Josh Hilden's Blog, page 17

Wrapping Things Up for the Year

2014 has been a real rollercoaster ride for me. In some ways it’s been extremely difficult and I’ve had to fight my way through some serious obstacles. While in other ways I feel as if I have been leaping from one lily pad to the next with things just getting better with every landing.

I suppose that makes me some kind of messed up sentient frog.

When the year started I had exactly one professional goal. I needed to be making enough money writing and publishing to be able to quit my day job (at night) and become a fulltime indie author and publisher. I knew going in I would have to kay the bedrock for what came next therefore the first thing I did was secure fulltime editorial services. This lead me to contracting with the amazing Jennifer Tovar and her company Gypsy Heart Editing (www.gypsyheartediting.com). With that chore safely in the hands of a person infinitely more qualified to handle it than myself I turned to my primary task.

I started writing like the fucking wind.

Ideas have never been the problem, I forget three ideas for every one idea I commit to notes and for every ten I commit to notes maybe one gets written. That’s not bragging because most writers have the exact same problem, too many ideas and nowhere near enough time. The number of times I’ve heard the Indie Writer Lament of “There’s never enough time to write!” is staggering, what I needed to stop performing my own version of the lament was Critical Mass.

British Dictionary definitions for Critical Mass

noun

1. The minimum mass of fissionable material that can sustain a nuclear chain reaction

2. The minimum amount of money or number of people required to start or sustain an operation, business, process, etc: the critical mass for a subscription digital sports channel

What do I mean by Critical Mass as related to writing?

More than anything else I needed word of mouth that converted to increased sales. With that in mind I began promoting and putting my work out there more than ever before. I bought my first online ads. I started taking my books to convention making my debut at Gen Con 2014 in Indianapolis Indiana. But the one thing I did above all other was I owned the reality that I am a writer.

What does that mean?

I quit saying I was a part time writer. I quit telling people I was still an amateur. I quit denigrating most of my own work. I stopped the incessant bitching about what happened to me in the early years of my career. I let go of a lot of the resentment I’d been harboring for a lot of years. I made the final decision that the ONLY thing I wanted to do with my life after being a husband and father was be a writer. Furthermore I knew even if I stopped actively writing and started a regular job that paid enough to have a prosperous life I would still be miserable, in short I’d rather be a poor writer than flush with cash doing something I could barely tolerate at best. Still there were two other factors that needed to happen before I moved my fat ass in the right direction.

In March my working world changed.

Not going to go into details because I’ve written several essays about this but I will give a brief synopsis. As succinctly as I can put it everything the was fun and enjoyable about my job went away when my supervisor quit and moved home to the foreign nation of New York. When that happened my quiet corner of the working world became a cauldron of petty stupidness and piss poor management. Let me say this clearly… THE PEOPLE RUNNING BETHANY VILLAGE COULDN’T ORGANIZE AN ORGY IN A WHORE HOUSE!

That felt good… like having my back scratched while peeing good.

Once I’d decided my days were numbered at the day job (at night) I needed an incident to kick me in the butt. I just wish it hadn’t been something so heart breaking for me and my entire family.

In April my mother-in-law died after a long illness.

I won’t go into details. The pain is still too much for me to talk about and I have zero desire to start weeping like a three year old with a skinned knee on a relatively nice day. When she passed we’d theoretically had enough time to prepare but nobody is ever ready to lose someone they love.

Mom was my biggest fan. She read and supported everything I did and she was one of the first people who ever bought my work. She was one of the people pushing me to continue after I thought my career had died before it even began back in 20008. Mom dying would have crushed the old me but all it did, besides making me really sad, was inspire me to continue. Mom once told me she wanted to see me on the top of a best seller list. She never saw that but she did get to see me rank in the top 100 horror writers on Amazon and that’s not a small thing.

I knew then and there my time at the old folk’s home was numbered.

I’ve talked about the last six months and how the work situation has devolved. I’ve spoken at length about the day I fought with my boss and with human resources when they tried to strong arm me. And I’ve let it be known that I turned in a letter or resignation stating January 6, 2015 would be my last day of employment.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

I went in to work on December 23rd on the four to midnight shift with every intention of being back in at seven in the morning on Christmas Eve. As the night went on I more and more irritated with the way I’d been treated all year, yes I know that sounds and is pretentious and whiny but it was how I felt, so when my future daughter in law showed up half an hour early to pick me up I left without asking for permission. I quit and I felt like a giant weight was lifted from my shoulders.

It was glorious.

So here we are. I’m a fulltime writer/publisher and work from home dad. Maybe I’m just imagining it but things in the house seem to have become lighter and happier. Yeah money will be tighter but sales were already significantly rising and my production rate seems to be accelerating since I don’t have to split my time between two jobs.

What comes next?

More books from yours truly. More books published by GWS Press by other writers. Also there will be more audiobooks and convention appearances. I don’t know how it will all pan out in the end but I can’t wait to take the trip!



- Josh

Old People Used to Pay My Bills

This might be the last essay of 2014. I will still be doing my traditional year end wrap up but this could be the last general one I put out. I’m considering a special Christmas Eve Essay but you all know I’m lazy and tend to bite off more than I can chew. With all of that being said lets dive into the Hi-Larity of my day job at night.

If I wasn’t already quitting this essay would get me fired.

Since June of 2009 I have worked for Graceworks Lutheran Services at Bethany Village an upscale senior living facility. I have been remiss to ever mention the name of my employer due to a Social Media Policy worthy of North Korea or Putin’s Russia. They will and have fired people for simply posting a picture from the interior of the facility or having something truthful but unflattering to say about it. This draconian policy is hammered into employees from the first day of work.

So why am I mentioning it as opposed to my normal vagueness?

Next Tuesday I am giving my two week notice. I know I’ve been mentioning it over the last few weeks but I’ve never put it in a place where anyone tangentially affiliated with Bethany Village could read it. That all ends today and as far as I’m concerned they should be glad I didn’t decided to leave them high and dry over the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday.

Before I tell you of the awesome amount of fail I experienced today let me give you some back story. Don’t worry I know I’ve touched on the day job at night more than once in the past so I will keep this as shirt and sweet as possible. Or at the least I’ll try not to meander…

I took the job here (I’m currently on break and writing this essay as opposed to working on Frank 2) in the summer of 2009 in order to prepare for the birth of my sixth child. I’d been working at Toys R Us for six years and as the economy tanked they cut and cut in the company, funny part was their numbers never really got that bad and they used the collapse as an excuse to fuck over employee’s but that’s an essay for another day. At the time Bethany Village was a wonderful place to work.

In May of 2011 I quit my job with no notice.

The reasons have been talked about before but the short version is I did it to save my marriage. It worked and my marriage is happier than ever but I regretted leaving Bethany the day I quit. For five months we scrambled to make ends meet and I eventually took a low paying job working for Marriot Hotels. The job was good and I had every intention of staying.

Then one day I received a call from, Terri, my manager at Bethany.

She asked me to come back and I said yes without a second thought, well I talked to Karen about it first but other than that I jumped at it. I returned to the retirement community and up until March of this year I was very, very, happy with my work situation. In March my Supervisor, Kelly, was forced out of her job due to the fuckery of the people above us. I’m not going to explain that because it’s her story not mine but suffice it to say in my mind she would have been completely justified in burning the mother down. She was one of those supervisors who actually shielded her people from the crap raining down from management and handled department problems in the department.

With Kelly gone things went into the shitter.

I was the BEST qualified person to take over the department. I know it and they knew it. But they didn’t want me or one of the other people in the department with the proper experience to have it. Terri wanted one person to have the job and she was determined to get her into the position. To be fair the girl who got the job, I’ll call her Clara, is not unqualified for the job and she wanted the position but she was not the best candidate. Terri was supposed to post the job so people could apply… funny how that bit of company never happened.

So Clara got the job and things got… rough.

The department became a rudderless mess of conflicting orders and petty back stabbing. There was, and is, a lot of chest beating and people trying to prove they were the Alpha’s and everyone else was their bitch. It took me about five minutes to realize I was too old and too smart for this same old bullshit. But I needed the job so I continued to do what I was told and kept my foul little mouth shut. Last month the decision was made to leave at the end of the year and I’ve felt like a weight has been lifted off my chest.

Today I went to war.

Last Monday and Tuesday I called into work and today I received the traditional ‘You’ve been a Bad Boy So Sign This Write Up” visit to Terri’s office. Have I told you about the attendance policy here before? You are allowed six points in a twelve month period these points can be comprised of some combination of 6 absences (6 points) or 12 late for work incidents (6 points) in that period. Reach six and you’re fired. The Call offs on Monday and Tuesday put me at five and a half. I have been at the five point level four times in the last twelve months (points come off after 12 months) and I was informed if I received another point before I was down to three I would be fired.

I lost my shit and nearly quit on the spot.

After a brief tense discussion with Terri I informed her I was going to Human Resources and left her office. When I arrived at HR they were in the middle of fielding a call from Terri who was apparently trying to get in front of this. I actually started laughing in the middle of the HR lobby.

The conversation with HR was pointless and in the end did nothing more than allow me to tell them the way they treat their employees is disgraceful and that they should be ashamed of themselves. I pointed out that I have NEVER been written up for anything but attendance, I take ever my extra job they offer me, and that they would be stupid to fire someone of my skill level and experience.

I was calm, I was respectful, and I was appropriately polite.

It felt wonderful to vent.

Next week I’m quitting the right way. I will be delivering a letter of resignation and notification of two weeks to Clara, Terri, and HR. They’ll be pissed and I am almost 100% sure they will try to fire me (they can’t) or convince me to quit (they might be able to). In the end I don’t regret working here, I wrote so much on my breaks and lunches in this facility, but it’s time to move on.

It’s gonna be an awesome Christmas!



- Josh

Favorite New Thing 3: “Jack Chick’s One Eye Grandpa”

The first Chick Tract I was ever exposed to was the infamous Dark Dungeon. If you’ve never heard of or experienced a Chick Tract you are missing out one of the singular most retarded and hilarious things you will ever be exposed to. The man’s work is something you have to experience at least once in your life.

