Archive for December, 2004
My Chemical Romance
December 19
If you didn’t get to see these guys on Conan O’Brien this past week, you missed a great performance. It’s nice to see an “emo” band that still looks like its punk roots. My Chemical Romance are going to be on a pretty big tour this winter/spring, so if they come near you, get yourself a ticket. But, until then, enjoy You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison
Horror
December 13
I’ve had a bugger of a headcold the last couple of days. Sinuses are all stopped up; head’s full of pressure and pressurized snot; nose seems to have an endless supply of thin, yellow mucus to drip; throat’s all sore and scratchy and raw feeling. It’s horrible.
But I’m sitting here, not really thinking about anything, just letting my mind wander. I started thinking about the book I’m reading. Stephen King’s newest Dark Tower book, The Dark Tower. (I’m sure he had to think for hours to come up with that name.) It’s a great book so far. I’m over 3/4 of the way through it. It’s kind of sad, though. There are rumors that this is his last book, or one of his last few. I’ve enjoyed reading his stuff for a long time. The first book of his I read was It in the 10th grade. I read it for a two-week book report. Everyone thought I was crazy trying to read a 1,000+ page book in two weeks. I sailed through it, though. That book was a page-turner and a half. Ironic that that would be the first book I would read, since it ties in to the Dark Tower series, at least a little bit.
That started me thinking about writing, though. I thought I was a writer in middle school and high school. I wrote stories and poems and a screenplay or two. Everything was under 10 pages and it all seemed rather…I dunno, morbid. It’s all a bunch of claptrap/hooha/poo now, though. It just wasn’t quality.
When you’re young, horror is blood and guts and everyone dying. That was all I wrote about then. Everyone would die by some means, each more gruesome than the last. It was a shame to kill two or three characters at a time, though. That limited the amount of blood in the story. So you pick ‘em off one by one until there’s just one left. He/she gets to see the killer and then slash all done.
Then you get older and you realize it’s not the bumps in the night that are scary. It’s the spaces between the bumps. The times of slithering and waiting and sneaking and moving quiet as a mouse. The times when you’re not sure if that shadow’s from the tree outside, the coat on your chair, or something else.
That’s one of the things I always liked about great horror writers. They realized that it’s not the death; it’s not the killing; it’s not the blood. It’s the cut and the knife. The hand that’s holding it. The heart that weilds it.
H.P. Lovecraft, Ray Bradbury, Stephen King….Who do you love as horror writers?
Represent!
December 12
The other night, Elaine and I were at a local Chinese restaurant (the best Chinese food ever!) and we were waiting on our order to come. We usually just get it to go, and Friday was no exception.
We’d been in there for a few minutes, maybe 10 or so, and we’d been hearing loud noises outside. Kids running around and yelling, just making noise. Then we see a group of kids, all black with white bandanas on their heads, standing outside of the restaurant, talking. Oh well, no big deal. I certainly don’t begrudge anyone the rights to where what they want and stand where they want.
Anyway, a few of them come inside, still loud. They walk up to the counter to order. Now, think about how you order. If you’re an intelligent, polite person, you say something like “Hi. I’d like to get X.” and the waiter/waitress says “OK” and the order goes on from there. Right? Right. Not with these kids. The short one plunks his elbows down on the counter and, still loud, says “Gimme some chicken.”
It’s a Chinese restaurant! Everything is chicken! She looks at him and says “Chicken wings?” and he nods. She tells him they don’t have them any more and he gets a bit upset. “What? No chicken wings?” After she tells him that no, we don’t have chicken wings any more again, he and his friend start to fidget around.
“Well how much is the buffet?” he asks.
Now, let me explain this place’s buffet. You get all you want to eat off of the buffet area (like always), but you also get your drink and your choices off of a couple of huge dessert areas. Ice cream, cakes, cookies, fruit. All sorts of stuff. And it’s for a good price, too. $4.95 at lunch, $6.95 at dinner. For my money, it can’t be beat.
