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Larry Karpinski, Karp, comes back to Bridgeport telling himself he’s just passing through, maybe closing a loop. That’s the lie guys use when they don’t want to admit they miss a place. But neighborhoods like that don’t do casual visits. The streets remember you whether you’re ready or not. And Billy’s still there — right where you’d expect — like time took a swing at him and missed. Seeing him again isn’t nostalgia. It’s a reminder that some people never put the old rules down, even when the rest of the world pretends they expired.

Billy Szczepanek didn’t grow up in a quiet house. It was loud, crowded, full of people learning early how to stand their ground or get stepped over. Love was there, sure — just not the gentle kind. Somewhere along the way, all that pressure had to come out, and one day it did. A moment that should’ve ended clean didn’t, and a name was born. Not as a joke. Not as a dare. Just something that stuck. Episode One traces how a kid from a packed house became the kind of man people whispered about — and how carrying a name like Billy Shitpants was never about fear… it was about whether you could carry the weight and keep walking.

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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Some names you only say when the easy answers run out. The Make Right Man is a serialized story set in Chicago’s Bridgeport, where the streets remember, the bars keep score, and one nickname became the neighborhood’s quiet alarm bell. Larry “Karp” Karpinski comes home with his life thinning out at the edges, telling himself it’s temporary. Bridgeport doesn’t do temporary. He's wondering about an old friend, Billy Szczepanek—Billy Shitpants—and if he's still carrying the same gravity he had when they were young, still standing where time left him.

This series traces how a legend forms and what it costs to wear it. Told through Karp’s reflective voice and Billy’s measured, watchful one, the story moves through kitchens, parks, and front rooms where truth finally sits because it’s run out of places to hide. This isn’t a clean crime story or a hero’s tale. It’s about friendship that stands the test of time, family that holds even when it hurts, a love so deep it survives the worst that life can throw at it, and a neighborhood that knows some problems don’t fix themselves. When Billy’s name gets whispered, the clock starts. Every favor counts. Bridgeport watches—because it always does

Subscribe now, share with a friend who loves gritty, character-driven stories, and leave a review to help others find The Make Right Man. Tell us: what would your old neighborhood remember about you?

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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In thinking through which classic to watch this holiday season, I landed on the Mario Puzo - Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece, The Godfather. That got me wondering about Corleone, Sicily and who that city was actually named after. Professor Enzo Tontodonato of St. Bonaventure University took me down a very unexpected path, to the life and times of a 15th century "family" man, named 3 Ball Bartolomeo Colleoni. 

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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I got to thinking about who was the first person to jump from a ledge or flying machine using a parachute. I mean, who invented the first parachute, when was that, what were the circumstances – was it a thing of necessity in some horrible moment – and why would anyone ever want to step out of a flying machine or off a cliff when it’s hundreds, if not thousands of feet in the air using an untested accessory? There are a lot of people who own a piece of designing the first parachute, including Taccola, DaVinci, and a French fella named Andre-Jacques Garnerin.

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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Who doesn't love a big juicy burger? But where did this glorious gastronomic culinary creation come from? Who invented it and how did they dream it up? And what about that go-to condiment mix of mayo and ketchup? Or how did Thousand Island Dressing land on a Big Mac? And what about McDonald's and Ronald McDonald? Doucette de la Croix, the Provost of the Culinary Arts University of America filled me in on all of this need to know history for every hamburger fan.

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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There's a lot that's been uncovered about the first Thanksgiving. Based on the research of Dr. Louis Pazgassian, a professor of Colonial North American and U.S. History and chair of Georgetown University’s history department, we're sharing the totally true facts of the holiday's origin, including a cast that includes Squanto, Massasoit, William and Mary Brewster, Edward and Susan Winslow, and the unheralded hero of the day, Olaf Dijksgeffen. This stuff really happened... it's totally true.

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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Super heroes are great, but it's the super villains who make those stories so compelling. Thinking about super villains brought me to the James Bond franchise from Ian Fleming, and specifically a villain who made his debut in Thunderball - Ernst Stavro Blofeld. So, where did the total truth of this villain's character come from? I did a deep dive and found the source, and some startling true facts about his progeny, who is making a name for himself in current times.

DISCLAIMER - Totally True Facts episodes are parodies. Let me say that again – parodies. Names have been changed in most cases to protect the innocent, though in others, the names of totally real people are used for the purpose of presenting the as mentioned parody. I hope that you’ll latch on to one of these facts and look up the totally, totally true facts on your own.

This episode brought to you by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing and Layerly

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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Back in 1947 in Roswell, New Mexico, a flying saucer crash landed in the desert. The Air Force secured the spacecraft as well as a handful of surviving aliens, including a petulant toddler alien, and the government decided to make the event a social experiment. Problem is, it became entangled with Bugsy Siegel, Roy Cohn and a mechanic who is now telling all. 

DISCLAIMER - Totally True Facts episodes are parodies. Let me say that again – parodies. Names have been changed in most cases to protect the innocent, though in others, the names of totally real people are used for the purpose of presenting the as mentioned parody. I hope that you’ll latch on to one of these facts and look up the totally, totally true facts on your own. 

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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We're introducing a new series for You Don't Say... It's called Totally True Facts. 

One of the things that alternate facts have caused is a whole lot of unnecessary violence, strife and mischief. Alternate facts have made the world a very stressful and dangerous place. So I decided to create Totally True Facts. These vignettes will offer a grain of truth or reality about what actually happened either in current times or times gone by, but by and large I’m surrounding them with a mess of alternate facts that I hope at the very least will give you a reason to grin, if not have a laugh, and to just get away from the reality of an all too factually messed up world. These are parodies. Let me say that again – parodies. I will change names in most cases to protect the innocent, though in others, I will use the names of actual people, for the purpose of presenting the as mentioned parody. My hope is that you’ll latch on to one of these facts and look up the totally, totally true facts about it on your own. 

Our first installment of Totally True Facts presents the origin story of Chicago's Bubbly Creek and the ancestry of a guy named Jeff Chłapowski.

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.

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All we need to do is to turn on the news and we see stories of septuagenarian and octogenarian politicians and judges whose time is well past. It’s like opening a dumpster and catching a good whiff of all the rot inside it. Term limits are long overdue, and in the 2024 presidential cycle, it's never been more clear that age limits also need to be imposed on our office holders. Here are some common sense ideas on how to change things, as well as some startling facts about the paychecks and pension plan for the lifetime appointees that sit as justices and judges in our courts. 

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© Drew Zagorski. All rights reserved.
Published under the pen name Drew Glass.
The Make Right Man – The Legend of Billy Shitpants is a work of fiction and part of You Don’t Say… Stories from the Drew Zagorski Files, produced by LeftBrainRightBrain Marketing.