El Viaje de la Pesadilla teaser

Cat People!

11.9.10

3:52 pm

Actually, after speaking to James Cameron, he informed that "Cat People!" was going to be the name of "Avatar", but David Bowie threatened to sue him, so he tried for "Putting Out The Fire With Allegory", but Bowie got real mad, so he went with "Avatar".

True story.

Unlike "Avatar", which is what one might call an allegory.

A thinly-veiled, beautiful, obvious allegory.

Which totally patches things up between the White Man and everybody the White Man has EVER fucked over.

Thanks, James.

Watched said thinly-veiled, beautiful etc. this weekend with Christina.

Also watched "The Neverending Story".

Wow is that still a creepy ass movie.

Falcor = screaming nightmare.

Atreyu = tasty boy meat.

Bastian = wet pants pussy boy

And so on.

ALSO (as Chris was in the mood to simply relax this week after the hurricane of the past few months) we watched "Moon", which I had already seen in theaters with Ray.

Excellent, excellent movie.

Highly recommend it.

Again.

AANNDD, we also took in "Slither". Which was fun as hell, (Nathan Fillion...Fillian...Mal from Firefly is amazing) but not as disgusting as it was made out to be.

Very Neo-Troma, but with a bigger budget and less boobies.

And the DVD extras were hilarious, they seemed to be having so much fun on this movie.

Then, after Chris has passed out on the couch from Media Overexposure, I finally sat down with my copy of the The Social Network score on Blu Ray in 5.1.

There was quite a battle leading up to this, but I'll nutshell it.

The BD arrived about two weeks late and then wouldn't work in my 5.1, switching off the center and rear speakers as soon as I pressed play.

So, I went to the Internet and started a thread in the nin.com forums about this.

Eventually, there were several other folks who had ended up having the same problem.

After a few days, electro-Jesus came through and told people (with a PS3) to change an option that no one had thought of and, BAM, problem solved.

It was worth the wait.

There wasn't anything new added to the 5.1 mix, but you could hear elements that had before been buried in the stereo mix much more clearly.

Plus, since it was Reznor doing the mixing and he loves this format, there was a lot of dynamism added.

Just another reason I'm out of my skin with excitement with the (eventual) release of The Fragile deluxe edition.

That shit in 5.1?

Cancel my Monday, friends...cancel my Monday. 

At work, I'd been splitting my time between re-reading Ennis' Punisher Max* run (makes me terribly sad to see how perfectly this guy can do Punisher while Hollywood manages to fuck it up three times in as many decades. If they would just make his ten story arcs into ten HBO mini-movies or something, not only would Ennis get some mad props for his work, but the Punisher could finally get his day on screen.) and all of the Deadpool comics (which is getting a bit old. He's less blood-thirsty than everyone makes him out to be, but occasionally well written and genuinely funny...sometimes. I'd love to see a Max book for him.), but thanks to one Philip "PHD" Tucker, I now have Glen Cook's Chronicles of the Black Company to burn through.

About 700 pages.

A bit thick and disjointed after reading comics for a month, but excellent nonetheless.

Very fun characters.

Makes me want to role play in the world.

AND, if I absolutely love this book (which collects the first three books in the series) there's a bunch more I can dine upon.

I hope this book continues to hold my attention as today I am tested with the release of the new Stephen King, Full Dark, No Stars (the cover of which isn't nearly as cool as the title), which is his first collection of novellas since...whoa, since Different Seasons? Can that be right? Damn.

Very excited about that as I find his novellas tend to be the perfect length for him. Not enough pages to get too rambly (or too big-big, iffin ya will, do ya kin ya, bink bink) and not so short as to leave the reader feeling unsatisfied; characters and stories have a chance to develop and flourish without going off the rails.

Might also pick up the new Butcher and the most recent Palahniuk, although my interest has cooled a bit on that one.

Might even pick up The World According To Garp, as I saw the movie a few weeks ago and I could see the Irving-ness shining through the desperate attempt at making a John Irving novel into a movie.

Very weird thing about that movie...the trailer has baby dick in it.

Were trailers back then just...I don't know...allowed to show baby dick?

That's really creepy.

No wonder everyone did cocaine then.

But, yeah, like the movie version of Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, you could tell the script was based on something really good.

Three days until I take flight from this festering pit of retarded mole rats.

