Archive for Stuff I Like

| October 7, 2011
Comments Off on Friday Fun Links: When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield…

Friday Fun Links: When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shield…

my first Cap comic, Captain America and the Falcon #142


This past Saturday was Captain America Day in my household. The day I finally got around to taking my three boys to see Captain America: the First Avenger. Why did I wait so long? Because I’m cheap. A skin-flint. I just happen to feel that taking my three kids to see a Saturday movie matinee shouldn’t cost approximately twice what it takes to feed them lunch at a mid-priced restaurant. So we waited until the Cap movie came to the second-run movie theater a half-hour’s drive away.

I made a big deal of it with the boys. I told them that if they were good, they’d get to pick out a Captain America toy or comic book of their choice after the movie. (Considering the prices of toys and comic books nowadays, maybe I’m not such a cheapskate.) I really wanted them to like the movie and to like Cap. I remember falling in love with Captain America as a kid. He wasn’t my first favorite superhero; that would be Iron Man. But I fell in love with Cap because my dad told me he’d loved Captain America comics when he’d been a kid, when Cap had just been created by Simon and Kirby, and because he took me to a comic books show and pointed out some of the old issues he’d read, and because I saw a Mego Bend ‘n Flex Captain America at a toy store that I dearly wanted. But, most importantly, I fell in love with Cap because I then read a ton of Captain America comics written by Stan Lee and Steve Englehart, drawn by Jack Kirby and Gene Colan and John Romita and Sal Buscema, and those comics made me want to be Captain America. So I wanted my boys to love Cap, too, because I’d come to think passing down a love of Captain America from father to son was a family tradition I wanted to continue.

the comic that made me fall in love with Cap


My first Cap comic was Captain America and the Falcon #142, where Cap and the Falcon finished their showdown with the Grey Gargoyle, drawn by the great John Romita (who, true to his roots in romance comics, drew Sharon Carter like nobody else). But the comic that truly made me fall head over heels for Cap didn’t come out for another year — Marvel Triple Action #5, which reprinted The Avengers #10, a story called “The Avengers Split Up!” I bought the comic because Iron Man was in it. But I ended up reading it over and over because of Cap. Cap was portrayed as the heart and soul of the Avengers, despite being their physically weakest member (well, maybe not weaker than the Wasp). Immortus (in his first appearance) manages to alienate Cap from the Avengers temporarily, and in Cap’s absence, Baron Zemo and his Masters of Evil pretty much kick the remaining Avengers’ asses. But then Cap shows up and reunites the team, causing the tides of battle to rapidly turn and the Masters of Evil to run with their tails between their legs. It was thrilling and inspiring to see how even Thor respected the heck out of Cap (whom he could thwack across Manhattan with his thumb and forefinger).

My favorite Cap artist ever? I think that would have to be Gene “the Dean” Colan. He didn’t draw all that many issues of Cap, but the ones he drew were terrific. My favorite of the Colan lot is Captain America #131, which features the appearance of a robot Bucky. The reason I love this issue so much is that Gene got to draw Cap having an absolute blast on the beach riding his motorcycle. Those panels of Cap cutting loose with acrobatic joy made a huge impression on me and cemented my determination to become Captain America when I grew up. Here’s a reproduction of those panels (I just wish I could’ve found a bigger scan):

Gene Colan art from Captain America #131; my favorite sequence

So what did I think of the new movie? I’ll admit I had my trepidations going in. Having seen the 1992 Captain America movie will do that to you, as will any familiarity at all with the two 1979 made-for-TV movies. I only knew Chris Evans’ work from the first Fantastic Four movie. I enjoyed him as the cocky, none-too-mature Johnny Storm/Human Torch, but I had a hard time picturing him making the transition from Johnny Storm to Steve Rogers, a much different sort of character.

Well, I must say he sold me. I completely bought Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, and I’m looking forward to him reprising the role in The Avengers next year. In all my years of following Steve Rogers’ adventures, whether as Captain America, Nomad, The Captain, a beat cop, a struggling comic book artist(!), or as the head of SHIELD, the qualities that always remained consistent were a bedrock sense of decency and fair play, a grounded sense of modesty regarding his own importance in the big scheme of things (probably due to his modest background and original scrawny stature), and a refusal to ever quit once he’d decided on a course of action. Chris Evans captured all of that. I thought the best line of the film was when, in the middle of his climactic battle with the Red Skull, after the Skull taunts him by pointing to their shared status as super-humans, Cap says, “I’m just a guy from Brooklyn.” Bull’s-eye, and bravo to the script writers (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely).

As good as Chris Evans was, my favorite character in the film was Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine, creator of the super soldier serum. Erskine never got much development in the Captain America comics. Originally, he only appeared in a few panels of 1940’s Captain America Comics #1 before being killed by a Nazi spy. His story got slightly expanded in subsequent retellings of Cap’s origins, but the good doctor always got the short end of the stick. Not so in the film. Tucci makes the most of his few moments of screen time. The relationship between him and Steve Rogers is, I think, the most touching and heartfelt relationship in the movie; I could’ve watched a full ninety minutes of nothing but Dr. Erskine and Steve getting to know each other. The only little reservation I have about the movie’s retconning of Erskine’s story is that it has him injecting, unwillingly and under duress, an earlier version of his super soldier serum into the man who becomes the Red Skull. I assume from his name that Abraham Erskine was Jewish; would the Nazi Red Skull have really permitted himself to be subjected to mongrel Jewish science?

I enjoyed the film for many of the same reasons as this guy did. But it wasn’t an ideal film, by any means. I agree with a number of critics who complained that the wartime action sequences felt repetitive and were unimaginatively staged. My favorite of the action scenes in Europe lasted only a half a minute; this was Cap dropping a grenade down the hatch of an immense German super-tank, a monster war machine I would’ve enjoyed seeing more than a few seconds of. The most effective action sequence in the film is the earliest one, when Steve Rogers chases down the Nazi spy who shot Dr. Erskine. This sequence was considerably expanded from its comics counterpart, and it is thrilling, particularly in showing us Steve’s discovery of the extent of his new abilities, as well as his initial awkwardness in making use of his newfound speed. Loved that scene of him careening through the window of a dress shop because he’d turned a corner too fast.

In any case, this picture so immeasurably improved upon its most recent forebears, the 1992 Captain America movie (which I remember seeing a coming attraction for in 1990 at a screening of Dick Tracy, but ended up being so bad it was never theatrically released in the U.S.) and the two made-for-TV movies from 1979, that it earns considerable bonus points from grading on a curve. In my humble opinion, the 1944 Republic serial was no great shakes, either, with its protagonist having nothing in common with the comic book character other than portions of the costume (it was a pretty decent adventure serial, but a pretty lousy Captain America serial), but some viewers are willing to show it more love than I have.

So what did the boys think of the film? Levi, my oldest, thought parts of it dragged (the non-action scenes) and complained that he was bored; he said he’d enjoyed X-Men: First Class much better. Asher, my middle son, enjoyed it and said he liked Captain America: the First Avenger and the X-Men film from earlier in the summer about the same. Judah, my four year-old, was the most enthusiastic about Cap. He also insisted that we hurry to a K-Mart so he could pick out his Captain America toy.

Mego Captain America Bend 'n Flex figure, circa 1973; the one that got away


Right after the movie, I took the boys to a comic book store in the same shopping mall. I asked Levi to pick out any Captain America comics or youth-oriented graphic novel he wanted (within reason). Couldn’t get him to bite; he insisted I buy him the latest Wimpy Kid book instead. Then I took the boys to a K-Mart so my other two sons could pick out a Captain America toy. Asher loves cars and trucks, so he gravitated to the Heroes vs. Villains custom cars sets. I asked him if he’d like me to get him the Captain America vs. the Red Skull set. No sale; he picked the Wolverine vs. Sabertooth set instead. Come on, kids, you’re killing your old pop! Can’t you see I’m begging you to let me buy you Captain America stuff? Only Judah, my littlest guy, picked out a Cap action figure. Now I know who will be inheriting my collection of Bronze Age comics…

Well, here are some fun Cap links for you all to chew on–

Someone probably put more time into compiling this Wikipedia article on the Marvel Super Heroes cartoon shows of the mid-1960s than the filmmakers put into making the cartoons themselves. Scary.

This 1990s Captain America cartoon series would have had much better production values, but it never got beyond the drawing board stage.

A nice little portrait of Reb Brown, the actor who portrayed Cap in two 1979 made-for-TV movies. A month after giving this interview, though, he seemed mighty pissed off that he hadn’t been given a cameo in the new film.

If you thought nothing could look worse in Captain America-land than Reb Brown in that motorcycle helmet, try taking a gander at this.

If that last image really lit your cigar, you might want to bid on Reb Brown’s costume from Captain America: Death Too Soon. Shame it doesn’t come with the famous motorcycle helmet, though…

A really cool DIY Captain America shield.

Mego 8" Captain America; the one that hung out with my Mego Planet of the Apes figures

A helpful history of the many, many characters who have taken up the mantle of Captain America over the years.

The same history, but edited down to eight comics panels.

A bit of nifty what-if on who might’ve been cast as Captain America had a big-screen movie been filmed in earlier decades.

A visual history of the Mego Captain America toys of the 1970s.

Fifty-six pieces of great Captain America swag I wish I could’ve had as a kid.

An appreciation of Gene Colan’s “groovy” late 1960s and early 1970s Captain America work.

A drinking game you can play while watching your DVD copy of the 1992 Captain America movie.

For your aesthetic pleasure, here’s a marvelous page of Gene Colan’s art from Captain America #131:

Gene Colan art from Captain America #131

And let us close with these inspiring lyrics from the 1960s Captain America cartoon show:

When Captain America throws his mighty shield
All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield
If he’s lead to a fight and a duel is due,
Then the red and white and the blue’ll come through
When Captain America throws his mighty shield…

And remember — Let’s rap with Cap!

Category: Friday Fun Links, Stuff I Like | Tags:
| October 3, 2011
2 comments

Gladiator in the Light of Subsequent Super-Men and Superheroes


I just finished reading Philip Wylie’s 1930 novel Gladiator. I’d heard about the book for years, both as one of the earliest speculative fiction novels on the subject of a super-human (appearing five years prior to Olaf Stapleton’s Odd John and ten years before A. E. van Vogt’s Slan was serialized in Astounding) and as the purported inspiration for the creation of Superman by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in 1938.

