ASK BAINE: I have a den of junkies next door.

This is a new feature we're including on ODD BLATHERINGS where we ask Vincent Angus Baine to answer some of the more...uh... "esoteric" questions that we get asked. We'll see how long we can feature it before we get sued.
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By Vince Baine

You come home from work and there's a bunch of scabby faced people you've never seen before shuffling into the neighbors house like dopey zombies to do a handful of crappy drugs. The stereo is going at all hours next door to your bedroom window. The neighbors have been on another meth bender and have been up for two days straight arguing about who stole who's fix. You walk to your car in the morning and the smell of junkie piss on the side of the house stinks the joint up. You get to your car and your antenna, hub caps or anything else not bolted to the ground are missing.

Having a neighbor who's running a junkie flop house can be a huge drag.

Yeah, sure, it's sad when people have drug problems and all that... but you know what? Fuck 'em! You can cry me a river for the fact that they're victims too or some such namby-pamby bullshit, but now they're fuckin' with your house or apartment that you pay a fuck load of money for in rent or mortgage and not to mention the hard earned shit that you bust your ass to have that these shitheads will snake out from underneath you to sell for drugs. A serious junkie problem can really destroys your neighborhood like cancer from either the user themselves or the piles of human debris that float through now and then looking for free goods. There's nothing like coming home from a hard day of work and seeing that your plants have been stolen by some fuck up who needs a fix. Or waking up in the middle of the night as some scrawny weasel's trying to sneak through a window and into your house to rip you off (What you do at that point will be discussed in the next chapter. Don't miss it.)

Yeah, you can talk to the druggie in question, and that will get you only an addicts lies ("Never Trust a Junkie." Ministry: Just One Fix) so don't waste your time. You could just go over with a bat and break the place apart and bust of couple of the heads of some of those pukes, but yeah, the cops aren't cool with that and the rats will just scurry back and steal your shit while you're in the hoosegow doing time for assault. I know... gay. The system just doesn't seem to work out for the little guy.

Outside of brutalizing someone with a bat what's a Joe to do?

Buck up young fella. Here are some ideas that you can try!

MAKE IT THE LANDLORDS PROBLEM:
Is the asshole in question in your apartment complex? One thing you can do if so is tell your landlord or Apartment Manager about it. If they're not in your complex then tell their Manager about it. Tell them a couple of times and make a log of when you did, either with email or a certified letter. Now you've created a paper trail that shows that you've warned and warned them about the drug problem next door. Be sure to inform them that if anything happens to any of your property you are going to hold them  personally responsible from here on out due to their inaction. It's core, I know... but if it's at that point, then it's at that point. The Apartment Manager knows what's going on.

Super dick move: After warning the Manager, take some of your shit and make it look like it was stolen then really put it to the Manager. Besides, who would believe what a junkie says? They'd probably just kick the trash to the curb.

MAKE IT THE DRUGGIES PROBLEM:
Another thing you can do is get a camera and a heavy and brutal household beat-up devise like a bat or a crowbar and walk out and take snapshots of license plates of cars that show up that you know are the visitors to the house who is using it as a dive. Druggies are cowards so they'll just bail rather then deal with the law and angry neighbors. If they're combative, then you have the blunt instrument. Under no circumstances are you to provoke a fight. If asked about what you're doing be to the point. "There's a lot of drug use at that house and I'm just keeping track of peoples comings and goings. If you're not doing anything bad then you've got nothing to fear." if they persist. "I'm now holding you personally responsible asshole for any theft or other problems in this neighborhood. It just takes one phone call to get your info..." and leave. Odds are they will too cause as I said, junkies are cowards...

MAKE IT EVERYONE'S PROBLEM:
The problem with the police is they're not just going to go smashing into a house on the off chance it's an illicit drug den full of ravenous meth fiends. This aint China Pal.  You can call the city's police departments crack tip line but most times they'll say there's nothing they can do but they'll send units by now and then to check it out. But you're a proactive cuss aint ya and you want this dealt with now. How do you get the cops really interested? We'll get to that. First thing you can do is make and post up flyers around the neighborhood with the words DRUG HOUSE at the top with the address. For extra "zing" take a picture of the house in question and put that on the flyer. Put at the bottom of the poster a number set delineating how many you've put up around the neighborhood. For example 3 of 12, 4 of 9, etc. You don't have to make all twelve, just two or three should work.

Super dick move: Here's what you can add to get under the skin of the local law enforcement in a "no holds barred" kinda way. Put on the poster DON'T WORRY, THE COPS DON'T CARE! Ohhhhhhh.... Nothing... and I repeat NOTHING pisses off a cop more then being told that they don't care about their community.

The junkies will find the posters or it will come to their attention in other ways. Do not tell anyone you did this. Not a soul. If it gets out you did this then you're gonna be the object of bullshit revenge tactics and the last thing you want to do is tangle with a bunch of strung out losers.

It will bring TOTAL attention to the house from everyone around the neighborhood. Everyone will now keep an eye on The DRUG HOUSE and the junkies probably will see the place as high risk. The cops will come by much more often and probably even check inside. You've now elevated your problem to be everyones problem.

You just want them gone. And with a little balls and a little effort you can get rid of 'em.


NOTE: Hey, what you do with this info is your business. Don't hold me responsible if you try anything I say and it goes south badly. That's your own damn fault.


VINCE BAINE is currently a private eye in Pasadena, Ca. He's served in the L.A.P.D. for 4 years but since had to resign. He served the Persian Gulf '90 as a Navy SEAL. You can find the album from his hardcore punk band "Wreckingball" on Amazon if it's still in print.

