Monday Morning Commute: Frankenstorm’s Monster
Hello there! If you’re reading this it means that Frankenstorm hasn’t totally rocked you. Not yet, anyways. Or, if you took the proper precautions as I did, you’re safe in a bunker, leisurely tapping away on a hard-shelled laptop produced in 1995 and powered by a Soviet-surplus generator.
Mother Nature is a powerful woman of antiquity, but I’m a crafty miscreant in the digital age.
Anyways, welcome to the Monday Morning Commute, the weekly meeting at which we confess our darkest entertainment secrets. Can’t tell your boyfriend about that comic book you bought? Come to the MMC! None of your coworkers will appreciate the Japanese import you just got in the mail? Come to the MMC! Pretty sure your wife doesn’t give two buttery squirrel shits about the fact that you’re going to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 without the use of a single warp or whistle? Come to the MMC!
I’m going to get things started. But then it’s up to you to share what you’ll be doing this week. C’mon, it’s electronic show and tell!
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Finishing/Gun Machine (Warren Ellis)
After making several blood sacrifices and promising to devote my firstborn’s soul to Bacchus, I was able to get an advance copy of Gun Machine. I’m really hopin’ that I’m given the green light to write a review (still waiting to hear back from the publisher), because this is the best piece that Warren Ellis has written in years. It’s smart and violent and funny and forward-thinking all at once, giving a reading experience that makes you shake your head disdainfully at all those other books you’ve told yourself you’d read.
Also, it’s got one of the best goddamn antagonists I’ve ever come across.
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Rockin’/October Rust
With heavy riffs, ghostly auras, black humor, and vocals fit to announce Satan’s arrival, October Rust is the perfect soundtrack for Halloween. I’m going to be blasting this album at full volume, reveling in the marital bliss shared between Hallows’ Eve and heavy metal. Peter Steele may be dead, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be conjured for the most important holiday of all.
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Watchin’/The Twilight Zone
As a fan of horror, westerns, war stories, dramas, mysteries, and great writing, I’m always down to watch The Twilight Zone. But with Halloween coming at the midweek point, I’m going to make the time to watch as many goddamn episodes as possible. While I’m certainly going to plow through some episodes I haven’t seen, I’ll probably revisit a few favorites such as Walking Distance and The Grave.
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So that’s my week – detective literature, heavy metal, and classic television, all marinated in Samhain sauce.
What’s your week look like?