What compels you more to say yes or no…

the heart

the spirit

the mind

adventurism

pragmatism

fear

respect

trespass

concrete evidence

uncertain variables

an unchecked bucket list

a triple-dog-dare-you

past experience

a raw edge

a gambler’s will

blind faith in the unknown

convservatism

a smile of reassurance

a lack of trust

the implied threat of having missed out

whether goodbye and hello holds significance

or if a seemingly endless road knows no bounds

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

So this post got all inspired by a gnarly piece my new friend Maryanne Christiana-Mistretto wrote on a New Jersey-based gent named Jonathan Rossi who custom builds Star Wars lightsabers, even drawing A-lister clientele like Jack Black and Post Malone. Have a read at this link:

How one man created an empire living out his childhood dreams

After reading Maryanne’s article, I got to staring at my vintage 1978 Death Star playset sitting like a trophy next to my desk and I poked around my original Star Wars action figures, still safely tucked into another relic from the day, an original figure carrying case. Not the famous Darth Vader helmet case, but a standard two tray carrying case with a Star Wars diorama plastered across the front. My mom got it for me that glorious year in 1977 when the original film came out, and it came loaded with the original line of action figures she’d meticulously collected for me. Still there today. Moms just rule that way.

Looking at my old Hammerhead and Bossk figures still in prime condition, I got to thinking about grossly forgotten Star Wars characters over the years, and by God, there are a ton! How can anyone who is not actually writing about Star Wars possibly keep up with every single, solitary character in the universe? Old school Star Wars fans stuck in the original trilogy only will nod with glee at the name R5D4, as in the rustbucket, dome-blowing astromech droid, an ugly kissing cousin to everyone’s favorite bucket ‘bot, R2D2. As it turns out, blown motivators notwithstanding, R5D4 got his comeuppance in the third season of The Mandolorian on Disney Plus.

Now, you have to really be into Star Wars to know who Doctor Aphra is, a runaway sensation brewed up by Marvel Comics for one of their many offshoot series in a galaxy far, far away. With nine feature films strung together as “The Skywalker Saga,” that’s more than enough brain pain trying to keep up with everyone getting screen time, especially with each third done in and speaking to a different generation each.

Add the Solo and Rogue One cinema tie-ins, the Clone Wars, Rebels, Bad Batch CGI series, all of the Disney Plus shows…you’re in it to win it in the name of The Force, or you’re tapping out. Need I mention the countless Star Wars spinoff novels and comics over the same 46 year course of the institution? I’m looking at my first print run of Splinter of the Mind’s Eye from 1978 by Alan Dean Foster and am preparing to read Shadow of the Sith by Adam Christopher and Thrawn Ascendancy: Lesser Evil by Timothy Zahn, widely considered the master Jedi of Star Wars novels. This after recently finishing Mike Chen’s early years tale of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Brotherhood.

You get my point and if you’ve gotten to this point in my post, thank you. I’ll get the point of this whole exercise right now.

All these characters in a cosmos so grand it’s a wonder that other “Star” enterprise (cough cough, sorry, I’ll see my way out after that one) hasn’t collided on Kashyyk or Vulcan. It’s easy to forget so many names, yet for their creators, the actors or voices, it’s no doubt very personal to them. Captain Raymus Antilles, here’s to you, brother, for being the first of many on Darth Vader’s onscreen kill count. Finis Valorum, well, you botched it all up being played like a chump by Emperor Palpatine, forever turning the tide of the entire storyline. Someone forgot to kneel before Zod, since the illustrious Terrence Stamp delivers a pivotal, if tiny blip in the Star Wars mythos.

For me, the prime “forgotten” Star Wars character of all-time has to be Kit mother-flippin’ Fisto!

This is one of the elite Jedi Masters who had a seat on the daggone council on Coruscant, this before some “chosen one” elitist with the dumb nickname “Ani” allowed himself to be pawned into a murderous machine of mayhem. Order 66, shudder…

Kit Fisto is that squid-head of supreme badassness George Lucas struck gold with, but like Darth Maul, one of the entire saga’s greatest villains, Fisto was introduced, allowed to shine in spurts, then…poof…gone in a foiled attempt to bring the Chancellor, I mean the Emperor, the darkest of the Sith incognito, to justice. George, we love you, but goddamn.