*Note: As I’m sure you’re all too well aware of by this point I’m an agnostic atheist. With that being said when I first stumbled into Mr. Chicks wild ride I was a very religious kid. I tried to do what I thought God wanted me to do and not hurt anyone else in the process. But even Jesus Freak Josh knew these comics were nothing but hate filled bullshit, it took teenage angry Josh to see them as the (I hope) unintentional comedic genius they are.

If you’re not in any way familiar with Jack Chick and his “Holy Work” I’m providing the substance of the Wikipedia entry on him for your enjoyment. It’s long and I considered truncating it but honestly the more I read the more fascinated I became. It’s a scary rabbit hole and once I escaped I was uncertain whether Jack Chick is a real person or if he was created by the universe to act as a lightning rod of insanity.

Secretly I hope he’s an insane ultra Christian Batman. In my mind Jack is a crotchety old industrialist who only comes out into his balcony to wave at reporters but at night he fights crime… by making asinine judgmental comics.

Okay, Jack Chick is not in any way like Batman.

Jack T. Chick – (Wikipedia)

Jack Thomas Chick (born April 13, 1924) is an American publisher, writer, and comic book artist of evangelical fundamentalist Christian tracts and comic books. His comics have been described by Los Angeles magazine as “equal parts hate literature and fire-and-brimstone sermonizing”.

Chick’s company, Chick Publications, claims to have sold over 750 million tracts, comics tracts and comic books, videos, books, and posters designed to promote Protestant evangelism from a Christian fundamentalist perspective or point of view. Many of these are controversial, as they accuse Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, and many other groups of murder and conspiracies, while Chick maintains his views are simply politically incorrect.

Chick’s views have been spread worldwide, mostly through the tracts and now online. They have been translated into more than 100 languages. As evidenced from his writings and publications, Chick is an Independent Baptist who follows a premillennial dispensationalist view of the end times. He is a believer in the King James Only movement, which posits that every English translation of the Bible more recent than 1611 promotes heresy or immorality.

Biography

Chick was born in Boyle Heights, California. His family later moved to Alhambra, where Chick was active in the high school drama club. Chick’s official biography notes that he was not religious in high school and was in fact avoided by Christian students, who believed “he was the last guy on earth who would ever accept Jesus Christ”. After his graduation, he continued his drama education at the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater on a two-year scholarship.

In February 1943, Chick was drafted as a private into the U.S. Army. He served for three years in the Pacific theater of World War II, serving in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan. Chick credits his time overseas for inspiring him to translate his tracts into many different languages and said he has “a special burden for missions and missionaries”.

After the war, he returned to the Pasadena Playhouse and met his wife while working on a production there. Lola Lynn Priddle (1926–1998), a Canadian immigrant, came from a very religious family, and Chick’s official biography describes her as “instrumental in his salvation”. Priddle and her parents introduced Chick to the Charles E. Fuller radio show, the Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and Chick relates that he was converted while listening to an episode of this show. They married in 1948 and had one child, Carol, who died in 2001. In February 1998, Lola Lynn died, and Chick remarried.

In a 2005 issue of his company’s newsletter, Battle Cry, Chick reported that he had suffered a life-threatening health emergency at some point in the previous two years, between 2003 and 2005. He gave further details of the circumstances: “My flu turned into pneumonia, my blood sugar dropped to 20 (I am diabetic)… I was going into a coma. My wife called 911 and while they were on the way, I had a heart attack. A day or so later I had to undergo a triple bypass.”

Very little is known about Chick; he has given only one known professional interview since 1975. The lack of available public information about him has created some speculation that he was a pen name for unnamed author(s) or ghostwriters. Several audio cassettes of his preaching distributed to his subscribers purport to contain his voice. While he has never released a photo of himself for publication, purported photos of Chick have been published by others.

Career

From 1953-1955 Chick drew a single panel cartoon (authored by P. S. Clayton) entitled “Times Have Changed?” which thematically predates both the “B.C.” comic strip and The Flintstones animated cartoon. These were syndicated by the Mirror Enterprises Co. in Los Angeles area newspapers.

After converting to Christianity, Chick wanted to evangelize others, but was too shy to talk to people directly about religion. Chick heard from missionary Bob Hammond, who had broadcast in Asia on the Voice of America, that the Communist Party of China had gained significant influence among ordinary Chinese in the 1950s through the distribution of small comic books. Chick also began working with a prison ministry and created a flip chart of illustrations to use with his presentation. He hit upon the idea of creating witnessing tracts, which could be given to people directly or indirectly.

While working for the Astro Science Corporation in El Monte, California, he self-published his first tract, Why No Revival?, with a loan from his credit union in 1960 and wrote his second tract, A Demon’s Nightmare, shortly afterward. He decided to create more tracts and began “using his kitchen table as an office and art studio.” Christian bookstores were reluctant to accept the tracts, but they were popular among missionaries and churches.

Chick Publications was officially established in 1970 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Initially, Jack Chick wrote and illustrated all of the comics himself, but in 1972 he hired another artist to illustrate many of the tracts. Fred Carter illustrated tracts anonymously until 1980, when he was identified in an issue of Chick’s newsletter Battle Cry. Carter also painted the oil paintings seen in The Light of the World, a film Chick produced that relates the Christian gospel. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History included several Chick tracts in an exhibit on American pop culture.

Chick Publications

Chick tract

A scene in Hell from the 1972 Chick tract “A Demon’s Nightmare”.

Chick Publications has released over twenty-three full-color “Chick comics” since its founding. They are full-size comic books and most were first published between 1974 and 1985. The first eleven form the Crusader comics series, which follows the stories of two fundamentalist Christians and addresses topics such as the occult, Bible prophecy, and the theory of evolution. Six comics present the testimony of anti-Catholic activist Alberto Rivera, who claimed that, as a Jesuit priest, he had become privy to many secrets about the Roman Catholic Church. Among Rivera’s claims: He credits Catholicism with founding the Islamic religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as the Jehovah’s Witnesses; starting the Holocaust; founding Communism, Nazism, and the Ku Klux Klan; starting the World Wars; masterminding the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Great Depression and the assassinations of U.S. Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy. There are also three independent comics, one telling stories from the King James Version of the Bible (Chick is pro-King James Onlyism), one relaying the claims of Charles Chiniquy regarding Catholicism, and one detailing Chick’s opinions on Joseph Smith and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Chick Publications also distributes “Chick tracts”, small comic tracts with religious messages. Most can be viewed in their entirety on the company’s web site. The most popular Chick tract, “This Was Your Life”, has been translated into around 100 languages, and many other tracts are available in widely spoken languages such as Arabic, German, Spanish, and Tagalog.

Chick’s tracts cover subjects such as abortion, homosexuality, non-Protestant Christianity, the occult, rock music, left-wing politics, popular culture, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, anti-Semitism, and the theory of evolution, generally in a very negative and conspiratorial light. Chick believes many of the world’s problems are deliberately caused by the Roman Catholic Church.

Several of Chick’s tracts have been translated into more obscure languages as Blue Hmong, Huichol, Ngiemboon, Tshiluba, and the artificial language of Esperanto.

Chick also claims that Satan and demons promote the occult through mystical and New Age beliefs, rock music (including Christian rock), Wicca, and fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons to deceive people and send them to Hell. Chick is opposed to abortion and preaches against pre-marital sex. He believes strongly that homosexuality is sinful, and makes reference to the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah in tracts pertaining to homosexuality. He also is a Zionist, and claims that the Catholic Church is Israel’s worst enemy. He also opposes attempts to resolve the Israeli–Arab conflict until Israel gets significantly larger than its current size, and also blames American support of those attempts for natural disasters that have struck America.

Chick’s views have been criticized by some of the groups he targets, including neopagans and Catholic organizations. Wiccan author Kerr Cuhulain describes Chick and his theories as “anti-feminist” and “anti-pagan”, notes that a Chick Publications comic book was the source of a Rapid City, South Dakota, police detective’s presentation on the history of Satanism given in 1989, and describes him as “easily the least reputable source of reliable information on religious groups”.

Many Catholic and Protestant organizations consider Chick to be intensely anti-Catholic, based on his various claims about the Roman Catholic Church. Chick responds to these accusations by saying he is opposed to the Roman Catholic Church as a sociopolitical organization but not to its individual members. On his “Roman Catholicism FAQ”, Chick says he began publishing his theories about the Roman Catholic Church because “he loves Catholics and wants them to be saved through faith in Jesus”. Catholic Answers calls Chick “savagely anti-Catholic”, describes Chick’s claims about the Catholic Church as “bizarre” and “often grotesque in their arguments”, and calls for the tracts to be pulled from the market and corrected. In the early 1980s, Chick’s stance on Catholicism led some Christian bookstores to stop stocking his tracts, and he withdrew from the Christian Booksellers Association after the association considered expelling him. Christianity Today described Jack Chick as an example of “the world of ordinary, nonlearned evangelicals”, for whom “atavistic anti-Catholicism remains as colorful and unmistakable as ever”. Michael Ian Borer, a sociology professor of Furman University at the time, showed Chick’s strong anti-Catholic themes in a 2007 American Sociological Association presentation and in a peer-reviewed article the next year in Religion and American Culture.

To be honest I’d more or less forgotten about my bizarre fixation on Chick Tracts in the late 1990’s. Yes I realize that is almost twenty years ago… I’m old, fuck you!

Sorry about that, my daughter just turned 18 and it’s getting to me.

Anyway earlier in the years I discovered a YouTube channel called The Bible Reloaded. On this channel two guys, Hugo and Jake, Read from the bible offering commentary as they do so. They also answer questions, offer commentary on events, and most importantly do audio performances of Chick Tracts. If you have never checked out Hugo and Jakes antics and genius please follow the link and give them a look-see before finishing this essay.

Or don’t, I’m not your fucking father.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgGg...