BAINE and all likenesses are COPYRIGHT © 2010 D.W. Frydendall.All Rights Reserved.

The Human Torando will kick your ass.

 George Stiehl and I were sitting in Wok n’ Roll Friday night, eating sushi and drinking beer and unfiltered sake. We were having a great time getting drunk and checking out the groups of ladies who were out showing off their wears. After we left the restaurant we got a bottle of bourbon. I was buzzing with excitement. I had finally, at long last, got a copy of Rudy Ray Moore’s magnum opus “The Human Tornado”.

He will own you.

For those of you who don’t know who Rudy Ray Moore is, he’s a comedian who gained stardom with his first record “Eat Out More Often”. This allowed him to gain enough funds to make his first film “Dolemite”. This film had everything for greatness…violence, sex, dancing, and comedy. Needless to say it became a success. What more can you say about a movie with lines like “You insecure-born, rat soup eating, jock-jawed, motherfucker!” other then greatness is bound to ensue.

Moore made “The Human Tornado”, the sequel to “Dolemite” in 1976. According to Moore this film is his favorite movie. One can see why. The film opens with a party at Dolemite’s mansion. While his friends are having a good time (a young Ernie Hudson is in the film as one of Dolemite’s friends), Dolemite is screwing some white chick in his room. Well, in Dolemite’s world, if there’s a group of brothas and sistas having a good time, some crazy-ass, racist sheriffs going to show up and rain on the parade. But are you ready for this? The aforementioned white chick is the sheriff’s wife! “He made me do it!” she cries, in which Dolemite replies “Bitch, are you for real?” Insert shootout here. Dolemite is now on the run.

The film goes into overdrive from there. There are some scenes that make you both laugh your ass off and scratch your head. When he has sex with the villain’s wife, he literally destroys the room with his “sexational” abilities. He is after all the Human Tornada’! The fight scenes offer sped-up footage, and over dubbing that doesn’t sync to the footage. Moore’s main martial art form consists of him engaging the enemy while sporadically shaking his head back and forth, making a sound similar to when you get into a really cold bath tub (see the sample to the left).

Do your soul a favor and see this film. I watched this film 4 times in two days. Everyone who watched it wants to see the rest of his films. There is a power with this film that takes you on a magical ride into film-watching ecstasy. Scorsese? Spielberg? They can lick Rudy Ray Moore’s balls. My new goal is to see him live. Then I can die happy.

NOTE: I wrote this back in 2004... unfortunately Rudy Ray Moore died in October of 2008. I think we should all have 10 days of silence in remembrance of this great man.

WHY MAKING WEBSITES IS THE LAMEST JOB…EVER.

I've been making websites since 1995 and have quite a number of sites under my belt. I've worked on everything from corporate sites to artsy websites to cheap sites. I even made a porn site or two (Everyone who does sites has made a porn site. It's just the way things are on the web space), so I know a bit about the cause and function of web site building. So in knowing that, I'd like to say to all aspiring web developers…

Making websites is the lamest, most dead-end job ever!

The greatest single day of my creative life was retiring from the web business with MADCREATOR.COM being the last (and greatest) site I made. People would tell me “"But Darren! You're so good at it!"” I say thee “Phooey!” I'm outlining the reasons why web site creation and maintenance, in a word…sucks.

SUCKS.

On the echelon of the things that sucks about doing sites a bit is dealing with the client. The client never understands the technology that goes into website construction. Thus the changes come at a rapid pace. “"Oh, it's easy to fix this or that"” or “"But you LIKE doing websites" are two things that I heard all of the time. No no no! All dumb statements! And they make no attempt to understand the technology too boot! Most of the clients I had for site just became helpless babies who NEED you to help them out. Usually these are the mom and pop sites. I made websites for cash not for creative reward! Another thing that happens all of the time is when you visit a “possible”client, the client asks you a series of questions. There is always some Jackass who sits there and listens to how you do things. Then you never hear from the “possible” client. It turns out Jackass tells the boss that they have a nephew in school who can do the site much cheaper. Thus they take all of your ideas and funnel them to some puke with a copy of Dreamweaver, making a dinky website for 100 bucks with broken links and shoddy design. Also, payment for website deals is ALWAYS on the backburner. It's like the client can't feel or hold the website in a tangible sense, therefore, it doesn't seem real to them. Oh, they usually will pay everyone else off but you, the web designer. I’'ve had “professional” clients (including some of those corporate web people found working under the radar at the big “"D"” and Vivendi/Universal) are totally unprofessional. They don't return your calls in time and then rush things through at the last moment! Gah! So, the number 3 thing that sucks about websites…CLIENTS.

SUCKIER.

The technology for making websites is hinky at best. What works on one computer and browser won't work with another computer and browser. I always use the analogy of programming a VCR with tennis rackets attached to your fingers. FLASH sometimes gets corrupted and will mess up your file. Then you need to restart from scratch. Or there is some font problem with FLASH, or there is some sound issue, or there is some programming bug that can't get fixed, or...you get it? The shit doesn't work when you need it to. Getting PHP or PURL to work on your server is a headache because the server doesn't have APACHE so hey have to fix that, and it STILL won't work. The number two reason why site building sucks…TECHNOLOGY.

SUCKIEST.