On the surface, certain parallels between Hugo Danner, protagonist of Gladiator, and the original version of Superman are striking. Their power sets were virtually identical; Danner could run as fast as a locomotive, leap forty feet straight into the air or hurl a church steeple with a running start, lift up to five tons, and had skin impenetrable by anything short of an exploding artillery shell. Also, Danner spends part of the book attempting to root out corrupt politicians and industrialists from their center of power in Washington, DC, a pursuit echoed by a decidedly populist Superman in many pre-war issues of Action Comics and Superman (in Metropolis, rather than Washington). However, according to Gregory Feeley, who has looked into all the relevant sources, Gladiator may not have had anything to do with the inspiration for Superman. The novel initially found very few readers, selling less than 2,600 copies in its first hardcover printing from Alfred Knopf. During interviews they granted late in life, both Siegel and Shuster acknowledged several inspirations for their character, including the pulp action hero Doc Savage, but do not mention Wylie’s Gladiator. Sam Moskowitz’s claim of the link between the 1930 novel and the 1938 Action Comics character, published in his 1963 book of portraits of SF writers, Explorers of the Infinite, was based upon a single interview with Wylie. Gregory Feeley points out that the differences between Hugo Danner and Clark Kent/Superman are more notable, perhaps, than the similarities. Danner received his powers as the result of an experiment his chemist father carried out on Danner’s mother while she was pregnant, not as the result of coming from another planet; and Danner never puts on a costume, adopts a secret identity, or battles criminals as a vigilante, although following one of his frequent failures to achieve his ambitions, he fantasizes about doing the latter (or, alternatively, about becoming what we today would call a super-villain).

A friend of mine located for me a paperback reprint of the novel, published by the University of Nebraska’s Bison Press in 2004. Having just spent weeks laboring through Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March (more on that in my next post), I decided I needed a palate cleanser, something less challenging and a much quicker read. Gladiator seemed to fit the bill. I mainly picked up the book out of archeological interest, wanting to determine for myself any linkages between what I figured would be an antiquated, eighty year-old relic of the pulp era and the subsequent development of the super-hero in comics and films. What I discovered to my surprise was a novel centered on a sophisticated and sometimes subtle characterization of a believable, conflicted, and very three-dimensional protagonist, a book that could bear favorable comparisons, not only with its more renowned contemporaries like Odd John, but also with far more recent novels on similar themes, such as Robert Silverberg’s classic Dying Inside (1972).

As a reader in 2011 who has been marinated in forty years’ worth of super-hero comic books and films, I came to Gladiator with a considerably different set of preconceived notions and penumbras of earlier reading experiences than the novel’s original readers would have had back in 1930. I’ve had the benefit of having read Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Miracleman, Peter David’s Hulk, Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, and Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme. A familiarity with these comics and graphic novels enormously enriches one’s experience of Gladiator, because one can easily see reflections of Hugo Danner’s travails in all of those later works, whether the influence was direct (as it possibly was in the case of Moore, who visually “quoted” Gladiator in Watchmen) or indirect.

To me, a far more interesting question than whether or not Jerry Siegel or Joe Shuster read Gladiator in the 1930s is if Stan Lee read Gladiator in the early 1960s. The novel’s portrait of a man more cursed than blessed by his super-human strength and abilities is strongly echoed by Lee’s characterizations of Spider-Man, the Hulk, and the Silver Surfer (and Lee’s pioneering work in the 1960s led to those deeper examinations of the dilemmas and conundrums of being super-human that I list above). Hugo Danner spends his entire adolescent and adult life searching for a purpose toward which to apply his enormous strength, and the varied purposes he pursues and ends up abandoning encompass almost the entire range of plots utilized by writers of super-hero stories since 1938. In order of attempt, Danner seeks personal glory through excelling at collegiate athletics; accumulation of wealth (or just making enough dough for a meal) through use of his physical strength; satisfaction through saving lives in danger; being able to “cut loose” during wartime and seek vengeance for the deaths of friends in battle; he tries to live up to a parental figure’s hopes; temporarily turns his back on his abilities in an effort to find normalcy and serenity; tries to root out corruption in government and the justice system; seeks to use his strength in the service of scientific exploration; and finally contemplates founding a utopia in the jungle and populating it with children having abilities like his. The tragedy of the novel — and it is a tragedy — is that Danner, despite his pure intentions, despite the rigid control he mostly maintains over his use of his abilities, either is foiled in each of these pursuits by the ignorance, fear, or venality of his fellow men, or he has rueful second thoughts about goals for which he was initially wild with enthusiasm, realizing that his dreams are unrealistic, given human nature. The book ends with Danner considering himself a failure, even though the reader will recognize that he has won many small victories throughout the novel, albeit victories on a far smaller scale than those for which Danner had yearned.

In many respects, Hugo Danner more closely resembles Peter Parker/Spider-Man than he does Clark Kent/Superman. Danner’s scientist father’s goal is to find a way to increase the efficiency of human muscle mass to that of the muscles of ants and grasshoppers, and he succeeds with his infant son (after first succeeding, far more horrifically, with a kitten he comes to name Samson). Danner ends up with the proportional strength of an ant and the proportional leaping ability and speed of a grasshopper, whereas Peter Parker ends up, far more famously, with the proportional strength and speed of a spider. The famous scene from Amazing Fantasy #15 and the first Spider-Man movie of Peter Parker, under an assumed identity, entering a ring with a professional wrestler in order to win a cash prize was foreshadowed decades earlier by an almost identical scene in Gladiator, wherein Hugo Danner uses a false name to win a hundred dollars by knocking out a professional boxer a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier than he is (in another Peter Parker-like touch, the reason Danner does this is to raise cash for a bus ticket back to Webster College after having been seduced, then robbed by a call girl in New York City). Danner’s foray into heroism and service to others, like Peter Parker’s, is preceded by a tragic death caused, in part, by a personal failing on the part of the protagonist. In Peter Parker’s case, his selfish refusal to interfere with a robber’s escape leads to the death of Peter’s Uncle Ben at the hands of that same robber. In Hugo Danner’s case, his anger on the football field at a personal snub from the jealous captain of his team leads Danner to momentarily let go of his self-control and hit an opposing player too hard in the process of scoring a touchdown, snapping the young man’s neck in three places. The big difference between the two characters? Peter Parker, meant almost from the start to be a character in a recurring series of stories, utilizes his shame and self-recrimination to forge a philosophy of “With great power comes great responsibility” and then embarks upon a career as Spider-Man which has now lasted nearly a half century. Hugo Danner, the protagonist of a single novel, struggles mightily to find a purpose for his power and never succeeds, or at least never manages to live up to the Olympian standard he sets for himself.

Danner also resembles another Stan Lee creation, the Incredible Hulk. Danner’s scientist father experiments on a pregnant cat before experimenting on his own wife. The result is a kitten with the strength of an ox. In a series of horrific scenes, among the most effective in the book, the super-kitten nearly destroys the Danners’ home and savagely kills several sheep and cattle. A farmer’s rifle bullet fails to kill it. Danner is forced to poison the creature when it returns to his house for a saucer of milk and a plate of meat. After this experience, Danner and his neurotically religious wife take special care to condition Hugo, once the baby shows signs of his super-human strength, against any expression of anger, use of violence, or open display of his prowess. They are mostly successful in this, although both as an infant and as a child, Hugo occasionally lets signs of his abnormality show, which results in his being ostracized by most of the other children in his town and by their parents. Throughout the book, Danner worries about his potential for losing control and struggles against incitements and temptations to give his anger (and his inhuman strength) free reign. His college career as a star football player is ended when Danner, goaded by a jealous teammate, momentarily forgets to self-limit himself to one-fifth of his abilities on the playing field and accidentally kills an opposing player. Danner’s potential as a killer is shown in full during his service with the French Foreign Legion during World War One, when, in the bloody aftermath of the death of his best friend from German artillery fire, Danner plows into the German trenches and kills a thousand soldiers with his bare hands. Another parallel with an early Hulk story (in this case, The Avengers #1)? Seeking refuge and peace, the Hulk “hides in open sight” by joining a circus and performing as a super-strong robot. In Danner’s case, when he suddenly learns that his parents will be unable to pay for his second year at Webster College, he raises money for his education by getting a job as a strong man on the Coney Island midway, trusting in audiences’ assumption of some form of fakery to mask the extent of his natural abilities.

Another theme of the novel is Danner’s continual search for acceptance, friendship, and love. The ordinary people who surround him can sense his difference, even when he is completely successful at hiding his abnormal strength. This sense of difference leads to distrust, fear, and often to hatred. Danner, after taking a job as a farm hand, finds love with the farmer’s neglected wife, only to see her love turn to horror after Danner is forced to kill a marauding bull by breaking its skull with his fist. In one key scene, Danner rescues a bank coworker who has become trapped in a bank vault and is close to suffocation. All conventional efforts to open the jammed vault have failed. Danner offers to rescue the man, but only if all other persons will leave the basement and will not inquire into his method. He then rips off the vault’s door with his bare hands. The bank’s president questions Danner, suspecting that he has devised a new method of safe cracking that he means to use criminally in the future. When Danner refuses to answer his boss’s questions, the executive has Danner arrested by a corrupt police chief, who then attempts to torture an answer out of Danner. Stan Lee utilized this pattern of a protagonist’s good deed leading to social condemnation and ostracism regularly, particularly in stories involving Spider-Man, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner, or the Silver Surfer. Of all these, Hugo Danner is perhaps the most similar, personality-wise, to the Silver Surfer, one of Lee’s personal favorites. Both characters are portrayed as lonely introverts, frequently soliloquizing on the short-sighted foolishnesses of humanity, yet yearning all the same for human companionship and acceptance, trying to help those in need and sometimes succeeding, but never achieving any recognition. No issue of the classic Stan Lee-John Buscema run of The Silver Surfer was complete without the Surfer retreating to an isolated mountaintop and ruing his exile on Earth and the shortcomings of humanity. Gladiator ends the same way, with Hugo Danner on a mountaintop in Mexico, remonstrating with God.

As a reader conditioned by the “Dark and Gritty” era of super-hero storytelling that followed the publications of The Dark Knight Returns, Miracleman, and Watchmen in the mid-1980s, I kept waiting for Hugo Danner to truly lose it. In an early scene set during his time at Webster College, Danner gets drunk for the first time in his life, at a party attended by his fraternity brothers and a horde of showgirls. Intimations of Alan Moore’s Miracleman led me on, making me anticipate a horrific consequence on the scale of one of Young Nastyman’s drunken binges in the South Seas or Young Miracleman’s nihilistic destruction of part of London. But the worst that happens is that Danner goes home with one of the young women, passes out after having sex, and awakens the next morning with his wallet gone. Danner does let his anger and grief take over in 1918 in France after the Germans kill his best friend, but the Young Miracleman-like slaughter he inflicts on the German troops is camouflaged by the far more massive carnage taking place all along the Western Front; even a man who can kill a thousand enemies in a single night is overshadowed by a war in which a single battle could result in half a million casualties. In his civilian life back in America, the one time that Danner would have been fully justified in cutting loose and dismembering his foes, following his torture at the hands of corrupt police after he has freed a man trapped in a bank vault, he manages to retain control, limiting himself to an intimidating display of his abilities. I thought I might be disappointed by the author’s choice not to have his protagonist engage in vengeance which (most) modern super-characters would have allowed themselves. But Wylie is so successful in illuminating Hugo Danner’s character, his upbringing, and his sense of ethics that I fully “bought” Danner’s decision to be merciful, not feeling that it was a cop-out on the writer’s part.