So after all of that I have to inform you that my new favorite thing is NOT The Bible Reloaded or Hugo and Jake. If I’d been doing this series earlier in the year the duos and their channel would have been on this list in a Detroit second. Alas that is not the case, but something they did more than qualifies as my new favorite thing.

In the Chick Tract Entitled “The Little Bride” we are introduced to the single greatest fictional religious character since Jesus, Eye Patch Grandpa! To be fair Jesus is only better because he cursed a fig tree that one time. Eye Patch Grandpa, from here on out referred to EPG, is the person little Suzy goes to when her friends Beck and Tashana are thinking about converting to Islam. Follow the link, watch the video, and I swear to Tesla you’ll get some chuckles… and maybe wet yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ic7J...



EXTRA BONUS MATERIAL!!!

Q&A With Eye Patch Grandpa

I managed to track down Eye Patch Grandpa a few weeks ago and he was kind enough to answer some questions. Actually I had to swear I wasn’t an agent of the Bilderberg Group or the Trilateral Commission before he’d agree to sit down with me. He also demanded a bottle of 50 year old scotch.

Hi EPG, can I call you EPG?

- You can call me anything you want as long as you keep the bourbon flowing.

Can you tell me how you lost your eye?

- Didn’t you watch the damn video?! That damn olive skinned Muslim woman took it out with an ice pick!!!

I heard you lost it in brothel outside Saigon because you refused to pay for a half and half.

- …

Not going to answer that?

- Boy, just because I only have one eye doesn’t mean I can’t still shoot a gun.

Alright then, can you answer to the allegation that you’re actually Jack Chick?

- That man wishes he was me! I met him once, it was in Ethiopia in the 1980’s and we were taking food from orphans. That bastard forgot it was okay to steal from the brown people but you never screw over the white man! Sumbitch stole one of my Twinkies so I kicked him in the tally whacker!

So the two of you stole food from kids in a famine torn country?

- Hell yeah we did, the two of us and Sally Struthers! We ended the trip doing body shots off Sally’s ass while Jack iced his jumpin beans!

Are you saying Jack Chick used you in his comics without your permission?

- Comics?

Yes Sir, you are a character in at least two of his Chick Tract religious comics.

- That son of a whore!

*It was at that point when EPG flipped the table we were sitting at and stormed out of the coffee shop. All I heard as he left was something about getting his gun and dog and finding that Twinkie stealing bastard. I wish him well in his endeavors.

I hope I’ve made my case for why EPG is my new favorite thing. I’ve shown the video to everyone I can force to sit and watch and by the time Grandpa starts going on about the olive skinned woman they have been laughing their butts off.

Till next time Boils and Ghouls!



- Josh

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 05: Friday the Thirteenth (The Franchise)

“Did you know a young boy drowned the year before those two others were killed? The counselors weren’t paying any attention… They were making love while that young boy drowned. His name was Jason. I was working the day that it happened, preparing meals… here. I was the cook. Jason should’ve been watched every minute. He was - he wasn’t a very good swimmer.”

- Pamela Voorhees


“Die! Die! Die! Die!”

- Tommy Jarvis



Friday The Thirteenth

I had to think long and hard how I would handle movie series in this countdown. My initial plan was to just treat them as individual movies and had actually started writing my breakdown of my favorite Friday the 13th movie (Part 4) when I realized that wasn’t the way I needed to do this. When it comes to my favorite horror movies franchises the old adage is as true now as it ever was.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Once I came to that decision I knew what I needed to do. I scraped the run through I was doing on the fourth movie and started this one instead. Really, in the end, there was no choice.

Friday the 13th was the first horror movie franchise to scare the ever living shit out of me. The first time I saw one of the movies, it was the third one, was in the fall of 1987. Yes I am aware there is a storyline, sort of, to the series and beginning out of order is no my standard MO. All I can say is that in the end it didn’t matter that I started with three instead of one because I was an unwilling convert to the world of Camp Crystal Lake before the end of the first act.

I also didn’t sleep for more than 50 hours after that first viewing. I couldn’t close my eyes for more than thirty seconds before they snapped open and for a fraction of a second I was sure Jason Voorhees was standing in the bedroom doorway. We’d been staying at our aunts house being watched by our cousin Lenny and he said we could each rent a movie of our choice from the shithole little independent video store.

*Side note: Do you remember the little mom and pop video stores of the 1980’s and early 1990’s? As much as I love digital streaming (I may offer pagan sacrifice to Amazon and Netflix on a regular basis) I miss the little crappy video stores. They were usually attached to or inside of a shitty mom and pop convenience store/pizza place and smelled of leaking Freon. They always had the best movies, shitty titles you’d never find at Blockbuster (before they died). Good times…

My unnamed little brother choose the third Friday the 13th movie and I picked out what is still one of my favorite bad sci-fi movies My Science Project. I was supposed to pick part four so we could watch them back to back but in the end I pussied out and spent the weekend being good naturedly mocked by my family.

At that point in my life Friday the 13th had been built into a nearly mythical series of flicks in my mind. In the days before the internet information about pop culture was spread via word of mouth as opposed to social media. I’d spent the two years before actually viewing the movie being told the tales of Jason by friends with more permissive parents than I.

If you will take a second and recall what I said in a earlier essay in regards to my mother and her policy on horror movies. If it was something that she felt could happen in real life we were not allowed to watch it. Therefore no Jason movies were in the lineup for young Josh. But if it had an unbelievable aspect it was a all systems go. Hence little five year old Josh got to watch Carrie in all of its pig blood coated glory.

Mom has always been an odd but cool cat.

With all of that established I think it’s safe to say I was amped and ready to be terrified. Sometimes things don’t live you to the expectations you build up for them, actually that is almost always the case. My initial viewing of a Friday the 13th flick is one of those rare and amazing cases where the experience exceeded my expectations.

Since that weekend twenty seven years ago I’ve been obsessed with the Friday the 13th series. I’ve owned and consumed the movies on every platform available, except laser disk because that’d be silly.

As usual I’ve provided the Wikipedia rundown for the movies in case you’ve never seen them. I would suggest you stop reading here and watch the movies before finishing this essay but if that’s not the way you roll this “Cliff Notes” version will do for context. Once you’ve been brought up to snuff on the Friday series I’ll give you my final thoughts on each movie and the series as a whole.

Friday the 13th: The Franchise – (Wikipedia)

Friday the 13th is an American horror franchise that comprises twelve slasher films, a television show, novels, comic books, and tie‑in merchandise. The franchise mainly focuses on the fictional character Jason Voorhees, who drowned as a boy at Camp Crystal Lake due to the negligence of the camp staff. Decades later, the lake is rumored to be “cursed” and is the setting for a series of mass murders. Jason is featured in all of the films, as either the killer or the motivation for the killings. The original film was written by Victor Miller and was produced and directed by Sean S. Cunningham. However, neither returned to write or direct any of the sequels. The films have grossed over $465 million at the box-office worldwide.

The first film was created to cash in on the success of Halloween (1978), and its own success led Paramount Pictures to purchase the full licensing rights to Friday the 13th. Frank Mancuso, Jr., who produced the films, also developed the television show Friday the 13th: The Series after Paramount released Jason Lives. The television series was not connected to the franchise by any character or setting, but was created based on the idea of “bad luck and curses”, which the film series symbolized. While the franchise was owned by Paramount, four films were adapted into novels, with Friday the 13th Part III adapted by two separate authors. When the franchise was sold to New Line Cinema, Cunningham returned as a producer to oversee two additional films, in addition to a crossover film with character Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street film series. Under New Line Cinema, 13 novellas and various comic book series featuring Jason were published.

Although the films were not popular with critics, Friday the 13th is considered one of the most successful media franchises in America—not only for the success of the films, but also because of the extensive merchandising and repeated references to the series in popular culture. The franchise’s popularity has generated a fan base who have created their own Friday the 13th films, fashioned replica Jason Voorhees costumes, and tattooed their bodies with Friday the 13th artwork. Jason’s hockey mask has even become one of the most recognizable images in popular culture.



Overview

In the original Friday the 13th (1980), Mrs. Voorhees (Betsy Palmer) stalks and murders the teenagers who are preparing Camp Crystal Lake for re‑opening. She is determined to ensure that the camp does not reopen after her son Jason (Ari Lehman) drowned in the lake because two staff members who were supposed to be watching him were having sex. The last counselor, Alice (Adrienne King), fends off Mrs. Voorhees long enough to grab a machete and decapitate her. In Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981), Jason (Steve Daskewisz/Warrington Gillette) is revealed to be alive and fully grown. After killing Alice, Jason returns to Crystal Lake to guard it from all intruders. Five years later, a group of teenagers arrive at Crystal Lake to set up a new camp, but Jason murders them. Ginny Field (Amy Steel), the last counselor Jason attempts to kill, finds a cabin in the woods with a shrine built around the severed head of Mrs. Voorhees. Ginny fights back and slams a machete through Jason’s shoulder. Jason is left for dead as Ginny is taken away in an ambulance. During the events of Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Jason (Richard Brooker) removes the machete from his shoulder and finds his way to Chris Higgins’ (Dana Kimmell) local homestead. Chris returns to her property with some friends, and Jason kills anyone who wanders into the barn where he is hiding. Taking a hockey mask from a victim to hide his face, Jason leaves the barn to kill the rest of the group. Chris seemingly kills Jason with an axe to his head, but the night’s events drive her into hysteria as the police take her away.

Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) continues where Part III leaves off, with Jason (Ted White) found by the police and taken to the local morgue after removing the axe. Upon arrival, Jason kills the coroner and a nurse before returning to Crystal Lake. A group of friends rent a house on Crystal Lake and fall victim to Jason’s rampage. After killing the teens, Jason seeks out Trish (Kimberly Beck) and Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman), who live next door. While distracted by Trish, Jason is attacked and killed by Tommy. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985) follows Tommy Jarvis (John Shepherd), who was committed to a mental health institution after the events of The Final Chapter and grew up constantly afraid that Jason (Tom Morga) will return. Roy Burns (Dick Wieand) uses Jason’s persona to become a copycat killer at the halfway home to which Tommy has moved. Tommy, supervisor Pam (Melanie Kinnaman), and a young boy named Reggie (Shavar Ross) manage to defeat Roy. They eventually learn that Roy had a son who was murdered by one of the patients at the institution, triggering Roy to take on Jason’s likeness and kill everyone there. Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) begins with Tommy (Thom Mathews) visiting Jason’s grave after being released from another mental institution. Tommy inadvertently resurrects Jason (C. J. Graham) with a piece of the fence surrounding the cemetery acting as a lightning rod. Jason immediately heads back to Crystal Lake and kills the people working at the new summer camp. Tommy eventually chains Jason to a boulder that he tosses into the lake, where he leaves Jason to die.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988) begins an indeterminate length of time after Jason Lives. Jason (Kane Hodder) is resurrected again, this time by the telekinetic Tina Shepard (Lar Park Lincoln), who is trying to resurrect her father who drowned in the lake when Tina was a child. Jason once again begins killing those who occupy Crystal Lake and is returned to the bottom of the lake after a battle with Tina. Jason is resurrected again in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989) by an underwater electrical cable. He follows a group of students on their senior class cruise to Manhattan, where he kills the ship’s crew and the majority of the students. Upon reaching Manhattan, Jason chases Rennie (Jensen Daggett) and Sean (Scott Reeves), the two remaining students, into the sewers. Jason eventually melts away because the sewer is flooded with toxic waste. In Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993), Jason, through an unexplained resurrection, is hunted by the FBI at Crystal Lake. The FBI sets up a sting that successfully kills Jason. Through possession, Jason manages to survive by passing his black heart from one being to the next. It is revealed that he has a sister and a niece, and that he needs them to get his body back. Jason resurrects himself, but his niece, Jessica Kimble (Kari Keegan), stabs him with a mystical dagger and he is dragged into Hell.

Jason X (2002) takes place in the future, when Jason has again been inexplicably resurrected. A scientist, Rowan Lafontaine (Lexa Doig), decides that cryonic suspension is the only method of stopping him, but Jason breaks free and kills the army personnel guarding him before he can be again imprisoned. Rowan manages to lure Jason into the cryo‑chamber, but he ruptures the tank and freezes both himself and Rowan. Over 400 years later, a team of students studying Earth discover Jason’s body and take it into space. Upon being thawed by the team, he proceeds to murder everyone aboard the spacecraft. He is seemingly killed, but is then resurrected via nanotechnology as a cyborg version of himself. Finally, he is ejected into space and lands on the planet Earth 2. The next Friday the 13th film, Freddy vs. Jason (2003), was a crossover with A Nightmare on Elm Street. Set in the contemporary period, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) resurrects Jason (Ken Kirzinger) and sends him to Springwood hoping that he will create enough fear among the residents that Freddy will be strong enough to invade their dreams. Jason accomplishes this but refuses to stop killing. A battle ensues both in the dream-world and at Crystal Lake. The outcome is left ambiguous, as Jason surfaces from the lake holding Freddy’s severed head, which winks and laughs.

In 2009, a new Friday the 13th film which restarted the film series continuity was released. In this film, after witnessing his mother being beheaded at a young age, an adult Jason (Derek Mears) follows in her footsteps and kills anyone who comes to Crystal Lake. Jason subsequently kidnaps a young woman, Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti), who reminds him of his mother. Six weeks after her disappearance, her brother, Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki), comes to look for her. The pair reunite and work together to seemingly kill Jason.

Done?

Good, now we can talk a little bit about the individual installments and ultimately the series as a whole. Don’t worry, this won’t take too long.

*Side Note: I watched part’s one through five on video disks at my cousins house in Port Huron Michigan. Do any of you know what the fuck a video disk was? The damn things were massive two sided disks encased in a removable cartridge you loaded into the equally massive player. My great aunt and her family bought out the entire stock of video disks from a rental place closing out disk rental and moving to VHS. The collection was stuffed with some of the best and worst movies of the 1970’s and 1980’s.



Part 1

The first time I saw the first Friday the 13 movie was in the spring after I saw the third one. It was also during the same weekend I first saw the second, fourth, and fifth installments of the franchise.

It was an epic weekend.

Part one is an awesome horror movie. It’s fast paced, creepy, and clever. I loved the way the mystery of who the killer was expanded and the movie sprinted to the finish. My only complaint is the same one most fans have. Jason Voorhees was not the killer in the movie, his mother was and so few people remember it.

Betsy Palmer played Pamela Voorhees and did a tremendous job. Seriously she delivered creepy and crazy like a conductor working that symphony for all it’s worth. She was perfect in the roll and deserves more credit for making the series a hit. It was also the first screen appearance of a national treasure one Mr. Kevin Bacon.

Also, Jason at the end still makes me squeal like a bitch.



Part 2

Much like Halloween 2, Friday the 13th Part 2 falls short of the mark set by the original but still qualifies as a good scary movie. I will say this in favor of Part 2 versus Part 1. I cared more about the victims in this movie than I did in the first one. To be fair to part 2 Jason with the potato sack over his head and one eye hole is a little disconcerting and creepy.

Ultimately it’s a fun movie with some good jump scares.



Part 3

The first Friday movie I ever saw still remains one of my favorites. A lot of fans love this movie because while it’s genuinely scary it’s also pretty funny too. Look, if Shelly doesn’t make you laugh you have no soul.

I’m just saying.

Part 3 is also the introduction of Jason’s signature hockey mask. A lot of casual fans are surprised to find out it wasn’t until the third installment that the iconic bit of Jason regalia, up there with the machete, made its appearance. Part three hits all of the beats I look for in a slasher flick. It’s creepy, full of jump scares, a score that left me shaking, and a couple of hot naked people having sex. I love this flick… except for one thing.

Like so many genre movies of the early 1980’s, I’m looking at you Jaws 3, Friday the 13th Part 3 was filmed… sigh, in 3D. Yes you read that right. One of my favorite scary movies is the 3D crap fest. Unfortunately I can’t even critique the 3D aspect because I CAN’T SEE 3D on the screen. All that happens is my eyes are strained and I end up with a headache.

Fuck you William Friese-Greene!



Part 4

Friday the 13th The Final Chapter (Part 4) is my favorite film in the entire series. The number one reason I love this film is the introduction of Tommy Jarvis the only true reoccurring character in the series, even if he is played by three different actors. Not much else to say about this one other than if you only watch one installment of the franchise this is the one.



Part 5

SPOILERS!!!

Outside of a few hallucinations in Friday the 13th A New Beginning (Part 5) Jason Voorhees is not in the movie. This movie is the Tommy Jarvis show and I love every bloody sex fueled second of it.

Before I start getting angry messages from Jason fans who want to stone me and run me through for liking one of the least loved parts of the franchise allow me to explain. I watched this one back to back with the first four flicks and when viewed in that fashion there is a compelling through line of one young man overcoming his fears and standing up to the monsters we all hide from.

Good movie, no Jason but still a good movie.



Part 6

Friday the 13th Jason Lives (Part 6) is the movie where the series officially jumped the shark and that is a good thing. The final installment of the Tommy Jarvis arc is a comic book of a movie. Action packed with romance, gratuitous sex, supernatural elements, and actual young campers who are terrified of Jason killing them. Those awesome kids made the movie for me. Well them and the final battle between Tommy and Jason in the middle of the lake.



Part 7

Friday the 13th The New Blood (Part 7) would be an ultimately forgettable movie if not for two things. The first is the female lead Tina. Tina is not the scared and powerless female so typical in horror movies, yes she’s scared but she’s also telekinetic and has the single best battle with Jason ion the history of the series (with the exception of Freddy vs. Jason). The second is the introduction one Mr. Kane Hodder as Jason. Until this movie Jason had been played by different actors in every movie, with part 7 we are treated to a four picture streak of the best Jason ever. Kane Hodder IS Jason and I damn near boycotted the films without him… but I didn’t.



Part 8

I hate the plot in Friday the 13th Jason Takes Manhattan (Part 8) but I love Kane Hodder. The plot is stupid, the acting is a joke, and the end makes me want to vomit. The single saving grace in this movie is the scene of Jason standing in the middle of Times Square.

In my opinion it’s the worst of the series… but still fun.



Part 9

Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (Part 9) didn’t need to be a Jason movie. The movie has such a different tone from the ones preceding it that I had a hard time deciding whether I liked it or not. On one hand it had Erin Grey (meow) and Stephen Williams in it. On the other hand it was once more a nearly Jason free movie. Ultimately I’ve come down on the side of I really like this movie but felt the absence of Jason the entire time.

Also Freddy at the end… Boo-Yah!!!



Part 10

Jason X (Part 10) is so far out there is the realm of “What The Fuck” movies that it comes all of the way back around to being awesome. The last movie to star Kane Hodder as Jason Voorhees Jason X pulled out all of the stops and aimed for the fucking stars… literally.

People either love or hate this movie. Personally I love it. Jason X isn’t scary, it isn’t very gory, and it doesn’t have the atmosphere of the other flicks. But it’s still amazing. Despite the ridiculous setting and story the makers still managed to remain true to the spirit of the series.

Also, liquid nitrogen kill may be the single best of the franchise.



Freddy vs. Jason

Freddy vs. Jason (Part 11) was a love letter to the fans of both series. I love this movie but I also understand why some people feel strongly that it shouldn’t exist. Kane Hodder was fucked over and pitched off the side of the boat like Dexter getting rid of the evidence and that was why I almost didn’t see it.

Watch it, love it, but don’t take it too seriously.



2009

Friday The 13th (2009) surprised me. I’m against remakes in general and am rarely disappointed or surprised when the end product sucks donkey balls. The 2009 remake of Friday the 13th was freaking awesome. It hit all of the right notes, it paid proper homage to the series, and it was actually well acted with a great story.

I still don’t understand why Paramount killed the sequel.



