My Brain is Out to Get Me!

Its Wednesday, July 20, 2011, I'm excited about movies this week, and this is The Side. Unfortunately, while I am excited about movies, there's not much to actually write about. CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER hit the screen Friday, and I'm working on getting a sitter to go check it out. Very excited about that. Also, the first teaser for THE AVENGERS got leaked, but that's getting pulled down by YouTube almost as fast as people are uploading it, hence no video on here. If you get a chance to see it, its pretty cool. They don't show much, but definitely has me stoked.

And then there the DARK KNIGHT RISES teaser that ran with the HARRY POTTER movie. Heard about that through my usual news sources due to lack of caring about Harry Potter. Saw the teaser. I had wondered that with my huge disappointment with THE DARK KNIGHT if my nerd instincts would kick in and I'd get excited to see the movie in spite of myself. Nope. I just don't care about Christopher Nolan's work anymore.

DREAM TIME

My kid came up to me in the wee hours of the morning as I was checking the news online.

"Daddy, a big, colorful bug bit my elbow and Mommy squished that bug!"

"Let me see your elbow, sweetie." I checked over her elbow to see this bug bite. I had barely had a chance to see her the day before with work and karate.

"No. There's no ouchie." She laughed and pulled her arm away. It took me a moment to catch on.

"Did you have a dream about a bug biting you?"

"Yes! And Mommy squished that bug!" That should have been my first clue that it was a dream. The Missus isn't much for bug squishing, typically leaving that chore to me. Still, it was possible that her powerful maternal instincts would overcome her bug-squishing squeamishness. I took her back to bed because it was still too early for her to be up and I put her little plush alligator in the bed with her for which to eat any dream bugs that might prey upon her elbow.

My subconscious sucks. I never have any good dreams. I see these TV shows in which some guy is dreaming about hot girls, having lots of money, or being famous. Not me. Its always an apocalypse, or a serial killer after me, or one of those dreams in which you're supposed to be doing something and the moment I figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing I've shifted to some different scene and am back to square one.

And its never simple. About a week ago I dreamed at was at my Grandparents old place down at Lake Gaston. Was I eating bar-be-que on the pontoon boat and drinking an ice cold soda like I used to do on my trips there? Of course not! I had to figure out the code. I don't even know what the code was for! But is was a book code, so I had to figure out which book I needed to decipher the message. You know those. There's a series of numbers corresponding to pages and certain words. But I spent that REM cycle trying to figure out which book I needed. Finally I did, and then the alarm went off. Cool. Dream closure is always good right?

NO! Because sure enough a week later, I was having the same dream, complete with lack of bar-be-que and soda, and I forgot which book cracked the code!! Thus leading to another frustrating REM cycle of me searching everywhere I could, and examining every book I came across. On top of which I was totally pissed at my subconscious self for forgetting which book it was. That's right, I knew I was stuck on a GROUNDHOG'S DAY dream rerun but had no clue how to get out of it.

I'm actually kind of pissed at myself now for not knowing which book it is.

There's lots of theories about dreaming. Some people say that there's meaning to them and seek to divine understanding from them. Others think it's your brain shifting and sorting the day's sensory input. Some just think its the old grey matter cooling off after a hard day of thinking. I have to lean towards that last one because what the hell do those first two imply about me? I don't even want to think of going there.

But now I've gone and thought about it. Probably meaning tonight's REM cycle is going to be one huge laugh riot.

I should just slug down a double dose of NyQuil but after a while that stuff makes you stupid, and frankly I'd be just heartbroken with that happened you people couldn't tell the difference.

MUSIC!!

I get really sick of those wannabe country pop stars singing songs about being "more country" than each other. You ain't country just because you have a steel guitar in your band, you cowboy hat wearing pansies. Grow some talent, and get some soul. Time for a bit of Old Crow Medicine Show.



I was going to type "That's my two cents" but that may be an overestimation of my blog's worth. That and I'm against pennies. So with that, I'll see y'all Friday.

"There's a monster in my closet"

Here we go again. It's Sunday, October 24, 2010, I feel more tired than when I went to bed, and this is the side. Why am I tired, you probably didn't ask. Because I spent what seemed like the entirety to the previous night's sleep having bad dreams. They were the unrelenting kind too. As many of you know, if you're having a dream in which you've won the lottery and are surrounded by a half dozen or so well proportioned, oiled up, and morally deficient young hot-bodies the slightest jolt in your sleep cycle will render it impossible to return to your little nocturnal fantasy land. However if you're having a nightmare, you can wake up, get out of bad, have a drink to calm your nerves, watch a bit of television, and vacuum the floor and the moment you close your eyes to go back to sleep you're right back there.

