Choose Your Own Fate Part 4

Before the thing can react you run into the living room.
"Hey, what the Hell are you doing?" The thing in your head shouts. "Take this!"
Suddenly your legs give way and you fall face first onto the carpet. Your reach for the TV, just barley hitting the switch before the thing steals away your hand and slaps you in the face.
The TV springs to life just as JJ bursts into the room with a loud cry of "Dynomite!"
The thing in your head chuckles and you laugh a bit yourself. Soon you are both laughing heartily along with the appreciative studio audience. When the shows over you go to switch off the TV your hand hits you hard in the nuts.
"What do you think, you're doing?" The thing screams as you writhe around on the floor in pain, "I want more!"
So you sit through another episode followed by Rhoda and Sanford and Son. Why are all these on the same channel tonight? you ask yourself. The only answer is the insistent laughter coming from your head...

It's several hours later and you're still being forced to watch sitcoms. After mini-marathons of the Partridge Family and Gilligan's Island you really can't take anymore. You speak to the thing controlling you.
"Listen you slimy piece of crap! I can't take anymore of this and if you don't give me back my brain I'll do something really horrible to you!"
"MORE MORE MORE!" The thing cries and laughs as Gilligan falls down for the 13th time that episode.
You have to do something! You can't take much more situational comedy!

What will you do? Any suggestions?

Choose Your Own Fate Part 3

You have chosen...option 4. Thank you, one moment please...

You stare at the purple and green blob of smelly goo and your stomach rumbles. You got sent to your room without dinner earlier that day for drawing mustaches on all the pictures of Nixon in the morning paper. "Goddamn it," your Dad yelled, "You may not like him but I voted for him so we're stuck! You'll respect him and Agnew or you'll get no supper!"
You frown. Stupid Nixon. You've made up your mind, you will eat this thing. It looks like it needs something...You spin your mother's spice rack around and pull out two random jars: Paprika and cloves. Hmmm, you think, maybe if I cook it first...
You oil the pan down and dump the thing in it. It's one eye looks around nervously and it shifts a bit as you cover it in spices. Then you add cheese and an old wrinkly green pepper and turn on the heat.
The thing screams and jumps out of the pan, latching itself onto your head! You flail around trying to pull it off, you'd scream but its covering your mouth and slowly working its way up your nostrils! You can't breath!
Bit by bit it crawls up your nostril cavity and vanishes. You sit down, taking gasping breaths, wondering what to do next when a voice whispers from inside your skull.
"Go to the garage. Do it now!" It says in creepy whisper. "Do it now or I'll do this!"
Suddenly your legs go numb and you fall face first to the floor. The thing in your head laughs.

What will you do now?
1. Listen to the thing, before it does something really bad!
2. Run to the weird scientist neighbor's house that lives down the street.
3. get a needle nose pliers from the basement and pull it out.
4. Call 911.
5. Screw this, you're missing Good Times! GO and watch TV and ignore the thing in your head.

Choose Your Own Fate Experiment Part 2

With my vote for 2 it turned out to be a tie, and the dealer always wins ties so...

You decide that J.J and the rest of the Evans family can wait till you get some grub. It's probably a re-run anyways you tell yourself as you walk up the stairs to the kitchen. While the lightening flashes and the thunder booms and the rain drives hard at the windows you dig through the cupboards looking for food. Damn man, your family really needs to go to the store! The only thing you find is a box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers that looks about three months old.
You spit out the stale bits of popcorn you tried desperately to eat into the garbage and head for the fridge. Not much here either, some lunch meat and cheese, but you have no bread! Wait, whats that in the back?
You reach in and pull out a Tupperware container. Now what could this be? You open the lid and recoil as the nastiest smell you can imagine hits you full on in the face. It smells like moldy gym socks pulled out of Liberace's anus and left to bake in the sun. Still it is food...maybe if you put some cheese on it...
A sound from the container pulls you out of your reverie. Did that thing just make a mewling noise? You look closely at the purple and green blob. Is that an eye?
Where did this thing come from? You sort of remember doing a science experiment back in sixth grade to see how much mold would grow on a piece of meatloaf but that was three years ago! You ponder what to do with the smelly disgusting thing.

Do you...
1. Throw it in the trash.
2. Dump it down the garbage disposal and flip the switch.
3. Toss the nasty thing outside.
4. Get a fork and chow down!
5. Poke it with your finger.

Choose Your Own Fate Experiment Part 1

It is a dark and stormy night and you are all alone in your basement room. Your parents have gone to something called a "swinger" party and left you to your own devices. Normally this would be cool but this is the 1970s and there's no cable to watch porn on. You've read all the books you got from the library this past week and the new needle for your record player won't be in for another few days. You sit and stare sadly at the brown and red shag carpet and listen to the rain drum on the windows. What will you do?

A few options:
1. Go upstairs and watch TV. It's too late for Chico and the Man but Goodtimes should be on pretty soon.
2. You are a bit hungry, maybe you could go to the kitchen and get some food first?
3. Sit on the porch and watch the rain. Eh, it's better than nothing.
4. Just stay right here and count the fibers in the rug.

Choose your fate!

Song for Bad Little Children

Shootin' at birds on the telephone wires
Nothin' wrong with my head
Breakin' stuff and settin' it on fire
Nothin' wrong with my head

I spit right in teacher's face
He called me a damn disgrace
I'm not bad I'm just misunderstood
If I'd been raised better
Than I'd be good
There's nothin' wrong with my head

Put some sugar in Mommy's gas tank
Nothin' wrong with my head
Left some meat in the sun until it stank
Nothin' wrong with my head
Gave it to the dog to eat
Then he puked all over our car's front seat
Nothin' wrong with my head

Mommy took me to see a shrink
She asked him, please what did he think?
I punched him right in his stupid face
Then I Kicked and screamed all over the place
The doctor says it's not my fault
It's ADD thats it, thats all
There's Nothin' wrong with my head

I burned down the grocery store
Nothin' wrong with my head
Now I don't have to go there no more
Nothin' wrong with my head
I can't go to jail
Cause I'm too young
Might as well have lots of fun
Nothin' wrong with my
Nothin' wrong with my
Nothin' wrong with my head

New blog coming up!

Due to the fact that I have way too many movies at present, too much time on my hands, and because I can, I've decided to watch one or two movies a day and write something about each. It's pretty much just splitting the movie reviews from my main blog, which I've wanted to do for awhile anyways.
First post will be later tonight here: http://crudloadofmovies.blogspot.com/

Late Night Something Weird Triple Feature!

I am so tired right now, tired to the point where both writing and keeping my eyes open both have become a struggle. But, as the Spanish say "sleep is for the dead" so I will stave it off a bit longer. Please forgive the low quality of the following writings as a result.
First off I'd like to say thank Cthulhu for Something Weird Video. Their tireless devotion to the very crappiest of crap movies makes my heart happy. Here's the movies on today's triple feature DVD with my own vague-type ratings.

The Zodiac Killer (1971)
Right off the bat the film purports to be based on the real life Zodiac murders but pretty much throws all realism (and seriousness) out the window by having the murderer kill a woman on a street in broad daylight while wearing Groucho Marx glasses as a disguise. If you've read anything about the serial murders that took place in California in the late 60's and still remain unsolved to this day, you'd know that there's a pretty good movie that could be made of the events. Unfortunately this is not that movie. It is, however, good grimy fun for drive-in aficionados like myself who seem inexplicably drawn to poorly made stuff like this. I was trying to think why I like these movies so much and I couldn't come up with a very good reason. Maybe I'm missing a chromosome or something. This would get a C but gets an extra point for featuring what may be the worst wig I've ever seen in any movie ever. And for the dirty cameo by poor Doodles Weaver (look him up). B

The Sex Killer (1967)
This is possibly the cheapest movie I've ever seen. Where the Hell does SWV find this stuff? There isn't even any credits, it opens with a title card that looks like it was drawn on posterboard! Basically it looks like someone's home movies, but with boobs. Lots and lots of boobs.
Plot (such as it is): In lovely NYC, a shy young man who works at a mannequin factory(!) can't seem to get a girl to "ball him" (the movie's words, not mine) so he buys a pair of binoculars to watch topless cuties sunbathe from the rooftops. Then he starts killing them and having his way with their bodies. They never show him doing the dirty with the fresh corpses, but it's still a rather icky thing to put in a movie that was obviously made to be shown in adult theaters at the time.
It's pretty much just an excuse to show topless girls and as such, it does it's job. C+

Zero in and Scream (1971)
Hoo boy! And I thought that last movie was dirty! This is basically soft-core porn with a very thin plot surrounding it. See, there's this guy who's killing people after they have sex with his high powered rifle and...um...thats pretty much it. Other than that there's nude dancing girls, a stripper orgy party, lots of pool sex,and lesbians. It's all too weird to be arousing in the least bit though. I especially loved the highly inappropriate soundtrack, most of which sounded like it was stolen from 50s monster movies. What the Hell kind of porn movie music uses a thremin? A very strange one thats what.
Also, like Sex Killer, this was obviously meant to be shown in adults only theaters and be titillating (what a dirty sounding word!), but it's so violent and even ends with a rape scene, so what the heck?
How do you rate a movie that seems like it was pulled out of your dad's or grandpa's secret stag film stash? Well, there is sort of a movie here, which gets an F. The odd sex sequences get a C since they were sort of well filmed for that sort of thing.