The Franchise

The Friday the 13th series can make a legitimate claim for being the best horror movie franchise of all time. I’m not saying it’s the best but it is a great string of films. If you like horror and have never experienced the entire thing you need to do it now. Even the awful installments have merit.



- Josh

I’m a Bisexual Part 4 - “Young Love… in the Closet”

“Our society needs to recognize the unstoppable momentum toward unequivocal civil equality for every gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered citizen of this country.”

- Zachary Quinto



*Note: This is your fair warning. I know I warned you in the previous installment that we’d be talking the one fella I was in a serious relationship with. I will NOT be discussing details of my sex life, I case you haven’t noticed on the several hundred essays preceding this one let me sate it in bold and irritating capital letters, ahem…

I RESPECT THE PEOPLE I’VE BEEN WITH AND I DO NOT KISS AND TELL!!!

Alright then, let’s get on with this tale. I think I’m only going to tell it once.



His name was Brandon.

Okay his name was not Brandon or anything close to Brandon, but I feel the need to keep his identity secret despite the way our “Relationship” ended. I’ve mentioned Brandon before and I’m certain I used another name but it really doesn’t matter. I’ve only had one SERIOUS boy/boy relationship in my life so when I talk about him there’s no chance of confusion.

I think I’m stalling.

I’ve never really addressed this outside of my close circle of friends and family. There was a lot of confusion and pain involved in my relationship with Brandon. It took a long time to work through the pain and anger and find the soft memories that leave me feeling good in spite of everything.

I met Brandon in my junior year of high school. He was a senior and I was brand new at the school. The first thing I noticed about Brandon was his smile. It was a million watt spotlight that was able to stop my heart when it washed over me. He was also really fucking funny. Seriously he had me cracking up on a daily basis. We had a class together all year, not going to say which one, and we hit it off pretty quickly.

I was a puppy dog… it kinda kills me to admit that.

I followed Brandon around. I hung out with him whenever the situation allowed it without making me look suspicious. I called him daily. This was before cell phones kid so that meant I monopolized the home phone just to hear his voice. I never went so far in those early months to try and get a clandestine picture of him… but I did think about it.

I probably would have been okay with him being my friend and nothing else. I am NOT saying I would have been happy about it but back then the idea of telling anyone that my door swung both ways was enough to make me vomit in terror. I had no idea if Brandon felt the same way about me that I felt about him and there was no way sixteen year old Josh was going to posit that question.

Brandon settled the situation.

One night he met up with me after work and we went to Taco Bell, I worked at McDonalds all through high school and took much pleasure in giving money to our competitors. We got our food and headed out to the airport.

Yeah you read that right.

We both lived near the local cargo airport and there were lots of places to park there. Yes maybe when Brandon said we should stop there I ought to have had a clue. We were shooting the shit about some of the people in school when he leaned over and kissed me. I was shocked… pretty sure if my bladder had been full I’d have been screwed.

I wish I could say I have a complete memory of what came next. I also wish I could write as well as Stephen King. But tell the truth and shame the devil, the rest of that night is a serious blur. When I went home I dropped into a night of fitful sleep.

How do you think this ended?

Seriously, it was 1993 in South East Michigan in a pretty religious area. Do you think we had an amazing high school relationship that I look back at with fond memories after twenty years and fifty pounds?

No, that was me and Renee.

What happened with Brandon was months of stolen kisses, hands held when we were sure nobody was looking, a lot of sidelong glances, and emotional confusion. Maybe if it was just a high school relationship I could have handled it. Maybe if it’d just been a same sex relationship I could have handled it. Maybe if the only issue had been the age difference I could have handled it. But all three factors together coupled with the time and the place?

Yeah… we were screwed, and not in the good way either.

In the end it all fell apart. We never actually broke up we just quit talking and started avoiding one another like the proverbial plague. Maybe I was too clingy, okay I KNOW I was too clingy, and he was damn sure a little ashamed of our relationship. But we were both young and confused. When Brandon’s school year ended, about a month after our relationship fizzled, he left town.

It was nearly a year before I heard from or saw him again.

My senior year was a stellar improvement over my junior. After getting sprung from the booby hatch I plunged into enjoying my life despite what my Step-Monster wanted and spent a large chunk of the year involved in a serious shadow war with her. I really wish I could say that is hyperbole of the plot to a bad B Movie, but I shit you not we were in a serious fight that, considering the way things have shaken out in my family, I can only call a draw at best.

Bravo queen bitch… hope you’re miserable.

Spring of that year Brandon did what a lot of new graduates do, he came back to the school to visit. He did NOT come to see me and I am convinced if he’d known I was in the class taught by one of the teachers he was popping to see he would have skipped that room till later. He saw me and quickly looked away as he regaled the teacher with tales of his freshman year at college.

I hunted him down after school.

Despite a year apart I knew Brandon and knew where he would go when school let out. I showed up at the diner and there he was with a few of his friends. Eventually he saw me and when he realized I wasn’t leaving he made an excuse and joined me outside.

There was no fight.

There was no reconciliation.

There was no heartwarming moment.

What happened was Brandon informing me that our relationship “Never Happened” and that I was not to ever contact him. Then he reentered the diner and continued to visit his friends. And that was the last time I ever saw, spoke to, or had any contact with him.

Gee, I’m kinda depressed now.

Did you ever see that episode of That 70’s Show after Eric and Donna break up and Newman from Seinfeld shows him what his life would have been like if he’s never been with her? That’s how I feel about my relationship with Brandon. Ultimately my life is exponentially better having been with him than if I had not.

I love my life.

I love my family.

I love my friends.

I love my career.

I believe with every fiber of my being that I would have none of this without every experience that preceded it. I needed to have my heart broken, more than once, before I could find the place it needed to be. I am better man because of the people I’ve loved and NOT despite them.



- Josh

Planting My Flag

So it appears we’re kinda screwed. I mean unless you are rich and can buy your own politician that is. The minority has spoken and we have been consigned to two more years of fighting, gridlock, and lunacy. And I’m serious that’s if we’re lucky because there are already the tell tale whispers from the pundits and fringe talking heads that the Republican (I hate calling them that) Party is talking about impeaching the president of the United States.

Don’t believe me?

Google it, don’t worry I’ll be right here waiting for you to fact check this shit before continuing. Seriously, open a new window and Google this shit because I can’t express the insanity being spewed by the far right.

Done?

Isn’t that some crazy ass shit. I mean seriously I’m pretty unhappy with the way Obama has handled the country but my anger has more to do with him not keeping his Liberal/Progressive promises as opposed to him being a Commie Muslim African Atheist Racist who wants to redistribute the wealth, turn our country over to the United Nations, and make us all live in Hobbit Homes.



AGENDA 21, DEATH PANELS, AND BENGHAZI BITCHES!!!



In the last eighteen months my essays have delved farther and farther into more “Hot Button” topic such as religion and politics. For the longest time I avoided these things because… well because I was a coward.

I didn’t want to have to defend my beliefs and positions to everyone who disagreed. I wanted to hold the middle ground and be regarded as a fair and balanced person who was open to all ideas. But as time went on I found myself having to bite my tongue when all I really wanted to do was tell people they were full of bullshit.

So here’s the shit I had to accept.

The things I believe to be true I REALLY believe to be the truth. As far as I’m concerned I’m right and the people who disagree with me are wrong. Now there are many issues I am open to discourse on and my positions are still fluid on, but there are other issues I am as firm as bedrock on and you will never convince me I’m wrong on.

Does that make me kind of an asshole?

Yes.

Does my admission surprise you? It surprised me too when I confronted it. Like so many of the people I can’t stand I can be a complete douchbag. I’m not proud of it but I’ll own it, nobody is perfect and anyone who claims to be needs to watched carefully and kept away from sharp tools and firearms.

Once I accept that I am no longer going to try to play the middle ground I felt free. While it has bothered me that some family and former friends have decided I am an idiot or a nut job and we no longer speak I have reached a place I’m comfortable with. I know that even if in the end I decide some of my views are not quite right at least I’m not hurting anyone.

But, isn’t there always a but, I didn’t always stand on this mountain. When I was younger some of my views were very different. I am ashamed to admit to some of them but I’ve come more and more to subscribe to the theory of tell the truth and shame the devil.

So here we go. On the heels of the worst defeat handed to Liberals and Progressives in my life I am going to plant all of my flags. I am going to lay out what I believed when I was 18 and received the franchise as they used to say and what I stand for now twenty years later.





Defense



America is the strongest nation in the world.

At eighteen I was a young man raised on American exceptionalism. I watched the Nintendo war that was Gulf War 1 and had a massive techno-boner over all the toys and raw power of the United. I never stopped to consider the lives of all of the people we killed or the real reasons we bombed the shit out and invaded Iraq. It was oils kids, just like now we were doing the bidding of the big oils companies and Saudi Government.

I was left feeling we were destined to protect and defend the world. We’d beaten he Commies without dropping another nuclear bomb and now the Muslims and terrorists were going to be smashed into the trash heap of history.

Boy howdy was I a dumb little bastard.

On September 11, 2001 the entire world changed. We have been in a constant state of war since that day. My children can barely remember a world without war. We’ve killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, invaded and occupied sovereign nations in order to seize and exploit their resources. We’ve become either the people everyone hates or the people everyone fears.

We’re the new British Empire without Tea Time and cool accents.

We need to cut defense spending, we spend more than the next twenty six nations combined and twenty five of them are our allies. We’re strong and we should remain strong but we need to reroute some of that wasted money… I don’t know back to the people?



Economy



Trickle down economics does not work… but I used to think it did.

When I was young and simple it all made sense to me, give the money to the rich people who owned operated the companies and the riches would flow down to the rest of us. I was convinced it was in the best interests of the corporation to take car e of their work force so we could spend the money we earned and thus keep the economy surging.

Once again I was a dumb shit.

Maybe if we had a true free market and maybe if there were equal opportunities there might be a chance for this to work. But, just like Communism, Capitalism can’t actually work. People are greedy by nature and because people make the rules they can subvert and corrupt the rules. When the business and bankers write the laws that govern them we’re all fucked.

