For the first time in my five years here in Nevada, the Yuletide has had a joyous feel. Not that the locals have brightened up the Mojave with glitter and approaches which correspond to the merriment derived from the period’s significance. After all, it remains bizarre seeing Christmas lights decorating palm trees. Continue reading The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Category Archives: Pop Culture
Modern Horrors
Could the sharing economy produce a new line of horror stories? After all, its basis tosses to the wind every caution under which older sensible Americans were raised.
Don’t get into strangers’ cars. Don’t let just anybody into your home.
So what are the two attractions best fueling the quasi-barter economy? Gig drivers and homeowners turning into hostel keepers. Continue reading Modern Horrors
Old Game. Same Rules. Modern Players.
“Sacrilege” is a word which shouldn’t be spoken lightly. But it would be a sacrilege if some present-day filmmaker were to remake Rules of the Game.
There have been rumors which threaten what might result in this likely desecration. Thankfully for good sense and lack of financing, that possible nightmare still exists as a demented dream.
Revising it, though? Updating the story for us and our era? Perhaps a palatable possibility. Continue reading Old Game. Same Rules. Modern Players.
The Mohicans
Vernon is dying. He is a cousin who inquired about Edna Long three years ago. She was an unknown figure who appeared in one of our family branch’s turn-of-the-century census tracts. Turn of the 20th century.
The people who may’ve known about her, remembered her, they’ve been all good and dead way before curiosity aroused his present-day fascination with this stranger who’ll remain a mystery. Continue reading The Mohicans
Notorious Fame
Received one of the more laughable proposals off the web no filter could’ve deterred. Were I Ace Face, were I younger, image conscious, immodest, okay, vastly superficial, thought myself capable of converting into a “brand,” sure, I’d have succumbed.
Instead I rather muse about our current easy accessibility to undeserved celebrity. Continue reading Notorious Fame
A Fan Comments
A lot of football fans may suppose the New England Patriots are the New York Jets’ fiercest rivals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Continue reading A Fan Comments
The Aspiring Pack
Our inability to remain circumspect certainly has complicated modern life. What don’t we confess these days?
Haven’t the words “secret” and “confidential” lost much, if not all, meaning? Continue reading The Aspiring Pack
The Willies
Schlockmeisters believing themselves quality horror purveyors need to set up campfires that burn holes into patches of the darkest nighttime woods extant. Amid this pitch black setting, using remedial storytelling lessons, they should huddle around the flames and rediscover what truly jolts audiences.
They can start by reciting “The Monkey’s Paw” then diagram why the story still tingles. Continue reading The Willies
An Idol, Not a Hero
Yeah. O.J. Simpson was at his ex-wife’s house the night she and her boyfriend were slaughtered. He didn’t kill them. The Juice arrived late. How long after the fact? Who knows?
Does the pro football hall of famer, former actor, ex-pitchman know who killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? No. He only has suspicions. These are best for setting investigators off on the wrong trails, having them hound those at the end of inevitable lines if logic.
Just because it’s logical doesn’t mean it’s right. Left to enough people, a syllogism would’ve sufficed to have convicted O.J. Simpson of murder. Continue reading An Idol, Not a Hero
The Tragedy of Sonny Liston
Some librettist and composer ought to join forces and create an opera featuring the life of one-time heavyweight boxing champion Sonny Liston. A tragedy, not an operetta. The travails of the long-dead champion contain classic elements the ancients would’ve venerated.
Brutal skills honed in an unforgiving background marked and formed the raw ambition that raised Liston high. Capricious and uncaring fate drove him into the lowest depths imaginable.
Strong and determined as he obviously once must’ve been driven, so did Liston easily succumb, powerless and guileless to thwart what now seems inevitable. The sole question needing asking and answering, whether Sonny Liston understood his plight, and did he submit? Continue reading The Tragedy of Sonny Liston