I made it sound like I didn't enjoy these pieces of sleaze, but I really did. Their low low budgets make them seem like strange unsettling documentaries and the acting is so bad it's funny. Plus there's that strange pull I mentioned before, that odd inexplicable love of trash that....I'm almost falling asleep. To wrap this up, hooray for Something Weird!

Intros!

Okay, here's three possible choices for the introduction story to Seven Deadly Stories. Pick which one you like best!

#1
Robert stood at the window looking out at the stars and the smiling skull face of the moon. He was wondering just how he was going to finish his spaceship and get to the nearest bordering galaxy to answer the mysterious telegraph he had received that day when a voice spoke up behind him.
"I don't want to go to Aunt Laurie's house!"
He sighed and answered his little sister without turning around.
"I don't want to go either, whats your reason?"
"It's boring and it smells funny and last time she locked us in the attic and wouldn't let us out!"
He sighed, "Yeah I know, but we have to go."
"Why? You're old enough so that we can stay alone for one night."
He turned away from the window and looked at her pouting in his patched up beanbag chair. "Because they think she's just a lonely old woman who needs company. She's not but thats what they think. So they send us over there and then they go to the movies."
"Why don't they just go over there themselves?"
Robert turned back to the window and thought about his visit to D-7 again. "Because they don't thats why. They just don't."
"Kids? Are you ready yet? Get your butts down here!"
Trying to smile he took his sister's hand and they walked out of the kid friendly comfort of his room and the warmth of the house and dreaded the long hours ahead.

Of course, like last time, Aunt Laurie was all smiles but as soon as the sound of her sister's car was long gone into the night the veneer of friendliness fell away.
"Pain in the ass kids, thats all you are! Pain in the ass kids!" She thought she was muttering to herself but Robert and Ann could hear her quite clearly. They looked at each other but kept silent.
"Now go play in here," she said and shuffled them into a small empty back room, locking the door behind them. They heard the TV come on and several farts, followed by a long series of snores.
Robert looked at Ann, shivering in the cold. "Well, its better than the attic isn't it?" He tried to smile again.
"At least in the attic there were boxes to look through...whats in that filing cabinet thingy over there?"
They walked over and opened it. Ann looked like she was about to burst into tears. "It's just a bunch of stupid paper, what are we going to do now Rob!"
"Well, theres writing on it and...hey, whats this?" He reached back into the cabinet's dark recesses and pulled out a small hardcover book. He read the cover: "Seven Deadly Stories: Tales of bad things happening to bad people."
Ann brightened up. "Read it to me Robert!"
With a sigh he sat on the floor and opened the book to the first page...

#2
Deep within the recesses of D-7, far below the big metal cities full of people of various alien races going about their daily lives, far below the secret government shelters where the secret police could come and go onto the surface as they pleased, there lay the famous D-7 prison holding tanks. Here in the luxurious confines of it's small dank rooms sat the scum of the universe, awaiting execution. Filfal fungus provided light but if you've ever had to use it, say you were stranded on the far off moon of Menton-6 at night, you would now that its barley enough to see by, least of all keep the Callan wolves at bay. Gorhan picked at a piece of it and put it in his mouth to see if he could eat it. It burned his tongue and he spit it onto the damp ground.
"Formehental gheminey!" He cursed in his native language. He heard a voice laughing behind him and quickly turned around. It was just that stupid old man again. Gorhan wondered if he could eat him. He'd probably taste better than the muddy slop they were fed through tubes in the ceiling everyday.
Gorhan frowned, "Whats so funny you wrinkled old toad?"
The old man laughed his annoying crazy laugh again, "You my fine purple friend, you are funnier than a Doctorian clown-man!"
"I'm orange you blind old fool. How long have you been down here?"
"I've always been down here, and will be long after they've dropped you off the Montorain cliffs!" He laughed again and Gorhan seriously considered taking a bite out of his wrinkled old neck, just to shut him up.
"Would you like to hear some stories young man, it will help to pass the time. Or were you just going to try and eat me? I don't have much meat, here take a bite!"
He offered Gorhan his twisted warty arm.
Gorhan held back his gag reflex. He sat down hard and the ground smooshed under him.
"Okay old man, what have you got? These better be good or I'm cracking your head open and eating your brain. I don't care if it is full of parasitic worms."
The old man smiled, oh these are good. I've had a million years to think these up. Oh yes you will like them very well, yes you will. You will like them so much that liking them will be all that you can think about, like them so much you will, in fact..."
"Get on with it you senile old bag!" Shouted Gorhan.
The old man coughed and cleared his throat for a very long time before starting...

#3
You are lost in the jungle. The rest of your crew died horrible deaths to disease and animals with large teeth, leaving you to find your way back to civilization on your own. It's not looking good. You've wandered for many days and nights and all you've seen is trees and animals that want to eat you or drink your blood. You have no clean water left and have been surviving by drinking rain and eating small insects and lizards. Thankfully none have been poisonous yet. Wearily you push through the thick trees and hack at vines with your machete. You're thinking of the man who sent you on this mission to find the lost tribe of GanuGanu and how you'd like to break your fist off in his face when you stumble on something and fall hard to the ground.
Looking up you see the outline of something through the trees. As you make your way over to it, you see that it is a large temple shaped object, possibly a temple. For no good reason you can think of, you start up the steps to the top.
The weird looking thing in the small room at the top of the temple shaped object smiles at you as you enter. It looks like a small monkey but wrinkly and man sized. You want to pet it and feed it a banana. It speaks and its voice is like if you crossed Tom Waits with Britney Spears. Now you just want to slap it.
"Would you like to hear a story young man?"
"Well, I'd like some food more." You reply.
"And I want a DVD player and an Asian hooker to shave my back hair," The thing replies, "but it ain't gonna happen."
You sigh and sit in front of the disgusting but somehow cute looking thing and pick the bot fly larva out of your arms.
It opens it's mouth and starts to speak...

Music to Cheer Me Up

I'm feeling quite down tonight. Lets try to cheer me up, shall we?

Leadbelly - Goodnight Irene


Robert Johnson - Kindhearted Woman Blues

There's nothing like the blues to make you feel better when you're down and these are two of the best blues musicians ever to pick up a guitar.

Then there's this video which makes me squee with delight every time I watch it:

Cab Calloway was the coolest person that ever lived. Next to Cab everyone else is Steve freakin' Urkel.



More Cab? In a cartoon? Will do!


Now I feel much better. Okay, one more video to make it perfect. I pick...Java Muppets!


On for tomorrow: A Seven Deadly Stories pick the intro contest! I'll put up three and you guys pick which one should go in the book!

Add Me on AIM!

I finally got with the times and started switching from MSN to AOL. I'm told AOL is what all the hip kids are chatting each other up on these days. If you want to add me my screen name is Kurdt103. I Don't know when I'll be available to chat, but there you go.

Movie Script

I know you're reading this Matt you lurker you, we are making this, this summer. And it will rule. This is really basic, more will be added in the course of filming, or it might all be changed completely depending on circumstances.

Open on title:
NIGHT OF THE LIVING CORPSE GIRL!
Cue scary crashing piano chords that go on way too long till this song kicks in over pictures of the cast all giving goofy smiles and thumbs up. Song cuts off with scare chord and opens on:

Our cast: Matt, Scott, and James are sitting on Matt's porch staring at the sky.
Scott: (Suddenly happy) I've got it you guys! (All look at Scott)
Matt: No Scott we are not going to put on masks to scare people in the old folks home.
James: Yeah, we had to get out of there pretty quickly last time. We should wait awhile before we go back.
Scott: I was going to say we should go throw firecrackers at Matt's dad while he's taking a nap.
Matt: We did that too, thats why we're out here trying to think of stuff to do instead of inside playing video games.
Scott: (thoughtful) Oh yeah. (suddenly bright again) Hey how about we take a bunch of laxatives and see how long we can go before...
Matt: For the fifth time, I am not doing that, ever!
James: I've got an idea for something to do.
Matt: Aren't we the crafty one today.
James: Shut up and listen. You know my Uncle died a few weeks ago right?
Scott: That smelly old guy that used to buy all the pepper from the grocery store every Tuesday and no one could figure out what he did with it?
James: No, that was my Grandfather. My Uncle was the one that wore thongs to the beach and offered mustache rides to old ladies at the flea market.
Matt: Oh, him. Right, go on.
James: Well, he died and we haven't sold his house yet or even cleaned all the stuff out of it. We could go dig through all his junk! There's probably lots of old people crap we could smash or run over with the lawnmower!
Matt: Well, it's better than any of Scott's ideas, lets go. (Everyone gets up and walks off camera.)
Scott: Aw, I wanted to see poop...
End Scene