Where do I stand now that I no longer believe in capitalism?

I don’t know. The more I study economic systems the more I believe in some form of hybrid Capitalist and Socialist system. I know that’s not a clear answer but I don’t have a clear answer. I know what I don’t want and at this point in my life I am still open to hearing people’s views. I have a friend, hey Dennis, who knows a lot more than me and even though I only agree with him half of the time I’ve learned a lot from him.

The one thing I do know is I like how Canadian money looks.



Education



Eighteen year old Josh and thirty eight year old Josh would agree on our positions of education. I am a firm believe that education is a RIGHT all people have. I demand every child receive a complete, equal, and well rounded education based in facts and not in beliefs.

I also believe education must be free.

We are Americans gods damn it and we pay taxes, a lot of taxes. If we can spend eight million dollars a day bombing ISIS in the Middle East we can afford an education for our children. From kindergarten to university, no student or parent should have to spend a fucking penny out of pocket.

This is not up for debate.



Guns



Let’s keep this one short and sweet. When I was eighteen I was a big supporter of the second amendment and twenty years later I still am. I think every American is born with the right to keep and bear arms… with a caveat. I support confidential background checks. I don’t want convicted violent felons and fucking crazy people having access to firearms. That’s it, not violent or crazy people legally armed, not too much to ask for I think.

Now on to the NRA.

Fuck the NRA, seriously they can go fuck themselves. At one time the National Rifle Association really did represent the interests of the lawful gun owners in the United States. Now the organization id bought and paid for by the gun manufacturers who only have one goal, to sell guns. And they don’t give a shit who buys them.

So yeah, like guns and hate the NRA.



Healthcare



Ugh! This subject has been the bane of my existence in the last couple of years. I hate the Affordable Care Act (ACA) also known as Obamacare more than anything… except for the system it replaced. Yeah that’s what the right wing nut jobs keep forgetting, bedsides the reality that the Republicans wrote the fucking law, is that they NEVER proposed any other option.

All they did was scream NO!!!

Healthcare is a human right and much like education I believe our taxes should be covering everything with caveats. I wanted Medicare for all and the ability to purchase better coverage above that. We are the richest most developed nation on the planet and our healthcare system is a fucking joke.

But for some reason that’s evil or some such shit.



Immigration



When I was eighteen I was all about rounding up the illegal immigrants and kicking them out. I would have even advocated shooting people trying to cross the borders and some really draconian shit.

I am ashamed of those beliefs.

Most of the people sneaking into this country work harder and contribute more than people of Mayflower stock. I have more in common with the poor immigrants tying to escape violence and poverty south of the border then upper middle class white folk. I don’t know what should be done about illegal immigrants but I do know this is isn’t working.

One thing I do know, GIVE THE DREAMERS AMNESTY!



Politics



This is not a defense of the current administration. There are few of those people I would stand up for. And for all of my hatred of the Far Right it’s not an indictment of the Republican Party. When I was eighteen I identified strongly and openly as an extinct form of Republican, a Northeastern Republican (I’ve said this before) and now I am firmly an Independent Progressive/Liberal.

The number one problem in America is money in politics. Until we have publically financed elections with private and corporate money out of the system I will NEVER stop fighting. While it will not solve all of the problems in our country it is the one needed step to get the ball rolling, until that happens we are all fucked



www.wolf-pac.com



Religion



This may surprise you but at one time I was filled with faith and the love of Jesus. Yeah I know that’s funny as hell considering I’m a strident agnostic atheist these days.

I tend to believe organized religion does as much if not more harm than good. That being said there are many good and decent people who have strong faith. My personal dislike of religion has been somewhat tempered by knowing so many of those people.

So in the end all I can say, in the words of Wil Wheaton, is don’t be a dick.



Welfare



Okay here is my big confession. Even though I was a child who benefitted from the social safety nets in the 1980’s by the time I was eighteen I saw people on welfare as lazy slobs sucking off the teat of America.

I was a fucking asshole… I admit it.

Sometimes people need a helping hand. Things happen that we have no control over, 2008 economic collapse anyone, and we need a little help. There is NOTHING wrong and shameful about that. If this country can spend literally Trillions of our tax dollars bombing brown people who can’t hurt us back into the Stone Age maybe we can spare a few pennies to help our own people out.





You might be wondering why there was no section on civil rights, especially because I am an open and proud bisexual. The answer is simple. There was no need for it. Discrimination has always made me ill. My feelings on it have NEVER changed. All human beings have the same rights. Just because people disagree with me on that and try to keep some right away from the others in no way negates that.

You don’t agree with me?

Well then you can go fuck yourself.

And those are the hills I’ve planted my flags on. You can agree and that’s great or you can disagree and that’s okay too. People have the right not to agree with one another. As long as you’re not being a dick we can be friends, or at the least we can get along in the same world.





- Josh

My Top 10 Favorite Scary Movies Number 06: Candyman

“Your death will be a tale to frighten children, to make lovers cling closer in their rapture. Come with me, and be immortal”



- The Candyman





A Brief Eulogy for My Youth Part 1



I first saw Candyman in the same theater I saw the 1989 Batman in. It was the now vanished Quo Vadis Theater in Westland Michigan. I know I usually reflect on just the movies in these essays but if you will forgive me for a moment I want to talk about this theater, the theater I always think when the word is used.



The Quo Vadis Theater (Wikipedia)

The Quo Vadis Entertainment Center (also known as the Quo Vadis or the Penthouse Theater) was a movie theater in Westland, Michigan. Opened in 1966, it closed in 2002 and then remained vacant until it was demolished in 2011.



History

The Quo Vadis Entertainment Center was the fruit of Martin and Charlie Shafer's hard work and determination to build a movie palace. The structure was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, most well known for designing the World Trade Center. The Quo Vadis Entertainment Center opened in 1966. Its outside features a very Modernistic appearance while its interior once featured a very Romanistic design. The Quo Vadis was often regarded as a Movie Palace for its plush environment and cocktail lounge. It was one of the first cinemas to offer cocktail drinks to its patrons and was well known for its "Over 21 Club" cocktail lounge on the second floor. The Quo Vadis also offered patrons of the "Over 21 Club" headphones to watch movies at the (formerly adjacent) Algiers Drive-In through a "picture window wall". The Algiers Drive-In was demolished in 1985 to make way for a shopping center.



National Amusements purchased the property in 1986 and was still the owner as of October 2010. Demolition began in March, 2011 and was completed by June 2011.



Preservation Effort

In late 2007, a group called "The Quo Vadis Preservation Foundation" was created to try to save the theater and preserve/reopen the building with a practical application.

By the standards of today with the mega theaters and uber cinemas the Quo might seem dated. Hell I know it’s dated but you have to remember back in the day theaters were boring affairs. Hell the worst of the suburban dollar theaters today are probably better than the standard first run cinema when I was a kid. That is to say they were relatively clean, there was ample popcorn with artificial butter, and you forgot about them as soon as the movie was finished.

The Quo Vadis was a place of magic.

Yes the place was already past its glory years. Yes it smelled kinda funny and there were rumors you could get blowjobs in the second floor theaters for $20 on Fridays at the midnight show. Yes some of the seats were uncomfortable and the bathrooms were too small. Yes… alright tine there was a lot wrong with the place and I get why people stopped going there when the multiplexes started opening but damnit I loved that place. There was a bit of old Hollywood charm in the place despite the decrepit state, seeing a movie there was an event to remember.

The Quo Vadis was my theater and I miss it to this day.

Also… I’ve never found a better venue for a horror movie.





The Movie



I didn’t know what to make of the commercials for Candyman when they started playing on the television. It seemed the marketers were going for the hack and slash audience. It appeared every one of the television spots were fine tuned for the fans of Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers, and Leather Face.

I could tell immediately that was not this movies audience.

I saw the movie after the end of my shift at McDonalds just before Halloween in 1992. I went with some friends from work. My normal groups of friends were never the horror movie fans I was. The group I set out with wanted to go to one of the newer and cleaner theaters but when I said I’d pay for the sodas they agreed to my choice of the Quo.



*Note: This was well before the insane hiking of concession prices to levels that would make the Koch brothers blush in shame.



I was blown away by Candyman.

The acting was top notch and it was the second time I remember being exposed to the genius of Tony Todd. The first was the brilliant remake of Night of the Living Dead but as much as I love that movie Candyman made Mr. Todd a fucking rock star. The rest of the cast was stellar and they took what could have been some seriously hokey and cliché dialogue and made it flow seamlessly. If it was just well acted I’d say Candyman was a good horror movie but that’s far from the case.

I’m going to make a very controversial statement.

The original Candyman is the best horror movie story of the 1990’s.

Now before you start screaming at me about the 90’s horror movies you think are better please hear me out. Candyman has depth, serious depth that made sense and didn’t feel tacked on. The director took the elements from the original Clive Barker story, wove them with new ideas and direction, and the result was fucking magic!

Candyman was the first movie that made me feel for the killer. I root for Freddy and Jason, yes I’m one of those assholes, and Jigsaw makes me laugh my generous posterior off. But the Candyman was not the bad guy, he was the victim of the story and in the end all he wanted was love. He was a lonely angry spirit bound to the Earthly plane by loss and pain. None of the people who died really deserved it, but he didn’t deserve what happened to him.

As always if you’ve never seen the movie or haven’t seen it in a long time I am providing the Wikipedia entry as well as a hyperlink. But please, I beg you, if you haven’t seen the original Candyman go to Netflix or Amazon and watch it.

You will not be disappointed.



Candyman (Wikipedia)

Candyman is a 1992 American horror film written and directed by Bernard Rose, based on the short story "The Forbidden" by Clive Barker, though the film's scenario is switched from England to the Cabrini–Green public housing development on Chicago's Near North Side. It stars Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, and Xander Berkeley. The plot follows a graduate student (Madsen) completing a thesis on urban legends who encounters the legend of "Candyman" (Todd), an artist and son of a slave who was murdered and his hand replaced with a hook.



