Hopefully the film won't be as busy.

Brett Ratner, purveyor of such fine films as Rush Hour and Madonna:The Video Collection 93-99, just got his dirty little hands on ‘Youngblood’, the Rob Liefeld written comic book series held by Image. Ratner sees the the book, about super powered humans working for the government, as big screen business for some strange reason. From Variety:

“Most of the great graphic novels are gone, and ‘Youngblood’ is one of the few comic books left with tent pole potential. It was a real personal passion project for me, and a lot of people wanted (’Youngblood’), but the amazing thing about the guys at Reliance is the speed with which they’re able to move.”

This could mean that Image comics will finally start being mined for material. Me, I’m underwhelmed by the prospect. Ratner is also set to produce the new Conan picture.

Universal presents a horrifying ride to hell: Candy Land. Summer 2010

Variety reports that the Mensa Academy, er uhm, I mean Univeral Pictures, are planning on bringing the infamous board game Candy Land to the big screen. Ethan Cohen (not that Ethan Cohen) is set to write with Kevin Lima directing. Why, you ask? I couldn’t even begin to explain.

So who is this guy? He’s not listed in the cast as of yet and USA Today says that Joseph Gordon Levitt is playing multiple roles, including Cobra Commander. He also said something about prosthetics and how the producers didn’t want to go with the original look because it was too much like a KKK hood. So, is this Cobra Commander? Thoughts?

Nothing Screams Boring Like A 3-D Trip To The Grocery Store

When I heard that the powers that be (Lionsgate) were remaking an obscure slasher film from the eighties (a week before it came out) and it was in 3-D I casually lost my shit. 3-D is a huge selling point for me, though the way it’s used has yet to really be perfected, and the fact that I’d held no particular fondness for the original flick was a bonus, but the old sentiment still rings true: 3-D can’t save a shitty movie. Valentine begins, promisingly enough, with newspaper clippings jumping from the screen bringing us up to speed. Apparently ten years ago a mining accident blah blah blah, the plot is instantly forgettable and why the hell would you be paying attention anyway when everything is flying at you from so many directions? This entire opening sequence is terrific, exactly what a 3-D movie should be, but it quickly loses purpose when it tries to update itself with pointless narrative. Who the fuck goes to see a slasher film on a friday night hoping for social commentary that goes beyond graphic nudity*? 3-D is really just a vehicle for action and cheap scares, something this movie really gets in the first half hour. The writing is funny, the acting is funny, the gore is obscene and then out of nowhere, the film succumbs to multiple personality disorder. On one hand, you’ve got a gory little ham sandwich of a flick, wearing it’s influences on it’s vest, and on the other you’ve got something that wants to be in your DVD collection, something good enough you’d go see without the bells and whistles and but it doesn’t understand itself well enough to do so, which comes as no surprise as the director’s credits include Dracula 2000, White Noise 2 and the Prophecy 3 and one of the writers worked on Jason X (Jason In Space, for the novices) which, contrary to popular belief, is actual a pretty fun flick. To sum it up, it’s not worth ten bucks. But if you still want to see it, be warned that not all theaters are guaranteed to be showing this in 3-D, which really would be pointless. The most I would suggest is sneaking out of Paul Blart: Mall Cop to catch the first thirty minutes. Though, if you’d actually planned on seeing Mall Cop I can’t help you. Also, I’d like to point out for future reference that this technology doesn’t lend itself to a lot of nudity and I’m not sure if I dreamt it but I recall reading something about porn in Real-D (a rather unfortunate name), and the producers were having a hard time finding male leads so if anyone else read the article please let me know.

*This is something that horror films of the past twenty years or so have struggled with, unsuccessfully, particularly the ones of the slasher variety. I believe Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake is a perfect example. The reason that the original film works so well is that there isn’t a lot of back story. The most terrifying thing about it is that it just starts happening. Same thing with the first two installments of Friday the 13th and the original Nightmare. I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be plot development and narrative structure, I’m just saying that most of these guys are doing it wrong. Take Rosemary’s Baby, the original Wicker Man or Cannibal Holocaust even. These films give us an engrossing story, a reason to be terrified. When you look at the themes of Horror, something these new guys (other than Behind The Mask and maybe some of the stuff Eli Roth is doing, and I mean MAYBE) don’t seem to get, you see the ingredients of Fear. This is a call to all you would-be film makers: let’s get Horror back on track.

