VAGINA DENTATA!! VAGINA DENTATA!!!

Weekend is here!
My monthly Guitar World came today with a preview of the new Metallica album, and I'm way excited for it. It's not until September, but they've got a website up called Mission Metallica, complete with a teaser that showcases just a taste of their new stuff. Kevin & Derek, from the 30 seconds or so I've heard so far, I think you can finally quit your bitching and whining about how much you think new Metallica sucks and enjoy their music again. They've gone back up to E tuning again, there are solos in the songs, and what little I heard is fast and heavy as shit.
New page of Golden Brown is up, go check it out. I really enjoyed doing this page because I got to switch a few characters around this time.
What am I Watching?
Otis- I often have to force Karissa to watch movies with me. At least this time she was appreciative. This movie about an icky pizza delivery guy who moonlights as a psycho who kidnaps teenage girls and reenacts a prom night experience with them before killing them came out just this year--in fact, I got it right out of Fangoria. I was very surprised by how good the acting was in this movie. At times the dialogue got too back-and-forth (imagine watching 2 minutes of Gilmore Girls and trying not to commit suicide), but the characters all fit perfectly into their roles, especially Bostin Christopher (Otis). The best way to warm a brownie is by sitting on it. I have absolutely NO complaints about the smoothness of the acting, though, which is rare. There were disturbing parts, there were funny parts. The alternate ending was actually a little better than the original, in my opinon (who doesn't love a birthday party?)
The Apple-A musical couple are trying to make it in the tyrannical musical futuristic world of 1994. WHO FUCKING VOMITED UP THIS PIECE OF SHIT?!? Are you kidding me? Giant padded collars everywhere, glittery lipstick, Mr. Boogalow & Mr. Topps are really the Devil and God? I didn't realize until it was too late that this was a fucking stanky piece of green baby-shit musical in all the xanadu-x-10 glamour of the late 70's-early 80's, and on top of it all, it is a religious allegory! There's even hippies! This goes beyond Jesus Christ Superstar in its supreme silliness. This was at least as bad as Otis was good. I still can't get the taste of that magic (stinky) apple out of my mouth.
Teeth- Ultra-virgin's budding sexuality is hampered by the fact that her vagina has teeth. Well what did you expect? I thought it was a stretch when Dawn & her friends refused to watch a highly anticipated movie because it was rated R. But that's pretty much forgotten when her over-aggressive boyfriend gets his dick bitten off when he tries to rape her. Am I spoiling the surprise? Nope. See a dismembered penis on the ground, and you'll understand. I was disappointed that for all the obvious physical evidence of those teeth, we never get an actual look at the Vagina dentata. Oh well, keep watching and you'll see her stepbrother get some pseudoincestual action before the bad thing happens (again, not ruining the surprise, see it and understand). And the ending, though creepy, is gratifying.

RIP George Carlin, 1937-2008

The first time I remember seeing him was on Bill & Ted's Escellent adventure. It took a few years before I actually heard anything he did for stand up.

As controversial as he was, he was never apologetic. I love his views on religion, death, politics--all of it upfront and with no bullshit.

My favorite thing he was ever known for is his use of the word 'fuck'. He didn't just throw it around in sentence, but pontificated at length about its uses and definitions. He did it with every cuss (as evidenced in his 7 Words bit), but his exploration into everything behind the word 'FUCK' was amazing.

To George Carlin, I raise my root beer and say, "shit fuck piss cocksucker motherfucker cunt tits".

My Homemade Bass Video!

This is my first actual attempt at video editing, so please forgive the sound part of this. The bass sounds louder because it was closer to the camera mic than the accompanying music played through a stereo.

About the bass:

Yeah, it's cardboard. I originally wasn't gonna put any wood in it other than the neck, but as I worked, I realized I needed to brace the body inside. When I found out I could lacquer cardboard, I went fucking nuts. In the end it still feels like cardboard, just a bit stiffer and water-resistant. I put in a homemade pickup made from a piezo buzzer, which works well but feeds back a little easier than I'd like. The neck is a wide stair rail that I ground down, the headstock is a piece of the same rail cut off and turned around. The little devil horns were somehwat accidental, I just enhanced them. The tuners are just bolts with plastic heads. The strings are weed-whacker strings of varyious gauges, threaded onto the tuning bolts through holes in the headstock. Genius, really. There are probably 6-7 screws in the entire thing, the rest is held together by wood glue. I was extremely stressed toward the end; I had invested so much effort into this project (not much money, though, fortunately), and I didn't even know yet if it worked. I have to thank Karissa for her patience with this project, too. She listened to me talk endlessly about every fucking detail, and I can't imagine how agonizing that must have been. Unfortunately for her, I have more projects in a similar vein I want to try, and she has to hear more.