Introduced in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and dispatched in the subsequent film, Kit Fisto became a quiet icon amongst children and old schoolers from 2002 to 2005. A part of the amphibian Nautolan species, I tended to consider Kit a green-skinned rasta of the blade who might have a galactic tweak of Peter Tosh spooling inside his Force-addled mind. Fierce, quick, and there’s that ridiculously cool smile. I’m saying it again. Kit mother-flippin’ Fisto!

Back then, Kit Fisto was hot merchandise. His action figure sold out routinely, and once future generations caught on, Kit became a cult hero yet again. Almost all of these youngsters started their Star Wars journey with the prequels and following in chronological order versus us dinosaurs who were there first to see chapters four through six in a state of confusion as to Lucas’ master plan.

I should know, since my own son became a monster Kit Fisto fan, along with Mace Windu. I mean, the kid has great taste, of course. The aches and pains of trying to find the kid a Kit Fisto back then, oy… Then once he got into Legos, the quest began all over again to amass a block styled Star Wars universe. Yes, I joined the kid in brick building, and yes, it took me another bit of hunting to find a Lego Kit Fisto. God, the memories of all those dinky plastic lightsabers and trying in vain to keep them all with their respective Lego Sith or Jedi.

Kit Fisto may have been criminally underused in the prequel films, but his legend only grew in animated form. One might say The Clone Wars shows did nearly as much for Kit’s legacy as Ahsoka Tano, who gets her own spinoff show on Disney Plus starting next week. Yeah, you know, Ahsoka mother-flippin’ Tano!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

No doubt a familiar sight to anyone who lives in or has spent a great deal of time around economically depressed city regions. It’s a post-apocalyptic hellhole reminiscent of The Walking Dead or the Dying Light zombie games.

Yet the disease is not a fictitious bacteria outbreak. This form of urban decay comes from impoverished conditions, age, neglect, fires that were either accidentally or purposefully tripped, lack of money for proper upkeep or crime. Or a dreadful combination of them.

Often the title ownership to left-for-dead rowhomes like these in Baltimore City are transferred so frequently like a hot potato it gives the real estate phrase “flipping” (as in turning around an investment property in quick succession to another buyer soon after an initial purchase) a bad name. Especially when no money gets put into the investment property, resold at a marginal profit “as is.”

Every time I see one of those “flip that house” shows on t.v., it reminds me of a time when the business act was once illegal in the state of Maryland. Not that it stopped seedy investors and cash-grab title companies. This is the business I work in by day, 27 years’ worth. I’ve seen it all and continue to do so even today. It’s a trade not for the weak.

Imagine trying to parkour across caved in or in many cases as you see here, thoroughly wiped-out rooftops. In the few cases of city rowhomes which have benefited from upkeep, being forced to co-exist with ramshackle garbage which may or may not have been properly deemed as condemned has forced, along with Baltimore’s insane crime rate, many folks to move out in a mass exodus. This has forced a lot strain on the city’s suburbs.

Then again, we have seen a large uptick in city rehab investors buying these decades-old properties on the low end and many of them actually doing the right thing, sinking proper uplift funding through time-spread rehab escrows. Taking the time to reinvest, remodel, apply for the appropriate use and occupancy permits, turning junk into jewelry. While I’ve seen rise and demise after rise and demise inside the standard residential mortgage industry (a cyclical business from which I’ve both thrived and been downsized too many times), right now hard money lenders and privatized funding operations are giving life to a prolonged hard season inside the industry.

Perchance to dream rotten core shells like this seldom few venture into may yet again have a chance to breathe…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

When I think about my 16 years spent as a music journalist, I think of all the free media I was sent for review and how I once had an entire basement office to store it all in. That can save for another post in the immediate future.

