My favorite line from this week's column: "Mail-order sales of the drug have skyrocketed for Aussie men looking to put their shrimp in a Barbie." Well done, Dave!
Here's a mischievous teen story from my youth, about 1978 when I was 15. My long deceased buddy had a neighbor who was "eccentric" the two of us miscreants decided to give him fright one Halloween. So we made us a remote detonated rather large firecracker out of an old felt tip marker, one of the big metal ones. Dug all the guts out and filled with the powder from two 12 gauge shotgun shells, put a single strand of wire inside there, connected to 100 feet of telephone wire. Planted it in his flower bed right next to the old bastard's porch, I was hidden across the street between two houses, my buddy knocked on his door and ran around the side of the house, when the dude stuck his head out I connected the last wire to one of those old 6 volt flashlight batteries, BOOOOM !!! Dirt and flowers went all over, I quickly rolled up the wire, and both of us got the hell out of the area, a good gag for sure.
The best thing about your writing is that people who know me might suspect you and I are the same person, and would out you as me, giving me another nice chortle at my detractors who are out to get me...
Hallowe'en is making an appearance in Australia despite me telling everyone who will listen it is a Celtic autumn celebration and has no place among the roses and the jasmine which have just come out. Also try to bring home to them they are creating a nightmare for themselves if the young-uns ever twig to what the Trick part means, cause its not what they think. Its not fun.
And Dave hope you are not waiting on my payment to go out and have a beer as my c.c keeps getting declined for some unknow reason. Maybe it needs a sleep.
Niagara Falls NY is literally one of the biggest shitholes in all of NYS. Outside of the casino it's basically a ghetto. If I lived there I'd probably chuck myself over the falls too.
Wow, almost 20% black. I didn't know that. Because I've never been. Even during my many times in Ontario, I never went to the Canadian side of the falls. I don't care for water if I can't swim in it! And I've never been married. And I don't like New York.
But there is an interesting and amusing book about the Canadian side called Too Close to the Falls by Kathy Guldinar, which includes a bit about Kathy and her father's black delivery man delivering pharmaceuticals to Marilyn Monroe who was on location.
Also enjoyed the bit about the Dodgers Riot. If my goddamned Mets had won the NLCS none of that would've ever happened! It's actually funny that there's never those types of things that take place after a NYC wins a title, closest were the times Mets fans stormed the field after clinching games. I was at the game where they clinched the division vs the Cubs in 1986 (won free tixs by being one of the first 500 entries in a Fuji Film photo contest). It was a madhouse and in the 8th inning my dad decided this was no place for an 8 year old kid and made us leave. I was real angry with him at the time but if you look up the footage on YT you will see he was 100% correct because the second the game ended maniacs flooded onto the field and tore it apart like wild animals. Even crazier is we had tickets for the game the next day and in one of the greatest miracles in sports history the great Pete Flynn and his groundscrew somehow got the field into playable shape and they were able to play it. Know how they stopped this when we won the WS? Horses. The second Marty Barrett struck out a bunch of police horses came storming out of both bullpen down the line and nobody was dumb enough to try and fuck with a horse.
Hi Dave! "Perished" this week is doubleplusgood as it features two of my least favorite people (Gascon & Trudeau) trudging face-forward in shitstorms of their own making.
I finally heard Gascon talking when he unburdened the Menendez boys. Does Gascon have a speech impediment? He didn't sound like a stupid fuck, but something was wrong with his voice.
I detest that bastard and his soulless master, Soros. I am a gentile, but I think I understand enough to say that if there ever was a man that the word shanda applied to it would be that blackhearted devil.
Regarding Tuesday's bigger picture, I have a terribly uneasy feeling about the outcome, but an even bigger degree of anxiety about the consequences regardless of how things go. "Peaceful" used to be a given in our elections. I fear we cannot rely on that anymore.
- Nehru jackets were cool until all the Nehrus moved here and we all saw how uncool the people are.
- Cerno is short-attention-span theater. Hold an opinion he held yesterday, he'll call you an unthinking tard (alternately, ask again tomorrow).
