Girl in a Cage

Halloween Recommendations

A lot of people say to me, Brendan, they say, you watch, read, and listen to a lot of horror-related material.  What can you recommend for me to enjoy on the High Holiday of Horror?

Actually, nobody says that, but if they did, here's what I'd say:

Music-wise, I'd recommend a steady diet of the Misfits and Roky Erickson.  The Misfits sound like The Ramones with a horror movie fixation, if they were recorded with a Radio Shack cassette recorder inside of a dumpster.  Great stuff.  Roky Erickson I actually find more disturbing--I recommend the album The Evil One, also known as I Think of Demons, but any of the greatest hits albums or anthologies will probably do just as well.  "Creature With the Atom Brain" is far scarier than the movie it's based on, and "Bloody Hammer" is so disturbing that I can't really listen to it very often.

Movies:

Halloween (original)-- quite possibly a perfect movie. Relentless and genuinely creepy, and, given the mountains of crap it inspired, surprisingly light on the gore.

Fearless Vampire Killers--a horror comedy that's both funny and scary, and one of the only vampire movies that is neither third-person shooter video game (See From Dusk Till Dawn, or better yet, don't) nor some kind of tragic romance thingy.

Night of the Living Dead--(original)--It's actually kind of like No Exit with zombies. 

Dawn of the Dead (original)--Gory, funny, works as a horror movie and a satire.

Rosemary's Baby--Paranoia, conspiracies, Satanists, and the biggest horror of all is how completely someone you love can betray you.

The Thing (remake)-- Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, and some more paranoia.  How can you fight an enemy that can assume any shape?

Alien--Haunted House in space, complete with monster that's essentially a phallus with teeth.

Shaun of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead--Two more great horror comedies, both featuring zombies.

The Blair Witch Project--people either love this one or hate it.  Count me in the former camp.

Cat People--shape shifting, fear of female sexuality, and a really creepy pool scene.  (Don't bother with the horrible remake; I suffered through it so you don't have to).

Evil Dead 2--I've written about this at length before; another movie I love beyond reason.

Dead Alive--(aka Brain Dead outside the US) Peter Jackson's tale of the havoc a Sumatran rat monkey wreaks on the life of a mama's boy who just might get that beautiful girl who works at the grocery store, after he kills a bunch of zombies with a lawnmower and a blender.

Well, there are more, but that oughta keep  you busy for a day or so...

I'd Be a Shoo-In

Just learned that these awards were announced last night. At first I thought they were the "Whining Writers Awards" rather than the "Whiting Writers Awards," and I thought, "man, they give 50k to whining writers? I should totally win that!" 

I suppose there would be more competition for the Whining Writers Awards, but still...

I Finally Figured Out What Bugs Me About Bob Seger

While I'll be the first to admit to a certain fondness for a couple of Bob Seger songs ("Feel Like a Number" and "Katmandu"), Bob's always been my least favorite of those all-American rocker guys. This is a category I made up--the kind of regular rock and roll guys who are distinctly American in outlook and subject matter and who are heavily influenced by Dylan.  Well, maybe Bob Seger isn't heavily influenced by Dylan, but Springsteen, Mellencamp, and Petty certainly are. 

Anyway, so Seger.  I've long hated "Old Time Rock and Roll," more because it's the anthem of classic rock fascists than because it makes me think of Tom Cruise in his underwear, though, of course, that too, and "Turn The Page" is the archetype of the "it's so hard to be famous" song that I hate.

But other than that, what's not to like?  Why does the bulk of his work bug me in a way that the oevres of Messrs. Springsteen, Mellencamp, and Petty do not?  Well, here's what I figured out while biking home today (why was I thinking about Bob Seger while biking?  Because for the bulk of the commute I was riding against the wind.):  Bob Seger has a maudlin streak a mile wide.

I suspect this may be part of the secret to his enduring popularity.  There's a sappy sentimentality in songs like "We've got Tonight" or "Down on Main Street" or "Roll Me Away" or "Against the Wind" or even "Night Moves"-- a kind of "tough, motorcycle-ridin' guy who gets a little weepy after a pitcher of Stroh's" sensibility that just doesn't really speak to me at all.

And that, in case you were wondering, is what I don't like about Bob Seger.

What Else I'm Reading

If you check me out on goodreads, you'll find that I'm currently reading The Shadow Thieves.  Which I am.  And it's really good so far.

But I'm also reading a bunch of other stuff.  And as much as  I bluster about how I'm not ashamed to read comics, it seems to me that comics now are kind of like porn was in the pre-internet era:  you have to buy it at a special store where you'll see mostly men, and if you read it in public, people will look at you like you're a freak.

