It’s St. Patty’s Day and having a lineage to Clan McDermott, some of the beers I’m keenest on are, naturally, Guinness, Murphy’s, Harp and Kilkenny.
Yet Smithwick’s red ale (its actual finishing palette resting somewhere between maroon and brown) remains dear to my hops-loving heart, one of my go-tos in any American Irish pub. Particularly mashed with a Guinness stout, the combo pint known as a Blacksmith. Cue the old Guinness t.v. spot: “Brilliant!”
Smithwicks has been around since 1710, originally brewed on the grounds of a Franciscan abbey, later coming together under the same brewing umbrella with Guinness in 1965. Originally manufactured in Kilkenny until 2013, it’s now brewed on Guinness turf in Dublin at St. James Gate. Ironically, Smithwicks these days is shipped internationally by the British alcohol distributor, Diageo.
Make sure you get the name right if you order one of these amber gems, lest the Irish true laugh you straight into the Atlantic. Or make good on this ad’s whimsical threat to put heat to our collective outsider arses. It’s pronounced “Smitticks,” not the way it reads, and this hysterical old pitch for the beer has such savory smarm it has me pouring my own pint as I write this.
I have friends with whom I’ve shared these glorious pints (especially on many memorable St. Patty’s pub sprees) and our glass-clinging call-to-arms was once “Up the Smitticks!” No doubt to many a private invitation around us to “feck off.” There was a time during COVID when “Smitticks” disappeared from U.S. beer retailers, making me wonder when we’d ever see it stateside again. Luckily, it wasn’t another 300 year wait for its return. I can’t imagine what we Yanks could send the Smithwick estate in gratitude, other than a plethora of IPA recipes which they already fused in 2011 for their own pale ale.
I may be driving TJ out of her skull with Godzilla shenanigans, but not only did she push me to buy this hilarious car decal, she insisted on mounting in there herself, giggling the entire time. Good wife!
Here’s a new feature at Roads Lesser Traveled, the Retro Ad of the Week.
In honor of Godzilla: Minus One’s 8 awards at the Japanese Academy Awards including Best Picture, and last night’s Oscar take home for Best Special Effects, here’s a fun flashback to 1984. This is when Toho Studios dropped its 16th Godzilla film (out of 37 total before Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire hits later this month) of the Emperor Shōwa era which ceased in 1989.
Titled in Japan as The Return of Godzilla, this was, like Minus One, an intended return to the King of the Monsters’ horror roots after casting him as a silly kaiju hero in most of the films preceding it. For its time and for the technology available, this was a pretty rockin’ outing overall, especially with its gruesome opening segments. In America, this came out a year later, recut with added footage (in the same fashion as the original 1954 Gojira) to include Raymond Burr, reprising his transcontinental reporter’s role–titled over here as Godzilla 1985, heavy sigh.
Ray, my man, my future man, my centennial man, you did it. You actually did it.
Assuming you’re still well within your cognitive capacities and you don’t need help wiping your own keister, it’s been a remarkable life. You made it, having raised someone else’s kid as your own, and look at him, the fruits of your labors, the devotion of your highest principles, no matter that awful period of time in his formative years. Look at what he’s achieved with his own life. How prouder of that boy now man can you be? Every time you hear the lines of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song,” doesn’t it automatically summon sweet memories of the kid learning it on his own and raising himself out his own ruts?
You broke hearts, you lost friends and family in the process, and yet, look at what you brought to yourself in your second marriage and the rebirth of your life. You not only gained the loyalty of your son for never giving up on him, you not only replaced what you lost trifold with new family and friends, you found the love of your life, man. Not many people are so fortunate to be able to say they’ve loved on the deepest plane a couple can share. You gave yourself–all of yourself–to TJ, and what a beautiful marriage it was! She was your partner all the way through, even at the bottom of pint glasses on that life-changing first date, closing down an Irish pub, An Poitin Stil, on a Sunday night. You both fell in love on instant, and what a life you two built together.