R. K. Haney

BEST ACTOR:

MICKEY ROURKE for THE WRESTLER

WHY:

Now I have yet to see The Wrestler and normally this would make me hesitate to say anything about it, but then again I’ve only seen four of the nominated films and, as is the usual case with frivolous ceremony, I don’t really think anyone is going to give Mickey anything for his acting. You see, the Academy loves to recognize come backs, no matter what form they take and Rourke’s is a pretty good one. So there you go.

UPDATE: I finally saw the Wrestler and was underwhelmed. This movie desperately wants to be Rocky (Stallone, not the kid from Mask) for some reason. It keeps building and building  up to that line in the trailer, you know, the “I’m just a broken piece of meat” line that everybody loves to quote. And then the movie just kinda ends. I still think Rourke deserved the Oscar.

SUPPORTING ACTOR:

ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. for TROPIC THUNDER

WHY??:

Just because Heath Ledger might have given the best performance on the list, and he’s dead, dosen’t mean the academy is going to reverse it’s ideology regarding comic book films (and can we please find something else to call them?). Sure, Mr. Jr. will say something about how Heath really deserves the Oscar and the Academy, in order to keep the ratings from crashing like a zeppelin, will give Heath a tribute early on and everyone will forget about it in the morning. No petitions, no rioting in the street.

UPDATE: Open mouth, insert foot!

BEST ACTRESS:

KATE WINSLET for THE READER

WHY:

I’m not sure. All I really know is that Angelina Jolie won’t take it because everyone seems to agree that she was the worst thing about THE CHANGELING and Meryl Streep will recive a lifetime achievement something or other in the next few years when the blood of virgins starts drying out. And for Anne Hathaway, just being nominated is too much.

UPDATE: I got this one, right? I don’t remember or care. Did Amy Adams win?

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

MARISA TOMEI?

WHY:

Does anyone even care?

UPDATE: Does anyone even care?

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:

WALL-E

WHY:

Because Pixar can do no wrong. There, I said it.

BEST PICTURE:

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTSUCKER

WHY?????????:

First movie I ever walked out on. There’s really no way of explaining anyone’s thinking in regards to this shit pile. Despite having written Munich, a very beautiful and unexpected film, this asshole Eric Roth also wrote the screenplay for Forest Gump, another bile inducing wretch fest that wasn’t very good to start with and somehow managed to get worse with age, like prison wine stashed behind the radiator. On the other hand I’m inclined to give David Fincher a pass on this one but I’m still keeping my distance. Just because you made Zodiac, Mr. Fincher, it doesn’t give you the right to shit on my eyes. You may think I’m being a little harsh and that if I walked out I can’t give an honest review. Well, you’re wrong. I sat in a theater for a fucking hour and nothing happened except the dialogue got worse as the seconds ticked by and the amazing man with the backwards life just stood around like a ghost as Kate Blanchet and dozens of other actors affected that bizarre fairy tale New Orleans accent that’s comparable to all those war movies in the sixties that used British actors to play the Nazis because we weren’t cool with them yet and apparently still aren’t, thank you Tom Cruise). And if you call that a love letter to New Orleans than I demand your head on a pike and that Eric Roth and David Fincher try harder next time. No scratch that, those two aren’t allowed near each other until Eric Roth writes me a formal apology though I’m sort of afraid to read anything he puts a pen to. But, back on topic, this movie will take best picture, best director, best screenplay and probably sweep all of the technical awards it’s up for. And to all of you retards who pissed off that Dark Knight wasn’t nominated, please stop. It’s a very good movie, a movie that I really love, probably the best Batman film to date, and it would certainly go on my best of the year list but it’s no China Town and it’s not and never would be a best picture contender. You guys always seem to forget that a film can be your favorite and also manage to not be recognized by a bunch of old Hollywood fogeys drinking mint juleps trying to push a fucking Transformers sequel down your throat. So settle down. I’ll see you at the Oscars.

UPDATE: Shit, I was mad, huh?

R. K. Haney

(The following interview was conducted first with Josh Moss. The other Brooms chimed in at a later date. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

GONE: How do the Brooms work with Josh being out of town so much?

Moss: Pretty much the same but without me. The shows have been going pretty well I hear, and we play together whenever I am in town. I really wish I was around all the time, but I can’t get a good job here right now so I have to be gone for ten day stretches.

