Needless Things

An Evening With Crispin Hellion Glover

2012-02-13T11:00:00.004-05:00

Last Wednesday night was really fucking weird.

But I suppose you should expect that when dealing with a character like Crispin Hellion Glover.

As I stated in my pre-game report, I really wasn’t too sure what to expect out of our evening with Mr. Glover. It’s called a slide show, I knew he had made books and movies, and I knew he was a weird dude. I was excited to find out what would be going on.

I was extra excited because we actually had an overnight sitter for Lil’ Troublemaker, which doesn’t happen often and which meant that Mrs. Troublemaker could come out and party. It was also cool that she was going to eat at LaFonda, as she had been incapacitated when I ate there back in December and I really liked the place.

We were supposed to be picking up Little Pond and meeting Grand Hoff at the theater, but I have this thing where I have been getting places early recently. I don’t know what the deal is. Usually I’m pretty much on time for stuff, but if not I would be pretty late. Now I seem to be getting everywhere early. This is the worst at work (like everything else) because it doesn’t matter what time you arrive, you can’t start shift until a specific time and there is no leaving early. So you just stand around for fifteen extra minutes or whatever and basically don’t get paid for it. But you also don’t want to be late because then you’re holding somebody up. So it comes down to whether you want to screw yourself or somebody else, and regardless of how much I hate ninety percent of the people I work with; I don’t like putting anybody out.

So I’ve been early everywhere and we were about half an hour early getting downtown. Little Pond wasn’t even home yet. Mrs. Troublemaker called and she said she’d just meet us at LaFonda. Good enough.

I had the delicious paella again (which I still strongly recommend) and the wife had a Cuban Reuben (which should make you chuckle at least a little bit). Mine was great, but the missus was not impressed with her rhyming sandwich. We did both enjoy the beer, though. This may seem both like a given and fairly insignificant, but beer levels will come into play later. Little Pond showed up after our food did and we had a nice time overall, substandard sandwiches aside.

There was already a big line when we got to the illustrious Plaza Theater. This went along with my belief that the show was sold out. I don’t know if you guys checked the link to the tickets that I provided last Wednesday, but the page said tickets were no longer available. I took this to mean sold out. This was not the case. But we’ll get to that. Shortly after we arrived the line started moving. The line passed by a table with a bunch of boxes behind it. There was also a young lady there who happened to be selling books by Crispin Hellion Glover. Well, “selling” isn’t a strong enough word. More like “hawking”. She was loudly and verbally estimating patrons’ intelligence according to how many books each person purchased. I was judged to be a genius after buying all three that were available, but in hindsight I’m not so sure about that.

Here’s the deal with Crispin Hellion Glover’s books: the man has actually created around twenty books. Only five have actually been published because he publishes them himself. You can’t go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble and buy these. Well, not for less than a hundred bucks, anyway. I say “created” and not “written” because he utilizes an almost Burroughs-like method of cutting and pasting. Mr. Glover will take works that have fallen into the public domain and put pieces together with his own narrative to create a new work. I find them and the whole process very interesting, which is weird because it is totally artsy and pretentious and I normally hate that kind of thing. But the books are neat. I don’t know that they are worth what I paid, especially with how the evening turned out, but I’ve got them.

So I bought the three available books – Oak Mot, Rat Catching, and Concrete Inspection. Thrilling titles, I know. But I think that’s the point. With this exciting new literature in hand, I entered the theater to find Little Pond and Mrs. Troublemaker, who had entered while I was making my purchase. You can’t leave those two alone together for long.

We sat and chatted for half an hour or so, then the lights went down and the show began.

I think everything I have ever seen at the Plaza Theater has been in the same room, so I cannot speak for the rest of the rooms. But this one is an old-school theatrical setup, with an auditorium that slopes downward to a wooden and hollow stage that is backed by the screen. The chairs are large and comfy and the sort that recline to a point where you are concerned that yours is broken and might dump you into the lap of the person behind you. There are curtains everywhere.

Once the lights went down, there was a single red spotlight trained on stage right. Otherwise the theater was dark. Out of that darkness and from the front of the theater came heavy, booming steps; presumably announcing the arrival of our host. He made his way to the red spotlight – which did little to illuminate him – and then spoke. He welcomed us and thanked us for our presence and informed us that he would be reading from eight of his books, then launched directly into narration of Concrete Inspection. Images from the works he was relating appeared on the screen behind him.

Note: I think. I’m almost positive that was first. I know a good journalist would have taken notes or at least paid better attention, but I have never claimed to be a good journalist. Or any kind of journalist, for that matter. What I do is relay my own personal thoughts and feelings; after the fact. What you get in everything that I do here is what stays with me the most from everything I experience. Part of this is because I find it interesting to see how my recall works, part of it is because I write everything at work to pass the time. Twelve hour shifts are extremely difficult even with this as a diversion. We have no internet, books, magazines, cell phones. No distractions of any kind because the inhuman creatures that manage the place do not understand the job that we do. But I can get away with writing for the time being. I write anywhere between 1500 and 5000 words per shift. Most of it appears here or on Tumblr. Some of it you guys will never see. But I have to do something or I’m not going to make it through the next thirty years.

Crispin Hellion Glover is a fantastic, energetic, and creative narrator. I have never seen anything like what he gave to us that night. It was so entertaining and energizing that it made me want to perform. It was that kind of thing. It got me excited about creativity and entertainment. The man was dynamic, his timing was tremendous, and even the occasional stumble or missed word added to the drama of the performance. Mr. Glover stomped and swayed back and forth across his little stage; not just reading the words on the screen behind him, but almost conducting a symphony of language.

Of the eight books, I enjoyed Oak Mot, Concrete Inspection, and whatever the German one was the most. That one was very weird. It was all illustrations form some sort of medical text from probably the 1800’s. Graphic illustrations. And Mr. Glover shouted all of the narration in precise, well-accented German. The Grand Hoff had arrived by this time and he and the ladies were pretty disturbed by this one. I get that, but I dug it.

Round My House was the final presentation. It was my favorite. I think it was about a serial killer being put on trial after his neighbor discovers his hobby, but I could be entirely wrong. Seriously – it might have been about birds or something.

I would like to mention the gentleman in front of us. He had an unbelievably large cranium and a booming, obnoxious laugh that made me want to strike him with a truncheon. This guy found everything hilarious. He was either stoned out of his mind or was trying very hard to make everybody in the theater believe that he so totally got it. Or both. But he definitely detracted from the experience.

Once the slide show was done, Crispin Hellion Glover introduced It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE.

This is a movie that Glover directed and produced himself. It stars and was written by Steven C. Stewart, a victim of cerebral palsy and you cannot possibly imagine what goes on in this movie if you have not seen it. And I highly recommend you do not read the next few paragraphs if you ever intend on seeing it, because I think this is the sort of thing best entered into with as little prior knowledge as possible.

SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE

(some details may be slightly off – it was hard to take all of this in)

The movie opens with the protagonist – Paul - on the floor in the hall of a nursing home. Stuff happens and we end up with Paul – looking much cleaner and neater – outside where he meets a redhead. Now, if you’re like me, you saw “redhead” and pictured some sexy babe. This redhead is more reminiscent of Old Moira the Ghost Maid, except not as hot. But for Paul, who has some disadvantages, she’s not bad. Also, she has long hair. This is Paul’s thing and so integral to the plot of the movie that the first visual of the movie is a quote about how much Steven C. Stewart was into long hair.

One thing leads to another and Paul ends up dating Redhead and meeting Redhead’s pretty clearly underage daughter. Over the course of time we see that Redhead is conflicted about being involved with a person with Paul’s limitations and is kind of a big bitch about it. Paul asks her to marry him and she gives him the ol’ “Let’s be friends” speech. Paul is sad, but asks if he can stroke her long hair one last time for the road. She complies and he wraps his arm around her neck and chokes the fuck out of her.

If you’ve never seen a man with severe cerebral palsy choke an old lady to death, then you are living a better life than I am.

This scene was one of the creepiest and most uncomfortable things I had ever seen, and it was also kind of hilarious. It turned out to be pretty tame compared to the rest of the movie.

As a matter of fact, things get crazy-go-nuts pretty much immediately because we find out that Redhead’s daughter has been harboring a secret crush on ol’ Paul. Sometime after our hero kills Redhead (time is a bit vague in this movie), he heads over to her home to see her daughter. She’s there in an impressively skimpy outfit and panties that would barely cover up a nostril. And she’s hot for Paul.

Note: I have no doubt that the actress portraying Redhead’s daughter was of age, but she could pass for being severely underage. Very, very creepy. If you get a boner during this part of the movie, you had better feel pretty guilty about it. Come to think of it, if you get a boner during any part of this movie you should be ashamed of yourself.

Naturally she lets Paul touch her hair, and of course they end up in her bedroom, and obviously they end up fucking. What might surprise you is that you see every bit of it – Paul’s wangus and Redhead’s daughter’s naughty bits and all. It’s all obscenely uncomfortable to watch.

Then Paul wraps his arm around her neck and chokes her to death. That’s his move.

The whole rest of the movie is Paul meeting, fucking, and killing various chicks. It’s crazy. And there’s lots of nudity and fucking. The last scene is straight-up porn, complete with a Stunt Cock. It’s a pretty amazing scene, where Paul mixes up his repertoire with a choke, a punch to the gut, and then a new finish of running over the chick’s neck with his wheelchair.

To say that I have never seen anything like It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. would be to state the obvious in the same way stating, “I am a carbon-based life form that breathes oxygen” would be. And yet it did not make me as uncomfortable as Tetsuo the Iron Man or even Gummo. I don’t know if this is because I am older and more jaded or because… never mind. It’s because I’m older and more jaded. I have seen some awful shit in my day and a lot of it was not even in movies but real life. It’s not that the movie wasn’t shocking, it’s just that I really don’t know what it would take to shock me now.

There’s no rating this thing. It is not entertainment, it is a statement. I’m not going to claim to be deep enough to get it or even to have really tried, but I think the point is that the disabled – or Steven C. Stewart, at least – are just like us. They have dark thoughts and complex feelings. They are more than their afflictions.

As far as the actual production, It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. is very interesting visually. Aside from the scenes in the nursing home, the whole movie was filmed on sets that were tailored to the scenes. They all had strong narrative purposes and helped set the tone of the action immensely. Each set was almost like a character in its own way. The music was what I would have called Classical, except that during the Q&A after the movie Mr. Glover explained that it was all Romantic. I don’t know much about such things, I just know that it was way too fucking loud in several scenes. I suppose this was intentional to increase the discomfort of the audience – because that is clearly the intention of the movie; to cause discomfort – but it was really just annoying.

If you’re a fan of Crispin Hellion Glover or of weird things in general, you’re going to want to see this movie. If not, then avoid it. It’s not for you. It’s not really for anybody; like I said – it’s a statement. It’s to be endured and thought about.

END OF SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE

The Q&A that followed the movie was brutal.

I am a very big fan of Mr. Glover and of movies in general. I am usually fascinated by any sort of glimpse behind the scenes of the filmmaking process. But as exciting and dynamic as Crispin Glover was presenting his slide show, he was the precise opposite of that answering questions. Not only does he possess a quiet, somewhat monotonous voice, he would go far beyond the bounds of the necessary answer to any question. Not elaborating on the question, but just going on and on. I am sure it was interesting to many of the people in the theater, but it just didn’t do anything for me.

The problem here was that I wanted very much to have my books signed by and get a picture taken with Crispin Hellion Glover. Those desires were a huge part of why I was even there that night. But the effects of the beers we had enjoyed at LaFonda had worn off long ago. I wanted some more beers and I did not want to listen to Mr. Glover any longer. Also, there were the three other people there with me. I knew for a fact Mrs. Troublemaker was miserable and I doubted Little Pond and Grand Hoff were doing any better. I didn’t want them to endure this just for me.

I leaned over at one point and told my wife that they should just go somewhere and get some beers and I’d meet them after the ordeal was over. I got no response. Not even a, “No.” I don’t know why they didn’t take off.

So it finally got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. We agreed that if Glover took one more question we’d leave. Sure enough, he did, so we exited as unobtrusively as four grown people in a theater one-third full can. Which is not very.

Speaking of which, I failed to follow up on my belief that the show was sold out. Clearly, it was not. I don’t mention this for any reason other than to say that I had told Pond and Hoff it was sold out and ended up looking quite stupid when the theater filled up. Or rather, didn’t.

Guys – you know what a celebrity whore I am. If a famous person I admire is in any way available, I am going to figure out a way to get something signed and get a picture with them. But that Q&A defeated me. I left empty-handed. Well, not empty-handed – I’ve got my books and I am happy for that.

All in all, this was a pretty unique experience and one that I am glad I had. I can’t say I regret leaving early, but I wish I could have worked out a way to make the meet and greet happen.

Oh, well. I’ll always have Anthrax. Which sounds unfortunate, but isn't.

P.S. - I'm going to be appearing on the Earth Station One podcast tonight talking about Doctor Who and what a big fucking nerd I am. Only I won't be saying "fucking". Please listen. It'll be rad.

-Phantom

Atlanta Comic Convention 2/5/2012

2012-02-10T11:00:00.001-05:00

I always end up working on Super Bowl Sunday and it pisses me off.

Not because I want to watch the Super Bowl. I couldn’t possibly care less about football or the guaranteed-to-be-shit halftime show. And all the commercials can be seen online afterward. They’re not even hard to find. I mean, that’s the point. The companies want you to see those ads.

No, my big problem with working on Super Bowl Sunday is that there is always a comic convention that day and I never get to go. Sometimes I am just scheduled to work and other times I end up working because everybody knows I loathe football and wouldn’t be doing anything anyway, so I work out a swap where they work for me for WrestleMania or something.

This year I just happened to have the big day off and the Troublemakers headed down to the Marriot Century Center to rub elbows with some nerds and creative-types. But first we went to have some breakfast at the International House of Pancakes.

Normally I start my first crazy diet of the year in mid-January. I never get anywhere near the three bills that I weighed three years ago, but because of my job and that fact that I am extremely lazy I have to do a couple of maintenance diets every year to stay around the size I feel I should be. And even then I have to be careful about what I eat the rest of the time. I pretty much don’t snack or eat desserts. Certainly not pancakes. But I’ve put off my diet until March this year because my optometrist said it might not be a good idea to make an radical dietary changes while my eyes are healing from the Lasik. Naturally this has led to me eating more junk than I should because my untrustworthy and manipulative brain took that as a free pass, but I am also still eating the tons of vegetables that my normal Atkins diet would have cut out.

So on Sunday we went to IHOP. This was dumb because it was Sunday at 11 AM and the place was absolutely packed. We don’t eat out a lot, but when we do it’s usually odd hours (again, because of my job) so I can’t even remember the last time we ate in a crowded restaurant. It didn’t actually take very long for us to be seated, but our waitress was extremely neglectful. And before you go thinking anything about her being super-busy or in the weeds, she managed to visit the table behind us an average of every six minutes or so. I could barely even get my beverage refilled once and it took forever to get our bill.

I don’t know why I told you all that. You people are probably too smart to go to IHOP on a Sunday morning anyway.

On the way down to the Marriot something very stupid happened. It’s the sort of thing that I feel only happens to me, but I’m sure happens to at least three or four other people on the planet on a pretty regular basis. We were traveling down the highway, minding our own business, having a fairly pleasant drive. And then all of a sudden there was this big, yellow jug in the road. Right in our lane, as a matter of fact. There really wasn’t anything I could do to avoid it. There were cars on either side and I couldn’t slow down a whole heck of a lot because I was already going the speed limit, which is a Cardinal Sin when traveling in Georgia (I am not a fast driver – just ask my wife). The jug was very large – the sort that a family-sized supply of orange juice would come in – but it looked empty and like it would either bounce off the car or go right underneath. So I maintained my course and ran right over the thing.

Naturally, it got wedged under the car. Going 65 miles per hour. On the highway. Also, keep in mind this is the car I just spent five hundred bucks repairing after running off the road while trying to catch a nap.

You would think that the road would have eventually torn this container apart to the point where it would dislodge and go flying out from under the car. But no. The damn thing stayed with us almost all the way to the Marriot. It was making the most horrible scraping noise and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do. I’m not Bruce Willis. I couldn’t tell Mrs. Troublemaker, “Take the wheel!” while I crawled out the window and reached under the car to dislodge the offending object.

I was hoping slowing down and exiting the highway might get rid of it. Or making a turn. Maybe a bump in the road could do it. Nope. We turned down the access road that led to the hotel and as soon as we got within sight of these two joggers they both sort of jumped and turned around to stare at the car. Apparently the jug was making a worse noise outside the car than in.

We made one more turn and went over a sort of bridge and the fucking thing finally popped out. I would have gotten out and taken a picture, but I hate that thing and don’t want to make it famous.

You don’t know what kind of victory this is, but once we got inside the Marriot I was able to get Lil’ Troublemaker to go potty with no argument or promises of riches and reward. That’s a big deal.

We got to the admission table and while I was trying to get my wallet out and pay and talk to the dude this annoying girl was standing there asking if she could get a picture of us with some flyer. I told her to hang on and I’d give her a good one. O think she distracted the ticket guy as well because I think he gave me too much change, but I was distracted myself so I’m not sure. After I got our admission paid I put on the mask, turned around, and held up the flyer, which was for a screening of the sequel to Nicholas Cage’s fine Ghost Rider film. I wouldn’t mind going, but I’ll be working that night. I didn’t dislike the first one. I mean, it was crap, but I enjoyed it. The sequel looks just super and is by the geniuses behind the Crank movies.

Mrs. Troublemaker worked in a comic shop for fifteen years. This means she knows a lot of comic book people and is very friendly with them. By default I suppose this means I know these people as well, but I’m still not quite comfortable just chatting with them. Despite my almost demented compulsion to seek attention, I am not actually all that sociable. Where this is headed is to the fact that my wife knows Jason Flowers, Bobby Nash, and a bunch of other people very well and I don’t quite. So it’s a bit weird when she’s chatting and in her head we’re all buddies and in my head not so much.

But it all paid off this past Sunday, because in the process of talking to Bobby Nash (and getting him to sign the copy of Bloody Olde England that Jason Flowers drew an awesome werewolf on) I got to talking to this guy Mike. Mike does the Earth Station One podcast with Bobby. Somehow or another we got to talking about the website and he mentioned they were looking for content providers. And then we got to talking some more and he mentioned they were starting a Doctor Who podcast and he must have noticed my erection, because he asked if I would like to join in. Mike said they were going to be discussing “Keeper of Traken” next Monday.

Now, he could have mentioned any Doctor Who story and I would have claimed that I’d be able to talk about it. Because I could find something to say about any of the Doctors and any of their stories. But this is part of the unofficial trilogy, man. The interconnected stories where the great and powerful tom Baker passed the torch onto Peter Davison, father-in-law of Doctor Ten. I know some motherfucking “Keeper of Traken”. I’ve probably watched it, “Logopolis”, and “Castrovalva” more than any other Who serials; more even than “City of Death”.

So I said yes, I might be interested, except with the amount of enthusiasm a golden retriever displays for a steak covered in peanut butter.

Mike said he’s e-mail me this week and he damn well better or I’m probably going to have an aneurysm.

In my enthusiasm to discuss my possible appearance on the Earth Station One podcast I skipped right over poor ol’ Chris Hamer.

All of the artists at the con were in front of the dealer room at their own tables. Chris Hamer was at the first table when you walk in.

Mr. Hamer is an artist that I’ve spoken to before, but I’m not sure where. Probably Dragon*Con. That would explain why I can’t quite remember. He’s a super nice guy who does cool stuff and you can check him out here. He had a box of prints – as artists do – and the very first one in the stack caught the eyes of each member of the Troublemaker family:

That’s pretty darn awesome. I loved it and asked Lil’ Troublemaker if he wanted one to put in his room. He loved it, too. He’s way into Star Wars right now and he particularly loves the Hoth stuff. The fact that there’s a Tauntaun – or “Snow Donkey” as my son calls them and I think that’s too hilarious to bother correcting him – in the background just seals the deal. Hamer said that ours was the first print he’d sold of that particular piece and asked Lil’ Troublemaker how old he is. He held up the requisite four fingers and Hamer found print #4 and signed it to my son. Pretty awesome.

We stood by his table and talked about Anthrax for a while and then moved on.

Our first stop in the dealer room was a table full of toys, naturally. Against my better judgment we’ve been buying Lil’ Troublemaker 3 ¾” Star Wars toys. I was insistent that he stick to the Galactic Heroes/Imaginext scale stuff, but I let him have a bunch of duplicate figures and Mrs. Troublemaker bought him some old ones and now we’ve got a kid who thinks he needs every 3 ¾” Star Wars toy ever made.

