I have an addiction. It’s a bad one. It costs hours of time. It’s moved beyond guilty pleasure, and now consumes more than it should.

B-list horror.

Actually, not even just B-list. Like, whatever is below b-list. C-list, D-list, Z-list….

And the gorier the better. We’re talking ‘Buckets ‘o Blood’ fest here. I want to see sausage-like intenstines on the floor, blood spatter on every wall, skin-peeling fun, the works. I’m not going to get all psycho-analyst and figure out WHY this is, because, really, I don’t want to know. Some stones are better left unturned, you know? I just roll with the blood, so we’ll just run down some of the best of the worst.

As far as books go…a little behind. Haven’t made the calculations of what I have to do to catch up yet, guessing about six books behind schedule. Shit’s been going down in my life, so lots of distractions…. Not a big deal, no sweat. RIGHT?! I will finish my goal, so help me…..this might mean saying goodbye to sleep for a long while, but I’m in it to win it.

First book to be discussed (yes, it’s not just horror movies, I do have some sort of point to this whole blog business..) is ‘The Map of Time’ by Felix Palma.

Not my favorite book. In fact, let’s put it on the list of least favorites. Now, to be fair, this is partially due to the fact that the book-flap summary was completely misleading, and was presenting this book as a steam-punk type HG Wells-ian time travel adventure. This it most certainly was not, at least for the majority of the novel. And therein lies another of my issues with the book…it was like three separate novels slapped haphazardly together (haphazard being a key word there). The first two were melodramatic farces looped loosely together through theme. They were melodramas about terrible cowards doing terribly cowardly things and being rewarded for it. The last book basically undid the theme of the first two and ran completely amok as far as plot goes. It was as if the author changed his mind two thirds of the way in but didn’t bother to revise any of the story thus far. He just duct-taped it to the end of the other two and called it a day. The language was overly wrought, the descriptions were too flowery and antiquated without ever accessing the ‘irony’ aspect he may have been going for in employing such gothic devices, and his characters were of the same vein. If he was trying to ‘play’ on the gothic theme, he didn’t get there; if he was writing this way in earnest, then..well… he would be great fun to hang out with, but I don’t wish to read any more of his stuff.

Speaking of gothic themes and overly wrought story, on to horror movies. Let’s start with one that’s been generating a lot of buzz lately: The Human Centipede.

This one actually avoided cheesiness pretty well, and zoom right into the arena of sick and disturbing. That being said, it was not nearly as bad as people are making it out to be, as far as ‘twisted’ goes. The ideas behind the torture are pretty gnarly, and it’s what gets stuck in your head, rather than what is on screen, that makes this one so gruesome. The basic idea: a mad frankenstein-type scientist creates a monstrous human centipede from three victims. They are attached mouth-to-butt. Yuck. And also interesting, says the serial killer part of me (everyone has this part, some of us just let it out to breathe more often).Their internal organs are rearranged to correspond with this glorious ‘set up’. It’s all very disgusting. But, like I said, it avoids a lot of cheesiness. I mean, of course there is a certain amount of humor inherit in the plot, but it does a good job of bypassing the b-list feel and just comes out creepy and icksome. It’s good if you’re sick like me, but less ‘fun’ than others, so bear that in mind. Not a lot of goofiness there.

Next book: The Dispossessed by Ursula K LeGuinn.

This book was fantastico, and a welcome relief from the disappointment of Palma’s book. Its another in my favored vein of dystopian fiction, and it lived up to the genre marvelously. This book holds a poignant and well articulated message that really gets the ‘mind juice’ (yummy) going and gets your thoughts a’churning. This would be an excellent book for high schooler to read (hint hint to my bambinos out there) as it helps put current political conflicts into perspective and allows you to confront these philosophies in a non-threatening medium. 

Next up in our b-list adventures: 100 Tears. 