Candyman spawned two sequels, Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead.





Plot

Helen Lyle is a graduate student conducting research for her thesis on urban legends. While interviewing freshmen about their superstitions, she hears about a local legend known as Candyman. The legend contains many elements similar to the most well-known urban legends, including endangered babysitters, spirits who appear in mirrors when fatally summoned, and maniac killers with unnatural deformities.[2] The legend claims that Candyman can be summoned by saying his name five times while facing a mirror (similar to the Bloody Mary folkloric tale), whereupon he will murder the summoner with his hook-hand. Later that evening, Helen and her friend Bernadette jokingly call Candyman's name into the mirror in Helen's bathroom but nothing happens.



Helen discovers that Candyman was the son of a slave, whose father became prosperous after developing a system for mass-producing shoes during the Civil War. Candyman grew up in polite society and became a well-known artist, sought after for his talent in producing portraits. After falling in love with a white woman whom he impregnated, he was set upon by a lynch mob hired by his lover's father; they cut off his painting hand and replaced it with a hook. He was smeared with honey stolen from an apiary, prompting the locals to chant 'Candyman' as the bees stung him to death.



With her colleague Bernadette, Helen enters the notorious gang-ridden Cabrini–Green housing project, the site of a recent unsolved murder, linked to Candyman. There, she meets Anne-Marie McCoy, one of the residents, and a young boy named Jake, who tells her the disturbing story of a child who was castrated in a public restroom, supposedly by Candyman. While Helen explores the run-down restroom, a gang member attacks her: he carries a hook, and has taken the Candyman moniker as his own to enhance his "street cred". Helen survives the assault and is able to identify her attacker to the police.



Helen later faces the apparent real Candyman, who explains that since Helen has been telling people he is just a legend, he must prove he exists. Helen blacks out and wakes up in Anne-Marie's apartment, covered in blood. Anne-Marie, whose Rottweiler has been decapitated, and whose baby is also missing, attacks Helen and she is forced to defend herself, using a meat cleaver. The police then arrest Helen. Trevor, Helen's husband, bails her out of jail, but Candyman appears to Helen again and cuts her neck, causing her to bleed unconscious. Bernadette then arrives at the apartment and Candyman murders her. The police are called and Helen is sedated and is placed in a psychiatric hospital pending trial.



After a month's stay at the hospital, Helen is interviewed by a psychologist in preparation for her upcoming trial. While restrained, Helen attempts to convince the psychologist that the urban legend is indeed true by calling Candyman. Candyman appears, murdering the psychologist, and Helen is able to escape. She briefly confronts Trevor but he is now living with one of his female students. Helen then flees to Cabrini–Green to confront Candyman and to locate Anne-Marie's still-missing infant. In an apartment's attic, she encounters the words "It was always you, Helen."



Candyman predicts that Helen will help carry on his tradition of inciting fear into a community, and promises to release the baby if Helen agrees to sacrifice herself. However, Candyman, intending to sacrifice them to feed his own legend, takes both the baby and Helen into the middle of a massive junk pile, which the residents have been planning to turn into a bonfire. The residents believe Candyman is hiding inside the pile and set it aflame. Helen rescues the baby, but dies from burns in the process. Candyman also burns in the fire, leaving only his hook-hand behind.



After Helen's funeral, in which the residents of Cabrini–Green pay their respects, Trevor stands before a mirror in the bathroom of their former apartment. He chants Helen's name in grief, summoning her vengeful spirit. Helen kills Trevor with Candyman's hook, leaving Trevor's new lover Stacey with his bloodied corpse as Helen becomes the embodiment of the urban legend.



The film ends as the credits roll over a painting of Helen with her hair ablaze on a wall in Cabrini-Green, showing that she has now entered folklore.

My Closing Thoughts



Candyman had several sequels staring Tony Todd. They aren’t bad, well they have some bad moments, but they are worth watching just for the phenomenal performance of Mr. Todd. I think it’s safe to say I’ve harbored a little crush on Tony Todd for a long time.

The movie holds up really well. Yes there are some very dated wardrobe choices and set designs but they don’t take away from the awesome. For me the imagery in Cabrini-Green steals the movie in terms of lighting, construction, and atmosphere. Those scenes made the movie for me.

Candyman is timeless horror with a good story and incredible acting.





- Josh

I’m a Bisexual Part 3 - “Allies & Adversaries”

“If I wouldn’t have found Courtney, I probably would have carried on with a bisexual lifestyle.”

- Kurt Cobain



The first family members I came out to was my father, we won’t talk anymore about him in this series by the way, and my maternal aunt. The night I tried to kill myself when I was sixteen I went to my aunt’s house and spilled everything that’d been plaguing me. In the end I stayed the night there and the next day, with the help of my father, checked myself into a mental health hospital.

It was the scariest and best decision I’ve ever made for myself. In the hospital I had time to reflect and relax. I dealt with a lot of my issues, I’m not saying I fixed anything in that summer of therapy and bad hospital food but I made the first steps in that direction. As I’ve said before I left the hospital feeling mended but not whole.

Side note before I continue to the positive side of this story.

Like I said the first person I trusted with the truth of my sexuality was my maternal aunt, let’s call her M. Aunt M and I were pretty damn close when I was growing up and coming out to her was kind of a no brainer in the early 90’s. I told her and she seemed to one hundred percent supportive.

Fast forward a few years, not sure exactly how many, and things began trickle back to me. I kept my sexuality a close the chest secret only telling a few people before and after my stay in the hospital. Yet somehow a lot of people in my family seemed to know that Josh was “A Queer Boy” as one member who I will not name once told me. It didn’t take me long to learn that aunt M spent the summer I was in the hospital telling everyone who’d listen that I was gay.

I guess my love of boobies didn’t hold water with her.

I was angry about that but the nail in the end of our once extremely close relationship happened around the same time my marriage was on the precipice. I was suffering from untreated bipolar disorder and it was pushing my wife away daily. I guess it was clear to everyone but myself that I was one miserable mother fucker. The way my son and daughter in law tell it Aunt M decided to tell them that I was really gay and the reason I was so unhappy was because I didn’t love his mom and wanted cock.

I shit you not. The woman said that to my son. Our relationship ended that day and I still don’t think she knows it. In my biological family gossip is an art form but you never gossip outside the family. Thus she gets a pass and I’m an asshole for writing things like this.

Their loss, not mine…

Okay enough depressing tales. How about some positivity!?

The very first person I came out to was my junior year German teacher. Donna Wright was, and probably still is, a hell of a teacher. I did not want to take a foreign language and put it off until almost the end of my education to fulfill the requirement. I think it’s safe to say I had a bit of a crush on her, there was no word to fit the modern term of MILF back then but I definitely would use that term now.

One day I was really depressed in class. I was single, my girlfriend and I had split, and I was head over heels for a boy. It was all driving me crazy and in retrospect that might have been the beginning of the round of depression that lead to my first suicide attempt. Mrs. Wright took me into the hallway and asked me what was wrong.

I spilled it all before I knew I was speaking.

It could have gone in an infinite number of directions. If she’d done anything but what she actually did my life might be very different today, if I was still alive at all. Without saying a word she wrapped her arms around me, hugged me tight, and told me everything was going to be okay. Over the next few months she was a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear when times were dark.

I still love her to this very day.

The next person I told might be the most important.

The day I came home from the hospital one of best friends, Sanford, was waiting for me. We spent my first day of freedom going to the movies, shopping for music, and eating delicious diner food. Part way through our day I told Sanford the truth about my stay in the hospital. His was response was the equivalent of, “And?” there was no judgment and complete acceptance. Sometimes friends are more important than family… or they are your family.

Eventually I made the decision to come out, first to my wife and then to the world at large. Not everyone reacted well and in the end there was fallout. But that is a story for later in this series. The important thing to take away from this installment, at least for me, is that the people I chose to trust with one exception did me right. They kept my secret, when I was still ashamed and thought it should be a secret, and did right by me.

I owe a debt to the people I trusted with my truth. On the whole they helped keep me sane as I finished out high school and then left Michigan forever. Mrs. Wright remained a friend and confidant until I graduated and one of my regrets from those years is that I didn’t maintain contact, I would really like to thank her for standing at my side. Sanford is still one of my best friends and I consider him more family than friend.

If I’d have learned about Aunt M betraying me in those first few years after my stay in the hospital it might have knocked me back a few pegs. But once her duplicity was revealed I’d moved past that early fragility and was able to handle it even though it hurt badly.

Nobody should have to go through this alone. Confronting your sexuality in our society is a difficult process for most of us and sometimes great damage is done. I was lucky and I know it, yes I had some issues and I still have problems related to it, but the people I chose to keep in my life have always had my back and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Next time we talk about my one serious relationship with a boy. No, I will not name names, and no it will not be a salacious tale of boy/boy sex. Neither of those things have anything to do with what these essays are about. What I will talk about is the difficulty of young same sex love in 1990’s Michigan.



- Josh

The 2014 Bloodbath

If you’ve been reading any of my writings over the last few years you know I’m kind of a political junkie. I’ve always enjoyed the run up to election and the political circus of the actual event. It’s fun and fills me with a voyeuristic pleasure. Some of my fondest memories of child and young adult hood is staying up till the wee hours of the morning watching the returns from across the country.

Yeah, I’m that kind of geek too.

When I was younger and became interested in politics beyond the spectacle aspect I identified as a Republican. NOT the current version of a republican but a now extinct version, the Northeast Progressive Republican. By this I meant I was for the second amendment, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. But when it came to social programs I’ve always skewed to the left. Some of my specific positions have changed/evolved over the years but the thrust of my position has remained more or less unchanged.

Starting in 1994 things changed. I admit I was happy when the Republicans gained their majority that year. I thought we’d see changes, more personal freedoms and the long awaited healthcare reform. I know that sound insane but it was a group of Republicans who wrote the proposed health care law in 1994, ironically it was almost the exact same thing as the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

What happened?

