Pre-Travelogue, Witty Zombie Dialogue

In a few hours, we'll be on our way to Devils Lake for the weekend. We haven't been back since my birthday in January. I fixed the bridge on my homemade guitar, so now the strings aren't so close together and they're not as far off the neck. It stays in tune okay, but I think it's still adjusting to the tension.
I was hoping to jam this weekend, but the temperature might not be quite warm enough yet. I'll see how cold the room feels. I'm really getting frustrated these days that we have no place to play. It seems like there's always a heat issue. I wish we had Amadon's store basement again, without the Amadon. I still wonder if he ever got his grandpa's acoustic out before the landlord took over.

What am I watching?
Lillies of the Field- I know this sounds all girly, but it's an early 60's Sydney Poitier flick about an ex-GI who has a run-in with a bunch of nuns (who themselves escaped from behind the Berlin Wall) and winds up building them a church. This was actually my first Sydney Poitier movie, and it turned out to be pretty good. With a mix of Germans, Mexicans, and a black guy, the bickering between all three at times goes on in three different languages--a funny culture-clash movie for the 1963.
Emma Mae- A orphaned southern girl goes to live with her relatives in Los Angeles. She's reluctantly accepted by her cousin's friends and eventually becomes something of a leader after her deadbeat boyfirned is jailed. She tries honest work, which doesn't raise nearly enough for his bail, and ends up robbing a bank to get the money. There is some dialogue which concerns ghetto folks getting screwed even when they try to get honest work, but the social relevance behind it comes as an afterthought ('oh yeah, there should be some black people issues in this movie!') and it falls flat. Three things make this movie good, however. First, the girl playing Emma Mae is a slightly unnattractive, realistic-looking girl, making her portrayal of a southern uggo believable. Second is Big Daddy. An old pissy respect-African-culture type, he steals just about every scene he's in. Third thing is the bst one: After Emma gets her shithead boyfriend out of the clinck, she goes to Big Daddy's place to wait for him. He ends up fucking some bald chick (other than cancer patients, bald chicks are a myth, they're not real), she finds out and kicks his ass. And not just kicks his ass, she pounds his nutsack like ten fucking times! She holds his head down with on hand, and with the other brings the mighty hammer down over and over again! To watch this scene was both painful and exciting, because this guy was a dick throughout the movie, and I was just waiting for it.
Fallen Angels- The skeletons of several children are found beneath a prison that's set to be demolished. A group of forensic investigators chck it out and inadvertantly unleash 7 demons (one for each sin) to wreak havoc...You know I just don't have the energy to finish this one. It sucked. I don't want to hate Adrianne Curry, but if she keeps appearing in crap like this (even in a bit part), she's gonna get ugly real quick. Her dumbass hubby Chris Knight (who must like having a rod up his butt) is in it too. Acting sucks. Kane Hodder (formerly Jason Vorhees) didn't save it. The story doesn't come together well, and it has such a spiritual feel-good ending that I'm surprised it wasn't premiered on the Trinity Broadcast Network. If I owned this movie, I would have drowned it in the bathtub and then acted like it died of natural causes...too soon for that joke?
Die and Let Live- This was a refreshing opposite to the previous one. It should have sucked. It wasn't very well acted, the story had trouble comeing together, but the two main characters were fucking funny. Basically a disaster at a medical center unleashes zombies. A guy and his wingman have a party to get girl he likes to notice him. Romance is cramped when the zombies attack. The zombies are badly made up, but that's okay, because all you're really doing is listening to these guys talk. Whoever did most of the writing for this movie should be given a job writing movies. The dialogue alone is reason to watch it. And in an imagined Vietnam flashback, the Forrest Gump impression is priceless.

I CUT THE GRASS!!

