Oogie Boogie Sings Live

Monday smiles.

Thanks to the Garage of Evil for this find!

Crazy World

A video by a semi-obscure Irish group called Aslan. I play this in the Garage of Doom often!


I'm also a bit of a Waterboys junkie.

I've also belatedly discovered that there's a lot of old-school Punk Rock out there that I love. This has to be the oddest group of instruments ever to play "London Calling."

Glen Cornick-original bass player for Jethro Tull-turned me on to The Saw Doctors years ago.

Christmas Money

One of the things on my wish list for Christmas this year was the original soundtrack for the 1980 version of John Carpenter's The Fog. It takes me back to being the teenager who loved slasher films and everything John Carpenter, even though I really was only peripherally aware of his name at the time.

Brand new copies of this soundtrack are hard to find, and horribly overpriced, and even used copies are a bit spendy. Even so, armed with Christmas money, I found a good copy at a good price, and treated myself to a needful thing.

The soundtrack, of course, is pure 80s horror with lots of synthesizer. I still love it, especially since this copy includes the opening monologue by the fantastic John Houseman, and an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis.

It also goes along nicely with my 20th anniversary edition of Halloween, which also qualified as a Merry-Christmas-to-me-gift. This soundtrack features extra tracks, many with dialogue between Donald Pleasence and other characters. If you like sound clips with clear, original dialogue, then this might be a good buy for you.

Pot Anatomy

A friend of Mr. ShellHawk's and mine is a herpetologist-meaning that he's a snake/amphibian expert. We were over at his place for dinner a little while back, and he asked me if I could throw some water dishes and maybe a few snake hides for him. (A snake hide is a hidey-hole for the  snake to crawl into.) He couldn't find his favorite water dishes anymore, and he'd been using broken pots for his hides, so I said I'd do it for him.

It's pretty cold in the Garage of Doom right now, so playing with clay has been challenging. Warm water used to soften up the clay gets cold quickly, and I'm trying to use clay I'm not too familiar with. Pots absolutely refuse to dry, so I've been setting them beside the fireplace for a few hours a night so I can get them to dry enough to cut them in half for the snake hide.

I made several different shapes to show him before I went ahead and fired them, and what you see above is one of them. This has actually been a good exercise for me. Since I'm slicing the pots vertically, I'm able to see the thickness and consistency of the walls and bottom of the pots I throw. This picture tells me that if I were to use this for a pot, the floor of the pot is a bit thin to support the weight of the pot. The lower part of the walls look pretty good to me, though, because the larger and taller the pot is, the more you must consider the thickness of the lower walls. I could have pulled the clay up a bit more if I were planning to use it as a pot, making the walls a bit thinner, but it's a passable pot. I just wasn't worrying about it too much, as it was going to be cut in half, anyway.

God, I need an electric wheel! The kick wheel is killing me!

Childhood Memories

I listened to these LPs over and over when I was a kid, especially the Vincent Price one.

And my parents wonder why I love Halloween so much.

Source.

The Next in Line

Source.

"Promise me," she said, and stopped.
"Promise you what?" he asked, after a long pause.
"Promise me," she said, and couldn't go on. She lay there. He said nothing. She heard the watch and her heart pounding together. A lantern creaked on the hotel exterior. "Promise me if anything-happens," she heard herself say, muffled and paralyzed, as if she were on one of the surrounding hills talking at him from the distance, "-if anything happens to me, you won't let me be buried here in the graveyard over those terrible catacombs!"
- Ray Bradbury, from The Next in Line.

Sleep Talkin' Man

I got an e-mail from a friend this morning about this blog: Sleep Talkin' Man. Apparently this guy, polite by day, is a trash-talking comedian in his sleep. I couldn't stop laughing at his comments, and admiring his wife for being industrious enough to type them out, rather than punching him in the arm and telling him to shut the hell up so she could get some sleep!

Be warned: While hilarious, this blog uses f-bombs, so don't read this at work.

I feel so cheated. My husband only snores.

An Artist's Christmas Party

During my Holiday sweep of Los Angeles, some dear friends invited me up to their place for dinner and to do some catching up. Since they're neighbors of Mike Vosburg (of Tales from the Crypt fame), who is also a friend, I asked if they would mind having him and his wife by, too. When I arrived, the guys told me what had started as just the five of us had evolved into an artist's dinner party.

The artists of the group were all asked to bring some examples of their work. Portfolios, small sculpture, poetry, whatever. What an amazing treasure trove of creativity. I was so glad to be part of it!

I even managed to get some video on my digital camera of Mike talking about his work. I hope you enjoy it!

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

Via Weirdo Wearing a Mask.

Looks effing hilarious, and I'll watch anything Alan Tudyk is in!

Thursday Night Cocktails

Thursday nights are usually cocktail nights at the Nest. Sometimes it's at the Nest, sometimes it's across the street or up the block a couple of houses away. Sometimes, there are happy hour appetizers, sometimes not. It is always fun, regardless of who shows up.

Last night was no exception. Cocktails started around 4:30. Folks had intended to split around 6:00, but two more showed up at the door, and the extra company proved to be the key to overwhelming any desire to leave.

We were laughing and taking pictures of Christmas Ape (below) tying one on with the rest of us (he is such the party animal), when suddenly, the lights went out.

Since the fireplace was working on turning our old redwood tree to ash, and I had a bunch of candles lit already, everyone just laughed it off and kept talking. My husband commented that the kids would be over from across the street any second, and almost before the words were out of his mouth, the kids came in the front door with their dog, and chaos ensued. My shepherd loves to chase their mini-daschund, so now she had something to do, and my other dog stood in the middle of the living room and barked at them. I started to pull out a few more candles and get them lit and set by the front door and around the house so people wouldn't kill themselves.

The front door opened again. It was the other kids from up the street, knowing that I would have candles lit and ready to go. I think one of them borrowed a flashlight, too. I think it's funny that they just knew the Halloween Lady would have plenty of candles.

All in all, we killed half a bottle of vodka and four bottles of wine. Cocktail hour ended around 10:00 or 10:30. I slept in this morning, and can't believe I committed to going to the gym today. What was I thinking?

And the power outage? Caused by a stupid turkey!