First off, Happy Mother’s Day, ladies! I’m privileged to share my birthday today with you all, most especially my own mother and my wife, who is both mom and stepmom.

So this is 54. This year for my birthday, I wanted to kick it off yesterday in one of my sacred places, Sugarloaf Mountain. Every year I do a seven miler through challenging, rugged terrain as a point of grinding my body beneath the eyes of nature and the divine.

Sometimes I have company, often it’s alone by means of connection to the greater scheme of life beyond the daily grind. So many nice people in passing on the trails, but not a soul behind me the entire 7 miles. I felt blessed, protected and gloriously tuckered out.

Beautiful weather that waited until I got back to the car before sending the rain down. Magnificent. Thank you to the divinities for walking with me today and on my upcoming 54th spin through life itself.

Also a big thank you to TJ for taking me to a magnificent steak dinner at one of our go-to places, Harryman House, and my son for giving me an acoustic guitar rendition of the birthday song. So very special.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

The soundtrack for the zombie classic Return of the Living Dead from 1985 is one of my regular go-tos, usually landing on the deck once a month if not every other. A punk-heavy dash of mayhem befitting of a tongue-in-cheek gorefest featuring The Cramps, The Damned, TSOL, Roky Erickson, Tall Boys, Jet Black Berries, The Flesheaters and punk-metal hybrid, 45 Grave, whose memorable stomp anthem “Partytime” serves as the movie’s rally cry. Albeit don’t be fooled, because the film uses as alternate version while the soundtrack issues its “Zombie Version” of “Partytime.”

Sadly omitted from this glorious soundtrack from 80s punk and heavy metal label, Restless Records, are The F.U.’s “Young, Fast Iranians” (no doubt from the hangover of tensions between that country and the United States when this came out) and Francis Haines’ iconic synth-dashed “Trioxin Theme” which rolls over the opening credits.

Yet anyone who’s seen this splat comedy gem will no doubt be kicking back to SSQ’s Goth masterpiece, “Tonight (We’ll Make Love Until We Die),” a song even more delicious when you know a little history behind it. SSQ was a synthpop unit featuring Stacy Q, who’d score big a year later in 1986 with her bubblegum pop number under her stage name, “Two of Hearts.” She’d partnered with new wave figurehead Jon St. James in SSQ and the band delved a twisted, sexy and haunting number here with its brilliant erotic lyrics, the most savory being “I once slept with the devil, he was really no big thrill.”

Of course, you’re no doubt thinking of 80s scream queen Linnea Quigley as punkette “Trash,” stripping down to just her leg warmers atop a graveyard sepulture with this number playing. Sleazy as hell, but the way the song is spread across the entire scene all the way to its fadeout gives it an element of style atypical for the decade’s brand of horror.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Cover art courtesy of the public domain

On Sunday, I crossed the finish line of the most gratifying writing project of my life thus far, an anthology of short horror stories which I will divulge in the near future.

Writing horror is what I’ve wanted to do for so very long and now it’s happening. I hope I have been able to bring something to the table in a genre carrying the paradox of demanding both the best and the worst of its scribes.  Keeping things in context, of course.

Time to celebrate!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

First off, sorry for the slack in production here at Roads Lesser Traveled! I was hyper focused on finishing my next major project manuscript and will talk about that shortly.

I have no idea how I veered to Trojan condoms while perusing a gallery of vintage advertisements for an entirely different product. Maybe because I was humming a heavy metal tune in my head while doing so, weirdly bleeding into the call-and-response vocals and humming for the Trojan Man slogan. Sing along with me, if you’re inclined, deep baritone if you can pull it off: “Tro-jan Maaaaaan! Tro-jan Maaaaan! Mmmmm-hmmmm-hmmmm…mmmmm-hmmmm-hmmmm…”

M’kay, so with that in mind, I’ll strive to keep this delicate theme as clean as possible. You know what Trojan hucksters. As a teenaged boy, you no doubt circled the contraceptive section of your local pharmacy or Wal Mart like a vulture over carnage, trying to figure out how to get your hands on a box of latex rubbers without the whole dang store (adults, especially) being all up in your business. Hate to say, my dudes, it’s a rite of passage thing. Inescapable unless your vocation has led you toward a seminary.

If you have a girlfriend willing to play, buying condoms gives you more incentive. Bragging rights if you’re confident enough. If you buy Trojans (Magnums if you’re a true playa) or their competitors, Skyn, LifeStyles, Durex or Kimono merely with the hope of being prepared in the event of, then you know full well it’s an awkward buying experience. Something you buy extra things to smother it with at the checkout line like a pack of toilet paper, a half pint of milk and some Hostess Ding Dongs. Okay, I’m being naughty, I’ll stop.

The entire purchasing experience probably as awkward as this hysterical ad for Trojan with its blunt message, Only a pig doesn’t protect himself and his partner when the big moment comes. See what I did there? I said I’d stop, sorry, my bad. Nyuk nyuk, woo woo woo!!!

Evolve, my friends. Or something. Or skin it if you and your partner are just that certain. “Mmmmm-hmmmm-hmmmm…mmmmm-hmmmm-hmmmm…”

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

One of the most brilliant marketing campaigns of all-time has to be “Got Milk?”

From the 1990s into the 2000s, “Got Milk?” became a celebrity “thing” to latch onto, personalities spanning from music to film to sports to journalism to fashion models. Even political figures. I can just see the agent negotiations that went on back in the day. From Shaquille O’Neal to Whoopie Goldberg, Chirstie Brinkley, Britney Spears, Serena and Venus Williams, Mark McGwire, Tracy McGrady, Mike Myers and Ivanka Trump (to name a tiny few of legion who participated), the “Got Milk?” ads became a movement more than a mere pitch.

This to promote healthier living using back-to-basics shenanigans with the trademark “milk mustache.” I know as a child I had quite a few milk mustaches and no doubt every parent has run into these raising their own kids. My son sported plenty of them, laughing like a loon at them nearly as hard as a Spaghetti-Os ‘stache. I loved these silly ads you tripped over anywhere: comic books, magazines, malls, billboards, bus stops, parks. It worked, too, even for the lactose intolerant, who found their Lactaid substitutes to get on board.

Let’s face it, only star power of the time held so much influence as to rock the milk ‘stache and pimp what most people of the time wrote off as kid’s fuel.

Got Milk? Hell yeah!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

My wife, TJ Perkins and I, have landed our short fiction stories together at the relaunch of Flash in a Flash webzine.

Her story, “What Screams are Made Of,” will run in May, 2024 and mine, “One Rainy Day in ’77,” for the June 3rd premium episode.

Dream Team!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

I had an officemate once, Sandy, who couldn’t have been a lesser metal fan, but she loved Priest’s Point of Entry album, probably my silent favorite of theirs. 

She was apeshit for “Desert Plains” from this 1981 album and we would always stop working and jam that one out together.  Sandy was a mentor and a good friend.  We spun a lot of New Wave music and Judas Priest together.  

From desert plains, I bring you love…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

No preamble needed for this week’s retro ad. If you’ve seen the running t.v. and print spots for Snickers’ “Hungry” campaign over the past number of years, a pitch using the mighty Godzilla should’ve been the first de facto choice.

Though I never imagined the King of the Monsters would be quad runnin’ instead of tackling skyscrapers and enemy kaiju with a peanut and nougat reward as his pacification. I love it.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Word.