A small step:  I had a long lunch today (not long enough as it turned out, as the afternoon was brutal), so I went and bought comics and then sat and had coffee and a sandwich while I read.  I tried to be unashamed, but I did notice that the professionals who frequent this particular lunch spot were giving me a very wide berth. 

Actually, I took the commuter rail to a friend's house on Friday, and I was also reading comics there.  And nobody tried to sit next to me on a commuter train out of South Station on a Friday night.  Make of that what you will.  (I went to the gym and showered at lunch, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't the smell.)

Anyway, here's what I've been reading:

Hack/Slash.   A girl whose mom was a slasher who goes around with a mysterious big galoot killing other slashers. Gory and funny--the "Girls Gone Dead" episode set during spring break in Florida is especially awesome. Just bought a new issue today.  Shame factor:  the heroine is drawn pretty sexy, and I felt kinda like a loser reading it in front of people.  Enjoyment factor:  Very high.

Addendum:  Whilst searching for the Hack/Slash image, I discovered that Hack/Slash did a crossover event with porn site Suicide Girls.  Apparently there's even a page where members can look at naked drawings of this imaginary woman.  This ups the shame factor considerably.

Empowered:  an English original manga (I'll bet the manga purists frown, but the hell with that reading backwards shit, I say) about a hapless superheroine whose super suit is always shredding, causing her to lose her powers and get tied up.  Shame factor:  Nearly off the charts. Apparently this started life as some sort of collection of babe-in-bondage cartoons.  Absolutely can't be read in public.Enjoyment factor:  high.

Greatest Hits:  Back in the 60's, a fab quartet of British superheroes band together and become a worldwide phenomenon.  Meanwhile, in the present, one of their sons attempts to make a documentary about them. Shame factor:  Medium.  I mean, okay, it's a superhero comic, but it features very little cartoon nudity. Enjoyment factor: very high.  Seems like there are actually some pretty interesting themes creeping in after 2 issues.

The Helm:  a loser finds a talking helmet that makes him some kind of chosen one who has to fight evil, or something.  The helmet believes the loser is unworthy and reviles him consistently with archaic insults.  The first two issues were huge fun, though the third issue focuses more on girlfriend problems, which are less fun than the helmet/hero conflict.  Also, the insults have slowed down a bit.  Shame factor:  Medium, which is about as low as you can get, comics-wise.  Enjoyment factor:  Off the charts for issues 1 and 2; medium for issue 3.

Guilty of Being White

I've suffered through a lot of "Diversity training" in my day, the upshot of which is always "whitey is bad."  Perhaps there's a good way to do such training, but I've only ever seen ham-handed efforts to make white men feel guilty.  (draw your own conclusions from the fact that these trainings are most assiduously promoted by white women.)

I've stubbornly resisted feeling ashamed of myself for things I can't help; I've got plenty of stuff to be ashamed of that I've actually done--why the hell should I be ashamed of things that were done by people with my skin tone?  I know, I know, the only moral thing for a straight white man to do is to hate himself, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

Or, I should say, I never could until today, when I got into the car and turned on the radio.  "Wussy acoustic songs for the hungover" was playing, and I heard this, a cover of Outkast's "Hey Ya" by a band called Obadiah Parker.

I have never been so ashamed to be white in my entire life.  Seriously, I think this may be the worst thing I have ever heard, and it pretty much reinforces every negative stereoptype about white people.  Lameness this severe should be criminalized. 

The song is actually two years old.  O, that I could return to that edenic, prelapsarian time when I knew nothing of this horrible cover, when I could look at my own skin without wanting to do myself physical harm simply because I share a melanin deficiency with these people. 

Not Wao'd

I bought Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on impulse.  I sort of wanted to buy the Orcs book, but then I saw this and thought, well, you know, it's a Pulitzer Prize winner and all, I suppose I should soak up a little quality literature.  Plus it was supposed to be so thick with Spanish phrases, comic book references, and literary allusions that you'd need to be a Spanish-speaking English major and comic book geek to really get it.  Well, you know what Meatloaf said about two out of three, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. 

My normal contrarian pose demands that I hate stuff that's been praised to the heavens, and I have to confess that literary fiction is my least favorite kind of genre fiction.  (Just as the conventions of high fantasy--the dorky names chief among them--bug me, so the conventions of the literary novel--there always has to be a character who's a writer, the story can't move too quickly if at all, and it's best if there are puzzling jumps in narrators and time frames--irritate me.)