Chris: We are eagerly awaiting his return, but we’re doing our best, which isn’t much.

Zac: I miss him, you know? He brought us together.  Like the chode of the band.
Taven: I don’t think Josh should be allowed to answer that question. We’re straight.
Jason: It’s been working out pretty well as far as I can see!

GONE: What other projects are you all currently invested in?

Moss: For a long time I have been making my own recordings on a four track that I try to post on the web or give to anyone who is interested. I always record a couple songs a month at least. Some Brooms songs have started that way. The latest compilation of these recordings is called “My Killer Tape”. The hotels I stay in are great places to record, except I can’t really play drums in there at all.

Taven: Well, we’re all in Uncle Badtouch & His Naughty Nephews

Chris: Dude, I’m not in Uncle…

Taven: Yes you are.  We all are.

Chris: Who the fuck is that?

Jason: It’s…

Zac: It’s the band that you’re in, asshole.

Jason: It’s the band that T-bor sings for and that we’re all in.

Taven: Me and Jason are also in a band called Deep Cuts with our good friends Neil Campbell & Jake Armentrout…..and Moss’ solo shit sucks.

GONE: Which of you have been there from the start of the Brooms?
Moss: The Brooms have had a lot of changes in our short history. In june of 06 Greg Pollock and I got together to record with the help of our longtime recording collaborator Levi Casey “Zone” Schroen who ran the recording devices and played drums. That became the first Brooms record. My girlfriend at the time, Kaitlin, sang back-up on a couple tunes. Then we asked Taven, Zac, and Kaitlin to join so we could play live. I played keyboard at the time, Greg and Taven switched on guitar and bass, Zac played drums, and Kaitlin sang and played tambourine. We have never had a lead singer, and we would each sing songs. We played more covers then, most notably Randy Newman’s “Sail Away” and Carl Perkins “Honey Don’t”. We made a recording with this line-up called “On The Brightside”. Then I was gone for 6 months, now I have been back about six months, and we are back with another line-up. Jason “Razor ‘The Blade’ Hernandez” Knicely has taken over bass, Taven and I play electric guitar, Chris Bennett (our old friend the lead singer of Dirtpond) plays rythym guitar and Zac still plays drums. We still all sing, but the sweet harmonies of Taven and Chris have taken the lead. Greg and Kaitlin have gone seperate ways from the band, but, along with our recording specialist and sometimes drummer Casey, they are lifetime members of the band. in between all these changes we recorded our latest album “We’re All Busy People” a six song album available in its entirety on our Myspace.

GONE: Give us the real scoop: what do you think of the other guys in the Brooms, one by one?

-Taven “Horsecock” Wilson and i go way back to distant time when I hated him for reasons of jealously, passion and romance. Even in those days, when we were in Dirtpond, he felt like he would be playing with us someday, and he was right. I love the songs he writes even though he hates them. now we watch shitty horror movies together while drinking liqour and bitching about how we can’t get any shows until two in the morning.

-Zac “The Manhammer” “Teddy” Jones can play a 4/4 time country rock drum beat that will make you think he is the bastard love child of Kenny Buttrey and Ralph Molina. He just has to have his breakfast vodka first. He is a bum whisperer. When we are playing out of town he goes out for a walk and comes back smelling of urine and ripple. He is the only person subject to arrest for driving sober. He will piss in your basement and you will thank him because he is just that charming.

-Jason “Crucial Pete” Knicely is a new member of the band but a hardened veteran of being my friend. He is a well dressed gentleman and he doesn’t fight dirty. He might look like a Mexican but he doesn’t work as hard. Women are rough on Jason Knicely and we have a song about it. He has played bass in the late lamented Gone Dead Train/American Buffalo and the bubblegum pop group Lex Vegas, and now he plays bass for us.

-Chris Bennett’s voice is as smooth as Tupelo honey, honey baby, from the bee. His voice is as good as his guitar maintnence skills are bad. He has recently returned to us after years of seclusion spent at the Amsterdam Hilton eating birthday cake in bed. Either that or he was at work. The only occasion important enough for him to put on shoes is one of our shows.

I feel like we are very close as a band and I consider the Brooms to be my very best friends

THE BROOMS ON JOSH MOSS:

Jason: I’ve known Moss basically since I was about 12 years old.  I remember that he could play “Santa Monica” by Everclear pretty well back then.  If I’m not mistaken, I was the first person to acquire pot for him and subsequently smoke it.  He took one hit and immediately exhaled through his nose.  I lived with him during the formative Dirt Pond years and have enjoyed pretty much everything he’s spewed since.  He’s a good one. I think I’ll keep him.