'Nuff said.

7:40 pm

Fucking hell.

Over my break, I spent forty minutes at Best Buy.

About nine minutes finding Scott Pilgrim and about thirty one NOT finding the goddamn dual mini headphone jack adapter or splitter for everyone who isn't a dick.

Best Buy is a sweaty asshole fuckbox.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to your face and might even be an employee of Best Buy.

After leaving there, dejected, I went one minute out of my way to the completely-empty-but-for-one-man Radio Shack down the street and was handed EXACTLY what I was looking for two minutes after I entered.

Another minute later and I was gone.

See, I understand Radio Shack employees have to work harder because they are SO much smaller and in danger of going out of business, but does that really excuse Best Buy employees from being lazy, ineffective, unaffected anal beads?

All signs point to yes, Consumer America!

And, yes, I am indeed aware that I am part of the problem, but, as I already stated, I am an American and allowed to be in support and opposition of several things at once, sometimes the exact same thing.

U! S! A!

U! S! A!

U! S! A!

Also picked up the new King, which has goddamn spoilers in the book jacket!

Wangs.

Oh, and Four Past Midnight was the most recent King novella collection.

But whatever.

According to the spoiltastic book jacket and the first line of the Afterword (and the title now that I take a step back), this is some of the darkest King in a while.

Darker than Bachman?

I'll let you know.

After I finish Black Company.

Toodles!!!

* A Marvel "Max"book simply means it's utterly R rated, which you need for a guy who's origin is that his family was killed in front of him and who's "power" is killing the fuck out of thousands of bad guys for the past thirty years or so.

Google Me.

11.3.10

4:35 pm

Here's that thing I was telling you about.

Everything you see (unless I'm mistaken) was created by Ray and everything you hear (except for the music) was voiced by me (thanks to Ray).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxbqXvW777U

While I was in the recording session for the Google Docs video, I did some tag lines for a totally different Google thing.

Don't actually know if I can talk about it, but I'll keep you updated.

We Only Come Out At Night

11.1.10

3:39 pm

Epic.

Weekend.

Huge.

One for the books.

The books people write about huge parties and fun and parades and dancing.

Those books.

So.

Phil and Grace ( the people, not to be confused with Will & Grace the television show) arrived Saturday afternoon, mere hours before Freak Fuck '10 was set to commence.

Phil was presented with (most of) his Birthday payload from Will, Chris, Diana and I, which included the first ever picture of a clown fucking a dolphin.

First Ever.

Write that down.

Then, after we discussed the list of what had yet to be done, we went out for a leisurely luncheon, then we finished the shopping and decorating and, right around the time Chris came home, we all took naps.

Except Chris.

Who did all the cooking while we slept.

I awoke and donned my costume which, at first, was just "woodland fairy", but, after the party got "bumpin'" and Bill arrived, he dubbed me a Brownie.

After seeing a picture, I was in complete agreement.

At first, the party was Phil (Jack Skellington), Grace (Sally), Chris (Closet Monster) and myself, listening to my demented hallscape booming from the darkened hallway, driving us all insane.

Then Colin (Jesus, the best one I'd ever seen not nailed to a cross) and Joyce (Gypsy Chick) arrived and then, everybody else.

No one slacked this year as far as their costumes, as is evident from the slew of pictures and video taken (go to Facebook, I'm sure you'll find something there).

Everything went at full bore until about three, when Grace, Chris, Linza and Jeannie had an otherworldly Belly Dance Off to some Peter Murphy (which came after a Regular Dance Off between Ray and Chris and a Plie Off between Molly (a ballerina) and I).

We also had some South African rap (NOT Die Antwoord, about whom Linza was gracious enough to answer all my questions) and South African industrial (sounded a bit like KMFDM but sung in Afrikaans), thanks to Josh and Linza.

Plus another spat of "bumpin'" dance trax courtesy of one Philip William Fortes Tucker.

More people met other people and so on, as seems to be the new tradition happening at our recent events.

Wow, was that sentence is mangled.

Sorry, I'm a bit mashed.

Some other excellent costumes included my sister, who showed up as Wednesday Addams (don't think she smiled in one picture...way to play it, sis)and, completely unknown to anyone, Jim and Jen, who showed up as Gomez (Jen) and Moriticia Addams (Jim).