Open on old house with scare chords telling us to be scared. Pan over to our heroes.
Matt: Yup, that is a house.
Scott: Sure is, did your uncle die inside there James?
James: No, he got his hand stuck in the mailbox and got eaten by a bear.
Matt: Harsh. Lets go.
Cut to inside of house, SJM walking down stairs to basement.
James: I bet theres lots of breakable stuff down here!
Matt: I call dibs on plaster figurines!
All rooting around in basement junk.
Scott: Man, there's nothing good here. Let's go downtown and shoot water balloons at cars on the highway.
James: We did that last week, we almost got beat up, remember?
Scott: Oh yeah..
Matt: Holy crap, guys come look at this!
He moves some junk aside and we see a girl lying on the floor, her face is covered in blood. She is very dead looking. There is a book in her hands. Matt picks it up and reads:
Matt: Uncle Larry's zombie control for dummies, version 2.0 (opens book) Hmmm...
James: Ummm, isn't this something we maybe shouldn't be messing with?
Matt: This is the most interesting thing we've done all day, I'm not taking Scott's laxatives! (reads) "To make your zombie girl come to life, simply read this passage: Arise mort fată arise!"
The zombie girl stands up and stares with her mouth open.
Matt: What should I make her do now?
Scott: Make her take her shirt off! (All look at Scott)
James: Dude, she's dead!
Scott: (embarrassed) Well, its just...you know...
Matt: (reading) "Mort fată , a lovi cu piciorul Scott în balet"
Zombie girl walks over and kicks Scott very hard in the groin. He rolls around on the ground in pain.
Matt: Ha ha, this is awesome!
James: What should we make her do now?
Matt: Oh I've got an idea, a very good idea if you catch my drift. (rubs hand together) Heh heh heh..

Open on outside, lawn.
Zombie girl is standing with a baseball bat in her hands. A ball comes flying and hits her in the stomach. She looks at it and keeps on staring at nothing.
Pan around to SJM. Matt has a baseball glove on.
James: Baseball? Thats what you had in mind? God you're so lame. Give me that book, I've got a much better idea. (Takes book and reads...)

Cut to inside of Matt's house. Zombie girl is sitting at counter with party hat on her head and cake in front of her. It even has a candle lit.
James: Happy Birthday!
Matt: How do you know it's her birthday?
James: It says so right here (points to passage in book)
Matt rolls eyes. Zombie girl throws up blood onto cake.
Scott: well, that was kind of cool. I got her a present. (Holds up dead rat)
Matt: Where did you get that?
Scott: Mousetrap.
Matt: Of course.
Scott: Here you go, happy birthday!
Zombie girl takes rat and eats it. only the tail is sticking out of her mouth when she starts choking and falls face first into her cake.
James: Ummm, what just happened.
Matt: I have no idea, anyone have a copy of the script? (Scott pulls out script and starts reading.)
Scott: It says she died of rat poisoning.
James: That doesn't make any sense at all! Who wrote this crap?
Me from behind camera: Sorry guys, I wrote myself into a corner.
James: How much are we getting paid to do this again?
Me: Ummm, lots of money. Just as soon as we finish, yup. Not lying to you one bit.
Matt: Okay lets get this over with. (in fake shock) Whatever shall we do?
Pan over to Matt's dad which is just Scott with a fake beard.
Dad: What's going on here you hoodlums?
All look at each other.
James: We were just having a party for...Suzy here and she got crazy and drank too much and passed out. We have to take her home now.
Dad: (Looks at Scott) Aren't you the one that talked my son into farting into a jar and mailing it to the school principal?
Matt: Umm, no he's not. Gotta go now, bye!
All drag zombie girl out.
Dad looks around, sits down and quickly devours cake.

Our heroes sit forlornly on a couch with zombie girl in middle. All look sad.
James: This sucks. You and your stupid rats Scott. What is it with you and dead rodents anyways?
Scott: Well, uh...your mom...smells real bad.
Matt: (reading book) Hey! Look at this you guys! "To bring dead girl back to life after accidental re-killing, just say these words."
James: Huh, that seems way too easy, doesn't it Kurdt?
Me: Fine if you want to finish this movie, then do it yourself! I quit!
(camera tilts and falls down on floor. When we come back its only Matt and Scott on couch.)
Matt: (Reading) "I'm supărat mort fată , a face pe plac la a ierta meu tîmpit şi a veni spate la spre viaţă , tu eşti so foarte drăguţ."
Cue heavenly music and dead girl is alive again.
Everyone shouts hooray! Cue All Summer long by The Beach Boys over end montage.

Picture montage:
Guys riding around in car with zombie girl.
Zombie girl trying to play DDR, guys pointing and laughing.
Zombie girl scaring little girl, guys pointing and laughing
Scott with Zombie girl, smiling, thumbs up
Caption: Zombie girl and Scott got married later that summer. They were very happy together...
Picture of zombie girl biting Scott's neck as he looks on in horror.
Caption: ...till she ate off his face.
THE END

My Kinda Musics

To make up for my last whiny emo-tastic post I stole an idea from Spitter's Lair and Spum-Blog and decided to post up some of my favorite musics with Youtube videos.

I'll start with Pixies since I ended with them last post.

Pixies - Debaser

This is the only band I know that would write a song about Un chien andalou. The video and the song also offer a frightening glimpse into Frank Black's head.

The Talking Heads are one of my very favorite bands and they had some pretty sweet music videos. Here's two that I've watched way too much.

Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere


Talking Heads - Blind


Most people know Devo from their one hit "Whip It" but they had and still have a sizable cult following and were one of Kurt Cobain's favorite bands. (Nirvana even did a cover of Turnaround that got released on Incesticide). Here's a really early video. We're all devo!

Devo - Jocko Homo


Ween - Transdermal Celebration (Video by Adam Phillips)

If you haven't seen any of Mr. Phillips amazing work then go right now to his website and see some of the best flash animation ever created, hands down.

Squirrel Nut Zippers - Ghost of Stephen Foster

Squirrel Nut Zippers were a great band that got thrown away after the short lived swing music revival died a painful death. I love this video though, check out the Cab Calloway impersonation at the beginning!

Three songs by Leadbelly (the only footage of him known to exist)

Leadbelly claimed that he could sing, fight, fuck, drink, and play guitar better than any man alive. I don't think I'd want to challenge him on that, he got put in jail quite a few times for killing and almost killing people.

Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Going on

They called him The Killer because he'd almost destroy his piano every time he played. Jerry Lee was the original punk rocker. Watch that hair fly!

Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode

It all comes back to here, without Chuck Berry there'd be no rock and roll as we know it. Everyone who calls Elvis "the king of rock" has no idea, Chuck is the real deal.

XTC - Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead

XTC is one of the best bands that almost no one knows about. All of their stuff is amazing but their fame never really spread beyond a devoted cult following.

and last but not least The Pogues and the best song ever about the joys of getting smashed.

Pogues - Streams of Whiskey


Well that was fun, hooray for music! Be happy or not!

Sounds That Recognize the Pain in Me: Folsom Prison Blues

In which the author reveals too much about himself and will probably regret it later.

I've loved Johnny Cash since I was in Jr. High School and someone played me I Walk the Line as a joke. "Ha ha old song, isn't it funny?" Just one song and I was hooked. I went to K-Mart as soon as I could and bought Greatest Hits on cassette tape. Yup, they still sold those back then. It wasn't that long ago either, but it sure seems like it.
Awhile later a great Aunt of mine died and I got her record player and collection of country albums. Among those was a couple Cash records, one of which was from his Sun Records days. No, it's not worth anything, I researched it and found out it was a reprint. Originals do go for quite a bit of money though. From that collection I also nabbed some Grandpa Jones, Hank Snow, Roy Acuff, and Conway Twitty LPs. There was a whole couple years where I was crazy for old country music and spun those records till the damn player stopped working.
Cash was always my favorite. There was just something about that voice and that simple but driving bass and drum that got me and never let go. I cried the day he passed away and went to see Walk the Line twice even though I didn't think it was a very good movie. (They took a man with a very complex mind and crazy tumultuous life and turned it into a clichéd Hollywood bio-pic. That was the least of its crimes.) The one scene I did like from the movie though was when Johnny was in the Air Force, a place he clearly didn't want to be, and it shows him sitting by himself picking out Folsom Prison Blues. Suddenly I understood what that song was about. It isn't just about being stuck in jail, it's about being stuck anywhere you don't want to be. It resonates with me very much more now than when I first heard it because I'm stuck in the same way Johnny was.
I've been serving in the United States Airforce for over two years now. I have about two years left on my contract. When I signed my name on that paper letting the government own my ass for four years I was a completely different person. I had failed at just about everything I had tried to do and had nowhere to go. I was stuck working minimum wage washing dishes and living at home with my Dad. Total loser stuff right there. I weighed my options and decided that the only way out was military service.
So here I am 2 years later stuck in a job I don't like, surrounded by people I can't relate too, and with my friends and family thousands of miles away from me. It's a steady job while the economy is in the dumps, but so what? This isn't what I want to be doing with my life and it makes me miserable. I see people going places and doing what they want, the "rich folks eating in a fancy dining car" "drinking coffee and smoking big cigars" and it makes me sad. But all I can do is sit and wait it out, wait until that train comes up the track and I can move on.
Thats a long way of explaining why I like this song and if I sound bitchy and emo I'm sorry. I don't have many people to talk to and writing seems to cheer me up. At least I can sleep better at night now that I have an outlet for my misery.