Over the course of the past few years with new changes and integrating my life with my future bride’s, we have both had to scale back, purge and lock away in storage until we feel right with locking down a permanent nest to call our own.

While it’s been a breath of fresh air on our recent move having only 5 boxes of media to haul versus 26 in moves from years past, what aches me more than anything I’ve let go is eliminating my hard copy CDs and vinyl records to a couple rows of the crucial essentials. I stored all the music on a USB hard drive, so it’s not a full loss, though a portion of who I am and was just doesn’t feel the same when I think about how much time was spent covering music and dropping a fortune at music shops that were my second homes.

I once had nearly 4,000 CDs and 300 pieces of vinyl, nearly half of it free. What you see here is what remains of my vinyl, with the addition of a gifted vinyl platter from former Voivod bassist Jean-Yves “Blacky” Theriault for his side project, Twin Adventure.

The Ramones saved my soul and my life in my late teens, and nothing makes me smile more than knowing I’d saved them in return, hypothetically-speaking. Blitzkrieg ’76 is one of my biggest music treasures, a rare, live bootleg recording done on my sixth birthday in 1976. It’s a brisk-moving time capsule of the Ramones at their beginning, in their fastest and rawest three chord measures.

Keeping in the theme of birthdays, an old friend of mine, Bob, once gave me a UK pressing of British hardcore punk legends The Exploited’s Troops of Tomorrow. I’d always pick this slab up in one of our old music store haunts, Music Machine, always wanting it, but never shelling out for it. I’d come home to find this album on my parents’ doorstep, the scrawled birthday message over top a second plastic jacket sleeve. I think it was my 18th or 19th birthday.

I doubt my son will see the significance in either of these gems whenever I pass, but I do hope he can see the value I place on them as remnants of a painful purging process.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

We’re hours away from heading out to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and it’s been a hot run of films we’ve seen at the local Cinemark in succession this year: John Wick 4, Evil Dead Rise, Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Multiverse. This time we’re going as a full pack, and I have a good feeling the final Indy romp will fall in the middle of the best-of list for this beloved franchise. I can still see myself and my parents in complete awe of Raiders of the Lost Ark back when it first came out in 1981. Just an experience amongst many that will live on in my memories as epic.

Last night I pulled up the Eminem semi autobiography 8 Mile, which I haven’t seen in ages and I’m happy still stands the test of time. My son and I were watching a round of Childish Gambino videos on YouTube when I decided to pull up 8 Mile for my rap-addicted kid. He only poked in and out while I watched, but he’d wanted to know if I considered the film in my top 50 films of all-time. “Kid,” I said, “not even close. Do you know how many films I’ve seen in five decades of life? 8 Mile is a really good flick, though, and Eminem (aka “Rabbit”) gets the mother of all lyrical get backs. I recommend you take the time to watch it all the way.” The fact I was up late and wide awake on a Friday night had impressed my kid to the point he’d figured 8 Mile had to be something special that I hadn’t nodded off in the middle of it.

“Well, Dad,” he said after that, “what would be your all-time favorite movies? Top 10, no 25.”

Hence, after telling him to let me sleep on it after I finished 8 Mile at 1:20 a.m., I got to thinking, especially after he and TJ, who know me best, automatically figured on Blade Runner 2049 as my top pick. Aside from the original Star Wars trilogy, there is no movie filmed I haven’t watched more than this masterpiece sequel to a masterpiece of dystopian sci-fi. Both Blade Runner films and their respective ambient synth scores are my therapy, 2049 especially. I watched 2049 a ton of times during a long, difficult stretch for me; it’s in my DNA at this point. Would that I could’ve included BR49 director Denis Villanueve’s first installment of Dune in this list, it’s become an instant classic for me. TJ and I are licking our chops for the second installment of Dune this summer.