But he really wanted Lando with a cape. And it just so happened that this table had Lando with a cape, as well as Luke as a Stormtrooper, Han in Carbonite, and an Amidala Mrs. Troublemaker wanted. Now, keep in mind – these were all variations of figures that my son had specifically requested before we even got to the comic convention. He wasn’t just picking random stuff out. So of course I had to get them. They were all carded and five bucks apiece, which seemed a bit steep to me for old POTF2 figures, but maybe not. They were all in long boxes marked $5. I took them up to the dude running the table and he made a little show out of looking at each one of these old, crappy figures like he was selling fucking family heirlooms. Then he tried to tell me Luke was more. I said no – he was in the box with the rest and looked him in the eye as hard as I could. I told him he didn’t even have any other Star Wars figures anywhere else. The guy actually started to keep up his argument, but I think he realized I was about to walk away and acted all put out and said, “Twenty bucks”. What a shithead. He was smart to change his mind, though. I was already running through the scenario in my head:

We had already told Lil’ Troublemaker we were buying the figures. He would have totally had a breakdown at that point if we didn’t. My plan was to pick him up and proclaim as loudly as I could over his crying, “I’m sorry buddy, but that man wanted to cheat us and you can’t let people take advantage of you.”

I know that might sound rotten, but please understand that a certain percentage of the vendors – especially toy dealers – are without a doubt going to try and screw you if they can at a show like that. Why the heck do you think nothing is individually priced? These guys – some of them, not all of them – are like carnies. They know how to spot rubes and they skim extra cash off of them whenever they can. And don’t get me wrong – I’m no hardcase. These guys get over on me all the time. If I was a haggler I could probably save a good bit of cash at every con I attend, but I also don’t pay a penny more than I think is within reason.

I got our new old figures and stuck them in my backpack and we moved on.

Oddly, there was a booth diagonally across from that guy that was also selling Star Wars toys, only these were recent releases and were, in some cases, underpriced. Not just for a con, but for retail, even. We picked up a couple of figures from that guy, too. He had one of the new Vintage Ponda Baba figures that I haven’t even seen at retail yet, but it was the one figure in his whole display that I felt was overpriced. I mean, not badly; just more than I was willing to pay.

Next up was a huge spot full of Marvel Legends and a smattering of DC Universe Classics. This guy was pretty cool and was asking reasonable prices for most of his stuff. By reasonable I mean I felt like the prices were fair, but still more than I wanted to pay for the most part. He did get me with some of his Marvel Legends, though. He was asking fifteen for most of them, so I picked up Deathlok and Doctor Strange. I passed on Strange back in the day for one reason or another and I have only recently liked Deathlok thanks to his appearances in Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force. I’m kicking myself for not picking up the Doctor Octopus he had.

We went around the room a few times – as one does – and headed out to get something to drink.

That’s when I saw Raven. Wrestling Raven, not Disney Raven.

I don’t try to talk to Raven. He lives in Atlanta and I have encountered him a couple of times and he’s not exactly gregarious. Now, if he’s not making a paid appearance; if he’s just out and about being Scott Levy, then I think the dude should be left alone and has every right to be a surly cuss if he wants. But I’ve been to a couple of events where he was doing signings and stuff and he was less than cordial.

Gnoll has a great Raven story. I’ll ask him if I can tell it some time.

So anyway, I have programmed myself to not interact with Raven. He’s one of my favorite wrestlers, but if the guy doesn’t want to be bugged, I can respect that. So we were walking out of the room and he was walking in and I averted my eyes and acted like I didn’t even see him and naturally he said, “Hey man,” and gave me a little nod. I was already in Ignore Raven mode so I didn’t say anything and just kept moving. Didn’t even nod or smile. The whole time my brain was yelling, “Why the fuck did you just ignore Raven!?! What is wrong with you!?!”

Hang in there. More Raven to come.

So we went and got beverages and opened up Lil’ Troublemaker’s toys so he could play for a little while. Mrs. Troublemaker ran some stuff out to the car and then we headed back towards where the con was being held.

The guy that did the lettering for Bloody Olde England was next to Bobby Nash, so we went down there to get him to sign the book. There was another guy named Peter Cutler beside Jason Flowers who had some cool-looking art and we ended up buying some prints from him. A couple of monster pieces and a semi-cheesecake Catwoman print for Jeffistopheles. He’d had a rough week. Since we bought three prints we got a free sketch book with a free sketch. I produced my Phantom Troublemaker reference and ended up with my favorite Troublemaker sketch so far:

And then Mrs. Troublemaker goes, “Oh, look – there’s Raven!” because the dude is sitting right there at a table with some 8x10s, some comics, and some statues. He smiled at us and said he had good deals on statues because he didn’t want to lug them back home. The guy was downright jovial. If ever there was a good opportunity to chat with the man who made Kurt Angle cry and run away from ECW like a ninny, this was it.

So of course I just smiled and nodded and turned around. Because if there is one thing I do not want to have to do, it is haggle with Raven. My fandom would have kicked in and I would have paid $300 for a fifty dollar Harley Quinn statue.

All in all we had a great time. Despite my social retardation I ended up talking to some really cool people and actually have a great opportunity with this whole Earth Station One thing. I never plan on making any money doing what I do, but I would love to get some more exposure and just talk to other nerds about the stuff I love. I mean, you guys see the comments. I answer every one. How long have I fawned over Little Pond now after her stuff about Swiftwind and whatever that other He-Man thing she commented on was? I crave nerd interaction. And this past Sunday I got it.

Good times.

-Phantom

Toy Review – Classic Doctor Who: The Chase By Underground Toys

2012-02-08T11:00:00.001-05:00

I have not actually seen the episode of Doctor Who that inspired this set.

I have only seen a few William Hartnell stories. I very much want to get to them, but they just aren’t as high a priority as catching up on the adventures of the last four Classic Doctors. I’ve seen the first few Hartnell stories and while they are novel and interesting, they suffer from the same curse as many of the first three (and even some of the fourth) Doctor’s adventures – they are almost terminally slow at times.

But if I were going to pick out a story featuring the original Doctor, there’s a good chance it would be “The Chase” since it features not only Daleks, but geodesic war machines. That’s certainly why I wanted this set. The Daleks look very retro and cool and that sphere is just awesome.

First Glance: This set is so old-school science fiction. Sometimes I miss the idea that everything in the future would be silver.

Sculpt: I once again have to point out how awesome Character Options is. Rather than simply repainting the same Dalek mold over and over again, they have actually recreated the distinctly different looks of the killer cyborgs as they have appeared on Doctor Who. Mattel would have just repainted the 2005 figure and expected people to deal with it, writing it off as a “budget challenge related to tooling costs” and claiming the need to “maintain characters that moms recognize”. Actually, now that I think about it, Mattel wouldn’t even have fucking made these Daleks in the first place. And that is why I have no problem paying the same for a 5” Doctor Who figure that I would pay for a 6” DC figure.

Okay, sorry.

The two Daleks in this set are identical. They have rotating domes (heads?), pivoting eye stalks, ball jointed weapon stalks (that are also interchangeable), and wheels under their bases. The wheels are extremely loose and mobile and allow the figure to roll smoothly in any direction without stalling.

I can’t speak to how accurate the figures are to the story, but these Daleks are noticeably different from others I own. They are shorter, for one; and the lights on their heads are placed very differently and are smaller. The detailing on the body panels and upper portion is great, and the mesh behind the neck disk thingies has a nice texture.

The Mechanoid is just such a cool novelty. Like the Daleks it has wheels underneath and they roll very nicely. There is a single weapon stalk on the front (?) that can be switched out between inert and flame-shooting modes. These parts can also be switched out with the Daleks.

The rest of the Mechanoid is really neat. There’s a little antenna on top and the patterns on the sphere just look great.

On the Daleks and the Mechanoid all of the lines are very tight and solid. These look like mechanical instruments of death.

Design: The Mechanoid boasts very little in the way of paint. There are brighter metallic highlights on the silver base and the “flame on” weapon stalk is molded from a translucent plastic that is painted on the base so the flames look extra cool.

The Daleks are also simple but accurate. I really love that all of CO’s Daleks have translucent lights on top. It’s such a nice touch that makes the figures look more like little models. The paint detailing is solid and clean. These guys look crisp and manufactured, if that makes sense. Daleks should look like they came off an assembly line and these two fit that description.

Accessories: The only real accessory in this set is the inert weapon stalk for the Mechanoid. It’s fine. Normally I would display a toy with the non-active weapon option, but the flames look so neat on the other weapon that I’m leaving it on.

Packaging: A basic window box with the new Classic Doctor Who design that I’ve been digging so much. I dream of the day that I will actually see four or so feet of Doctor Who toys in a toy aisle.

Overall: This is an awesome set whether you’ve seen The Chase or not. Everybody can appreciate Daleks, and these two are my favorite so far. And the Mechanoid is just cool. I can’t think of anything that would make this set better.

5 out of 5

As always, my first recommendation is that you buy this from JRsToyWorld.com. If he’s out, BigBad has it for slightly more.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Crispin Hellion Glover

2012-02-08T10:19:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure how to approach this one, but since I did a big ol’ post about Anthrax last Thursday I feel like I should do one about Crispin Glover today. We’re going to see some sort of performance of his at the Plaza Theater tonight and while I have no idea what to expect, I am very excited about it.

I’ve liked Crispin Glover ever since his wonderful and off-putting performance as George McFly in Back to the Future (just the first, not the sequels – the rat bastards that made it replaced him and, well, you can read about it here). Granted, I didn’t know who he was until years later, but something about Marty’s dad just fascinated me. He was so painfully awkward. His movements all seemed so spastic and yet carefully planned out. He spoke with intensity and shyness at the same time. The guy was a practice in contradictions. I didn’t understand any of that at the time. I just knew he was a weirdo.

Sometime later I would see the movie that truly burned the name Crispin Glover into my brain. The one that made me a lifelong fan of absolutely anything he was in.

Like most of you, I used to go to Blockbuster video and pick out random movies to rent. The only genre that I consistently rented was horror, but I’d occasionally dabble in crime, comedy, science fiction, and maybe even the odd foreign film now and then. Back then you’d shop purely by covers. I’m not saying you’d ignore the description on the back completely, but it was the cover that would get you to even bother with the blurb on the back in the first place.

VHS covers are a fascinating thing and an art form that will never be duplicated.

So much rode on that single picture or collage or painting. Nowadays the companies that produce the movies can rely on the internet to get their message across. Not to say that somebody, somewhere isn’t putting effort into the covers of DVDs and Blu-Rays; but there’s not as much at stake. Everybody is on the internet and knows everything they want to about movies. People pop on Netflix and see the description of the movie as instantly as they do any cover art. Plus, rental places aren’t around like they used to be. You may not even have a Blockbuster near you. And Red Box doesn’t count because nobody takes a leisurely browse around an overgrown Coke machine.

But back in the day, that box art had to sell the movie. There had to be something about it that made you curious, that piqued your interest or caught your eye. Whether it was a bright splash of color, a smutty shot of some cleavage or a barely-concealed ass, or a sinister robot with a chainsaw for a face; there had to be something that made you think, “Hey now, that movie might just be for me!”

This is the cover of Rubin & Ed:

I don’t know what the heck about that made me want to see the movie. It pretty much negates the point I was making above.

But I did see that Howard Hesseman and Crispin Glover were in it. So I guess that’s what sold me.

Rubin & Ed is weird and hilarious. It was one of the first non-horror indie movies I really liked. I don’t know what else I had seen at that point, but I felt then as I do now about most Sundance/IFC/Palm d’Or crap – it’s all a bunch of pretentious bullshit. I just can’t do art house. I’m not saying movies about gay cowboys eating pudding don’t have value, they just don’t have any value to me. And why the crap should I care about anything that doesn’t have value to me?

Glover’s performance in Rubin & Ed was an insane extrapolation of George McFly. Rubin was George taken to an extreme. I loved the performance more than the movie, but it wasn’t until years later that I remembered this:

Which happened in 1987 when Glover was promoting The River’s Edge. I was way into David Letterman in my pre-teen years. I don’t know why. But it was probably the second or third time I watched Rubin & Ed that I realized why that character had seemed vaguely familiar and remembered the insane breakdown on Late Night. I think when I saw it I didn’t even realize Glover (as Rubin) was there promoting a movie. Letterman had weirdos (spellcheck tells me “weirdoes” is the correct spelling, but I think that looks stupid) on all the time and it didn’t seem out of place at all to me that this long-haired guy in platform shoes was on just sort of talking. It was odd, however, that he chased Dave off the stage with a karate kick.

Glover has been in tons of movies since then, and is one of those actors that gives you a little thrill when they show up unexpectedly. It’s no surprise to see him in things like Wild At Heart, Dead Man, or What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?; but my favorite surprise Glover appearance has got to be his role as The Thin Man in McG’s Charlie’s Angels movies.

I’m not gonna lie – I am a big fan of those two flicks. They are both big, ridiculous popcorn action at it’s very best. They are unapologetic for their corniness and their sense of fun and the stars are totally fine with being sex objects and capable females at the same time. Glover’s appearance and character are the absolute antithesis of fun and sexy. He’s such a good foil for the bouncy, sassy chicks with his slow, calculated movements, dour demeanor, and total lack of dialogue. How awesome would it be to get a Thin Man movie? Or even a comic book tie-in?

Willard was the last movie I saw that starred Glover. It’s a remake of a 1971 film by the same name that I have never seen. But I knew it was about some dude with a rat fixation.

Once again Crispin Glover was mesmerizing in the movie. His portrayal of the socially awkward and eventually sociopathic Willard Stiles begins as heartbreaking and evolves into repugnant by the end of the movie. It’s great stuff, and that’s not even counting Glover’s bizarre cover of Michael Jackson’s “Ben”; the song about a rat that was done for the original movie:

I’m ashamed to admit that I have yet to see The Wizard of Gore. It’s a remake of the Herschell Gordon Lewis movie and it also features some of the Suicide Girls, which you’d think would be reasons enough for me to have checked out. I just haven’t. Sometimes I’m a bad nerd.

And finally, there’s tonight’s event. I don’t know what in the world we’re in for. The proper title for the showing is Crispin Hellion Glover's Big Slide Show Part 2: It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! Tomorrow night is an older work of Glover’s – What Is It? – featuring actors with Down Syndrome. Me and Mrs. Troublemaker are going with Little Pond and The Grand Hoff and I don’t know if any of them know quite what we’re in for, either. Whatever it is, it’s bound to be weird.

Check back next week for the write-up or come on out to the Plaza Theater tonight. I don’t know if the show is sold out, but you can check here:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/219681#comments

-Phantom

My Dinner With Anthrax

2012-02-07T11:00:00.001-05:00

“I JUST MET FUCKING ANTHRAX AND JOEY BELLADONNA READS MY BLOG!”

If you follow me over on Facebook, then you saw that post last Thursday night. I put it up right after one of the best and most surreal moments of my entire life.

As I mentioned last Thursday, me and the missus went to see Anthrax, Testament, and Death Angel that night. That’s awesome and all, but the real big deal for us was getting to meet Anthrax beforehand at a special meet & greet. It’s not every day you get to meet your all-time favorite metal band.

Before I get any further I want to give some credit to the company that ran the meet & greet – Concepts In Concert/AA Entertainment. For $90 you got an Anthrax Army lanyard, laminate, exclusive t-shirt, and vinyl banner; plus a personal meet & greet with the band that would last ten to twenty minutes. The length basically depended on how long you wanted to stand there blathering like an idiot at the thrash legends. I thought this sounded more than generous. Beforehand I assumed the band would be at a table and their handlers would just sort of run all the V.I.P. folks through to get our various items signed and then maybe a photo op at the end. It was worth it to me.

When I initially bought the V.I.P. passes I had some trouble with the Concepts In Concerts website. For my initial purchase I tried to buy two V.I.P. packages – one for me and one for Mrs. Troublemaker. I filled out all the pertinent information, submitted my credit card info, and hit the “Finish” button (or whatever their button said). After a second I got a message saying that my order failed. The nature of the message suggested there was a problem with the way I submitted the order, so I thought maybe you couldn’t do two packages at once. That seemed reasonable. So I did the whole thing again for my own order and got the same message. At this point I felt something was wrong. I opened up my e-mail to send a message to the company and then went to their “Contact Us” page to get the address. I saw that rather than an e-mail address they had one of those forms, and right around the same time I saw that I had four e-mails from Concepts In Concerts.

Uh-oh.

I had two receipts for credit card charges and two transaction receipts with the details of the purchase. Both of my transactions had, in fact, gone through. So I filled out CIC’s contact form and told them what had happened. I figured I’d give them a couple of days to respond before doing anything else.

The Saturday before the show came around and I still hadn’t heard anything from CIC and the charge had shown up on my credit card statement. I thought I should probably do something about it, so when I got home from work I called my credit card company and filed a dispute on the second charge for one package. I’ve been screwed over way too many times in my life and I’m really at the point where my margin for giving the benefit of the doubt is almost nil. After I finished that call, I sent an actual e-mail to CIC letting them know what had happened.

They responded in less than twelve hours this time.

Over the next couple of days we got everything all sorted out and whoever my contact was at CIC was super nice. We exchanged several e-mails between that Sunday and the show and they were all very personable and friendly, not the normal corporate speak you expect from everybody nowadays. The sale page for the V.I.P. package had stated that the night before the show we would receive an e-mail stating the time of the meet & greet and what sort of items we could and could not bring. Being who I am, all I really cared about getting signed was my Scott Ian action figure. And as you might imagine, there was no mention of Scott Ian action figures on the list. So I sent an e-mail asking about that and got a very positive reply back. They were totally into me bringing the figure.

So anyway, once the minor issue got ironed out I had a very positive and friendly experience with Concepts In Concerts and definitely give them the Phantom Seal of Approval.

The pre-show e-mail said that the meet & greet would start at 6:30 and to be there just a bit before then. That was great because it had been stated that the event could happen any time between 3:00 and 5:30 and I had no reason to be downtown for that long. Also, I couldn’t get out of work until 1:00, so it would have sucked to try and get home and then get down there by 3:00.

As an aside, I had screwed my car up royally the night before the show. I work twelve hour shifts. That’s bad enough, but what that really means is when I work days I get up at 3:30 AM, arrive at work at 5:00 AM, work until 5:30 PM, then get home around 7:00 PM. I am very tired by the time I get out of work and pretty much exhausted by the time I get home. The danger comes in the intervening hour and a half when I have to sit in traffic. And Wednesday night for the first time ever I actually nodded off.

I’ve been scared of doing this for years now, but it had not happened until the other night. I was awakened by a horrible noise that was my right front tire running into the curb at around forty-five miles an hour and blowing out while simultaneously causing five-hundred-thirty-one dollars worth of damage to various other parts of the front passenger side portion of my car. Not awesome.

But being the sunny guy I am I realize I am actually very, very lucky for all of the following reasons:

I was less than a quarter of a mile away from the auto shop we go to (which I had recently decided we were going to stop going to, but that’s another story that doesn’t matter right now for obvious reasons)
There is more un-curbed road than curbed road on that particular stretch. If I had nodded off a little further up the road I would have veered off and crashed into cars, trailers, or one of a number of houses. Further up than that and I would have driven off a steep incline and onto railroad tracks about fifty feet below.
If I had gone right instead of left I would have driven directly into the oncoming traffic.

Lots of those options would have ended with me dead and my car in considerably worse shape than five hundred bucks could fix, so I feel pretty lucky overall.

This left me driving Mrs. Troublemaker’s car to work on Thursday, which really has no bearing on anything. I just wanted to share the details of the harrowing experience I mentioned last Thursday. Didn’t want to leave my Phantomaniacs hanging.

So Thursday night my mother-in-law – who is the very best mother-in-law one could ask for – came and picked up Lil’ Troublemaker so that we could go to the show.

We left early enough to get downtown and eat because I didn’t want to chance being late. I absolutely loathe downtown Atlanta and the many obstacles it presents to timeliness. Traffic, lack of parking, nonsensical street layouts, and more all present serious problems to people who are actually trying to get somewhere at a certain time. So we got to the Tabernacle are around five o’clock just to be safe. I had pre-paid for parking so that we wouldn’t have to worry about finding somewhere nearby to park. This turned out to be monumentally stupid, but I’ll get to that later. After we parked we headed over to Ted’s Montana Grill for some bison.

I’ve eaten at Ted’s before and I think bison is just about the best meat I’ve ever had. Mrs. Troublemaker had never had it, so I thought it would be cool to go there before the show and have a couple of beers. I didn’t realize the place was literally right across the street from the Tabernacle, so that was a pleasant surprise. We walked in and there were a couple of metalheads already sitting at the bar. The hostess took us to a table and asked us if we were there for the Anthrax show; a fair question given the huge Anthrax patch on my backpack. We said we were and she told us how bummed she was that she was having to work and that she didn’t even know about the show until that day.

This struck me as weird. This girl was in her twenties. Probably her early twenties. And she was legitimately bummed that she was missing the show. It wasn’t just wait staff chatter. I’m always surprised when I run into anybody who claims to be an Anthrax fan, let alone a young person.

I hate that I am eligible to refer to somebody in their twenties as a “young person”. Never mind that people born in 1981 are thirty-one years old this year. Good lord.

