Review, Not Askew

So second week on this as I search for lightning in a bottle.


First, what I intended to do with this blog, I still wish to do.  I like to comment on movies, television, music, books, and sports.  Sometimes I tend to loose the ability to rationalize and sound like a baby so I should have gotten a better grip on reality.  I hope a few of you can give me a good reality check. 


Now it's more supporting those who I am meeting on twitter and the plethora of literature, art, and music that can be found that not many people know.  That being said, I hope to get Kindle in the next couple of weeks so it can be easier for me to buy books and read them without breaking my checking account.


Second, this blog is about reviewing, and those few reviewers who I follow, and believe me it's like rule 34 but for reviewing.  If it exists as in pop culture, there's a reviewer for it.


A couple of years ago I supported a friend of mine who was trying to get with the website "That Guy With the Glasses" who has loads of pop culture reviewers.  Nash, @Nash076, was eventually accepted and now is a premier member of the site with his "WTFIWWY" segments and his weekly "Radio Dead Air" webcasts.


There's also the Nostalgia Critic, who started it all.  Linkara, @Linkara19, reviewer of horrible comics.  Film Brain, @FB_BMB, who "dissects" films apart.  Obscurus Lupa, @Obsurus_Lupa, who reviews the really cheesy, bad acting films that are so terrible they're funny and just begged to be mocked.  Todd in the Shadows, @ShadowTodd, reviews pop songs and actually plays them, sometimes better than the song itself.  Also, Diamanda Hagan, @Diamandahagan, is another reviewer I tend to enjoy.  This reviewer is more of the guilty pleasure type.


Another reviewer who is not a part of TGWTG is Derek the Bard, @derekthebard, who does his Chasing the Muse reviews. (http://blip.tv/chasingthemuse).  He's done a lot of reviews of cartoons and shows that I grew up with and also enjoyed while in college.  (I'm pretty old guys)  I encourage you all to give these folks a try, especially Derek and Nash.... not just because I've known them, but because they are pretty entertaining.


And lastly, the list of writers on my twitter is getting larger so my reading list is going to get huge as well as the blogs I follow.  Gonna be hard but I hope rewarding too.  Keeping myself busy is a good thing.


TTFN

You'd Think It was a Sabbatical

It's been long.  It's been four years.  But the reason for the huge layoff is obvious from past posts (some that I deleted).  This blog became "Wah wah waaaaah.  Me me me."


That's not what a blog should be about.


Lately I applied for a residency on Amtrak.  I sure a few of you have seen this either through facebook or twitter.  The problem was in order to apply for a residency I had to create a twitter account.  While naturally I was against create such a thing I couldn't even turn in an application without said account.  So I created one, reluctantly, and let it sit.


Obviously that didn't last long as I started to gain "followers" who I in turn "followed" back.  There is one big thing I have found out about twitter and that is to create a sort of "community" of professionals who can somehow support you and in kind you support back.  That what I have so far figured out a way Twitter can work.  If I know this was a possibility I would have joined Twitter much earlier than now.


Now that being said, there are two things that I feel need to be established here.  First, it's time I should do at least one entry per week, and two, I have a lot of books to read and review.  The first one is going to be Luca Rossi's _Galactic Energies_.  That said, I encourage you guys to at least look into this author.


Next, another blogger I've started to read is Charley Daveler, http://worsethanwas.blogspot.com  .  She's pretty good and I'd advise you all give her a chance read.


And now, I tend to also comment on music as well, normally best this, best that, worst, so on and so forth, but this time is to give someone a listen who's not well known yet.  Julie Gibb with her album "All My Yesterdays."  I currently have "Call Me, Baby" and "Cleveland" on my MP3 player along with "Woe is Me" where you can get for free when you sign up for her mailing address.  www.juliegibb.com


So I'm starting again kids.  Lets see how this stint turns out. 


One last thing; I've settled down to trying to finish what should be my next novel _Blood Water_.  The target is to get it done by the end of the year before I head to MagFest in January.  Self published of course.


So, TTFN

Wayne County Michigan Can Piss Off

Here's the skinny...here's the compromise...

Actually it's not much of a compromise, it's basically me telling you WHAT you will get, no exceptions.