The sound of the footsteps in the leaves, growing fainter, convinced Frank and me that we were safe.  We sat and discussed what we had just witnessed with each other, in an almost editorial fashion.  Excitedly reporting facts we knew the other had just witnessed, punctuated with curse words of all shapes and sizes.  In the manner of adolescence we talked with fervor, and over each other’s words as the adrenaline generated by our experience wore off.  We settled down after awhile, finished our wine and went to sleep.

At about nine in the morning we rode out, sore from our nights sleep on the hard asphalt.    The trail went on, but not like before.  Forests and suburbs were replaced with strip malls and row houses.  We had arrived in Arlington and rode off the trail on Gallows Road.  We rode through the outskirts of the city, taking a left onto Idylwood Road and then headed down Old Dominion Road deeper into the city of Arlington.  We broke off Old Dominion where it intersects Glebe Road and headed toward Wilson Boulevard then took that to the Key Bridge and crossed into Georgetown.

We had made it to D.C.

Not familiar with our surroundings, we decided to stop at a gas station to snag a map and some candy bars.  I ran diversion; being younger I was able to solicit more sympathy from our marks.  I let the air out of my front tire and went into the small gas station and in a slightly panicked tone, I asked the attendant for help.  The attendant walked me over to the air pump and helped me refill my tire while Frank went inside to steal a map and some snacks.

After eating and plotting a route up M Street, we stopped at a Sunny’s Surplus store.  As we walked into the store, we could tell we were in for a challenge.  The clerk eyed us with scrutiny and suspicion as we passed, but didn’t offer help or assistance of any kind.  The store itself was a labyrinth of isles between glass cases and clothing displays which provided ample cover for our misdeeds. Noting the convex mirrors in every corner and realizing that the focal points of these mirrors were set for average adults, we were happy to discover that we were little more than distorted blobs on the outer edges of most of them.  This in mind, we proceeded to steal nun chucks, throwing stars and knives.   Frank at one time, so bold, fished a throwing star out of a narrow slot in a locked case with one of the knives he had lifted off the shelf not a moment before.  Again, we walked out with no incident, not realizing that the trouble would’ve been much different had we been caught.  The people there did not look friendly.

We rode on and met up with a kid named Mickey in a random suburban park.  We were instant friends and shared all that was left of what we’d stolen with him, whipping the throwing stars into a piece of ply-wood we had hung up on his fathers shed.  Mickey was 12, so we had a lot in common.  He was a bit of a trouble maker himself and we swapped stories of our adventures, both real and imagined, until mid afternoon.  When Mickey was called in to dinner, we said our goodbyes and rode off once more.

By this time it was about 5pm and we debated on what to do next.  We rode by a strip mall and detoured through the parking lot.  A movie theater there was showing “The Twilight Zone” and Frank and I decided to sneak in to watch it.  I sat and watched, horrified, as Dan Aykroyd (playing an ambulance driver) playfully asked his partner; “Hey, you wanna see something really scary?” only to rip his human mask off, revealing a hideous snarling monster who proceeded to devour the EMT in the passenger seat.  It freaked me right the hell out, Frank too, but we watched the entire movie anyway.

After the film, we walked out to our bikes.  We had about an hour to find a place to camp before it got dark and the stupidity of seeing a film under these circumstances occurred to me as we rode off.  I winced at the thought of it.

With this in mind we rode a few blocks north of the mall where we encountered a rather large group of thuggish looking children.  We got off our bikes and spoke with them guardedly, sensing that these were not the typical suburban kids we were accustomed to.  Attempting to be friendly, we showed them our throwing stars and knives, and one by one, they disappeared with them.  We closed our packs when we realized what was going on and turned back to our bikes to leave, nervously complaining about getting in trouble for being late to dinner.  A very large child of maybe 15 or 16 ran ahead of me and picked my bike up over his head and, looking at me, screamed “Watch!”.  Confused, I wondered what it was he wanted me to watch, so I asked him.  He answered by screaming ‘WATCH’ again.  One of his buddies, feigning genuine concern for my situation, informed me that this boy was insane and he wanted the watch on my wrist.  I made a personal note of how fortunate an insane teenager must be to have his own personal translator.