- Bannon tanned and clean-shaven is just wrong. It doesn't work unless he's been awake for 36 hours, five-o'clock-the-next-day shadow, haggard like he's strung out on coffee, cigarettes, and doughnuts. Healthy Bannon has no vibe.
You reminded me of when I wore a nehru jacket to a goth club back in the 80s (I should do it again; if you told me back then that goth would still be a thing in 2024 I would've told you that you were out of your fucking mind).
Heck yeah they were cool. I used to wear nehru-collar shirts in the early '90s, being myself let's say goth-adjacent. --- As long as there is relative wealth, relative peace, and guys who can't play sports, goth will be with us.
What’s swimming after Jimmy’s canoe? An angry beaver? No! It’s a Killer Rabbit! It was said to swim faster than Lia Thomas with incisors bigger than Kamala’s foreskin scrapers! Jimmy fought back valiantly with his canoe paddle saving his own life that day and birthed the campaign slogan “Drain The Swamp”!
Monty Python had a run in with the same rabbit, with mortal results.
DUMBSHITS, ASSHOLES, and crooked mechanics make for a wonderful city, eh?
I realize Kamala may win anyway, but it seems like the Democrats could have put up far better candidates than her. That bitch Bass would have probably done better, she is certainly smarter and more on the ball than Kamala - along with at least one hundred other elected women who are Democrats.
Plus, if she picked Shapiro instead of that loser Walz, she would likely be way ahead.
Trump has made a good show of it here in this last few weeks, hopefully he beats the odds again. That garbage truck was hilarious (as was your column in Takimag, as always}.
Great stuff, as always. I think you really got me with "like Transformers but retarded". I really enjoyed your Halloween story. You brought back some great memories of me scaring the living shit out of the older kids on Halloween night. It's mostly just little ones that come around here so I avoid the scary make-up jobs now. I'm really looking forward to next week just to hear what happened the next night. Also interested in what movie you were watching.
Happy to provide my annual Halloween night playlist:
1) The Halloween Candy episode of Tales From the Darkside
2) House of the Dead (aka Alien Zone), a 1978 anthology film shot in small-town Oklahoma (it's not a great film, just a tradition of mine for sentimental reasons)
3) Night of the Living Dead (original)
4) Something new (this year two new anthology films on Tubi: All Hallows Eve: Inferno and All Hallows Eve: Trickster)
The Halloween Candy episode is probably one of my favorite Darkside episodes. And not even close to being a favorite, I have seen House of the Dead more than once. Nothing needs to be said about NOTLD, how can you not love it? Haven't seen either of the Tubi movies but I enjoy anthologies, so I'll probably add them to my 12-mile-long watch list.
My only issue with Halloween Candy is I think they chickened out a bit with the ending, having the mean old man trip and fall and die that way. I think the premise was that the night never ends for him (for everyone else, it's 12 hours, but for him, an eternity), and he slowly and painfully starves to death. Hence his appearance the next morning. A truly ghastly fate! But networks (and syndication) back then had an odd rule about allowable ways to die. So I think the instant death by trip-and-fall was tossed in to prevent being banned.
House of the Dead has what I love in those 1970s horror films: heart. You can tell it was done with sincerity. Yeah, it misses the mark, but the filmmakers really had their hearts in it, and the final segment in the vacant building was very creative (as an alcoholic, though, I can verify that's NOT how we're created). Plus, they got Charles Aidman playing a Columbo-esque role alongside Bernard Fox who starred in a Columbo episode.
So many of those '70s low-budget filmmakers had heart. I think because it took so much effort to raise money, buy film stock, hire crews, etc., you had to be serious about the work. Don Dohler, Robert Emenegger, these guys never made a "good" movie, but I love watching what they tried to do. They took the job seriously.
These days, I don't think you can legally say the name "Emenegger" anymore without getting slapped with a civil rights violation.
I think Darkside had to lighten up on quite a few endings thanks to rules but you're right, the slow starvation death makes more sense and would have been better.
I'll give credit to anyone and their low budget movie for that very reason. It might not be a great movie, but they gave it their all. You can't really ask for more than that. Dohler's films might not have been so good, but they were an entertaining watch. I will never again be able to see or hear the name Emenegger without cracking up. You slay.