My wife owes back child support for some strange outlandish reason and now she faces jail time. over $75K of it actually, 18K of that the Wayne County Friend of the Court actually expects her to pay in less than a month or she faces time in jail. The majority of this is interest and not nearly the base payment that she has owed.

Oh, and the money goes to her ex husband, if you believe that.

This is a court system, like many, but much worse, that will not help those with debts in any way, shape, or form. Coupled with the fact the county itself is basically broke, you have an entity hellbent on harrassment, ignorance, and practices that are borderline legal. I'm sorry, but giving those with grievences a small chance to show up on only Wednesday morning and telling us point blank that we need to bring a lawyer or they won't talk to you tells you their system desperately needs an enima and needs one now!

Lay off my family. You are a public bully if you prey on those who cannot afford the legal representation we need in order to keep ourselves out of trouble when you think you owes us so much debt. My wife just went back to school and is studying to become a nurse. How can she finish that now when you send her to jail?

Do NOT tell me it's my problem, I really don't want to make it yours. You know you are in the wrong, you need to admit it.

We will pay the inital child support fee before the interest set in, that is ALL! NO EXCEPTIONS!

Quit preying on those who are not very financially well off. It is hard enough to get by at all without some buereaucratic bullshit being shoved in our throats. BACK OFF!

That is all.

Some Shots in the Sky

It's only been two weeks and things haven't gotten better. Then again no one really cares.

Some little highlights before I go off...

Thanksgiving went well, I kept myself from overeating. Only had two plates of food and one piece of cherry pie.

Decided to finally bite the bullet and write a query letter to agents in hopes t hat I can sell Daemon and not have it on the lulu.com site as a "vanity" press. I really hate that term. But then again I'm low on toilet paper soon and what best way to repleanish the supply is by a bevy of rejection letters with little or no advice to help you break into a medium that you belong? (This is me trying really hard not to bitch at the world.)

The shopping blitz of the year has started and so far I haven't run into (literally and metaphysically) any stupid humans as of yet. I keep my fingers crossed as sooner or later it'll happen. I try to be easy on the rest of you all, truly I do, but sometimes you all need a mental adjustment, including the youth of America, and this goes dubly for the educators.

Now being a son of two educators myself, one with a Masters in secondary education and the other with a Specialist degree in media education I may have some weight in what I say. Sooner or later the children will not be taught to write by hand. Hell, they hardly write cursive anymore. My son told me that teachers in elementary school, when he was there, took a months time teaching the students cursive, but nowadays, they only do three days to a week. If you don't get it you're S.O.L. Now they don't even want students to write things, just type them up onto the computer. (Shaking head.)

Things go boom, there'll be a lot of things that'll be S.O.L.

And me, with only a Bachelor's in English, has done nothing for me whatsoever. Now I put my latest book on the fire in hopes that someone gives me glory. My last novel, Shifter, I got one "maybe" and that turned into a no. WTF? Am I supposed to be the master editor here? Sorry, too many stories in my head to make sense about flow and feel. Still, they're better than Twilight.

H.R. Green, 28th of Novemeber, 2009, 9:32 p.m. Burtchville, MI

And the Holidays Begin...

Now I face a dreaded day tomorrow, trying to trim my stomach down, knowing that I have tons of food staring me in the face. Mounds upon mounds of cholesterol ready, willing, and able to clog my arteries and send me down the doomed path of possible coronary. This is the year that I have to look at all that good food and just say no. I'm sitting at 260 pounds of yuck and that's too much for me, so I've decided to finally stop the gorging, make myself active again in the goal to make my stomach flat by my next birthday in hopes that I can make taken women jealous. God forbid if my vain ass likes what it sees in the mirror by then.

Thanksgiving for me has always been too much food and really bad football. I know this year is going to be no exception. It will be hard for me to stay awake again, this time in a strange person's house and instructed that I cannot fall asleep, so napping before I go is essential.

So I could question how we got here, but we all know why. Americans love excess; we love to overindulge ourselves with anything, usually food, making us the most overweight in the world (Okay, honest opinion, I ain't working with facts here.). But I'm about done with this.

So anyone out there, who even catches this blog, in what way can I change the diet dramatically and not eat bland crap. The stuff must taste good! Please, only decent answers and not smartassed ones.

