One Year of Worthless Trash

On this anniversary, here's an origin story for this Substack of the highest imaginable quality.

On December 20^th, 2023, the first Worthless Trash newsletter hit inboxes. The response was ecstatic, wild, borderline unhinged in its raw enthusiasm. (Great Uncle Jerry couldn’t figure out how to open the email and threw a tomato at his laptop.)

Within a month, I had tripled my subscriber base through sheer word of mouth—primarily between Jerry, Aunt Helen, and my buddy Doug. And in the year since, Worthless Trash has … continued to exist, which is cool.

Now that we’ve nearly arrived at the one-year anniversary, I figured this is the time to share how Worthless Trash came to be—the origin story for this Substack of the highest imaginable quality.

So read on, and I will tell you of a dream.

One year ago, I opened my eyes to the burning sky.

A vision rose before me—a man, thirty feet tall and broad-chested, wearing a tunic embroidered with strange and ancient symbols, his face partly covered by a gleaming gold helmet. On his left shoulder, a mongoose. On his right, a possum. Behind him, the sky burnt with a relentless, apocalyptic fire, and the air smelled of instant coffee. He raised his hands, and I saw in one, he clutched a rutabaga, in the other a smoked Italian sausage. On his bare chest in cramped, twisting ink were inscribed these words:

“What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness. His is no longer the life of a human being, but the existence of a sentient billiard ball. I have been lured away by dreams; all is nonsense now. The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. If you go into solitude with a silent tongue, the silence of mute beings will share with you their rest.”

And then the warrior’s voice echoed across that vast and empty place, low and grand. “Hark, young herald, unto my words.”

“Huh?” I said.

He did not repeat himself.

“Did you say ‘Hark, young herald, unto my words’?” I said.

He nodded.

“What’s that mean?” I said.

“It means listen to me.”

“Oh.”

Through the slats in his helmet, I saw that his eyes were like moonlight, rimmed in blackness, glowing with unearthly splendor. He raised his arms to his sides and leaned his head back toward the fiery sky. “I come to call you out of the cave, forward into the sun.”

“Did I eat too much cheese?” I said.

He lowered his arms and looked at me. “What?”

“My mom told me if you eat too much cheese before going to sleep, you get weird dreams.”

“What are you talking about? No. That’s not what’s going on here at all.”

“Are you sure? Just a minute ago, I was in bed listening to my whale sounds tape, and now a giant shirtless guy with a possum on his shoulder is yelling at me.”

“I wear the armor of the ancients.”

“Well, it seems pretty ineffective.”

“We prefer the term minimalist.”

“You do? I thought you were a warrior, not an interior designer. What if I had a bow and arrow? It’s literally my name, man. Zero organ protection on you.”

He let out a sigh that shook the heavens. “I come from the divine realm of ancient thought to deliver a message—my clothing matters not. I represent human striving, our limitless potential and capacity to achieve artistic and philosophical greatness. I am the embodiment of a holy purpose personified for you now in the ideal of Greek hērōs.”

“Hair rows? What, like corn rows?”

“No, not like corn rows. Oh my God. Hērōs, hero. Heroic virtue, you ignorant ass.”

“So I didn’t eat too much cheese?”

“Are you intentionally irritating me?”

“No, I just have that effect on people. It gets worse over time.”

“LISTEN TO ME.”

He roared with a sudden and vicious fury, and then there was only darkness.

I stumbled forward into the nothing. A faint white light appeared in the distance, yet no matter how far I walked, it never seemed to get closer.

When next the warrior spoke, his voice was just a whisper in my ear. “The day arrives and gives way to night. Youth fades. The grave beckons. The scribbles accumulate in forgotten margins, worthless trash. A new task is unveiled, pointless and stupid, as befits you, and you must rise to it now. Fulfill the prophecy. Write the words.”

I tried to respond but found that I had no voice. I couldn’t breathe. Pain doubled me over, and I fell to my knees. Liquid bubbled out of my mouth and down my chin. I tried to wipe it away. My fingers, lit by the dim and distant light, left my lips stained a dark and dripping black.

I woke in a puddle of drool. Sweat soaked my sheets. The room smelled farty.

Disturbed and frightened, I tried to ignore the memory of that bizarre, grotesque dream and went through my usual morning routine: brushing my teeth, washing my hair, weeping convulsively on the bathroom floor, and making some coffee.

Still, the dream remained. There was no breaking its fever in my mind. As the day went on, I found it hard to focus.

“What did he mean ‘A new task is unveiled?’” I said. “What task? And what was the possum about?”

“Sir, would you like extra pepperoni or not?”

“Oh, hell yeah. Pile that stuff on.”

This turmoil went on for weeks, only growing more intense. So heavy did that dream hang over me, I had no choice but to cancel my social calendar for the entire month. My dentist was very disappointed.

And then one late night, as I sat at my desk pondering, I was struck by a sudden moment of clarity. “What doesn’t transmit light creates its own darkness.” It was a quote—a line from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. And the rest of that absurdly verbose chest tattoo was all quotes as well, selections from accomplished writers whose work had affected me.

The smell of instant coffee, the rutabaga, the possum: these were all elements of my weird and fractured psyche, themes and bits and incomprehensible running gags I found amusing. The black liquid that had poured from inside me—it was ink, just like that time in middle school when Timmy dared me to take a bite out of his pen.

Writers, ideas, jokes, ink.

“Fulfill the prophecy,” the thirty-foot-tall, somewhat rude Greek warrior had said. “Write the words.”

My God, now I understood. He wanted me to write. It was so obvious. Clearly there was only one way to fulfill the ancient prophecy passed unto me—I had to start a free weekly internet newsletter!

I grabbed my laptop and began frantically typing. What would my newsletter be called? I considered Pointless and Stupid, but then landed on another phrase the warrior had used—Worthless Trash. Yes, that was it.

So I launched this Substack, just as the great captains of old launched their ships onto the mighty seas, except with more Doritos and Red Bull.

I composed my first column, and then over the past year, 52 more of them—random book roundups, unnecessary analysis of sitcom episodes, pointless grousing about childhood annoyances—all the way up to today’s totally accessible, reasonably paced, and not at all alarming anniversary one.

And one year later, I’ll say it’s been pretty fun.

I suppose, in a brief moment of honesty and sincerity in this otherwise ridiculous column, I’ll thank anyone who’s been reading. Really, thank you. I very much enjoy writing these goofy little things, and I appreciate you for giving them your time.

So what’s next for Worthless Trash? What glories await in the year ahead? What glowing embers of human potential and creative spirit linger on the horizon, yet to be sparked?

I dunno. Maybe I’ll charge a buck a month for pictures of possums or something. Anyway, see you next year!

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