Well, yes, in a few weeks, I will.
I don't really have any drawings to post right now. It's spring break at AAU, so I technically don't have class right now (which is silly since I don't have 'class'). I do, however, have a new page of Golden Brown up and humming loudly over here, so take that, Gargamel.
The homemade guitar is still working okay, although I think it's tuned 3 steps low, and I have to fix the bridge so the strings aren't so close together. Eventually, I'd like to wire it and see how it sounds electric.
We skipped the St Patty's parade last weekend and took Isabella to the movies (see Horton below). It went much better than the last time. She still got bored halfway through, but she behaved very well, and ended up half-napping wrapped up in my coat next to me. She even got her own little tray with popcorn, a snakc and Sprite. I think what I love most about River Cinema is that they use the tubs for popcorn instead of bags. I remember way back when the Devils Lake theater used to do that, and missed it.
On Sunday, we took Isabella to Chuck E. Cheese with Karissa's mom, sister, and sister's bf. We walked out with a bunch of little toys because I ruled the game with the light that travelled around the circle and you had to push the button when it hit between the markers to get the jackpot.
This weekend, we're taking Isabella to the Easter thingy at the Alerus. She's already excited about the candy. It's weird thinking that she's grown up enough to remember what holiday is coming and to sound annoyed when she thinks I'm getting on her case. Having an irritated 3-year-old mutter "Gosh," under her breath while walking away from you makes it hard keep a straight face.
What am I Watching?
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus- That's pronounced "Dee-Ann", by the way. A photographer's wife in the 1950's more or less leaves her rich family to be with a man covered in fur. The movie is kind of a biopic but with hallucinations, and speaks much about society's awareness of class differences through heavy symbolism. The lower classes spoken of here happen to be ex-freaks from the old Barnum & Bailey days. I say nudity is conducive to every story, but that's just me. In any case, it dfinitely is in this one. Diane (Nicole Kidman) gets down and dirty a couple times, but she appears at a nudist camp towards the end, metaphorically shedding the skin of her old uptight society life and into an exciting new clothes-optional one. The movie wasn't bad, all the weirdness helped.
To Die For- Another Nicole Kidman movie? Must be her birthday or something. This one involves a ditzy/ambitious woman who marries an average everyman (who's dad may or may not be a mob boss) and realizes they are going down 2 different roads in life. Pursuing a career in journalism, she interviews three outcast teens for a documentary. She has an affair with one gives another horrible advice about how to handle sexual abuse, and with them plots to kill her husband. This was a good movie because you can actually see how quickly she developes the mentality of a teenager while hanging out with them, and it brings to memory the female teacher cases of the past couple years. Just when you think there isn't going to be some sort of payoff at the end, it hits you. And I don't think i've ever been so convinced of a teen's general stupidity as I was watching Joaquin Pheonix.
Horton Hears a Who- Isabella liked it, that's really all the endorsement it needs, isn't it? Everyone knows the story by now--an elephant learns of a society living within a little puff and does everything he can to save it while making up words to rhyme together. Much of the Suessness has been taken out of the story, but it was still really well-made. There are a lot of funny parts, and the actors handled their roles pretty well. Close to the end, there is a scene in which Horton has been surrounded, and everyone is going mob wild about getting rid of the puff, the moment actually feels a little intense. Pretty cool when a cartoon does that.
Night of the Lepus- And here we go with the whoppers. A rancher enlists the aid of scientist couple to curb a bunny population problem that's messing with his animals (they break the legs stepping into bunnyholes, you know). The scientists take a bunch of rabbits as test subjects, and infect some with a chemical so they wouldn't be able to reproduce. The scientist's retarded daughter (she isn't, but she might as well be) swtiches the rabbits and ends up losing the infected one before they know how the chemical affects it. It breeds, and in only one night the rabbits grow to the size of large dogs and become extremely aggressive. That's right, cute fuzzy death with cecotropes the size of softballs. And guess who has a supporting role in this takes-iteself-too-seriously movie? Deforest "Bones" Kelly. Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor, not a lagomorph.
Attack of the Puppet People- The didn't really attack so much as escape. A lonely puppet maker secretly invents a machine that shrinks people. He makes real people into dolls to keep him company. This is as bad as Night of the Lepus, but I was really expecting some creepy animated puppets. Oh well.
The Battleship Potemkin- I can't believe the luck that I would actually find this on tv! Sailors' protest over rancid meat escalates into mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin, which spreads over into the port town of Odessa. The Cossacks are called in, and the whole turns into a massacre as they gun down innocent civilians in one of the most famous scenes in cinema (remember the baby in the carriage rolling uncontrollably down the steps?). There is blood in this movie as well, which is pretty cool for 1925. Despite the overly theatrcal acting that silent flicks are known for, I couldn't help but get absorbed in the movie.
The Worst Horror Movie Ever Made- Wow. I was traumatized by this movie. By the time the credits rolled, I had laughed, cried and fearing shitting--and not the good kind of laugh/cry/fear shitting either. Anyone can make a crappy movie, but it takes a special talent to go out of the normal way of bad movies and make one this horrible. A group of friends get together to play cards and act subpar. In 5 minutes, all but two die, one of them from a sinister banana (thanks, like I need another banana trust issue). The two left, a couple, apparently wanted this to happen and go on the lamb. They encounter various obstacles like a werewolf, a poop monster (think Sourpatch Kid made of poo & with corn for teeth), Jesus, hillbillies, thickly accented New Yorkers, sudden gigantism, even a little middle eastern terrorism. The best part about this movie was when the guy found himself in an insane asylum rec room with a bald guy wearing elf boots who kept asking/screaming about his sister and a light for his cigarette. That guy was fucking funny, and when I get tired of screaming "Lobster Claw!" at Karissa, I'll start screaming "Hey! Have you seen my sister? Stop looking at my ass!" There are also zombees, and "youngchuks"--2 babies tied together by the umbilical cord to use as a weapon...or to thresh rice.
This movie was painful, and I'm not just talking chinese statuette of a frowning samurai crammed inside my anus feetfirst painful (the frowning ones hurt more), I'm talking High School Musical painful. I got to watch scenes from "Dirtbags", another movie done by Bill Zebub, and it features a cameo by Pete Steele! Jas, I'm afraid you're gonna have to watch it. I'm challenging you for the Title.