Oh, and Black Friday, get your steel toe boots on and expect to do some serious ass kicking in the mall and shopping center, or lifestyle center, as they call it now. Umbrellas might help to double as a spear so you can be successful in your shopping conquest. Go to sleep right after eating the turkey and wake up early so that you have optimum energy for the holiday season, otherwise there'll be plenty of shit that'll bring you down, like annoying kids and the other people who stand in the way. Otherwise, the holidays are a happy occasion!

Other than that, y'all have a good Turkey Day and don't do what I wouldn't do, which is very little.

H.R. Green, 25th of November, 2009, 2:35 p.m. Burtchville, MI.

A Long and Festering Legacy

I tend to be a sports nut, so much so that I actually make it a point not to watch the game, rather just see the end result so I can avoid a heart attack. This past decade has given me many things to cheer about but a lot more for me to cringe. (I'm from Michigan, take your pick on this one) Today, my hapless Lions pulled a victory out of their ass, with rookie Matt Stafford having a game for a Lions' quarterback that hasn't happened in quite sometime. Over four hundred yards passing and 5 touchdown passes. Granted he had 3 interceptions as well, but knowing the rest of the Lions players on the field and how much of a team they are not, Matt should be given a fucking medal. Still this isn't about Stafford, oh no, this blog item is more about their schmuck of an owner, William Clay Ford.


From what I'm guessing, this is Billy's 46th year of ownership with the Lions so I wish to share to you his legacy as an NFL owner for the past 45 years this team has been under his command. This doesn't count the current record the Lions hold, which is still abyssmal!


Regular seasons, 698 games played, a record of 286-398-14. That's a winning percentage of .409. My math may be a little off with the ties in that record, but still, not even close to getting him in that winning percentage. This is from a fucking 45 year period!


Playoff record, 10 games played, a record of 1-9 giving them a winning percentage of .100! I can bet I would have a better batting average than that at my age and dilapidated physical fitness state.


Worse than that, Billy boy has gone through 15 different head coaches. That's a new head coach every 2.8 years! The only reason why Bill Ford is there is because he's the owner and the only reason why he still makes money with this team is because he doesn't reward players well; he doesn't open that pocketbook properly. Yeah, throw tons of money to a rookie quarterback or one of the best running backs in the game but don't bother to build a respectable team around him. This old man will never learn and he will never leave as long as he can breathe. He has never known how to run an NFL team and he never will and what's really bad is the old fucktard really doesn't care. I wish Lions' fans could get the point so nobody would show up for games. See how long Ford lasts then.


Does it mean the Lions may leave? Yes, that's exactly what it means, but I'd rather have the Lions move to another city and be successful under an owner who wants to win football games and championships then to be forced to have one of the most pathetic franchises the NFL and sports world has ever known near my house. In my lifetime, I have witnessed the Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings reach their goal of a championship. Even the short lived USFL and Arena Football gave me reasons to cheer (Michgian Panthers, Detroit Drive). In college, I also was given the rare treat for the Michigan Wolverines basketball and football teams to capture the NCAA Championship (The Cornholers didn't deserve the co-championship.). You'd think the Lions ownership would be feeling the heat and finally get around to building something worth cheering. Well I'm done with the wait and see attitude and I'm sick with their status quo mentality. It's time to fucking shit or get off the pot. If you don't want to do either, give the team to someone who not only wants to win, but knows how to win.


Do I detect a card from Illitch with his phone number on it? Red Wings and Tigers, that's all I have to say.


H.R. Green, 22nd of November, 2009, 8:07 pm Burtchville, MI

Spinnin' the Turntable

So I was trying to write this particular blog yesterday until I saw the shennanigans about tipping, so I went off on a rant. Today, it's back to boring basics because I wanted to talk about my favorite albums. I guarentee it'll be quick because I don't tend to get long winded about what I like. They are what they are and that's it. This includes the music I listen to and the few I keep in high regard. Also, there are a few bands who has multiple albums I like as I explain down in the list. Also this is not meant to be a definitive end all be all list of albums, these are just my personal choices of favorites. They definitely reflect the time that I was raised and influenced, but also, I hope the show a little diversity. I know they don't show much, just a little. Remember, at times I still feel like I'm that short and stout white kid from Michigan because a lot of times I am. Also I do not include greatest hits albums because they would normally win when you're talking about having a lot of cool songs on one CD. No, they have to be albums that can stand on their own and don't really need the strength of a hit single.