Look at what you achieved on your own through fitness until you couldn’t do it any longer. You devoted yourself, you bettered yourself, you discovered your flaws and weaknesses and sought to change them when you found them or others delicately shared them with you. You always lived by a code of open-mindedness to all walks of life and cultures and you tried so many life-enriching things! Your friend set was, and still is, beautifully diverse, the sign of enlightenment you preached in silence most of your life. You cultivated your body and your mind and not everything was a win, but many of it was. You had the gift of appreciating that which life and the divine gave you and you making it to 100 years? Dude, you’ve been so blessed and I know you’re sitting there, feeble you may be, ready to join the Lord and Lady, to finally hug Anubis in person and to tackle Bast and Sekhmet in their feline avatars for their continuous graces. Likewise, to thank Christ in person for being there from birth to your untold end.
You were a writer, Ray, one who sometimes doubted himself, who sometimes writhed in quiet agony when the rejections and the obtuse “California no’s” piled on. You were an A-lister heavy metal and punk rock journalist and you rubbed elbows with most of the heroes you loved in your teens. You wrote many stories, some of which were appreciated, some ignored, but you gave yourself to your craft, knowing how much it hurt writers half your age had the faster track or were simply more advanced than you at the time. You never gave in to the boiling anger. You threatened to quit, but you had a woman who believed in you and read all of your work with the courage to criticize, even when you both didn’t see eye-to-eye. You both had different views on writing, but you loved each other enough to push your brands and to get yourselves out there, even as a tag-team at signing events.
I reiterate; TJ is a love well-earned and lived. You did the right thing, for your son, for your former spouse and also for yourself, no matter the initial pain of it. It was short-lived, because TJ was sent to you within months of being on your own as you are no doubt right now. She made you rise up. She refused to let you fizzle out, even all those years ago. She revitalized you. Your wedding was a magickal fairy tale to a Bohemian princess and I know if you’re having trouble remembering details at age 100, all you need do is look at those old photos. Remember how it poured all day and yet, everyone still came to the ceremony? A Wiccan ritual with a Christian overture to it, one your guests raved over. The gods and goddesses blessed you immensely.
However long you may have from this point forward, Ray, know you touched people as you have been touched. The ancestors have been watching and waiting and are jealous of your endurance, as they cannot wait to embrace you as much as commend you. To the final end, Ray, make your remaining time worthy of a defiant Godzilla roar, because that’s who you were and have always been. Godzilla with a conscience. You’d rather people hear and see your glory instead of wreaking havoc, though you did that very thing a few times in your life. Repent your sins one last time and then forgive yourself. It’s been a good life, a worthy life.
Above all, love yourself as you did everyone who was touched by you, past and present. Your son is your greatest triumph. Your stepchildren are superb, beautiful and righteous and above all, true to themselves. Give them all your best smile as often as you can. They won’t have you forever.
Your are loved, Ray, and you did a damned fine job. The best compliment you ever got, and it was given three times, is the Yiddish phrase, “mensch.” You knew the magnitude and the responsibility that comes with. Never forget it to your final breath.
I love you, old man. You nailed this whole life thing to the sheets.
It’s been ten years now since I wrote this reflection piece for a different blog I no longer use and it’s amazing to see how much changed in my life since then. However, I will never, ever forget my attempt to blaze my own path while writing in the music and film industry. The time I boldly and I admit naively, tried my hand at launching my own digital ‘zine dedicated to metal, punk, hard rock and horror, Retaliate. Minus a few contributions or press agent-provided photos, I did it all. Interviews, live concert photography, media reviews, layouts. I nearly drove myself into the ground trying to make it happen, but I also felt so alive doing it. I had such tremendous support from the industry and first issue guest list unheard of for a DIY publication. Here is that old piece I wrote about it with a few touch-ups:
Taking on a major project by yourself takes guts. It also takes a lot more from you and out of you, as I learned when I attempted to launch my own digital magazine, Retaliate, in 2010.
I’d spent the previous seven years knocking myself out working my way up through the tiers of music and film journalism and I’d been writing simultaneously for numerous magazines and websites. At one point, I was writing for 13 different publications including two monthly columns. With the transition in media toward the digital age, however, I found myself, along with my colleagues, dropped to the bricks as the trad print mags were sadly folding, one-by-one.
Ray Van “Pinhead” – Promotional Photo for Retaliate Magazine
It was a very difficult and upsetting thing for me to digest since one, a lot of my secondary income was tied into my freelancing work for those rags, especially once I’d become a new father when we adopted my little guy (current editorial, the little guy is now 16!). I’d already learned to fight for work, having been downsized from the mortgage title industry on numerous occasions since the rollercoaster nature of that business dictates employment, naturally. (Still does and I’m still in it, my 27th year now)
Nonetheless, as I found myself being courted by loads of websites who couldn’t afford to pay me, I nearly bowed out of media journalism, since my attempts to coax the editors of the few remaining big dog mags and newspapers were met with frustration. So too was the fate of many of my peers, since those periodicals still hanging on were well-fortified with staffers and freelancers already.