So anyway, this girl was bummed about missing Anthrax. Our waitresses came out next and they weren’t very good. Better than Chili’s, IHOP, or The Tilted Kilt; but not great. They started by laughing and saying , “Oh, no!” when Mrs. Troublemaker asked if they needed to see ID when she ordered a beer. Oh, you stupid, stupid waitresses. There went about five percent of your tip. Everything seemed to take forever and we were the only people in our section. But the food was fucking awesome.

After our second beers I told the main waitress to go ahead and bring us each another and the check as well because when we were done eating we were going to need to get on out of there fast. Six o’clock was approaching and I at least wanted to be headed across the street by then. To her credit she did just as I asked. Granted, it took a while, but we got out of there in plenty of time. And regardless of the service I highly recommend you give Ted’s a try if you haven’t.

Everybody at the Tabernacle was super nice. The guy checking IDs, the door guy, the bartenders. I was impressed the whole night. Well, except for after the show was over. The people who clear the place out were dicks, but they kind of have to be. And it wasn’t their fault that Mrs. Troublemaker had wandered off with some guys from another band while I was up front getting mashed into old man paste by people half my age. But we’ll get to that.

As we approached the Tabernacle I pulled out our V.I.P. laminates. We had to have them on to get backstage for the meet & greet, but I have to tell you I felt like a grade-A dorkus wearing that thing. Thusly equipped, we asked the aforementioned ID guy where we needed to be and he directed us to a small group of people near the box office. There were a couple of traditional metalheads with their denim vests covered in a thousand different patches, several people older than myself and Mrs. Troublemaker, and a few people that just looked altogether too straight to even be at a metal show, let alone at a meet & greet for the greatest thrash metal band of all time. But we all have to grow up sometime, and not everybody is a tattoo person.

Soon after we joined that disparate little group a fella came out of the side door and told us he was going to be taking care of us. His name was Ray and he didn’t fool around at all with the fact that Charlie Benante and Frank Bello weren’t there. Charlie’s mother was in bad shape, Frank is Charlie’s nephew. They couldn’t be there. Ray said that if we wanted a refund for the V.I.P. package they would make that happen, which struck me as a particularly generous gesture. The sale page had clearly stated that not all members of the band may be available and that there would be no refunds. I thought it was pretty awesome that they were looking out for the fans this way. But I wasn’t about to miss out on meeting even three-fifths of Anthrax. Nobody else was, either. As far as I know nobody asked for their money back that night.

Ray did a roll call and then said it was time to head inside. He rounded us up and we headed for the magical area that is the tour bus parking lot. From there, we headed up a ramp and directly backstage.

I worked at the Masquerade for a few years and that place does not have very much backstage. Even Spinal Tap would easily navigate their way to the stage from the dressing rooms. The Tabernacle, on the other hand, has lots of backstage. We walked through offices, hallways, painted alcoves, kitchens and I think maybe even some sort of zoo area before arriving outside of the meet & greet room. I suspect it was a zoo area because that is certainly what it smelled like. Seriously, you guys – backstage at the Tabernacle smells like a gorilla taint. It was fucking awful. And it wasn’t the bands’ faults – they had clearly marked shower areas:

And yes – I was a little geeked out that I was standing outside Anthrax’s showers. Not in a pervy way, but in a “Holy shit, this is actually happening now” way.

Ray lined us up on the wall outside the meeting room and explained that the band would be there shortly and then we’d go in one at a time and meet them. This surprised me more than the refund thing. I really thought we’d be going in as a group, but it turned out we’d all be getting individual time with the band. I was starting to worry that I’d dork out like I did with Bruce Campbell.

We talked among ourselves while we waited for Anthrax to show up because of course it’s much easier to have conversation when you know everybody in the room has spent ninety bucks on the same thing. There was a dentist, a couple of gay dudes, some metalheads, and the regular old folks I mentioned earlier. The dentist had brought little gift bags full of dental hygiene products for the band. I thought that was pretty cool and I’m sure anthrax didn’t mind getting a bunch of free stuff like that while they were on the road. But the guys behind the dentist just couldn’t get over it. They thought it was rude for some reason.

Once Anthrax was in the room and they started moving people in things went pretty quickly. I mean, what are you going to talk to Anthrax about? I know Scott Ian’s a big nerd, but we’re not going to sit down and talk about Stephen King for a couple of hours.

Before too long it was our turn. Ray walked us into a large recreational room with some couches, a pool table, plants, and I think maybe a bar. Ray turned us over to some other dude whose name I didn’t catch because fucking Anthrax was standing there. We turned a corner and right there at this folding table were Rob Caggiano and Scott Fucking Ian.

In my head, I went – and I quote – “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I believe I said, “Holy shit, you guys.”

Let me take a second here to talk about Rob Caggiano since I was a total dick in my last Anthrax post and didn’t even mention the poor guy. Caggiano has played lead guitar live with Anthrax a lot in the past decade. He is also the lead guitarist on We’ve Come For You All and Worship Music, as well as The Greater of Two Evils. The guy absolutely thrashes and has a big stage presence. Also, I am six months older than he is and this makes me feel slightly under accomplished. But he kicks all kinds of ass and makes me totally okay with the fact that Dan Spitz would rather make watches than play metal.

So Rob Caggiano was super nice and immediately offered a hand and greeted us. Scott Ian was pleasant. The guy was not what you’d call chatty, but I honestly don’t expect too much from famous-type people when I meet them. I’m good with a handshake and getting my stuff signed. I don’t expect to be your pal or to trade Twitter handles or anything. So we chatted for a minute with Scott Ian and Rob and I got my figure signed and then their handler – the guy Ray had passed us off to – said, “Where’s Joey?” and walked out a side door. He came back out a second later with Joey Belladonna.

Guys – Joey Belladonna is a rock god. I’ve looked up to him since I was a kid. He’s one of my heroes. I said as much in my last post. So he walks out in his Anthrax work shirt and his rocker hair and looks at me and goes

“Oh, hey man – you’re the blog guy, right?”

In my head, I went – and I quote – “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! WHAT!?!”

I believe I said, “Bluh-huh.”

“Well, hey – thanks for the kind words, man. That really meant a lot. It was good to read.”

And in my head I continued going “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” for pretty much the rest of the night and as a matter of fact there is still a little portion in the back of my brain that is still doing it.

I found out later that Anthrax’s handler had been talking to Mrs. Troublemaker while I was babbling incoherently at the band. Apparently either all of them or just Joey had read my post and had been looking for me – a “Big, tattooed, bearded guy; maybe in a mask”. Somehow or another either Ray or the handler had recognized me and had told them I was coming in and then had gotten Joey. And Phantomaniacs, if you don’t think that the concept of Anthrax knowing who I was when I met them is almost a bit too much for my brain to handle than holy shit it really is.

You’ve got to understand – in my mind, there are still maybe ten people that read this blog and eight of them are personal friends. I look at the stats for Needless Things and I know that this isn’t the case by a long shot, but it just doesn’t compute with me that there are people all over the world that have read this thing. Which is probably for the best because I don’t ever want any kind of readership to effect the way I do what I do, with one caveat – if the opportunity ever arises to write somewhere else from time to time I would either clean up or censor out my language, depending on the circumstance. I know my cursing is unnecessary, but I do like to put things out there exactly as they appear in my head.

So Joey offered his hand and I shook it and I did my best to not geek out too much. But I did tell three-fifths of my favorite metal band that I was geeking out.

And yeah, it would have been more accurate to post, “I JUST MET FUCKING ANTHRAX AND JOEY BELLADONNA HAS READ MY BLOG!” but whatever, man. I was stoked and who knows – maybe he is a regular reader. He didn’t say he wasn’t, right?

Joey and Rob were both very nice the whole time and Scott Ian was polite and smiley. We got pictures:

Of course I had to have one with the mask, but we also got one with me and the missus just normal. I mean, it’s fucking Anthrax. I had to have a real me picture, too.

And then one of them (I don’t remember who) said, “Dude, you’re gonna wear the mask for the show, right? You’ve got to wear the mask.”

“Of course I’m wearing the mask.”

After I packed all my stuff up and thanked everybody profusely I turned one last time and addressed the guys:

“This was so awesome you guys. Seriously. This and owning Doctor Who toys are like, the childhood dreams. Thanks.”

And that got a legit laugh out of all of them. Good way to close.

As far as I was concerned we were done, but Ray had said he’d take us wherever we wanted to go after we were done with the band. I don’t know what that entailed, but we had to go back to the car to drop off our bags of signed Anthrax loot. Ray said he’d find us inside later on. I honestly wasn’t too worried about it, but as the night wore on and Mrs. Troublemaker got more inebriated she became more and more certain that we were missing out on free beer by not finding Ray.

“What if everybody else is sitting around drinking, like, a bunch of free beer or something?”

I’m pretty sure there was no free beer.

I called Monkey and Evil to tell them about my near-orgasmic experience and made my post on Facebook while we went back to the car. We sat there and downed a few beers that we had brought along and then headed back to the Tabernacle for some fucking metal.

I mentioned above that the lineup was Death Angel, then Testament, then Anthrax.

I hate to admit this, but I was not familiar with Death Angel before this show. While I love certain metal, I am by no means a big metal nerd. Like, Brian Posehn would totally laugh me out of the room. I knew Testament but had never gotten into them the way I was with Anthrax, Sepultura, Pantera, and some others. So I went into the show not really caring about Death Angel, curious to see Testament live, and totally stoked about seeing a full, headlining set from Anthrax.

Death Angel was playing when we got back inside the Tabernacle and me and the missus were fans instantly. Those dudes are fucking awesome. I can’t tell you a single song they played, but all the ones we heard were rad. The little singer dude had dreds longer than he was tall and he’d swing his head around and create this magnificent metal hair tornado. He looked like one of the X-Men or something. I truly believe if any fan in the front had been caught by that swirling mass of follicle mayhem they would have been torn to shreds.

I believe Mrs. Troublemaker was more than a little turned on by the Filipino Fury.

But Death Angel totally kicked it to the point where I had to download their latest album, Relentless Retribution, and it is awesome. You should go download it right now. I’ll wait.

No, seriously – go.

Okay. Testament was up next, but we ran into Bear and the Queen of Crunk before all that happened. And then almost simultaneously ran into Matt F. and his lady. We had a good, old-fashioned catch-up-a-thon on the steps of the former Cotton Club while Testament wailed away upstairs. I was cool with that. Sometimes I get caught up with what’s going on rather than hanging out with my friends and I pretty much end up hating myself forever after that happens. But we did eventually get to the point where we were pretty curious to see Testament, so we headed upstairs and saw this:

I am absolutely not going to bag on metal legends like Testament.

However.

I discovered that night that I am not a fan of Testament. But I am a huge fan of Testament’s lead singer. That energetic, round, long-haired man spent every single second that he was not singing playing his light-up microphone stand in the most amazing and consistent display of fake guitaring I have ever seen in my life. I was mesmerized. I couldn’t take my eyes off of this enthusiastic metal meister and his onstage shenanigans.

Speaking of things I can’t take my eyes off of, we ran into this little rocker chick out in the front of the Tabernacle and Mrs. Troublemaker got her to rub her boob on me for a picture. She even had the courtesy to screw up the first picture so we had to do it all over again. Oh no.

Sadly, it turned out the little rocker chick was twenty-one years old, meaning I could technically be her father and officially making me a dirty old man.

I had been debating for a while whether or not I would go up front for Anthrax. I had Lasik surgery a couple of weeks ago, and even though my eyes are pretty solid now, I didn’t want to chance getting hit in the eye by some metalhead’s boot. So I knew I wasn’t going to get in the pit, and I probably shouldn’t go up front.

But Anthrax was expecting to see that mask. I couldn’t let Anthrax down. They were counting on me.

So after Testament finished and enough time had passed for Anthrax to get reasonably set up, I went straight to the front like a big fucking idiot. I was right behind these two short people who were up against the barricade. I was going to be in the shit, man.

(pic courtesy Matt F.)

As soon as the lights went down, I pulled out the mask and strapped it on. Before I could even get it laced up, Anthrax was on stage playing “Earth Is On Hell” and the shit was on like Donkey Kong.

And you know what? A few verse into the song, Joey looked right at me and gave me a thumbs up and made some kind of crazy mask gesture with his hands. He did this no less than three more times during Anthrax’s set and I have to tell you, Phantomaniacs, I fucking swooned like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert every time. Granted, the last couple of swoons were due more to exhaustion and dehydration, but man. It was totally worth getting my ass beat for an hour and a half.

Which I did. I’m not sure who was playing bass for this show, but it was this little guy and he was totally kickass. The whole set was absolutely fucking amazing, and being right up front in the thick of it the whole thing felt like a dream. I have never enjoyed a show so much in my life or gotten so caught up in one. I sang along with every single song whether I knew the words or not (remember – I am not a guy who memorizes lyrics very well). As best I can remember, the set list was something like this:

Earth Is On Hell

Fight ‘Em

Among the Living

Antisocial

Caught In A Mosh

Medusa

Indians

In The End

Got the Time

(Encore)

Metal Thrashing Mad

Deathrider

I Am the Law

And not necessarily in that order. I know there was more, but I was pretty much caught in a mosh the whole time and couldn’t get to my pen and paper to take notes.

There aren’t a whole lot of bands on this planet that I would have put up with staying up front like that for, particularly not with my mostly-but-not-totally-healed eyes. It was gross and sweaty and painful and I think I inadvertently had the sex with the butts of the two short people in front of me all night long. At the very least they know where all of my piercings are located. There was this one little dude in a leather Members Only jacket who wanted to wanted to mash but didn’t want to lose his spot at the front of the stage. He also got really irritated when I’d bump into him, and every once in a while he’d thrust his ass out really hard to try and get me to back up, like I had a choice in the matter. So after he did this a couple of times, the next time he did it I took my knee and stuck it behind his knee and made him fall over. Idiot.

Speaking of idiots, I got elbowed in my left nipple about eight thousand times. This caused the ball in my hoop to fall out and amazingly I felt it hit my boot when it did. So what did I do? I stood there looking at the ground like a moron, as though I was going to find this metal bead that wasn’t even an eighth of an inch in diameter.

So I was sandwiched directly between the first row of spectators on the barricade and the mosh pit for the whole show – center stage. You know what that means? Every fucking crowd surfer in the place went over my giant, masked head on their way to the loving embrace of the security guards behind the barricade. But I was able to keep an eye out thanks to years of concerts and didn’t get banged up too badly.

Speaking of getting banged, one of the crowd surfers happened to be our rocker chick friend from earlier:

And I had to struggle to not put my hands in any places where my hands shouldn’t be going.

Anthrax closed with a rousing performance of “I Am The Law” and I pretty much lost my voice.

After the show I headed directly back to where I had left Mrs. Troublemaker.

She was nowhere to be found, and for a moment I was concerned she might have made her drunken way to Death Angel’s tour bus, but then I figured I owed her for the boob action earlier. It turned out she had run into Terry Boy and Jamie from Atlanta’s very own Mystery Men?

Actually, Mrs. Troublemaker had many adventures while I was up front rocking it out with the World’s Best Metal Band, but it looks like we’re just about out of time, here.

I’ll just close by saying the rock show whooped a llama’s ass. Rock over London, rock over Atlanta.

Delta. We love to fly and it shows.

-Phantom

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Star Sisters By Mattel

2012-02-06T11:00:00.002-05:00

Note: The above picture is so blurry because A) I am an incompetent photographer who just does stuff like that sometimes; or B) I just didn't give a shit. You choose.

The Star Sisters have been the source of quite a bit of controversy since they debuted at San Diego Comic Con last year.

Some folks pointed to them as a sign that Mattel was truly going to hit every corner of the Masters of the Universe/Princess of Power franchise and were thrilled. Some folks didn’t understand why Mattel would produce this trio before getting to highly demanded, popular, important characters like Ram-Man, Rattlor, Mantenna, Mosquitor, Modulok, Two-Bad, Jitsu, Spikor, Extendar, Rio Blast, Stonedarr, Rokkon, Dragstar, a Horde Trooper, Multi-Bot, Tung Lashor, Clamp Champ, Rotar, Gwildor, Blade, Blast Attack, Ninjor, Saurod, Twistoid, Snake Face, Sssqueze, Angella, Castaspella, Frosta, Glimmer, Double Trouble, Flutterina, Mermista, Peekablue, Perfuma, New Adventures He-Man, Sweet Bee, Entrapta, Loo-Kee, Netossa, Spinnerella (not to be confused with Salt-N-Pepa’s DJ, Spinderella), Hydron, Flogg, Slush-Head, New Adventures Skeletor, Kayo, Nocturna, Visar, Hoove, Karati, Lizor, Artilla, Spinwit, Tuskador, Butthead (who I think we can all agree should be a priority anyway), Quakke, Staghorn, all of the Meteorbs, Eldor, and of course Evil Robot (whatever the heck that is).

I hope you’re picking up on what I’m saying here.

And then there are the people who feel that the Star Sisters are fucking stupid and so obscure and useless that they should never have been made in the first place.

I’m in that third camp.

But they were made and we have to deal with them. Especially if we are Club Eternia subscribers, because there’s no way you’re going to be able to move this stupid set on eBay. Personally, I gave mine to Mrs. Troublemaker. She’ll chime in with her review later. I’d like to solicit the inimitable Little Pond for a review as well, but we’re not currently on speaking terms after an incident involving Mrs. Troublemaker, several monster trucks, and enough beer to sedate a middle-sized Apatosaurus.

First Glance: Yep. They look stupid and I don’t want them. Except the crystal one (Jewelstar) looks kind of cool. And the tall one (Tallstar) has an interesting color scheme. And the yellow one (Starla) isn’t so bad.

Sculpt: All three figures feature new hip joints that seem to me to suck. They look fine (except for Tallstar’s, but we’ll get to that) but they do not offer the same range of motion as the older female MOTUC hip joints. They can move outward and forward and back, but lack the swivel. It’s very limiting. The abdominal rocker joint is also missing from these ladies, and Starla and Jewelstar are missing a calf swivel.

Otherwise the Star Sisters have the standard MOTUC articulation.

Tallstar looks pretty wacky and has a costume that reminds me a whole lot of Rainbow Brite. Her hair looks pretty cool and dynamic and she has a slightly longer face that fits with her gimmick. Which, by the way, is actually represented in the toy. Included with the set are five extension pieces that fit in Tallstar’s legs, arms, and neck. The leg and arm pieces work really well and don’t look as freakish as you might think. The neck piece doesn’t fit in quite as well. I think this is due to the weight of the head, but there is a little space in between the pieces that I can’t seem to get rid of. I do wish Mattel had included the abdominal piece we saw at SDCC. She’d look less weird if she were stretched all over. Speaking of weird, Tallstar and Jewelstar are both sporting some serious granny panties and I don’t like it one bit. It’s especially bad on Tallstar because the leg holes are a bit too open and you can see her hip joints hanging out.

Starla is the most solid looking sculpt-wise. She has a cool hair sculpt, a great face, and her dress covers up the hip problem. Her star crown thing is really cool as well. She somehow seems generic and unique at the same time.

I can’t explain it, but she feels like the centerpiece of the set even though she has no gimmick.

And finally, we come to Jewelstar, who has a pretty cool gimmick – lots of translucent parts. I am such a sucker for translucent parts. She has a crown, kneepads, and gauntlets that are not only see-through pink, but also very well-sculpted. They are uneven and crystalline and look great. Jewelstar’s face and torso are more angular than the other girls’, which is a nice touch. Unfortunately, she also suffers from granny panty syndrome. Hers just isn’t as noticeable.

Oh, and she also has a nice sparkly cape that I honestly can’t quite tell if it’s translucent or just has a very shiny, pearlescent finish (I'm just kidding - it's translucent, of course). Either way it looks cool.

Having said all that, there is one major problem with these girls. Little Pond was right back when she complained about Swiftwind. These are girl toys designed by stupid boys. And this set in particular can’t even claim that it is aimed at boys. Look at it. I’m not saying there aren’t dudes out there who are going to like it, but I don’t think your average male collector was dying to get his hands on three glittery princesses and their pink falcon (which should be an Urban Dictionary entry, by the way). So my point here is that if they are going to make these girl toys, they really should go the distance and give them second heads with girl hair. I don’t buy ToyGuru’s claims about the budget limitations. I mean, I’m sure there are limitations, but I doubt they’re as severe as he suggests. The guy always talks about how much they have to charge for all their lines. I very strongly feel that Mattel charges what they feel like they can get away with charging.

Design: I’m not going to run down the individual figures here because they each have pretty great and accurate paint jobs.

I’ve seen a lot of complaints about smudges and blotches on this set, but I’ve got to tell you – mine all look pretty great.

Overall I really dig the color choices here. These look like 80’s toys for girls except for the one glaring omission.

Accessories: The set comes with Tallstar’s extension pieces, Glorybird the pink falcon (and if you think I’m not dying to do a whole post about the hilariousness of that concept you don’t know me very well), a removable Mohawk for Glorybird, and a stand for Glroybird.