Bonus song:
Pixies - In Heaven

Pixies + Eraserhead = some freaky and awesome shit.

Updates!

Okay, just to clear some stuff up heres a post just before beddy-bye time. I am going to finish Saviour Machines and publish it eventually but it seems like a much bigger project than my meager writing skills can handle right now. It'd be like painting the Sistine chapel with crayons. I need to get better by writing small stuff first.
I suppose I can give away what I'm working on right now since whats really keeping me going is feedback I get on here. I'm writing seven short stories, each one based off a different deadly sin, which is probably going to be called Seven Deadly Stories. Most of them are going to be pretty loose like the rough cut of the one I'm posting now called Sloth which has nothing to do with the sin. I just took the word and ran with it. It's only about little over 1000 words so far and I think it needs to be expanded, but here it is spelling and grammar errors and all:

Sloth
I remember it all so well, like it happened yesterday. Maybe it’s because lately I’ve been having nightmares about it, about him. It’s not something you would forget quickly though and I do still have these scars…but I’m getting a head of myself.
I grew up in a small town. We were small town people with small town values and everyone knew everyone else’s business, or thought they did. Everyone had their secrets too though. Ours was hidden away in the cellar. I remember how we’d be sitting down eating dinner, making small talk about how our days went when that noise would come up from down below, that low moaning cry that sent chills up my spine. I would look down at my plate and pretend I didn’t hear it but then Dad would glare at me tell me to go and feed it. Then I would slowly get up, taking as much time as I could and go into the kitchen to get it’s bucket of old potatoes and table scraps. What’s “it” you ask? Well I call it “it” since I don’t think it was quite human. My parents had named it Lawrence but I had nicknamed it sloth.
It didn’t look much like a sloth, in fact it didn’t look much like anything God in his wisdom had created on this earth, but that’s the closest thing I could compare it to. It had this nasty matted white fur and these long sharp claws, like sloths have but it wasn’t slow, in fact it was damn quick. It’s face was this horrible scrunched up mess of scraggly sharp teeth and it’s eyes were this horrible red color. That was the thing I hated the most about it, those damned eyes. It didn’t like the light so we kept it as dark as possible down there, and when I went down to feed it all I could see were its eyes glowing as it moved back and forth, scraping it’s claws on the ground, watching me.
It hated me and I knew that if it ever got loose it would kill me. Dad told me that was nonsense, that the thing was harmless and he would go down with me to pet it. It always played nice when Dad was around, it would innocently sniff at my hand and let me pet its horrible matted fur but when I tried to grab its scrap bucket away it would snarl and snap at me. One I got too close and it swiped my forehead. I had to get 5 stitches. Dad acted like it was my fault, like I had been teasing the horrible thing. I tried to tell him what really happened but Dad never listened to me. He loved Lawrence more than me and I never could understand it. Even after it got loose and…well, I’ll tell you what happened.
I had horrible stomach cramps that night and couldn’t fall asleep at all. I rolled around in bed holding my stomach till almost three am when it finally let up and I started to fall asleep. That’s when I heard it. That horrible scraping sound coming up the stairs. It would go up one stair and stop, like it was listening for something. It was so quiet that I could hear its breath, a slight pant, like a dog. I sat straight up in bed. There wasn’t going to be enough time to turn on a light, I rolled out of bed quick and grabbed a baseball bat that was leaning on the wall. Then I stood and waited and listened as that scraping noise got closer and closer till it was right outside my door.
It was hot that summer and I hadn’t closed the door tight so once it got up the stairs all it had to do was push it open. In my nightmares I can still see those eyes floating in the darkness, those damn red eyes staring right at me. Then it came for me and before I could react it was on top of me, scratching at my body, trying to get at my face. I screamed and above the its awful slobbering breath and throaty snarls I could hear my parents come running. My Dad slammed the door open and flicked on the light, the thing didn’t like light so he was able to pull it off me easily, dragging it back down to the basement.
Crying and in hysterics I yelled at my Mom, “Why don’t we just kill it? It’s horrible and I hate it, why don’t we just kill it?”
My mom just stood in the doorway and looked at me, her 12 year old daughter sitting on the floor covered in white foamy spit and blood and said “because your father loves it that’s why. Now go get cleaned up and get back in bed.” Then she walked off, probably to go smoke a cigarette outside.
I didn’t sleep for three whole nights after that.
I told my Dad that I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t sleep at night, I was scared that he was going to get me. My Dad just smiled and said that he had put a stronger chain in, that he couldn’t break this one. He even said I didn’t have to feed Lawrence anymore. This wasn’t very heartening to me. I had to get rid of the thing and I had to do it soon…
I waited till a few days later when Dad was at work and Mom was at the grocery store , then I grabbed Dad’s 12 gauge shot gun and headed down the dark cellar steps. I think it knew what I was doing, it seemed restless, pacing back and forth and snarling at me. I pointed the gun at its head and it ran at me, hitting the end length of its chain and choking itself. Suddenly I didn’t want to kill it. It didn’t seem fair, it was like shooting a dog in a cage. Then the chain broke and it hit me full force, knocking me to the floor. I was screaming and it my head, I could feel its teeth trying to rip away flesh as its claws tore and scratched. I still had the gun in my had but I couldn’t get in position to fire. That’s when I heard my Dad yell and come running down the stairs.
“Don’t hurt him, Oh God don’t hurt him please!”
Then he came running and he started kicking me in the head. He was kicking me because I was punching it in its ugly face trying to get it off of me. I got my legs up under it and give it a hard push, landing it on its back and giving me time to get the gun back in position before it jumped on me again. It jumped and I pulled the trigger.
I heard Dad scream as the gun went off blowing a large hole in the thing’s midsection, spraying blood and flesh and bits of spinal cord out its backside. Sloth lay on the ground trying to get up, trying to get back at me. Before my Dad could get over to it I had put the gun to its head and pulled the trigger, turning its ugly face into a mass of brain and blood and skull fragments. Then I stood over it, breathing hard, blood running in my eyes.
“I hate you,” I whispered, “I hate you you stupid ugly thing.”
Then I felt a hand on my shoulder turning me around and then someone hit me full on in the face knocking me down. It turned out to be my dad, tears streaming down his face.
“You stupid girl!” he screamed “You stupid small minded girl do you know what you just did? Do you have any idea?”
I yelled back “Yeah, I saved my own life no thanks to you, you and your stupid fucking thing!” It was the first time I had ever cursed at anybody and I didn’t even realize it.
“You stupid girl, you killed your brother! Lawrence was your brother, Oh God!” Then he threw up on the floor.
A week later I went to live with my Aunt out in the country. I asked her why Dad had loved Sloth so much. She said she didn’t know but she thought it might have had something to do with a puppy he had when he was a little boy that had a messed up leg. That didn’t seem like a very satisfactory answer to me.
Oh I remember, I remember alright. Some things you can’t forget no matter how hard you try. And I still have these scars…

So yeah...its total poop right? Certainly not something anyone would buy to read, yet anyways. I can't stay awake any longer, good night.

Tales from the Crypt Season 2 Part 3

Okay, I'm kinda tired so lets dispense with the bad puns and get right to the last batch of episodes for this season. Oh alright, *cough* welcome boils and ghouls to the last few gorisodes of the frightfully fiendish season 2! Hope you like my reviews, and be sure to put your uh...dead remarks in the comments hextion! Okay, enough of that. They still haven't put the intro back on the episodes but at least you get to see it once when you put the DVD in. The only extra is a much too short documentary about season two that interviews different people involved. It also stars the new cryptkeeper puppet which looks much too stiff compared to the old one. John Kassir's voice is still dead on though. I wish I could do cryptie's voice like he can, I'd call people up randomly on the phone and make bad puns and then laugh in their ears. Okay, on to the episodes...