**I need to interject here that the watch on my wrist was not spectacular.  Not valuable in the least, it was a cheap Timex which I had taken the rubber wrist band off of and replaced with a wicked cool leather one that was wider than the watch itself and adorned with snaps and studs.  This watch may have had no monetary value, but it made up for that by being the coolest thing ever.**

I refused to give it up, swearing it was a gift from my brother who had since died in a terrible forest fire.  I lied further to say that it was the only thing I had left to remember him by.  I was really hamming it up for this guy, I wanted to keep my watch so much I was willing to risk life and limb for it.  Weather he fell for my sob story or just got tired of holding my bike over his head (Huffy’s were very heavy), I’ll never know.  He threw my bike down and stormed off, still appearing quite insane, playing his part convincingly as he walked down the sidewalk and away from us.  There were only a few kids left now and we got on our bikes and rode off with no words to them, and no further incident.

It stung to be swindled so aggressively and expertly.  These kids played by different rules and the loss we suffered bruised our ego’s tremendously.  For the hour or so, we spoke only when deciding on our route.
As we rode NE, the inner city cluster once again became strip malls and row houses, which then became forests and suburbs.  The suburbs looked much the same north east of DC as they did south west of the city, which comforted me greatly… I was back in my element.  By this time it was well after dark and we stopped at a well lit office park to find a place to camp.  We found an empty dumpster that didn’t smell too bad by a parking garage and made camp inside.  Still worked up from the days travel and uncomfortable in the metal dumpster, we set out into the parking garage to see what we could heist.  We tried the doors of the few cars that were there and found one open.  We rifled through the center console and glove box, finding nothing of interest save for the trunk release.  In the trunk were blankets and air mattresses.  We stared at each other in amazement, someone surely was watching over us.  Our dumpster-fort was now very cozy and we talked and planned for the days to come.

As we examined our map we noted that getting to Buffalo from where we were would be difficult considering we had to avoid interstates the entire way.  With the optimism that comes with youthful ignorance, (making plans is easy when you don’t know what you can’t do) we chose a tangled web of back roads which would make even the most experienced of guides slap his forehead in confusion (and probably disgust).  The route would take us first to Baltimore, then north west through every small town from Smallwood, Maryland to Springbrook, New York.

We still had candy and cigarettes and snacked and smoked until we finally fell asleep under the low buzz of parking lot lamps.

Two runaway kids in a dumpster-fort headed for Buffalo.  Our plan, no matter how optimistic, was proceeding within the confines of our extremely vague guidelines, and by our estimate, we’d be in Buffalo in four or five days.  In reality, Buffalo is approximately three hundred-fifty miles from Baltimore and we were averaging about twenty miles a day.  In reality, it would take us more than two weeks to get to our destination if we could ride the interstates, which we couldn’t.  Given the course we had chosen it would be more like three of four weeks.

In the morning we woke to the thunderous sound of the trash truck coming for the daily rounds and slowly, with reality sluggishly materializing before my sleepy eyes, I almost light heartedly realized that we were in a dumpster.  I almost laughed but decided to swear loudly instead.  Frank already had his head out of the top of the dumpster and was waving frantically at the driver who saw him, thankfully.

After a short confrontation delivered by a very confused trash collector, we rode off quickly, shouting that our parents knew exactly where we were over our shoulder as if the trash-man was foolish to ask such a ridiculous question.  Our deftness was fueled by the fact that the dumpster we were in was filled with recently stolen items from a parking garage only a few dozen feet away.

DAWN OF THE DEAD (Romero, 1978)- I wrote a fucking term paper on this little beauty. By far Romero’s best work and proof that there are smart horror movies out there.

REANIMATOR (Stuart Gordon, 1985)- Jeffery Combs as a mad scientist, Barbra Crampton in the nude, cunnilingus from a disembodied head and glow sticks that raise the dead. “And what would a note say, Dan? ‘Cat dead, details later’?” Amazing.

ZOMBIE (Lucio Fulci, 1979)- Zombie vs. shark. ‘Nuff said.