These albums are not really in any order either, they just are, period.

Since I am, usually, a fat boy with a big voice, I should start with someone most would think I was seperated from birth, if it wasn't the fact he was much older than I. Much of the older music, and I speak of seventies, sixties and fifties as older, that I heard and was influenced, came from album rock stations. The main one I listened to, and still do from time to time, is WRIF in Detroit. It was this station who was responsible in opening my ears to these veteran rockers, such as Meat Loaf, to the right there, and Bat out of Hell. Being a disciple of RHPS doesn't help either as it showed me that I didn't need to be a skinny pretty boy to sing rock music especially when I found out I too had the range for the title track and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad." Every song on this album rocks and every one of them can also bring a tear to your eye. Jim Stienman was the perfect writer, Meat was the perfect voice.

Next is one of my favorite, of not my most favorite, bands of all time, Queen. The hard thing about Queen is choosing an album that stands from all the rest. Even Hot Space has it's own brilliance, even though you have to really look for it. Again, these guys have, like, several versions of Greatest Hits albums which tend to detract from their studio work. But, from the daringness of their first album, their desperation from Queen II, finding their musical voice in Sheer Heart Attack, even their pop metal boldness with News of the World and Jazz, I keep coming back to two of them. One is A Day at the Races, but even more astonding to me is A Night at the Opera, and not just because "Bohemian Rhapsody" is on it and my most favorite song of all time, hands down. It has "Love of My Life," one of the few Freddie Mercury vocals I can keep in my range, "You're My Best Friend," a ballad that just comes out of left field for the listener, "I'm in Love With My Car," a song you really have to be careful with while you're driving, and the dirty sounding, depressing laiden "The Prophet's Song." Along with all the different quirky instruments the band put into this album it's always remained tops with me.

Now, when talking about different, this band should always come to mind. As the eighties progressed, so did I, comes with struggling to grow up, I opened up to more alternative music by accident, and They Might Be Giants were at the front of the line. Say what you might about this band, their album Flood fucking rules. Yeah, yeah, "Istandul, Not Constantanople" is what most people remember (Thanx for MTV playing the living shit out of it), others, because they like "Tiny Toons" may also get "Particle Man." There are other songs like "Birdhouse in Your Soul," "Minimun Wage," and "Whistling in the Dark," which I sing time to time to this day. This is an album that the songs will grab onto your head and play over and over again; but in a good way.

Speaking of the eighties, you cannot think of that decade without seeing the hair bands, and there were a lot of them, some good, some not so good, and some really sucked. I would be lying if I said that I didn't get caught up in that shit, I still had long hair up to the turn of the century and I wrote lyrics for glam rock tunes back then. Nowadays I call it poetry. (Meh) Anyway, my biggest influence there was the band Def Leppard, and specifically, Hysteria. Every song on this album rocked, every song on this album had the potential to be a hit single, though I still have no idea why they decided "Women" should be the first one, but, oh well, they still recovered. Six other songs were released in the States as singles, all of them cracked the top 20, four of them cracked the top ten, one going to number three, on going to number two and one hitting number one, the ballad "Love Bites" of course, even though I thought "Pour Some Sugar On Me" should have hit the top spot too. You can't avoid the numbers for the time, no could you really avoid how the songs rocked; even "Women." They also had fun remixing songs (I did find a few back in the day.), released some live tracks and even had a roadie do one song which I do at karaoke every once in a while in the style of Stumpus Maximus. The singles B-sides, just as hard to acquire because at first they didn't release cassette singles, just 45's. Still, to this day, one of the best unreleased songs out there, I think, is "Run Riot." If you haven't gotten this album yet, you should.

I'll admit, Flood is the only album that was released past the eighties, most of what I have right here are either seventies or eighties as that decade is where my primary influence of what I write about is derived. When it comes to music changing perspective, I'll throw Metallica right into the discussion. Well before you heard the Metallica of now, back then, the Metallica I remember was one who created albums of groid kicked, ear bleeding metal and no music vides, just concert after concert. The epitome of this early time is Master of Puppets. To this date I believe is their best work ever. I still have the 33 it was pressed on and finally got the title track onto my MP3 player. Yeah, my kids can deal when I fucking play it loud in my car!