So I went into this hoping to get some pleasure out of hating it.  And I have to say, it denied me that pleasure. For the first half of the book, I really loved it.  I learned a ton about the Dominican Republic, I liked how the various stories of the different family members all echoed through each other, and I really enjoyed the narrative voice. 

Something happened about 2/3 of the way through, though.  The book suddenly became a chore, and I had to drag myself to the end, which is sort of ambiguous and unsatisfying (ah, the worst convention of the literary fiction genre!).  And that voice--sort of colloquial, thick with references to comic books and science fiction and fantasy, not to mention the odd tip o' the pin to Proust or whatever--that was so captivating at first ended up getting annoying. 

Okay, here's the spoiler paragraph where I complain about the ending.  Turn back now, etc.  Okay, so the title tells us Oscar is going to die, so that much wasn't a surprise, but his return to the DR after his beating makes no sense at all, his determination and his unnamed discovery--in the end it just left me feeling sort of empty and unsatisfied.  All that family history, all that stuff was leading to this?  If he'd died in the beating, his death would have been tragic, but his dying after he stubbornly flew back to get killed was just dumb, and it made me wonder what all of this was supposed to mean.  I mean, you give me the guy's sister's story, and his mother's story, and his grandfather's story, and it all culminates in this--he was too dumb to live, so he died, the end.  Feh.

Having said that, then, the voice seems to be the whole point of the book, and I'm less impressed with stuff like that when it's an end to itself and not serving the story. 

So, I dunno.  I loved it, then liked it, then tolerated it, and finally was annoyed by it. 

Poop is Funny

Well, it appears that two of my favorite TV comedies have died. Halfway Home, which was the funniest show on Comedy  Central, appears not to be returning, while The Sarah Silverman Program, which I liked less the more I watched it, lives on.

Also dead is the CW's Aliens in America, which managed to be both very funny and very sweet (no easy feat!).  Apparently a talented cast and smart scripts were not enough.  Too bad.

This leaves only one comedy I love currently on tv. Fortunately, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia remains just as vile and hilarious as ever.  I loved the first episode of the season, "Mac and Dennis are Manhunters," but then I was a little nervous that the rest of the season wouldn't reach that high level.  I needn't have worried. Last week's episode, "Who Pooped the Bed", was one of the funniest things I've ever seen on TV, right up there with the S.P.E.W.Y. episode of "Get a Life."  I suppose you can tell from the title whether it's your kind of thing.  As for me, I agree with Danny DeVito:  "Poop is Funny!"

Exile in Tromaville

I was watching The Toxic Avenger on G4 last night (because I hate to miss any visit to Tromaville.  I think Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD is my favorite, but I like Tromeo and Juliet a lot too.  I guess Tromeo and Juliet wins by a hair, or rather a bunch of scraggly long hairs, as it's narrated by Lemmy, and anything with Lemmy in it gets extra points in my book.). 

Now, G4 being a basic cable station (devoted to video games, which strikes me as kinda weird, but whatever), I figured I'd be watching a rather severely edited version of this movie.  (why?  Didn't I pay to bring this channel into my home?)

I know I wrote about this before in regards to something I was watching on Chiller, but the censorship on this movie was just bizarre.  Every "shit" and "fuck" was cut, and of course the bare breasts that are a hallmark of any Troma production were absent.  Not noticeably cut, interestingly, was the gore. So, for example, we get the bad guys running over a 12-year-old kid on a bike, then backing up to crush his head like a melon.  (well, looking at the shot, I'm pretty sure the kid's head was a melon, but you know what I mean.)  We get Toxie gouging a guy in the eyes and then pulling the eyeballs out on the end of a finger.

What the hell is wrong with us?  I mean, really.  I enjoy the gore and I'm glad it wasn't cut, but it's just kind of surreal to watch people crush a melon that is supposed to be a kid's head and then have the curse words they say bleeped out. 

Don't get me wrong--I'm not saying we should have nudity and swearing but no violence--I'm just saying we should have it all!

Godzilla Vs Megaguirus!

So I thought I would share my impressions of Godzilla Vs. Megaguirus as I watch.

The big problem: how can you help but love the big galoot?

And how do you get the job of being the guy in the rubber Godzilla suit? I'd pay them for the privilege.

I kinda want one of the jackets that the elite anti-Godzilla unit wears. Even if it does say "G-Graspers".

I'm guessing they'll get Godzilla with the portable black hole and then have to bring him back to fight megaguirus.

Boring part: you're a woman! Why are you fighting Godzilla?

Monsters emerging from the wormhole! Blowback from the anti-Godzilla black hole weapon!

Safety tip: never bring home a mysterious egg from another dimension. That never ends well.

Nascent romance between military woman and slacker scientist.