As I turned to beat reporting for a local newspaper and also some field data collection for Patch.com, I got the idea that maybe I should take on the digital realm and begin my own venture. I had all the industry contacts I needed to get launched, so why the hell not?
Wolf Hoffmann, Accept – photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
To this day, I still thank every publicist and record label who got on board with me when I proposed to launch Retaliate, a digital magazine focused on heavy metal, punk rock, hard and classic rock and horror films. By now, it’s been proven that horror and heavy music are natural bed partners, which I’ve said since the Eighties. It was a winning concept my industry friends and my guests all believed in and it why I gained so much freelancing work. That, and I was well-versed in other genres and I was routinely complimented for one, knowing when something is off-the-record and two, for creative, outside-the-box questions which almost always got my guests rolling.
Laughing out loud, I deemed myself Editor-in-Chief of Retaliate and recalling my time as Assistant Editor on my college newspaper, Spectrum, I used my old layout techniques and learned to apply them in a digital format. Just this part of the process took a bit of time to refine before I began the months-intensive succession in assembling my debut issue.
Wearing multiple hats, I took on every aspect in making Retaliate a reality. I booked and conducted every interview. I fielded the music reviews. I did the live photography and used supplemental press photos from the labels. I laid it all out and banged my head against my desk when the pages wouldn’t merge in succession, then rejoiced when they finally did. Outside of the cover fonts and logo, which I owe to my dear friend from Denmark, Sheila Eggenberger, everything was done my me. I sometimes bounced my son on my knee while I edited my articles and told him I was going to do something big for our family.
I tried, anyway.
Jacoby Shaddix, Papa Roach – photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
Desperate for mass release because I knew I had a winner on my hands, I engaged a partner, who was going to handle online production and distribution. By the time I was ready to release Retaliate # 1 with a test price of $2.50 per download (wow, $2.50 back then!), I was already finding hints of gray on my head. Nonetheless, I’d assembled a hell of a guest list for Retaliate #1: Marky Ramone, Dave Lombardo from Slayer, Jacoby Shaddix from Papa Roach, Stevie Benton from Drowning Pool, Richard Patrick of Filter, Chris Adler from Lamb of God, Wolf Hoffmann of Accept, Jim Gustafson of Poobah, former Overkill drummer Rat Skates, Nick Cantanese, formerly of Black Label Society, Steve Von Till of Neurosis, Alexx Calisse and others. I had esteemed horror directors Mick Garris and Adam Green on board for my “Van of the Dead” horror section. It was gold.
Marky Ramone article, Retaliate # 1 – words by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
I took to the pre-launch campaign trail and staged some goofy publicity photos with me pimping Retaliate. One has me standing amidst a flurry of political candidate placards with my own, hyping “RETALIATE FOR READERSHIP.” Another one has me dressed up as Pinhead from Hellraiser hitchhiking along an interstate with a sign stating “RETALIATE OR BUST.” These photos were sent to all of my press contacts, and I was offered PR services from a few firms out there. I wanted to get the first issue running and then take them up on it to implement my marketing plan. Money, yeah, well, that was an issue. DIY stayed DIY in that regard, sadly.
Stevie Benton of Drowning Pool article, Retaliate # 1 – words and photos by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
I’d spent many months hitting concerts to gather my live photos, going backstage for interviews and taking phone calls at ungodly hours to conduct chats with those whom I couldn’t connect with on the road. I was giddy beyond words through the whole thing, though, most especially when Marky Ramone and I kept playing phone tag with bad connections on our cells. I hightailed it back to my work office at the time and begged the use of their phone to get it done with Marky. As a Ramones freak, it was one of the most gratifying interviews I’ve ever done.
The other “Frozen” by horror director Adam Green
I could spend the rest of this post gabbing about the wonderful interviews I had for Retaliate # 1. I won’t forget Adam Green getting on a roll about the production of his brutal horror film, Frozen (this being well before Disney’s more famous and kid-friendly film of the same name), and him generously asking me if he could call back because he had plenty more to talk about. He kept his word and he told me some terrifying things about the handling of the wolves in his film.
