Got a lot on my mind. Where I’ve been, where I am, where my future lies.
To the good, I just finished a new novel and submitted it to my editor. It came right after the completion of a second collection of horror stories titled Bringing in the Creeps, which was picked up for publication. I will announce that officially in due time. Behind the Shadows is steaming right along and I have a bunch of scheduled signing events in April to further promote it. I can’t thank my publisher, tara caribou with Raw Earth Ink, enough for doing a slamtastic job getting Shadows out there and I’m so proud of us both. I took out an ad for Behind the Shadows in the international horror magazine, Scream, and will be tickled as hell to see that when it prints.
I have the utmost gratitude for the upward mobility I have enjoyed in the past four years when my life changed drastically. It’s been rough and painful at times, but also some of the most joyous times I have ever known. I see things right now that break my heart, more for others than myself. I also see a light and a tunnel’s end for myself, my wife, my son and our beloved kids, family and friends. I am exhausted but quietly jubilant for having my best friend set for this journey forward and hope the darkness we’re seeing around us brightens for all when sanity prevails.
As I take a very short break from fiction writing (I already have a concept and the first chapter mentally written for the next novel), to breathe, recharge, and complete a bunch of tasks and errands I’ve put off for too long, I will see you all here Roads Lesser Traveled. Thank you for your support, as always.
One of the most notorious films in cinematic history is 1979’s Caligula, starring Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Teresa Ann Savoy, Peter O’Toole and John Gielgud. The latter two no doubt feeling blindsided and betrayed more than the many of the personnel dumped into this vile erotic historical film pushing all boundaries of good taste depicting the perversions of the Roman Emperor Caligula. Still likely missing the real Caligula’s debauched bar by many feet.
Caligula was a huge success based on its nefarious reputation for sex, gore, incest and even its grand scale unheard of for independent filmmaking at the time. The aim of Penthouse magazine founder, Bob Guccione, was to lay down an explicit account of Emperor Caligula’s rise and immediate fall with a high stakes budget striving for the grandiose production value of Cecil B. DeMille’s biblical epics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments. Despite the omnipresent nudity and (depending on which version you watch) full-frontal sex action, Guccione was reported to have said about Caligula, “I maintain the film is actually anti-erotic. In every one of its scenes, you’ll find a mixture of gore or violence or some other rather ugly things.”
Caligula’s infamy was further plagued by financial woes, scriptwriter knifing, in-house fighting, directorial headbutting, post-production hell and most ostensibly, the rogue filming by Guccione himself of separate, XXX rated pornography featuring his Penthouse Pets which he’d snuck into the film’s original print. In the process, slashing numerous narrative, dialogue and plot sequences to shoehorn his full penetration scenes. None of the film’s original actors were aware of this intrusion, which went so far as to include hardcore sequences of homosexuality and Anneka Di Lorenzo’s legendary fellatio scene, still the most graphic to occur outside of a true porn film. This considering Guccione axed most of Gore Vidal’s script (the second to write one) due to its numerous boundary-pushing gay scenes. Guccione paid out and offered Vidal a pitiful “Based on the script” credit.
Many involved in Caligula, including Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole and director Tinto Brass, disowned the film, the latter demanding his role be reduced to “principal photography.” Even score writer (one of Caligula’s brighter beacons) Bruno Nicolai issued his soundtrack under the alias Paul Clemente. I’m a big fan of McDowell’s and now having watched the “Ultimate Cut,” my fourth overall sitting, I can see why he won’t “go there” in interviews. Yet he is magnetic, unbridled fury in and out of a toga. He is masterful in what he was expected to do. His Caligula serves as a can-you-take-it styled public service announcement, which is the movie’s founding statement: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. There are tons for McDowell to be held accountable for in Caligula, but there’s also understated nobility to his work here.
If you’re so inclined, there’s a bounty of deeper insight into Caligula to read on your own, but for me, the movie has always been a fascination, leading me to the new “Ultimate Cut” which got such hype at the Cannes film festival last year. Like it or not for purists, this one restrains the gore and outright turns the film softcore. Which are really the movie’s calling cards, since this is probably the most expensive and elaborate crock ‘o shock ever filmed. A flying turd of an ode to despotism which, at least, finally justifies its reason for existence in the first place, never mind the T&A and waggling manhood still occupying 90% of the new version’s three-hour excursion into depravity.
As a teenager, me and a few of my buddies who couldn’t get enough horror films and porn in our oversexed lives sought Caligula out amidst other forbidden fruit of the times like Pieces, Cannibal Holocaust, Don’t Go Into the Basement and Make Them Die Slowly. We were gore and sex addicts befitting of our young, dumb boy ages, and we had an “in” at our local video store back the in mid 1980s. At ages 15, we got our hands on these banned films (Caligula included, which the hardcore version had been so vilified prints were destroyed on-hand) from our 19-year-old buddy who was easily paid off in the way of pizza flavored Combos, Snickers bars and other junk food. He would slip us these foul VHS films under hard cases of more innocuous release titles. In other words, we got our hands on Caligula inside a videotape case for, of all movies–laughing out loud–The Goonies!