TOXIC ZOMBIES or BLOODEATERS (Charles McCrann, 1980)- Nothing really worth mentioning except for this: Director Charles McCrann, graduate of Princeton and Yale Law school, said to himself “maybe I’ll make a movie this weekend” and thus Toxic Zombies was born. He was Vice President of the Marsh and McLennan company, and worked at the companies World Trade Center office. He was killed in the 9/11 attacks. That said, the movie itself isn’t great, but funny and the gore’s alright. If you really want to see it, I’ll loan it to you.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (Romero, 1968)- The classic that started it all. No matter how many times I watch it, it still scares the shit out of me. The grainy and sometimes sloppy camera work really work for this film. It’s one of the attributes I love in regards to horror and slasher films from the sixties and seventies, the kind of sleaze that gets stuck to your clothes. Whether or not Romero was considering the civil rights movement or not, the film is still relevant today, i.e., no matter how many zombies the black guy kills, the rural militants will still mistake him for a zombie at the end (zombie being code for Jews, and all).

WHITE ZOMBIE (Victor Halperin, 1932)- The other side of the coin. A really beautifully shot film, really vibrant, but too pretty to allow the premise to survive on any sort of intellectual level, and like I said above, horror movies can be smart. Worth it mostly for Bela Lugosi in the height of his methadone addiction, but zombie is still code for Jews.

DEAD ALIVE or BRAINDEAD (Peter Jackson, 1992)- Before he was made infamous in a tawdry jerking off in public scandal (KING KONG, 2005), Peter Jackson made low budget horror films, the one in question having used 3000 litres of blood, setting a new record. Diseased rat monkeys, zombies having sex, ear soup and a really inventive use for a lawn mower easily made this one an instant classic.

THE WIZARD OF GORE (Jeremy Kasten, 2007)
Hey, wait a second, how’d a REMAKE make it on this list?? Based on the 1970 film of the same name and directed by slasher master Herschell Gordon Lewis, The Wizard of Gore begins with a really strong premise involing Crispin Glover as the mad magicin Montag the magnificent, a hynotist with a fever for mayhem. The acting in this one is pretty much sub-par, save Glover who’s ham sandwich of a role fits him like a ham sandwich costume. Look for horror legend Jeffery Combs in probably the most secondary and dull moment of his carrer, a listless cameo that Combs’ seems to sleep walk through. What fun the first half offers is shallowly dismemberd by the third act, where the director becomes more interested with dream-like absurdity than delivering on a promise of glorious carnage. I really enjoyed the film upon first viewing but subsenquentally lost interest when I made a friend watch. I intended, originally, to not even consider the film in this section having not seen the original, but recent events have forced my hand.  I was in Los Angeles recently, the locale of the film, and fell in love with a stripper who just so happened to work at the bikini bar featured (Evylen, if you’re reading this, she meant nothing to me), half lost my head when she danced to Nina Simone, fell from my chair to one knee and began to deliver the most elequent poetry ever spat, my breath hot with Jack Daniels, forehead pouring it all over the floor, being thrown from the establishment to the typewriter I now hammer at trying to remember what the fuck verse I was laying out. Good Goddamn, I love L.A.

ANOTHER ONE
FOR THE FIRE
Reviews by Trey Howell and Jon Griffin

What the fuck, Hank’s talking about zombies? I LOVE ZOMBIES, MAN! As usual, he’s already deftly touched upon the genre’s finest. Here are a couple that you might turn to when the blood starts to run a little thin, with a few genre-ben ers tossed in for good measure.

CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD: A mis-titled film if there ever was one, ‘cause this might be the first film of the genre to feature spastic, plane-flying, gun-toting, sexually sadistic, bust-ass running zombies. Yet despite the fresh angle (and yes, Danny Boyle, the expiration date was 1980) nary a zombie-film cliche is missed.

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (A.K.A. NIGHT OF THE ZOMBIES, ZOMBIE CREEPING FLESH, ZOMBIE 2 ((BUT NOT FULCI’S ZOMBI 2)), OR VIRUS): Paying the price for toying with nuclear-like chemicals? Check. Reporter on the scene? Check. Gotta shoot ‘em in the head? Check. Protagonist confronted by zombie friend/relative/lover? Check. Archival footage of Papua New Guineans eating maggots off of human skulls? Check. Wait a minute, that last one isn’t a cliche. Well, it might be the only part that isn’t.

NEKROMANTIK: Okay, this one’s a bit of a reach, because the dead guy stays dead… but he gets laid! And a dude sucks on the dead guy’s sightless, decomposing eyeball. Somehow that counts in my book. You’ll be forever scarred by watching this film, just as my poor little sister was when I made her watch Lucio Fulci’s magnum opus. (So if you’re reading this, sis, steer away from it, eh?)