Fans of the best work of Stan Lee, Alan Moore, Kurt Busiek, and Frank Miller exploring what it means to be super-human owe it to themselves to find a copy of Gladiator and read it, not as a historical curiosity, but as an engaging and enlightening novel. Philip Wylie covered their territory first, decades before most of them began their careers in comics. And he did so with a deftness, craftsmanship, and powers of extrapolation that make his book just as readable as it was upon its first publication in 1930. In fact, perhaps even a better fit for today’s comics-savvy audience than it was for those 2,568 readers who bought copies of the first edition from Alfred Knopf during the early years of the Great Depression.

Category: Reviews and Such, Science Fiction, Stuff I Like, Uncategorized | Tags:
| September 28, 2011
Comments Off on Potomac River Blockade Anniversary at Leesylvania State Park

Potomac River Blockade Anniversary at Leesylvania State Park

Freestone Point today

What do you do if you’re the father of three rambunctious little boys, live in Northern Virginia, and the sesquicentennial of the Civil War has rolled around? You take them to plenty of Civil War reenactments and events, that’s what. Gets ’em out of the house, and maybe they’ll learn something.

Freestone Point Battery engaging the OSS Seminole and Jacob Bell Sept. 25, 1861

This past weekend marked the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Confederate blockade of the Potomac River following the rebel victory at the first Battle of Manassas. Confederate artillerymen mounted a small battery of four cannons at Freestone Point, meant primarily as a diversion from larger batteries which were being built upriver, closer to Washington, DC. On September 25, 1861, those four cannons exchanged fire with Federal gunboats OSS Seminole and Jacob Bell. Nobody was killed or injured on either side.

living historians at 150th anniversary of blockade of Potomac River

Leesylvania State Park, the present site of the Freestone Point Battery, marked the occasion with a living history reenactment. A woman in period dress invited my boys to enlist in the Confederate Army. First she looked at their teeth–they had to have at least one set of opposing teeth in front to join the infantry, so they’d be able to bite off the tops of cartridges of gunpowder. If they lacked opposing teeth in front, they’d have to go into the artillery. Levi and Judah got enlisted into the infantry; Asher, who’s been enjoying lots of visits from the Tooth Fairy recently, got shuffled over to the artillery. Four “soldiers” then gave the boys a demonstration of rifle drill, loading, and firing, which my sons expressed great enthusiasm for. I foresee myself buying one, maybe two Daisy air rifles sometime down the road.

modern day view from site of Freestone Point Battery

Leesylvania State Park, which hugs the Potomac River a little north of Triangle and Quantico, Virginia, is a beautiful place with a fascinating history. The land the park occupies was originally the estate of “Light Horse Harry” Lee, the Revolutionary War hero who was the father of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Freestone Point, a landmark within the park, became locally famous as a spot where sandstone could be easily quarried. Later, in 1861 and 1862, the bluff was selected as the site of a small battery of cannons mounted to enforce a Confederate blockade of Federal traffic along the Potomac River. Nearly a century later, in the late 1950s, the area became known as Freestone Point Park, a gambling and swimming resort. Landbased attractions included three swimming pools, one of them Olympic-sized, a Ferris wheel, a narrow gauge excursion railroad, restaurants, and bandstands for live music. There was also a mile’s worth of white sand beach and a pier which led to the S.S. Freestone, a gambling ship. As soon as a person stepped out onto the pier and over the Potomac’s waters, he or she left Virginia and entered Maryland, which made the activities on the gambling vessel legal. Here’s a quote from one of the park’s historical markers:

Gambling ship S.S. Freestone in the 1950s

“‘A Pacific Paradise on the Potomac,’ suggests the type of atmosphere that existed at Freestone Point in July, 1957. The S.S. Freestone, a gambling ship, was the main attraction of an exciting new recreational resort. Even though it was illegal to either gamble of sell liquor by the drink in Virginia at this time, activity on the S.S. Freestone was protected from Virginia law by mooring in Maryland waters. The S.S. Freestone featured 200 slot machines on her deck, a finely furnished restaurant on the second, and on the third deck a cocktail lounge, in Hawaiian décor, featured live music and dancing. Formerly an excursion steamer, the ship had been retrofitted as a floating casino. Special opening day ceremonies held on July 20, 1957, included events such as the live music of Johnny Long and his Orchestra, water ballet, water skiing exhibitions, raced by sailing craft, fireworks and a beauty contest to crown the Queen of Freestone Point.”

reptile and amphibian pond at Leesylvania State Park

Freestone Point Park and its gambling ship were but a memory by the mid-1960s, and the area sat fallow for a number of years before its owner donated it to the Virginia State Parks agency. Leesylvania State Park opened in 1992. One of the most imaginative and attractive reuses for an abandoned swimming pool I’ve ever seen is the park’s transformation of the old Olympic-sized pool into a reptiles and amphibians pond. The boys and I spotted bullfrogs, dozens of big tadpoles, a snapping turtle, and a red earred slider. The pond roughly retains the shape of the old, now vanished swimming pool. The old resort’s beaches, unfortunately, have mostly been eroded away by the Potomac’s tides.

A wonderful park. We’ll be going back, frequently. If only I can keep the boys from falling into the river…

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| September 23, 2011
4 comments

Friday Fun Links: Mail Order Novelties!

Hey, did you realize there are only 191 days left to April Fools’ Day, 2012? What better time to post a brief history of mail order novelties in America?

Actually, I’m not being entirely up-front with you, dear readers. The real reason I’m posting this edition of Friday Fun Links is that I stumbled across this wonderful article on novelty company H. Fishlove & Co. and its first runaway success — fake vomit. Here’s a fascinating fact: the co-inventor of the country’s original rubber vomit, Marvin Glass, also designed a number of the most beloved children’s toys and board games, including Mousetrap, Operation, Lite Brite (“Making Things With Light, Out of Sight!”), and the inimitable Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. And here’s an article on the company that bought out H. Fishlove & Co. back in the 1980s, Fun, Inc., which continues to rely on the profits raked in by latex barf.

When I was growing up, way, way before Al Gore invented the Internet, the king of the mail order novelties companies was the Johnson Smith Company, in business since 1914 (and no, I was not ordering stuff from them while Sergeant York was mowing down the Kaiser’s soldiers in France). I spent many a pleasant, yuks-filled afternoon in an easy chair in my parents’ living room paging through the latest Johnson Smith Fun Catalog, imagining pulling pranks with all the stuff I’d never have the guts to ask my parents to buy for me — Exploding Gift Wrapped Pop Boxes, Remote Control Money Snatcher, Phony Blood, Life-Like Lady’s Legs to hang out of the back of Dad’s car’s trunk, or, my personal favorite, Bathroom “Parking” Meter.


Those of you who’d like to peruse the entirety of the Johnson Smith Company Fun Catalog #792 from 1979 in all its awesomeness can find a complete scan here. And for those of you who’d actually like to buy this stuff? The Johnson Smith Company is still in business, now with their catalog on the Internet (of course).

The main competitor to the Johnson Smith Company was the S. S. Adams Company, founded eight years before their rival, in 1906. They celebrated their hundredth year in business by issuing this beautifully illustrated book, Life of the Party–A Visual History of the S. S. Adams Company. Adams invented Cachoo, America’s first sneezing powder, and the Dribble Glass. Unfortunately for him, he took a pass on the Whoopie Cushion, feeling it was in poor taste. Smith Johnson didn’t think so, and they sold a bazillion of them.

Other classics? Here’s a history of the Shock Pen. And could this be a contender for a modern classic? Its name alone assures it a place in the history books.

One of my favorite mail-order novelties operations when I was a kid wasn’t a true catalog; it was the back ten or fifteen pages of any issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. Aurora Model Kits always had ads in the back of Famous Monsters, hawking kits of Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. But some of their niftiest kits were for Monster Hot Rods — you got to build a monster and a crazy Mustang or Model T! Famous Monsters also sold four or five minute Super-8 movie clips from pretty obscure or weird monster movies (I remember wondering what Yongary, Monster from the Deep could be like… a giant monster movie from Korea?). My dad had a Super-8 projector, and he bought some of these to show at my birthday slumber parties. Famous Monsters sold all kinds of great stuff… Don Post full-head vinyl masks, spooky sound effects records, superhero action figures, haunted glo-heads…

The art and science of the novelties catalog live on, online. Modern day successors to the Johnson Smith Fun Catalog and the S. S. Adams Catalog include the Archie McPhee Novelties Online Catalog and trendsetter ThinkGeek, purveyors of Canned Unicorn Meat. Mmmmm…. probably goes great with a nice white wine…

One last note, though. The stuff you actually got when you ordered from one of those catalogs or from an ad in a comic book could be a terrible let-down, especially for a ten year-old who’d been waiting weeks for his package to arrive. I actually ordered this from the inside of one of my comics:

Yes, indeed, it was life-size, as advertised. What they didn’t mention in the ad was that some species of bats have only a three-inch wingspan. That bit about the fangs being seven and a half inches long, though? That was simply a lie. They weren’t even seven and a half millimeters long. And all that stuff it was supposed to do at my command? Maybe if I’d attached a piece of elastic string to it, I suppose it could have “danced, jumped, floated in the air” and “rattled windows with terrifying, loud, creepy sounds!” But I was so disappointed when I opened the package, I didn’t bother. I think the tiny rubber bat went straight into a drawer in my desk. And the Free Horror Outfit? Don’t ask. It was more pathetic than the crap you could get from the ten cent novelties dispensers at the grocery store.


The crushing of dreams… Oh, well. At least I never ordered this from the back of a comic. Now, there would’ve been a let-down to top all let-downs…

Category: Friday Fun Links, Stuff I Like |
| September 22, 2011
4 comments

A Day at the Manassas Antique Car Show

I have to hand it to the folks at Manassas City Hall — they sure know how to fill a calendar. Just this past weekend, they had Old Town playing host to a Greek Festival on Friday, the Manassas Antique Car Show on Saturday, and the Latino Festival on Sunday. My boys and I made the latter two events.

Real rod and poseur rod... guess which one my boys liked best?