And now my daughter wants the TV. I fear Zak and Cody are in my future. I wish Godzilla could guest star...

My McCain Speech

So there I am, minding my own business, when my cell phone rings.  The number is blocked, but I decide to pick it up anyway.
"Hello?"
"Brendan?  Brendan Halpin?" 
"Yes.  Who's this?"
"Brendan, this is John McCain."
"Senator," I responded cooly.
"Brendan, I'm gonna give you some straight talk."
"Oh good.  I do so enjoy your straight talk."
"Here's the deal.  I'm getting killed at the polls, the economy's in the crapper, and let's face it, war hero or not, nobody looks to some old guy to fix the mess that a bunch of old guys, including himself, mind you--that's some straight talk, by the way--made.  I need a game changer.  Obviously all the Palin stunt did was bring Tina Fey back to SNL.  She's great by the way, and smokin' hot.  If she had beer heiress money, I'd ditch my wife for her in a heartbeat.  Just some straight talk for you."
"Got it.  But why are you calling me? I mean, you do understand I'll be voting for your opponent in November."
"Hell, you and everybody else not flying the stars and bars from the back of their pickup with the decal of the little kid peeing on a truck logo.  Sorry--more straight talk.  I need your writing skills, see.  I need you to write me a speech.  One speech.  I'm talking about a whole lotta money, not to mention a week in a really nice place in Cabo St. Lucas which is owned by one of my supporters."
"Does he drive a pickup with the stars and bars and a decal of a peeing kid?"
"Nah, but he might as well.  The sonofabitch is Jethro Bodine with money.  Anyway, here's what I'm prepared to pay."  The senator names a figure.  It is a large figure indeed.
"Senator, I have my principles.  I have to be able to look myself in the mirror." The senator doubles his first offer.  "Senator, I am your whore.  I'll have your speech ready in the morning."
Well, the Senator didn't like the speech, but fortunately I negotiated a quite substantial kill fee.  John McCain will never deliver this speech, but I really think he should.

"My fellow Americans.  We stand on the verge of the most important election in decades.  With only a month to go, I'm trailing in the polls, and my advisors have told me now is the time to go negative, to get vicious, to do whatever it takes to win.

My friends, I am here to denounce that strategy.  I denounced underhanded smears when they were used against me, and I denounce them now. 

My opponent is an honorable man.  We differ on nearly every issue, but the man is a loyal American, a family man, and someone who wants the best for this country.

If you want to elect me because you agree with my positions on the issues, I want your vote.  If you want to vote for me because of the color of my skin or because you've been gulled into believing that my opponent is some sort of terrorist, do me a favor and stay home on election day.  I don't want to win that way.  The time for that kind of politics is over.  It's time for us to come together as a country, and that's never going to happen if we continue questioning the patriotism of everyone who doesn't agree with us.  I believe my plans for the economy and my approach to foreign policy are superior to my opponent's.  If you agree with me, good for you, but for God's sake, if you disagree with me, you're not exactly Bin Laden's bitch.  If you disagree with me, I want to convince you, which I can't do if I've demonized you.

The other day when Governor Palin mentioned my opponent's name, someone in the crowd shouted out, "Kill him." Now, Governor Palin ignored this chowderhead, because that's a fine thing to do when you encounter an idiot, but given the fuss that's been made about this, I want to be clear:  assasination is not the way we do politics in this country.  If you want to live in a country where the bullet overrules the ballot, there are hundreds in the world for you to choose from.  My advice to you is to pack a bag and get the hell out of the United States. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I built my reputation on straight talk.  To talk straight right now, I lost my way on the way to the White House. Maybe it started when I failed to stand up against torture practiced by my own government, a practice that should make every loyal American burn with shame.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I was tortured, and the thought of those acts being performed in my name makes me sick to my very core.

Or myabe I lost my way when I started cozying up to the lunatic fringe of my party.  Yes, my party has a lunatic fringe, just like my opponent's does. In my party, the lunatic fringe is dominated by preachers who think it's their job to separate the sheep from the goats in this country.  (That's in scripture, by the way. You could look it up.)  Perhaps they've forgotten that separating the sheep from the goats is God's job.

I lost my way, my friends, but now I am found.  I want to lead a United States that is truly united, a United States whose people come together to hammer out solutions to the serious problems facing us, not a United states where we yell at each other all the time.  Hell, if I want that, I'll invite my kids over for dinner. 

 It's time for America to come together, and I won't be a party to tearing it apart.  Thank you, and God Bless America."

It's a hell of a speech.  Too bad McCain doesn't want it.  Too bad also that I made up the part about him asking for it and paying handsomely for it.