On a different-but-equally-cool note, I just found out Metallica should be releasing their new album, Death Magnetic, some time in September. Awesome. If they come anywhere near here, I don't care if I have to whore myself, I'm going to make the show.

New page of Golden Brown up, you can check it out here. Sorry for the week's delay, I was really hoping to have this page out before my vacation started.

What am I watching?

Undead- A meteor shower causes an infection leading to zombie outbreak in an Australian fishing vilage. Aliens then come in and 'cure' the residents, walling them in and raining "acid" rain on them. The acting is okay, if a little stylized and overdone. The mysterious fisherman helping the others is too moody and his action scenes remind one of a redneck version of the Matrix. The FX were pretty good overall, though. The one eerie element of the movie is the expressions on the faces of those being abducted. The ending is grim-but-determined, much like a Romero flick.

Jenifer- A detective rescues a torture victim, only to fall in love with her, despite her horrible facial disfiguration and diagnosed mental retardation. When they say disfigured, they mean fucking disfigured! Her eyes alone scare the shit out of me. The sex scenes are typical of softcore, but are absolutely disturbing when you see Jenifer's face, hear her guttural cries, and remember that mentally there's something missing. Oh yeah, and she kills and eats animals & people. This is a very creepy film that was well made and has a great ending-not-ending. I had a helluva time finding this movie on IMDB at first, only to realize it's part of the now-mutated for cable Masters of Horror series.

Batman: Arkham Asylum- The inmates of Arkham Asylum take over on April Fools Day and demand Batman in exchange for hostages. Based on a Grant Morrison graphic novel. This is just a fan film trailer, but I was so floored by it that I had to post it here in honor of the now-in-theaters The Dark Knight. Even though just a trailer, it ties with Batman: Dead End as an all-time favorite fan film. It sucks that it's in Spanish, but the imagery is so faithful to the way Kelley Jones illustrates Batman that I can't even find words for how cool this is (Kelley Jones was known for a very creepy rendition of Batman: super-long ears, constantly bearing gritted teeth, elongated limbs and a cape that blended into the darkness as though he were literally a part of the shadows). Even his Joker is uber-creepy, both in looks and voice. I strongly recommend following the link for this movie and watching it.

Clerks- A day in the life of a convenience store clerk & a movie store clerk. How weird is it that I have never seen this movie? I can relate to the blatant misanthropy and the descriptions of idiot customers, but I found the dialogue pretentious. It's a bunch of young people who all seem to possess a biting wit and awareness of politics and humanity and can spit it out in sentences without even thinking it. Bullshit. Jay & Silent Bob worked great in this movie because they countered this GenX psuedointellectualism with biting anti-wit. Jay even fucked up a joke in the movie and had to retell it. I was overall disappointed in the movie. I did like how Randall summed up the insignificance of store clerks, however.

South Dakota: Travelogue

6/09
We started out later than we wanted, and the DVD player didn't seem to want to work for us at first. It was drizzly and grey as we left. Around Mooreton, we got off the Interstate and stayed only on highways.

We stopped in Wyndmere around 10:30am. The weather got better as we headed south. We also started to see more buffalo. We stopped in Ellendale for lunch at a little bistro-style place downtown called Serenita. Even the bathrooms were swanky (table-top fountain in the men's room--that's class!). Other than this place, Ellendale seemed like a dying small town with hardly anyone out and about.

We got into Aberdeen around 2pm. While waiting for Isabella to wake up, we drove around downtown. I was impressed by how old the area looked while still being maintained.

As soon as Isabella woke up, we headed for Storybook Land, and it was very fun! We got to take a little train around the entire grounds, then got to see a big castle, ride a carousel and a twisty balloon-type ride. There was also a petting zoo and a Wizard of Oz themed gift shop (looked like Dorothy's Kansas house) with a back door that led you through a tornado-to-Oz experience. It was pretty cool.