The world of web development is like the Wild West. You have the maverick gunslingers (Designers) and the greedy land barons (Companies). I can't tell you how many companies have dorked me over. They've either reneged on a deal, stole my ideas or designs or stole my original art. These people suck! I can give you a couple of names of people who screwed me over. Like, for example, in 2002. We designed a website for Clay Lacy, only to have them steal the design and have some place called Red Wave Studios RECREATE the site verbatim. Thus weaseling my company out of 3000.00. THREE GRAND! That's it! The biggest private jet charter company in the U.S. screws three hard working guys out of three grand. I hate them. They lick balls. There are so many other instances of this type of behavior in the web world. When the web became popular in the 90's every piece of crap Hollywood wannabe came out of the woodwork to get a piece of the action. I'm not saying all, but a large number of them are “"Hollywoodcentric"” shysters who will screw you to your face. “"It's all business" they say, but come on… and have some class you evil assholes. So the number one reason why websites suck…THIEVING TALENTLESS HACKS WHO RIP YOU OFF.

There you have it. Go on young soldier and make those sites. But heed my warning...you will get boffed in the long run.

New DJO for today.

This just makes me laugh... haha! See?

Hoorah! DJO - Fish Cream

Remember... NEVER fuck with a psychic!

If you know me or know anything about me you know that I’m not afraid to tell you a story about dickheads I’ve dealt with in my long, illustrious life and career and put it in clear, concise colorful phrasing. If it stinks odds are I’ll call it an asshole.

Recently I was reading a story online about how “The 9th Circuit refused to resurrect the claims of a parapsychologist and a publicist who accused NBC Universal of swiping their idea for a reality show featuring paranormal investigators. The alleged copycat show is "Ghost Hunters" on the Syfy Channel.” Here’s the link. The people in question who sued SyFy are in my opinion two complete con-men (or people) named “Dr.” Larry Montz and Daena Smoller. I had the misfortune of crossing paths with these human shaped hemorrhoids in the early “oughts” and let me tell you, they’re complete trolls and whenever they fail, my step gets lighter, I smile, a bell sounds, and a small little angel gets their wings.

 I had a company named Manifest Industries and we made websites (Weee!) and the other two guys who were in this company with me and our girlfriends at the time went on a “ghost hunt” at the Vogue theater in Los Angeles that Montz and Smoller ran. We spoke to them afterwards and we were going to make them a website. The scope of the details of our agreement are long gone, maybe it was to meet their entertainment agents, which is hilarious looking back. Boy were we dumb!

We made them their site. Time went on and one day our server went down so I get this super angry call from this Larry guy. He’s completely furious since he hasn’t been able to get through to the other guys I worked with (who at that time had gotten tired of his pushy bullshit and just didn’t want to deal with him anymore) and he thinks we’re messing around with him or just being dicks. I don’t know. He was just pissed.  He was a totally pushy prick who would boast about suing people at the drop of a hat. So, yay me, he calls me and he's yellinglike a fucking lunatic, calling us names and threatens me with perhaps the single most impossibly retarded thing I’ve ever heard in my life.

“Do you know who you’re fucking with? I’m a psychic and you never want to fuck with a psychic!”

I had to stifle a laugh. In my head I imagined a detailed and brutal scene of murder and carnage where I was cutting this fools head off with a dull handsaw. In this daydream I was covered in his blood, all the while smiling as he quits twitching. If this dolt’s a psychic, I thought, I might as well see if he gets this image. I was hoping, PRAYING that he was a psychic, and that the gore flooding my head detailing this bald fucks brutal demise at my hands would end his diatribe stone cold. Look in my head you psychic fuck bag, see who you should never fuck with...

He was such a complete fuck-head that we just gave him the site so they would just go away. We got some really angry emails from him and this Deana broad detailing about how we were assholes all and they eventually just went away.

Now and them I come across their names on the interwebs, usually it’s on skeptic websites like SWINDLE (quite apt), The Amazing Randi’s site, and finally this news page (I can't mention this enough) detailing their newest failure.

So here’s to the good “doctor” and his “publicist”. And remember... NEVER fuck with a psychic!

Hahahaha!!! Fucking douchebag...

My Gunfighter art turns up in the craziest of places...

About a thousand years ago I made an image that was used in a book called Ghost Towns that had an image of a Skeletal Gunfighter.

Since drawing this image I've made it into shirts and prints and other such stuff. It's one of the images that people seem to gravitate to and it's the most requested design for shirts as well as getting variations done graphically for law enforcement and fire-fighters.

I've also seen it in the strangest places. Places I would never expect.Poop your pants places...

For example, a friend of mine Bob emailed me and told me that he'd seen this piece in a movie about poker. So I checked it out and send it to my friend Bill Shafer who's got a hungry mad-on for Poker. He got back to me quickly.

"Do you play poker?" he asked me.
"No, not really? Does Intellivision count with the little yellow guy?"
"That guy wearing your shirt is my favorite player of all time Phil Laak! They call him the Unibomber! Holy shit!"
Cue Bills complete "shit-out"...

Phil Laak

This made me happy like some douchey schoolkid. I learned more about this guy and realized that the guy rules. A) His nickname is The Unibomber for jumping fucks sakes and anyone named after criminals is cool. Small fact: My nickname in high-school was John Capone Hitler Dahmer. B) He makes his living gambling. How much of an extreme bad ass can you be if that's your career? Kenny Rodgers don't have shit on this guy. Poolhustlers, gamblers and con-men...you need balls of titanium to be either. C) His partner who he's also going out with Jennifer Tilly. Jennifer Tilly from Bride of Fucking Chucky!
 

Phil Laak's Girlfriend Jennifer Tilly. She...uh...plays poker too...

I'm honored to have this gentleman be in a picture, on the web, wearing a design I did.

And then...

