You know her--she's got two wheels and goes "BRRRMBRRRMBRRRM."

She wants to go visit the Very Large Fruit, and how can a gentleman refuse? While there, I mean to do a little business of my own. But really, this trip is for her, and she demands we leave TODAY. BRRRM.

Can I fetch anything for anyone? Ray's Pizza? The good cannoli? A giant light-up ad from Times Square?

Because you know you wondered. 

I'll let the man speak for himself.

I should warn you, the linked text is a suicide note, and it is very upsetting. No, I can't say that. It's horrible, and it makes me want to write a scathing expose of whoever raped and abused him and made him think he was a monster.

I'm basing this reaction entirely on the note: I haven't done a deep background on the man. But my initial response to this is--

I think Zeller's a hero. Not for taking his own life, though I can't think less of him for that, under the circumstances. But for trying so hard to live, and to protect others from the collateral damage of what was done to him.

That's a kind of courage that largely goes unrecognized, and it's more common than we think. He could easily have been seven kinds of monster. But he had ethics, and he chose to abide by them instead. I could wish he'd found somebody he could talk to, as well. But it's too late for that, so I honor what he achieved.

---

His friends at Metafilter react. 

Originally spotted through Gizmodo.

Never have I been so happy to be retired.

Life photo gallery of unpublished images of Hells Angels from 1965. A few years before my motorcycling days.

Bonus: people who became nouns!

I was always more a features writer than an investigative type, but that doesn't temper my respect for good journalism.

This is why we need newspapers. Or news, more simply, rather than corporate press releases with a comics section.

I probably shouldn't use this free time to pen a quick monograph entitled "To Eat Fat Babies Without Conscience: an exploration of L. Frank Baum's 'the Hungry Tiger' as literalized metaphor for sadistic sexual psychopathy."

But I have never said no to a good temptation.

...oh damn, shots fired at Johns Hopkins. I need to call somebody. Guess the essay waits.