I love old cars. I picked up that love from my father, who always seemed to manage to drive something interesting, whether a 1962 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible or a 1969 Buick Riviera or his current car, a 2003 Lexus GS 300. Now I’m trying to pass along that love to my own sons. I’m not having to try too hard, either. They love anything with wheels, particularly monster trucks. But they also showed they were willing to spread their love to more vintage iron. Not always with the greatest of discernment — faced with a genuine vintage Ford hot-rodded coupe from the early 1940s and its knock-off, a Chrysler PT Cruiser tarted up with flames painted on its flanks and some mild engine mods, they “oohed” and “ahhed” over the Chrysler. Oh, well. They still have plenty of time to learn how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Or, considering that it’s now out of production and will be a presumably cheap first car by the time they hit their high school years, maybe my boys will develop a lifelong fondness for the PT Cruiser, the car they will have taken their girlfriend to the junior prom in. It’s not a bad vehicle to drive, by the way. My dad bought one, then passed it on to my sister, who still drives it. Shame it gets such lousy mileage for a compact car.

Ford Falcon Ranchero--my high school dream machine!

Now, here we’re talking — a 1965 Ford Falcon Ranchero! This was my dream car in high school, the trucklet I desperately wanted so I could cart around sets for one-act plays my club, the Pioneer Players, would put on in thespian competitions all over Florida. I did end up buying a Ranchero my senior year, but the one I found was a 1975 edition, a bloated monstrosity based on the 1975 Torino made sort-of famous by Starsky and Hutch. It had a 351 cubic inch Windsor V-8, so choked with smog control equipment my Ranchero risked being humiliated at stop lights by a Toyota Tercel of similar vintage. The truck’s bed had rust holes in it big enough for me to stuff grapefruits through, so my buddy Keith Johnson and his dad very kindly laid down a layer of fiberglass over the rust. Good enough! And yes, I took my girlfriend Ilma to the senior prom in the Ranchero, after spending an afternoon hand waxing it.

Corvair Monza Spyder--Judah says, "Where's the engine?"

Another car which immediately caught my eye was this gorgeous 1965 Chevy Corvair Monza Spyder. The Corvair really got a bum rap thanks to Ralph Nader; once GM made a few fairly minor adjustments to its suspension (rather than relying upon drivers to keep the front tires inflated to a different psi setting than the rears), it handled as well and predictably as any of the other, more conventional GM compacts. I think the styling is timeless (I also like the earlier “bathtub” Corvairs, of which there was one at the show). Of course, I played the “where’s the engine?” game with my boys. They’d never seen a rear-engined car before (I pulled the same stunt with a mid-1950s Volkswagon Beetle parked nearby).

Not an optical illusion--my 7 year-old son really IS as big as this Crosley

This Crosley was a definite oddity at a show mainly devoted to humongous 1950s-1970s American cruisers and performance cars. I’d like to compare the measurements of this Crosley to that of one of the modern Mini Coopers. The Crosley looks so much mini-er, but I’d have to see the figures to know for sure. Levi looks like an escapee from Land of the Giants next to the Crosley. That propeller in the center of the grill really spins, by the way. Levi was having a grand old time spinning it until the owner cried out in horror, “The chrome! The oil from that kid’s hands means I’ll have to replate the chrome!” Sorry, buddy… but your car looked like a big toy to my son…

They sure like that big motor...

The show featured lots of 1960s Camaros and Mustangs, plus some Mopars, too. One of my favorite cars of the afternoon ended up being a 1968 Dodge Charger. I’d never had an opportunity to take a look inside one before. It turns out that, just as they’d done with the original Plymouth Barracuda, Chrysler Corporation added the really nifty feature of a fold-down rear seat that extended the trunk all the way to the back of the front seats. Given the first generation Barracuda’s bubble-back rear glass and the Charger’s swoopy fastback, both cars allowed drivers to turn their trunks and back seats into servicable beds. I wonder how many Americans in their late thirties to mid-forties owe their existence to the convenience of these “Mopar Murphy beds”?

Boys, don't touch the car--don't TOUCH--!

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| September 21, 2011
Comments Off on Celebrating a Sweet American Success Story

Celebrating a Sweet American Success Story

Sometimes missing your train is a good thing.

A few weeks back, I missed the last Virginia Railway Express train of the morning into downtown Washington, DC, which forced me to wait an hour and a half in Old Town Manassas for the subsequent Amtrak train. I figured I’d walk over to the only coffee shop in Old Town, Simply Sweet on Main, grab a cup of java, and sit with my laptop for ninety minutes, working on my current novel. While walking on Center Street towards Main, I approached a storefront which had been sitting dismally empty since before I’d moved to Manassas two years ago. It wasn’t empty anymore. In fact, it appeared to be… a second coffee shop!

I looked at the sign on the window. “Persnickety Cakes.” I stared inside at their menu board. It listed all kinds of coffees–lattes, frappuccinos, espresso drinks, and plain, ol’ American coffee. How sad I’d been two years ago, during my first visit to Old Town Manassas, to learn from the owner of Prospero’s Books (the neighborhood’s sole used bookstore) that Old Town’s only coffeehouse had closed barely two weeks earlier. About nine months later, Simply Sweet on Main opened up in the location of the closed coffeehouse. And now there was a second choice. Things were looking up for Old Town Manassas, the town invigorated, I imagined, by the sesquicentennial observances of the battles and events of the Civil War, particularly the two battles of Manassas/Bull Run.

A man I figured for the proprietor saw me staring at his menu board and waved from behind the counter, gesturing for me to enter. I waved back and decided to go in. I love Simply Sweet on Main and the folks who own the place and work there, but I wanted to support this new business, as well. I introduced myself to the owner, discovered we share a first name, and explained that I’d missed my train and was looking for a cup of coffee and a place to be for an hour and a half. We chatted some more, and Andy Goon asked if he could join me at a table next to the big windows looking out onto the hundred year-old commercial strip (I was his only customer). He told me that Persnickety Cakes’ main product line was their custom-made cakes, which could be ordered for parties, birthdays, or special occasions, or by restaurants for their dessert menus. But he and his family also offered items for the walk-in trade (like me)–muffins, coffees and teas, and fancy cupcakes in a plethora of interesting flavors, including Black Forest, red velvet, peanut butter, cookies and cream, and chocolate mint.

I asked Andy what he’d been doing before he’d opened up Persnickety Cakes a few weeks earlier, and if this was his first business. He told me he’d been a manager for Countrywide, the mortgage company which had been bought out by Bank of America and which had virtually imploded during the mortgage crisis of 2008-2009. Thousands of Countrywide employees were laid off, Andy among them. He told me he was actually glad he’d gotten out; he’d seen things go on that he didn’t want to talk about but that would stun and horrify people outside the financial industry, and the enormous pressures brought to bear on him during his final years with the company had turned him into someone he hadn’t liked much, a frazzled father too often short and curt with his three daughters, two sons, and his wife.

His wife, Tanya, had always loved to bake, and she’d long harbored the dream of opening her own bakery. Andy and Tanya decided this was the time to take the plunge and open their first business together, while they still retained savings that they could invest in their new effort. They had lived in Manassas for a number of years and had always loved the traditional, small-town commercial streets of the Old Town district. They’d observed with sadness how, one by one, many of the long-established small businesses along Center Street and its side streets had closed during the recession. They selected a location next to a barber shop which had managed to hang on, a storefront which had once housed a hobby shop but which had been vacant for several years. What they weren’t quite prepared for was the extent of the renovations the space would require, and the lengthiness and complexity of the permitting process.

Since the space had never been used for food service before, it would require a brand-new bathroom, one fully up to code and meeting all of the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. Andy and Tanya split those costs with their landlord. However, they were faced with a huge unanticipated expense when their contractors discovered a layer of old asbestos tiles in the course of the work. The presence of asbestos triggered a whole new set of environmental reviews, regulations, and requirements and pulled in additional municipal overseers. The landlord balked at paying for many of the new costs. Andy and Tanya, having already sunk a good portion of their savings into this location, were faced with having to decide whether to cut their losses and abandon the store or to stick with their original plan and try to weather the asbestos-related expenses. They decided on the latter. It was a nerve-wracking decision; they didn’t know whether their savings would last long enough for them to actually open the bakery, then provide enough of a cushion to carry them through while they built their clientele. They sweated it out and aimed to open no later than the beginning of July, so they could benefit from the crowds sure to be pulled to Old Town Manassas by the anniversary of the First Battle of Manassas/Bull Run and all the city’s historic reenactments and special events. But delays in permitting and inspections caused them to miss their target opening date by a full month. Persnickety Cakes finally opened its doors on August 6, 2011.

Andy introduced me to Tanya, who had been baking in the back while we’d been talking, and to two of his three daughters, who were assisting their mother. I asked Andy and Tanya how they’d met. It turned out to be a story as sweet as one of their cupcakes, reminding me of an older America, an America that had prized its melting pot as one of its favored symbols. Andy’s family were Chinese Americans who owned a Chinese restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia. Years before Andy and Tanya ever met, Tanya’s mother, an African American, had been a regular customer at Andy’s parents’ restaurant. As teens, Andy and Tanya ended up working at the same McDonald’s, where their discovery that Andy’s best friend and Tanya’s best friend were cousins seemed to ratify their growing mutual attraction. They now have five teenaged children, all of whom help out in the bakery.

I took my three boys into Persnickety Cakes this past weekend, after we’d played games and listened to salsa and merengue bands at the Latino Festival at the Harris Pavillion in Old Town Manassas, a couple of blocks away. Unlike my first morning there, this time the bakery was bustling with customers. I asked Andy how business had been going in the five or six weeks since the first time we’d met. He looked at me with an expression of grateful amazement and told me he’d been selling cakes as fast as he and Tanya and the kids could bake them. I asked Levi, my oldest son, if he’d like “Mr. Andy” to bake him a birthday cake for his party come early November. Levi, having sampled a cookies and cream cupcake, enthusiastically replied “Yes!” He wanted Andy to invent a new flavor for his birthday cake, and helpfully suggested a combination of raspberry, coconut, and peanut butter (and I know Levi doesn’t like coconut). Andy gently suggested that we go with a flavor we already know Levi likes… like cookies and cream. Sounds good to me!

I couldn’t be happier for Andy’s and Tanya’s success. They took a huge risk with their family’s precious resources, and so far, it appears to be paying off for all of them. One of his daughters told me she wants to be an entrepreneur like her mom and dad when she is older. The fact that Andy was able to transition from the wreckage of one of the nation’s most infamous mortgage companies to opening his own business, while simultaneously helping to revitalize a corner of one of Virginia’s most historic neighborhoods, a business district which had been been partially hollowed out by the recession, gives cause for optimism that America’s traditional strengths of family, entrepreneurship, and “do-it-yourself, chase-that-dream” gumption will help pull us out of our current slump.

Persnickety Cakes is located at 9105 Center Street in Manassas, Virginia (571-379-8685; www.persnicketycakes.net ). They are open from 8 AM to 8 PM Mondays through Saturdays and from 11 AM to 5 PM on Sundays.