This is D-list blood and guts in all of their majesty. I actually lost track of how many deaths were in the first twelve minutes or so. Heads are lopped off, guts are spilled, and lots and lost of blood. Did  mention there’s a clown? Yes, this is all carried out by a clown. This is campy horror at its finest. And you know what? It’s not half bad as far as acting goes. Check it out in Netflix Instant if you are one of the blessed, as I am, to have such a time waster. Super goofy, super gory, super fantastic.

You’ll probably hate it.

I LOVED this next one: Young Miles, by Lois Bujold.

Not only did this caress my sci-fi lobe, but it was wonderfully written and had incredible character development. You fall in love with the characters; they feel real, and you get swept up into their lives and forget about the ‘writer’ completely. That’s the sign of a good book: when you completely forget that you are reading and can’t detect the writer within the text. I look forward to reading more in the series and falling even more deeply in love with Miles….these fictional crushes are doomed for heartbreak. Sigh. This is a good novel for those who are interested in experimenting with sci-fi, but not ready for a full ‘immersion’. It’s pretty light with the technical stuff.

So there’s a movie on my Netflix queue that I am really excited about watching. It looks so so so terrible, but in an awesome way. It’s called….ready for it?….. “One Eyed Monster”. And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

The plot? Some washed-up porn star gets struck by a meteor and his penis comes to life. It’s vicious, hungry, and extremely dangerous. Yes, this exists. And yes, I HAVE to see it. One of the characters is played by Amber Benson, the girl who played Tara on ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. Apparently she left the show to go on to bigger things. Literally, bigger ‘things’. What a step up for her. A movie about a killer runaway dick? Put that on my Must-Watch list, near the top, right under ‘My Little Pony: Friendship is Magical”. Ponies and penises…I like alliteration. 

For the next book, I read a book length poem by Saul Williams, called “Said the Shotgun to the Head”. I read it several times over, since it is shorter than a novel, so I spent as much time with this book as I did with the others. With poetry its especailly helpful to do this.

This poem is phenomenal. The imagery, the language, the rhythm, everything works in tandem to create an intoxicating piece. This poem will appear to people across many interest landscapes. It especially appeals to those individuals who have an interest in hip-hop and lyrics. I recommend this to ANYONE looking for an awesome read.

Two of my favorite lines: 

“pools of blood are not recreational even lifeguards drown when the undertow breaks bread with the underbelly demons disguised as sharks have not put enough thought into their costumes a wiseman stays ashore when pointed fins read like italian subtitles the end is near (…) the beginning” 

“I surrendered my beliefs 
and found myself at the tree of life 
injecting my story into the veins of leaves 
only to find that stories like forests 
are subject to seasons” 

What could be better than a bunch of giant, killer, irradiated insects? Well, a lot of things…but that doesn’t not sway the fact that the next movie on my to-see list is the classic and campy  ’Them’.

Giant ants terrorizing a town? Sign ME up. Since it’s one of the 50s classics, I’m not expecting a lot of gore, and pretty much zero nudity, but faults aside….it looks pretty awesome. I have a crippling phobia of insects, so this even has a chance of creeping me out. Vegetarianism aside, I can’t kill insects because of the mere fact that I can’t get close enough to do the deed. I start squealing and feel all vomity within two feet of the fuckers. It’s bad. I need a man to take care of this problem for me. 

Few more book I read: Bradbury’s newest novel, “From the Dust Returned” was great, in usual amazing Bradbury fashion. perfect for those who love the delightfully and romantically macabre, with a tinge of innocence, like and Edward Gorey drawing. 

For fans of historical fiction, I would recommend “The Red Necklace”. Pitcure the french revolution, but with a hint of magoc thrown in for funsies. 

“The Eyre Affair” was the first in the “Thursday Next” novel series. it was very fun to read, but only if you read and loved Jane Eyre. Imagine a detective who can travel into the pages of a book to rectify crimes committed against literature. Pretty fun stuff. not mind-blowingly good or anything, but an enjoyable literary tryst. 

