Horns

Rewatched this movie today and completely broke down, sobbing at this scene. This is taken from the script.

Dear Ig...


You'll never read  this while I'm alive.  I'm not even sure I want you  to read it after I'm dead.  I think you're gonna ask me to marry you soon.  You don't know how much I want to say yes. But I can't. The thing is, Ig, I'm very sick. The sort of cancer I have is the kind that runs in families. I saw my mother go through it... and I saw what it did to my father. If I tell you I'm sick, you're just gonna wanna marry me even more. And I'll be weak and say yes. Then you'll give up your future and be shackled to me... as I go through hell and die anyway. I won't put you through it. I love you too much.  My plan is to hurt you, just enough to push you away. And hopefully one day you can forgive me...and you will move on to someone else. You'll have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You will go for long walks in the woods. On one of these walks, when you're very old...you'll find yourself at a tree, with a house in its branches. I'll be waiting for you there.  I'll be waiting by candlelight in our treehouse... shining the light of my cross into your eyes. The first message I ever sent you. Us.

I love you, Iggy Perrish.

Your girl, Merrin.

This affected me so much that I can't even read it without crying, sobbing over my own loss, my own mistakes. The first tears I've let fall for her. So here I sit, still crying, dripping snot and blood from my nose, writing this, knowing nothing will make it hurt less, nothing will make me want to die less, nobody will read this, and, most of all, nobody will care.

The History Channel. Or what used to be the History Channel.

I used to be a fan of the History Channel, ya know, back when they actually talked about history. Nowadays, however, it seems that all they talk about is pseudo-history and Alien garbage. So I decided that, for a week, I would keep track of how many actual historical items they show, versus pseudo historical items. Now, disclaimer, I'll be basing this on title and description or what I've seen of the show before, as I think I would lose my ever-loving mind if I watched what the History Channel has become lately for an entire week. So, starting today and going until January seventh, here we go.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Midnight to 4 AM: Four full hours of American Pickers. This can have some history thrown in, but it's always as an afterthought. It's like History's answer to Antiques Road show. It can be interesting, but it's not as good as what History used to show.

4 to 7 AM: Off air; all you'll get is infomercials.

7 to 8 AM: UFO Files. Anything about aliens, I'm labeling as pseudo-history. Yes, I believe aliens exist; it's ridiculous to think otherwise. But no, I don't think they've come here to build pyramids (I will straight up punch you in the throat if you say that to me), abduct yokels to probe they butts or to mutilate cattle. Grow up.

8 AM to 4 PM: Hangar 1: The UFO Files; same as above, pseudo historical garbage.

4 to Midnight: Pawn Stars. Kind of like American Pickers, there can be some history thrown in, but I think these two shows are more suited to a channel like Discovery.

Day One final tally: 12 hours of reality shows, 3 hours of infomercials, 9 hours of UFO garbage.

 

Friday, January 2, 2015

Well, day one was disheartening, if not unexpected. Let's look at day two.

Midnight to 4 AM: More Pawn Stars. Is this History's flagship show now?

4 to 7 AM: Infomercials. Leave your credit card in your wallet; you don't need any of this.

7 AM to 1 PM: American Restoration. Great, a spin-off of Pawn Stars and it's most likely more of the same as well.

1 to 7 PM: Counting Cars; another spin off of Pawn Stars, this time focusing on cars. This is not history!

7 PM to Midnight: American Pickers.

So day two is marginally better. No pseudo-history, but nothing really relating to history either. WTF?

Day Two final tally: 21 hours of reality, 3 hours of infomercials.

 

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Day two seemed worse to me than day one, and just from a quick look at the schedule, day three is not much better.

Midnight to 4 AM: American Pickers just like day one

4 to 7 AM: Infomercials. I find it hilarious that on the schedule they're called "Info-Documentaries" as if they're actually decent programming.

7 AM to 8 PM: Ancient Aliens. This is the worst garbage ever to broadcast on a channel that was once considered a "history" channel. Everything from Chernobyl to mythological gods to the pyramids is blamed on aliens. THIS IS NOT HISTORY. IT'S PSEUDO-HISTORICAL GARBAGE.

8 PM to Midnight: Revelation: The End of Days. From what I'm seeing after just a cursory bit of Googling, this was a two-part miniseries about how the Book of Revelations could be unfolding in our own modern times. It's fictionalized; even on the history channel's description it says that "The news reports shown in this program have been fictionalized." This is something that belongs on a religious channel, not a history channel. I'd be fine with this if it were examining the allegory behind the book of revelation, talking to theology professors and such, but that's not what they're doing here; they're dramatizing it as if what is written in revelations was actually going to happen. Listen, it's not. Assuming it was indeed written by one man, it was written by a mad man two millennia ago.

Day 3 final tally: 4 hours of reality shows, 3 hours of infomercials, 13 hours of alien bs, 4 hours of religious programming.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Midnight to 4 AM: Revelation: The End of Days. Didn't torture your viewers enough Friday and Saturday, you gotta turn around and show this garbage again on Sunday? Sure, most people are asleep at this time, but that's not a free pass to show rubbish.