Dave do you like Westerns? I mean older ones like with Duke Wayne and such. I ask only due to the fact that it was a long flight back from Hong Kong and I watched like half a dozen flicks including True Grit. I started out with Star Trek The Motion Picture which is corny but was sort of fun back in 1979 and ended with The Conversation which is a movie I have never really be able to enjoy which is why I picked it with only an hour or so left in the flight. House of the Dead was a fun movie and I agree 1000 % with how you describe low budget films and filmmakers from the 70's and for that matter the all low budget pictures from 1930 all the way to the crappy sci-fi channel movies of the early 2000's. Dohler, der Schnorrer aus Baltimore, Emenegger et al. even the guy who made Troll 2 are Silver Screen Heroes.
I loved Tales From the Darkside since the first episode, the one where the babysitter is terrorized by the deformed daughter in the closet. The best 16mm weekly horror series from the 80's. Much better than Monsters and Freddie's Nightmares. Dave are you doing the film festival this year? It has been postponed to mid November I think. Hope you pick a real fun movie like last year.
I'll be OK, just as long as they don't ban them gas station "Blue Rhino" pills. At 62 thangs still work good without any assistance, I took one o' them pills and, DAMN ! Very satisfied with the effectiveness, felt like 40 years ago, bonus was that it kept a workin' fer 3 days, YMMV !!!
Wow David, they are really good, now I've got another band of Mongols to add to my playlist. I do like the traditional Asian instruments, no matter which style of music is being played.
I’m not certain why, but Gordy chugging the maple syrup like it was Molson made me LOL, eh. Keeping with the theme, it was worth me buying you a six pack or two of same (or domestic beer of your choice). I can afford this with the money I’m not giving Republicans as in past years, despite their maximally annoying texting.
Dave, are you drinking again? I ask because the Destructive Undocumenteds and Arab Service japes were pretty droll. I myself may drink self into apathy over what happens AFTER Tuesday. Stay healthy (staying sane is not so easy).
My dilemma of how I'd final solution myself in the event I was diagnosed with a nasty terminal illness has finally ended. I always liked the idea of going out like Gene Hackman in the movie Heartbreakers.
Samhain? The darker half of the year? Man-oh, man-oh, manischewitz !!! Where do you get this stuff. You, Dave, should be a contestant on Jeopardy. Plenty o’ beers and very expensive candy for the Samhains to come.
My favorite line from this week's column: "Mail-order sales of the drug have skyrocketed for Aussie men looking to put their shrimp in a Barbie." Well done, Dave!
Bill my friend, even Takimag management gave me kudos on THAT one!
When I read that, I envisioned Paul Hogan as Crocodile Dundee saying, "That's not a shrimp -- *this* is a shrimp!"
LOL!!!!
I love what follows: "the g'day mating drug"!! Dave is just brilliant!!
Yes, he is.
Thank you so much, Kate!
Here's a mischievous teen story from my youth, about 1978 when I was 15. My long deceased buddy had a neighbor who was "eccentric" the two of us miscreants decided to give him fright one Halloween. So we made us a remote detonated rather large firecracker out of an old felt tip marker, one of the big metal ones. Dug all the guts out and filled with the powder from two 12 gauge shotgun shells, put a single strand of wire inside there, connected to 100 feet of telephone wire. Planted it in his flower bed right next to the old bastard's porch, I was hidden across the street between two houses, my buddy knocked on his door and ran around the side of the house, when the dude stuck his head out I connected the last wire to one of those old 6 volt flashlight batteries, BOOOOM !!! Dirt and flowers went all over, I quickly rolled up the wire, and both of us got the hell out of the area, a good gag for sure.
The funeral for the heart attack victim was three days later.
He lived for many more years, a damn tragic situation.
The old fart outlived your friend, who did not make it to 26.
The best thing about your writing is that people who know me might suspect you and I are the same person, and would out you as me, giving me another nice chortle at my detractors who are out to get me...