STREET TRASH: This film by now-respected (or at least employed) cinematographer J. Muro actually falls into the more esoteric category of “melt films,” but lots of the disfigured, melting, gurgling, exploding homeless people in the film stick around long enough to make it a soul-mate of the zombie flicks. And it aged exactly like the bad booze which serves as the picture’s MacGuffin: six years and one day after the film’s 1987 release, Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt played out one notable scene from Street Trash in real life.

DEAD AGAIN: “Wait a minute,” you say, “there are no zombies in this sappy overhyped flashback-riddled Hitchcockian piece of shit chick-flick directed by Kenneth Branagh!” Take another look: they’re all dead inside.

VERSUS: (Kitamura, 2000)- Samurai Zombies?  What could possibly be more plausible?  Riddled with gore and grotesque comedy, the zombies in this film don’t just shamble, they wield guns and samurai swords while they’re at it.  Though the choreography is dicey at times, the editing is brilliant, both sound and video.  The villains perform an almost stooge like slapstick during the film, providing entertainment during the brief times when there is no fighting or killing.  Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, this film runs the gambit of zombie clichés but in a way that keeps you transfixed, partially due to Kenji Matasuda, co-star and butterfly knife-wielding gangster.  Don’t expect to see this at your local video store, but you will find it at Netflix and it’s more than probably available at your favorite torrent site.  Whatever you have to do to see this movie, do it.  Worth every minute of your life spent watching it.

However, that didn’t prevent Jake, Jeff, Jon and I from going to those first All Good festivals out at Wilmer’s Park, Maryland.  They were usually pretty intimate and interesting affairs: a few thousand people and a dozen bands camping out at the old blues club/farm where the likes of Bo Diddley and Muddy Waters used to play.
I don’t know what’s happened in the meantime, but things have definitely changed.  The All Good festival is now a massive event, drawing at least 30,000 people and nearly 40 bands, and the venue has changed to Marvin’s Mountaintop, about a dozen miles from the Pennsylvania border and not far from  Morgantown, West Virginia.
I quit drinking a while back and the whole sex-drugs-and-rock-and-roll scene has long since left me behind, but last year a good pal of mine talked me into going and I had a great time.  So it was fairly easy for my fellow editor Jon’s brother Jeff to talk me into going again.
“Doooood, it’ll be so cool!” Jeff has a way of crooning the word “dude” that reminds me of Warren Zevon.  “You gotta go.  If you go Christian will go, and then it will kick ass!  I haven’t even seen you since the last time we went to this.”
Jeff had a point.  And, The Man had just sent me a $300 stimulus check, and what better way to send this kleptocracy a big middle finger than to go blow it in the black market of a giant hippie drug fest?  Sure, I thought, I’ll do it!  It’s a great idea!
Sitting down in front of Google Earth, I carefully charted courses and alternate routes, measured distances, converted miles to kilometers and gallons to liters and back again a dozen times, and came up with a plan.
The So-called Plan
There was one major uncertainty in the mix: Jeff, though I love him like Jon’s brother, is not the most dependable fellow on earth.  Jeff is the eternal optimist, never swayed by adversity, dilatoriness… or prior experience.  He’s the living embodiment of the phrase, “it’s all good,” because for Jeff, it really is.  For Jeff a plan is, as Christopher McQuarrie once put it, a list of things that can go wrong.  And why worry about what can go wrong when everything usually goes so very right?
Cell phones never work on Marvin’s Mountaintop, and I reminded Jeff of that.  I also knew before hand that the people I was supposed to meet, Jeff, Christian, Jess, and Karen, are experienced recreational campers, meaning that they park in a circle around a light source and drink beer until it’s gone, and might do so even when forty great bands are playing a few hundred yards away. We would have to meet somewhere, because I’d never find them amongst thousands of tents.  How about at the ice tent, suggested Christian, and we agreed to check in there roughly every three hours each night.
But, as I knew from the previous year when the plan broke down and I ran into these same people only by coincidence, there was a chance that I’d be launching myself to the furthest reasonable limits of money, distance and endurance, perhaps beyond those limits, only to have to turn back due to any one of a million things that could go wrong.  So my plan would have to include a “lifeboat” scenario, in which I could make it there and return home without ever seeing my pals.  I called this scenario the Apollo 13.
I guessed it was about 200 miles by the routes I wanted to take.  Little Sorrel II, my faithful and apparently indestructible Hyosung SF50 scooter, goes 80 miles on a gallon of gas, so I would need five gallons of gas, plus one in a can just in case.  If I held back $30 for fuel I should be okay.
On the Internet, the advertised ticket price for admittance to the show was $139.  I had about $250 total, so if I had to pull an Apollo 13, well, I should be able to make it home… probably… Maybe.
The route could be broken into six legs, each one of which should put me within reach of a fuel station along the way.  Oh, it was going to take a while to get there and back, of that I was certain.
Both Virginia and West Virginia have a special little class of vehicles, sometimes incor
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It’s All Good!, continued