I had another friend of mine named Johnny call me up during my 21 Jump Street re-runs (Booker's a good cop damnit!) and tell me that he saw my gunfighter on a show on the National Geographic Channel. Cool, I thought... maybe some Ugandan Tribesman has it on a shirt or something.

Nope... it was from a show called "American Gangs" and it was a tattoo on some guy in a Texas Prison who's in the Aryan Nation.

Some guy in a Texas Prison. This is his arm. It's probably committed some kinda crime.

And I gotta tell you, I got kind of a kick out of this too. Granted the guys in prison and he's all about the White Power and all of that kind of goofy shit. But to me it was kind of a badge that there are some crazy, scary, and psychotic motherfuckers out there who like my art and are willing to get it blasted into their skin who would probably back me up in a bar fight. 

And isn't that why we get into doing art in the first place?

Ritardo and Happy in Paraguay

I was recently watching a batch of videos from Day Job Orchistra on Youtube and after the first thirty minutes I realized that I would like to have some kind of neurological disorder that would allow me to experience the world in this way. Please enjoy!

Review for Season 1 of Masters of Horror

Hey you horror nuts, I just got done watching all of the aired Masters Of Horror T.V. series on Showtime. Last year Spooky Dan, Mr. Disgusting and I were all chomping at the bit thrilling to see what Mick Garris and friends had up their collective sleeves while we were throwing down booze at the Fango con. Which Director would deliver the gory goods? Which one would serve up a whopping plate of stinky ass? Will there be tits? What will Showtime allow?
Well ya freaks...here's my two cents worth broken down into each episode. If you don't agree with me that's fine, email Spooky Dan and tell him what you think. If you're looking for thesis material, sorry, no intelligence here folks. And I'll probably get my ass roasted on the bulletin boards by "HOBBIT_HORROR_DUDE0021" and "JADED_HORROR_GEEK" but I don't care.
 
INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD: Directed by Don Coscarelli
A pretty good episode. Neither great nor assy. The story was written by Joe Lansdale, an amazing writer who writes very graphic horror. The story deals with a hot chick (Bree Embry) being terrorized by a guy named Moonface who likes like a bald albino with metal teeth and vampire makeup from any ol' episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He has this fun hobby of drilling peoples eyes out and making them into scarecrows, which equals family fun viewing! The thing I liked about this episode is how the main heroine turns out to be one hulluva badass. It was a blast to see Ethan Embry who played Rusty in Vegas Vacation play a survivalist butt-humper.

DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE: Directed by Stuart Gordon
H.P. Lovecraft rules all. I've read all of his stuff. I don't care if he was a racist who wrote in really, really long prose. The shit he came up with in the 20's smoked. And any schmuck knows Stuart Gordon did Re-Animator, easily one of the most "holy shit they did not do that!" zombie movies ever. The story revolves around a college student who rents a shithole room in a spook house that glows trippy colors and manifests an evil Witchy Poo and her little human headed rat. Is it a dream? C'mon...you should know better by now. This episode has the Gordon/Lovecraft sensibilities intact. Trippy lighting, naked chicks, blood in the gallons and a fucked up ending. I also liked the rat guy...OK, I know a ton of people who hated it, but it's cheapness reminded me of the good ol' days of Full Moon Productions. And it's tons better then some overly animated C.G.I. creature.
 
DANCE OF THE DEAD: Directed by Tobe Hooper
Remember how I mentioned the term "assy"? Well, this episode just plain ate it in my not too humble opinion. The story takes place after the nuclear holocaust (funny...it looked like large clumps of ash falling from the sky that make you burn up) where dead girls are loaded up on a drug and "dance" (actually more like jerk spasmodically) on stage at The Doom Room while Robert Englund plays an MC who hams it the fuck up and out of the park. "Why do you hate this one, D?" you ask? Mainly the horrible editing technique where they have double, triple and sometimes quadruple exposures flopping around the screen at the same time coupled with shotgun editing that gives me a total migraine. The other thing that made this almost too much to watch was the fat black haired guy who tried to act like Jack Black only to be a completely annoying asswipe. I wanted to kill this bastard in EVERY frame of film he was in. There's the mom who's just way too shitty so you know bad shit'll befall her soon enough. I can see how this episode would have relevant social commentary, but I just couldn't get past these issues to notice.
 
JENIFER: Directed by Dario Argento
Dario Goddamn Argento! This episode was from Bruce Jones and Berni Wrightson's friggin' super-duper rock-your-ass-off comic. As a kid this comic scared the crap outta me, so when I saw that Dario was directing it I nearly peed my clown suit! Steven Weber plays a cop who rescues Jenifer, a mute chick with a rocking body and a face like a morlock that's mostly naked through the entire episode. As with the rest of this series shit goes haywire when Weber brings that kinky deaf chick home. This one has it all...two kids are eaten. Not off camera mind you...on screen graphically! In full empty stomach cavity glory! It has tons and tons of nudity and even has sodomy! Hooray!
 
CHOCOLATE: Directed by Mick Garris
Speaking of sodomy...I thought this show was called Masters of Horror? This episode was less Masters of Horror and more Twilight Zone. It's about Henry Thomas (Elll-eeeeot... from E.T.) who tests artificial food flavors for a living who starts having flashes of a strange woman's life. He sees, hears, smells, and even feels the woman's experiences, including...you guessed it...sex and murder! The best part of this episode is when Thomas is in bed with some new girlfriend and starts to have his outer body experience of the woman who's life he's been experiencing, only now she's bumpin' uglies with her rasta boyfriend and ol' Thomas starts to trip out and "do the motions", thus freaking out his new lady. Add to this odd scene his ex-wife showing up with kid in tow and you've got the makings for some spicy comedy. There's only one really horrific moment in this but it's too CG to be scary. Oh well...there's always the nudity.
 