Episode 13: Korman's Kalamity
I knew that the original comic books did stories that involved the writers and other people that worked at EC but I had no idea they'd make an episode out of one! Jim Korman's drawings are coming to life thanks to side effects from an experimental fertility drug that his hideous hulk of a wife is making him take. How can he stop it from happening? Does he want to?
This a great episode and has the most comic-booky style yet. The colors are garish and bright and the monsters look like they could have stepped right out of an EC cover. Also there's probably a ton of in-jokes that I missed that someone who knows the history of the books better would catch. Fun episode all around. B+

Episode 14: Lower Berth
At a carnival freak show in the 1900s a two headed man named Enoch falls in love with a 2000 year old mummy. What kind of kids do you think they'd make? I wonder...
This is one of the shows signature episodes for reasons I won't give away. It's also very well done with lots of stuff happening that keeps your mind from trying to figure out how it's going to end. A

Episode 15: Mute Witness to Murder
A woman witnesses her next door neighbor kill his wife and is rendered mute by the experience. The husband sends for the doctor and it turns out to be...Doc Boy from the Waltons! Yup, Richard Thomas (and his mole) plays the evil doctor that locks the woman up in an asylum to shut her up. He's wonderfully slimy too, and he seemed like such a nice boy down on the Walton's farm...
While this is sort of a rip-off of Rear Window it goes off on it's own to be an alright episode. C

Episode 16: Television Terror
Oh man, is this a great one! Morton Downey Jr.(!) plays a Geraldo type "news reporter" who decides to do a show where he goes live into a haunted house where an old woman had murdered her tenants to steal their social security money. Of course everything goes wrong in the worst way possible. I wish something like this had happened to Geraldo when he went into Al Capone's vault. Wouldn't that have been cool? Al Capone's zombie corpse coming up from the ground and ripping that stupid mustache right off Geraldo's face? Anyways, old people with chainsaws will always be awesome. A

Episode 17: My Brother's Keeper
A pair of conjoined twins are having trouble living together since they're so very different. One is an asshole party animal who likes booze and fast girls and the other is a wimp who enjoys the symphony and sitting quietly at home reading books. There's a scene where the one lies in bed while the other has sex with a nasty stripper. Now where have I heard this plot before...how about that piece of crap Farley brother's movie Stuck on You? Could they have stolen the plot from here? Possibly but this one has one brother trying to kill the other by taking sleeping pills and drinking vodka so this one is better. B

Episode 18: The Secret
So now we're at the final episode of the season and I can sum it up in one word: Epic! A little redheaded boy at an orphanage is adopted Annie style by a pair of weird rich people. But everything is just a little off and everyone has their secrets...
This really is sort of like Annie if it was written by twisted minds and actually not painful to sit through. God I hate that movie, I had to watch it on a bus trip one time when the batteries on my CD player died. Oh the pain! Now If I ever have to watch it again I can just imagine if Annie were a vampire and went around ripping peoples throats out with her teeth and it'll be much better. Thanks TFTC! This gets an A.

I don't know if the show was getting better directors or what but it's really starting to hit it's stride and seems to be getting more cinematic in quality. Each episode is like a half hour mini-movie. The cryptkeeper's jokes are getting funnier too. The last one of the season was "like one cow said to the other while they were going to slaughter, till again we MEAT!" I'm using that one sometime and it will probably get me hurt.
Hope you're still sticking with me on these reviews, see you again boils and ghouls for season three!

Movie Reviews! I Know, Finally Right?

Unable to sleep last night I stayed up until the wee hours of the morn' watching people get their guts ripped out and high school play level actors stumble over their lines while standing on sets sets so flimsy it looks like you could tip them over with a few fingers. If you haven't experienced at least one of Herschell Gordon Lewis' wonderfully awful films then you cannot rightly call yourself a trash movie fan. The only one I had seen previously, however, was Blood Feast, widely considered to be the first true gore film and a hilariously bad movie to boot. Here's to broadening your knowledge of low culture!

The Gore Gore Girls (1972)

This was Lewis' last film till 2002's belated sequel to Blood Feast and it seems like he decided to throw everything into one pot and add a dose of self satire and decidedly sick humor. It also seems much more cheaply made than his other movies, which is really saying something. So what have we got here? We have an asshole detective trying to solve a string of stripper murders, that means lots of strippers in pasties and sometimes nothing at all, the usual nasty (and cheap) gore, and a cameo by Henry Youngman that he denied he did up till the day he died. Oh, and sleaze. A ton of sleaze. If this movie were a food it'd be a hamburger so slimy that your hands would be soaked in grease when you picked it up. It's all good sick fun though. Mention tomato sauce and chocolate milk to anyone who's seen it and watch them giggle themselves silly. C+

Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964)

You know you're in for it when the opening theme song to the movie you just put in is "The South is Gonna Rise Again" sung by a hootin' and Hollerin' hillbilly bluegrass band. Yup, it's time for a deranged backwoods hick movie, one of my favorite horror sub-genres! In fact this is the granddaddy of all killer hick movies and without this you might very well not have Deliverance or Texas Chainsaw. I say might for who can predict such things, but it's cool to think about.
Six damn Yankees fall for a really lame fake detour sign and find themselves part of a town's centennial celebration. They're the main part actually you come to find out as they're dispatched in surprisingly gruesome ways while the whole town watches. The gore is pretty tame by today's standards and even by the bar set by Blood Feast, but it sure is inventive. How many times have you seen someone drawn and quartered on film? Or stuffed into a nail studded barrel and rolled down a hill? It's also surprisingly creepy and works much better than it should given its low low budget and cast of non-actors. Or maybe I just love me some hillbilly stereotypes. And Bluegrass music, there's lots of it here and it's actually pretty durn sweet! Check out the arm roasting on the fire while the band plays Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms! Good stuff. B+
As a final note, if I ever find myself in the deep south and hear a banjo playing softly in the distance, I'm turning around and heading back north as fast as I can go, let me tell you.

The Wizard of Gore (1970)

You may have seen a clip of this movie in Juno where she watches it with the guy who's supposed to be adopting her baby and proclaims it to be better than (Dario) Argento. This is just stupid as comparing Lewis and Argento is like comparing McDonald's hamburgers and Italian Pasta. Yes, they both taste good but they're completely different flavors. Plus what sixteen year old girl is into 70's drive-in gore flicks and Italian Giallo films? Do they even exist? And if so, where were they when I was in high school? If you're thinking that I didn't like Juno, then yes, you'd be right. Don't get me started.
The premise of this film is "what if a cheesy magician's tricks were real and he really killed people on stage?" You've got the "saw a woman in half" thing but with a chainsaw, you've got a rather narsty bit of forced sword swallowing, and various other nasty bits of fun spread out around tedious scenes of bad actors stumbling over their lines as their characters try to figure out what's going on. Typical Lewis in other words, but with a decidedly strange and confusing ending. B
It's interesting to note also that the gore genre was already getting self-referential as the evil magician seems to represent Lewis himself, letting you see horrible things that aren't real. Or maybe I'm just digging too far into a movie where the main character is named Montag the Magnificent. Love that name! I think I'll go as Montag for Halloween and announce myself as such when I walk into a room. "Montag the Magnificent is here! Let the party...begin!"

Possibly later today or tomorrow: The last part of season two of Tales From the Crypt!

Lennon's Solo Albums Part 1

I'm sorry you guys, I really am. Instead of watching movies and putting up reviews like I thought I was going to, I ended up writing all weekend. I got three whole stories done, which doesn't seem like a lot but they take quite a bit of time to write, even going at a crazy no-sleep blazing speed like I was. Two of them I think are very good and one of them...needs work to say the least. Hopefully I'll get all seven stories done and revised by the end of this month and then I'll have an honest to goodness book finished!
So other than writing what else was I up to? Well, earlier this month I decided to get into The Beatles solo stuff, starting with John Lennon since he was my favorite, I ordered the first three albums he released (All three with Yoko Ono). This was a bad idea. Why? Well for one thing, it's three avant-grade albums. Starting down the road of the decidedly rocky Beatles solo path this way is like putting your foot in the ocean and stepping on a jellyfish: It can be painful and might discourage you from going any further. Lets look at each one individually shall we? Keep in mind that I only know bits and pieces of the history behind these records, being far far removed from the events surrounding their releases.

Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968)
Oh how to describe the experience of listening to this? There's not really much music here to speak of, it's just two tracks of about 15 minutes each of random noise, bits of dialog, random song snippets, whistling, Yoko and John screaming and banging on instruments...imagine Revolution 9 but a half hour long and not as good. The worst part is that it's not very interesting, its just kind of there and would make great background music for a weird experimental film.
The album is in fact more notorious for its cover art than it's content. I'm not going to post it but if you really want to see John Lennon and Yoko Ono butt naked go here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/48/TwoVCover.jpg
I'm not a prude or anything but at that point in time they weren't the prettiest people in the world to look at, to put it nicely.
Bonus track: Yes, all three of these have bonus tracks! They're actually more interesting than the actual albums sadly. This one has the B-Side to the Give Peace a Chance Single, Yoko singing a cute little song called Remember Love while John plays acoustic guitar. This is the first time that I'd actually heard Yoko's voice other than the brief times on The White Album and she really does have a nice singing voice, when she's not screaming that is.

Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With the Lions (1969)

While the first album was just John and Yoko puttering around in the studio till they eventually got bored, shut off the recording equipment and made love, this album seems to be a bit more focused and is split up into actual tracks. It starts off with Yoko announcing "This piece is called Cambridge 1969". Then she starts screaming her head off while John creates walls of feedback with his guitar, for almost a half hour! Seriously, it took up the whole first side of the record! I suppose most people would shut the thing off right at this track and never look back, but lord help me I kind of like it, even though it gets grating after awhile. John's noisy feedback squeals seem way ahead of their time and Yoko...well, Yoko sure has a set of lungs on her!
The second side of the record is a document of Yoko's miscarried child and as such is very very depressing. No Bed for Beatle John is John and Yoko singing pieces of newspaper clippings to each other dealing with the controversy surrounding their first album and John not being able to get a bed next to Yoko in the hospital and having to sleep on the floor. This is followed by five minutes of the babies heartbeat on a loop and then two minutes of silence after it stops. This might seem pointless unless you know that the baby actually died, then it's just very sad.
The record ends with Radio Play which is just someone randomly flipping through a radio so fast that you can't hear any songs, only random clicks, and John talking softly in the background occasionally. It's annoying because your mind keeps trying to make patterns where there aren't any, its all random and non-musical and way too long. I think John was having a good laugh by this point and trying to see what he could get away with.
Bonus Tracks: Both recorded at John's bedside vigil for Yoko: Song for John is a cute Yoko piece, again with John on guitar and Mulberry is her warbling tunelessly while John tortures his acoustic. At least it's actual music and is nice to hear after twelve minuets of random clicks and static!

Wedding Album (1969)

The artwork for this one is rather nice, lots of pictures, press clippings, political cartoons, a piece of "wedding cake", and a reproduction of J and Y's marriage license. Unfortunately the actual content seems rather pointless. The first half is taken up by an over twenty minute piece called John & Yoko. All it consists of is John and Yoko yelling each others names. For twenty minutes. Seriously. They yell loud, they whisper, they use funny voices, they make kissy noises at each other and John eats an apple. It's like if you had two lovey-dovey friends who constantly called each other smooshey names and they recorded an album of it: it's sort of embarrassing and not something you'd particularly want to listen to, at least not for very long.
The second half is called Amsterdam and is a sort of record of the couple's infamous "bed-in" for peace. It's made up of bits of interviews, song pieces, and random noises. I don't see why they didn't just make it all interviews since those were the most interesting parts, or why they had to make it so choppy and dull. I think by this point John was bored with doing "music" like this, the whole album just seems like a big throwaway joke.
Bonus Tracks(All by Yoko): Who Has Seen the Wind was the B-side to Instant Karma and is brief and very pretty. Listen, the Snow is Falling was the B-Side to Happy X-Mas and is sort of schmaltzy, but I like it fine. Finally we have an unreleased version of Don't Worry Kyoko recorded while Yoko was in the hospital before her miscarriage. These aren't great but much better than the actual album.

While not as ungodly awful as I'd always read, theres no reason to get these three albums unless you have to have every album made by every Beatle. If just the thought of Yoko makes you retch, than stay far far away.

Next time: Live Peace in Toronto 1969. Actual music! More of Yoko's screeching! Should be interesting...

Appendium: I was thinking about it and while a lot of the "music" on these three albums is hard to listen to you've got to at least appreciate it on some level. I think it's a tribute to just how popular The Beatles and John Lennon were that he could make not one but three albums like this and still be able to have people listen to his music afterwards. Can you imagine an artist trying anything like this today?

Like a kid on Christmas!

So after a long week of work with very little free time to do anything, writing aside, my soul was pretty much dead. To cheer myself up I trudged down to the store to do one of my favorite things ever: scour the cheapo bargain bin for horror movies. And what did I find this fine Saturday morning? Holy crap! The bargain box was filled with Something Weird DVDs for about 10 bucks a piece! Due to my oversleeping after a long lack of sleep, my head was fuzzy and I thought I was dreaming. In fact I've actually had dreams like this but the stuff usually disappears before I can get it home. I grabbed as many as I could, completely blowing my movie budget for the whole month, but hey, If I only grabbed three I'd go back next weekend to get the rest anyways and they might be gone. So here's what I got:

Eight Something Weird releases that includes three Herschell Gordon Lewis flicks, three double features and one triple feature that comes out to 13 movies!

So with this one that I grabbed randomly

plus a pile of dollar DVDs that I got from a friend for Christmas that I just got in the mail today...well...I have have a ton of movies to watch!

I'm going to watch the Gordon Lewis movies first since they're all ones that I've wanted to see for a long time and are always stupid messy fun.


With all the extras SW packs their releases with, this is going to be awesome! Oh the joys of being a nerd...

Ideas!

The last day of work this week went really really long as usual but not a lot was happening so I had time to think. The idea I came up with, while I sat bored, was for a small collection of short stories based around a theme. I'd have to buy a printer but I could make the books myself on my computer and would only have to charge two or three bucks for shipping. I don't really expect anyone to actually pay anymore than that for stuff by a non-professional writer.
So whats the theme you ask? That's top secret right now but I was able to come up with a few basic ideas for stories based off of it. Would anyone be interested in illustrating for it? Of course, I really couldn't pay anything as all of this is for free anyways.
I haven't actually written any of these stories yet but I'll get started this week and see how it turns out. Good idea/bad idea?
Ug, I'm so tired right now, my head is almost touching my keyboard as I type.
Movie reviews tomorrow!

More Saviour Machines

Well, one good response is as good as any I suppose, thanks Phantom Spitter! I haven't had much faith in my writing skills lately so I stopped writing for awhile and this story just sort of ruminated. I thought it would make a great graphic novel, but thats probably because I was scared that I would mess it up if I tried to actually write any of it. I'm my own worst critic I'm afraid.

I've decided not to post all of the story since now I'm actually kind of excited about trying to get all or pieces of it published. It's too bad that most magazines are only publishing stuff by well established authors, and not that much anymore either. The short story market is kind of dead unfortunately. Well, I guess that's what blogs are for right? I might not be getting paid but at least people are reading my stuff. If anyone knows a good magazine that takes short stories, please send the address my way.

Okay, I'll skip ahead in the story a bit to introduce another character.
This part is called:
The Amazing Alice Steals Her First Heart

Alice was lying on the floor, quietly doodling pictures on pieces of scrap paper when a pounding at the door of her room made her jump and scratch a large ugly hole in a cute little puppy she had been drawing.
"YOU LITTLE BITCH! YOU GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!"
That was her step dad of course, but his yelling and pounding were so loud she had to put her fingers in her ears and even then she could still hear him. She closed her eyes and tried to shut him out. Surprisingly, she found that when she concentrated hard enough she could turn the volume down to almost nothing. Being twelve years old and never been told that this wasn't something people could normally do, she just smiled and went back to making funny pictures. Suddenly her ears popped hard and the ugly noise came back into sharp focus.
"I'M NOT GOING TO TELL YOU ONE MORE TIME! YOU OPEN THIS DOOR OR I'M KICKING THE FUCKING THING DOWN AND THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY YOU WERE EVER BORN!"
Could he do that?, she thought. As if in answer the door frame gave a hideous squeal and shot out splinters of wood. A sickening feeling grew in her stomach and Alice realized that her mother wasn't home and if the tub of lard did manage to kick down the door, she was in very big trouble. This sickening feeling gave way to panic and she lunged for the small window above her desk.
She got it unlatched and was halfway through when the surprisingly sturdy door finally gave way with a sickening crack and slammed open hard, the knob leaving a hole in the wall behind it. Panic gave way to hysteria now, Alice struggled harder to get through the small window but only succeeded in getting herself stuck fast.
She could hear him breathing behind her as clear as a church bell on a quiet summer afternoon, could even make out the slight wheeze from his smokers lungs. Then she could smell him, his rancid unwashed body reeking of whiskey and stale tobacco. There was another smell there too, one that she had never experienced before. It was sharp as a knife in her nostrils and it scared her more than anything else in her short life ever had.
Then his hands were on her legs and with one quick yank she was over the desk, lying on the floor in front of him. Surprisingly he didn't look mad at all, in fact there was a smile on his fat ugly face. Alice was confused but wary. He laughed and said "Alice, you've been a bad girl and I think you need to be punished but I'm not going to beat you. I've got a much better way. Much more fun for both of us Now just lay back and relax."
Then he grabbed her arms and lay on top of her, pinning her to the floor.
"Get off get off get off!" Alice screamed in a blind panic and tried to squirm out from underneath him.
He sat up and belted her across the face. "Okay, if you want to play rough, we'll play rough little girl." He said through a gritted smile. She could see the tobacco stains on his teeth.
Then he hit her again, bloodying her lip and tore at her clothes, ripping her yellow dress to shreds. He laughed again and in one swift move tore off her panties.
I can't believe this is happening, she thought, oh God please make this stop, please make this stop! She wiggled an arm free and hit out at him with her fist trying meekly to fight him off.
"Little bitch" He said and laughed, "what the fuck are you going to do? You're going to lay there and take your punishment like a good little girl is supposed to."
Then he lay on top her of her again and fumbled with something inside his sweatpants. Then all at once, time slowed almost to a stand still. Alice could see dust particles hanging perfectly still in a shaft of sunlight from the open window. She looked at the face of her stepfather and could count the beads of sweat on his forehead. Then she felt it. It wasn't in yet but it was touching a part of her that no one else should have been allowed to touch. The blind panic and hysteria that had overtaken her gave way to unbridled rage and she pushed him with all her strength.
Alice couldn't believe what she was seeing. Still in slow motion, her fat blubbery disgusting pig of a step dad was flying through the air, still in slow motion. She watched in shock as he hit the far wall and smashed an outline of his body into the cheap plaster, knocking a framed picture onto his head.
Now time really did seem to stop as they both sat looking at each other, expressions of shock writ large on both of their faces. Then his face turned beet red and he ran at her screaming,
"YOU FUCKING BIIIIIIITCH!!!!"
Alice stood up quickly, closed her eyes, and swung her fist out to offer some sort of weak resistance. She felt it hit something hard which broke and snapped beneath her fist and then her hand was touching something warm and wet and pulsating. With her eyes still closed, she grabbed at it and pulled.
When she opened her eyes her stepfather was standing in front of her, mouth ajar, staring at the hole in his chest. He looked like he was about to say something but instead he collapsed into the pool of blood already soaking into the cheap shag carpet.
Alice stood and looked at the thing in her hands as it stopped beating. Her last thought right before her mind went was that it wasn't shaped like a heart at all, it wasn't even pink. And then the whole world rang with her screams.