It was the definition of 'kismet'.

Or 'coincidence' if you're an asshole with no magic in your heart.

Also, with my help, Jen learned to pelvic thrust.

I felt as proud as a new mother.

Katey and P.J. made a special surprise appearance which blew Chris' mind and almost brought her to tears.

Linza and Josh (TO WHOM I WAS FINALLY ABLE TO RETURN 'HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE'!!!!!!!!!!!!!) came as Sweeney Todd and Ms. Lovett, Cliff was Barbra Eden from I Dream of Jeannie...and it was horrifying...., Ray was Mr. C (who he described as "Cthulhu if he were a villain on Batman") and Steve, who was, in my mind, an NPC from Fallout 3.

But, the winner by far, was Lauren, who came as Garry Gaga, complete with gun, handcuffs, working walkie-talkies...and three different hats, one of which was a swan.

That, friends, is dedication and how you get ahead in this world. 

We also had several goddesses, a couple pirates and a few ladies who can only be described, with all due respect, as "hot booby girls", plus a witch.

The hallway (of my design this year) was more sensory that the last two, with no light and several lengths of latex tubing hung from the ceiling while a sonorous, deep, moist breathing boomed throughout the hall, our ceiling fan was turned into a Lovecraftian horror, but a cute, approachable Lovecraftian horror and our bathroom, which was taken in a different direction than the previous years, was set up as a kill room from Dexter, complete with pictures of our party guests taped to the tarp.

It was a resounding success, only marred by missing friends.

But we'll see them next time, we hope.

There should be something akin to the '09 Freak Fuck video posted at some point.

And for next year...Chris and I already have ideas...

The next morning, the four of us awoke and set out for Cafe Henri, Phil wearing a midnight blue half-mask and bowler, Grace wearing a blue wig and my Brownie skirt, Chris dressed as a fairy and myself wearing my Army jacket, Aviators and a combat helmet.

We don't brunch...we Brunch.

The food, as always, was delicious.

Then, it was time for the parade.

We suited up again and headed into Manhattan, where all of us were stopped at and around Union Square several times for pictures, especially Phil and Grace.

People were literally running up in droves to take shots with them.

New York loves the Pumpkin King and his special lady.

After meeting with Kaitlyn and getting some food, we braved the throbbing asshole crowds of New York (made 6.37 times more anusy by the holiday) and eventually made our way into the parade, where we were cheered and photographed.

The actor in me felt appropriated fed.

At one point, we were informed that there were about three million people in and around the parade.

Not sure if that number's hyperbole or not, but there were a metric fuckton of people as far as I could see.

We walked the length of the parade, stopping occasionally for pictures or for me to try to fly (almost made it) and exited to meet up again with Jim and Jen, before heading to a bar that ended up being literally around the corner from Irving Plaza, so Chris was able to go to the Doll's show after all, where she had fun.

Jim, Jen, Phil, Grace, Kaitlyn and I took a blue-lit back room and regained our strength for a bit before busting out dance moves that actually had the cops arresting us for being too sexy.

AND, how fucking weird is this, it turns out that Jim is friends with Taryn...a friend of Chris and I, and Chris' roommate from her Junior year.

And the Universe...gets smaller...

Chris rejoined us and we left Phil, Grace and Jim to destroy the rest of the city without us.

An excellent weekend, 10 out of 10 but for this morning when I awoke to find that Phil had lost his brand new Palm Pixie.

Perhaps because the name is totally gay.

No calls were made except to the phone's voice mail and only one text was sent, to me, at 10:01 this morning that read ".N", which I took to mean Phil was still out, drunk out of his mind and unable to even text coherently (I'm so imaginative).

I wish I had been right.

It's a bothersome, costly blight on an otherwise unblemished, cherry-flavored weekend.

I said my goodbyes and went to work while Phil and Grace tried to end things on a high note by having brunch at Tom's in Brooklyn then going on to spend their remaining hours here in Prospect Park.

Aside from the phone, it was a ridiculously funderful weekend.

And the best part?

In eleven days, we'll all be meeting up again, this time with Will and Diana as well.

I love having something to look forward to that isn't DVDs.

And, finally, on top of all this Happy Pudding, in a day or two, I will be posting the product of my most recent gig (all thanks to Ray), which Ray showed me last night.

Two words: Google munnny.

*bite*