HOMECOMING: Directed by Joe Dante
I really liked this one. Whereas Dance of the Dead had social commentary (huh?), this one has social commentary that's as subtle as a brick in the head. This one has the zombies of soldiers from Iraq coming back from the dead? OK...I'm with you so far. Zombie soldiers from Iraq coming back from the dead to vote Bush out of office?!? Get out! That's just too rad! The zombies are actually the good guys in this one! The bad guys are Republican scumbags who lack any morals or compassion. This one takes a shot at Ann Coulter, cable news shows, the spin-room, the Christian right (which is neither...sorry...I saw the bumper sticker yesterday), Rumsfeld and all of those loveable fuckers in our Gov'ment. This episode even has one of the most touching and heartwarming moments you'll ever see with a zombie soldier, a dog, and a couple who own a small diner. Sniff...
 
DEER WOMAN: Directed by John Landis
Wow! Spooky Dan and Jovanka from Rue-Morgue REALLY hated this one!!! I got it from them both one night about just how bad this one was (we were on our way to do some serious ''mon it was Christmas)! And I quote Spooky Dan "Even the rad tits in this episode couldn't save it from being really shitty!" Said tits belong to Cinthia Moura, who plays Deer Woman. Who, with her deerlike powers, fights a never ending battle for truth and justice! OK...actually she pounds guys into hamburger when they see her deer like hooves. The tagline for this episode should have been "Keep looking at the tits! Dear God! KEEP LOOKING AT THE TITS!!!" The episode could have been an episode of The X-Files. Brian Benben (Or Ben Brianbrian as I call him) plays Mulder and Anthony Griffith plays a tall male, black Scully. The only thing differentiating it from X-Files are those titties...those magnificent titties. I know...you're sick of hearing that word...but...TITTIES, TITTIES, TITTIES, TITTIES !!!
 
CIGARETTE BURNS: Directed by John Carpenter
This episode is a small masterpiece and easily the best in show! Give Mr. Caprenter a prize 'cause this one is a nihilistic freakout about a movie that makes people go insane. Not a good insane mind you, like when people watched "Jackass: the Movie", but a psychotic murderous kinda insane (like when I saw "Cabin Fever"...I coulda killed Eli Roth!). So Norman Reedus (who's one of the brothers in The Boondock Saints, the only movie to watch during St. Patrick's Day) is hired by always creepy but loveable Udo Kier to find it. Cue really, really weird shit! Cue the best decapitation in television history! Cue Udo's unfortunate gut-mating with a film projector! This one is amazing!
 
FAIR HAIRED CHILD: Directed by William Malone
Remember Lori Petty? She rocked in "Booker" and "Tank Girl". No...YES SHE DID! QUIET! Ok...she's in this ep about a cute 13 year old girl who's kidnapped and taken to a house to live with a nice couple and their pleasant son and live happily ever after. No...scratch that...OK...she's kidnapped by a tweaked couple to be fed to their pleasant son and then live happily ever after. There...got it. Actually this one has a creature that was really creepy. It reminded me of Tom Savini's "Lizzy" creature from the "Tales From The Dark Side" episode "Inside the Closet". This episode has all of the William Malone camera tricks that jar you out of your head. All in all an enjoyable episode.
 
PICK ME UP: Directed by Larry Cohen
Two serial killers go head to head in this episode. In one corner you have a truck driver who picks up people and kills them who reminded me of an evil Archie Bunker. In the other corner you have a guy who hitchhikes and kills people who reminds me of Matt Damon with a snake on his hat. In the middle you have Fairuza Balk who looks like she can bite both of the serial killer guys to death with her big chompers. This isn't a really bad episode...it's just kinda there. The scariest thing in the one is the blonde woman who leaves with the truck driver in the beginning. I thought she was going to be some evil creature with some badass special effect makeup. Turns out she just had really bad plastic surgery. I mean really bad plastic surgery. If she has a pubic goatee I wouldn't have been surprised.
 
HAECKEL'S TALE: Directed by John McNaughton
This episode is a doozy. I was watching the opening credits when I read "Screenplay by Mick Garris" and I remembered his "Chocolate" episode and shuddered a bit. What's this one going to be about? The dangers of cooking? Then the credits said "From a Story by Clive Barker" and I sat up and said..."OK...now I'm listening..." This episode starts with a guy riding a horse up to a the shack of an old lady who's a necromancer. He wants to raise his recently deceased wife. So said old lady necromancer tells him a tale...that's right, about some joe named Haeckel. Haeckel has a sidekick named Jaeckel and they fly around and taunt people because they're magpies....wait...that's the cartoon. Sorry. Haeckel is training to be a scientist. He even tries to raise the body of a hot redhead ala Frankenstein with Kentucky fried results. He gets word that his Pappy's sick so he goes to visit. On the way he stops to rest and a nice guy lets him stay at his house. Nice guy has a really smoking hot wife. Nice guy tells Haekel that no matter what he hears, he cannot go outside. So Haeckel, much to my pleasure, disobeys this instruction. He finds hot wifey in the cemetery with zombies...giving it to them hard and nasty on a slab! Hot damn! Thanks Clive! You never disappoint!!! Let me tell you...Leela Savasta who plays the hot wife really could make the dead stretch their bacon. Note: So far in this series is how they get really hot women to get naked. If I had a mutant power I pray to god that it would be that one.
 