Thus, we were huddled into our one buddy’s basement (identity forever protected, lol) and pounding down microwave popcorn with the 1980 American release version Caligula, gawking and laughing and pointing like the pathetic nerds we were at the parade of skin and pubic hair. Thinking we were getting away with the scam of a lifetime with the simulated sex in this version, unaware there was far more to see which had been trimmed. None of us gave a damn about the story. We screamed aghast at the Roman guard who was force fed wine with his penis tied with leather and subsequently castrated when he couldn’t release his waste.
We hollered at Malcolm McDowell (already calling him a genius for his seminal performance as Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange), branding him a son of a bitch for betraying loyal captain of the guard, Macro (Guido Mannari) who killed Caesar, the Emperor Tiberius (O’Toole) to help him ascend to Roman rule. Still, we stupidly cheered at that memorable decapitation by sawblades from the moving stage. We groaned at Caligula’s ongoing, hormonal sweat for his sister, Drusilla (Savoy) while still considering the nauseatingly infantile idea of incest in-bounds for someone so hot. Of course, once Caligula got his divine schlong into his future bride, Caesonia (Mirren), things seemed as right as could for a movie as cruelly fucked up this. Then the wedding reception scene came, oy. Then the Imperial Brothel. Let’s cut it off there.
Much later in life, I was made aware a print of Caligula was circulating around 2007, claiming to have fully restored Guccione’s slimy sex scenes. Of course I watched it, at 2:00 a.m. after reviewing a Manowar (that’s a heavy metal band) DVD, coming to bed before sunup. My thoughts: One, I was no longer the teenager I was, and the film had landed overall like a wet fart with me despite the gratuitous sex added to the girl-on-girl from the 1980s print and far more to the Imperial Brothel. I thought Caligula was garbage, yet I was turned on and ashamed of myself. Again, let’s cut it off there.
Which leads us to 2024-25 and this “Ultimate Cut” edition of Caligula which purports to have trashed the original print altogether and begins anew with AI-restored dialogue and a needless new score which often sounds like soulless coldwave better served in a Resident Evil game. This version seeks to atone for some, if not all of its sins. Taming the shrew, as it were, and yet again falling miles short of being the erotic masterpiece one hipster claims it is. The sets and costumes are even more lush and vibrant in this polished remaster, while the new version claims to have recut the entire movie from thousands of segments left on the cutting room floor. You can spot some angle changes and new dynamics, and a few scenes were shifted around from the 1980 cut. As alluded earlier, some were obliterated altogether.
At my age now, I care less about the sex in this movie. I let it cross my eyes again for the explicit (pun intended) purposes of seeing what was alleged to have been sacrificed at the hands of porn-peddling Bob Guccione. Sure, there is more dialogue than actual narrative, which slows this thing down even more than it already is. The skin trade has always been camouflaging a weak sense of storytelling to this film and that sadly remains so. Worse to some effects, since it’s the sex and lurid violence drawing us to a tawdry, mean-spirited tale of comeuppance and insanity and how an exploited citizenry ultimately reacts to it.
Which parallels what we’re witnessing in the world today. Caligula elevating himself to kingship and then godhood is not only haughty and nihilistic, it becomes a reflective mirror to the imperiousness we’re facing right now. Caligula controls his Senate and the Roman public to such effortlessness he mocks his cabinet and populace as sheep. Such callous disregard for his people and constituency becomes his ultimate undoing. Becoming a paranoiac to such lengths of suspicion of assassination at every turn, his lunatic ways foster this exact outcome.
Current audile drug. Waited out for it to be gifted me at Christmas. So worth the wait. On my ninth spin. Incredible to hear how methodic and layered they still are, hailing those luxuriant textures of Disintegration that pushed The Cure onto the map.
I think back to high school and two people who wanted me to try The Cure when I was all holy rolling heavy metal. I was given a cassette taped copy of Head on the Door, to listen to and while it didn’t quite land with me then, I’d taken to the gnarly bass lines of “Screw” and the 1950s sway of the snarling “A Night Like This.” It planted future seeds to my love of alternative rock music, and funny enough, Head on the Door is my long-standing favorite Cure album.
In college, I rediscovered The Cure and it was instant glue. Something about college and 80s alternative. A cliche, maybe, but I look at it as a sign of American metal dying and that transition into adulthood. Either-or, The Cure remains a top 10 favorite band of mine and this close to perfect gem of album, Songs of a Lost World, reminds me why I finally fell in love with them.