Tallstar’s extensions all look fine and work well except for the neck piece, which still isn’t all that bad.

Glorybird is Beast Boy/Zoar/Screeech; except pink. The Mohawk is extremely goofy but fits well and the stand is shockingly an entirely new sculpt that looks like something Barbie would have beside her toilet. And I mean that in the best way possible.

Packaging: Is this the same box shape as the beast packs? I think it is.

Overall: I don’t necessarily want these in my house, and I’m certainly not happy I had to pay $60 plus shipping for them; but the Star Sisters are not bad action figures. They are stupid girl toys that a bunch of dudes translated into a boys’ line as best they could. And they did a fine job. They lose a point for not just admitting to being girl toys and having combable hair. They lose another point for the weird articulation issues and Tallstar’s neck. But really, these are pretty well done figures. I’d honestly give them a 4 out of 5 if I didn’t hate the fact that they got made so much.

3 out of 5

Do you really want to buy these? Seriously? I guess go to BigBad and pay their fucking ridiculous markup. Normally they're pretty sane, but ninety-five bucks for these fruity broads is absurd.

Believe it or not, there are some idiots out there who are already requesting better, alternate versions of these obscure characters. Blech. I hope those people’s Wind Raiders break.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Anthrax - The Thrash Kind, Not the Kill You Kind

2012-02-02T14:40:00.002-05:00

Note: Sorry this post ended up being bare-bones and pictureless. I fell asleep and ran off the road on the way home and (hopefully only) blew out my right front passenger tire. My car is at the shop and I have to drive Mrs. Troublemaker's car in to work tomorrow. I don't feel like looking for videos and pictures.

I first heard Anthrax courtesy of my buddy Matt F. waaay back in 1988 (or somewhere thereabouts). It was the song “Antisocial” and I immediately loved it. It was the first time I had heard the term and I identified.

Matt was the guy that introduced me to most of the music I listened to back then. He got me into Metallica, Megadeth, Primus, Ministry and probably more. But Anthrax was my favorite. No question. Their music just seemed so much more accessible than any of the other metal bands we listened to. It seemed friendlier somehow. I know metal isn’t supposed to be friendly, and I’m not trying to say they were singing about hugging puppies or anything, but Anthrax had a more fun style. I mean, there were songs about Judge Dredd and Stephen King books. They even did a goofy rap song.

I could identify with their look more, as well. “Five guys in shorts” was something I could get down with a lot more than dudes in super-tight black jeans or wristbands with seven-inch spikes on them. These were regular guys who just happened to know how to rock like crazy.

I went out and bought every Anthrax tape I could find after that.

The first one I bought was the I’m the Man EP because it was the cheapest cassette and I was broke. I listened to that thing non-stop for a week and couldn’t wait to get my allowance so I could get some more Anthrax. Of course, at the time I didn’t even know that Anthrax was a deadly infectious disease. I just thought it was a cool-sounding word.

The next week I bought State of Euphoria and Among the Living. Euphoria was the album that featured “Antisocial” and is an excellent work of metal, but Among the Living is the album that changed my life and is still to this day my favorite metal album.

From start to finish every song on Among the Living is a triumph of metal. I’m not a guy who just picks up on song lyrics. I really have to concentrate on a song to learn the words. Even with my favorite bands I only know a few of their songs. But I know every single word on that album.

I acquired Spreading the Disease, Fistful of Metal, and the Armed and Dangerous EP over time, but Among the Living was the one I listened to the most.

And then Persistence of Time came out and Anthrax sort of blew up.

By 1990 I was a huge metal fan and a rabid follower of Anthrax. I bought metal magazines (I can’t remember the names – I think Circus was one, but I’m also thinking that might have been a lame one), watched Headbanger’s Ball, and tried to find the least offensive metal t-shirts available so I could get away with wearing them. My mom had this habit of “misplacing” shirts she didn’t like. I can think of ten or so t-shirts that just disappeared in the wash – it’s what led to me doing my own laundry.

Actually, I specifically remember this one Lost t-shirt that had Æon Flux crawling across the logo. I got it on one of our trips to North Carolina. My mom hated it and one day I couldn’t find it. I guess I made a bigger stink about it than I had about other shirts (though I don’t remember specifically) and a couple of weeks later she “found” it. But somehow it was now black instead of brown. The opposite of faded. But I was just happy to have my shirt back. It wasn’t until years later that I decided she must have felt bad about throwing it out or something and found another one. I like to imagine her calling up my Granny and saying, “You have to go to this skate shop at Carolina Beach and get this shirt with a mostly naked girl on it.”

Oh, and as far as Anthrax shirts, I had a Judge Dredd one that pretty much passed muster. I wore that thing once a week for at least my whole high school career.

And yeah – it took years for me to figure out the whole “misplaced” clothing thing. Who wants to think their parents are deceptive like that?

Speaking of parents, I remember this one time we were up in North Carolina for my dad’s high school reunion. He took us to the school to show us around and there was this one wall out by a sort of courtyard with some graffiti on it. One of the things written there was the Anthrax band logo. I said, “Oh, cool! Anthrax!” and Dad looked at me like I was crazy. He had no idea what bands I liked. He had tuned out after I had made him listen to Raising Hell back in 1986. In the infuriating, not-just-getting-to-the-point way he has, he asked, “Oh, what’s anthrax?” and I told him it was one of my favorite bands.

He stopped and gave me that look and said, “Oh. That’s a cow disease.” In the same tone you would use if you were telling the waiter there was a turd in your soup.

That stuck with me for a while, and in one of my many failed attempts to gain some sort of approval I drew an album cover. I used to draw a lot of album covers back in the day. I wish I still had them all. Most of them I didn’t bother showing to Dad, but this one was pretty much for him. I spent a long time trying to make it look just right. I think I still have it, too.

The fake album was “Anthrax – Greatest Hits – Dead Cattle” and showed some cows laying on their backs in a field. It was at the height of my obsession with Gary Larson’s The Far Side comic strip, and these cows were very Larson-y.

So I thought it was pretty funny and was a good attempt at poking a little fun at something I liked for his benefit. He looked at it and said, “Cows only have four teats,” which out of context is an extremely hilarious phrase, but at the time was kind of crushing. I had put five teats on the cow for some reason. I went back to my room and erased the offending odd-teat-out and evened up the others. I took it back to Dad and he looked at it and laughed about as hard as I’ve ever seen. He took the drawing and stuck it on the bulletin board in his office, then gave me a hug and told me I had done a great job, but it was important to be accurate. He was proud of my abilities and glad that I had the motivation to improve my skills.

HA! Just kidding! He glanced at the corrected picture, went, “Huh,” and returned to reading his newspaper.

Boo-hoo. My life is so hard.

It was a pretty big deal when Persistence of Time came out. Anthrax was on Headbanger’s Ball a lot, and I remember almost losing my mind the night the video for “Got the Time” debuted. It took forever for them to get around to playing that thing.

It was also around this time that Anthrax showed up on one of the greatest sitcoms ever made – Married… With Children.

There had been a real-life contest (I think sponsored by MTV) where the winner had Anthrax come wreck their house. As much as I may bitch about my parents and the way they were, I totally understand (and I think even got it back then) why I was not allowed to enter this contest. Somehow or other FOX and the creators of Married… With Children decided it would be awesome to do a story like that on their show and of course they were right. Bud and Kelly entered the “My Dinner With Anthrax” contest and won. Anthrax came to the Bundy house and ate the Mystery Meat from the back of the Bundy refrigerator. Once Scott Ian was tripping balls from the unidentifiable substance they played a truncated version of “In My World” and then wrecked the Bundy’s house. It was awesome.

It was destroyed a long time ago, but I remember in art class one year I made a plaster sculpture of this mountain thing with one of the clocks from the P.O.T. album cover at the top. It was pretty cool. I still don’t quite understand what it was, but the clock looked pretty darn good.

Almost a year after the unusually somber Persistence came out, Anthrax blew up again, maybe even bigger. Because the video for “Bring the Noise” hit MTV and made music history.

If there is one song by Anthrax that anybody is going to know, this is it. The collaboration with rap pioneers Public Enemy is rightfully legendary and is the first true example of the rap/metal crossover that would come to be such a big fad afterwards.

Side note: For years “Bring the Noise” was the entrance music I had in my head for my created wrestler in the WWE video games. And then, in an absolutely crazy coincidence, the song was actually included in one of the games; usable as entrance music. My dream came true. Of course, it was after Phantom Troublemaker had lost his mask and was now performing as D Toxx, but nobody wants to hear about the ten years of my life I spent fantasy booking wrestling video games for me and my friends.

“Bring the Noise” was the single off of Anthrax’s Attack of the Killer B’s album. It’s a collection of b-sides, live tracks, and covers. This is my second favorite Anthrax release after Among the Living.

Attack was the first CD I ever bought. Everything up until that point had been cassette tapes. If I remember correctly, it cost me about five bucks more than the tape would have.

I love this album because it’s all over the place and really shows what an interesting band Anthrax is. There are covers like “Parasite” and “Pipeline”, a song about Jim Jones (which is also a cover), a rant against the PMRC, and an update of their goofy rap song “I’m the Man”.

Sometime after Attack came out Joey Belladonna left the band.

I was largely unaware of band members back then. I mean, I knew names, but I didn’t pay much attention to who did what or anything. Anthrax was a different story. I knew Charlie played drums, Frank played bass, Dan played one guitar and Scott Ian (he has always been and always will be “Scott Ian”; full name every time) played the other, and Joey Belladonna was the singer. And to me at the time Joey leaving meant Anthrax was over. I blamed Nirvana. I still kind of hate them for what happened to metal in the early 90’s, even though it isn’t really their fault.

So Joey left in ’92 and that seemed like the end. I don’t want to downplay anybody else’s contribution to Anthrax. Frank Bello, Dan Spitz, Charlie Benante, Joey Belladonna, and Scott Ian worked together to make some of my favorite music of all time. Songs that have endured in my consciousness – and my playlists – to this day like few others have. I love what they did as a team. And older, wiser me understands now that Charlie Benante is one of the very best drummers in the world and it took all five guys working together to do what they do. But to sixteen-year-old me Scott and Joey were the keys. It totally sucked.

Lots of my favorite bands have broken up or had short runs – Faith No More, System of A Down, A Tribe Called Quest; just to name a few – but Anthrax seemingly ending in 1992 is the only time I’ve really felt it, like a personal loss.

I remember it seemed like an eternity, but it was the very same year that Anthrax introduced a new vocalist – former Armored Saint front man John Bush. I was thrilled that Anthrax was not gone, but I just didn’t see how anybody could replace Joey.

And John Bush did not replace Joey. Anthrax went in a different direction with their 1993 release Sound of White Noise. It was still heavy, but it was not thrash metal. But I dug it. It wasn’t like old Anthrax where I loved every song on the album, but there was enough good that I still think it’s a great work. I hold it apart from the rest of my Anthrax stuff. It’s worth noting that this album featured the first slowed-down Anthrax song, something that I would have been absolutely appalled at if not for the fact that Angelo Badalamenti helped compose it. Black Lodge is a pretty awesome song, but again – not what I want from Anthrax.

On October 25^th, 1996 I finally got to see Anthrax live at the International Ballroom.

And I don’t remember it at all.

If it wasn’t for the ticket stub and the memory of what a crappy t-shirt the Sound of White Noise album cover made I wouldn’t even know I had gone. I was actually writing another piece a couple of years ago about the best shows I have seen and was lamenting the fact that I had never seen Anthrax. In the process of looking through the Troublemaker archives I came across the ticket stub for the show and was flabbergasted. After thinking really hard about it I do remember that I went and I even remember there was some kind of problem about me going. But I don’t remember the show at all. Maybe I was too stoned. I dunno. But it wasn’t Joey Belladonna, so it kind of doesn’t matter.

Sorry, Mr. Bush. Sound of White Noise was solid, but I attribute the mediocrity of the next ten or so years pretty much directly to you.

Guys, listen – I fucking love Anthrax. If that hasn’t been made clear by now then I am just a terrible writer or you don’t get that people don’t just sit around and pound out 2000+ word essays over nothing. But the next three Anthrax albums were pretty much not Anthrax albums. Stomp 442, Volume 8: The Threat is Real, and We’ve Come For You All are basic metal albums of varying quality. There are probably ten songs among them that really stand out as tunes special enough to be from Anthrax.

I got a hold of Stomp 442 easily enough. I tried to love it. I really did. But it just didn’t click. This wasn’t Anthrax. To the point where I didn’t even try to find Volume 8 when it came out, which is good because it was apparently hard to find anyway. Same with the 2003 album We’ve Come For You All, which does have an awesome name.

I spent 1995 through 2005 pretty much just sticking to Anthrax’s pre-1994 catalogue. I would check different stores CD bins occasionally just to see if anything new was hitting or if maybe a rarities album or remastered versions of old albums were coming out. I’ve never been overly internet-savvy, so it didn’t ever really occur to me to follow the band online back then. I don’t remember when I came across The Greater of Two Evils, but I know it was in a Best Buy and I know it gave me hope that my favorite metal band had finally realized the error of their ways.

The Greater of Two Evils is an album unlike anything I’ve ever heard. The band re-recorded fifteen tracks that essentially comprise their greatest hits with Rob Caggiano on lead guitar and John Bush on vocals. As far as the instrumentation goes, the album proved that not only could Anthrax still thrash, but that it was what they were best at. Bush’s vocals were perfectly fine. The guy can’t do what Joey Belladonna can do, but musically the songs were very good updates. Good enough that I tracked down the missing albums from the past few years on Amazon. I was thrilled when they arrived, mostly because I had managed to score versions with the international bonus tracks. I was less thrilled once I actually listened to them. Stomp 442 was pretty much as uninteresting as I remembered and the following two lived down to that standard.

I know I’ve been a little harsh towards John Bush here. I like the guy’s voice and I think he’s a really great vocalist, but not for Anthrax.

So time passed and I continued to love older Anthrax while still breaking out The Greater of Two Evils from time to time. And then there was a tour with Joey. They either didn’t come to Atlanta or I couldn’t get out of work. I’m not sure. But I did buy the live album they recorded on the tour and it’s fantastic. Far superior to the one released when the band was still with Island.

On October 1^st, 2010 I finally got to see Anthrax with Joey Belladonna.

They were touring with Slayer and Megadeth – two other bands I had never had the opportunity to see – and it was like a dream come true. Mrs. Troublemaker and I went and had an amazing time even though we missed Anthrax’s first song and they only played for about thirty minutes anyway. Overall this is one of the very best concerts I have ever attended. In a wacky twist of fate we even ran into Matt F. – who I had not seen since high school – and his lady. We hung out and had a blast.

And then Scott Ian promised they’d be back in 2011 because they had a new album coming out.

HOLY SHIT.

“Fight ‘Em (Til You Can’t)” was the first single from the album. It was released last June and it blew my fucking mind. The song is fast and furious and is about fighting zombies. Zombies, man. This was Anthrax back to doing what they do best. I can’t even describe how happy I was the first time I heard that song. I had to sneak out to the bathroom at work to download it and listen. I made a cut of it my new main ringtone after the first listen and it still is.

Worship Music was released in September and it is one of my favorite albums of all time. Not because of how good it is – and it is good – but because of what it means. One of my favorite, most beloved bands got back together and made an album that is every bit as good as the ones they put out when I discovered them.

This afternoon we are going to meet Anthrax before they headline a show at the Tabernacle with Death Angel and Testament. I bought V.I.P. passes for a meet and greet. I want to meet one of my favorite bands, I want to see if I can get a picture with them, and I want to get Scott Ian to sign my Scott Ian action figure. The V.I.P. thing was expensive, but reasonable for what you get. The bottom line is that we’re going to get to meet Anthrax. And they aren’t going to tear up our house.

Well, hopefully we’re going to meet Anthrax.

I’m writing this on Saturday afternoon and when I woke up this morning Mrs. Troublemaker had sent me this article.

I hope Scott Ian is hale and hearty for the show and doesn’t suffer any more problems and I wish the best for Charlie Benante and his family. I don’t want anybody to have to go through what these guys are dealing with, but more so for a band I care so much about.

Just so this thing doesn’t end with a total thud, here are my Top Ten Favorite Anthrax songs:

10 – Among the Living

9 – Now It’s Dark

8 – Intro to Reality/Belly of the Beast (Yeah – I know those are two separate tracks, but to me they’re inseparable. Can’t have one without the other)

7 – Efilnikufesin

6 – Got the time

5 – Metal Thrashing Mad

4 – Only

3 – Fight ‘Em (Til You Can’t)

2 – Bring the Noise

1 – I Am the Law

Here’s hoping they play every single one of these tonight! Okay, well – I know they won’t do “Bring the Noise”.

-Phantom

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Battleground Evil-Lyn By Mattel

2012-02-01T11:00:00.002-05:00

I was never a fan of the weird, jaundiced appearance of the original Evil-Lyn.

Apparently Filmation wasn’t, either, because she had Caucasian skin in the 80’s cartoon, as well as in the 2002 revival. So pretty much nobody likes yellow Evil-Lyn. Not only is the yellow not very appealing, the fact that she is nothing more than a repaint of Teela is also kind of lame. Granted, this figure is still nothing more than a repaint of Teela, but at least she’s not yellow.

Evil-Lyn was always pretty cool. In the old 80’s cartoon she was the only one of Skeletor’s minions that didn’t put up with his shit. In the 00 series she was actively subversive. Quite frankly I’m not sure if her characterization as an untrustworthy, manipulative being with her own goals and schemes is empowering feminism or misogyny; but it’s interesting anyway.

A key difference in the two primary iterations of Evelyn Powers (yes – that’s her real name) is that we saw the hair of the later one. And if you know cartoons depicting licensed characters, that’s a pretty big deal. If somebody has a hat on, they always have a hat on. I really dug that short-cropped, white hair the first time I saw it and thought it gave her a whole lot of character.

So overall, I very much prefer the 2002 Evil-Lyn.

This, however, is not the 2002 Evil-Lyn. It is a vintage Evil-Lyn painted in her colors that comes with her head. Let’s see how that worked out.

First Glance: Once again this line proves just how significant a paint job can be. Battleground Evil-Lyn does look very different and cool.

Sculpt: Battleground Evil-Lyn is essentially the same figure as Teela and Evil-Lyn. As such, she has the basic MOTUC female articulation. The arms and legs both have a deeper range of motion than you might imagine, as the legs can be crossed and the arms can be positioned quite close together. All of the joints on mine are tight and none are stuck. She has no trouble standing thanks to the ingenious MOTUC rocker ankles.

BG Evil-Lyn does have a major difference in that she has Catra’s left hand. On Catra it looks like it is preparing to claw at somebody, but on Evil-Lyn it works nicely as a spellcasting hand. I will say, though, that it might have been nice if this had been an alternate, swappable hand. But it does look good and functions just fine for holding the upper portion of Evil-Lyn’s staff.

The standard head is the same as the original Evil-Lyn and looks suitably harsh and sinister. The alternate un-hatted head features the same face under the 2002 hairstyle. It looks great and the Horsemen did a good job of not making the hair look too animated.

Design: Battleground Evil-Lyn is painted in an entirely different – and much more appealing – color scheme. Her flesh tone is a very pale, greyish Caucasian with some very faint highlights for depth.

The new color scheme on her clothing is purple-based, so of course I love it. The highlights and details are tight. I don’t have any blemishes or smears on mine.

The 2002 head is very nice. The makeup is identical to the regular head, and the hair looks good. Not much you can do with white hair. Well, I suppose they could have fucked it up like they do with a lot of lighter colors, but they didn’t.

Accessories: This Evil-Lyn come with her staff, two different orbs, the extra head, and the cape; which is a big deal to me. It makes a big difference in the looks of the figures.

The cape is pretty basic, but has a detailed clasp and a nice wash.

The staff is even more basic, but the orbs vary quite a bit. One is purple, which would normally be my variation of choice, but Matty went and made the other one glow-in-the-dark. I cannot resist glow-in-the-dark. It may not look as aesthetically acceptable standing on the shelf, but it glows in the dark.

Packaging: Like with Demo Man, this packaging is supposedly thinner. I can’t tell and I don’t care. Matty could start shipping these in plastic bags as far as I’m concerned. Don’t get me wrong – I think the packaging is neat and all, but I open all of these. Well, all of the ones I actually want. I have a stack of unopened figures, but they’re still in the mailer boxes anyway.

Overall: I really hope that we get an entirely new, 2002-style Evil-Lyn someday soon. But until then, this one is an acceptable stand-in. She has definitely replaced the yellow Evil-Lyn in my bad guy lineup. When you see the score, keep in mind that I am rating her as a repaint/variant, not as an actual representation of the 2002 Evil-Lyn.

5 out of 5

Seriously, they did a really nice job on her. I can’t find a thing to complain about here. BigBad has her. Probably eBay as well.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Demo Man By Mattel

2012-01-31T11:00:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I got all the vitriol in my system over the Demo Man delay out yesterday.