SICK GIRL: Directed by Lucky McKee
Ooooohhhhhhhh man... I loved "May". Angela Bettis really made that film. If you're a total freak all weirdo like me you can't help but be empathic towards her in that film. After that film I developed a bit of a crush on Angela, and Angela...if you're reading this...don't think that I'm gonna stalk you or something. My previous arrest record makes it impossible for me to do that now. So when I saw that she was going to be in an episode of MOH I was excited. Then I saw that Erin Brown AKA Misty Mundae was going to be in that episode as well, in a lesbian story no less! Thus making me as excited as a wee puppy with a crayon. Remember my previous arrest record? Well screw that! For Erin AKA Misty I'd eat my own feet and run a marathon. OK...this has gotten really creepy...sorry gentle reader, forgive my exuberance. It's the diet pills talking. So Misty gets bitten by a big ugly bug and becomes Spiderbabe....goddamnit! wrong movie! No...she just becomes a werebug in really bad makeup and eats a couple of people. Sorry Angela and Erin...this episode wasn't that good. The story was mediocre and lacked any sophistication (Yeah, like this stupid review is sophisticated), It's totally telegraphed. The characters who are assholes are the ones you know are going to be Erin chow. Also the dialog is really stilted and weak and...gulp...boring. I did like how Erin is all-innocent at first and becomes really, really nasty later in the episode. Hopefully Lucky McKee will do a better job in upcoming projects. I don't want his resume to be a one hit wonder.
 
IMPRINT: Directed by Takashi Miike
And last but far, far from least is the episode that Showtime didn't air. I could just see the reaction when the episode was received to air.
 
Guy 1: "Hey, here's the episode from that Japanese guy Takishi Mike..."
Guy 2: "Nawww...you got it all wrong...It's not Mike...it's Miike...with two i's."
Guy 1: "Ok...whatever...let's watch it..."
Guy 2: "Lemme put it in the dvd player here..."
Twenty minutes later...
Guy 1: "..."
Guy 2: "What...the...fuck?!?"
First, Miike is one of my favorite directors in the world. This man never ceases to shock me. So I waited patiently for this episode. When I had heard he was involved in the series it got a lot more credibility with me as far as being really "horror".
Very few societies are as twisted as the Japanese (girls' underwear vending machines? Naughty tentacles? Yeah, I thought so...), and very few people can film to that level of twisted ness as Miike. I was hoping he would burn some American retinas with his entry in the show.
And boy! Whoo hoooo! He doesn't disappoint!
All of Miike's cinematic thumbprints are here! Incest, rape, torture, fetuses, urine, strange things coming out of peoples bodies, strange things going into peoples bodies...everything!
Youki Kudoh plays a deformed prostitute who spends the episode telling Billy Drago about the death of the woman he loved who too was a prostitute. The tale goes from odd, to strange, to deranged, to finally fucking craklin' cannonball goo-goo apeshit.
The acting is otherworldly. The Japanese cast doing English makes everything even creepier and alien. And then you have Billy Drago, who acts just as creepy and alien as the rest of the cast. The pacing and style of the acting reminds me of a David Lynch film...but just mush more hard core with more dead babies.
So if you're a gentle soul, don't watch this one. If you do watch, expect such things as turn of the century Japanese abortion techniques, putting needles under fingernails in graphic close up, hands erupting from heads and talking, a young girl getting felt up by a Buddhist monk, tons of abuse towards women, and the grand finale...a bucket full of aborted fetus chum that Billy Drago sings to sleep! Fuck yeah!
All in all, I have to say that Masters of Horror season 1 was some good watching. Even the drek was fun to watch. Can't wait to see what they have planned for next season. I'm kinda bummed that the Ewe Boll rumor was fake...that would have been a blast.
Until next season you sick bastards!!!
 

Review of Kolchak: The Night Stalker

KOLCHAK: The Night Stalker DVD rocks ass/faces!

My history with the NIGHT STALKER show goes way back. KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER was a series that ran for one season on ABC in 1974. The show starred Darren McGavin as a journalist for the Independent News Service who would investigate murders that were mainly the result of a monster of some sort. He would wear a wrinkled sears-sucker suit and a really lame hat and drove around in a convertible yellow mustang. How rad is that? You don’t see that that level of rock your face coolness anymore. After patiently waiting for years and years, the complete KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER has been released on DVD from Universal Studios Home Video and let me tell you I’m stoked! I can watch this show over and over. Some of it was so cheesy it could be rolled in nuts, but it’s still a funny, scary and overall fun show.

The show was a spin-off of a movie of the week called THE NIGHT STALKER wherein audiences were introduced to Carl Kolchak as he hunts down a vampire in modern day (At least in 1970) Las Vegas. The movie was a phenomenal success and became the most watched TV movie up to that point. There came a sequel named THE NIGHT STRANGLER, which took place in Seattle. This time around a corpselike killer who syringes blood from the back of their necks strangles a bunch of women. This movie too was popular and prompted Universal to create a series based on the characters. The show lasted a season and was dumped by the network. Over the years though, KOLCHAK became a cult show. It later came to the SCI-FI channel and I think it’s still running in rerun to this day. I got cable TV just to get the SCI-FI channel to watch the KOLCHAK. I nearly crapped when I saw it for the first time after so many years. (Item: I actually did crap my pants, but I don’t want you to think I’m some fool who craps his pants).

Kolchak was an everyman type of hero who would doggedly pursue the leads to the truth by putting life and limb on the line for the answers he would seek. In every episode he would usually end up getting arrested for trying to get his story and also nearly getting killed by the monster he was hunting. I always liked the fact that no one liked him on the show. It was nice to see this guy be a pushy jerk to the police, his boss, and pretty much anyone he would come across. Here’s an interesting fun fact: My mom named me after Darren McGavin, the star of KOLCKAK. Funnier still is that my Dad wanted to name me Kirk and even funnier still my Grandpa wanted to name me “Lil’ Asshole”.