I’ve got a lot of catching up to do…but I’m pretty confident it will be ok. I am reading 100 books this year, so help me!!!!

9gag:

Unicorn

9gag:

Is it true you eat us?

All my gangstas out there gotta represent the one-horned mythical beast, yo. If you like dark humor, biting wit, and unicorns (anyone who doesn’t like unicorns can go fuck a griffin), then you have to check out the hilarious “Unicorn Being a Jerk” by CW Moss.

Here’s a little tantalizing sample.

It’s good, unclean fun.

Being a stalker.

Feeding pigs bacon.

You can order it on Amazon if you’re a lazy fucker who doesn’t want to haul your sorry ass to a book store. Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Unicorn-Being-Jerk-C-Moss/dp/0062070215/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1319808945&sr=8-1

Vanilla Xtrakt Out.

Disney-licious

There is an danger, very close to you, breathing down your neck at all times. It could go off at any second, and destroy your very essence.

It’s your brain.

It’s a mother-fuckin’ time bomb just ticking away.

This beautiful, wonderful, curious miracle that’s floating in the salty fluid of your head could turn on you at any moment.

Anyways, books. I promise I will get back to the brain thing. Think of the above nonsense as a teaser trailer, to trick you into reading the following book reviews in order to find out what I’m talking about.

My books this month: I read several by Chuck Palahniuk: Haunted, Tell-All, Diary, Fight Club, Invisible Monsters; then several book by various authors: The Taqwacores-Michael Muhammed Knight,  Pretties-Scott Westerfeld, Eon-Alison Goodman, Dark Secrets- by Elizabeth Chandler. Don’t worry, I won’t talk about ALL of them.

First book up on the chopping block: Haunted, by Chuck Palahniuk.

 Let me start off by saying that nothing (NOTHING) he ever writes will ever be nearly as good as ‘Fight Club’. That book is BRILLIANT. I have read it bajillions (literally) of times. The language, the voice, everything is perfect. It also helps if you read up on Merton’s Strain Theory and the Men’s Movement of the 90s. That being said….

‘Haunted’ was a blend between a novel and a short story collection. Each character in the book had at least one ‘short story’ about their past, and a larger, overarching plot united them all. It was fantastic. NOT a book that would be enjoyed by all, however. It was extremely graphic, extremely gritty, and VERY disturbing.

Palahniuk is often considered a ‘shock’ novelist by critics. This is part of what I love about him. If you took Kurt Vonnegut’s darkly humorous critique of society, mixed in a little of a David Lynch-like strangeness and absurdity, and heaped on a whole shit-ton of disturbing sauce (by the makers of Sriracha Rooster sauce), you would have something in the vein Palahniuk.  

This shit makes anything better. Even bad literature.

I really think he should write a zombie novel; it would be AMAZING. All the Chuck Palahniuk books were fantastic.

‘Diary’ was probably my favorite of the lot, though. I HIGHLY recommend it; it seems almost like a companion novel to ‘Fight Club’, what with its social commentary and crazy twists.

Anyways, back to how your brain can really fuck you over.

There are some really strange mental disorders out there. REALLY strange. Like the way the child of two siblings is strange. Or a dog in a fedora that also rolls his own cigarettes after burning down an orphanage. Or bologna. Some of these could just pop into your life one day and fuck you over in a big way. Kind of like a kid you didn’t know about (KIDDING! a little….).

Why am I so obsessed with weird mental diseases? I kinda have one myself. I hallucinate at night. BIG time. It’s a really extreme form of night terrors that involve audio and visual hallucinations. It doesn’t happen every night, but it happens often enough to shake things up. It’s kind of like LSD flashbacks, but without the fun Woodstock memories, and much less tie-dye.

Less like this….

More like this.

One night I saw an alligator on my dresser. Another time, I was sleeping at someone’s house and scared them to death when they woke up to find me talking to someone. They thought I was talking to them, but I told them to be quiet and said, “I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to HIM” (and I pointed toward the foot of the bed). I have seen maggots crawling all over a bloody ceiling. I have seen giant spiders and large crabs in my bed. Last night, I saw a tall shadow man walking out of the room.

