2019: July 7th Drinking w/ Comics Memorial Episode for The Walking Dead

Mike Wellman and I were joined by writer/director Adam Marcus this past Friday for a Drinking with Comics Memorial to Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard's 15 year comic book epic, The Walking Dead. Losing my tentpole title after the thirteen years it's been my favorite comic comes at a strange time in my relationship with the medium, and although we won't really touch on that, Adam, Mike, and I look at the industry ramifications as well as our personal reactions.  I had a lot of fun doing this one, so if you're a fan of The Walking Dead, check it out.

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Despite or perhaps because of lofty expectations, I had a hard time with the first two episodes of Stranger Things 3. Then, halfway through episode three, the story really got going and things clicked for me. Currently about to start episode six, I think this is definitely the best season of the show so far. I'm perhaps a bit biased because something about underground tunnels always wins me over, but here there's so much more. Without going into spoilers, the plot is great, the editing and pacing punchy and engrossing, and the way the Duffer Brothers continue to weave homages to the works they love into new and, frankly, inspiring genre idea off-shoots blows me away. And I love the way they add to the cast of characters on this show. Might be spending the rest of my day finishing this, although that's a huge hit to my timeframe. We'll see.

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Playlist from 7/06:

Blur - 13
Paramore - All We Know is Falling
Nothing - Guilty of Everything
The Smiths - The Queen is Dead
Frank Black and the Catholics - Pistolero

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Card of the day:

Seems to be a nod toward sitting in and binging Stranger Things. I don't really see how that's a plus though, other than it's obviously what I want to do. Which means I shouldn't do it. The body and the mind can err on the side of inactivity because, as we know, a body at rest tends to stay at rest. Let's fuck with some science and climb right up and over that inertia.

2018: December 22nd

It's hard for me to choose a favorite Prince song, and it's equally as hard for me to even choose a favorite Prince song off any given Prince album. Sign O' The Times Definitely ranks among my favorite of the man's work, partially because it is so of its time that when I listen to it the very cells in my body and brain move back to how they operated, circa 1987. I can see the ugly orange carpet we had in the living room, the weird 70s plaid sofa and loveseat; I can hear my dog Frisky barking over the sound of B96 low on the radio in my sister's bedroom. I can picture the chill of sneaking out of bed late on a cold Friday night in March to watch Friday Night Videos (we never had cable), and the strain of the title track from the album coming from the Magnavox tv. And for some reason, even though I didn't know or hear The Ballad of Dorothy Parker until later in life, listening to it now instantly evokes these sense-memories, in such a strong way that, if I close my eyes, I am right back there. Time Travel - I've sometimes wondered if it's just our sense of sight that prevents us from this feat, as though the things we build our world from specifically operate/exist within certain visual spectrum parameters, to prevent the layman from actually traveling into the past. Were this so, are there secret places where this is not the case? And who, if anyone, holds the keys to those places?

This weird psychonaut talk may be the result of watching most of the Joe Bob Briggs Christmas Phantasm Marathon last night on Shudder. The series gets pretty trippy as it goes on, so maybe it affected me in ways I did not anticipate...



The newest episode of The Horror Vision went up late last night. This past Thursday night Ray, Anthony, Chris, and myself were fortunate enough to have three of the main minds from Skeleton Crew on to discuss their new feature Secret Santa. Adam Marcus, Debra Sullivan, and Bryan Sexton steer the boat for a nice, meaty discussion on their movie, the horrors of holiday family dinners, independent filmmaking, the state of horror, plus, a lot of in-depth facets of the movie business as seen through a creator's eyes. Here's a trailer for Secret Santa, which I've seen twice now and which gets better every time. Links to our episode on all the usual platforms follow:



The Horror Vision: Secret Santa Interview Apple Podcasts
The Horror Vision: Secret Santa Interview Spotify
The Horror Vision: Secret Santa Interview Google Play
The Horror Vision: Secret Santa Interview 

Playlist from 12/21:

Ministry - The Last Sucker
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Card of the day:

Calm exterior, tempest inside. This is me at the moment. Nothing bad happening, just unable to find the time to work on everything I want to work on, let alone finish the goddamn book!

However, patience is virtue, and I sometimes feel as though I might have inexhaustible reserves of this precious commodity.