The show had a huge appeal for me growing up because it dealt with my favorite subject …friggin’ monsters! Every week they would have some new monster that would kill a bunch of people. I remember being terrified by a swamp monster in one of the episodes. It was tall and ran around in an underlit sewer trying to crush the life out of Carl. This show had it all…A zombie, a werewolf, a vampire, a robot, a lizard creature, a shape changing Indian spirit. There were also aliens and weird government conspiracies that would later influence Chris Carter when he created THE X-FILES. Sure…some of the monsters are pretty lame even by ‘70s standards. The Werewolf in the episode entitled THE WEREWOLF (didn’t see that coming did you?) looked like some guy who had fur glued to his face with shoe polish around his eyes. He looked more like a minstrel then a lycanthrope. There was a headless, kitana sword wielding ghost of a murdered biker who would tear ass around on his chopper and decapitate people! Great GREAT idea! Make a show just about that you network pussies! I would buy that action figure and tattoo it on my forearm and butt. But sadly the delivery was really…well…sad. It looked like when the neighborhood retarded kid pulls his shirt over his head to look like he’s headless only this time on a Triumph motorcycle.

Every episode went by a certain scenario…Kolchak would investigate a crime and would piece together that the culprit was a big evil monster of some sort, he would then get in trouble with the police and his managing editor Tony Vincenzo played by Simon Oakland. Kolchak would ultimately face the creature and destroy it, barely managing to save his own hide only to have his story not printed.

Some of the episodes rule all they survey. THE ZOMBIE is one of the best. THE VAMPIRE was another of the shows high points. There’s THE SPANISH MOSS MURDERS that had the swamp creature that scared the pee-pee out of me. The episode that rules the most in my opinion is HORROR IN THE HEIGHTS where a shape changing Rakasha (an Indian demon that looks like a gorilla with big teeth…look it up in your old D&D MONSTER MANUAL ya geek) starts eating a bunch of old people. Where was this thing during the run of THE GOLDEN GIRLS?

The new DVD looks really clean and the sound quality is as good as you could expect for a ‘70s TV show. For the most part Universal Studios Home Video did a really good job putting this series together, although it’s somewhat dark and they could have put in a bit more time in the restoration (There is hardly any difference between the video tapes of Kolchak and the DVD), but hey…as I said before this is a show from the ‘70s. It could add to the whole feel of the show if you look at it that way.

If you’re into ‘70s horror shows then don’t even think about missing this DVD set. For being only one seasons worth of spooky fun before they pulled the plug, KOLCHAK has more heart and soul then most of the crap that filters into peoples homes every night. Don’t get me even STARTED about the new version on ABC.

Now put out a DVD collection of IN SEARCH OF… Nothing this side of a bunch of dancing naked midgets would make me happier.
 

The Creeps!

 So since I'm adding my amazon stuff to my blog, here's my first book still available on Amazon. The Creeps! If you don't have it, you should get it!

Modern Machismo

I saw this in VICE magazine and it was written by Chris Nieratko, who is also one of my favorite writers in the mag (and also the guy that pukes up all the eggs and eggnog on JACKASS). He's also written a book SKINEMA and you should read it like your fucking life depends on it. Mr. Nieratko... once again you nailed it on the fucking head...

________________________________

You know what Id like the Nature Channel to do a special on? The extinction of machismo. It seems like my whole fucking generation is a bunch of faggots and it bums me out. And Im not even talking about the Chuck and Buck, suck and fuck, take-it-in-the-ass type of faggot. Through therapy and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy Ive learned to tolerate those dudes. My problem is the fashion-victim art fags in the clever hats and too-tight T-shirts and corduroys that think because they dress like a pansy and paint or take out-of-focus photographs they are beyond getting their teeth knocked down their throat. 


What happened to all my all-American blue-collar drunks that enjoy violence for violences sake? Are they all in hiding in Montana or are we just experiencing some kind of generational gap? I look around at these hip bars and I mourn the guy that once struck fear into peoples hearts with nothing more than a sideways glance. He has been replaced by limpwristed, emo computer programmers who wear womens panties and think that drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon is going to put hair on their chest and make them a man. I think we need to take it back to when everyone carried a knife and people got stabbed up on subway platforms just because there was nothing better to do while waiting for the train. This all may sound extreme, but I think its totally necessary. 


Recently I came to realize that people no longer dread the lost art of threatening physical harm to others because no one does it anymore. Someone owed me a large amount of money for some time, and being the nice guy that I am, I allowed him to string me along for months with bullshit excuses of why he couldnt pay me the few thousand dollars he owed me. Once I realized he was taking advantage of my kindness and understanding and had no intention of paying me, it dawned on me that the males of my generation really must think that humanity has progressed so far that it is beyond breaking someones hands for even a few dollars. And it really hurt my feelings to be treated with so little regard, because you know, Im a nice fucking guy. I dont like to tell people Im going to show up to their office with a can of gasoline and a lit cigarette or that Ill be waiting for them at the bus stop with a baseball bat or that I made a copy of their house key that time they let me crash and that if they dont pay up theyre going to have to worry about waking up to a lot worse things than a fucking horse head in their bed. But luckily, it never came to any of that. But I still think we should do something to remind kids that life can sometimes be very painful. Possibly a spree of drive-by shootings. I think we should start in Silver Lake.

SAD SAD STORY...PLEASE HELP!!!