These trips are SUPER realistic to me in the moment. It’s loads of fun. Really. (Pour over the sarcasm sauce, also made by Sriracha). This weirdness is found most often in children. Most people grow out of it, but I was one of the lucky ones to have it into adulthood.

Eh, it’s not SO bad.

Next book: Taqwacores by Michael Muhammed Knight.

This book was one big heartbreak and disappointment. It had so much PROMISE. But in the end, all of the excitement it promised turned out to be nothing but an anticlimactic let-down (THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!). And it didn’t even want to cuddle afterwards.

Why was it so bad? It was poorly written, for a start. The references to punk culture were all together too forced and contrived. Kind of like the kid who spends hours artfully shredding his brand new jeans and placing safety pins on his clothes, but he doesn’t know Johnny Rotten from Johnny Appleseed. The narrator too was like a floating voice with no character or movement. Then, it REFUSED to take a philosophical standpoint. There was very little cohesion. It switched around, never committing, and then eventually began to peter out. To top it all of, the ending DESTROYED the entire potential message. It angered me. I was angered.

What promised to be a fascinating look at counter-culture, spirituality, and the zeitgeist of youth turned out to be an epic FAIL.

On a side note, this book had the most awkward sex scenes I have ever read.

I mean, I’m glad I read it, because it had some interesting thinking points and observations. But overall, it was of the bad.

So, if you think my night terrors are bad, check out this next amazing disease. Ever see Dr. Strangelove? Remember his hilarious hand? That shit is real!!!!!!!

It’s actually called “Alien Hand Syndrome”. It is when your hand is not being consciously controlled by you, but instead takes actions of its own. Not just simple stuff, either; it can even undo your dress shirt, or use tools. Maybe even murder Seth Green.

Another insane one is Alice in Wonderland syndrome. It’s not QUITE as fu as it sounds, due to a distinct lack of rabbits in waistcoats, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless. This fascinating little malady creates the illusion that all your surroundings are ridiculously small, or in the reverse case, gigantic. Like when Alice eats the cookies, or drinks the cordial.

But again, no Chesire Cat, so I must suggest that this disease is worked on further. With just a few minor adjustments it could be the vacation of a lifetime. We’re halfway to a mad tea party, ladies and gents…

Next book:

Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk.

This book is all Hollywood glam, scandal, and name dropping, with a whole bunch of crazy. It’s completely different in it’s feel than the other books, like Pygmy was, but this one flowed much more smoothly and had its shares if hilarious twists and turns. And all of his books have really interesting bits of knowledge and trivia; I fact checked several of the most interesting ones, and they turned out to be true. He’s like the Dan Brown of twisted knowledge: he takes real facts and ideas and shoves them into a really skewed story that couldn’t possibly be true. I like the mood of this book. The language and name dropping is overwhelming at first, but you get swept into the momentum soon enough.

Ready for a real crazy one? Try on the Capgras Delusion for size. This little number has you thinking that a family member or loved one has been replaced by a malevolent imposter. So, every time you see your husband, you believe that the ‘real’ husband is missing, and the man currently in front of you is an evil lying bastard. This shit is scary. I’ve seen case-studies with this.

I’m pretty sure my dog has been replaced with an imposter…..I’m getting suspicious lately…..

By far the craziest in my opinion is prosopagnosia. This is slightly more well known than the others due to the book “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”. Sufferers of prosopagnosia are unable to recognize certain faces or objects. Instead, their brain sends them a completely random image. Like a hat. Or a giraffe. So, maybe your dad looks like a goldfish to you once in a while. Say you’re a furry, and you see your wife as a panda. Maybe you think that’s sexy. I don’t know what your into.  No judgement here.

Well, ok, maybe judgement. I mean…animals? REALLY?

Yuck.

Cute, but far from sexy.