Now my list here will have some of the obvious hitters from any respected all-time greats of cinema list. Some you may not know or even just go to yourself, hmmm, interesting choice. I’m missing decades worth of classics and greats, but that doesn’t mean I’ve shunned them or consider them lesser that my listed movies. Those who know me will be shocked not to find any superhero movies on this list, though I am a geek for them as much as comic books. Superman II, Spider-Man 2, Black Panther, V is for Vendetta, The Dark Knight, Batman (1989) and Captain America: Civil War representing my upper echelon in that genre. It just means the list I’ve compiled here is in answer to my son, who wants to know what makes his old man tick and what movies resonated more than others. Some having me dash to the laptop with inspiration to write. So here you go, boyo. It wasn’t easy.

1. Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

2. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

3. Blade Runner 2049

4. Fast Times at Ridgemont High

5. Halloween (1978)

6. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

7. Blade Runner

8. American Beauty

9. A Clockwork Orange

10. The Shining (1981)

11. The Virgin Suicides

12. Alien

13. The Breakfast Club

14. Citizen Kane

15. Raiders of the Lost Ark

16. Ex Machina

17. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

18. A Fistful of Dollars

19. Nosferatu (1922)

20. Spartacus (1960)

21. Purple Rain

22. Boogie Nights

23. Get Out

24. The Revenant

25. Lust/Caution

And My Top 5 Crap Classic Guilty Pleasures:

1. Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers

2. Halloween III: Season of the Witch

3. Trick or Treat (1986)

4. Krull

5. Graduation Day

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

If you were around during the 1970s, you no doubt remember the trashterpiece schlock that was The Gong Show.

The halcyon (if such a term could ever apply this case) first run syndication of The Gong Show (it’s been done in three different eras) spanned the summers of 1976 and 1978 at an insane time slot of 12:30 p.m. EST on weekdays. Unfathomably wedged “almost live” between your local afternoon news and network soap operas before it was scooched over to a later time at 4:00 p.m. until its cancelation in 1980, The Gong Show was an oddity of can’t miss crap t.v.

I was addicted to the outrageous lunacy of The Gong Show as a child crossing into the preteen bracket and it’s been a hoot playing some of the old episodes of late on the elliptical machine when I have the gym all to myself. A friend of mine recently tagged me at social media with a reminder of why I loved this idiot savant show carrying more chutzpah than any show of its ilk. Need I go there with the infamous Popsicle Twins?

The Gong Show was a staged “amateur talent” show which gave contestants (some legit, some obviously culled from the deepest dreck lurking in a Burbank sewer) the opportunity to win over a panel of three celebrity judges, lest they suffer the indignation of pure suckdom by being “gonged” for a poor or purposefully obnoxious performance. If you made your time without getting tolled by the gong, the judges would drop you a score between 0 and 10, critique coming more in the vein of roasts than actual evaluation. Even Mad magazine couldn’t even hold a candle to some of the outlandish farce delivered by The Gong Show.

To think of mouth commotion maestro Michael Winslow of the Police Academy movies actually getting rung up by the gong panel (usually governed by the flamboyant Rip Taylor, M.A.S.H.‘s Jamie Farr and sexpot Jaye P. Morgan), while slaphappy host Chuck Barris slung his barroom one-liners beneath one flappity hat after another, pretend-chastising his “judges” for victimizing acts with the clanging equivalent of a raspberry… Ironic in the case of Winslow, of course. Other legit talent who came through The Gong Show, either with points or a clang of shame, were Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Herman), Bozo the Clown and Boxcar Willie, plus Danny Elfman and a riotous, lunatic, early incarnation of new wave-punk legends, Oingo Boingo. The latter (calling themselves on the show The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo) with Elfman encased in a smoke-spewing rocket and a costumed dragon) racking up a score of 24 and bringing a friendly indictment from judge Shari Lewis as needing a “vaccine against weirdness.” Look it up, you’ll never look at Elfman the same. Or maybe it’ll explain everything that came thereafter in his illustrious career.