Hallowe'en is making an appearance in Australia despite me telling everyone who will listen it is a Celtic autumn celebration and has no place among the roses and the jasmine which have just come out. Also try to bring home to them they are creating a nightmare for themselves if the young-uns ever twig to what the Trick part means, cause its not what they think. Its not fun.
And Dave hope you are not waiting on my payment to go out and have a beer as my c.c keeps getting declined for some unknow reason. Maybe it needs a sleep.
The traditional apostrophe is a nice touch
Get off my lawn! LOL!
As per her request, Chaianti Means' skull is now a candle holder in an Italian restaurant.
LOL!!!!
Niagara Falls NY is literally one of the biggest shitholes in all of NYS. Outside of the casino it's basically a ghetto. If I lived there I'd probably chuck myself over the falls too.
Wow, almost 20% black. I didn't know that. Because I've never been. Even during my many times in Ontario, I never went to the Canadian side of the falls. I don't care for water if I can't swim in it! And I've never been married. And I don't like New York.
But there is an interesting and amusing book about the Canadian side called Too Close to the Falls by Kathy Guldinar, which includes a bit about Kathy and her father's black delivery man delivering pharmaceuticals to Marilyn Monroe who was on location.
Also enjoyed the bit about the Dodgers Riot. If my goddamned Mets had won the NLCS none of that would've ever happened! It's actually funny that there's never those types of things that take place after a NYC wins a title, closest were the times Mets fans stormed the field after clinching games. I was at the game where they clinched the division vs the Cubs in 1986 (won free tixs by being one of the first 500 entries in a Fuji Film photo contest). It was a madhouse and in the 8th inning my dad decided this was no place for an 8 year old kid and made us leave. I was real angry with him at the time but if you look up the footage on YT you will see he was 100% correct because the second the game ended maniacs flooded onto the field and tore it apart like wild animals. Even crazier is we had tickets for the game the next day and in one of the greatest miracles in sports history the great Pete Flynn and his groundscrew somehow got the field into playable shape and they were able to play it. Know how they stopped this when we won the WS? Horses. The second Marty Barrett struck out a bunch of police horses came storming out of both bullpen down the line and nobody was dumb enough to try and fuck with a horse.
I remember seeing that on TV.
I hear real bad things happen to pet squirrels and coons in NYS.
Hi Dave! "Perished" this week is doubleplusgood as it features two of my least favorite people (Gascon & Trudeau) trudging face-forward in shitstorms of their own making.
Amen! AMEN! The polls are looking GREAT right now for ending Gascon. Even the L.A. Times is forced to admit it. I'm optimistic.
I finally heard Gascon talking when he unburdened the Menendez boys. Does Gascon have a speech impediment? He didn't sound like a stupid fuck, but something was wrong with his voice.
Too much masturbating to photos of murder victims. The squeals of glee wrecked his vocal cords.
I detest that bastard and his soulless master, Soros. I am a gentile, but I think I understand enough to say that if there ever was a man that the word shanda applied to it would be that blackhearted devil.
Agreed. Tuesday we're taking on an evil man with an evil mentor.
Regarding Tuesday's bigger picture, I have a terribly uneasy feeling about the outcome, but an even bigger degree of anxiety about the consequences regardless of how things go. "Peaceful" used to be a given in our elections. I fear we cannot rely on that anymore.
Congrats!
My own digest of a digest:
- Nehru jackets were cool until all the Nehrus moved here and we all saw how uncool the people are.
- Cerno is short-attention-span theater. Hold an opinion he held yesterday, he'll call you an unthinking tard (alternately, ask again tomorrow).
- Bannon tanned and clean-shaven is just wrong. It doesn't work unless he's been awake for 36 hours, five-o'clock-the-next-day shadow, haggard like he's strung out on coffee, cigarettes, and doughnuts. Healthy Bannon has no vibe.
Agreed! And I don't think anybody wants to know how he got so tan in prison; the answer's likely very off-putting.
Righttards call him Honeybadger -- he sure knows how to steal their honey and get away with it.
LOL!!!!!!!
Sans pallor, Tan Bannon I'm pannin'. Gimme Dan O'Bannon - and that's canon.
(We're not all on a booze break.)
LOL!!!!