The Saviour Machines, Part One

This the first part of a rough rough rough draft of what I hope will be a very long story. If you guys hate it I'll stop right here and hedge my bets with something else. Enjoy...or not.

The Saviour Machines

"President Joe once had a dream
The world held his hand, gave their pledge
So he told them his scheme for a Saviour Machine

They called it the Prayer, its answer was law
Its logic stopped war, gave them food
How they adored till it cried in its boredom

'Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me
Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
or maybe a war, or I may kill you all'"
David Bowie - Saviour Machine

Chapter 1 - Gathering
Part 1 - Elegant Eddy dances with the fearsome three

Eddy pulled on his cigarette till there was nothing left and then threw it in the gutter. Then he stood, his cheap trench coat billowing around him, almost as if he was eying the city up. His super sensitive sense of smell picked up the almost overpowering stench of garbage and dirt that normals could pick up as well as the underlying odor of decay and rot that the they usually couldn't. His ears could pick up sounds from many miles around: gunshots, screams, barking stray dogs, and many many cars. His hawk-eyes took in the old dilapidated buildings, rusty street signs, and piles of filth. He smiled slightly and marveled at how little had changed since the time he had left for clean air and quiet countryside, back when he was only twelve years old. The buildings were a little more decayed but their residents were still pretty much the same. It was almost nightfall and the people who actually worked during the day hurried to get locked into their apartments before the sun completely set and the scum of the night took over. They hurried past him and their tired strained eyes didn't even see him. One by one he heard their doors slam and the locks snap shut. Not that they would really keep anyone out, but if it helped them sleep better at night...
Eddy sighed and walked down to the corner of fifth street. He pulled out another cigarette and lit it as he turned onto Smut Avenue.

Smut avenue was just what it sounded like. That wasn't really it's name, but it had been called that for so long that no one really cared what its name really was. For miles and miles along the street filthy adult video stores, porno theaters, and peep shows set up shop. There were also hookers here, lots of them. There were hookers everywhere in the city but Smut ave. was where you went when you were desperate. They didn't look very nice but they were cheap and sometimes thats all that mattered, that is if you didn't mind a missing eye or the occasional lost limb. You also had to be careful choosing a girl if you didn't want to end up with one that used to be a man, or one was really was a man after all.
Ed smoked as he walked along the grimy street, the neon lights of the shops making his face glow weird shades of green and red. Some of the girls tired to hustle him a bit, most of them didn't bother. Everyone knew they were here and they didn't have to try very hard to drum up business. He thought it might be nice to spend a night with one of them, it'd been a very long time since he'd had even a little company, but the Oracle had told him where to go and who to look for and he didn't like to think what would happen if he failed or even stopped for a brief moment. He was on a mission from God after all.
He smiled at the pimps lurking in the shadows, the real money making business men of the ave. They practically ran this place and if you messed with any of the girls, your best bet was to get out of the city or wake up one morning missing several organs. Or worse. Not that they were adverse to harsh punishment themselves as one could plainly see by all the bruises and scars visible under the neon lights.

After about a mile of seedy shops and beat up hookers he turned down a side street. He had quite a bit of walking to do yet but he wasn't tired. It took a lot to wear out an immortal. Even before he hit the section of the street where almost all the street lamps were out, he knew someone was following him. Not just one somebody, but two. By the sound of it, two males about mid-twenties, both wearing beat up old sneakers. He threw out his cigarette and kept walking, giving no indication that he heard them at all. Ed also knew that someone was going to jump out of the alleyway before it happened and he stopped short just as someone did. His steely eyes adjusted to the dark and he could see the youth perfectly: long dirty blonde hair, ripped up t-shirt and Glasgow smile along both corners of his mouth. The youth laughed and pulled out a long switchblade.
"I don't have any money, so just let me through, I don't want any trouble." said Ed giving no indication that he knew there were two more people behind him as he heard them sneak up. The youth give a low sort of laugh.
"We don't want your money man, we're out for kicks tonight." The youth said as a pair of arms circled around Eddie's neck. Dirty blonde laughed hysterically and plunged the knife into his stomach, twisting it with a manic sort of glee. Eddie didn't flinch but grabbed the testicles of the youth behind him and squeezed, feeling them pop like a pair of ripe grapes. He felt the arms let go and in one swift motion he grabbed the blade out of his guts and sliced the dirty blonde who fell to his knees, clutching his throat, blood seeping through his fingers. One swift kick from Eddie's beat up army boots and the head was off, rolling down the filthy pavement before running up against a dumpster and stopping. He turned and picked up the boy who had grabbed him, a dirty piece of shit who looked about 18, and very neatly put him out of his misery with a well practiced jab to the brain stem with the switch-blade. The third punk stood watching with his mouth open till Eddie lunged at him and he ran as fast as he could back down the street. Eddie stepped into the weak flickering light of the street lamp and watched the slit in his stomach slowly heal itself up. Bastard kids, he thought, put a fucking hole in my coat. He gave the dirty blonde head a swift kick as he walked past. Just a few more miles, he thought, and I can find the old man and get the Hell out of this cesspool. Although he had to admit, he hadn't had this much for a long time, the smell was starting to get to his head.

More tomorrow if you guys want it!

I Hate Work

I love writing. It's the balm on my soul after a long boring day of work. Of course most of the time when I'm there I'm writing poems and stories in my head anyways. I've gotten quite good at putting my body on auto-pilot while my brain is in a completely different world. Most of these stories are too weird to show anyone. Today I was on a forest planet fighting giant bugs with my trusty and very cute female sidekick Cal-5. Yesterday I was on a deserted island that turned out to be haunted and escaped just as the ghouls started to come out of the woods and swarm the beach. Do other people do this? Am I just that strange and immature? I hope I'm not the only one!

This week has been very very long already and work has sucked up much of my free time. Thus I most likely won't get to more Tales from the Crypt or any movies till Saturday when I can finally catch up on my sleep. It's bumming me out too, I hate work!

Upcoming projects: Try to live-blog a movie, that is write down my thoughts as the movie is going on and then post them here.
Odd albums, weird music that not much has been written about yet.
Some actual stories pulled from the head of yours truly.
And finally, more pictures since I keep forgetting to include those.
To make up for it here's a picture of Paquita from Dead Alive:

Isn't she cute? She's even cute at the end of the movie when she's covered from head to toe in blood and gore.
Sigh, quite the rambling post. Tune in tomorrow when I describe the contents of my laundry basket.

Naughty Rhymes for Naughty Children

I got so bored at work today that I regressed back to grade school. I pretended the stapler and the stapler puller on my desk were dinosaurs locked in a fight to the death (the stapler won), I started making spit balls to shoot at co-workers, and I had this strange desire for non-alcoholic juice and crackers. Oh, and I wrote these poems.