It took a bit of effort to find our campsite, and a tremendous amount of effort to get the fire lit in the wind that pounded us. We had us some burgers & s'more's, though. Unfortunately, I put out the fire as Karissa was getting stuff out of the van, so the smoke got inside and made the van and us reek of smoke the ENTIRE vacation. Oops.

6/10

Morning was chilly, but the weather was nicer. We stopped in to see the Dacotah Prairie Museum downtown, plus the Riverside Memorial Cemetery (where the oldest residents were buried) before leaving Aberdeen. We drove through a lot of small towns along the way, saw things like a prehistoric rock in Tulare, and massive in-town highway contruction in Wolsey.

We made it to Mitchell around 2pm. The first place we went was the Prehistoric Indian Village/Archeodome, where were we got to see the site currently being worked by archaeologists, Isabella got to dig for plastic bones, and I got to show her (clumsily) how to use an atl atl.

We stopped at an antique mall which didn't have much, then checked out the Corn Palace, before eating at Jackpot Gamblin', where Isabella asked the young waitress what happened to her eye (she was in an accident which resulted in her eye being injured).

Afterward, we made our way to Sioux Falls, stopping along the way at a sculpture park. That was awesome. A lot of the sculptures were great, but the bull's head was just nuts. It was guarded by 4 mino-sentries, and when you looked into the back of the head, you found sculpted bats and little dragons hanging around a crucified demon. I want that bull head & his sentries in my backyard!

I don't remember what time we got into Siuox Falls, but I was happy to find our motel room.

6/11

It was raining today. We found our way to the Washington Pavilion, where Isabella got to see a T-Rex skeleton, play with educational water and air eshibits, and she and I piloted a space shuttle into the ground (we're not pilots, so sue us).

After the museum, we ate downtown at the Phillips Avenue Diner, which was awesome! It was busy, though, so it took a while to get back out.

After a break & a nap, we took Isabella to the Sertoma Butterfly House. It's like a giant greenhouse with tons of butterflies just flittering around in your face and eating fruit and all that.

Later on, we tried to find a Middle-Eastern restaurant, but it vanished, so we settled for Famous Dave's, which was just as good.

6/12

Happy Birthday, Karissa! It was very sunny this morning. We hit the zoo around 9:30 this morning. The zoo itself was cool, despite the renovation of the "future Savannah" area. There was a little trainride that was a great idea but a little disappointing in execution--nothing like Storybookland.

We had a picnic in Sherman Park. We saw some mounds, which I think are real mounds that were left untouched. Like many mounds, however, they were made part of a golf course. The picture I got of them is shitty.

We went back out around 3:30pm to look for an antique mall on 12th st. We never did find it (turns out it was two streets down), so we went to Falls Park, which is one of the neatest parks I've seen. The building that didn't make it into the pic above on the far far left is a cafe.

Karissa wanted birthday pasta, and we couldn't find restaurants that actually promised pasta, so we settled for Old Chicago. A few minutes after we got in, it stormed out really hard for about 10 minutes, then just stopped.

About 9:30pm, we went back out to Falls Park to catch one of their nightly light shows. Basically, they just cast colored lights on the falls, but it did look pretty cool, and Isabella got a kick out of it.

6/13

We got out of the motel by 11am. I am a master packer, and anyone seeing the job I did packing our van would be in awe.

It didn't take too long to get to Dell Rapids, where we found the Big Sioux Overlook (above). What's funny is that Dell Rapids is fairly flat, and other than a few signs there is no indication of this overlook. It's really cool to see, though.

Stopping downtown, we ate at the Bowl & Cafe, a literal hole-in-the-wall housing a cafe/bowling alley (duh).

We got into Watertown around 2pm. Isabella wouldn't take a nap, so we went straight to the Terry Redlin Museum. It was cool to see all his work, and the place is very well-maintained. My favorite part was a series which depicted a house going through a series of life-changing events, starting from a kid getting acquainted with his new dog as they moved into their new house, to the kid growing up and leaving for college, then the Navy, finally ending with officers coming to the house to tell the mother that her son was killed in the war, sort of a tribute to his own brother-in-law.

There was also a traveling Norman Rockwell exhibit. Rockwell was a heavy influence on Redlin, so it was cool to see the two in the same place.