Well, I didn’t get it out. I shared it. It’s still firmly intact deep in my toy-collecting soul. But I feel better. Better enough that I can do an intro that is my usual brand of space-filling nonsense.

I have no idea who Demo Man is or why the heck he warrants a precious slot in Matty’s Masters of the Universe Classics Club Eternia, but there are things about this guy that excite me a bunch.

He’s green.
He has a beard with a bone stuck in it, like Arthur Dent.
He looks completely fucking nuts, like a mutant version of Samuel L. Jackson in Caveman’s Valentine.
He comes with the best looking Skeletor head ever.
He also comes with a skull with a Viking helmet on.

That’s more than enough reason for me to think a figure looks pretty awesome. I was totally stoked for this guy after Matty debuted him at San Diego Comic Con last year. The only thing that remained was to see if what they actually produced would be as great as what we saw. Which was this:

Pretty rad. But then a couple of months ago, Matty showed us this:

Well, crap. I can't find the carded picture that Matty released that got everybody so worked up. But he's a much brighter green, which you'll see in a minute anyway. And trust me - he's even brighter green in person.

Which, quite frankly, I thought was even more rad but a lot of people seemed to not like. I totally get that. This Demo Man is a very bright green sumbitch. There have not been a whole lot of bright colors in the Masters of the Universe Classics line thus far, and it was looking like Demo Man might end up being so bright he really wouldn’t fit in on your shelf very well. And that’s saying something for a line that includes a glow-in-the-dark skeleton man and a king whose color scheme is so ugly it makes your eyes bleed.

But now I’ve got Demo Man in hand, so let’s see how he turned out.

First Glance: Oh fucking hell, this guy is green. Mega-mega bright ultra green. 1988 Vaurnet polo shirt green. Fucking shit. But I like him. But I don’t like that I can see his belly.

Sculpt: Demo Man features your standard MOTUC articulation, but looks like he has a few new parts. He doesn’t. The head(s) and the forearms are the only things that are new on the actual body. That’s how much difference a paint job can make on these guys.

There are a few new pieces of flair on this guy that I’m going to consider part of the figure rather than accessories, even though they are removable. Demo Man’s tunic, loin cloth, shoulder gear, and the spike thing on his right bicep are new pieces. The shoulder gear and arm spike are made from a very soft plastic that I would normally complain about, but it seems to work well in this case. The arm spike isn’t going to be doing a whole lot anyway, and the shoulder gear does need to be mobile and flexible for posing purposes. Also, because of the way the pieces are designed you aren’t really going to be able to tell if they are a bit misshapen anyway.

The loin cloth and tunic have a very nice tattered remnant look that fits the figure, but I don’t like the separation at the waist. I think I would have preferred it if the tunic and loin cloth were all one piece like She-Ra’s dress. I don’t have any trouble posing her and she doesn’t have that gap between parts. Granted, Demo Man can be posed in such a way that the gap is undetectable, but I just wish it wasn’t there because when it is visible it is very visible thanks to the contrast between his green skin and the dark tunic.

Demo Man’s heads are obviously a big selling point. His standard head is truly a work of art. Very reminiscent of the sort of thing you’d see on the cover of old pulp fantasy magazines. I can just picture that head floating huge in the background over a barbarian fighting a bunch of skeletons or something. The Skeletor head is the best Skeletor head ever because he looks completely creepy and nuts. I’m glad I had an extra Skeletor body to put it on. The skull head is a bit odd, as it really isn’t an entire head – more like a trophy. That’s why I stuck it on Demo Man’s shoulder on my shelf and in that picture yesterday.

In the MOTU story that I have in my head, the skull belonged to Demo Man’s greatest rival. After years of conflict, Demo Man finally defeated him. But then the villain found himself without purpose so he went and dug up his enemy’s skull and now wears it on his shoulder and talks to and argues with it all the time because Demo Man is batshit insane. It’s kind of like what Joker would do if he killed Batman. Demo Man is totally my MOTU world’s Joker.

Otherwise Demo Man really does look and function very well. All of the joints on mine are tight and none were stuck. He can hold both weapons well and the heads swap easily.

Design: So obviously I like the green. It really does make this guy stick out like a sore thumb… well, a green thumb; if you’ll allow me to mix metaphors, but it looks fantastic and unique. And if there’s one thing that figures from a line that shares as large a percentage of parts as MOTUC does, its uniqueness.

The skin is shaded very nicely, and just like all of the MOTUC releases it looks much nicer in person than it did on the site.

The detailing on the armor, the tunic, and the crown is awesome. Everything looks very worn and ancient, like this guy was dug up out of the ground. The spikes, studs, and jewels are tight and well-placed and the washes are some of the best in this line.

Each of the heads that come with Demo Man are solid. His standard head – which looked fairly dull in production pics – is indeed very simple, but the bright red that was used for the eyes and the off-putting color of his teeth looks so good behind the light green highlights. It’s very haunting and sinister. The skull is nicely done – not so grotesque as to be silly, but detailed enough to fit with the line. And the Skeletor head is the best. Apparently it’s based on the comic books (but not the mini-comics? I’m not sure) and it features a brighter, more garish face than we’re used to.

I love it. It’s the Dario Argento Skeletor head.

Accessories: Demo Man comes with the two extra heads, a morning star, and a ball-and-chain flail. Mattel calls it a mace, but that is incorrect unless the bendy part between the handle and the spiked ball is meant to be a solid piece and not a tether of some sort.

Both weapons look awesome and feature very nice paint apps. I think I would have preferred it if the flail had an actual link chain, but the solid piece does make it seem a bit otherworldly and different. Demo Man’s sword matches his clothing and armor in that it looks like it was just pulled out of the ground after eons of use.

Packaging: Apparently Matty thinned out the material the cardback is made of. I can’t tell. Of course, I didn’t notice the different in the mailer box that everybody got so upset over, either. Maybe if I was a MOC collector I would care. Either way, the packaging still looks neat and enhances the large look of the figures.

Overall: Guys, seriously – Demo Man is magnificent. This is why I keep subscribing to the line. Because even when it’s a character that I have never heard of, the Horsemen can take it and make it something really special and awesome. I honestly think this guy would have made a much better 30^th Anniversary figure than Draego Man or Spector. I still don’t quite get why they are celebrating the 30^th Anniversary with characters that have zero history with the franchise. Other than Photog, I mean. He at least makes sense from a certain point of view, in that he is a milestone not only in the Masters of the Universe history, but in toy history.

4 out of 5

If you want Demo Man – and you should – you’re probably going to pay somewhat of a premium. Not only is he a figure that Matty “has no plans to reissue” (yeah – we’ll see about that), but he is also one that people might want multiples of for head displaying purposes. I bet this one isn’t going to be as easy to come by as, say, Sy-Klone. BigBad has him and I’m sure eBay does too.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Matty Sucks Part 2: Suckage Rides Again!

2012-01-30T14:48:00.000-05:00

It is about fucking time, Matty.

I’ve been waiting well over a month to shit all over you for the debacle that was your December Club Eternia experience. Uh, I mean, waiting a month for my figures to arrive.

MattyCollector.com has been going through some crazy-go-nuts drama since about the middle of December. First was the issue that led to Demo Man being delayed, which led to Battleground Evil-Lyn being delayed in what I have to say was one of the most irritating and customer displeasing moves I have ever seen a company make.

If you don’t know, Demo Man and Evil-Lyn were supposed to ship in December. The full supply of Demo Man did not arrive at the warehouse, so Matty decided to delay shipments of December Club Eternia items until an unspecified time in January. Despite the fact that the other Club item – BG Evil-Lyn – was there waiting to be shipped. In my opinion Matty should have just eaten the shipping costs on Demo Man and sent Evil-Lyn out right then. The real kick in subscriber’s nuts came when the cherry-pickers – people who do not have subscriptions because they have brains in their heads – started getting their Demo Man figures weeks before subscribers had even gotten their shipping notices. I really, really wanted to punch a Matty employee in the face at that point.

That douchebag ToyGuru goes on and on all the time about how important subscribers are to the Masters of the Universe Classics toy line. How they drive sales. How “management” bases their budget off of subscriptions, so we had better all be good Little Jimmys and subscribe every July or the line could lose SKUs or get more expensive or even end entirely! ToyGuru will even go so far as to talk passive/aggressive shit about cherry pickers sometimes, to the point where the forum members will get sand in their vaginas and start crying about not being able to pay their bills or having their cars repossessed trying to buy these toys.

And look – I am a consummate cherry picker. There aren’t more than ten toy lines that I have collected every figure from, and I’m talking 36 years of collecting, here. If I don’t want figures, I don’t buy them. But with the MOTUC line the percentage of figures I have to have + figures that are neat enough to own > figures that I do not want. So I subscribe. I’m not going to bitch about who we get (except for the stupid fucking Star Sisters) because I agreed to buy whatever they shit down the pike. But I take exception to shoddy treatment of what should be perceived as preferred customers. Don’t make your loyal, obligated cash cows be the ones to wait you ignorant fucktards.

The next thing that happened was a massive shuffling of the Club Eternia schedule for the entire first half of 2012. This was also due to problems Matty had getting their product from whatever crooked third world pirate ships them across the ocean.

So while the original lineup had looked like this:

ToyGuru explained that now the stupid fucking Star Sisters would ship in January and Sorceress and Fearless Photog (who others might describe as “Stupid Fucking Photog” but whom I happen to like, mainly because of this) were going to be moved back to February. He then further explained the shipping schedule for the first six months of the year:

And provided the caveat that things might change even more.

Also, they would no longer sell figures unless they were all in the warehouse ready to go.

I personally do not give a shit about any of this. Matty can shuffle up the figures all they want as long as I get something every month. And I know even that is not guaranteed in the sub, but c’mon – I don’t think it’s too much to expect. But I have absolutely no problem at all with the schedule change-up.

Some folks do.

I particularly like the morons who are complaining about figures being pushed back a month and saying they won’t have the money in February for figures they were expecting in January. DON’T SPEND THE THIRTY BUCKS, YOU RETARD. Put it in your Snoopy bank or under your pillow or ask your mommy to hang onto it for you for a month. You knew you were going to need that money for a figure. Don’t be stupid. If your electric bill got delayed a couple of days or even a few weeks for some reason would you just go ahead and buy a new video game system with the bill money?

Also, Matty is offering refunds for the Green Goddess figure. I don’t have one of these and don’t want one, but from what I understand the hips shatter into a billion pieces if you so much as fart in the same room with one. This refund was only offered after years of pressure from customers and the recent debacles that have been plaguing the company. On this note, I say good for Matty. They’re doing the right thing for once. I know a refund won’t replace that pathetic, shattered figure, but it’s something. I just hope Matty doesn’t produce a new one because I don’t want the thing.

Obviously, despite what that condescending ass ToyGuru likes to claim in his missives, Matty is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.

The man will frequently make comparisons to retail toy lines as far as delays, quality control issues, and cost; but then will turn right around – sometimes in the same post – and remind people that MOTUC is not a retail line and juts doesn’t have the budget or support for whatever the heck he’s babbling about at the time.

However.

I will give ToyGuru all the credit in the world for even talking to his customers or addressing concerns, regardless of how dismissive or condescending he may be. There are often nuggets of sincerity and truth in what he says and no other toy lien that I can think of has as much communication as the Matty lines, even if the statements are often fraught with deception and corporate double-talk. The guy also takes a lot of abuse in his own forums and deals with it pretty darn well. As snarky as some of his official posts and updates are, he never gets above a certain level; even when dealing with some of the outright dickheads that post in the Ask Matty section – the ones that are deliberately stirring up trouble.

So tom sum up:

The Demo Man/Evil-Lyn thing was some horseshit. Matty should have handled it better.

The shuffling of the schedule through June is meaningless. I don’t care. The possibility of further shuffling is also meaningless. Whatever.

The Star Sisters are fucking stupid, but there will be a surprise twist in my review!

Oh, and I am now officially sorry I subscribed to Club Infinite Earths, the one for DC figures. They’ve basically admitted it is going to be a line of repaints. Supposedly since they didn’t have enough subscribers they can’t do any new tooling. I would try to stop payment on my credit card, but I’m afraid it might fuck up my MOTUC sub.

Well, crap. This was supposed to be the intro for my Demo Man review, but I’ve hit 1,000+ words, so I am going to be a cheap bastard and call it a post unto itself. If it makes you feel any better, I took a whole extra picture for it! Check back tomorrow for Demo Man. Lord knows what I’m going to come up with for an actual intro.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Vintage Troublemaker: Phantom Troublemaker Goes to Hollywood (sort of): The Director’s Cut

2012-01-27T00:45:00.001-05:00

This is old, but I was shocked to discover I hadn't posted it here. It originally appeared on my MySpace blog, then was re-edited and put up on MC4TR.

It's the story of me being an extra in Rob Zombie's Halloween 2, a movie that I do not actually appear in. I think it's because I was too fat at the time. You can't let extras top three bills, you know?

Note: That poster has been to two Dragon*Cons and the Mayhem Music Festival and will also be attending the Days of the Dead horror convention in Atlanta this March. It's signed by Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, and Rob Motherfucking Zombie.

The Pre-Preface

I originally posted this earlier last year, right around the time it happened. We were specifically told not to post anything online about the experience. I kept everything nice and vague and posted it here. Now, at last, the truth can be told in its entirety. I was an extra in Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2. I don’t even know if I’ll be in the final cut or not, but here’s what went down. New content will be in purple.

The Preface

Imagine, if you will, that a deity of some sort has reached into your head and created your ideal bar/nightclub. Now imagine that this deity has arranged for a musician you are quite fond of to play at this place. The deity populates your happy place with the sort of people that you generally get along with. Many of those people happen to be females of the topless variety, some of whom are wearing little more than thong underwear no larger than the sort of ocular accoutrements favored by pirates and Kurt Russell. This deity provides all the beer you can drink.

However…

The musician is only playing four or five different songs. You must groove and sing along despite the fact that you have never heard them before. Never fear – you will know them by heart before the night is through because each will be played no less than six times. In a row. After each song, you must remain silent and immobile unless instructed differently by crouching, ethereal beings who have no place at your happy party.

You may not converse with the other denizens of this dream locale unless instructed to do so by the Outsiders, so their appeal to you or lack thereof is inconsequential.

Also, you will be spending upwards of six hours playing out this little routine of song, wait, move, song, wait, wait some more, “Shhh!”, song, wait; and even naked titties and barely concealed vaginas can get old when combined with those circumstances.

Oh, yeah – the beer is non-alcoholic.

Welcome to Hollywood, baby! Welcome to how I spent my day off on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009.

I was an extra on a movie shoot.

The Prequel

There happens to be a movie production going on in the metro Atlanta area for a franchise I am a huge fan of - Halloween. I am also a huge fan of the director of this particular entry into the franchise – Rob Zombie. I started campaigning to be a part of this shoot a couple of weeks ago because, honestly, this was sort of a dream for me.

I don’t have any wish to be a screen actor or anything (especially after going through this experience) and it honestly won’t bother me a whole lot if I don’t appear in the movie at all. I’ve just always wanted so badly to work on a movie set. I wanted to see how production works, what happens off-camera, just the whole filmmaking process aside from what we see as the finished product. That’s why I love DVD so much. We get such a great opportunity to see all of that happen at home, now. Here was a chance to not only experience that dream, but to do it on a movie and for a director that I was truly excited about.

I’m not going to rehash the whole process of getting hired; it was kind of a pain in the ass and an exercise in patience (much like the shoot itself). Suffice it to say that I was approved and made the appropriate changes to my work schedule.

The Beginning

My confirmation e-mail said that we should arrive at the Starlight Six Drive-In (home of the Monster Bash and Drive-Invasion) by 7:30 AM Tuesday for costume approval and that we would travel by bus to the location at 8:30. According to my liaison we were being bused due to a lack of parking near the location. I later had reason to question this.

I’m used to getting up at 3:30 when I work day shifts, so getting up at 5:00 for this was no big deal. I arrived at the Starlight around 6:30, after (wisely, it turned out) grabbing a couple of biscuits at Hardee’s. The guy letting cars through knew my costume and seemed genuinely excited I was there. He gave me a nametag with “Santo – Dave” on it and actually felt the need to explain that he knew I wasn’t actually El Santo, but that it would be a better indicator than “Phantom Troublemaker”. I couldn’t disagree. I don’t have quite the level of recognition of an El Santo. I drove back to where the parking was and ate my biscuits and waited. This would start a trend of waiting that would continue for the next eighteen hours or so.

Everybody seemed to be communing to one side of the parking lot, so I donned my jacket and headed on over. A short time later, none other than Shane Morton shows up to instruct us on what we need to do. Those of us with nametags were to proceed to the waiting buses and load up. After the first bus filled up Shane gave a short spiel about what was going on, and then handed it over to a tiny lady who explained how the pay worked. We were all given super-abbreviated new hire paperwork to fill out during the ride to the location. Once the bus got underway, Shane gave a more detailed account of what was happening on the shoot and what would be expected of us.

Shane Morton is one of the most charismatic showmen I have ever seen. I have stated in the past that his bands’ (Super X-13 and Gargantua) performances rate at the top of my list of awesome live shows. Here is a good example of why: Shane managed to precisely and accurately communicate exactly how much this experience was going to suck and how awesome it was going to be at the same time. And he left us still totally excited about it by the time he finished. Afterwards, we were absolutely convinced that we were a crucial element in the filming of one of the craziest, most hardcore movies ever to be made; and that we were helping to craft a cinematic juggernaut that would crush and implode the brains of every citizen who was man enough to see it. There were definitely some Shane-favoring enhancements in the presentation that I’m not going to delve into here out of respect for the man, but no Morton monologue would be complete without those.

To sum up what Shane told us without getting too extravagant, we were going to be at some sort of huge, crazy party. According to Mr. Morton, they were going for something more hardcore than the bar in From Dusk Til’ Dawn. I had my doubts about this, but like I said, Shane likes to embellish.

After Shane wrapped it up, they set about determining who needed what done to them makeup and wardrobe-wise. You got red tape on your shoulder if you were willing to have heavy makeup. You got yellow tape if you had lots of tattoos and green tape if you had your own full costume. I can’t remember what the color was for the ladies willing to go topless, but one girl did ask if they’d accept fat chicks. They did. I was the only one on my bus to get green tape, and Shane was stoked about my mask. Apparently, his girlfriend Amy has a ton of lucha masks he wanted to use, but they’re all of existing characters – Mil Mascaras, Blue Demon, et cetera; so they couldn’t put them in the movie for legal reasons. He was quite happy the movie would get some lucha representation, after all.

The Waiting

We arrived on location in Covington around 8:30. The bus dropped us off outside of an abandoned fertilizer plant that looked suitably creepy for the subject matter of the movie. There was a large pavilion-style tent set up and several dilapidated looking outbuildings, as well as a couple of old silos. This was definitely a good setting.

I was on the first bus out, so we got to see the crew setting up the building that would serve as the makeup/wardrobe area. What a shithole. I’m honestly not complaining here because I had almost no expectations for what was going to happen; I was just excited to be there. The building was just filthy, small and poorly ventilated. That last part kind of gets to be an issue when you are hair-spraying and airbrushing around two hundred smelly punk rockers. But whatever – I’m living my dream.

After stowing my bags in a chair, I wanted to help set up, so me and a few other extras brought in some tables and some other minor things. I had to knock down hornet nests to tape a curtain over the window in the door to the room we were going to use to change clothes in. Awesome. Said room was full of nitrogen tanks and dirt. I had to do that balance on your shoes thing to change. You know – where you have to stand on top of your shoes while changing pants so the hem doesn’t get in whatever is on the floor; or in this case, what the floor is made of – dirt. I didn’t really care about my jeans, but Troublemaker rocks nice suits. I don’t need pants-filth going on.

Once I got OK’d by the wardrobe lady, I headed over to the big tent to practice the theme of the day – waiting. I found myself a chair and tried to relax, but I was really excited about all of this. I had a couple of books and my Zune, but I was too worked up to read and didn’t want to miss any directions. Every once in a while our assigned extras wrangler (whose name I can’t remember and really wish I could because he was a very nice guy with a shitty job who treated us all very well) would come in to do a head count of who needed makeup, who needed costumes and who was finished. This poor guy had to count us off probably every fifteen minutes or so.

The only real entertainment during our wait was checking out the different costumes. I’m not generally very chatty with strangers, so I just kind of made mental notes about what I saw:

The best costumes there were a Renfield-looking guy wearing some brown striped restraint/pajama looking deal and some kind of fucked-up clown with blood all over him. It was cooler than I’m making it sound.
Some copyright violations definitely snuck through. I saw Dawn, Curry Man and Snow White.
There were a lot of “Beer Girl” costumes like the one Mrs. Troublemaker wore for Halloween last year, including one girl who I’m positive was dressed like Martha Jones when she arrived. Not only did she look like her, she was sporting a maroon leather jacket, too. That probably wasn’t costume-y enough, so they slapped one of their store-bought backups on her.
One guy had on some kind of KISS-esque leotard. They painted his face up in a non-legally threatening KISS-esque way to match it. The problem here was that nobody thought to supply a cup or any kind of groinal support like a gonch for this obviously circumcised young man. It was disturbing.
I got a lot of entertainment value out of these two guys who showed up in what appeared to be some (well made) homemade LARP costumes. One of them looked like Link and the other kind of looked like Sgt. Pepper or something. It was really strange seeing a zombie Link and a band leader with his face apparently split into quarters.
There were three drag queens all dressed like witches that I’m fairly certain was a coincidence.
This one guy looked just like Vampiro, but shorter. Waaaay shorter. He had a kick-ass Clash of the Titans tattoo on his back.

