2019 - The Constant Bleeder

So, you like horror movies, but can you sit in a theater for a ten-hour marathon of them? And can you do it even when each one is kept a secret so you don’t know what the hell you’re gonna see?

Sure, you can! It’s like trick or treat. All you know about this show is that your butt’s going to be numb when it’s all over and you’re going to see a lot of people die. Also, the coolest thing about it is they don’t show anything that this theater has shown before, which means that they have to dig deep and go for the weird stuff.

It gets you in the Halloween spirit.

Me, I’m a broken-down old creep. I don’t really do Halloween anymore. Maybe I’ll put on a Cramps record or watch some old horror movie faves (Arrow’s new An American Werewolf in London Blu-ray restoration should be in my hot little hands this week, says Amazon) in October, but I don’t carve pumpkins or wear costumes. I mostly enjoy the fall weather and rationalize eating some candy. That’s my idea of a party.

So the annual Dismember the Alamo horror-o-rama pretty much IS Halloween to me. Everyone’s in a good mood. Anticipation fills the room. Some people show up in costumes. Next thing you know, even a little introverted mosquito like me chit-chats with the guy in the next seat about the movie we just saw and what the hell might hit us next. (This year’s theme was creepy-crawlies. Snakes and bugs and worms, oh my!)

In other words, it’s a great show. It’s the kind of show that blasts your brain with movies like THESE:

Continue reading “DISMEMBER THE ALAMO at the Richardson, TX Alamo Drafthouse 10/26/19”

Blackouts can be fun. I learned this back in in 1988 or ’89 when God decided to kick the shit out of the city one summer night with one of the angriest storms I’d ever seen in my life. The rain landed like bullets on the roof of our house and the wind could have carried away your grandma. Somewhere in that assault our electricity conked out and we–my mother, my younger sister and I–had to step away from the TV and gather together by candlelight. The whole night after that was made up of firelight and faces and lots of pitch black space that we filled with conversation.

Nobody had a cellphone that was in desperate need of charging. Nobody had essential information sitting on a now inaccessible computer. All that we lost were the lights and the TV and the refrigerator and we could live without those for a spell. What we had was each other, and that was worth more than what we’d temporarily lost. We were in good shape.

I would have been 11 or 12 at the time and I think that night was formative in my present day love of the baddest of bad weather. An ice storm approaching. An evil black cloud taking over the sky in the middle of a spring day. Thunder. Lightning. Frantic reports from the weatherman.

Continue reading “The Great Dallas, Texas Blackout of June 2019”