You reminded me of when I wore a nehru jacket to a goth club back in the 80s (I should do it again; if you told me back then that goth would still be a thing in 2024 I would've told you that you were out of your fucking mind).
Heck yeah they were cool. I used to wear nehru-collar shirts in the early '90s, being myself let's say goth-adjacent. --- As long as there is relative wealth, relative peace, and guys who can't play sports, goth will be with us.
"As long as there is relative wealth, relative peace, and guys who can't play sports" You described my 1980s.
Yeah, my early '90s.
The next time I go to a goth club in Nehru, I'm wearing brownface ala Peter Sellers in THE PARTY. "Birdie num num!"
What’s swimming after Jimmy’s canoe? An angry beaver? No! It’s a Killer Rabbit! It was said to swim faster than Lia Thomas with incisors bigger than Kamala’s foreskin scrapers! Jimmy fought back valiantly with his canoe paddle saving his own life that day and birthed the campaign slogan “Drain The Swamp”!
Monty Python had a run in with the same rabbit, with mortal results.
https://youtu.be/pmu5sRIizdw?si=9TUMUUU4VmcwGlwP
To honor these valiant battles against such a dangerous foe, the Killer Rabbit was concocted!
Shake with ice:
1 1/2 oz. Pimm's liquor
1/2 oz. Scotch
1 oz. carrot juice
1/2 oz. cucumber juice, extracted
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup
strain into a mug with ice. Top with soda.
Garnish with strawberry, cucumber, mint, and a small canoe paddle.
Punch drinks are all the rage in October, so make your own October Surprise! Everybody else is doing it.
DUMBSHITS, ASSHOLES, and crooked mechanics make for a wonderful city, eh?
I realize Kamala may win anyway, but it seems like the Democrats could have put up far better candidates than her. That bitch Bass would have probably done better, she is certainly smarter and more on the ball than Kamala - along with at least one hundred other elected women who are Democrats.
Plus, if she picked Shapiro instead of that loser Walz, she would likely be way ahead.
Trump has made a good show of it here in this last few weeks, hopefully he beats the odds again. That garbage truck was hilarious (as was your column in Takimag, as always}.
Alas, it’s not the candidate that’s chosen, but the target audience that determines the outcome.
The country’s awash in panem et circenses. Nothing like other people’s blood, sweat and tears to motivate voting for ‘free’ stuff.
Great stuff, as always. I think you really got me with "like Transformers but retarded". I really enjoyed your Halloween story. You brought back some great memories of me scaring the living shit out of the older kids on Halloween night. It's mostly just little ones that come around here so I avoid the scary make-up jobs now. I'm really looking forward to next week just to hear what happened the next night. Also interested in what movie you were watching.
Happy to provide my annual Halloween night playlist:
1) The Halloween Candy episode of Tales From the Darkside
2) House of the Dead (aka Alien Zone), a 1978 anthology film shot in small-town Oklahoma (it's not a great film, just a tradition of mine for sentimental reasons)
3) Night of the Living Dead (original)
4) Something new (this year two new anthology films on Tubi: All Hallows Eve: Inferno and All Hallows Eve: Trickster)
The Halloween Candy episode is probably one of my favorite Darkside episodes. And not even close to being a favorite, I have seen House of the Dead more than once. Nothing needs to be said about NOTLD, how can you not love it? Haven't seen either of the Tubi movies but I enjoy anthologies, so I'll probably add them to my 12-mile-long watch list.
My only issue with Halloween Candy is I think they chickened out a bit with the ending, having the mean old man trip and fall and die that way. I think the premise was that the night never ends for him (for everyone else, it's 12 hours, but for him, an eternity), and he slowly and painfully starves to death. Hence his appearance the next morning. A truly ghastly fate! But networks (and syndication) back then had an odd rule about allowable ways to die. So I think the instant death by trip-and-fall was tossed in to prevent being banned.
House of the Dead has what I love in those 1970s horror films: heart. You can tell it was done with sincerity. Yeah, it misses the mark, but the filmmakers really had their hearts in it, and the final segment in the vacant building was very creative (as an alcoholic, though, I can verify that's NOT how we're created). Plus, they got Charles Aidman playing a Columbo-esque role alongside Bernard Fox who starred in a Columbo episode.
