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My goal is to avoid getting arrested for exactly one week.

I got arrested again the other day if you can believe that. I was walking home and saw some suburban cops hassling another member of my hard-working community and I told them to stop being bums and get a real job.

They called me another soft welfare queen from the Bottoms. At which point I said to come around the corner to my welfare castle and drop their badges and we’ll see who the tough guy is. They said lead the way.

Next thing I know, I’m being detained for obstructing traffic — which is cop code for “walking down the street you live on” when they were the only car on my road. I say fuck you and your ticket and throw it on the ground.

Three of Columbus’ finest then attack me, throw me to the ground in front of my neighbors and say they’re taking me to jail for littering. They asked why I was smiling when they took my mugshot and I said because I’m the only person you bums have ever taken to jail over a littering charge.

My dad basically called me a dumb-ass last night since it’s well within my powers to live a comfortable life as a mild-mannered white guy who can go ten days without being arrested twice.

I guess that’s the difference between us. I don’t feel the times in which we live call for me being a milquetoast, law-abiding citizen. Sure, the cops have all the power. And that’s exactly the part of the problem.

I still can’t feel my left thumb due to being handcuffed for three hours on a littering charge. Hopefully the nerve damage is permanent so I can file a lawsuit against the Columbus Police Department when I clear my name in court.

In the last week I have gotten my head mashed into the pavement twice, taken tear gas in my lugs and been with a wooden bullet. While I will gladly accost any suburban nerd who tries to act like he has power in my neighborhood because his mustachioed boss handed him a badge, my goal is not to not get arrested again until my second court date in August.

Yesterday was a historic moment for humanity. It was the first time that D.J. Byrnes didn’t feel like he had anything to say that was worthy of his newsletter.

I want to apologize for that. It won’t happen again until the Columbus Police Department SWAT Team inevitably raids my house and shoots me dead in front of my beautiful cats.

The good news is I feel like America has witnessed a tectonic shift in the last two weeks when it comes to how we view the police that we pay to ostensibly serve and protect. Every single centrist in my life has said that they now realize I may have had a point with my lifelong vendetta against cops.

Even if a judge sends me to jail for 60 days, I will never be ashamed of spending these interesting times by telling cops to get a real job like the rest of society. That they used thug tactics against me lets me know the shit I talked hit home with them. Their whipping of my pasty ass also prevented them from spending that time beating or murdering black people. I take pride in that.

However, it’s time to get back to work, which is why I’m relieved to announce that The Rooster will be returning to its regularly scheduled weekday broadcasts starting tomorrow at 4:59 a.m. I promise that long-winded rants against the police will be tabled in favor of an eclectic mix of Ohio political and sports news that readers like you have come to know and love. Maybe it will even mention the godforsaken Cleveland Browns!

Thank you for caring enough about me to read these newsletters. Whatever the Columbus Police Department wants to say about the bum with bad hair in the Bottoms, it’s the greatest honor of my life to know that friends and strangers alike are willing to read the sentences produced from my deeply disturbed brain.

The only way I won’t return to your mailbox tomorrow is if I’m dead. In which case if you find yourself reading about me drowning in the Olentagy River, just know the Columbus Police Department were the first people in the history of the world that could ever make me shut the fuck up.

THOSE WMDs. Too many of America’s smartest waste their talents… Think better on your feet: How to improve your memory… Until I was a man, I had no idea how good men have it at work… Millions of Americans skip payments as a tidal wave of defaults and evictions loom… The Disappeared: China’s global kidnapping campaign may now be reaching inside United States borders.