Category: Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| September 14, 2011
Comments Off on Wonderful Article on the First Borders Store

Wonderful Article on the First Borders Store

Borders Books and Music Store #1, Ann Arbor, Michigan


In light of my earlier blogging on the death of Borders Books and Music, I wanted to point out a wonderfully researched and very poignant article about the closing of the very first Borders store, the original location in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The author, CNN entertainment writer Todd Leopold, goes above and beyond the usual “slice of life” type article, interviewing a number of Borders employees who began with the company back when it had only a single store and was still selling mostly used books. The article manages to be both heartbreaking in its illustration of what the loss of Borders means to some people and, in a way, uplifting to those of us who love books and the world that centers around them, by showing the depth of passion that at least a portion of the population feels for the written word and the culture surrounding it. Great article. I hope you’ll take the time to read it.

(Full disclosure: Dara and I were good friends with Todd Leopold’s mother June when we lived in New Orleans. I never met Todd myself, although Dara used to play with him when they both were kids. June should be very proud of her son for having written this article. Go ahead and kvell, June!)

My last-minute purchases at my local Borders during their final three days in business? I will admit to gorging somewhat (although the lure of 90% off makes it hard not to):

Flashback by Dan Simmons
Masked edited by Lou Anders
The Frozen Rabbi by Steve Stern
The Believers by Zoe Heller
Man in the Woods by Scott Spencer
Pied Piper by Neville Shute
The Breaking Wave by Neville Shute
Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories (The Lottery / The Haunting of Hill House / We Have Always Lived in the Castle) edited by Joyce Carol Oates for the Library of America
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
Flashman, Flash for Freedom!, Flashman in the Great Game (Everyman’s Library Classics & Contemporary Classics) by George MacDonald Fraser

I hope to get around to blogging on some of these books, once I’ve read them (if I can ever find the time to sit and read!).

There was an odd, stressful, and sad vibe in my local Borders on my final two visits there, to the location in Woodbridge, Virginia. Employees were disassembling the furniture while we customers stood in line with our armloads of books. Three or four rented U-Haul trucks were parked right outside the entrance, being slowly filled with bookshelves and display tables and lighting fixtures. Signs were posted next to the bathrooms stating that the bathrooms were closed; the sinks and toilets had been sold and removed. An employee who caught my three boys wandering through the vast, newly empty spaces of what had been the children’s section begged me to keep them close by me, as “the store is no longer a safe environment, not with everything being taken apart.” So I made them sit near my feet as I maneuvered around the other customers who, like me, were hurriedly scanning the remaining shelves of fiction. They sat on the carpet, played with toy cars, and joked with each other. On our first visit, a woman shot me a scathing look and told her husband, “Let’s get out of here! It’s hot as hell (the air conditioning had been turned off) and those are some of the most obnoxious children I’ve ever had the misfortune to be around.” On our last visit, the following day, another woman, a little younger than the first, told me as we stood in line that she thought my boys were adorable and she loved listening to their conversations with each other; when I told her what the first woman had said, she remarked, “She must’ve had some kind of problem not related to you and your kids at all.”

Maybe she was in mourning for her favorite store?

Whatever. Consider this my (very) modest addition to Todd Leopold’s outstanding article.

Category: Book Love, Publishing, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| August 31, 2011
2 comments

Sinead and Jules: the Emails!

Sinead: lookin' for LURVE...


Well, following my post of last Monday, when I attempted to make a Love Connection between Sinead O’Connor, currently on a self-professed “man hunt,” and my old buddy, Jules Duchon, the transatlantic emails flew fast and furious! Romances flare so hot and fast in this Internet Age; then burn out just as quickly. Looks like it turned out to be a case of, “close, but no cigar.” We all tried. Jules tried. Sinead tried. I tried. At least we all parted friends.

With the permission of the two parties most directly involved, I am publishing their email correspondence, in hopes that star-crossed lovers everywhere can take some solace and wisdom from the thoughts exchanged between Jules and Sinead.
___________________________________________________________________________
jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Hi, Sinead. This is Jules Duchon. Andy Fox’s friend. Andy gave me your email address and said I should write you. He showed me your list of requirements in a boyfriend. There was nothing there I couldn’t handle. Your pics are cute, by the way. Glad you aren’t bald anymore. Bald women give me the willies. So you like big “snuggly” guys, huh? They don’t come much bigger or snugglier than me. Oh, I have to admit (this is sort of embarrassing), I’m not really familiar with your music. I’m more of a traditional jazz guy than a pop music guy. But Andy played me one of your CDs, “Am I Not Your Girl?” The one that’s all jazz standards? It was really nice. I like it. You’ve got a great voice. If the rest of you is half as good as that voice, I think I’m in love.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: I’m the kind of woman who is unfortunately terminally unsuitable for the role of wife or girlfriend. I am accursed. But I have begged God, that while he rightly banishes me from good men like yourself or Robert Downey Junior or Adam, could he salvage me a few from the section in-between guys like youse and guys like the one this week who because he is living with the mother of his children offered me ” a once off experience which will guarantee you years of masturbatory material and will involve you crying in pain and being humiliated in a corner” Yikes!

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Well, y’know, at this point, I’m not really looking for something big-time serious, so I don’t think that’s a problem. See, my last girlfriend (actually, my “vampire mother,” if you want to get formal about it), Maureen, she kind of broke my heart. So I’m sort of looking to play the field before jumping in the deep end again, if you know what I mean.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: I don’t want my not being suitable wife or girlfriend material to mean I never again get kissed so much that I have to go around the whole next day with fat lips on me, giggling like an idiot, mad from being rogered so hard all night and me voice ruined from screaming. I don’t want to never again have to wear a polo neck to hide love bites from my daughter so she won’t know I love sex. I don’t want to never be snuggled. Or told I’m gorgeous. Or have no reason to shave my legs. I don’t want to never bury my nose in a stubbly man’s face again. I want the end of my nose red raw from sniffing smelly men’s stubbly faces. I want my whole face and neck sore from stubbly men sniffing me!

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: I really like it when you talk about “love bites.” I’m REALLY into love bites. Also, I’m just fine with rubbing my stubble all over your neck and face. Kind of hard to avoid it, in my line of work. If you know what I mean.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: Baby, I’m supposed to write a follow-up to last week’s plea for a man, not a yam, but I’m so inundated with offers that I’m holed-up (sorry) in Planet Of The Apes, the only beauty parlour which will take me, and even then only round the back door in the middle of the night, but then I like a bit of that now and then don’t I?

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Hey, great, I really like the Planet of the Apes movies, too. But only the original series, the ones from the 1970s. I thought the remake from a few years ago, the one with that Marky Mark guy, kind of sucked, big time. Don’t know about this latest one, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Haven’t gotten out to see it yet. Maybe when it lands in the cheap theaters. Can’t say I remember a beauty parlor in any of the original movies. Oh, wait, didn’t Zira go to a beauty parlor in Los Angeles in Escape from the Planet of the Apes? I forgot about that. Sorry.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: But I need to finesse my requirements based upon this week’s responses to my plea. I want to ‘make lurve’. Sweet and filthy LURVE. With sweet and filthy men. If u don’t have both sweetness and filth don’t apply. I want ‘sweet lurve’ with music on. Say it again Sinead .. Like u really mean it this time.. I WANT TO BE LURVED STUPID BY SWEET FILTHY MEN WITH MUSIC ON. Ok? We clear? Ahem… Good. Now I wanna know what music you’d lurve me with.

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: I would LURVE to make LURVE to you with some good music on the stereo. You like New Orleans music? Do you get WWOZ radio on the Internet over there in Ireland? I’ve got this buddy, Porkchop Chambonne, who does a sort of traditional jazz thing mixed with some old school R&B. He’s really cool and a really great guy, too. Another local guy I really like is Mem Shannon. Although I’m not sure he’s local anymore; seems to spend a lot of time in Memphis. Lots of New Orleans musicians moved out to Austin or Atlanta after Katrina. Real bummer.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: Im revising the language from ‘ humping’ to ‘lurve’ because humping became misleading. Am a bawdy thing alright on twitter etc, and a joker, but in fact secretly I’m quite a good girl. Just naughty enough. And I wanna be ‘lurved’

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: I am totally into that LURVING thing, like I said. What kind of food do you like? You look like a nice, healthy, husky girl. Do you like New Orleans food? Jambalaya? Fried oyster po’ boys? I know some really great local joints around here.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: I promise to behave like a lady unless you kiss me and then i can only promise i will melt and the ESB will have to shut the whole country off for the night and a day or so after.

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Well, I sure can appreciate a lady. Not sure what the “ESB” is, though. Or how they would shut the whole country off. You’re in Ireland, right? So, is “ESB” “Electricity Sending Board?” “European Socialization Bureau?” Did I come close? I’m not always that good a guesser, and I’m not too familiar with European stuff. Maureen used to make cracks about my being a “spud head.”

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: Please will you try to make the ‘normal’ people understand that anyone even remotely connected to the music business are so because we are intellectually and emotionally unsuitable even for criminality. We are morons with 16 year old adolescent senses of humour, which are only made worse by attention being paid. We are as children whose unwanted behaviour should be ignored.

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: I totally understand where you’re coming from. Maureen always used to rag on me for being “immature” and “unfocused.” Like she was my mother or something… well, I mean, she WAS my vampire mother, but that’s different. Anyway, like I said before, some of my best friends are musicians. And my sense of humor is kind of “adolescent,” too. We got that in common, I think.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: My father often said affectionately of me when I was a child ” you could bring her anywhere twice. Second time to apologise. Never a truer word was spoken and it’s what I want as my epitaph. I did once ask Alan Shatter to spank me. Years ago. Cuz he’s a ride. And no I don’t think it’s inappropriate to sexualise our politicians. I think it’s most appropriate we should. They should feel good going to work. If i was Alan or Enda today being discussed in such terms by a fine filly like myself I’d be very flattered. Of course Alan turned me down. As sensibly, did Adam Clayton (the only do-able one in the band). I wonder if he’d known I would have let him in the tradesman’s entrance would he have stopped to think about it for a millisecond.

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Maybe things are different over here in America. I mean, the only American politician I remember getting sexualized was Bill Clinton back in the 1990s. Oh, well, yeah, then there was Senator David Vitter and his hookers. Still ended up voting for the guy, even after that whole D.C. Madam thing blew up in his face. Better the dog you know, I told myself. And then there was that Anthony Weiner guy, who emailed or twittered or something a picture of himself in his underwear to some underage girl. He was up in Brooklyn. Had to yank himself out of Congress. What a dumbass. So, well, maybe Ireland and the U.S. aren’t so different after all. You’ve given me something to think about.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: I must say, my greatest amusement this week is that on this day last week I had 3 followers on twitter. since I mentioned anal sex I have almost 2000! The funniest question I was asked this week was ” arent you insane to talk about anal sex in public?” Answer? No! Rude? Yes. Bold? Yes. ” inappropriate? Arguable. But insane? Why THAT’S insane!