Random: I really like the way Tom Waits sings. And he wears a hat pretty well too. But that is where it ends, my friends. Could you imagine having sex with that guy? I did, and it was frightening. Picture him, in his crazy voice, saying “Oh yeah. Oh yeah.”

It would sound like the Kool-Aid guy from hell. Like the evil Kool-aid man who went to that compound and poisoned all those Heaven’s Gate people.

DIE CULT MEMBERS!!!!!!!!

Minesweeper: The Movie

Hilarious…..but my film version of Candyland will blow it out of the water. Especially with Peter Jackson as my director.

Tetris: The Movie

Wow, I kinda wish this was gonna be a real movie……

Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted. I’m a slacker that way. I’ve been reading this whole time, but even that has fallen behind. Looks like I’m gonna have to cram approximately a shit ton of books into one blog entry. I’ll only discuss my favorites (or least favorites, as it were, in some cases. Because I adore bitching about bad books). The official list of the books I read this summer: Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Leviathan and Behemoth, both by Scott Westerfield, Harry Potter 1-5 (AGAIN), Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Unicorns v Zombies which is an anthology, Pygmy and Snuff which are both by Chuck Palahniuk, Ruby Red by Kerstin Geir, Tomorrow when the War began by James Marsden, Hourglass by Myra McEntire, St Lucy’s School for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell, and The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy. 17 books in all. That’s only a few behind schedule, actually. So not too terrible.

So, this summer, in all my slackerness, I did happen to catch a few interesting film trailers. I promptly forgot all about the interesting ones and instead became fixated on the god-awful ones. The one that stuck most painfully in my sun-softened mind was “Real Steel”. That movie looks like a hot mess.

Seriously, check out the trailer. It’s a real mind fuck. But not the good kind. More like the kind where you’re like Shit-I-was-really-drunk-I-am-already-itching-from-the-STD-I-most-certainly-picked-up kind of mind fuck. It’s like a snuff film, or a Rebecca Black music video….you want to look away, because it makes you feel really terrible about yourself and the world, but you just can’t.

Like the aforementioned video by Miss Black, this seems to have started with an innocent childhood dream. Her dream was to be a singer, and the screenplay writers dream was to have his Rock em’ Sock em’ Robots come to life.

Picture little Johnny Pickhisnose, someday to be Johnny Writeshit. He sits alone and friendless in his dark, musty room. The walls are covered in peeling cowboy wallpaper, and his only toy, his faithful fighting robots, sit before him on the splintery wood floor. Below him, he can hear his amphetamine amped mother vacuuming and swearing under her breath. He wishes with all his heart that he had a friend to be the blue robot. Then he could truly play the games as it was meant to be.

Poor Johnny. No friends.

He leans in to the robots, whispering “You are my only friends”. Wiping away a tear, he adds “I wish you were real.”

So, instead of growing up to be a serial killer, a lil’ John Wayne Gacy, he channels all this rage and pain into writing a really bad movie script. And we are left to deal with the garbage.

He should have just shoved bodies in the crawlspace and been done with it, in my opinion.

This led me down the rabbit trail of random thoughts to discover that there are a myriad of wonderful children’s games out there that I am dying to see made into films.

Ok, random subject change: First book to deserve my ever-esteemed acclaim: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman:

One of the best things about this book were the fantastic illustrations by Dave McKean, one of my FAVORITE artists. THe book itself was excellent as well; one of those rarities that appeals to children and adults. It’s one of those darker books that some macabre little kids just find fascinating. I was definitely one of those kids. I uses to rewind the heart-ripping-out scene in “Temple of Doom” over and over again as a child (but Mary Poppins scared the bloody hell out of me; go figure).