Nightmares have many different forms. There's of course the traditional ones in which something horrible is coming for you to do something horrible to you. There's the socially awkward ones in which you show up to high school naked or something to that effect. The subconscious plays out many different weird things when your brain is cooling at night. I can say that the majority of dreams are unpleasant ones. Fortunately, I have creative outlet with which to deal with them. The more horror stuff I write and draw the fewer bad dreams I seem to have. Probably has to do with getting the stuff out on paper.

So what bad dreams really get to me? Its usually one in which bad stuff doesn't happen to me, but people I care about with me being unable to stop it. Especially if its the girls. I've found I'm more easily disturbed by bad things happening to little kids since becoming a father. Anything bad happening to my daughters in a nightmare is fully capable of jolting me awake in a cold sweat.

So what gave such a fitful night last night? It was one of those marathon dreams which seemed to last for days and the crux of it was Joey sold Comic Kings. I'm completely serious. The new owner was a jerk. He rearranged the whole shop so I couldn't find anything. All the regulars were gone and replaced by a bunch of douchebags who wanted me to play Magic the Gathering and wouldn't shut up about it. And for some weird reason I needed to get my hands on KITTY PRYDE AND WOLVERINE #6, which I know I have. Somehow, the guy had a trade of it which for whatever reason had Cannonball from the New Mutants on the cover. And despite me telling him to ring me up, he just kept yammering on to people about things and ignoring my attempts to get the hell out of there.

And I have no clue why he was wearing a cowboy hat the whole time. You don't do that indoors!

SPOOKY MOVIES!!

What is the Halloween season without some good scary movies? There's a ton to pick from, and really you can't go wrong as long as they're a good time. I'm not really into the splatterfests like the SAW series. I prefer a good fight, but I do like my scary flicks. Here's some of my favorites.

*FRANKENSTEIN Ah, the Boris Karloff classic. I have a great love for the old black and white horror movies. By today's standards they're pretty tame, but there's still a few decent chills in this one. It always amuses me that everyone thinks Doctor Frankenstein's assistant is named 'Igor'. It's Fritz!

*DRACULA Another classic with probably the most iconic image of Dracula portrayed by Bela Lugosi. Again many may consider this tame by current standards but Renfield in the ship cackling madly is creepy as hell. Back then they didn't have all the fancy computer effects to scare you. They had acting.

*BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA I love it movie. And yes, I even like Keanu Reeve's in this movie. Very stylish, very slick. Scary as hell. Gary Oldman absolutely nail Dracula as a seducer/predator. Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing is incredible. Its long, but its a lot of fun.

*GHOSTBUSTERS Not really huge on the scares, but its a ton of fun. Dan Aykroyd's grandfather was a spiritualist and corresponded with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the subject. A lot of the technical paranormal stuff written into the film comes from actual research. In another little note the role was Peter Venkman was originally written for John Belushi but was rewritten for Bill Murray after Belushi's death. It was joked the green ghost, "Slimer", was the ghost of Belushi.

*THE MONSTER SQUAD Another one that's not big on scares and is actually pretty hokey. Still, I loved this flick when I was kid and watched it over and over. And yes its true:


*SILVER BULLET This movie scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Its based on a Stephen King novella "Cycle of the Werewolf" which I devoured in an hour on my lunch break back in 6th grade. I've always had a fascination with werewolf lore, and this movie really stoked that fire. Its a really great flick and scary as hell.

*THE CROW Based of course on the James O'Barr cult comic. Brandon lee died making the movie that would make him a star. It was set the night before Halloween and the whole movie just reeks of it. Dank lighting. Guys coming back from the dead for revenge. Weirdo mysticism and spiritualism. Yeah one's a full candy store of creepy all wrapped up in pseudo-superhero revenge drama.

*HELLBOY While I like both movies, I love the first one. Very weird and creepy with nice of Lovecraft smashing against Judeo-Christian beliefs and European mysticism. Mike Mignola, Hellboy's creator, said that if he could go back in time and do the series over again, it would probably be a lot more like the movie.

SPOOKY MUSIC!!

Speaking of Hellboy, here's some Pete Yorn doing a bad ass cover of an already bad ass Nick Cave and the Bad Seed song from the soundtrack to the first movie



That's the shooting match for today. One week until Halloween. I'm still working on my Alfred the Butler costume.