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: Uh, anal sex? You’re Catholic, right? I hope I don’t come across as some kind of a prude, but I’m really a “missionary position” kinda guy. I’m pretty traditional between the sheets. Oh, there have been times when I’ve strayed off the straight-and-narrow. There was this one time I was stuck in Baton Rouge, after Malice X burned down my house. I had nothing to eat, I mean, I couldn’t find any necks to put a bite on. So I stole some dog food and transformed into a wolf, just to get something into my stomach. Well, to make a long story short, while I was in my wolf form, I ended up humping this stray bitch that was in heat. Couldn’t help myself. Totally out of my control. So, yeah, I’ve done it “doggy style,” I guess. But that’s about as wild as I get.

sinead_iamwonderful@me.com: I want you to clarify for all who may be concerned that Sinead is in fact 99.999% vaginally oriented but has experienced the odd shall we say ‘bark up the wrong tree’ and immensely enjoyed it. Apart from that and an as yet un expressed desire to get royally rogered while wearing nothing but stilletos, by a man wearing a regular business suit which she could clime all over, and an intense enjoyment of light to not especially painful spanking, is as “kinky” as the girl gets.

jules_vampomatic@yahoo.com: You know Sinead, you sound like a really nice girl, and I sure appreciate your emailing me back and forth, but I’m thinking, maybe we aren’t too compatible after all. Maybe it’s my Catholic school upbringing (they were really, really STRICT back in the 1890s), but I just don’t think I’d be comfortable trying to meet your needs. Anyway, I checked out your blog, and I see you’re into Dave Chapelle, big time, and you dig black guys. I’ve got a good friend who’s black. Actually, two good friends who are black, if you also count Porkchop Chambonne, but I think Porkchop is too old for you, maybe. And he might be on the traditional side, too, like me, when it comes to pleasing a woman. Anyway, this other guy I want to mention, his name is Preston, and he’s a vampire, like me. But he’s black. And he grew up in the 1960s, not the 1890s, so he’s like, more liberal than I am when it comes to the sort of stuff you were talking about. Nice guy. I don’t think he looks much like Dave Chapelle, but maybe if you squint real hard…? He’s not a bad looker, not really. Anyway, I took the liberty of passing along your email address. So maybe you’ll be hearing from him. Good luck finding that special guy you’re looking for. Been nice emailing with you. Do another jazz record, okay? That would be great.
____________________________________________________________________________

If you’re of a mind to, follow the rest of Sinead’s epic quest for a man on her personal blog. Like Jules, I wish this outspoken and very talented lady all the luck!

Category: Horror and Fantasy, Stuff I Like | Tags: , ,
| August 30, 2011
Comments Off on Sinead and Jules: Is It a Match?

Sinead and Jules: Is It a Match?

Sinead O'Connor, hungry for a big red-hot hunk of room-temperature man

Breaking News! An update to my post of August 9, 2011, “Wild-Ass Rumor of the Day: Is Sinead O’Connor Angling for a Role in ‘Fat White Vampire Blues?’”

I think we have a Love Connection in the making, my loyal readers. This is Big. This is Historic. I honestly believe that Sinead and my dear friend, Jules Duchon, can be the Cathy and Heathcliff of the new millennium. Or at least the stars of a new hit reality show.

On August 20, 2011, Sinead wrote the following post on her website, entitled “Sinead on a Manhunt:”

“20.08.11 IS SINEAD ABOUT TO HUMP HER TRUCK?

“The man who runs my site will protectively suggest I may want to visit the bathroom for a few intimate moments and a subsequent cold shower before deciding to post this on the site but I will of course ignore him as it’s too late now and the her-moans are having the best of me.

“I recently read of a woman in America who married and regularly humps her truck. I don’t yet own a truck but I’m beginning to understand her head space. And am worried I too may be so desperate for sex that within days I might run up the road and hump Bray Cab’s whole fleet in one hour. Forty quid clear-up afterward. Can’t say fairer than that. Except maybe a photo for their web-site. Which would be fine.

“My shit-uation sexually/affectionately speaking is so dire that inanimate objects are starting to look good as are inappropriate and/or unavailable men and/or inappropriate and/or unavailable fruits and vegetables. I tell you yams are looking like the winners. I actually do know a woman who is a performance artist from America. I have a photo of her being escorted arm in arm by two uk police man onto a plane back home cuz she humped a yam in the middle of her show. I just know that’s going to happen to me if I don’t take drastic action.

“Needless to say what I do for a living makes it hard for me to find men that only want me cuz they like my (legendary) arse. Yet I am in the peak of my sexual prime and way too lovely to be living like a nun. and it’s VERY depressing.

“So I’ve been pondering on whether or not I should join some Irish dating agencies. Of course if I did it would end up in papers so I may as well save myself the registration fees. Besides which a friend of mine uses dating agencies and half the men actually have wives.

Sinead, you and Jules could make beautiful music together...

“Am in desperate need of a very sweet sex-starved man.

“He must be no younger than 44.

“Must be living in Ireland but I don’t care if he is from the planet Zog.

“Must not be named Brian or Nigel.

“Must be blind enough to think I’m gorgeous.

“Has to be employed. Am not fussy in what capacity generally but vehicle clampers need not apply.

“Leather trouser- wearing gardai, fire-men, rugby players, and Robert Downey-Junior will be given special consideration. As will literally anyone who applies.

“I like me a hairy man so buffed and/or waxed need not apply.

“No hair gel.

“No hair dryer use.

“No hair dye

“Stubble is a non-negotiable must. Any removal of stubble would be upsetting for me.

“No after shave.

“Must be very ‘snuggly’. Not just wham-bam.

“Must be wham-bam.

“Has to like his mother.

“Has to like his ex and or mother/s of his children.

“Has to live in own place.

“I must end now as I have a hot date with a banana

“Applicants can apply through my secretary at vampyahslayah@yahoo.com”

Sinead, I am honestly sorry to hear that such a talented, interesting, and attractive woman as yourself is in such a state of needfulness. Although I’m not a talented, interesting, and attractive woman myself, I’ve been there, believe me. I know where you’re coming from. Thank God, I’m married now; otherwise, I might try to pass myself off as your ideal beau. Actually, you and my wife could be sisters. If you were Russian-Jewish instead of Irish. And if you’d had a nose job. Dara has a gorgeous voice, too! She used to sing in our synagogue choir. Maybe you’d consider hiring her as a backup singer for your next album? But enough about me. This all about you. You and Jules. Let’s take a look at your list of requirements. I really do think my friend Jules stacks up quite well in terms of what you’re looking for. Here are those requirements again, with my notations in brackets:

Am in desperate need of a very sweet sex-starved man. [Jules is nothing if not sex-starved; please read the first half of Fat White Vampire Blues. And his friend Rory “Doodlebug” Duchon, who knows what a woman wants, considers Jules to be very sweet.]

He must be no younger than 44. [Jules is well over 100 years old.]

Must be living in Ireland but I don’t care if he is from the planet Zog. [Lives in New Orleans, but is of Irish ancestry–is this good enough?]

Must not be named Brian or Nigel. [Check.]

Must be blind enough to think I’m gorgeous. [Thinks Maureen is gorgeous. She is a four hundred pound stripper. Might find you a bit on the skinny side, but he is a man broad in his tastes. Don’t think you have much to worry about in this department, Sinead. Really, I’d let you know if there were any concerns.]

Has to be employed. Am not fussy in what capacity generally but vehicle clampers need not apply. [Drives his own cab. Self-employed in a virtually recession-proof business!]

Leather trouser- wearing gardai, fire-men, rugby players, and Robert Downey-Junior will be given special consideration. As will literally anyone who applies. [Not sure whether leather pants are available off the rack in Jules’s size, but I’m sure there’s a leather shop in the Quarter where he could have them custom made.]

I like me a hairy man so buffed and/or waxed need not apply. [Check.]

No hair gel. [Check. Hair gel is too “Bela Lugosi” for Jules.]

No hair dryer use. [The dude wouldn’t know what a hair dryer is.]

No hair dye [He’s happy to go silver. Looks distinguished on a vampire.]

Stubble is a non-negotiable must. Any removal of stubble would be upsetting for me. [Jules is not known for the consistency of his shaving habits.]

No after shave. [See above.]

Must be very ‘snuggly’. Not just wham-bam. [Jules is extremely snuggly, all 450 pounds of him.]
Must be wham-bam. [How can you not be “wham-bam” when you’re Jules’s size?]

Has to like his mother. [Jules basically worshipped his mother. Had a portrait of her over his mantlepiece.]

Has to like his ex and or mother/s of his children. [Jules risked permanent death to avenge the destruction of his ex-significant other, Maureen, by a very, very mean vampire.]

Has to live in own place. [Had his own house, inherited from his mother, but it was burned down by Malice X. However, basically inherited the French Quarter home of Maureen, his ex-significant other, after he lost his own house.]

Not only that, but, like yourself, Jules is a partially lapsed Catholic with a very strong emotional tie to the Church. As you probably know, religious compatibility is a key to a successful long-term relationship.

And hey, check out that email address that you list: vampyahslayah@yahoo.com !!! Vampire Slayer?? Could anything be more obvious? This isn’t merely a woman who wants to star in Fat White Vampire Blues… this is a woman who yearns for the intimate touch of the fat white vampire himself. Don’t be coy, Sinead!

Sinead, I am not a licensed matchmaker, but I have passed along your contact information and your list of requirements to Jules. Please expect to receive an email soon (but after sundown, Central Daylight Savings Time, of course).

Update: Dear readers, I have the emails to share with you. Warning: may not be suitable for viewing at work!

Category: Horror and Fantasy, Stuff I Like | Tags: , ,
| August 19, 2011
2 comments

Friday Fun Links: Goofy Vampires


As a blogger, I’m all about adding value. If you’ve sought out this site, curated by the author of Fat White Vampire Blues, there’s a good likelihood you have a rarified taste for… goofy vampires.

Want a Vampire Nixon mask for Halloween or your next office party?

Want a Vampire Elvis tattoo?

Could this be conceptual art for an updated, political version of Scream, Blacula, Scream?

A deconstruction of the TV tropes present in Santo Contra La Mujeres Vampiros (a.k.a. Samson vs. the Vampire Women)

A heartwarming story: the son of El Santo protects his famous father’s virtue by denying that the heroic wrestler had anything to do with the naked women scenes added to the “lost film” El Santo y el Vampiro y el Sexo

A pair of never-to-be-forgotten 1960 titles from Italian cinema: The Vampire and the Ballerina and The Playgirls and the Vampire

Could this be David Niven’s most embarrassing film role ever?

Something never seen in any other vampire film ever (and probably never to be repeated): a vampire bat with a tiny woman’s head attached

How about a vanity project by disco-era starlet Nai Bonet, Nocturna, Granddaughter of Dracula, costarring Yvonne DeCarlo and a nearly dead John Carradine?