Ok, game to movie time, a relief from book reviews: Candyland. Now this movie will be EPIC. It will be the Lord of the Rings of the confectionary world. King Candy has been kidnapped by the evil Lord Licorice, who desires not only the Sugar Throne, but also lusts for the sweet sparkling flesh of Queen Frostine. Princess Lolly, Plumpy, and Gramma Nut must unite the kingdom against Lord Licorice. after many epic battles, they arrive at the castle to find Lord Licorice on the throne. They free King Candy and get ready to overthrow the bastard, when, just as victory seems certain, Princess Lolly slips behind King Candy and slits his throat with a piece of marzipan. WHAT A TWIST. Then, there will be a sequel…..

Next book up on the chopping block: Life of Pi.

This book was beautifully rendered. The descriptions were gorgeous yet simple, and the whole book had an almost folk-tale quality to it, though elegantly elevated above the stark simplicity that folk tales often have. The onyl beef I had with this book was the fact that the opening, the narrator’s claim that the story will ‘make you believe in God’ had very little to do with the story. The book opened up with an interesting look into Eastern religions and a synthesis the narrator strive to find between them, but these strands don’t get woven back into the story very well. They just tantalize you, then wind away. Still, it was an excellent book, and I definitely recommend it.

Remember Chutes and Ladders? It was a child’s board game meant to teach us about choices and consequences. If you rolled the dice and landed on a square where a good decision was depicted, you got to climb up a ladder and get ahead. If you landed on a ‘bad choice’ square, you had to go down a chute and fall behind. This could easily be adapted into an awesome horror/slasher film, with just some minor tweaking. And by minor tweaking, I mean a little bit of meth.

A brilliant killer has decided, in a very Saw-esque move, to create a vast labyrinth in which he will trap his victims. They will be forced to escape or perish within. Along the way to escape, they are forced to confront several decision-making challenges, in which they must choose the correct action, or suffer the fatal and gory consequences by sliding down a chute to their doom. Rob Zombie will direct this, of course. I want intestines and grey matter spewing everywhere. And this will be one of those 4-d experience movies. where you feel the blood spatter and smell the decaying bodies.

This has nothing to do with the blog….clowns just fuckin’ terrify me.

Next book: Hourglass by Myra McEntire. HATED it. WAY too much romance. It was like a teen romance novel with a few paranormal details thrown in, and no real character development to speak of. The characters seem to fall in love for no other reason than physical attraction, then its like BAM, risk your lives for each other. The character’s every thought was an obsessive half-formed idea of the person she was ‘in love’ with, despite all the other insane things happening around her. And they try to put a little triangle tension in there just for the hell of it. BLEGH. But it had a cool cover.

I really enjoyed “Snuff” by Chuck Palahniuk. It’s not for the faint of heart or weak in constitution, but if you’re ok with a little (ok, a lot) of shocking content, then this is a great book. It gives a really interesting and honest look at human nature and loneliness. The title pretty much encapsulates the main thrust of the plot (tee hee, thrust…). If you don’t know what the title means, then I don’t really recommend the book. You’ll probably throw up a little.

Did you know Hitler invented the Blow-Up Doll? True story. Look that shit up.

Which brings me to another game-turned-movie idea: Mr. Bucket. The games slogan is “Balls pop out of my mouth”. Do I really need to explain what kind of movie this will be?

The next two are gonna be tacked in real quick:

St Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by WOlves was a brilliant collection of strange and beautiful stories. I loved every story. It’s an adult book, but most of the stories are written through a child’s perspective. There’s quite a bit of magical realism, and its handled very well, not too overdone. Though I must say, some parts seemed to lack an ending; they just sort of dropped of, right at their most interesting points. THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID!!!!!!!

No complaints about this one; it was excellent. It was also one of the goriest books I have ever read. Even compared to a lot of the zombie books I’ve enjoyed. Well written, well paced, and hard to put down.  If you like Frankenstein, then this is a MUST read. ‘nuff said.

They should totally make a movie out of Hi-ho Cherry-O.

It could be a probing look at child labor and agriculture. I could see it being featured at Sundance.

I am going to post a few videos of other people who ventured into the game-to-movie arena. Check them out on my page/

Stay G.