On the nuttier side of things, my interview with Dave Lombardo was completely insane as I waited for my liaison to come get me, which was pretty danged long. I was scheduled to photograph Slayer and Anthrax’s sets at the Baltimore Arena and by the time I was finally brought back to Lombardo on Slayer’s bus, I was given five minutes. We did a lightning round that I think left both us dizzy afterwards. Dave’s a gentleman, and I’m sorry to see what’s happened in the Slayer camp, since I’ve also had an amazing chat with Tom Araya in the past.
Horror director Mick Garris at the time of the Masters of Horror anthology series for Showtime
I’ll never forget seeing the late Jeff Hanneman lounging on Slayer’s bus and jamming to Zeppelin with a hundred lit candles around him. We said hello to each other in passing and that still strikes me today well after Jeff passed. Afterwards, I had to blitz and navigate my way from the loading docks to the rear of the stage in the arena and bolt into the photo pit as Anthrax began their set. It’s something you can’t necessarily put into words, but it was a huge rush, disorganized as that night ended up being, but that’s rock ‘n roll for you.
Running into Stevie Benton of Drowning Pool a week after we’d interviewed in the photo pit of Godsmack was a kick and Stevie was cool enough to selfie with me in the pit before Godsmack’s tour manager tossed us both out, of all things. My pass was missing the band’s mark for photos, okay, my bad, fair’s fair. Treating the opening band like that, however? Breh.
I’d done phoners with Benton, Jacoby Shaddix of Papa Roach and Adam Green back-to-back in one shot, another chaotic but wonderful night of the Retaliate cycle.
Angela Gossow, former vocalist of Arch Enemy – photo by Ray Van Horn, Jr.
And then reality struck.
As I was ready to hand over my work to my partner upon execution of a formal business agreement, the guy flaked out on me. No response, no further communication. I had to find out from a mutual friend he’d blown our little enterprise off despite his enthusiasm by my progress. In scrambling mode, I found another party who expressed interest but once again, those overtures fizzled out. I attempted to pitch on Kickstarter and was shot down. I then opened ties with one of my guests and we nearly got it off the ground together, but his prior commitments took precedence and by that time, my material was in danger of being too old to be marketable. Besides, the true reality of things is that nobody wants to pay for what they get for free everywhere else on the web, regardless of product quality.
With gnashed teeth and a heavy heart, I decided to throw the pages of Retaliate onto my site, The Metal Minute for free. I’d won an award from Metal Hammer at that blog, so it made sense, particularly as a commitment to everyone who participated in my endeavor.
To be honest, the entire experience ragged me out and I was in the throes of fatherhood anyway. Thus I pulled the plug on Retaliate, even as I received a nice outpouring of support from the industry. I’d had high hopes, as the song goes, but it takes more than a mere man these days to accomplish anything of significance. Retaliate was and still is my baby and I look at those pages with tremendous pride and gratitude toward the musicians, directors, publicists and labels who gave me their time. I thank them all for the crazy adventure that was Retaliate.
At least it was an indirect path through publicist friends who’d helped me here, then threw my name in the hat leading to my six-year stint writing for Blabbermouth. Boom.
I often think about the many musicians I interviewed through 16 years in the industry since many obliged me insight into their creative process. In particular the beginning of a new long-term project and all the swimming ideas shoving out, wanting to be expressed. It all seems like manna, instant classic stuff until you have more ideas cramming their way.
Or you get a preview of what your peers are doing and it becomes a red alert to make sure you’re not mimicking them in your original concept that seems alarmingly similar. Then you spend a good part of a weekend watching films and videos relative to your genre (Midsommar, Hereditary and Shin Godzilla) and you read books a couple hours each day.
Your first draft chapter becomes a second, then a third. In my case, a sixth rewrite of the first chapter of my newest project that finally seems to serve the purpose of the story’s grand design. This knowing the grand design is likewise subject to change.
At least Chapter 2 is nearly done in the company of John Carpenter and Dario Argento scores plus the hits of soul legends The Fifth Dimension (I’m just wired this way) and so far, it feeds off the new material in the way I see it logically flowing.
Like take after take of a song, subject to revision and new arrangements, maybe a bridge that sparkles better and ushers the next verse in champion form.
Roads Lesser Traveled 