There was this little table with snacks and beverages, but all I wanted was water and apparently they had run out earlier. This didn’t make any sense to me given that I was one of the first people in the tent, but whatever. I just poured myself a cranberry juice and sat down. This was kind of good fortune because I discovered at this point that I like cranberry juice. Way to go, Hollywood!

The Shooting – Inside

They came to get us around 1:00 PM. Twenty people at a time were ushered onto the set – an old barn converted into the coolest nightclub ever for an event called “Phantom Jam” (in honor of a certain Troublemaker. Okay, maybe not.) hosted by local TV horror-host icon Uncle Seymour Coffins. Once inside, your eyes were immediately drawn to a large stage set in the corner of the room. Well, that’s actually kind of a lie. Your eyes were actually drawn to all of the exposed boobage scattered about the room, but being a happily married man who would like to stay that way, I didn’t notice any of that.

The stage was the (intended) focal point of the room. In the center was a bar surrounded by several platforms for the topless girls to dance on, with a much larger platform for the party’s host to cavort about on. There was ghoulish décor all over the place with some really well done murals that I hope the artists are able to keep after the shoot. I know Shane must have done at least half the shit in that room. Awesome stuff – I can’t wait to see what it looks like on film. There were a ton of lights and a fog machine and all of the other atmosphere creating devices you’d expect in a night club.

Our handlers ushered us into the appropriate areas and then retreated to the fringe of the crowd. It was then that I noticed what was pretty much the coolest surprise of the day – who the band was. Jesse fucking Dayton! Jesse Dayton did the Banjo & Sullivan album that was released for Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects. It is a real album from a fake band, but it is a great fucking country album. I was very excited to see this guy perform live, regardless of what style he was playing for this movie. I really hope we get an album out of this one, too. Dayton and his crew were performing as Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures for the movie. They played kind of a rockabilly-type music, similar to The Cramps with more of a country twang. Very, very good stuff; even after so much repetition. And there is an album out. I know you can download it from Amazon right now, I’m not sure if there is a hard copy version or not.

Some crew person introduced themselves and explained what we were supposed to be doing, and then it was time to… wait!

Finally things were ready. The band started playing and the cool part was that they were actually playing and not lip-syncing. That made it a lot easier to get into things. Every once in a while a crouching crew person would squat-walk up behind you and touch your thigh or your butt and whisper directions at you. This was very startling the first couple of times it happened. Thankfully, guy crew people tended more towards the thigh. I came to think of these odd little crouching people as “Outsiders” because they were not in makeup or costumes and stood out in the crowd the same way a guy in a purple and green luchadore mask would stand out in JC Penny. Mostly their directions consisted of “Go over there,” or “More energy!”

I got a lot of “Go over there”. I’m not trying to sound like King Shit or anything, but I think they dug my vibe. I was told to stroll into a lot of shots and got repositioned in front of the camera what felt like a lot. That was pretty cool. Having said all that, I probably won’t even be in the movie.

Eventually the principle actors came in to do their thing. The three girls were dressed as Dr. Frankenfurter, Columbia and the maid from Rocky Horror; the dudes with them were in some generic but well done makeup (I think they were a werewolf and a zombie. I should have gone ahead and written this back then and edited it before posting. Now I can’t remember some of this stuff). Scout Taylor-Compton was the maid and the girl that almost died but didn’t in Zombie’s first Halloween and was in the original Halloween series – Danielle Harris – was Columbia. I’m not sure who the girl dressed as Frankenfurter was, but she was much cuter than Tim Curry.

I, purely by chance, ended up near them several times and got to overhear Zombie directing. It was really, really cool to get this look into the process. At one point they backed us all away so that the Zombie and Taylor-Compton could sit on the ground and discuss a particularly emotional scene. Laurie Strode appears to be having some kind of crazy breakdown in the club. I’m pretty sure it will turn out somebody slipped her something, because they filmed a lot of that drunken wandering around type stuff. Either that or she just gets really shitfaced. God, I wish I could have had a camera in there. Apparently, Zombie is doing a documentary for this film even more extensive than he did for the last one. If so, all of this stuff should be available anyway.

At the end of one scene the two main girls ended up just about in my lap and I’ve got to say, they are tiny. They couldn’t have been more than 5’2” or so. And Scout Taylor-Compton is just beautiful. I say this in more of a fatherly or brotherly way or something because I think she’s about fourteen years younger than me. (thirteen. I was close) “Hot” would have been inappropriate. She really wasn’t more than “cute” in the first movie, but up close she is quite striking.

Most of the rest of these six hours was spent shooting for the actors. My back was getting really sore, my feet hurt, my ears were killing me from having my mask on for eight hours (I had never experienced this odd sensation before. I usually only have one of those things on for a couple of hours.) and I wanted some water (or beer) bad.

We were very specifically cautioned against bringing any kind of recording devices to the shoot, so I was surprised when they allowed cell phones. I was glad that I would be able to call home when I needed to, and they even said we could take pictures outside of the actual set, we just couldn’t post them online and say what they were from (until after August 28th). Glad, that is, until I pulled out my phone and saw that I had no battery (so I have no pictures, regardless of today’s date). I was pissed. I had left the damn thing plugged in all night, so I don’t know how this happened. I still can’t figure out what the problem could have been (and it has not happened since). I was able to call home twice and I didn’t even try to take any pictures. Somehow, the thing was still on when I got home, so I wonder if the display was just wrong or something. There really wasn’t much to take pictures of outside the set, anyway. Just a bunch of costumes that I wouldn’t have bothered to photograph if they were at Dragon*Con (what a dickhead thing to say. It is true, though).

The reason for that last paragraph is that I eventually really wanted to know what time it was and didn’t dare even bring out my phone for fear I would be kicked off the shoot. My solution was to open my phone in my pocket and then pull my suit jacket open enough so that I could see the time. I was sure we had been in there for at least five hours. It had been barely three. I was starting to question the worthiness of this experience. I was also starting to figure out why they had really bused us in.

Another thing they shot was the host, Uncle Seymour, doing schtick on stage. For some reason Zombie cast the Geico caveman guy to play this role. We were told to react appropriately to what he was saying, but a good portion of the time the crowd didn’t agree on what was appropriate. I think we did all agree that he wasn’t funny, though. Sid Haig would have been much better. (I guess it would have been tough to explain how Seymour had gone from gravedigger to TV host in the space of a year…) At one point the guy was having a drunken fit about how nobody loved him, so I yelled out “We still love you, man!”, and a second later everybody else booed. I felt bad for the guy (in character), but apparently everybody else hated him. Then he pantomimed throwing up and fell off the stage. That was pretty awesome.

After six hours of this, they finally gave us a break.

The Break

I’ve heard somewhere before that Rob Zombie always does good catering. I heard right.

We had mashed potatoes, carrots with jalapenos (better than it sounds), brown rice, sliced barbecued beef, salad, blueberry cake of some sort, two other desserts that I didn’t partake of and probably a few items that I can’t remember. The only beverage was pink lemonade, but it was really good pink lemonade.

I had the opportunity to feel like a huge retard while waiting in the line to get food. A few ladies were standing behind me (the aforementioned Snow White among them) and asked if I would take their picture. Unfortunately, they handed me an iPhone to perform the deed. I haven’t even touched an Apple product since playing Oregon Trail in middle school, let alone used one to take a picture. This fact led to me pointing the screen at the ladies and looking for the viewfinder on the back. The one who handed me the accursed iPhone – she was dressed like a ghost flapper – laughed and said to turn it around, so I did. After centering them in the screen, I pressed the big button on the right side and a menu came up. Ghost Flapper got a little exasperated at this point and said to press the button on the screen with the picture of the camera on it, dumbass. She didn’t actually call me “dumbass” but it was rightfully implied. I finally managed to take a picture of the three girls and promptly shoved the iPhone back at Ghost Flapper and about-faced. This was one of those times where it was awesome to be married. I felt stupid, but not too embarrassed. If I had been single, I would be positive that I had just blown the only opportunity I would ever have in my life to nail three chicks at once and would have spent the rest of the day humiliated and considering seminary school.

During the meal, I talked to a few other extras and started to get a feeling of discontent.

I had pretty much decided by now that the real reason for busing us in had nothing to do with parking. As much of a die-hard fan as I am, I was ready to high-tail it the fuck out of there. I hate my regular job, but it is nowhere near as grueling as this shoot was turning out to be. My whole body hurt and I was bored out of my mind. Hell, I was sick of looking at bare titties for fuck’s sake! I still, however, had enough perspective to realize that as much as my job for the day sucked, it was still the best one on the set. Everybody that wasn’t the director had to worry about doing their job and making sure the people under them were doing their job. This resulted in a lot of people who looked like Jim Cramer being interviewed by Jon Stewart (it is sad that this reference is dated after only five months). Everybody who was the director had to worry about studio bullshit like being told that the budget for a scene had been cut or that another scene wasn’t going to happen at all.

So anyway, even though my job sucked I knew it could be worse. Other folks didn’t necessarily share my outlook, though. I had a feeling the attrition for the second day was going to be bad. I’d be surprised if more than two-thirds of the extras returned. I was fairly sure I wouldn’t. A break halfway through the six hours probably would have helped things immensely. Just five minutes to step outside and breathe, pee or smoke or whatever. Speaking as a former smoker, I can understand where some people were super-pissed. Of course, five minutes of break time probably adds twenty minutes to the schedule and time was tight already.

After half an hour for lunch, they came to get us again. I was significantly less excited this time.

The Shooting – Outside

It was about 7:30 PM when lunch (dinner?) ended, so it was starting to get a little dark out. This made everything seem more sinister. That kind of gave me a second wind and got me a little more excited.

The extras that needed it were getting touched up, so I decided to head back into the barn to get a spot close to the stage. Once I got in there, I realized there were only about ten other extras inside, so I turned around and went back out, figuring that it wasn’t time yet. That place looked a whole lot different practically empty. The people that were in there were convinced that it had been rearranged somehow.

Eventually, one of the Outsiders told a group of us to follow her. She headed right past the entrance to the barn and kept on walking right between two big trucks. Being lemmings for the day, this confused us all terribly. The guy beside me got kind of panicky and started asking our Outsider to wait and if we were still supposed to be following her. I’ll admit to being a bit nervous myself. She finally heard us, thank God, and said that we were, indeed, going somewhere other than the barn. We got around to the east side of the building (I don’t really know if it was the east side, but that sounded good, didn’t it? We’re talking about a guy who can’t even use a fucking iPhone to take a picture, here. Like I know where east is…) and came up on some train tracks and a whole bunch of set dressing. There was this cool entryway with all kinds of lights and trees and this big arch, and the whole side of the building had been fixed up to look like the outside of a club, with a giant projection of a bunch of images I probably can’t describe (now I can’t remember what they were. Clips from old movies, maybe the original The Thing?) on the side of one of the silos. It looked really fucking cool.

Me and the three guys I happened to be standing closest to got pulled away and taken out to the parking lot behind the barn with a bunch of other people. There was a great little cul-de-sac back there, with a church across the way that the production crew had lit up in red. I could really picture how cool all of this was going to look on film. I definitely got a little more psyched up for these last few hours.

The three guys that got grouped with me were pretty cool, and we stuck together for pretty much the rest of the night. There was a cop with a couple of massive wounds on his face that looked a good bit like John Cena (I actually need to mention Cena later, too), a guy with an apron made of people faces and another guy that I think just had kind of a messy green face. We’ll call them Officer Cena, Butch and Old Gregg.

One outsider told us to stay where we were and chat animatedly amongst ourselves. Soon after that, another one came up and told us to walk towards the entryway. After a couple of calls for action, another Outsider came up and asked us if we had been told to walk or to talk. I responded “Both.” She seemed irritated, but not with us.

After several more “Actions”, another Outsider came and fetched us to go up to the actual entryway. We got to hang out on some bales of hay and talk animatedly again. This time, though, we were right in the middle of what was being shot. We had no trouble talking animatedly, as a matter of fact; we had trouble stopping between takes because we were all fairly interesting and good talkers once we got going. I was definitely getting delirious at this point, and I babble when that happens, even if I’m not drunk.

Each time we were shooting, they would play a different song for everybody to sort of dance or groove to or whatever. It was a pretty good selection of mostly 70’s stuff and seemed to be picked by the director himself. I wonder which ones will actually end up on the soundtrack.

I have no idea why I left this out the first time, but we got to see Tyler Mane briefly right around this time. That guy is FUCKING HUGE. He was in the torn up coveralls and had no mask on. He really looked like Mike Knox with lighter hair. He showed up for a brief discussion with Zombie and then we never saw him again.

Me, Butch and Old Gregg ended up on the same stack of hay bales for most of the rest of the night. Officer Cena got put on a different stack. We did several takes where we just sat there and watched people walk by, and then an Outsider told me and Butch to get down and walk through the entryway. The host guy was by the entry surrounded by four girls in some kind of cyber-bikini getups. Flanking the arch were two guys in giant skull-puppet costumes that must have been really heavy. Later on one of them took off his gear and just kind of collapsed on one of the hay bales. An Outsider came and checked on him, then just sort of walked off; so I guess he was OK. Or dead.

The first walk through the entry didn’t go too smoothly. Me and Butch weren’t too sure where we were supposed to go, so he ended up standing in a corner like the end of Blair Witch and I just kind of walked in a little circle until they yelled “Cut”. The next take was a little better, except Butch ended up behind a string of lights meant to separate partiers from dancers. I made it a little further, but ended up almost running into a giant rabbit. Eventually we got our routine down and headed for the correct entry every time.

After a few takes like those, we got put back on the hay stacks and were told that the next set of shots was supposed to be later in the night and that everybody was looser and more tipsy. I apply the word “tipsy” to middle-aged ladies who have had a few too many cocktails at TGI Friday’s, not costumed punkers who have just wrapped up a night at some freako club where girls are strutting around with their tits out and the emcee closes the night by puking and diving headlong off the stage. But I digress.

There were a few nights in my distant past where I have ended up clutching a tree for support out of drunken necessity. I’m sure I’m not the only one. I thought I’d recreate that circumstance here. I unbuttoned my jacket and loosened my tie and hung as best I could off of the nearest prop tree. Being a prop tree, it was not actually planted in the ground; so there was no way it was going to support my weight. If I had actually been drunk, this paragraph would probably be much more entertaining. Luckily for me and my dignity, I knew beforehand that I could not put any weight on the tree, so I just stood in an awkward manner that I hope suggested I was leaning on the tree for support. I got to observe a pretty cool scene involving Laurie Strode and her friend shot several times and several different ways from this vantage point.

After several takes from that spot, we were repositioned for shots of people leaving the night club. I sat back down on the hay bales with Butch, Old Gregg and some girl that was dressed like I-don’t –know-what. She looked like some kind of raver Strawberry Shortcake or something. I think the crew knew they were kind of losing us at this point, so they switched up the music dramatically. As soon as “Fuck the Police” kicked in, everybody started cracking up and I think we all sort of got a third (or fourth or maybe even fifth) wind from it. I pointed over at Officer Cena and laughed. I decided then and there that I would have to come back the next day. This had turned out to be really fucking tough, but it was fun as Hell, too.

From this point on, they were recording dialogue. That meant that they would play a bit of a song to get the extras started, then shut it off. We were expected to continue our “listening to music” action while the shooting continued. I am fairly certain that I am the only one who did this. This means one of two things: 1 – Everybody but me is going to appear to be deaf in the final cut of this scene; or; 2 – I am going to look like I am having some sort of seizure while everybody else is sitting around chatting quietly. I’m hoping for #1.

In the midst of these takes, Butch for some reason brought up what he believed to be an old Pagan practice of masturbating at the base of a tree. We all had a good laugh at that, and then I suggested that maybe that’s what Rush made that tree song about.

That comment requires some explanation. I have no problem with Rush, but I am certainly not a fan. This guy I used to work with at Wherehouse Music was a huge Rush fan. He played Rush A LOT. There is a Rush song about trees (I’m going to have to look it up and possibly download it now) that I think is one of the most hilarious things I have ever heard. I reference this song whenever I can, usually receiving the same blank stares I got Tuesday night.

Nobody knew what I was talking about. Except for one guy. The mistake inherent in mentioning Rush is that any Rush fan will invariably leap forward to discuss Rush in-depth. While there is nothing wrong with Rush, their fans tend to be fucking weird. Rush fans also assume that if you have invoked the name you must wish to discuss the band for at least three hours. As this one guy mistakenly assumed of me. It’s bad enough if you mention the band in passing or Tom Sawyer or something, but mentioning something obscure like the tree song had me fucked. I couldn’t get away from this guy for the rest of the night, and I’m sure Butch, Gregg and Shortcake were laughing their asses off behind us. At one point this guy assured me he was buddies with Eddie Van Halen and started talking about his drug problems. What?! I don’t even know where he came from. He just kind of leapt out when I mentioned stupid Rush. He wasn’t even in a costume.

Eventually, our original wrangler – the nice guy – pulled me, Butch and Rush down past the entryway to a different part of the set. They needed people to walk in front of the camera. There were about ten of us in a group, and Nice Guy would tap us on the shoulder and point which way to go at the right time. There were enough people that guys and girls got paired off, and then my trio was left. Thankfully, Nice Guy sent Rush off in one direction and me and Butch off in the other. I told Butch I supposed this must mean we were a couple.

After a few takes that way, they kind of set us off to the side. It seemed like the crew was taking everything down. Soon after, an Outsider led all of the people from the other side of the entryway past us toward the front of the barn. Toward freedom. I tried to listen in to see what was going on, and, sure enough, they were headed for a bus to leave. Earlier on, Shane had announced that there were a goodly number of people who were working for free who would get to leave first. I was OK with not being in that group. Shane also stated that the last bus out would probably end up back at the Starlight around 4:00. I was Ok with not being in that group, too.

I made an executive decision at that point to bail. I casually made my way around the corner and bolted for the front area. The funny part was that once I got back to the costuming building, I discovered I had seven or eight other people in tow. I guess all they needed was a leader. We stood around for a few minutes and then the coolest surprise of the night happened. Rob Zombie walked over and started thanking everybody and just sort of hung out and answered questions and shot the shit for about fifteen minutes. I never would have expected this, and probably wouldn’t have gotten it from many other directors. It’s that kind of stuff that turns fans into loyal followers. My respect for this guy is the main reason I was such a secretive dork about writing all of this the first time.

Anyway, Zombie stuck around long enough to satisfy everybody, thanked us again and melted away into the night. OK, he really just strolled off towards the barn.

We all made our way over to the bus, had our time sheets checked, and settled in for the seemingly eternal trip back to the Starlight. The Vampiro-looking guy was sitting in front of me and tormenting some drag queen about being in traffic on the way home. I still can’t decide if it was funny or not (it was).

After the bus got underway Shane got on the mic and gave us another spiel; this one designed to pump us up for tomorrow and motivate us to return for another day of brutality. Mr. Morton also got everybody excited with the fact that the arrival time was much later for the next day. We didn’t have to be at the Starlight until 9:30 AM, and shooting would start at 3:30 PM. The problem was that this meant the shoot wouldn’t end until 4 AM (it actually ended up going until 7. Thank God I stayed out of day two.). That meant I wouldn’t get home until around 6 (9) or so. There was no way I could go through another day like this one and then be back at my regular job Thursday night. I knew day two was out.

I spent the rest of the bus ride marinating in a weird combination of relief and disappointment. It was almost heartbreaking to realize that I would have to miss out after I had decide I was going to do it; but it felt so good to know that I was going to get a day off to spend with my family and not endure soul-crushing boredom.

Once back at the drive-in I got in the car and took my contacts out. I am absolutely amazed they never gave me any trouble. I usually can’t stand wearing them for more than a few hours, but I had no problems all day long. They went in around 9 AM and stayed in until probably 2 AM. I never even used any drops or anything. Wow.

After that I drove home and went to bed.

I would love to have a whole lot more to say about the experience, but that really kind of covers it. I won’t know until later today if I am in the movie or not. I am fairly concerned about how fat I am going to be, though. I’ve lost fifty-four pounds since then and still tend towards being a little beefy. They might have needed the IMAX lens if they wanted to film me before.

The Plaza is doing a special screening for all of the extras, but I am stuck here at work since I am not the kind of douchebag who calls in sick when he isn’t. You can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

Fin

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – Classic Doctor Who: Enemies of the Third Doctor By Underground Toys

2012-01-25T11:00:00.001-05:00

I am in a great position to enjoy this set of Doctor Who figures.