Instrument Mutation and Tons of Bad Movie...ation.

I decided a couple weeks ago to turn my balalaika project into a guitar. I'd still like to have a babalaika, I just got curious to see if I could do it. Originally, I used much more basic hardware, but I decided to cheat a little to do the conversion and use some parts from an old guitar of mine. Yeah, you try making a headstock with a jigsaw. It's hard. I rigged the headstock so it pinches the nut (haha!) against the neck. The strings are too close together and not very evenly spaced, but I'll be damned if they don't keep their tune, at least for a day, anyway. In the video (which you may have to turn up the volume to hear), you'll see I had to use the tail-piece from the parts-guitar, too.

I got the comic out a little late on Friday, but it's technically on time, so quit whining. I may need to take next week off the comic, due to schoolwork. I'm going to have a project due soon. I'll let everyone know by Monday.

We were going to see the St Patrick's Day parade today, but I think we're gonna skip it and take Isabella to Horton Hears a Who instead. This is our second attempt at taking her to a movie, hopefully it works out better than the first one. If it does, I'll stick it in my reviews.

I just found out Type O Negative might be playing Fargo in June, and I don't know if I can take the time off to go! Karissa and I are taking our SD vacation the week before, and it's not that easy for me to take a bunch of time off one week then another day the next.

What Am I Watching?

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?- Wow, the title says it all. A beatnik visits a fortune teller and, after receiving some bad news, becomes hypnotized by her dancer sister into becoming a killer. It takes forever to get to any good parts, the dancing must have been choreographed by a mentally handicapped person, and there are no zombies, just hypnotized idiots. I was very pissed that the guy gets shot at the end and lives. There are some pretty creepy clown & carnival images, but it doesn't save the movie.

Rat Pfink a Boo Boo- Wow. And I thought Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter was bad. This one and the Incredibly Strange Creatures movie above were both made by Ray Dennis Steckler, who also directed Wild Guitar. Remember Wild Guitar? This guy could make millions off of novelty shitty flicks. Rat Pfink started out as a serious suspense thriller involving a musician who girlfriend gets kidnapped by a gang of unrulies. Steckler realized halfway through filming that he had nothing good, so he went put in the second half, in which the musician and his buddy disappear into the bedroom only to come out as superheroes Rat Pfink and Boo Boo! Dressed in really crappy homemade costumes, and speaking in silly voices, Rat Pfink and Boo Boo find the kidnappers and take them on Adam West-style. They win, and afterward there is a parade held in their honor as superheroes. Jason, this could be a winner, so you need to see it ASAP. Making the title sequence for te movie, someone fucked up and forgot how to spell AND--that's why it's Rat Pfink a Boo Boo. "...And remember, Boo Boo, we had one weakness...bullets."

The Devil's Messenger- Satan hands out assignments to a suicide victim who wants a fair "hearing". Lon Chaney is a bit of a 'nice guy' for his role as Satan, but that adds a bit of a sinister element to his character as he delivers bad news with a smile on his face. The tales this suicide victim is involved in are a little twisted.

Stangeland- I had always wanted to see this movie, and for some reason didn't. Dee Snider plays a sadistic internet predator named Capt. Howdy who lures his victims to his house, then slowly tortures them to death. Kinda like Buffalo Bill with an internet connection. He kidnaps a detective's daughter, is caught and put in a mental institution for 4 years, and comes out looking like a high school guidance counselor. The townsfolk didn't forget what he did, however, and a group of vigilantes (led by Robert Englund) who think he's responsible for another teen's disappearance kidnap him and hang him from a tree. Capt. Howdy (at this point Carleton Hendricks) is left for dead, but a breaking tree branch spares him. Being strung up and going without his meds has brought Capt. Howdy back, and he exacts revenge on the people who had condemned him before the detective steps in. I like Dee Snider, but a little of him goes a looong way. The movie was stylized but acting was over the top, there was no Linda Cardellini boob shots unless accompanied by bondage and torture, and the soundtrack featured quite a few bands I don't care for. So everything about the movie was bittersweet. Triva: Where does the name Capt. Howdy come from?