Body: Everyone needs to take the time and read this. Just take a break from all your other stupid bulletins about who is gonna die or if your love life will suck for 7 years and be serious and do the right thing. Repost this or you have no soul seriously. A kid needs our help so do the right thing guys and gals.


Hi, my name is little Darren Frydendall. I am 3 years old, and I have a large protruding scrotum that makes it hard for me to walk, much less play and be a happy 3 year old. Since I can't play I weigh 400 pounds. 200 pounds of that is my scrotum. The doctors say that I will die of fatscrotumitis soon if my large sack isn't reduced to a wee little nub. My family is poor and can't pay the monthly bills that consist of payments of wheelbarrows, large jock straps, and jock creams. My family is so poor that we live in a boot at the bottom of a lake. The "Stop Spam because it fucks up my email Foundation" has agreed to donate 1 million dollars for every time this message is reposted to my bulging ballsack removal operation. For those of you who repost, I thank you so much you dumb fuckers. But for those who don't repost it, I will still pray for you. You are godless heathens and need to die and go to hell. Please, if you are a kind/dumb/bored person, have a heart. Please, please, PLEASE OH FUCKING PLEASE REPOST THIS MESSAGE!

Darren Frydendall
360-307-9197 Home
or email me at sodoff@youwanker.com

*hey it wont cost you but 10 seconds of your time to repost this you dumb sack of nails.

please tell everyone to post this out....

"You should draw me sometime" TEE HEEE!!!

I love Myspace. I love people on Myspace, but what I really REALLY love are the girls on Myspace. I don't know what it is but there's a bunch who message me something like the following…

"I love your artwork! you should do a picture of me!<3 br="">
or

"Thanks for the add Sexy! You wanna draw a picture of me some time? ;)"

You pretty much get the point. Like I have nothing better to do then draw some conceited chick or "internet" model. I actually LIVE for facilitating the divine needyness of girls who didn't feel pretty in high school who now love to be told how "hot" they are by greasy guys on Myspace who look like human boners. I think "WOW!!! If I draw them will I get a pony? Will you pretend to be my girlfriend and make all of my other friends jealous at the next Dungeons and Dragons game?" I mean really… does someone who requests such a thing feel the least bit of apprehension that I might think that they're a complete joke when they finish asking?

So this little rant is about what happens when I get messages like this. So use your imagination with this one:

It's the crack of noon, I just woke up. Here I am in my Spider-man underoos checking my Myspace messages for possible work or funny spam about who has a crush on my penis or whatever. Then I get the "draw me" comment or message from BUNYLUV07 or some other lame shit name.

• First, I sigh. Mainly because it's such a conceited and shallow thing to ask (which we've discussed so I won't repeat too much)

• I then look at their picture.

• I usually laugh. They're usually not attractive at all (That's not fair… everyone has at least one thing that's attractive on them… like their nostrils or an index finger as per some of these girls I've seen). Or they are trying really goddamn hard to try and look attractive. They usually have self-shot pictures that are held at arms length over their heads to obscure their lovely corn-fed gut. The images are usually washed out or photoshopped to hide the… whaddyacallit… oh yeah… mess of their face.

• I send it to my girlfriend. I want her to laugh too but she wont cooperate. I wish she'd be harsh in these instances because mindless cruelty is best shared.

• So instead I send it to only a few of my friends. Not too many because I wouldn't want BUNYUV07 to get too much exposure.

• We laugh, because unlike my girlfriend, my friends are complete bastards who long to eat the raw, red meat of a downed bison or water buffalo like the jackals they are.

• Later we joke some more about the large poor wee lass. We talk about how we should draw her but real fucked-up like. With a mustache or with a babyarm or with one eye that kind of looks "that way" too much that's bloodshot, crooked teeth or a hump or riding a donkey.

• We laugh so hard we go drinking, take over a bus at gunpoint and run over a bunch of orphans.

It's an evil thing really, born out of the ignorance of a moment of conceit. This all could have been avoided if common courtesy were kept.

So please… spare yourself some really burning ears and don't ask me to draw you.

Unless you have cash of course.

The most brutal review for a film I worked on... EVER!

I got a call today from a friend of mine who I'd worked on this film "Bunnywhipped" (it used to be named "Love, Fear and Rabbits"... I know... lame...) asking if I got my copy. I (actually myself, Tim Maloney, and Paul Springer) had done some animated interstitials for the film with because the film was... in a word... really shitty. The film just didn't work so we did these simple animated scenes to force the film to work. I think even if you re-filmed the film it would always and forever super-sucked. This director of this film is an example of a foreign guy who has too much money and thinks that they're creative.

So I found this review on DVD VERDICT. I cringed reading this review until I got to the 5th paragraph that mentioned our involvement with this bucket of celluloid ca-ca and the I just laughed...

The only things that are worth anything in this movie are the bafflingly short animated sequences that are awkwardly manhandled into serving as scene-to-scene transitions. Despite their poor placement, their obvious quality clashes mightily with the anus scrapings that sandwich them. For these are drawn and animated by the Creepy Baby Arm Animation House, people who actually know what comic books are. They provide fleeting moments of relief, like moist towels pressed briefly onto the parched lips of a man abandoned in Death Valley, left naked and covered in hydrochloric acid and acid-proof fire ants. It is because of these little sequences that I enjoyed the animated menu more than the film itself by enormous orders of magnitude. If this film had been entirely animated in this fashion, even if the craptacular dialogue, acting, and plot had remained intact, it would be exponentially better than it is now.

Oh man! What a hoot! Rafael Gamboa! I salute you!!!!