What are the chances that one film could boast both Harry Nilsson as the son of Dracula and Ringo Starr as Merlin the Magician?

The worst portrayal ever of Dracula in the comics — and now you can read all of issue #4!

This post would be woefully incomplete without a link to Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman, a.k.a. La Noche de Walpurgis

And let us close with… Jews for Vampire Jesus

Category: Friday Fun Links, Horror and Fantasy, Stuff I Like | Tags:
| August 15, 2011
Comments Off on I Knew It, Chris Foss!

I Knew It, Chris Foss!


It’s always rather interesting (and satisfying) when one of one’s long-held suspicions is confirmed in print. Here’s an entertaining and very revealing interview with the dean of British SF paperback cover artists, Chris Foss. Chris, now 65, enjoyed a very evocative childhood for a future artist. Born in 1946, he grew up in Guernsey, on one of the Channel Islands which had been occupied by the the Germans during much of the war and where they had constructed a number of massive concrete fortifications. Those abandoned gun emplacements and forts served as his childhood playgrounds. His parents used a thousand pounds they received from the sale of a Picasso etching they’d bought for seven pounds in a draper’s shop to tour postwar Europe, spending a great deal of time in defeated Germany, where Chris enjoyed playing in abandoned Wehrmacht bunkers and visiting former Nazi monuments now crowded with tent cities of refugees. As a commercial artist, he split his efforts between erotica and science fiction (much like American SF authors Barry N. Malzberg, Robert Silverberg, and Norman Spinrad did in the 1960s and 1970s).

My earliest exposure to Chris’s work came in 1980, when my family made the first of three successive summer holiday trips to different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. I was in the middle of my own, personal “Golden Age of Science Fiction” (my teen reading years) and had been devouring volume after volume of classic novels and anthologies. I was extremely interested to go into English, Scottish, and Irish bookstores and news merchants to see what their SF books looked like. I brought home a number of J. G. Ballard paperbacks and a nice Corgi edition of James Blish’s A Case of Conscience.

One thing I immediately noticed was that all of the covers I saw on display, for several dozen SF titles, appeared to have been painted by the same artist. They all featured vaguely organic-looking spaceships of gigantic scope or equally massive plantetary surface exploration vehicles. Many of the books were classic works written by American SF authors, many of which had nothing at all to do with space travel or other planets (A. E. Van Vogt’s Slan is one example I remember). Yet every single one (Slan included) was illustrated with a honking huge spaceship on the cover. I recall thinking to myself, “Either the artist was completely unfamiliar with most of these books when he illustrated them, or British publishers think the only way to sell science fiction is with a really cool looking spaceship.”

Ah, here’s the money quote from that article on Chris Foss in The Independent:

“(Foss) found himself in huge demand around the time of the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the moon landings, when the world suddenly went crazy for science fiction. He was so busy that he became famous for not reading the books he illustrated and for creating covers which had literally no bearing on the contents of the book. But the publishers were happy and the commissions kept coming.”

I knew it, Chris Foss! Still love your work, in any case.

Category: Book Love, Science Fiction, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| August 12, 2011
7 comments

Friday Fun Links: It’s J. G. Ballard’s World, We Just Live in It


Yes, indeedy. After the events of this week, who can deny that J. G. Ballard is enjoying a wry chuckle from the grave? His final novels, Cocaine Nights (1996), Super-Cannes (2000), Millennium People (2003), and Kingdom Come (2006), along with earlier works such as High-Rise (1975) and Running Wild (1988), pretty much laid out the full scenario for the four days and nights of rioting, looting, and arson which convulsed London and other English cities this week.

As soon as news of the London rioting hit CNN, I held my breath and began counting down the seconds before some British journalist would fill in the dots between the civil unrest and the oeuvre of England’s most acclaimed and significant postwar writer. It didn’t take long. (I was never in danger of self-suffocation.)

Readers familiar with Ballard’s final quartet of novels, all of which feature middle class professionals either diving into or being pulled into revolutionary, nihilistic violence due to ennui, boredom, or a cancerlike consumerism which has replaced religion and patriotism at the center of their psyches, will certainly nod with recognition at this article from The Daily Mail, which reveals that arrested looters and rioters included a law student, a social worker, a ballerina in training, and the school-age daughter of a millionnaire.

Coincidence or karma? Ballard’s penultimate novel, Millennium People, published in the U.K. in 2003, was finally released in a U.S. edition just last month. It features middle class professionals in suburban London instigating terrorism and revolution in an effort to shock a sense of meaning back into their lives. Several reviews appeared in major U.S. newspapers, including The Washington Post and The Seattle Times, just a day or two before the London riots broke out. I’m sure the reviewers whacked their foreheads with their palms and wished their deadlines had been just a couple of days later so that they could have infused their articles with the weightiness of current world events. Here’s Ballard himself talking about what he was up to with Millennium People, plus a lengthy, insightful, but unfortunately undated review from Open Letters Monthly called, presciently, “On the Barricades with the Bourgeoisie.”

There don’t appear to be any plans to soon publish Ballard’s final novel, Kingdom Come, in the U.S., although that may change following this week’s events. I suppose it will hinge on the sales performance of Millennium People. If the book doesn’t appear in the States, that would truly be a shame, because I think it features some of Ballard’s funniest and wittiest writing since Crash, which, if you read it in the right way, is a snarkingly funny book. Here’s a fairly recent review of the novel, focusing on the book’s savage critique of consumerism. And here’s Rob Latham’s in-depth look at Ballard’s final three books, including Kingdom Come, The Complete Stories, and Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton: An Autobiography, nicely entitled “A Malaise Deeper Than Shopping.”

Theodore Dalrymple, author of Our Culture, What’s Left of It: the Mandarins and the Masses, has been writing about the slow decline of the English peoples for as long as there’s been an Internet. In 2008 he wrote an impassioned article for City Journal on the connections between Ballard’s visions and the state of English society. He focused on a key element to understanding Ballard’s take on social psychopathology: Ballard’s experiences as a boy prisoner in the Lunghua concentration camp in Japanese-occupied China, a micro-society where feral children exercised much more autonomy and power than their authority-stripped parents could. This week, he wrote another article for City Journal, this time commenting on the English riots. Anyone who enjoys a strong dose of “I-told-you-so, damn-it!” owes it to himself to read this piece. It tracks fairly closely with my own observations and musings, posted yesterday.

Here’s an academic paper drawing connections between one of Ballard’s earliest novels, the classic The Drowned World, and the Hurricane Katrina flooding disaster in New Orleans. And here’s an examination of a mid-career Ballard novel, High-Rise, which directly presages his final quartet of “English anarchic revolution” books.

I did entitle this post “Friday Fun Links,” so here’s a little fun:

Ballard’s childhood home in Shanghai gets turned into an upscale restaurant

For travelers to Shanghai, a guide to visiting sites mentioned in Ballard’s Empire of the Sun

For those of you who simply can’t get enough Ballard (and I hope that’s most of you), here are some additional goodies:

Three websites which offer a smorgasbord of Ballard bits–JGBallard.com, JGBallard.ca, and, my favorite, Ballardian.com (which features a stupendous article on Ballard’s literary obsession with Elizabeth Taylor)

Ballard’s Paris Review interview from 1984

Links to excerpts from Re:Search Publications’ marvelous selection of books on Ballard, including Re:Search 8/9: J. G. Ballard, J. G. Ballard: Conversations, and J. G. Ballard: Quotes

Links to photographic portfolios of Ballardian landscapes

Have a Ballardian weekend!

Category: Friday Fun Links, Science Fiction, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| August 10, 2011
One comment

Movie Images That Sear Your Childhood

I suspect that every American childhood of the past seventy years has been indelibly marked by at least one unforgettable image from a movie. The rating system devised by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theater Owners is meant, in part, to shield our youngsters from having their brains seared by sights and sounds they aren’t mature enough to process. But then those same organizations turn around and allow films that are marketed primarily to children (i.e.: super-hero movies, heavily advertised on Cartoon Network and through McDonalds Happy Meal toys) to hit the theaters with a rating of PG-13. Which leaves parents in a quandary: do we take the kids to see Iron Man 2 or Green Lantern or X-Men: First Class, or not? The kids want to see those films. I want to see those films. I know I won’t have any opportunity to see those movies unless I take the kids. So am I a bad parent if I expose my 7, 6, and 4 year-old sons to a little dose of the ol’ ultra-violence?

Of course, it very much depends on the kids and their capacities to be disturbed. Asher, my middle son, is terrified by loud noises. No fireworks displays for him. I know this. I recognize that one sure way to have a miserable family outing is to drag Asher to see fireworks. Asher is also my son most prone to getting scared during an intense action film or monster movie. But he handles it much better than he does fireworks — he hides his eyes or buries his face in my shoulder, melodramatically squeals or whimpers, then looks back at the screen when whatever was frightening him has gone away, and goes on having a good time. The other two boys, his older and younger brothers, pretty much take PG-13 rated monsters and suspense in their stride. So, generally I’m not too worried when I take them to see a PG-13 rated super-hero film, unless I’ve read that a particular one is notable for very intense violence, excessive bad language, or other material not appropriate for the under-12 set (I personally think the very black take on Batman in The Dark Knight films is beyond my kids and wouldn’t be enjoyed by them).

However… no matter how careful you think you’re being as a parent, there’s always that chance that some truly horrific image that you hadn’t heard about is going to sear itself into your young offspring’s receptive brain. And they’re never going to forget what they saw. And they’ll probably be talking about it with their friends and family members for the rest of their life.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? As in, “bad for their development?” I don’t think so. At least it doesn’t have to be. A genuinely frightening or disturbing image from a movie can be a springboard to learning, exploration, and greater self-knowledge. Or at least give your child something to grin about as a grown-up.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes: Albina with mask on

My personal experience with the “movie image you’ll never forget” came in 1970, when I was five, a year older than Judah and a year younger than Asher. My father took me to see Beneath the Planet of the Apes, easily the most weird and disturbing of the original five Apes films. Could this film actually have been rated G by the MPAA? The notion astounds me, given how big an impact the movie’s violence (check out Charleton Heston’s bloody fingers at the end, pushing the levers that activate the cobalt bomb) and horrific content had on me. Yet when I look it up to be sure, there it is. Rated G, just like Herbie the Love Bug or The Sword in the Stone. So, in retrospect, my father was much, much less to blame for any trauma I suffered at the age of five than I am for any trauma my littlest son may have recently absorbed.

Albina with mask off = freaked out 5 year-old

The scene that sort of traumatized me (but which definitely fascinated me and continues to be a source of weird fascination) is the scene where beautiful Natalie Trudy (who would portray a much more sympathetic character in the next film in the franchise, Escape from the Planet of the Apes), playing the telepathic, subterranean mutant Albina, strips off her mask as part of a religious ceremony exalting a cobalt bomb, revealing herself as a bald, hideously scarred monstrosity. She isn’t the only character to unmask during this scene, but since she was the only woman, her unveiling was the one most indelibly seared into my consciousness. (Beautiful women aren’t supposed to turn into monsters, at least according to my logic at the age of five.)