4 to 7 AM: Infomercials

7 to 11 AM: Modern Marvels. Finally! Some real history! This is actually a great show, detailing the construction of things we take for granted but are really marvels of modern ingenuity and design. Almost a week after I started, finally something with real history included.

11 AM to 6 PM: Big Rig Bounty Hunters; ah, another reality show. You know, I'm tempted to write off all these reality shows as ridiculous. Listen, these shows could be really cool, but I don't care; it's not historical, it doesn't belong on the History Channel. I really shouldn't have to explain the meaning of the name.

6 to 8 PM: American Pickers; yup, more of the same.

8 to 10 PM: Ax Men. This is another reality show and I'm throwing it in the same pile as Big Rig Bounty Hunters, American Pickers and Pawn Stars.

10 to 11 PM: Alaska Off-Road Warriors. Reality show

11 PM to Midnight: Pawnography. Reality show

Day Four finally tally: 4 hours of religion, 3 hours of infomercials, 4 hours of real history, 13 hours of reality

Monday, January 5, 2015

Midnight to 2 AM: Ax Men

2 to 3 AM: Alaska Off-Road Warriors

3 to 4 AM: Pawnography

4 to 6 AM: Infomercials

6 to 7 AM: THC Classroom; holy moly. I didn't think I'd find anything vaguely worthwhile during this experiment, but I finally have. This is an episode of Save Our History, an Emmy Award-winning program that was launched in 1998, ya know, back when the name History Channel meant something other than garbage. Its mission is to try and shore up history education and attempting to impress upon people how important it is to preserve history. Good for them. Shame the channel isn't still held up to the same standards today.

7 AM to 7 PM: The Universe. Hooray! More history, albeit five days late.

7 PM to Midnight: Pawn Stars

Day Five final tally: 9 hours of reality, 2 hours of infomercials, 13 hours of real history!

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Midnight to 4 AM: Pawn Stars

4 to 7 AM: Infomercials

7 AM to 6 PM: Cities of the Underworld. I keep meaning to watch this show, since it actually does look promising. This is what, the third or fourth program that actually features real history?

6 to 10 PM: The Curse of Oak Island. Yet another reality show with a little history thrown in. This show follows 2 guys from Michigan in their search for buried treasure on Oak Island. Apparently they also discuss the history of the island. Can't say for sure how informative it is, but it may be less idiotic than some of the stuff they show.

10 PM to Midnight: Pawn Stars

Day 6 final tally: 10 hours of reality, 3 hours of infomercials,  11 hours of real history

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

The Final Day; just like in Majora's Mask, I feel like those words should have been floating in front of my face when I woke up this morning. Let's dive right in.

Midnight to 2 AM: The Curse of Oak Island

2 to 4 AM: Pawn Stars

4 to 7 AM: Infomercials

7 AM to 2 PM: America's Secret Slang. This looks promising. Judging by the description on History.com, this seems to be an etymological look at the slang Americans habitually use. Interesting concept, but according to a Google search, their sources are inconsistent.

2 PM to Midnight: American Pickers.

Day 7 final tally:  14 hours of reality shows, 3 hours of infomercials, 7 hours of history.

Well that ends the week, ladies and gentlemen. 168 hours, 39 blocks of programming; of those 39, 22 blocks were reality shows, 7 blocks of infomercials, 3 blocks of alien garbage, 5 historical items and 2 religious items. Or, if we break it down by hours we have:

Reality shows: 83

Infomercials: 20

History: 35

Aliens: 22

Religion: 8

So this week was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I expected way more alien garbage, and instead I'm greeted by hour after hour of reality TV. It's not pseudo-history, but you know what, it's not real history either. Listen, to whomever runs the History Channel, your channel isn't about reality TV, hicks looking for aliens, or guys traipsing around looking for buried treasure. It's about history, American history, world history, hell even the history of the universe. Billions of years of history right there to be explored and you're spending over half of your time on reality shows. This was the first week of the year and I have to say, it's not encouraging.

A friend.

I've started dreaming about her, and it's so weird because I've not spoken to her in nearly six years. She's been occupying my mind for perhaps a week and I'm not sure why. In the back of my mind I have to blame Foreigner: while listening to Pandora Radio or maybe my MP3 player, Hot Blooded by Foreigner popped up and I started remembering how we used to duet the song while working at Pizza Hut. I always used to put the classic rock station on the radio and every time we were in the store together when that song would come on, both she and I would belt out the lyrics like nobody was looking. Quite often, if business was slow, we'd dance to it as well. Working nights with her are some of my fondest memories of working there. It's a shame her boyfriend won't let her talk to me because he feels I'm a threat. Oh well.