We got to the Sandy Shores campground around 4pm. It was very windy again, but I had little trouble getting the fire lit. This campground was a little more modern--the toilets flushed and the lake was more tourist accessable. We were a little cramped in between our neighbors, but they were all pretty friendly. We had beer brats for dinner and got some good warmth out of our fire fire before the wind picked up even more. Before we knew it, it was raining and blowing like crazy. After about a half-hour (9pm), the rain let up and we came back out to find the fire still somewhat lit, so we roasted marshmallows a little and put Isabella to bed (where she was asleep within 2 minutes!). Not long after it started to rain again, so Karissa and I just went to bed.

6/14

We woke up a little easier this morning, and Isabella played in the park for a while before we left for home. We got off I-29 at Harwood and took H81 just for fun (except for a 3-mile road construction detour) the rest of the way back to Grand Forks. Keeping off the Interstate as much as possible made the trip way more fun, and it didn't feel like it dragged on forever because there was always something more to look at than when on the Interstate.

We pulled into our house around 3pm. We had traveled 963 miles overall. Despite a few meltdowns/tantrums and malfunctioning DVD players, Isabella took to travel like a real trooper and seemed to have a lot of fun. She still talks about Storybook Land and camping.

Devils Run, Bass is Done, My Favorite Scene Has Finally Come!

Last weekend found us up in Devils Lake for Devils Run. It was fun to see the parade again, but I was pissed about the street dance being moved and squared (made boring). One thing I'd love to change about Devils Run is to add more local bands to the event, and maybe not so many fucking classic-rock and/or cover bands. Sorry, but there's already TOO MANY of you guys clogging up the music scene in North Dakota, I think we need more variety than that.
So instead of loitering in the park with a bunch of strangers we opted for hanging out at Derek's garage and having a bonfire, which resulted in a way better time and some good pictures on April's camera, none of which made it to her blog (I'm still waiting to see the shot of Derek on my bass April!).
Speaking of which, what did I make come "alive"? I evolved my cardboard bass project and created an actual upright bass--not just a box, but an actual body--and painted it black. I think it looks AWESOME and am finding out just how hard it is to play good slap bass. I still plan on posting a video of this one, just give me a little time. My first videotaped attempt at playing it was not succussful--the sound wouldn't pick up on camera, the wire inside rattled (yeah I wired it), and it was horribly out of tune. I took it to Devils Lake to show everyone, and it seemed to be well-received. Now I have to wait for Derek to build one.
I got a new page of Golden Brown up, this particular scene I've been waiting to do for a loooooong time. Seriously, I've been planning to do it for over a year, and I'm very excited to finally get to this part of the story. I'm hoping to get the next page done before we go on vacation, but no promises. If I can't finish & scan it by the end of the weekend, you guys will just have to wait an extra week.
What am I watching?
Sinful- A woman trying to conceive goes a little crazy when her neighbor manages to get pregnant. The isn't bad, the acting is a little overdone and moody and it gets hard to tell dreams from reality at some points. Nudity was quite gratuitous, but that's never really a bad thing with me, and the ending was pretty weird with the crazy chick ending up with the father of her neighbor's baby.
Targets- Boris Karloff stars as Byron Orlock, a horror film veteran confronts a pschotic Vietnam veteran going sniper at a Drive-in. I liked the homage to old horror film and writing (Lord Byron, Count Orlock from Nosferatu), and I loved the whole concept of pitting a fictional monster horror giant up against a real life psychological horror. The ready-aim scenes of this movie are agonizing and panic inducing, and the fires are quick and disturbing. Even children aren't safe in this movie. My favorite part is the ending where (spoiler) Orlock discovers the shooter behind the movie screen and marches right up to him. The shooter fires once, grazing Orlock's head, but fails to get a second shot off before getting majorly bitch-slapped. Then, when he's being cuffed, he chillingly remarks, "I barely missed, huh?"
Monster House- Some kids encounter a house that is not only haunted, but is possessed and "alive". I decided to treat Isabella to a little movie night last night, and we hadn't seen this one yet. I was surprised by how good it was. There is some adult theme hidden in it, like teen drinking and a uvula joke. Plus you're never really sure if most of the people who get eaten by the house actually die or not (a deadbeat boyfriend climbs out at the end, two cops and a dog do not). The sideshow flashback was a cool idea, not one really touched upon in children's movies, and gave the old man and the house a more tragic element. Even though the "possessor" of the house is technically the villian, she herself is reacting to the shitty life she tried to leave behind. Personally, I would KILL to see a movie like this done about sideshow exhibits & circus "freaks". Oh yeah, and a fat kid named Chowder? How could that not be funny?