I couldn’t stop asking my father about the radioactive mutants when the movie was over. What had made them that way? What was an atomic bomb? My father did his best to explain about the Manhattan Project in World War Two and how the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I was fascinated. I tried to learn more (mostly by watching 1950s H-bomb giant bug movies, a swell source for reliable scientific information). A few years later, in the club house in my back yard, I had arguments with my best friend over which was stronger: the A-bomb or the H-bomb? Sort of like, who is stronger: Superman or Thor? I said the atom bomb was stronger, because it had actually been used in a real war, whereas the H-bomb had only been used in tests. My friend insisted the hydrogen bomb was stronger. He was right, of course; it takes the explosion of a small atom bomb to set off a hydrogen bomb. Anyway, that climactic scene from Beneath the Planet of the Apes still has the power, more than forty years later, to pull me back to the awe, revulsion, and horror my five year-old self experienced.

Last weekend, seeing that X-Men: First Class had arrived at our closest “cheapie” movie house, I decided I would have a Saturday night out with the boys. (Dara wasn’t interested in Marvel’s Merry Mutants.) They were thoroughly stoked to see the movie, having absorbed a couple of months’ worth of advertising. We went out for dinner first, at Dennie’s (two free kids’ meals for every adult meal purchased!), then drove over to the University Mall Theaters, a small, 1970s quad-plex cinema tucked away into a bi-level strip mall not far from George Mason University. I’d heard good things about X-Men: First Class, and I liked the fact that the scriptwriters had set the picture during the years the first X-Men comics had come out. It easily ended up being my favorite of Marvel’s mutant films. The major characters (Xavier, Eric/Magneto, and the young Raven/Mystique) were very well cast. The script, especially for a super-hero adventure film, was exemplary in its attention to character building. I actually cared about Eric and Raven and some of the others (particularly poor Hank McCoy), rather than simply being dazzled by the special effects and battle scenes. The only other super-hero movies I can recall feeling that way about are Christopher Reeves’ second Superman film, The Dark Knight Returns, and the first Iron Man. (Maybe the second Spider-Man, too, if I’m feeling especially sentimental about New York City.) The writers did an especially good job with fleshing out Magneto. I’d certainly pay to see another Magneto film set during the 1960s. Cool beans.

If you haven’t yet seen the film (it’s now been out for a while), read no further. I’m going to reveal the scene that transfixed two of my sons, and it gives away the ending.

X-Men: First Class: the coin-through-the-head scene Judah can't stop talking about

It’s rather a brilliant scene, I think. Well worth the moderate gore it subjects viewers to. The film begins with young Eric being separated from his mother in a concentration camp in Poland, a trauma which causes Eric to reveal his powers over magnetism. The mutant we later come to know as Sebastian Shaw serves as Eric’s chief tormentor and mentor in the camp and, in an effort to force Eric to magnetically levitate a Nazi coin, shoots Eric’s mother in front of him. After Eric goes momentarily crazy and deforms every piece of metal in the room, Shaw “rewards” him by giving him the coin. Eric retains the coin throughout the film. At the film’s climax, aboard a crippled nuclear submarine, Eric uses the coin to murder Shaw. In very graphic fashion–while Shaw is immobilized by an unwitting Charles Xavier, Eric slowly and deliberately propels the coin straight through Shaw’s skull and brain. It goes in through his forehead and emerges, dripping blood, from the back of his head.

The scene is so effective emotionally because it both humanizes Magneto–his chosen murder/vengeance weapon is the possession which reminds him most searingly of his mother’s death–and it viscerally illustrates how ruthless and savage his experiences have made him. Had Charles Xavier been present in the submarine’s nuclear engine chamber with Shaw and Eric, there would have been no way he would have countenanced what his friend did. Yet we, the audience, having seen things that Xavier did not (or perhaps Xavier had seen all that we had in that camp in Poland, having explored Eric’s mind earlier in the film), and having witnessed how murderously strong the nuclear energy had made Shaw, give the anti-hero a moral pass to carry out his vengeance. It feels necessary. It feels right, perhaps even righteous.

Which is all fine and good for me, a 46 year-old man. I’m emotionally equipped to handle emotional and moral nuance. Judah, Asher, and, to a lesser extent, Levi are a different story. I don’t think the coin-through-the-head scene made much of an impression on Levi, who was captivated by the overall “coolness” of the movie, its characters, and its effects. Asher, to his credit, was able to make the connection between the Nazi coin’s roles at the beginning of the movie and at its end. Judah simply absorbed the image without much understanding. “How come he put a penny through his head?” he asked. I did my best to explain. “Eric killed the man who killed his mommy. He used the coin because he controls things made out of metal.”

We had a bit of a mishap on the ride home. Judah gets car sick sometimes. I made the minor mistake of taking Old Bridge Road, very curvy with lots of ups and downs mixed in, and I took some of the curves a little fast. Not long afterward, I heard the sound of retching, followed by choruses of “EWWW” and “Oh, gross!” from Levi and Asher. I pulled over at the nearest drug store, which I discovered to my dismay had just closed, then ran the boys across the street to a Mexican restaurant so I could clean Judah up in their bathroom.

I have no idea whether the coin-through-the-head scene had anything at all to do with Judah’s throwing up. He is definitely prone to car sickness, and he ate a decent amount of candy in the movie, and I took those curves too darned fast. Still, I’m sure his memory of that movie scene will be indelibly mingled with his memory of upchucking in the car.

I’ll be very interested to ask him about it fifteen years from now and hear just what his memory dredges up.

Category: Science Fiction, Slices of Life, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| August 9, 2011
Comments Off on Wild-Ass Rumor of the Day: Sinead O’Connor Angling for Role in “Fat White Vampire” Movie

Wild-Ass Rumor of the Day: Sinead O’Connor Angling for Role in “Fat White Vampire” Movie

In the wild jungles of the entertainment industry, it is often virtually impossible to separate truth from fiction, accurate prognostication from rumor, baseless speculation, or bald propaganda. However, as the caretaker for the at least somewhat beloved “Fat White Vampire” stable of characters, I feel it is my duty to share with you, the readers and fans, any nugget of potentially precious information which may indicate that you will soon have the pleasure of witnessing your literary favorites up on the big, BIG screen.

Projects can languish in development hell for years and years. However, when a star of the first rank puts his or her imprimatur on a property, touches that property with the magic finger of approval, the property, like Victor Frankenstein’s monster after its infusion of electricity, shudders to life.

nymphlike Sinead O'Connor in 1990


“Who?” you ask. Which major star has expressed interest in portraying a major character from Fat White Vampire Blues? Why, none other than Sinead O’Connor, Irish pop singing phenomenon from the 1990s. I understand she quite desperately wants to portray the role of Maureen. To convince backers she can fill the shoes of this weighty role, she has put herself on a strict dietary regimen patterned after that pioneered by Robert De Niro in his Academy Award-winning classic, Raging Bull.

Sinead O'Connor today, ready for her big role as Maureen


I happen to think her new look is quite fetching. Her wholesale adoption of the Goth persona is very endearing and should appeal to the fans of the “Fat White Vampire” books. Of course, she’ll need to ditch that prominent Celtic cross when she goes before the cameras. But that is a minor detail, one which pales in comparison with the thespian dedication she has shown in pursuing her physical makeover.

Authors rarely have any say in the casting of films made from their novels. But I wish to express a hearty “two thumbs-up!” for Sinead as Maureen. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
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Update: From Sinead’s own blog, a description of the kind of man she’s looking for… and he sounds just like a certain JULES DUCHON… Yes, the similarities between Sinead’s ideal beau and our very own Jules are too striking to be denied…

Category: Horror and Fantasy, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
| August 5, 2011
Comments Off on Friday Fun Links: Weird and Wonderful Abandoned Stuff

Friday Fun Links: Weird and Wonderful Abandoned Stuff

the Victoria Baths in Manchester, England

I am a big geek for the esthetics of ruins and the magnetism of abandoned places. I have been ever since my father started taking me to see the derelict Art Deco hotels of South Miami Beach in the 1970s, a decade before the massive gentrification of that Depression Era resort neighborhood got rolling. I just love this stuff. The crumbling Art Deco hotels with their drained or murky swimming pools led me straight to the weird, entropic apocalypses of J. G. Ballard, in whose books I always felt at home. He loved drained swimming pools, too.

Here are some links I can heartily recommend:

For a big dose of the Ballardian esthetic, here’s a set of photos of abandoned Soviet and U.S. space technology, gloriously rusting away.

Since it’s summertime, and we’re talking about J. G. Ballard, here’s a portfolio of abandoned swimming pools.

Cross J. G. Ballard with Ralph Kramden and you get… abandoned bowling alleys.

Cross Ballard with Gloria Swanson and you get (of course) abandoned movie theaters.

abandoned underground Soviet nuclear submarine pen


Cross Ballard with the Mole Man and you get incredibly weird abandoned underground installations.

Hurricane Katrina, by flooding Six Flags New Orleans, upped my awareness of the strange beauty of abandoned amusement parks.

Speaking of amusement parks and tourist attractions, the Florida of my boyhood days was chock full of them. Most of them are gone now, driven out of business by the Big Mouse. This site allowed me to revisit old favorites, long gone, such as Pirates World, the Miami Wax Museum (I had a great uncle who worked there), Circus World, and the Stars Hall of Fame.

Here’s an entire resort region that has been abandoned, the Salton Sea in California. Created by a hydrological mistake, the result of a dam accident, it thrived in the 1950s and 1960s, only to be doomed by its lack of natural fresh water replenishment, which turned the artificial sea into a salt bowl and killed off all its fish, leading to nearly all of its surrounding communities becoming ghost towns.

A massive movie set created for men in monster suits to destroy for a Godzilla film? No–it’s the Japanese island of Gunkanjima, also known as Battleship Island. Once a thriving coal industry city, the island was abandoned for years, officially off limits. Only now are people allowed to begin to return.

Because I’m also a naval buff, I had to include this site devoted to abandoned shipwreck sites, including an amazingly cool Soviet big-gun cruiser wrecked off the coast of Norway and left to rust.

Something abandoned that the local populace now wants to reclaim–the ironclad breastwork monitor H.M.V.S. Cerberus, built in 1868 for the Royal Australian Navy, sunk as a breakwater in Half Moon Bay in 1926. Now, after decades of pounding seas have crumbled the old hulk, there’s a campaign to save her.

Lastly, an abandoned artifact of a different sort–a script written by Alfred Hitchcock for a murder mystery film that was never released.

Now go abandon yourself to some good old-fashioned time wasting!

Category: Friday Fun Links, Stuff I Like | Tags: ,
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