When I was still in the music industry, I was part of a tradition that went about six or seven years at Thanksgiving. It was a small group of fellow writers and a few musicians whom we’d covered in the mags. We would all email each other a blurb or two about what we were thankful for. It was corny, sometimes hilarious and raunchy, but you know who you are and I invite any of you to resurrect a fun exercise in solidarity.
I know some put Thanksgiving under the woke firing lines. Some cringe and dread at forced time with people they don’t care to see. Some lament their losses of family, by death or division. What I do like about Thanksgiving is the reminder to find introspection within yourself and to be grateful and find value in what or whom you have in your lives.
Thus, I would say I am utterly grateful to have married the love of my life and for finding the right person who is a warrior and savvy and knows the meaning of TEAM in a partnership. I’m grateful to my son beginning to emerge into a man and for making better choices for his future. I’m grateful to having a new branch of family to replace those I lost, including my stepdaughter and stepson who inspire me by their stick-to-it-iv-ness. My longtime family, I love you, always will.
I’m grateful for all of my friends, those who have been with me forever and all the newcomers in my life, especially this year. My friend base, especially in my writer’s circle, has grown exponentially and I value each and every one of you for welcoming me into your lives and for supporting me, however that entails.
I’m grateful my writing is abundantly pouring, and while I still have ways to go, I’ve climbed quite a way up the mountain. The peak is still hazy, but I can see it, huzzah! My next project is more than a quarter written and I will hope to deliver a knockout for all of you who have believed in me.
We should all be grateful when we have the means to sustain ourselves, no matter the level of difficultness, and I have that. I remember the long, tough years and I dig for the grace to appreciate where I’m at now and with whom.
Turkey meals, football, parades, Wizard of Oz, all part and parcel to what some may consider an ordered holiday fabrication. Embrace your fortunes, not your detriments and enjoy Thanksgiving with a sense of grace and gratitude.
Thinking about all ya crazy fools from the music racket and a life that seems more distant than it really is. I’ll always cherish you with everyone else I’m thankful for.
Behind the Shadows, 10 tales of terror by yours truly is ’round the bend and Quantum Demonology author Sheila Eggenberger has this to say about it:
“Pick your shivers. Any shivers. Ghosts? Zombies? Things Unmentionable in daylight? Whatever your preferred chills, shivers and icy winds down your spine, Ray Van Horn, Jr. has you dangerously uncovered and quaking in your armchair at a steady 150 mph in his new collection of short stories, Behind the Shadows. They’re guaranteed to leave you both quaking, shaking and emphatically stirred.”
Behind the Shadows, coming late 2024 from Raw Earth Ink.
Rad nab of the week. After seeing someone else post their finding of Chuck Cirino’s synth popping “robo beat” score to the 80s schlock classic, Chopping Mall, aka Killbots, I was able to track one down myself. I’ve wanted this one all these decades. Thank ya Waxwork Records! Have a nice day, lol.
The boyo simply won’t have it with pictures these days unless it’s a serious occasion, so this will have to suffice in place of the annual back to school photos. 11th grade! How in the world is that even possible? Junior year of high school for me in 1987 was one of the finest and happiest of my entire life.
The friends, the girlfriend, Weightlifting class, which was a hugely transformative moment in my life as you may have read in my book, “Revolution Calling.” The cool teachers, the music that filled our ears, yeah, even working at Super Thrift. This is the year my writing teachers (Paul Day and Steve Hollands, I’m looking at you) saw something in me and brought out the best in me, making me read everything I wrote in front of the class. I owe those guys so much.
At the mall, at the movies, concerts, hiking trails, cruising around 140 shopping center all night until the cops chased everyone away then the whole silly swing reformed 15 minutes later. METAL! Lots and lots of heavy metal. Making out, making mischief, swapping my Van Halen cassette tape for the Spanish tutorial in Senora Kirchensteiner’s class. Three or four man mosh pits. Bridging with the punk rockers and becoming a united force. All the ladies who sought my counsel since I carried an empathetic ear. All the horror freaks like me who flooded the cinema together. God, the 80s ruled.
My kid often wishes he could visit the 80s as much as he’s content to do his own quiet thing, now working part-time himself and no doubt happy to have people his own age to talk to instead of bickering with us old farts all summer long. I look at today’s generation and try to avoid that fossil view we all tend to have looking at those who come after us, hoping they will carve out their lives and their own bittersweet memories, shaking our heads at their ongoing apathy. It’s the vicious cycle.
Bro, may you have an incredible 11th grade as you pre-enlist for your future in the Army. You’re an absolute punk, but you’re so loved. Senior year is only the corner!
Roads Lesser Traveled 