Apparently short gangstas don’t carry $7 with them.
“$6.95? Fuck. I only got $5. $7? Man. You must be outta yo’ fuckin’ mind.” And they walk out, the whole time talking about how “fucked up” it is that a buffet costs $7.
Now, the whole point of this isn’t to give some racist tirade. Or complain about how money-tight people are. I don’t care. I don’t see colors of skin, I don’t see quality of clothes. I try and accept every person to the same level and treat everyone the same way.
But when you come into a restaurant, cursing loudly and berating them for the prices they charge, you need to wake up.
I hear people bitch all the time about being treated differently. “We’re just misunderstood. Always trying to get a brother down.” Usually this comes after someone gets a cold shoulder ’cause they acted like an ass to someone else.
And, believe it or not, I’ve heard black people say that their tough-guy attitude and all the street slang and cursing is just “keeping it real” and a tie to their roots. The way I look at it, in this country at least, their roots were in slavery where they weren’t educated and they weren’t expected to have quality manners. I think you’ve got that one down. It’s time to move on, now.
It’s all very simple. No matter what nationality/race you are, if you want to be treated with respect and friendliness, you have to act that way. I’d be given a cold shoulder if I went in somewhere and started cussing and yelling about prices. Anyone would be.
Just grow up.
I loved this band back in the day. I heard ‘em first on Punk-O-Rama vol. 3 and they were amazing. This is where emo came from, in part. The lyrics are always very personal with Osker and, though his voice can get annoying, the music feels somehow secondary. They broke up a few years ago, so don’t look for anything new, but they have two albums and they’re both worth having. Enjoy Alright
Naked Cult of Hickey
December 6
Triple Threat
That’s right. I’m outdoing myself. :) THREE MP3s in a single week. Really, I just couldn’t decide which one to give you all.
Here’s three tracks from The Naked Cult of Hickey. I’d give you a link to their web site, but they don’t have one. They broke up several years ago. I know, it’s sad. You can cry if you have to.
Get all three and listen to ‘em. If you want, there’s a torrent that I put up of the whole album. You’ll have to sign up to get it, but it’s well worth it.
Herculi
December 2
So, as Elaine pointed out and Max noted I finished my NaNoWriMo novel.
Wow, I think that’s the most links I’ve ever put in one paragraph.
Yes, I finished it around 11:30 p.m. on the night of November 30th. In other words, the last fucking minute. I didn’t think I could do it. I really didn’t. But Max and Elaine both thought I wasn’t insane when I suggested “Maybe I’ll try and write 24,000 words in two days.”
I know who’s fault it was. It was mine. I had told Elaine about the people that decided to do NaNoWriMo in a weekend. Max and I had both seen the people who did NaNo in a week. We all thought it was crazy. It was. It is. But I did it, too.
Max and I aren’t alone, though. 6,000 other crazy people sat down and wrote their short novels, too. I think that the 6,000 winners this year is more people than even entered the first year it was an organized event (1999). That’s amazing for a free-to-participate activity like this. There were thousands of people all over the world working on NaNo this year.
But I don’t want to spend the whole post talking about the past. This weekend is John’s birthday. We’re gonna go rollerskating and eat Japanese food. Can’t beat a combination like that!
I think I’m going to finally finish this update of eyeheartzombies. I never finished all of the sections, and I want to integrate del.icio.us into the site somehow, maybe attaching a day’s links to a post somehow. I dunno, I’ll have to look into it.
Speaking of redesign, though. I could use some help. If you have any interesting pictures of notecards or notepaper, send ‘em to me. Like notepads with cartoons and sayings on them, or old checkout cards from a library. Something like that. Even if it has writing on it/it’s used.
Oh, and one last link. This web site is oddly addictive. It’s worse than clientcopia (which I’d have you note I had linked before all the “cool people” did. I’m followed, I tell ya). So be careful. Here’s group hug