The Last Man On Earth- A plague sweeps the earth, killing everyone and turning them into vampire zombies. One man (Vincent Price) seems to be immune and spends his time killing and disposing of the vampires during the day, and hiding out in his house at night. He keeps his electricity going via generator (pretty smart detail to have remembered, I think), and gets his fuel from an abandoned truck down the road. He finds out that there were survivors of the plague who keep themselves from turning by injecting themselves with a temporary rememdy that keeps the disease at bay. Unfortunately, he's killed quite a few of these 'survivors' and has become known as a terrible legend to them. Before he can reach them with the idea of using his own blood to save them, they find out where he lives. This was the first movie made based on the book by Richard Matheson. It was much better than I anticipated, and I liked the concept of vampires and disease moving from the symbolic realm and becoming completely literal. I also liked Price's acting throughout--his facial gestures and movements during tragic moments were very convincing.

Teenagers From Outer Space- The title is misleading. I was expecting a lot more teenaged type antics and a campy movie. What I got was an "serious" movie about aliens checking earth for suitable environments for the gargons, and one black sheep challenging them and their coldness toward alien humanity. He believes their race should be more compassionate and that they should not eradicate intelligent human life. It's a little confusing, very cheesy, and the gargons are fucking lobsters, come on with this movie! And the alien's name is Derek. Really? No offense to our Derek, that name for a human is fine. But an alien named Derek seems...stupid. Kind of like an alien named Doug.

Battle of the Worlds- A stray asteroid is on a collision course with earth. As probes are sent to investigate possibilities of blowing it up, flying saucers come out and shoot at them. A brilliant but for-some-reason-disgraced scientist/crusty curmudgeon tries warning them that there is more to the "asteroid" (now called The Outsider) than meets the eye. The acting isn't too terribly bad, special effects are silly but forgivable for the time, and it's yet another movie with its own theme song!!

Get Your Hands Off Me, You Blood-Sucking Space Ranger!

I had a PB&J sandwich a little bit ago, and I decided to put grape jelly and strawberry jelly on it. It changed my life.

These pictures are from the past couple weeks of my Heads & Hands class. We're focusing on hands this week.

I got a new page of Golden Brown out on Friday, so go fucking read it. Now.

I'm still working my way through the Satanic Verses. the library called a few days ago to let me know they went ahead and renewed it again for me, which I thought was a pretty courteous gesture when they could have charged me late fees. I swear I must be the slowest reader.

Our van is still awesome. The newness hasn't worn off yet, and I love sitting in a driver's seat that isn't all cramped and that has a seat that is for the CAPTAIN.

I got my projector working okay, but the panel is a little old, so the image doesn't move very smoothly, and it tends to vertically smoosh the image. Oh well, for a homemade setup under $100, it's not a bad start. For about $50 more, I can get a "torpedo" projector that does essentially the same thing.

I'm having serious issues getting the goat-lele functional. It's pissing me off.

What am I Watching?
Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter- Do I really need to say what this is about? Jesus Christ spends his second coming fighting vampires. He looks somewhat traditional at first, but early on gets his hair buzzed, his ear pierced, a modern change of clothes, and a notion to kick vampire ass. The vampires hav received skin grafs from a mad doctor, who was actually one of the better actors of the movie (which is ironic, given that most mad scientist characters are over-the-top). This enables them to walk around in daylight. Not the last bit believable, but hey, the director was thinkin. What really struck me as odd is that there were a couple musical numbers in the movie. There were some crude special effects that helped make the movie funny, and I think just maybe I have a shot at the title. This is the first Christploitation flick I think I have ever seen.

Saw III-This came in our Netflix and sat in the house gathering dust for almost a month before I got sick of not getting our money's worth out of it. It takes off from the first two, torturing people by making them watch his little toy dummy talk while they try to excape from their respective torture devices. It wasn't too bad, and we finally see what happens to Jigsaw and his 'apprentice'. There were some pretty good 'tests', most of which focused on a man who had lost his son in a car accident and, after being forced to confront all those responsible, is left with a choice of saving them or himself. One thing that really started to piss me off was that the director was trying too hard to stylize the movie. There were too many cut-up shots of expressionistic filler scenes.

Rocky Jones: Space Ranger- Space Ranger Doug. Space Ranger Doug. Space Ranger Ranger Ranger...Rocky. Made back in the 1950's, This tv show follows the exploits of Rocky Jones, a space ranger for the United Planets who is incredibly sexist toward his unwanted female navigator. Apparently in the ""future"", space rangers dress either in space-aged ninja tunics or in a simple t-shirt with those dorky crushed-front baseball caps, just like their 6-year-old sons. It was okay.