Instead of doing real work the congress proved to me who they really work for. For the first time in my life I realized just how much the banks and corporations owned our Republic. Hey cut me some slack I was only 18 at the time and we didn’t have the internet in a recognizable form.

I watched a pack of lying blowhards go after the President for anything they could think of, whether it was relevant or not, and I watched another pack of limp cowards lay down and take it. I watched the impeachment of a sitting US President for bullshit reasons. I watched the banks get deregulated and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) be passed. The economy might have been good, okay it was excellent, but everything else was fucked and we didn’t realize it.

Let’s fast forward to the 2000 election. I admit I voted for W, he was charismatic and sounded sincere, hell I think he’s probably a decent human being and did mean well. But when he was elected he was never actually President, instead he was the most obvious sock puppet I’ve ever seen. Then 9-11 happened and the government turned into a pack of headless chickens. We entered the longest period of war we’ve ever experienced, still in it, and had our rights stripped away.

It seemed that nobody cared.

The passing of the Patriot Act was the darkest act ever committed by the American Government. Some people may argue with me on that one and they are entitled to their views… unless the holders of the Patriot Act decide those views are seditious then you’ll end up in a cage in Cuba. The EPA was gutted, the rich were given massive tax breaks, civil rights were eroded, and the economy imploded.

We seemed to be on the brink of complete collapse.

After eight years of the George W. Bush administration I fell for Obama. I bought in to the slogan of HOPE & CHANGE. I really thought if Obama was elected things would get better he talked a good game but in the end all he was interested in doing was prove he was willing to compromise and do the bidding of his pay masters. Under Obama we’ve entered the most Corporation Friendly period ever in American History.

The Republican Party changed when Obama was elected. Or maybe it didn’t change so much as filter the moderates out. For two years the Democrats controlled the congress and did NOTHING! The Republicans on the other hand planned, they had one goal to destroy Barack Obama and make him a one term President. They took it seriously and in 2010 they destroyed the House of Representatives and came scarily close to seizing the Senate. The Tea Party rose and this country became a scarier place to live. Racism, homophobia, fanatical religious zealots, and demagogues have been the rule rather than exception. All Obama did was give us shitty health care written by REPUBLICANS, continue the wars and start a new one, and extend 90% of W’s policies… still waiting for that change.

Hate became chic.

In 2012 Obama retained the Presidency not because he was such a great leader but because the Republicans can’t pick a good candidate to save their lives. There are few Republicans these days worthy of what the title used to mean and none of them would ever have a chance of getting the nomination.

The result has been a comedy of gridlock and childish bullshit.

Last night was the 2014 Midterm elections and… well we got our asses handed to us and we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Let me be clear about this before I continue. I am NOT a Democrat. Just because the Republican Party left me and so many others doesn’t mean I’ve run to the lesser evil. But the truth is as things stand one of the parties will almost always win and I would rather support the Dem’s than the GOP these days but I am NOT happy about it.

Oh yeah Money in Politics is the biggest problem and the Far Right definitely dominated that aspect of the election cycle. But the fact is as much as Republicans aren’t Republicans anymore Democrats aren’t Democrats anymore. The Democrats of today would be right at home with the Reagan Republicans of the 1980’s. Modern Democrats (the politicians not the voters) bend at the first opportunity. They are beholden to the same financial masters as the Republicans but without the spine they used to have.

I am a Progressive Liberal with a few Libertarian principals. I believe in freedom of and from religion. I believe I should be able to ingest any substance I want. I believe Health Care and Education are human rights and we should not have to pay more for them ON TOP of the taxes we pay. I believe money is NOT speech and Corporations are not people my friend. I believe I have the right to own a weapon for defense but I have no problems with confidential background checks in order to weed out psychopaths and lunatics. I believe in absolute freedom of speech and freedom of the press. I believe in equal rights and equal pay for all and it DOES need to be legislated. None of my beliefs fit with any of the parties so who the fuck represents me?

I want my kids to have a better life than me and all I see is rich privileged pieces of shit stealing everything we’ve worked for for centuries and turning us into modern day serfs. They’ve spent the last 10+ years making sure we hate one another because of race, religion, sexual orientation, and anything else they can think of so we don’t come together and see the real problems.

I need a drink.

- Josh

You’re The Inspiration 14 Shoot For the Head Part 7 – “The Walking Dead”

*Note: I am not giving my usual Wiki Pulls in this installment. There are a couple of Wiki entries before but they are nearly 100% spoiler free. Both the Walking Dead comic book and television show are currently ongoing and if anything their audiences are growing. I don’t want to ruin in any of the storylines for people who have yet to enjoy them. Normally I am the first person to yell “Fuck you!” when someone screams “Spoilers” at me but in the case of The Walking Dead I am making an exception.





The Comic Book



For the last installment of my SHOOT FOR THE HEAD series of essays there was no subject I could think of that would serve as a better exclamation point than THE WALKING DEAD. There can be no doubt that The Walking Dead has singlehandedly reinvigorated the Zombie genre worldwide.

I know most of you have at least heard of this little show on AMC. I mean it’s just one of the most popular television epics ever. People of all stripes, whether they are fans of the zombie genre or not, have become fixated on the story of a few desperate Americans trapped in a world where the dead walk and want nothing more than to devour them.

But did you know long before the show there was the comic book?

I was completely unaware the book was going to be released the day walked into my comic book store. It was a Wednesday, every comic geek knows what that means, which mean the new comics were in for purchase. My normal pull list of books was behind the counter but I’ve always been the consummate window shopper and that meant I looked at every book on the rack.

I was blown away by issue one of The Walking Dead. I read the damn thing at the rack, added to my pile, and bought it on the spot. Zombies aside it is one of the best comic books of the last 25 years. It is a tale of family and loss in a world gone mad and I have loved every gut churning heartbreaking issue.

Robert Kirkman took everything awesome about the zombie genre and turned it up to eleven. He paid homage to everything that came before and still forged his own trail into the fandom. To my way if thinking as both a writer and a reader Kirkman stands with both Romero and Brooks as the trifecta of Zombie Masters.



The Walking Dead Comic Book – (Wikipedia)

The Walking Dead is an ongoing black-and-white American comic book series created by writer Robert Kirkman and artist Tony Moore. It chronicles the travels of Rick Grimes, his family and other survivors of a zombie apocalypse.

First issued in 2003 by publisher Image Comics, the comic is written by Kirkman with art by Moore (issues No. 1 - #6) and Charlie Adlard (issue No. 7 onward). Moore continued to do the covers through issue No. 24.

The series received the 2010 Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series at San Diego Comic-Con International. A television series bearing the same name premiered Halloween 2010 on AMC. The series has inspired a Kirkman-approved prequel series of novels prolonging the comic book's timeline.

The Television Show



When it was announced that The Walking Dead would be coming to television as an ongoing series I was excited and terrified. On one hand I’d spent nearly my entire life wishing the Mayor of Hollywood would allow such a thing to happen. On the other hand if they fucked up one of my favorite stories of all time I was going to burn some random fast food franchise to the ground with my anger.

I’m an all of nothing kind of guy when it comes to zombies.

In August of 2010 the long trailer premiered at the San Diego Comic Con. It went up on YouTube the same day and watched a hundred times in that first week. Almost all of my fears were assuaged by that sneak peek. I will admit the image of the hospital doors chained with “Dead Inside” written on them and the hand of a woman, broken nails and all, reaching between the doors and through the gap was enough to give me nightmares.

The Walking Dead premiered on Halloween night 2010.

That night will be forever burned into my gray matter. The whole family gathered in my living room, sans my oldest daughter who hates zombies, and we experienced the show. We spoke very little as 90 of the most intense minutes of television ever produced played across my screen.

And how was it?

It was fucking amazing!!!

Often when things are so built up in a person’s mind that it’s all they can think of the reality is almost inevitably a complete let down. For me the best example of this phenomenon is the book Hannibal. I’d been a massive fan of both Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs and when it was announced that Thomas Harris was adding a third volume to the series I had the literary equivalent of morning wood. I was at the local Books and Company (any of you remember that chain?) when it opened on the day of release. Eight hours later I was tired and a seriously pissed off young man.

Lesson learned that day? Always go in with the lowest expectations possible. I managed to live that way for a long time, at least until The Walking Dead premiered.



The Walking Dead TV Show – (Wikipedia)

The Walking Dead is an American post-apocalyptic horror drama television series developed by Frank Darabont. It is based on the comic book series of the same name by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Charlie Adlard. It stars Andrew Lincoln as sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes, who awakens from a coma to find a post-apocalyptic world dominated by flesh-eating zombies. He sets out to find his family and encounters many other survivors along the way.

The Walking Dead premiered on October 31, 2010, on the cable television channel AMC in the United States. It premiered internationally during the first week of November 2010 on Fox International Channels. Based on its reception, AMC renewed the series for a second season of 13 episodes, which premiered on October 16, 2011. Two episodes into the second season, AMC announced that the show would return for a third season of 16 episodes, which began airing on October 14, 2012. On December 21, 2012, AMC renewed The Walking Dead for a fourth season of 16 episodes, which premiered on October 13, 2013. On October 29, 2013, AMC renewed it for a fifth season, which premiered on October 12, 2014. On October 7, 2014, AMC renewed it for a sixth season.

The series has been well received and has been nominated for many awards, including the Writers Guild of America Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Drama. It has also attained strong Nielsen ratings, surpassing various records for a cable series, including viewership of 17.3 million for its season five premiere, making it the most-watched drama series telecast in basic cable history.

Conclusions



The Walking Dead is one of the shows that have redefined television entertainment in the early 21st century. I would put it up there with The Sopranos, LOST, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and Dexter (Until Season 6) as one the most influential and important shows ever made.

I still collect the comics and I watch the show religiously. I have no idea where the story lines are headed and truth e told if someone offered me a look behind the curtain at what is to come I’d say no. I am so much a fan first of the series that I want to be surprised by what’s coming next. I want to discuss issues and episodes as they are released and shown. I can lose myself in the story and world of The Walking Dead like I have no other show since Star Trek. In the end that says everything.





- Josh