Teacher teacher is a troll
Her breath smells like a toilet bowl
Put a tack upon her chair
And watch her wet her underwear!

Daddy Daddy Bought new shoes
I gave them to the dog to chew
Daddy got so mad he spit
And took poor puppy to the vet
Vetty's scissors went snip snip snip
And cut off our poor doggy's...tail.

Timmy Timmy did a dance
Fell on the ground and pooped his pants
Asked the teacher for new clothes
And teacher punched him in the nose!

I snapped out of my temporary regression when I got yelled at for trying to take a nap on the floor at noon. Too bad, I wanted to go around pulling girl's hair to see if they liked me. I think that lands you in jail if you're an adult though...

Tales from the Crypt Season 2 Part 2

Shoot, this disc got lost in the mail and it took forever for a replacement to get here. Time for more ghoulish tales of bloody revenge!

Episode 7: The Sacrifice
An insurance salesman kills one of his clients so he can have the guys wife. Unfortunately his boss, who used to be romantically involved with the girl, saw everything, and has pictures to prove it. Of course not everything is as it seems...
This is one of those episodes where they decided to see just how much the show could get away with, right off the bat The Cryptkeeper makes a bestiality joke! This episode is all about sex, sex, and dirty words, it even has a porno jazz score!
Not a big fan of this one, the bad people don't really get what they deserve in the end, which is kind of odd for this show, and its all a bit too sleazy to be much fun. I give it a D.
Favorite line: "LA is the pussy, money, and bullshit capital of the world!" Sadly, thats probably true.

Episode 8: For Cryin' Out Loud
A rock promoter decides to run away with a bunch of money he scammed from a benefit concert. He's got a few problems though, his banker knows what he did and wants a cut and theres an annoying voice in his head won't shut up!
This being a rock episode there had to be a musical guest star and it turns out to be the grandfather of punk, Iggy Pop! There's also rock and roll comedian Sam Kinison as the voice of the promoter's conscience and Katy Sagal as the banker. Here's something interesting: Kinison was originally supposed to play Al Bundy on Married with Children and actually guest starred on the show in a later season. Katy Sagal of course, played Al's wife Peg for the shows whole run. Eh, eh? Oh well, I guess I'm the only one that cares about stuff like that.
Great episode! I think I'd give it a B though, but it gets an A for Iggy slithering around on stage.

Episode 9: Four-Sided Triangle
We now move from a dirty rock club to a dirty farm where Patricia Arquette plays a runaway being held captive by a retarded farmer and his abusive bitch wife. One day the farmers (rejected) advances on the girl go to far and to shut her up so his wife doesn't find out what he's been up to, he hits the girl on the head with a bottle. She lives but is a bit light in the head and claims to love a scarecrow in the cornfield, one that wears a creepy clown mask. Then she starts visiting the thing in the middle of the night...
This is another really good episode, theres something about a dirty old farm out in the middle of nowhere that always seems to make for a great horror set piece. (See also The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). You can see the end coming pretty easily but its still pretty sweet. ("it's not real see, its made of straw!" Stab stab. "See, just straw!" Stab stab.)
Again, I'd give this one a B but it gets an A because I'm a guy and Arquette is really really hot. And Braless. ;)
Favorite line: "You know what I'd do if I caught you cheatin' on me? I'd do you like when you make a bull into a steer."

Episode 10: The Ventriloquist's Dummy
A boy's hero is a ventriloquist (Don Rickles!) and the night he gets an autograph after a show something bad happens and the club burns down. Rickles survives but his career is in ruins after his puppet hand is burned beyond usability (No putting his hand inside the puppet head anymore!). Cut forward several years and the boy, now grown up to be Bobcat Goldthwait!, goes to see his idol and get him to come to see his first ventrilo act. Of course its a horror story with a puppet so you know somethings up. I didn't really expect...what happened to happen though but it was pretty cool. I'm going to stick my neck out here and defend Goldthwait. I think he's a much better actor than he gets credit for and Shakes the Clown really wasn't that bad, just off-putingly odd. He's a bit over his head here though but Rickles sure looks like he's having fun. He doesn't call his dummy a hockey puck, that disappointed me a bit. A very strange over the top episode but not bad, I give it a B.

Episode 11: Judy, You're Not Yourself Today
Sigh, after a slew of good episodes there just had to be a crappy one. A moronic gun nut's wife is visited by a witch (the marble rye lady from Seinfeld) who tricks her into trading bodies. Carol Kane plays the wife and is very cute as always, but seems to always be trying to fake a British accent and it doesn't work. The guy who plays the husband seems to be trying to imitate Jim Carrey or Bruce Campbell but isn't very good at either. Bruce would have been awesome in this one, but since he's not here I give this forgettable episode a D.

Episode 12: Fitting Punishment
A boy's parents die in a car wreck and his only living relative is his mean undertaker uncle. He goes to live with the guy who puts him to work and we slowly learn that his methods of saving money are...well...not quite what the mortician's handbook recommends. The cheap bastard doesn't even use embalming fluid, he fills the corpses with water! The boy ends up costing him too much to keep, but theres an extra coffin he can put to good use...
I love the idea of a cheap undertaker getting what he deserves, and the uncle in this story is so mean that the end is very satisfying. I guess the guy never read Lovecraft, cutting the legs off of corpses to save money is a very bad idea! With Moses Gunn as an evil version of Fred Sanford this gets an A. One of the best of Season 2!

Actual disc review:
This time they didn't even bother to put the show's intro on the disc, what do they have against it? The menu's are the same as the first disc and the only extra is a short promotional piece for a Tales from the Crypt radio show that aired live in 2000. There's really no point to watching this unless you're a huge Tim Curry fan, and I'm not, unless he's wearing stockings and heels and inviting Susan Sarandon up to the lab, thus this was pointless to me. If there's a way to actually hear the show, the new stiffer cryptkeeper puppet sure didn't say. More extras on disc three though, hopefully they'll be decent.

I've got the last disc of season two lined up and hope to get to it sometime this week. Thanks to my 5 readers for their support!

The Last Wave (1977)

Who are you?
Strange weather we're having isn't it?
What do you think it means?
Who are you?
Are you the snake?
Strange rain yesterday wasn't it?
Came down black as as oil...
Are you the fish?
Who are you?
And that hail...
What do you think it means?
I saw you last night in a dream
Are you a man?
Standing outside my door,
Those symbols...
What did he die for?
What did he see?
Who are you?
When I was a child I had strange dreams...
What do you think it means?
Who are you?
Who...are...you?

Cool Comix!

Writing is one of the few things I'm actually sort of good at. I don't have a smidgen of illustrative talent, I suck at most sports other than running (which I've always loved to do), other than the trumpet in high school musicality has eluded me, and I'm not good at talking to girls. The fact that I can't draw is probably the most frustrating thing but I think it helps me appreciate really good art when I see it. Ever since I was a little kid I've loved cartoons and comics. The Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes were my favorite comics when I could get my hands on them and probably helped to shape a good deal of my world view. I got kind of gipped on TV cartoons though. Saturday morning was already lying in its bed, wheezing and waiting to be put out of its misery by the time I was of cartoon watching age. Plus we were poor and didn't have cable so I only had three channels to pick from. Hear that you young whipper snapper kids, three channels! I'll leave my ruminations on how I finally got to see Ren and Stimpy and that glorious day when we finally did get basic cable for another post. All I really wanted to do was make a list of my favorite webcomics.
With the newspapers endlessly running bland crap for old people to chuckle over their morning coffee (with the possible exception of Get Fuzzy) where does a comics fan go who isn't the slightest bit amused at Marmaduke leaving a bone on his master's chair or that hideous mutated blob called Ziggy? Why the web of course! The problem with comics on the Internet is the same thing wrong with much of the web, its blessing and its curse is that almost anyone can create something and post it up. For every good well drawn one you find theres 50 stick figure comics about video games. Here's some wheat among the chaff that I've managed to find:

Dumm Comics!
Talented funny people doing awesome funny comics, a must! I really can't say enough good about this site, I love it to death!

Cul De Sac
Most newspaper comics suck, but this one is very very good. I only read it on the web though, so I count it as a webcomic.


Kate Beaton
Her style is a bit crude but I get really get a kick out of her stuff, plus she lives in Canada, how aboot that?

Subnormality
If you're a fan of Nickleback, do not read this site, the Sphinx will eat you. Updates every Monday, if the author finishes on time.

The Perry Bible Fellowship
Unfortunately not updating anymore, but you can still browse the archives. PBF is like an extreme version of The Far Side. If that turns you off, then for the sake of your constitution, please proceed with caution.

Daisy Owl
A sweet and funny comic about two kids being raised by an owl and a bear. Start with the archive and read forward.

Those are the ones that I like enough to check regularly. Any suggestions for good stuff that I'm missing?