I’ve haven’t been this obsessed with a movie since Blade Runner 2049, the original Star Wars trilogy before that and probably a bucket full of horror films in-between. Impatient me, I pre-ordered the Japanese Deluxe Edition of Godzilla Minus One as an early birthday present, since the U.S. and Japan share the same Blu Ray zoning.
Luckily for me, I saw the film three times in the theater, including Godzilla Minus One, Minus Color, which is loaded inside this gorgeous four-disc package with a monster (pun intended) wraparound case along with a separate steel case and came autographed by film director Takashi Yamazaki.
I already started watching a few minutes to get my fix before I finish over the weekend in full Japanese. Luckily, I know the story well, even if I may take a crash course in the language since there are no English subtitles until the North American release is finally here. We watched part of the incredible Shogun miniseries without subtitles and followed along just fine until Hulu swung them back in.
TJ and I have been binging episodes of the original incarnation of The Twilight Zone which ran in glorious black and white from 1959 to 1964. Not on SyFy or MeTV, or streaming, but through five DVD box set “Collections” of the series.
At one time running $120.00 a pop when there was such a thing as Suncoast Video (remember those chain home video emporiums?), then down to $99.99 (marketing is everything, including shaving a single penny from a retail price). Nowadays, people stream or check in for multiple hours on three-day Twilight Zone extended weekend marathons, but TJ and I are content to roll through one disk of 3-4 commercial-free episodes in one sitting. On our time. Usually with ice cream or a cup of tea.
Now I wasn’t even a thought when the series first aired, but during the 1980s, an independent UHF station my family was able to get out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania from Hampstead, Maryland used to run Twilight Zone every weeknight at 10:30 p.m. Whatever I was doing during my teens, whether it was hanging in the living room with my folks for t.v., gabbing with friends on a land line phone, spinning heavy metal and punk rock albums in my bedroom, reading comic books and Stephen King novels or rolling horror movies on my VHS player, I always landed each time for Twilight Zone.
I looked forward to it as much to listening to my mom and stepfather tell me stories from their youth while watching the show and especially watching their anticipation glancing at me to see my own reaction to these gems on my first pass-through of each mind-altering nugget from The Fifth Dimension. No, not the soul group (whom I do love), but Rod Serling’s fantastical phantasmagoria and alternate world escapades.
This is my absolute favorite television show of all-time and I can watch these shows on repeat without ever growing bored, even with the show’s repeated use of certain backlot studio sets (also used in the original Star Trek and Batman ’66, amongst others). In fact, I always find something different from repeat viewings, usually some clever bit of snark from host Rod Serling, who may not have had an upper lip and who couldn’t make his narrative appearance without a lit cigarette, but whose voice remains an imprinted icon. When something’s just a little weird in life you can’t explain, it’s Rod’s low-pitched monotone laced with snappy sarcasm you hear, isn’t it? Followed by the trademark do-da-do-dooo show theme.
Serling, Charles Beaumont and Richard Matheson wrote the majority of the Twilight Zone’s original half hour format shows (with commercial breaks) before expanding to a full hour in the final season due to public demand. These authors of the strange, along with Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and EC horror comics, are my immediate pantheon in writing who taught me and continue to teach with every spin through their seminal works.
My favorite Twilight Zone episode ever is “The Eye of the Beholder.” For me, the greatest “gotcha!” ending ever penned. Right on its heels being the final gasp and weep from Burgess Meredith as sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust in “Time Enough at Last.” Watch either and become a believer.
It’s hard for me to rank my favorite episodes beyond those two because nearly every show was genius level until the hour format. I would rank as upper echelon “Stopover in a Quiet Town,” “Living Doll,” “Black Leather Jackets,” “The Invaders,” “It’s a Good Life,” “From Agnes With Love,” “A Game of Pool,” “A Kind of Stopwatch,” “Caesar and Me,” “King Nine Will Not Return,” “The Hitch-Hiker,” “Dead Man’s Shoes,” “A Stop at Willougby,” “Steel,” “Where is Everybody?” “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street,” “You Drive,” “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” “Mr. Dingle, the Strong,” “Will the Real Martian Stand Up?” and everyone’s favorite demon-on-a-plane-or-is-it? dramarama featuring William Shatner, “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” Especially precious is The Honeymooners’ Art Carney as a drunken Santa Claus getting his one night of gift-giving comeuppance in “Night of the Meek.”
The Twilight Zone came back in three other reboots, not including Rod Serling’s Lost Classics from 1994. Following the success of 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie (great stuff, but really just a then-contemporary spit shine upon four of the original classics), there was a redux running from 1985 to 1989 which had its moments. None of it compares to the original, the reason we wanna hang inside for a little while and maybe stay up half the night all Memorial and Labor Day weekends. After I hit publish to this post, TJ and I have “Long Distance Call” from Season 2 cued up in the player.
Very honored to have been asked to contribute to the Metal Hall of Fame’s “Judas Priest – Never Forget” article also featuring Metal Asylum’s Jack Mangan and Rich Catino.
The only thing I’m kicking myself over for my section of memories is forgetting the time capsule mini-film Heavy Metal Parking Lot was filmed at the Priest show in my backyard, the long-gone Capital Centre near Washington, DC.
Special thank you to Jack for bringing me into the fold for this tribute piece to the mighty Priest and for giving my novel, Revolution Calling a plug!
I got the new Priest album, Invincible Shield for my bday and I’m bouncing inside my office chair this morning. So damn good, it makes me prouder than ever of Halford and the boys. Hails to all inceptions of Judas Priest. Metal gods to the end.
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.
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.
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.
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…”
Roads Lesser Traveled 