I caught my wife muttering curses under her breath and filling out forms that looked strangely familiar the other day. On closer inspection, I realized they were Girl Scout Cookie forms.

“Sweetie,” I said, approaching the subject with trepidation, “didn’t you deal with Girl Scout Cookies last year? Isn’t it someone else’s turn?”

“Yes, and [REDACTED] said she’d do it, which means I have to do it or everything’s going to be messed up” she replied.

Oh boy, I thought. Here we go again. Continue reading →

BREAKING NEWS MUSIC PLAYS

Good evening. This is your No BS Nightly News. I’m Paul Marcarelli.

In the wake of a massive cellphone outage across the United States following the removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and the shooting of a mother in Minneapolis by an ICE agent, everyone across the political spectrum came together on Wednesday night to share one common opinion: our cellphone networks are shit, and the major carriers can kiss our asses. Continue reading →

In Driftwood County, Alabama, there’s a veterinary medicine practice led by the legendary Ol’ Doc Butler, who once delivered a baby calf and spayed a barn cat for a Thanksgiving turkey and sides. This is the private file of his office manager, who just so happens to be named Karen.—CLS

NOVEMBER 12

About two or three days a month Doc Butler fires up his old Camper van and does a vaccine clinic in Driftwood County. Doc’s big on giving back to the neighbors and not so hot on technology so we send a tech with him that schedules all the vaccine appointments.

The tech’s pretty smart. She came up with this system where everything’s done via text messages. I stuck my nose up at this until I found out it created a hell of a paper trail for resolving disputes. Oh you wanted a rabies AND a bordetella shot? Where’s it say so on the text message chain we’ve had for a week over this? Add in payment links so people can pay with their stupid phones and it’s genius. Continue reading →

Greetings, friends! Wait, we ARE friends, right? I’d like to think so with the amount of time some of you spend here…but I’m already getting off track. WELCOME TO 2026!

Do you have your matter replicators or flying cars yet? No? Me neither. So to ease the pain of all those science fiction promises that have yet to materialize, let’s all gather round the dust bin of history and wish one final “fuck you” and “farewell” to 2025 with this, the Simple Justice Year in Review from yours truly!

As longtime readers know, I usually try to summarize the year in a word. This time the word that fits best in my humble opinion is “turbulent.” Between geopolitical strife, rank stupidity from our elected officials in America, and general stupidity from the public, it seemed like everything was shaking all around us for the duration of the calendar year. And yet here we are, mostly safe and untouched except for the bother of having to keep our proverbial seatbelts fastened for the entirely of the flight. Continue reading →

Dear SJ:

What follows is my annual attempt at a Christmas letter. Normally this is set to Tom Lehrer’s “Christmas Carol.” With the passing of that beloved humorist last year, I thought long and hard about whether I’d use it again this season. I’ve decided to do just that as it’s my way of honoring him. So Mr. Lehrer: will you do the honors?

Christmastime is here by golly, disapproval would be folly
Deck the halls with hunks of holly, fill the cup and don’t say when! Continue reading →

Prefatory note: Yep. I think I’ve officially lost it.—CLS

‘Twas the night before Christmas, in Mud Lick so still

Sheriff Roy Templeton locked up every grill

Tyrone’s on vacation, thank God—he’s dim as a drill.

The station was quiet, Just two drunks in a cell Continue reading →

TITLE CARD: JUST THE NIGHTLY NEWS
important sounding music

VO: And now, just the nightly news. Good evening, this is Los Angeles. Your host is Kent Halsey.

Camera up on Kent Halsey in the main newsroom

HALSEY: Good evening, this is Los Angeles and this is your nightly news. In our top story a raccoon broke into a Virginia ABC liquor store and had its fair share of peanut butter whisky, vodka and moonshine. The animal then rampaged towards the men’s bathroom before passing out from intoxication, where store owners found it the following morning. Continue reading →

When I first purchased an Apple Watch several years ago, I thought the device would be a nifty way to talk with people when I didn’t have my phone around. A sort of modern-day take on Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio, if you will. Of course the damn thing never really got that good at sending or receiving messages—or phone calls—but it was nifty.

I got a second one around the time COVID hit, this one with the fancy-dan upgraded blood oxygen monitor. Shoot, blood oxygen monitoring was all the rage at first and people thought it would be a good indicator if you were coming down with the virus. It seemed like a good idea. Only marginally better now at sending messages and phone calls still sounded like tinny messes, but hey, Apple was innovating. Continue reading →

I remember the first sign I saw when I went to a UT game at Neyland Stadium at age nine.

It read “BUCK FAMA.”

“What does that mean, dad? Mom, what does it mean?” I asked at least twenty times that afternoon with both my parents artfully dodging that question as if they were Keanu Reeves in the first Matrix film finally realizing he can dodge bullets. Continue reading →

Greetings, friends! Have any of you driven two and a half hours away from your home to dine at a tourist bar owned by a country music singer because your spouse happened to be in that town for a continuing education seminar and they wanted to eat there? Did you have to listen to both of your kids bitch about traffic the entire goddamn way there?

No? I guess that’s pretty specific to visiting Gatlinburg.

If you’ve never been to Gatlinburg it can be pretty time consuming. Someone recently told me they thought it was what you’d get if you transported a beach resort town to the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains. I said it was the only place I knew where you could buy a ninja sword and a funnel cake on the same city block. Continue reading →