rectly called “mopeds” in the law books.  Scooters which displace less than 50ccs (less than four tablespoons) do not need to be registered or carry insurance, which is why I ride one.  I can’t afford a car or the fuel to make it go.
But scooters are also speed limited by law (and the less flauntable laws of physics), usually to 35 miles an hour or less.  Little Sorrel II has been slowing down a little lately, and the limiter seems to kick in at about 31.  One has to stop frequently to remain alert, and the fuel tank only holds one gallon anyway, so experience tells me it’s impossible to average more than 25mph on long trips.  Eight hours, minimum, each way.
I’ve ripped off 200 mile days on Little Sorrel II more than once.  How bad could it be?
Soon the day approached and I was fairly excited about it.  Going over the charts and maps one more time I realized that I had room to go a day early.  There might be less traffic on a Thursday afternoon, the weather was sure to be excellent, and even the Apollo 13 scenario could cover the extra $30 for early admittance.   So, I snapped off a couple of emails to Jeff and Christian and started packing.

Packing for the Bataan Death March
No scooter should grace the streets without a good milk crate on the back of it.  My bike is remarkable for being able to hide a full face helmet under the seat.  All the rest of the carrying capacity is covered by a simple plastic rack on the back, capable of holding 14 kilograms, which is about 200 pounds if my math is correct.  Shortly after I got Little Sorrel II, my brother-in-law used his amazing rope-tying skills to graft a crate onto it, which I have since styled the Excursion Vehicle Storage Unit, or EVSU, which sounds much cooler than “crate.”  On long trips, I usually attach a second crate behind the first: EVSU 2.
The underseat storage of the vehicle would hold all of the essential gear: maps, lights, tools, gloves, oil, extra bungee cords, and a mylar blanket which I hoped I wouldn’t have to use.
Everything else, including tent, sleeping bag, ridge rest, umbrella, winter coat, gas can, and back pack, would have to be grafted onto the EVSUs.
This was not a simple task.  The back crate can’t hold much weight, so it held the sleeping bag and the gas, with a little extra space in the bottom of the crate–er, EVSU 2–below the sleeping bag, which was mooshed on top and secured with bungee cords. The first EVSU had to hold the backpack, if possible, because wearing it for 200 miles would be sheer torture.  The umbrella, jacket, and ridge rest could be mounted on the sides of the EVSUs.
But what about the tent?  A few months back, most of the Gone crew and some guys from the fantastic band Smell of Death went camping at Elliot’s Knob, and I was saddened to discover that the tent I’d taken was my niece’s.  I slept with my legs dangling out the door.  The only other choice I had was the Taj Mahal of tents, a great big blue Ozark Trail thing that looks like Darth Vader’s head and weighs about  thirty  pounds.  Mainly I wanted it because it is so big that I figured I could park Little Sorrel II inside of it, which is a good idea when you’re camping amongst 30,000 felons.
It wouldn’t fit on top of the EVSUs and it would dangerously imbalance the scoot if I side-mounted it.  Eventually, I realized that the Vader tent could be mounted transversely, just in front of the first EVSU, and it functioned nicely as a seat back as well.  The sides stuck out maybe half an inch shy of the handlebars, which I deemed safe enough considering that absolutely nothing I was preparing to do is safe.
Now, I’m not going to say that the bike was overloaded with all of this crap, but without a rider it did shift the weight well over the back wheel.  Parked on its center mount, Little Sorrel II’s front wheel shot crazily into the sky, making the little thing look much, much faster sitting still than it actually is on the road.  That extra weight was going to sneak up on me, though at the time I was quite satisfied with the job.