The next four fall back to the concept album. It's a format I really love because it's like reading a book with music, except the story goes faster because you're listening to it. The first one is probably the oddest, weirdest one of the batch, but it is also one that combines music loosely around the concept of science fiction, something else that interests me greatly, and probably takes a side route through an acid trip. Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is probably the best conceptual work that David Bowie has ever done but the lyrics are so ambiguous that you need to listen to it over and over again to try to grasp onto the albums meaning...but you can't. Hence the beauty of this album, you'll never know what you'll get from this album be it when you are sober, drunk, stoned, high, or all three of the latter. The title track, be it a musical epilogue, is still a little haunting to me, and sad.

Next album may have not been the first concept album, but it is responsible for lighting the wick that spawned others, including by this same band who made this one, The Who, and their rock opera Tommy. Now being a child of the eighties I was more visual that those seventies counterparts. Television cable was really coming into it's own to mush our minds out with silly garbage and HBO was really popular so you got to see movies that you wouldn't normally see in the theaters. My first exposure to Tommy was the movie version, sadly. To admit, the album is much more personal and more inspiring than the movie from the seventies, though it's not really an opera, more an oratorio, but I digress. It's my most favorite album from The Who and belongs as one of my ten most favorite of all time just as much as there are times that "Pinball Wizard" just cannot escape my mind.

Speaking about concepts and concept albums, I cannot leave out Pink Floyd; and I'm talking Pink Floyd with Roger Waters. If there is a band who I can listen to and feel strange without a controlled substance, Pink Floyd is that band. They are also another band who, throught the magic of televison's HBO, I got my first glimpse of with The Wall. ::Shivers:: That is what I knew of Pink Floyd until I finally put Dark Side of the Moon on the turntable and all of the sudden The Wall really didn't cut it for my anymore. I cannot and will not listen to only part of this album, I MUST listen to the ENTIRE thing, and that's not because of Dark Side of the Rainbow. Meh! It's just because that album stands on it's own with all the songs connected. Whether they were meant to be together or not, somehow that is the way it is, and even when they released "Money" as a single, it really detracts from the album. People who are close to me know well, when I put the album on it will be a while until it's done.

Now this one came to me at a very odd time. I found this band inadvertantly when I was going to Graceland College and a friend of mine in the dorm I stayed couldn't stop praising them so I decided to borrow one of their albums. Granted the style to me was overmelodic and odd at the time and their singer tended to whine a little with the lyrics the songs were nonetheless, intriguing. When I went home on a short break I went to the record store and picked up the three CD's that were before the album I listened. The one that still stands out with me, as it did back then, was Misplaced Childhood, the band was Marillion. This band has never had the success in the states that they had in England but their music is very good and to me, like the previous album, Misplaced Childhood feels like a concept album to me. and "Kayleigh," their only hit in the states that ever charted, is not my most favorite of the album, neither is "Lavender." "Heart of Lothian" is what strikes a chord with me. A very underrated album that I would suggest any music conniseur should have.

And finally, and I know y'all will snicker at me, the last album on my list. As I have stated throughout this blog, I'm a child of the eighties, and around the time where I was starting to become very impressonable, this album was the shit, hands down. Michael Jackson's Thriller. Yes, I know he got really strange in his later years, but this album is what put him over the top into legendary status and the ridicule that comes with it. You cannot deny the songs that altered the momentum of music, including "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and "Thriller" itself. And at the time, the video for "Thriller" was off the charts. I still play that song as loud as I fucking can during Halloween, at least once, as to tradition. And with Vincent Price's voice laid in with it, the creepiness factor should be at an eleven, because it was back then. It's also the album responsible for keeping Def Leppard's Pyromania from being number one and became the best selling album of all time, beating out Pink Floyd's The Wall from merely a few years before.

Well that's it; my thoughts and feelings about popular music. I'm sure there are other albums worthy of choosing but these are the ones who have staked a claim on my soul to be remembered as "definitive." I've sure I'll see the "you're wrong" comments, but maybe I am. This is a blog of my opinions after all.

H.R. Green, 20th of November, 2009, 3:27 p.m., Burtchville, MI