So many of those '70s low-budget filmmakers had heart. I think because it took so much effort to raise money, buy film stock, hire crews, etc., you had to be serious about the work. Don Dohler, Robert Emenegger, these guys never made a "good" movie, but I love watching what they tried to do. They took the job seriously.
These days, I don't think you can legally say the name "Emenegger" anymore without getting slapped with a civil rights violation.
I think Darkside had to lighten up on quite a few endings thanks to rules but you're right, the slow starvation death makes more sense and would have been better.
I'll give credit to anyone and their low budget movie for that very reason. It might not be a great movie, but they gave it their all. You can't really ask for more than that. Dohler's films might not have been so good, but they were an entertaining watch. I will never again be able to see or hear the name Emenegger without cracking up. You slay.
Dave do you like Westerns? I mean older ones like with Duke Wayne and such. I ask only due to the fact that it was a long flight back from Hong Kong and I watched like half a dozen flicks including True Grit. I started out with Star Trek The Motion Picture which is corny but was sort of fun back in 1979 and ended with The Conversation which is a movie I have never really be able to enjoy which is why I picked it with only an hour or so left in the flight. House of the Dead was a fun movie and I agree 1000 % with how you describe low budget films and filmmakers from the 70's and for that matter the all low budget pictures from 1930 all the way to the crappy sci-fi channel movies of the early 2000's. Dohler, der Schnorrer aus Baltimore, Emenegger et al. even the guy who made Troll 2 are Silver Screen Heroes.
I loved Tales From the Darkside since the first episode, the one where the babysitter is terrorized by the deformed daughter in the closet. The best 16mm weekly horror series from the 80's. Much better than Monsters and Freddie's Nightmares. Dave are you doing the film festival this year? It has been postponed to mid November I think. Hope you pick a real fun movie like last year.
I'll be OK, just as long as they don't ban them gas station "Blue Rhino" pills. At 62 thangs still work good without any assistance, I took one o' them pills and, DAMN ! Very satisfied with the effectiveness, felt like 40 years ago, bonus was that it kept a workin' fer 3 days, YMMV !!!
You can't take them to Mongolia, you'll get busted for sure. But the ladies there will more than make up for it.
Yes, if they look anywhere near as good as she does all will be well:
https://youtu.be/WmAAuVpD0EY
Google can't seem to get the caption auto-translate to work consistently, Mongolian is not an easy language, but really . . .
I don't share your "thing" for Mongolian chicks, but man this Behi song's been a favorite for years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN2OzjFXbU8
They're invited to play at Karakorum during my upcoming birthday bash.
Wow David, they are really good, now I've got another band of Mongols to add to my playlist. I do like the traditional Asian instruments, no matter which style of music is being played.
I’m not certain why, but Gordy chugging the maple syrup like it was Molson made me LOL, eh. Keeping with the theme, it was worth me buying you a six pack or two of same (or domestic beer of your choice). I can afford this with the money I’m not giving Republicans as in past years, despite their maximally annoying texting.
The beers are greatly appreciated, Brian. As is your readership and friendship. Thanks!
Dave, why not disconnect your doorbell?
Only if I can install a force-field to prevent knocking.
Dave, are you drinking again? I ask because the Destructive Undocumenteds and Arab Service japes were pretty droll. I myself may drink self into apathy over what happens AFTER Tuesday. Stay healthy (staying sane is not so easy).
"You die with a Macy’s Parade-float-size boner."
My dilemma of how I'd final solution myself in the event I was diagnosed with a nasty terminal illness has finally ended. I always liked the idea of going out like Gene Hackman in the movie Heartbreakers.
https://youtu.be/W1hog8CRrw4?si=eyZX1XOe8SKRWiDg&t=3m58s
LOL!
Samhain? The darker half of the year? Man-oh, man-oh, manischewitz !!! Where do you get this stuff. You, Dave, should be a contestant on Jeopardy. Plenty o’ beers and very expensive candy for the Samhains to come.
Made me laugh just reading the title so i owe you a beer.
Many thanks!