There are a ton of characters and creatures from Classic Doctor Who that I am not familiar with. While I have seen every TV story featuring the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh Doctors; I have seen far less of the first seven. Until recently I had the most exposure to Tom Baker (who I had gotten to watch many Saturday nights when I was a wee lad) and just a bit to the following three Doctors. But the first three were hardly known to me. The only times I had seen them were when they showed up for special episodes like The Five Doctors.

At Dragon*Con 2010 I picked up a DVD set of all the third Doctor’s stories. I watched the whole Jon Pertwee run over the course of a few days and he was my favorite Doctor for about a year. I came back around to Tom Baker afterwards – I always do – but I still think Jon Pertwee is fantastic. And he had some of the most entertaining stories I’ve seen, even if a lot of them were excruciatingly slow.

So having seen all of Pertwee’s stories I knew exactly what each of the characters in this set were. The old-school Auton was fine and the Drashig was great, but I was absolutely thrilled to be getting a figure of Omega, who was on my list of Doctor Who figures that needed to be made.

First Glance: It’s a nice window box that forgoes the fancy backdrop of the Fendahl set. That’s just fine. I’m not sure how you would’ve worked these three into a cohesive scene.

Sculpt: THE DRASHIG IS A FUCKING PUPPET!!!!!!!!!

I can’t tell you how thrilling it was first to realize that and then to see Lil’ Troublemaker put it on his hand and growl at a Jon Pertwee figure. It is incredibly awesome that Character Options just went ahead and made this thing a hand puppet. And a good one, at that.

The Drashig is made of a thick, sturdy, yet pliable rubber or soft plastic that holds the sculpt very well but also allows a good bit of movement with the mouth. The sculpt is mostly faithful to the monster as it was seen in Carnival of Monsters, with some minor changes to accommodate the puppet gimmick, which I am totally okay with. The body is a bit thicker and the mouth is a bit wider, but I can’t imagine anybody complaining about that. Otherwise the sculpt is great. The segments on the body have a nice texture, the eye stalks look googly but are sturdy, and the mouth is as fangy as you could want.

Omega is just as impressive as the Drashig, but in a different way. The figure is accurate to the character’s appearance in The Three Doctors, right down to the sparkly robe and head gimmick. !SPOILER ALERT! – When Omega takes his helmet off, there is nothing beneath, so the figure has a removable head to simulate this.

- !END OF SPOILERS!

The rest of Omega is just as impressive, as rather than simply stick the hands, head, and robe on an existing body CO sculpted a whole fancy, new body for the exiled Time Lord:

Omega also has great articulation for somebody who basically just stands there.

The Auton is definitely the least impressive of this trio, yet still managed to make me happy. I fully expected this plastic creep from Spearhead From Space to be made from the existing Captain Jack Harkness jumpsuit. CO could have gotten away with it and Mattel certainly would have. But this is a new sculpt:

The articulation is pretty basic – no fancy shoulders – but the Autons aren’t exactly all that mobile anyway. The head looks very good – actually much creepier than the Auton figures from Rose – and the jumpsuit has all the little details you’d want. Buttons, zippers, pockets, even some nice texturing. It makes me want a small army of differently dressed Autons.

This Auton also comes with an alternate hand with the weapon exposed.

Design: The Auton is fairly simple, but that’s as it should be. The jumpsuit is plain, but the buttons and ascot are detailed nicely.

Omega is the standout of this bunch. The detail on his helmet and gauntlets is quite nice, with a subdued gold base and some darker lines that are tightly applied. While his spacesuit - or whatever that is underneath the robes – needn’t have been so detailed, it is. Rather than being all black it features gold portions that match the helmet and gauntlets.

Omega’s robe is a first for the Doctor Who line – soft goods. I am normally not a fan of fabrics in smaller scale figures, but this robe looks awesome. It hangs well on the figure and the iridescent material really makes this guy stand out. I think it was the right decision. Now I’m tempted to say we should get another decayed Master with a fabric shroud.

The Drashig also looks fantastic. The paint used has bonded well with the material, as he has already been played with pretty thoroughly and shows no signs of cracking or flaking. The colors are bright and the applications are accurate.

Accessories: The set includes an alternate hand for the Auton and the Nestene Consciousness. I suppose you could consider Omega’s helmet an accessory as well.

The Auton hand is a major step up from the Rose Autons’. The barrel of the weapon is detailed, as is the exposed interior. The hands switch out quite easily and stay firmly in place.

The Nestene Consciousness is about all you could expect out of a lumpy, pink ball of alien evil. I’m glad it’s translucent, though. Translucent is cool.

Packaging: While not as fancy as the Image of the Fendahl set, this is still a nice window box. The figures are clearly displayed and the back of the box features biographies and episode synopses. I love the look of these Classic sets lately.

Overall: If you’re a fan of Jon Pertwee as the Doctor then this set is a must-have. Each figure is expertly executed and they are each an exciting addition to your Classic collection.

4 out of 5

As always, my first recommendation is that you buy this from JRsToyWorld.com. If he’s out, BigBad has it for slightly more.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – Classic Doctor Who: Image of the Fendahl By Underground Toys

2012-01-23T11:00:00.001-05:00

Hot damn! It’s a Doctor Who set without a figure of the Doctor!

I wouldn’t have said Image of the Fendahl was a very high-profile Doctor Who story, but I’m going purely off of the ones that stand out in my mind from when I was a kid. And it does have a lot of things to recommend it – an evil skull, a Cthulu-looking monster, a cult, wacky villagers, and Louise Jameson - sweet, sweet Louise Jameson - as Leela.

The story starts with some scientists who are doing some stuff they shouldn’t be doing, as scientists tend to do. They’re resonating theta waves through the ionosphere or some such technobabble and its pissing off some ancient monster thing. Somehow or other it uses the evil skull (complete with pentagram) to possess a scientist lady and make her do bad stuff. Eventually evil Cthulu worms cross over into our world and everything gets crazy-go-nuts.

Also, the Doctor and Leela show up and are initially mistrusted but end up saving the day. Which is pretty much how these things always work out.

I know that’s a lousy synopsis, but when I went back to watch the story the other day the third episode crapped out on me and the fourth wouldn’t play at all. That’s what I get for buying bootleg DVDs at Dragon*Con. But I know the discs worked previously because I don’t remember being pissed off and I watched every episode on this Leela collection to the point where I put together an outline for a post about Leela episodes.

Of note is the fact that we were watching the episodes at the request of Lil’ Troublemaker, who was playing with the set while I was doing taxes or something. He is no fan of the big Fendahleen monster but wanted to see the episode anyway. That’s my boy.

He hung in admirably through the admittedly slow first two episodes, but he couldn’t wait to see the big Fendahleen, which apparently doesn’t show up until late in the third episode or maybe even in the fourth.

But either way, he still enjoyed playing with the toys. He can’t seem to decide if Tom Baker or Matt Smith is his favorite Doctor. It’ll probably end up being Baker if only because more of his episodes are kid-friendly. There are a lot of modern Who stories that I won’t be letting him watch any time soon.

First Glance: This is a truly beautiful set. The variety of the toys inside as well as the packaging make it really stand out among the other Classic releases and that’s saying something. Overall the line is fairly impressive to look at already.

Sculpt: Leela is very well done and certainly different enough from the Face of Evil version I already own that I don’t feel too bad about owning another. The basic body is the same as that one, but the head and clothing are new. The articulation is very good, with swivels at the neck, biceps, waist, wrists and boot tops; pivoting elbows and knees; and swivel/pivot shoulders (which means they are basically like ball joints). The hips are a bit odd. They actually are ball-jointed, but are somewhat restricted. The socket is somewhat tight, so the range of movement isn’t as much as you would have with a standard ball joint. It is good though and I prefer it to the hinged hips.

Leela’s head/face/hair are excellent. The face is dead-on Louise Jameson and the hair looks very much like what you see in the episode. I prefer Leela with her hair down – and most women, for that matter – but this sculpt does look cool. The hair is actually a separate piece, so rather than being pieces stuck to the head there are actually strands hanging off the back of her neck. It looks very good.

The clothing is fairly accurate to the story. This costume is much less detailed than the darker skins, but still a good look. The skirt isn’t slit as high as it was in the show, which is weird because it does restrict the figure’s movement somewhat. The stitching and shape of the costume is good. The sheath is functional and holds Leela’s knife, but the belt is a bit iffy. It would look a lot better if it were a separate piece.

The adult Fendahleen is fantastic. For as large as it is – and this is the largest non-TARDIS item on my Doctor Who shelf – there is still a whole lot of detail. From the scales to the hood to the tentacle things. It all looks very good. The only articulation is a swivel right at the end of the tail. It’s essentially useless and is probably more a construction necessity than an intended point of articulation.

But either way, this monster looks great and is very large. It gives me hope we might get something from Invasion of the Dinosaurs some day.

Design: The mature Fendahleen has a very nice paint job that is accurate to the story. The colors all blend together very well and do a good job of obscuring assembly points. None of the paint from the tentacles bleeds into the hood or the mouth, which impresses me for some reason.

Leela looks mostly good.

I have to address something here. I might have been a little too kind to a lot of the Doctor Who toys I’ve reviewed. I feel like I’m pretty ruthless with Mattel and fairly forgiving with Character Options because I love Doctor Who a whole heck of a lot more than I love Masters of the Universe or DC Comics. More than I love most of my nerd passions. So I kind of let them get away with things that I would bitch endlessly about if it were Mattel.

Sorry. I’ve been known to have a bias or two in my time and it’s not likely to end now.

So Leela looks mostly good. The head is solid, with precise paint apps and just enough color for her to look feminine without looking made up. The costume is solid except for the belt being a bit off. The boots are very good, as are the wristbands.

The problem comes in with the paint smudges that are present on many Doctor Who figures. What I’m talking about is what happens when the paint has not dried before the figure is packaged, so you get that stippled effect on portions. I’ve never mentioned these before – sometimes because I didn’t notice them until later and sometimes because I didn’t feel they were significant enough to mar an otherwise good figure. But it’s something CO really needs to work on. Scaroth had some blotched paint on his hand and Leela has a bit on each hand.

But just standing there on the shelf the figures still look great.

Accessories: The set includes an embryo Fendahleen, Leela’s knife, the evil skull, and a pedestal for the skull.

The skull looks fantastic. The sculpt is good and the paint is amazing. It has an off-white coat over the translucent plastic the skull was made from so it appears to glow somewhat under light like the one in the episode.

The pedestal is plain, but the skull fits perfectly into the concave top.

Leela’s knife is very basic. She can hold it well and it fits into the sheath.

The baby Fendahleen looks neat and is sculpted in a different pose than the adult. This may seem like a minor detail, but it makes it seem like more than just a smaller version of the big toy. The paint on the wee one is just as nice as on the other.

Packaging: This is the best Doctor Who packaging yet. While I am not necessarily a big admirer of packaging (since I throw it all away), this is quite a box. The backdrop is the place the scientists are working out of in the story and there’s even a little table for the accessories to sit on. It could almost be a playset. Well, it actually is a playset if your four-year-old gets a hold of it. If I had more room I probably would have used it for display.

Overall: This is another set that is hardly a must-have but is well worth the money. Yes, the little paint dapples are a problem, but I love Doctor Who. If you do not love Doctor Who, simply knock a point off of my score. Then again, if you don’t you’re probably not considering spending $45 on this set anyway.

4 out of 5

As always, my first recommendation is that you buy this from JRsToyWorld.com. If he’s out, BigBad has it for slightly more.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

New Horror Toy Revolution!

2012-01-19T11:00:00.002-05:00

I got the idea for this one while I was writing the Freddy review the other day. I’m always somewhat hesitant to do a whole post about something that’s ne

So, there are only three formats where modern horror toys are lacking – 8” scale clothed figures and super-articulated figures in either the 3 ¾” or 6” scale. Naturally, I have fantastic ideas for all three.

Also, I love the classic Universal Monsters, but we have got enough fucking toys of those guys. You know how many Gill-Man toys I own? A shit-ton. And he’s not even one of the big four (Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, Wolf Man, Mummy). You know how many Hammer Horror figures I own? One. Fucking one. Christopher Lee as Dracula. That’s it. And as far as I know that’s all there is aside from maybe statues and busts.

Note: Despite what certain magazines and websites might have you believe, statues and busts are not toys. Sure, they are plenty neat and I own some and even have that Darkchylde from Sideshow on preorder; but they are not toys. Not even when they’re called “Staction Figures”. Seriously, guys. Staction?

And holy crap on a cracker are bobbleheads not toys. I fucking loathe bobbleheads. I know some of the folks who read this might have given me bobbleheads as gifts over the years (that is why I own some) and I’m sorry to break it to you this way, but bobbleheads are not cool. I don’t know how those wretched little pieces of shit made their way off of the dusty Stuckey’s shelf and into fucking Toys R Us and EntertainmentEarth.com, but they never should have. It’s like when trucker caps got cool. They’re awful and they just look stupid (trucker hats and bobbleheads).

And just to once again show what a big fucking hypocrite I can be, I bought those Star Wars monster bobbleheads because that concept was not being released in another format and I thought it was cool. But I hate myself and I hate them.

So not only is there a possibility for new formats of Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, Michael Meyers, and their ilk; not to mention monsters like Pumpkinhead. Somebody also needs to tap into the enormous Hammer Films library and start making some damn figures of Christopher Plummer, Caroline Munro, and Horst Motherfucking Janston.

Naturally, I nominate Bif!Bang!Pow! for the honors. At least for the Mego-style figures. And probably some 3 ¾” ones if their Venture Bros. line ends up working out.

Let’s start with the Hammer Horror line since that’s the one I’m actually more excited about.

The beauty of BBP!’s format is that they release two figures as a set. They’re separate packages or whatever, but they are solicited and usually sold as a single unit. This makes buying them more appealing to me for reasons I can’t quite explain. Like, you’re getting a major character like the Doctor or the Monarch, but holy crap you get a Cyberman or Dean Venture as well.

I don’t think I explained that very well, but I am very accepting of BBP!’s release methods. It makes sense to me.

So let’s say that each series of figures will consist of two sets of two. Let’s also say that when BBP! Gets the license they get the rights to the likenesses of everybody who has been in the franchise. I know that’s not how it works, but since none of this is ever going to happen anyway let’s just pretend.

Bif!Bang!Pow!’s Hammer Horror Series 1

Set One

Captain Kronos – with vac-metalized cross sword

Sara Durward – with cloak

Set Two

Carla – with dead toad in a box

Paul Durward – with fancy hat

Okay, yes – I know that Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter is not exactly the most logical choice to kick off a new line of toys. It would be kind of like launching a new Marvel line with Power Pack figures. But Kronos is my favorite Hammer film and one of my favorite movies of all time. And honestly, it is a great starting point for people who may not be familiar with the British studio’s particular style of horror. The movie features a different breed of vampires, a swaggering hero, heaving bosoms, and plenty of blood. All presented in that dreamy, over-the-top style that I find so much more appealing than the stodgy “deliver your lines and look intense” style of the Universal versions.

The other advantage Kronos has is that people won’t look at it and go, “Oh, great. Another Dracula figure.” Or Frankenstein’s monster or whatever. This film presents something different and visually appealing that can hook people into the toy line without seeming like a rehash of things they’ve already seen, so by the time we get to the more recognizable names of Series Three (yes, we’re holding Big Bad Dracula beck until then!) people will already be addicted.

Bif!Bang!Pow!’s Hammer Horror Series 2

Set One

Professor Bernard Quatermass – with mystery skull

(Sorry, guys - couldn't find a picture. Uh, I mean, I didn't want to spoil anything. Yeah. That's it.)

Devil – with iron chain

Set Two

The Reptile

The Gorgon

Quartemass is another of Hammer’s signature properties that is recognizable to fans but not a rehash of an already well-known character. I used “mystery skull” and “Devil” because I don’t do spoilers. Watch Quatermass and the Pit and you’ll know what’s really going on.

The Reptile and the Gorgon are also recognizable Hammer creatures that haven’t been exploited to the point of overexposure.

I know it might seem a bit risky to populate the first two waves of a new line with lesser-known characters, but ask yourself this – how many waves did every toy line that ever existed get at a minimum? Two. Okay, that’s not technically a fact, but there are a lot of toy lines that made it two waves on novelty alone. Which is why we’re saving the heavy hitters for wave three and beyond. Because some folks will be hooked by the first two waves already and retailers will see names like “Dracula” and “Frankenstein” in wave three and order regardless of the success of previous waves. I think.

Bif!Bang!Pow!’s Hammer Horror Series 3

Set One

Count Dracula – with vampire bat and pile of ashes with ring on top

Doctor Van Helsing – with bag and two candlesticks

Set Two

Frankenstein’s monster – with brain

Victor Frankenstein – with rifle

Dracula is Dracula and will always be a selling point no matter what line he appears in. But this is Christopher Lee as Dracula, so he’s the best. And then there’s Peter Cushing as Van Helsing. Having these two facing off on the shelf would just be awesome. I know they come with what might be deemed extra accessories by the toy company, but come on – those would be worth it.

The Curse of Frankenstein was the first big moneymaker for Hammer Studios and the one that led to all of the movies that I love so much. Also, Hammer’s Frankenstein’s monster is very distinctive from Universal’s, so this would be a nice departure from the big, green head and neck bolts. And it’s Christopher Lee again.

Bif!Bang!Pow!’s Hammer Horror SDCC Exclusive

Deluxe Christopher Lee as Count Dracula w/ voice chip

This would be a heck of a set with a bit of a price tag, but I’m pretty sure people would go for it. Especially since it would be the only way to get Dracula before Wave Three came around.

This set would include a Dracula figure with a voice chip. The voice chip would be programmed with dialogue from all of the Dracula movies Lee starred in, but it would only be the phrases that were lifted directly from Bram Stoker’s novel.

Also included would be a coffin and a full-size replica Dracula ring. Not, like, a super-nice one or anything. Just a toy one.

But here’s my favorite part (though the voice chip is nice) - You’d also get a bonus “Dracula Crazy-As-Hell” head!:

Check back in tomorrow for part 2. I’ve run out of time and honestly I think I can get away with making this at least three posts.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – DC Universe Classics: Dove By Mattel

2012-01-17T11:00:00.001-05:00

So Dawn Granger actually replaced Don Hall as Dove back in the eighties, but I don’t know much of anything about that, so we’ll pick up at the end of Blackest Night.

Hank Hall was back and Deadman was way into Dove (the girl one, not the dead dude). Boston Brand was a huge part of Brightest Day – the follow-up to Blackest Night – and initially the story of Deadman hunting down the white ring and trying to divine its purpose while dealing with his resurrection and a superhero love interest was really good. But there were also eight billion other storylines going on in Brightest Day and some of them were mind-bogglingly boring (Aqualad) and some were plain incomprehensible (Hawkworld). So with Deadman and Hawk and Dove featuring less and less as the series progressed I stopped getting it.

I did buy the final issue though and it was one of the dumbest things I have ever read. No, wait. That would be Search For Swamp Thing. Brightest Day #378 was only mildly stupid in comparison.

But luckily for us Hawk and Dove fans, the pair showed up in Gail Simone’s newly rebooted Birds of Prey, which was an excellent book. Simone got the characters perfectly and used them well throughout the series.

Now we’ve got the (recently cancelled) New 52 Hawk and Dove by Sterling Gates and The Rob Liefeld.

I am familiar with the name Sterling Gates, but not with any specific work.

The Rob Liefeld, on the other hand, everybody is familiar with.

I am not going to sit here and talk shit about Liefeld because that’s what everybody does. I absolutely loved the guy’s work on New Mutants and X-Force back in the day and even followed Youngblood for a while. I think it’s funny that people pick on Liefeld for not understanding human anatomy but absolutely worship Richard Corben. I say good for Liefeld that he’s still plugging away, doing what he loves. I admire that a lot. Anybody that can commit themselves to something gets a lot of credit in my book.

But I don’t like Liefeld’s art now. And as much as I do like Hawk and Dove, I don’t want to see them rendered in that Liefeldian manner. From what I hear the comic isn’t that great anyway and the fact that it’s being cancelled kind of lends that rumor some credence.

But at least we’ve got toys! I’m sure some folks would prefer it if this Dove were Don Hall, but I’m fine with Ms. Granger. She’s the one I am more in tune with.

First Glance: Like Hawk, Dove appeared to be a purer white in the production photos. I’m good with the grey. She sure does look tiny in this blister though.

Sculpt: Dove is, of course, the basic DCUC female buck. I’ve got to say, the too-skinny arms and abdomen work well for this figure. The articulation is standard and my figure is in good shape. No stuck joints or overly loose ones.

I’m not sure I agree with the high heels for Dove. I mean, they’re not stilettos or anything, but I think flat feet would have been better. Though I will admit that I can’t remember at the moment what her footwear is in the comics.