Barris would already be ushering the next stage act, seemingly drunk off his ass (but claiming to never allow substances on the show), dropping a signature clap behind each sentence (which the studio audience would eventually pick up with him), but more often than not, the next sacrificial lamb act was often irrelevant, since you could feel it brewing…

If it wasn’t the paper bag-domed Unknown Comic crashing the show with the corniest drag of any decade, one look on Barris’ face tipped you off. Ol’ Chucky Boy would be feigning surprise as Milton DeLugg’s orchestra began its familiar piano and bass strikes of Count Basie’s “Jumpin’ at the Woodside.” You knew within a single bar, sometimes interrupting Chuck Barris’ trademark promise of being back with more stuff, it could only mean one man…

Gene Gene the Dancing Machine!!!

Full name Eugene Sidney Patton, Sr., Gene Gene the Dancing Machine became a beloved, heavyset icon of buffoonery, shticking and shuffling his way onstage, his ankles jiving, hips gyrating. It was minimal and hokey, like an afternoon of pimpish ass-clowning at Count Basie’s expense, since Milton DeLugg’s band would always transition into “One o’clock Jump,” as if Basie himself was conducting the whole thing. If only Basie could’ve seen what hell he’d wrought…

Patton, the first African American member of the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees, was more than a Gong Show stagehand. Barris utilized all of his stage crew along with his ensembles in bit moments and various tomfoolery. None more hilarious and joyous than Gene Gene’s fellow hands tossing trash and flotsam at him while he shucked and moved, tossed one hand in the air while all but giving his crank a, well, crank…

Audiences ate the whole thing up. It was to the point the only thing better than seeing an all-gonged no winner episode (victors came away with a check for five hundred-plus and a golden gong trophy) was an appearance from Gene Gene the Dancing Machine.

Sadly, Gene Patton later in life suffered debilitating effects from diabetes, losing the usage of both legs before his passing in 2015. Awful to think of a man in his floppy street duds bringing a mixed race studio audience to its feet, Chuck Barris to maniacal dancing of his own and an orgy of mayhem from the judges. Looking at you and your pulled-out ta-tas, Jaye P… It’s true. There’s an uncensored Gene Gene clip you can dig up where she actually unbuttons and pops ’em. How the network censors got through that was no doubt a sweatier sweating bullets session than those two teen girls doing obscene things to ice pops in front of a televised audience.

Like The Gong Show itself, a lost gem of its place and time…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

So I’ve been a bit incognito of late as we have completed our move and life now reboots in new digs. Downsized, but with a far more controlled environment. While everything’s still brand new, thus far, everyone, including our kitties, has felt a sense of calm we haven’t enjoyed in more than a year.

Being broken into three times and robbed was at the forefront of our decision to relocate. That, plus a four-level townhouse nobody really felt at home in with its awkward spacing and climate control issues. Really, the only thing I will miss is my office and direct access to trails TJ and I hiked and I trained for Spartan and DEKA events on. I now share an office with my bride-to-be and we’ve made it work. Our mutual creative space will flourish with our combined energies and auras, so mote it be.

Sometimes you do what’s not only best, but what’s right, the primary reason being for my son who needed a safer community with which to grow. With luck and persistence, we hope to see him reach his goals as much as our own. As my Mom, a diehard Baltimore Ravens fan, has always said, sometimes you’ve gotta step back and punt.

So punt we have, and both TJ and I are ready to resume our writing and creative missions to reclaim what has been lost through a year of turbulence. Our sparks have been restoked and I was invited to submit stories at two magazines. Fingers crossed for good fortune on those submissions, while TJ plows forward with an oracle card deck as companion to her book, The Healthy Witch.

Our view outside has been rather spectacular, considering TJ gave me a telescope last Christmas. Fact, I will be putting it to great use in the upcoming months. If you look close enough below, you can see Venus and part of the Little Dipper constellation. We sighed in unison last night beneath the stars, sipping on Jameson in celebration from a bottle I held until our move was completed. We ground out our move and set up the new place in two weeks, the finest display of our partnership. Sometimes the best sips are those hardest earned.

Thank you all for your support of this blog. I will be seeing you all at your hubs once again…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

This one’s for all my fellow coffee hounds out there, you know who you are.

