 21st.

There’s been a lot of controversy about self publishing on Amazon. But Capitalism can’t be stopped folks. Jeff Bezos owns everything; from my entire bibliography to the underwear around my waist. Like you, I’m a slave to The Man. But unlike you, I stand in solidarity with James Bond himself as a fellow peon to the Amazon.com. So in many ways, by self publishing with Amazon KDP, I’m actually fighting AGAINST the oligarchy by providing my services at basement prices. I’m the good guy here.

All 164 pages of Vanitas will be available in paperback form at the low price of $79.99.

Maybe we should stop doing this

I’m reasonably convinced that Tom Brady is the antichrist. Is it because he’s rich, handsome, and won seven Super Bowls? No. It’s because he cloned his dog that died two years ago.

“That’s just typical rich people shit,” you might say.

And you’re right! But if you know Tom Brady like I know Tom Brady, then you’d also know that it won’t end there. This is only the beginning. Today, it’s dogs. Tomorrow, it’s Tom Brady himself. What started off as a stupid throwaway joke from a forgotten Paul Rudd show will escalate into full on defiance of god himself. This is the end times. The dawning of the foretold apocalypse. The imagination of Peter Thiel run amok. When Tom Brady crosses the threshold of immortality via Colossal Bioscience, humanity’s days are numbered.

Death, grief, and appreciating life’s finitude is the cornerstone of the human condition. When those chains are cast off, what do we become? The universe is cold and unforgiving. But in the amoral vacuum of space and time is a small shred of transcendent substance called consciousness. It is here for a brief shining moment and is suddenly gone like a flicker in the night. Knowing this flame will someday burn out gives meaning to our lives.

But for a man with seven titles and recognized the world over as the greatest athlete of all time, one life isn’t enough. He will reincarnate himself again and again, living the same charmed life as before and breaking new records as his reenergized body enters the draft to continue his reign of terror on the NFL.

And all for what? Because he was taken in the sixth round?

We’re playing god. And when you’re playing god, prepare to tango with the Devil

The next generation

When I was a kid, everyone was dying of polio and World War I. No one wanted to go back to those days. But kids today won’t shut the fuck up about Blockbuster video, lead poisoning from water hoses, and masturbating to scrambled porn. They don’t have the courage to admit their childhood sucked. They lack imagination. They ceased hope for a better future.

That’s my fault. That’s my children’s fault. That’s my children’s children’s fault. That’s my children’s children’s children’s fault (I’m 113 years old, see). We failed. We failed to realize that every generation’s greatest responsibility is to build up the next generation. We failed to appreciate the current moment for what it was and to recognize that time only moves forward. We failed to overcome petty biases like generational rivalries. And it will take many more generations to unfuck itself. It’s one big systemic failure.

But there is one thing that unites all surviving generations. We are all perfectly content to lay blame at the feet of boomers.

Tricky dick

Yo! Shout out to Dick Cheney for dying. In addition to being the architect of the modern US surveillance state, he was instrumental in killing hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people across the Middle East, all while enriching himself. He really is the Darth Vader of American history, which is quite impressive considering the numerous villains that this nation has produced.

But what I find impressive in this exact moment is that the internet appears to have gained a memory. They haven’t forgotten the numerous crimes that the late Vice President committed. Remember when he shot a guy in the face? I did! But the internet, thankfully, did not. And there seems to be something fitting about Cheney dying in a moment like this. The Iraq War, after fading from the public mind for over 15 years, seems to have reentered the zeitgeist. This is probably due to the current administration threatening military action against Venezuela. The hypocrisy and tragedy of US foreign policy is back on the menu. Time truly is a flat circle.

But onto bigger news: Vanitas is nearly complete. Which means that we have reached an end of an era. The “James” epoch of this blog is over. I’ve toyed with resurrecting Detective James and considered a sequel to A Shot at the Title. But those ideas have been shelved and, most likely, will be buried in a desert where no one will hear or think of them again. Unlike the Iraq War and the crimes of Dick Cheney, the internet WILL forget.

Vanitas will be available for purchase on November 21st.

don’t go suckin my cock

First off, shout out to whoever is reading this blog. Views have EXPLODED for some inexplicable reason, which leads me to assume one of three things:

  1. I have a stalker on the loose
  2. I’ve attracted the bots
  3. The world is finally recognizing my genius

Obviously option three is the most sensible explanation. I feel honored and vindicated. It’s nice to know that I haven’t wasted hours of my life and millions of words on what has amounted to nothing more than a vanity project. I should be thanking the readers. But instead I’m gonna thank myself for all the blood, sweat, tears and occasionally jizz I’ve poured into this blog. I really am a once in a generation talent.

To all the aspiring writers out there, I would say keep your head up and work hard. But the truth is that artistic genius is the secret ingredient. You either have it or you don’t. And it’s highly likely that you don’t. So instead of pursuing your dreams, I say that you should give up on them. Find something you’re good at. Get a 9 to 5. Marry that girl who dumped you your junior year and spent several months in county and is now on the mend. Have her pop out a fifth child (first for you). Grow your alcohol dependency and live a shallow life until you die of heart failure at age 62. There’s nothing wrong with mediocrity. I mean, that life sounds pathetic to me but it might be right for you.

But thank you to all for the views 🙏 you all are the real ones

2025 NFL uniform ranking (part I. The worst ones)

It’s crunch time.

With a book coming out, it feels like being down three points in the fourth quarter and cramming for the finals all in one. Stress has reached a boiling point. So with a lot on my plate, I need to write about something cheap and easy. And you know me. I always have an opinion about football uniforms.

It’s been a couple years since I’ve done this. So here’s my ranking for all the 2025 NFL uniforms. Unfortunately my beef with Roger Goodell is ongoing so I won’t be able to post pictures. But that’s what the internet is for folks 🤷‍♂️

32. Seattle Seahawks

I think we can all agree that this uniform has overstayed its welcome. Actually it was never welcomed to begin with. It’s just unfortunate that this was the uniform worn during the franchise’s most successful run. But with the Legion of Boom/Russell Wilson/Pete Carroll era over, it’s time to restore the throwbacks to their proper place.

31. Philadelphia Eagles

For the life of me, I will never understand the love of midnight green. It’s boring as shit. And the shading behind the numbers makes the whole thing look dated. This uniform is stuck in the late 90s/early 2000s when everyone was depressed because of 9/11. It’s been nearly a quarter of a century, Philly. Bring back the Kelly green!

30. New England Patriots

Post Tom Brady, the Patriots have made improvements. I’ll admit, they have some good alternatives. But it’s still not enough. The biggest problem is the helmet, specifically the logo on the helmet. The internet has been quite vocal lately about the superiority of Pat Patriot over the current logo and I’m inclined to agree with them. But to improve the helmet, I have a much simpler idea: ditch the grey and make it white.

29. Tennessee Titans

It’s 2025. Every year there’s at least one team that everyone agrees to collectively shit on. This year it’s the Titans. Not only are they a poorly ran organization, their uniforms kinda suck too. Complexity is out. Simplicity is in. And the Titans uniform is a bit too complex for my tastes. Simply ditch the sword theme and get rid of the grey altogether. And as much as I love the old Houston Oilers uniforms, it’s time to retire those. Those belong to the city of Houston. If they wanted to keep those then the Adams family should have never of changed the name to “Titans”. Does the name “Oiler” make any sense for Tennessee? No. But who gives a shit? So actually my advice to improve the uniform is to change the name back to “Oilers”. That might solve a lot of Tennessee’s problems.