X-mas VS Christmas; a linguistic rant

Alright people. I've got something that I think needs to be said and I've decided to say it here. I'm going to lay some linguistic knowledge down on you guys because there's a term that gets put down every year, and I'm tired of it. Since we're now at the beginning of December, I'm already seeing people saying Xmas is derogatory, or that it's a secular attempt to take Christ out of Christmas.

To which I respond with either an eye roll or a deep, resounding cry of bullshit!, depending on where I happen to be. Listen, people have been abbreviating Christ as X for a good long time. There are references to certain abbreviations for Christ as far back as 1021, in Anglo-Saxon. Here's a little explanation. The New Testament was written in Greek, and Christ is spelled, pardon my latinization of this, Christos, which starts with the letter Chi, which looks like an X. Enterprising scribes, deciding they were writing the name Christ thousands of times while transcribing the bible abbreviated it X, or Xr (once again using latin letters). The labarum, an amalgamation of the symbols Chi and Rho, the first two letters in Christos, is still used as a religious symbol among some groups.

OK? It's not derogatory, it's not secular, it's lazy. Do I have a problem with laziness? No. To lift a line from Sherlock Holmes, I'm the most incurably lazy devil ever to stand in shoe leather. I just get so sick of seeing this same debate over and over again, every year on the internet.

Book Review: Dr Sleep, by Stephen King

Since I can't seem to work on my novel, I'll come on here and talk about someone else's.

I'll be honest: before I heard about Dr Sleep, all I knew about The Shining was from snippets of the Kubrik film. That's right, I've never seen the damned movie all the way through and after reading the book and what Stephen King thinks about it, I'm glad I haven't. That's right. I said it.

Nothing against Stanley Kubrik, but I'm of the opinion that if you're going to base your movie on a book, you should probably, oh I dunno, base the damned thing on the book. The only thing the Kubrik film takes from the book is the names of the characters and the base plot. Jack Nicholson, though a great actor, plays Jack Torrance as crazy from the get go. Of course, look at Jack Nicholson: mofo looks crazy at the best of times, I don't believe him as a good guy driven insane by alcoholism and ghosts.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, back to our regularly scheduled program.

I read The Shining in preparation for Dr Sleep and I'm glad I did, because without it, I would have been completely fucking lost. Sure, I would have understood the story; they explain enough about the shining itself and what happened to Danny and Wendy to get the point across. But just understanding the plot and point really isn't enough, especially with a King novel. One must understand the subtext, the little references and nods to other things, and there are plenty of nods to The Shining that I would have missed had I not read it.

Dr Sleep is, of course, the sequel to The Shining, and follows Danny Torrance after that fateful winter in The Overlook Hotel. Danny, when we meet him, is an alcoholic, following in his father's footsteps, with a temper to match Jack blow for blow. We see him hit rock bottom and begin the laborious climb back up with the help of AA. Danny is an orderly at a hospice and has discovered that his shining can ease the patient's passing, earning him the nickname Dr Sleep.

During the course of years over which this book takes place, Dan makes contact, at first through the shining, then email and finally in person, with a girl named Abra Stone, a girl whose talent makes Dan's look like a flashlight compared to a lighthouse. Abra has gotten on the wrong side of a group of vampire-like entities called The True Knot. The Knot feed off the essence of children with the shining, which they call steam. Abra oversees them killing a boy for his steam and eventually The Knot starts gunning for her.

I really don't want to say any more. This book is amazing, King truly at the height of his power. I bought it on Thursday and was done on the next Monday. If you're a King fan, like I am, read this book, but I do recommend reading or re-reading The Shining first. If you've just seen Kubrik's film, definitely read The Shining first.

Book Review: Joyland

Stephen King is the kind of writer I wish I was. Book after book, year after year, the man keeps truckin', no matter what. He's responsible for perhaps half of the reading material on my bookshelf right now, and was the author of the first book over 1000 pages that I ever read. I can even remember what book it was. I read the unabridged version of The Stand during the month of October during my seventh grade year.  The Dark Tower series remains one of my favorite series ever.

Now that you know where I'm coming from as a SK fan, let me get to the point of this: Joyland, the second of King's books published with Hard Case Crime, the other being The Colorado Kid, another book on my shelf. This book follows Devin Jones, most often called Dev or Jonesy, during his summer job at the amusement park called Joyland. For the most part, we follow the 21 year old through the normal new job stuff: learning where stuff is, the lingo and the technical bits of running the park. We also see him "wearing the fur", and no, I'm not going to tell you what that is. Read the book. There's a cast of colorful characters throughout the book, which every Stephen King fan expects.


I really don't want to say too much about what goes on, or this article will start to be spoiler-laden. All I will say is that it took me a little under 3 days to read the book. While it's not a beefy tome by any means, I'm surprised at how quickly it went. A very fast read, but now I'm bummed out that I've finished it. A great book for anybody who likes Stephen King, mysteries or gets off on the whole carny thing.

Vlog: The Hobbit or Why the fuck is this movie longer than the audiobook.

Words cannot describe this movie. Even my video devolves into rambling nonsense.