I’m nearly as much of a java connoisseur as I am with beer and bourbon. While I have to wait a bit longer for my underaged son to imbibe the good life with me, we have opened up a shared love of coffee. Hawaiian Kona is my absolute favorite coffee in the world. Then there’s the genius level brews served chain style at Peet’s and First Watch and so many independent coffeehouses I’ve pulled from the brim around the country. Sure, I love me some Dunkin’ and an untainted Venti size Pike’s Roast at Starbucks. A pair of hippies I once knew used to make the most bangin’ organic nutty-flavored coffee they called Mother Earth, and I rue the day they went out of business.

I have family in the UK and they send over the British-built Hot Lava Java. While the English are the inarguable masters of tea, Hot Lava Java is an absolute shock and joy. One day I hope to sip on tea and HLJ in Yorkshire and the northern UK while scouting for Midsomer Murders film locations. A favorite pastime TJ and I have is pulling on some PG Tips while seeing which of us can beat Chief Inspector Barnaby to the punch to solve those daffy mysteries.

You all know I used to haunt local open mike forums in Maryland and Pennsylvania-based coffeehouses and lovingly joke how I and my fellow poets and authors dueled the hissing espresso machines to be heard, much to the chagrin of customers less than supportive of the arts. Only to take down cinnamon or hazelnut espresso myself during the breaks at open mike. Like my beers, the darker and richer the blend, the better, though I can get still down with the cheapies like Bustelo and Eight O’Clock. Suffice it to say, I love my hot beverages.

My son has watched me over the course of his 15 years pounding coffee, though nowhere near the same zealousness as my stepfather, who can drink two pots of the stuff a day. I think coffee is the secret to his success at a tank-rolling 80 years old. Naturally, the boyo grew curiouser and curiouser about coffee over the years to the point he is now refining his own taste buds. If we can get him off the cream and sugar, he’ll have an entire world of taste unravel across his tongue. I’ve had to go slow with the kid over the course of the past couple years he’s been wanting the stuff, but wherever he lands in his adult life, I’m more than certain he’ll be a coffee hound like the rest of us.

It’s been out a while, and I had a cup a few years ago to much delight, but in case you haven’t heard, there’s this little coffee company blowing raspberries at the industry, claiming to be “rebellious by nature.” They boast to have “coffee that slaps,” and they’re not far off in having the right. I’m talking about Death Wish Coffee Company, “ruining other coffee since 2012.”

Serving bagged organic coffee in four blends, medium, dark, espresso and Valhalla Java, Death Wish Coffee drops 728 mg of caffeine per 12 ounces upon its consumers. It’s not one to take down the entire day, no matter how acclimated your body may be to caffeine. A Rockstar energy drink may be more fashionable and profitable to the high octane generation coming up, but Death Wish is pure refinement of the coffee bean as it is a sock across the tongue.

They’re also expensive at $19.99 per 16 ounce sack, which makes Death Wish Coffee a road lesser traveled in my house, given our tight budget and an upcoming wedding to save for. I got the dark blend this weekend courtesy of a major 3 day only sale on the stuff, so my kid could give it a whirl. I already knew what to expect, and maybe it’s a tad irresponsible, but the boy has needed me even more as a dad lately, and it gave me a quiet snicker to see his face light up with an emphatic nod of approval to Death Wish. Even more hilarious when one of our cats nosed around my cup and jerked his head back, paws lifted up before trotting off with a bipolar feline review. Enjoy it while we have it, kid. We go back to the basic brews when it’s all gone.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Along came something outrageous from those magnificent bastards at Yards Brewery in Philadelphia, mashing their Philthy IPA formula with a peach puree. After a long disdain for IPA, I am slowly coming along to them as American breweries keep tinkering and smoothing out the bitterness. This includes Yards’ deliciously hazy Level Up, but yo, the Philthy Peach? Talk about smooth. As you can see, even the gods and goddesses want in on this action, literally knocking me upside the head for a change-up from stouts, porters and bocks for their offering…

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.