The head looks great. The pony tail hangs fairly well and doesn’t have that look where it’s just sticking out of the back of the head. The face looks just like Dawn Granger from the comics and the mask has a nice depth and shape.

The little shoulder deal is nice. It’s made of a flexible material so it doesn’t interfere with Dove’s arm movement and the shape is spot-on. The little jewel or button or whatever that is on the front looks good as well.

Design: The paint is solid and while the grey is almost a little too thinly applied Dove does look pretty good. And most importantly, her shades of grey match Hawk’s pretty well.

The head is great. The red lipstick really contrast everything else nicely and the hair and eyes are a bright white that looks really good. This is another reason I’m glad that Mattel went with grey for the costumes. The eyes on both figures wouldn’t have stood out nearly as well.

Accessories: Dove comes with Nekron’s lower torso and jacket bottom. The parts of Nekron I own look really cool and I honestly wouldn’t mind putting him together. But he really should have his scythe.

Packaging: Your standard DCUC blister.

Overall: Just like with Hawk, this is a very competently produced figure. Not much I would change outside of a bit more articulation.

4 out of 5

I’m thrilled that the final two DCUC figures I purchased were so solid. It gives me a bit more hope for Club Infinite Earths, which I had been sort of regretting subscribing to for a while.

Be sure and check back here in April and I’ll let you know how that goes.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – DC Universe Classics: Hawk By Mattel

2012-01-16T11:00:00.001-05:00

Hawk and Dove are the only two figures I cared about from the final wave of DC Universe Classics.

As much as I enjoyed Blackest Night, I have totally lost interest in Black and White Lanterns, so that Flash was out. I already have a Green Arrow that I’m pretty happy with and I have no particular affinity for Roy Harper, so I’ll pass on those. I might actually buy a Professor Zoom or Reverse Flash or Eobard Thawne or whatever the heck they’re calling him. But I want to see it first. That’s going to have to be one great head sculpt and paint job to get my fifteen bucks.

But I like the characters of Hawk and Dove a lot.

The first time I was ever really aware of the duo was an appearance on Justice League Unlimited where they teamed up with Wonder Woman to stop a conflict in a foreign country. It was one of the first episodes I saw and I was very impressed by the maturity and compactness of the story. I thought for sure it would be a two-parter, but the writer fit a pretty big story into 22 minutes. This is something the creative forces behind JLU would accomplish many times over the course of the show while still maintaining arcs that lasted many episodes or whole seasons.

I sure wish comic book writers could manage that.

Anyway, when next I saw Hawk and Dove they were significantly different. Hawk was an evil magic zombie and Dove was a chick.

Dawn Granger (Dove) was a central part of the massive, all-encompassing Blackest Night story (and had one of the best arcs in my opinion), which ended with Hank Hall resurrected and Deadman as Dove’s love interest. And let me tell you – one sure way to make something cool cooler is to throw Deadman into the mix.

I’ll continue this ramble in tomorrow’s review of Dove.

First Glance: Hawk was originally shown as being more of a pure white than this, but I kind of like the grey. My collection of Stormtroopers that are various hues of yellow suggests white may not be the best color for an action figure.

Sculpt: The core figure is a basic as DCUC gets. No double joints, but still the very good DCUC articulation. The body is a bulkier one, which is appropriate and contrasts nicely with Dove. All of the joints on mine are very solid – tight but no paint sticking.

The head is nice, with a very unique expression and a lot of personality for someone with only about one-third of their face exposed.

The cape thingy is pretty great. It’s not rubber like I thought it would be. It’s a stiffer but still flexible plastic that better represents that vane-like qualities of the comics. I know I just called it a cape, but I’ve never thought of those things as just flowing like fabric. I’ve always felt they would be more rigid. That’s how the toy’s are and it works well.

Design: I’m honestly a little shocked at how good the paint is on this guy. Mattel has done a pretty shit job on a lot of figures lately and I really expected this one to be kind of a mess.

But all of the designs stick within the lines and there is none of that weird splotching that seems to happen when figures have dark and light colors together (like the entirety of the Sinestro Corps). The face is well done, with a different shade of white for the eyes and teeth and the cowl and skin maintaining separate real estate.

Accessories: Hawk comes with Nekron’s torso. It’s worth noting that Mattel decided not to include Nekron’s scythe, which is somewhat akin to producing a Mace Windu without a lightsaber. Fucking idiots.

Packaging: Your standard DCUC blister.

Overall: Amazingly, there isn’t much to complain about with this figure that isn’t Nekron-related. It looks like Hawk, it can be posed like Hawk, and it compliments Dove. Aside from the ridiculous price Mattel pretty much nailed this one. Rocker ankles and double joints are the only improvements I could suggest.

4 out of 5

I hate to sound so shocked that Mattel has produced a very good DC figure, but that’s pretty much where this line has me now.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Friday the 13th: Thirteen Jason Voorheeses

2012-01-13T11:00:00.001-05:00

I really wanted to do something special for Friday the 13th, but instead you get this. I drew all of these over the course of one night. I would say they get weirder the later it got, but they're all fairly strange.
I wish I could draw better.

They are numbered 1-13 in the order they occured.

Until next time, stay creepy
-Phantom

Toy Review – Masters of the Universe Classics Beast Man By Mattel

2012-01-12T11:00:00.001-05:00

Beast Man was one of the few Masters of the Universe figures I had when I was a kid. He might have actually been the first one I got – I’m not sure. Either way, I hated him.

I’m going to be honest and maybe offend some folks here, but Beast Man was a very stupid-looking toy. He is the only instance I can think of where orange and blue do not look cool together and his face is dumb. He was an idiot on the cartoon, too. I mean, everybody on the cartoon was an idiot except maybe Man-At-Arms, but you couldn’t tell when you were eight. But even an ignorant, nose-picking eight-year-old could tell Beast Man was a grade-A retard.

I have since softened on Beast Man thanks to the MYP cartoon and nostalgia, but I still wasn’t going to buy a Classics version. But then he went on sale and I thought, “Geez, I really should have Skeletor’s #1 henchman, and also he comes with a whip and whips are cool.” So I ordered one.

Note: I really can’t stand it when people refer to Skeletor as “Skelly”. I know that’s unreasonable, but it drives me fucking nuts. It’s part of the reason I don’t go to the Matty forums any more than I do.

First Glance: Once again, this figure looks far better than the little thumbnail on the site and manages to do a great update to a lame figure. They’re not all winners in MOTUC, but it looks like Beast Man might be.

Sculpt: Beast Man has the standard MOTUC articulation. He also has a hairy body, which makes a big difference in how cool the figure seems. All that texture gives him a lot more personality than he would otherwise have.

All of the joints on mine are tight and functional, which actually surprised me a bit given that he was one of the earlier releases. I was really expecting some sort of issue with the construction.

Beast Man’s head is very similar to the original version. A bit more detailed, obviously, but instantly reminiscent of that old sculpt. Which is fine, because the sculpt wasn’t the problem with the original – the paint was.

Beast Man’s hands and feet are awesome. They’re clawed and bestial and just look really cool. He’s also sporting the trademark furry loincloth of the line.

This is a figure where the great articulation of the MOTUC line really comes into play. Thanks to the numerous and flexible joints, you can give Beast Man a stance and posture that really make him stand out from the rest of your figures. His bestial hunched-over look makes him look almost like an entirely different buck.

Design: And this is where Beast Man becomes excellent. His face is awesome. The markings don’t look like somebody smeared white-out on his cheeks anymore – they look like a face. His eyes are tight and accurate and the mouth is as well. The fangs and black portions are clean and look great.

There isn’t much to Beast Man’s body, but it seems like a much better shade of orange to me. The claws are detailed nicely and stand out from the rest.

Beast Man’s loin cloth looks really cool, too. I know that’s not very descriptive, but look at it – it just does.

Accessories: Beast Man comes with his chest gear, bicep spiky things, and his whip.

The chest gear and spiky things look awesome.

The sculpt is very detailed and fine and the medallion almost looks like a separate piece. The paint on these items is outstanding.

The whip is a whip. He can hold it just fine.

Packaging: Apparently I had no intention of reviewing poor ol' Beast Man, but I've tried to make up for the lack of packaging pcitures below by providing shots of the guy doing stupid things. Please enjoy.

Overall: I did not expect to love this figure, but I do. The Horsemen really knocked it out of the park with this one. I can’t think of a thing I could do to improve him.

5 out of 5

BigBad has him. Probably eBay as well, and I’m betting he’s a heck of a lot cheaper now than he was a couple of months ago.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master By NECA

2012-01-11T11:00:00.001-05:00

I haven’t bought a whole lot of horror toys in the last few years.

They used to be a staple of my collection and while I still have a large amount of wall space in the Man Room dedicated to more vampires, demons, and slashers than you could shake a machete at; I just don’t buy them all that often. Partially because I have toys of almost every major horror icon I could want, but also because the licenses just aren’t as prevalent as they were in the early part of the last decade. Horror isn’t big business right now.

Oh, wow. I just had a brilliant idea for an article. Check back – there will be an amazing new horror toy post within the next week or two.

But until the fantastic idea I just had comes to fruition, we’ll have to make do with the few and far between releases we have now, most of which are variations on characters we already own such as today’s Freddy Krueger or the upcoming Ash figures from Evil Dead 2 (although technically those are new since there have never been any Evil Dead 2 action figures).

The third and fourth entries in the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise are my favorites. I know most people consider the third movie to be the point where things went off the rails, but if you’ve been reading Needless Things for any amount of time you know my taste can be… let’s just say interesting. But I really dig the Dream Master and I’ve always felt the end where (SPOILER ALERT!) Freddy gets torn apart from the inside by the souls of his victims is one of the best visuals of the whole series. And now we have a toy of it.

First Glance: I wasn’t totally convinced I was going to buy this particular Freddy until I saw it in the store. Nobody has topped my original McFarlane Freddy Krueger yet (well, not counting the Matchbox transforming Freddy) and I’ve never been very big on variants of characters I already own. But this freakish figure had me the moment I saw it on the peg.

Sculpt: Posability has never been a selling point of horror toys. McFarlane Toys’ Movie Maniacs were lucky to have more than four points of articulation and sometimes those didn’t make sense anyway. I guess maybe articulation was a bit of a factor when NECA got some of the licenses, as they tended to put in things like ball-jointed shoulders and necks, as well as swivel wrists that all blended into the figures’ aesthetics. But overall their products weren’t enough better to make me buy new versions.

But now NECA is getting all creative and doing things that haven’t been done before and this Freddy is one of the finest examples of that. He has a massive amount of articulation. He has swivels at the ankles, wrists, and waist as well as ball joints at the neck, elbows, and shoulders. And when I say shoulders, I mean all of his shoulders. All of those tiny little arms sticking out of his torso are jointed. It’s ridiculous.

I am on record as being opposed to the stupid way NECA does feet. They put a swivel at the ankle and make the feet out of rubber, which is one of the stupidest fucking examples of toy engineering I have ever seen in my life. I cannot understand this method. I have a Tall Man that cannot stand without leaning on his evil little devil midget thanks to this moronic practice. Freddy has the same construction, but is balanced quite a bit differently than Mr. Scrimm so I’m hoping maybe I won’t have to lean this Freddy on another Freddy just to keep him upright.

The actual sculpt is beautiful. Or disgusting. Whatever. Freddy’s skin is gnarly and gross like it should be. His face looks dismayed and furious and is a pretty amazing example of what sculptors are capable of. All of the little arms and faces and whatnot have lots of nice detail and the points where they attach to the main body are not all that distracting. NECA’s sculptors did a great job of making those poseable parts blend with the figure rather than stick out like they could have.

The glove is one of the best I’ve seen. From the plating to the blades to the hole in the palm showing the exposed, burned flesh – this is a beautiful slasher hand.

Freddy’s clothing looks awesome. The textures of his sweater and pants look tremendous; a noticeable improvement over the already pretty great McFarlane Freddy. All of the torn bits of the sweater are just wonderful. His boots look really great as well.

Design: Freddy’s skin is that repulsive pink-red-purple mix that we’ve all come to know and love. The different applications of color go along with the texture of his skin and burns rather than just being random washes. His face is detailed a little more precisely than the rest, but his eyes are just a bit off. Nothing that sticks out too badly – I didn’t even catch it until I was looking at my pictures.

Freddy’s clothing looks great, with nice attention to damage and wear. The stripes on the sweater are precise and match all the way around, even the sleeves. The pants and boots aren’t overdone – they’re not covered with blood or some other kind of artificial spattering – but they look worn and old. Like clothing you’d find on a dead guy.

Accessories: Mr. Krueger doesn’t come with any accessories, but that’s forgivable what with all of the little arms and stuff.

Packaging: A crappy clamshell you have to use scissors to open. Blech. But the art is nice and credits are given on the back now.

Overall: I dig it. This particular Freddy Krueger may not be a crucial addition to your collection, but I’m more than happy to have him in mine. Especially since my regular Freddy from McFarlane is on tour with his band right now. More on that later…

4 out of 5

He’s at Toys R Us or online for around fifteen bucks. I say buy him if you like weird variations. Don’t if you hate the fourth Freddy movie.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

The Airplane Design

2012-01-10T11:00:00.001-05:00

I have been so fucking busy lately that I can’t seem to find the time to do a whole heck of a lot of writing. So today I’m taking the cheap way out.

The other day at work one of the guys in my hub told me he saw a plane driving around Alpharetta. I had no idea how to take this. I’m a pretty straightforward guy. I don’t play word games, I don’t intentionally try to confuse people to make them feel stupid. I feel that people are stupid enough on their own without my help. But the wonderful folks I work with frequently engage in attempts to make one another feel terrible about themselves. The dumber and more worthless you can make somebody feel, the more awesome you are I guess. It’s like high school except with middle-aged rednecks.

I avoid these games, but it doesn’t mean I’m not exposed to them from time to time. So naturally when I was told about the plane driving around town I was suspicious. The best way to handle it when you think one of these people is fucking with you is to not react. So when he told me about his airplane, I just sort of went, “Huh.”

I have an outstanding “Huh”. It’s so incredibly ambivalent that you know it’s dismissive, but you can’t really say anything about it. I got it from my dad. Years of showing him drawings and writing and paintings and whatnot allowed me to experience that masterful inflection over and over again. I can even do the same little eyebrow motion he did. It’s so condescending and yet so unassailable.

Note: I have vowed never to use this technique on my own son.

So I gave my co-worker the “Huh”. But then he blew my mind by producing these:

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I was positive he was trying to set me up, but sure enough, there was an airplane car. He was really excited about it, but I was not impressed. Don’t get me wrong, it is impressive; I just didn’t feel like it was something I would want to ride around in. The guy assured me that it was a work in progress and he thought it was going to be awesome, but I just couldn’t let him have it. No matter how much it looked like a fancy plane when it was done, it was still going to look dorky.

Yeah – I guess I could’ve been nicer about it.

But then I realized the one way that it could be cool. Awesome, even. And that was if it had a rad mural on the side like a van form the seventies.

By this point we had a bit of an audience, and I tend to work best that way. So I elaborated on how there would have to be a dragon fighting a wizard. Even better, there could be a unicorn riding a fire-breathing dragon fighting a barbarian wizard with laser beams shooting out of his hands. Another guy said the dragon should be breathing naked women instead of fire and I thought that was a stroke of genius.

So I utilized my admittedly modest artistic skills and did this:

I felt the eagle in the back grasping a gun in one talon and money in the other was a nice touch. I would totally drive that around. I’m seriously considering bringing this to the 2012 cons and getting a sketchbook filled by real artists.

If you’d like to design your own airplane car, here’s the template I made:

Link to what you do in the comments and maybe I’ll have a nice prize for the best one.

Oh, and the first person to leave a “Huh” in the comments is getting kicked in the head. Roundhouse.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom

Toy Review – Classic Doctor Who: Keeper of Traken Box Set By Underground Toys

2012-01-09T11:00:00.001-05:00

This is honestly kind of a weird set.

If I were to put together a set of figures from Tom Baker’s penultimate Doctor Who story, I can think of several different combinations that don’t resemble this one at all. I get wanting to put the Doctor in every set. I wouldn’t do it, but I understand the logic. My ideal “Keeper of Traken” set (basing it off of the three figures and two accessories in this one) would have included the Melkur, Nyssa, and Adric. Three things we don’t already have. Not sure what I would have done for accessories. Maybe flowers for Melkur.

But I do get wanting to re-use parts, so the decayed Master variation (this one is different from the “Deadly Assassin” one) is okay, especially since his TARDIS is included. Well, technically two versions of the Master’s TARDIS with the grandfather clock and the Melkur. So given that I guess I’d stick Nyssa in there rather than our Time Lord hero.

But CO went with a new Tom Baker that has a few new parts. I’m not sure how much demand there really was for a 4^th Doctor minus his jacket and scarf, but at least it’s not a direct re-release.

As far as the story goes I think it’s a great one. “Keeper of Traken” is the first portion of the trilogy of stories that sees Peter Davison take over the role of our favorite Time Lord from the legendary Tom Baker. “Keeper” is also the debut of Anthony Ainley as the Master. Now that I think about it, it would have been pretty easy to stick the existing Ainley head on a new body and make a Tremas (the man whose body the Master steals).

First Glance: Awesome window box. Considering all the goodies in there, I’d say this is one of the more reasonably priced Classic Doctor Who sets.

Sculpt: Once again, I don’t necessarily need another Tom Baker, but this one is at least different enough to be neat. He has a new vest and arms and really does stand out from the other 472 Tom Bakers. The biggest difference, however, is that he has the new shoulder joints that more recent Doctor Who releases are sporting. This means they are basically ball joint analogs and the figure has a lot more posability. The head sculpt has been used before and is very nice. The shirt sleeves are new and look great – lots of details and folds and stuff. This isn’t going to be anybody’s first choice for a 4^th Doctor figure, but CO did do a good job on him.

The Master in this set is essentially the same as the single-carded Deadly Assassin version. The head is different, as it should be. The other one had a more grotesque face that reflected the heavier makeup and googly eyes used in the older story. This one looks more like a painted face, almost like one of the villains from The Mighty Boosh. The older figure looks better, but I actually prefer this one because it is the one I remember scaring the shit out of me when I was a kid. The body has the standard CO articulation, but it’s pretty much meaningless because of the robe. Which does look great, by the way.

The Melkur is about as perfect as you could expect. It’s actually made out of a hollow vinyl-type material that makes the figure look different and provides a unique texture. The articulation is limited, but it’s not like Melkur did a bunch of Venusian karate or anything. It’s jointed at the hips, shoulders, and head. Good enough. The non-functioning joints and texture of the figure accurately reflect what we saw in the story.

Design: Melkur looks great. There are a few layers of paint apps that look all rocky and textured. The face – such as it is – looks good and I’ve got to say I think if the old Doctor Who production team had made a miniature Melkur it might not look this good. There is a spot of weird paint on the left hip, but it doesn't really bother me.

The Doctor has one of the better paint jobs from the line. The face and hair are about as tight and accurate as it gets. The rest of the clothing is pretty basic except for the vest. It looks amazing. There’s just the one color of detail – gold – but it looks great. The lines are clean and precise and just looks like the sort of fine embroidery you’d expect a Time Lord to be sporting.

The Master is mostly black. A nice, shaded black, but black. His hands and face are where the detail is. He has nasty, rotten little hands that have an absolutely off-putting paint job. They’re infinitely more appealing than the Master’s face, though. Because of this putrid face this is one of the more revolting toys I own. I think it’s the teeth. He’s just totally nightmarish, just like on the show.

Accessories: Included in the set are the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, the source manipulator sphere, and the Master’s TARDIS disguised as a grandfather clock. The sonic is as basic as basic gets – a bit of red paint on the tip of the standard 3^rd Doctor version.

The source manipulator sphere is pretty accurate for a ball and a bunch of electrical doo-dads. The sculpt is great, but the paint might be a little more simple than I would like. It looks okay, but such a wacky and intricate device could look a bit more exciting.

The Master’s TARDIS is a grandfather clock. It’s made of the same material as the Melkur. It looks a little cheap, but it isn’t terrible. I’m just happy to have the version of the Master’s TARDIS I remember most fondly.

Packaging: The window box for this set is truly fantastic. It looks old-school and has the most awesome graphics and colors. The design is very much that of a 70’s-era toy, but doesn’t feel stale or uninteresting. I was almost tempted to just leave the toys inside, but I couldn’t let that Melkur go unopened. There is a sort of diorama inside, but it isn’t as exciting as the Axon ship so I tossed it.

Overall: Despite a Doctor and Master very similar to ones I already own I like this set a lot. It is a good value compared to some other Classic Doctor Who sets and represents the story well.

4 out of 5

I’m kind of torn on Character Options’ practices with these Classic sets. While I get wanting to put major characters in, you can’t tell me anyone would have preferred the Doctor or the Master over Nyssa. It’s hard to imagine anybody buying this as their only Doctor Who set. But still, it’s pretty neat.

Until next time, stay creepy

-Phantom