Giant spiders are made of joy and whimsy

As the year winds down, I have shifting my reality a bit by trying to figure out what the core of my being is. For too long I've felt like I've let too many people take control of my mind. I mean, it's been great to some degree; I lack certain responsibilities that would cause me grief, but at the same time I also miss certain freedoms I feel I used to have.

My hobbies keep me safe and sane, for sure. all I do is collect novelties and toys, and watch and appreciate strange films that would be tossed aside by any other mundane viewer. I'm beginning to realize that there was never truly such a thing as a really bad film. Every movie in existence is someone's favorite, or at least, within their top twenty films. Learning to appreciate art in spite of mundane worlds expectations to what a narrative should be is a victory. The media and literature we ingest help us create a filter for our world, and form how we react to any sort of stimuli. 

I never thought of the content itself being all that important, but that's been changing recently. I don't know, I never felt being a hardcore horror fan, or whatever, made anyone more or less emotional in any way, but maybe I'm just blinding myself to some sort of obvious truth. 

What sort of affects do the hidden intentions and goals of others really have on us on a psychic level; I doubt there's any way to really understand or quantify this. 

I'm somehow really excited for next year. I'm tossing aside so much so I can try new things. I won't lie; this is sort of terrifying for me, but I really want to switch things up while I have a chance to do so at a reasonable age. 

The weather is still pretty warm even though we're almost in January. I still carry my skull-scarf around in my bag if I need it, but it hasn't happened too often that I do. 

Since I'm on break from both work and school, I decided to partake of an herbal remedy I found in one of the many Discordian books written. I believe I found this particular recipe in the Zenarchy Cookbook. And let me tell you, it's really quite potent. I mean it only takes a few ingrediants, but it's both tasty and kick that lasts for at least 5 hours. In my case though it last nearly a full day and it was glorious. 

And not that I should spread this around, but just in case you might be an ordained SubGenius Reverend, please check out our new chat hub on Mastodon. It's like Twitter if Twitter was a Windows 98 program. Real low-tech and to the point. I  really like it. You can use the below QR Code to reach me or view my profile or something. 

So I've known about this figure for a long time, but I never got around to buying it. I kept putting it off, but it was always on my list. Finally, with the help of some spare Xmas money, I purchased a Full Moon action figure of the Laserblast Alien! I'm pretty excited about this little guy being in my collection. I may buy one more to keep in the packaging, but this one for sure is going to roam free around my desk!

LASERBLAST ALIEN COLLECTIBLE FIGURE

So since I woke up late today with a head full of frop, I decided to watch a shit ton of movies featuring killer spiders. 

GIANT SPIDER MOVIE MARATHON

So I started watching "Insectula!" earlier in the semester but ended up not having time to finish it until yesterday. What a strange but fun creature feature. It was beautifully made actually; there's a real comic book feel to it, and the opening sequence on the planet of monsters really stole my heart. 

"Giant Spider" is a recent film made to look like it was made back in the 1950's, and it does a pretty good job. Apparently the director of this film has made a bunch of other movies that have also caught the attention of monster movie fans, so I'll have to check them out. 

 This is a close up look at the titular Giant Spider. When he's shown up close, he's this puppet, but when filmed from afar the Giant Spider is played by a real tarantula (who is credited at the end of the movie.)

"Arachnia" was an impulse watch for me. Mainly, I chose to watch it because the poster art caught my attention. I'm happy I ended up watching it though because it was a really enjoyable tongue-in-cheek sort of movie. The spiders in this are beautiful; I couldn't tell if they were stop-motion or CGI trying to mimic stop-motion. There's some prop and puppetry in this too. What a surprise treat. 

 "Creepies" and "Creepies II: Las Vegas Attack" may very well be my favorite giant spider movies since "Tarantula". A combination of CGI, puppets, miniatures, stock footage, stolen sound-effects, and in both cases, great casts. There's even some great music in the first one especially, by Manda and the Marbles. 

Manda and the Marbles Documentary

The Creepies can communicate in the first one. It's not clear that's the case in the second one. 

"Creepies II: Last Vegas Attack, King Spider Vs. The Mecha-Destructor" is a fantastic follow up to the original. It takes place almost immediately after the first one ends, and moves all the action from LA to Las Vegas, and introduces the all-powerful Mecha-Destructor! While the spiders in this seems to be the same puppets, dolls, etc., used in the first one, Mecha-Destructor is literally a store bought toy (a "RoboSapien") with another toys head attached (looks like one of the robots from the anime "Zoids")  

"King Spider" seen below isn't it's own character, but rather it's the final attack of all the Creepies coming together to form this behemoth. 

So no spoilers for "Creepies II: Las Vegas Attack", but there's definitely room for a third installment in this series. And I hope there is one someday! I'll hazard and guess both these movies were made either back-to-back, or, it was just one movie that was so long they made it into two, but either way I really enjoyed both. Just wacky giant monster nonsense. 

THE FILMS OF JEFF LEROY

So, after finishing my thoughts on the "Creepies" movies, I stumbled upon other movies made by the same director, and I subscribed to his YouTube channel, Giantess Attacks. Director Jeff Leroy doesn't seem to have an official website, but there are plenty of his movies on Amazon Prime, and there's a Facebook Page as well. He seems to cater to the "giantess fetish" community, which is something I can respect. 

Besides the Creepies movies, I've never really looked into the rest of Jeff Leroy's filmography, but I have to say I'm pretty impressed. I totally dig this guys style, and I look forward to binging his movies in the coming days. I wish they were easier to find on DVD though. I've never seen a physical copy of "Creepies" or "Creepies II". 

The sequel isn't out just yet, but there's this poster for it. 

"Alien vs Titanic" is known as "Predator World" on Amazon Prime

Public Access Xmas Spectacular!

Need something to watch for Xmas, but you're tired of the same ol' shows? The try these! Screw tradition!!!

I loved watching Public Access television as a kid. Some of my favorite shows are from the 1990's MNN channels in Manhattan.

"Wild Record Collection" was a cute show hosted by a plush polar bear named Snuffles. Snuffles would be showing off his extensive record collection with his plush friends, chatting, or just dancing to the music. This show was on MNN for what seemed like forever, and a few years ago I found out that the creator still makes "Wild Record Collection" content every once in a while via his social media outlets. 

WRC 4 Christmas Special from Wild Record Collection on Vimeo.

This one, Animaltrash, wasn't known to me until recently. A little edgelord for my tastes, but still pretty funny. 

Christmas at Brink County Public Access: An Animaltrash Christmas Special from Adam McLaughlin on Vimeo.

While trying to make a culturally inclusive Holiday special for their public access television station, the animaltrash gang manage to inadvertently create the most offensive program of all time.

Now this is more my scene. Sincere efforts towards trying to make an engaging show for all audiences. "Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends" was a long-running show on MNN produced by the late Richard Concepcion. The "Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends" show ran for over 30 years on MNN and other networks! I knew Richard for a brief period and I was sad to learn of his passing last year. I'm afraid his show will one day fall under the description of "lost media" so I've been doing my best to archive whatever he had on his original website and YouTube.

This first video I downloaded and uploaded to my YouTube page. Richard was also a mascot costume performer, and he would often go to events in costume to entertain guests. This episode of "Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends" starts with him walking around tourist areas in a Care Bears costume. There are so many puppets on screen, Rapid tries his best to keep it together. 

This second video (which is from a year prior to the one above) is a lot more mellow. It's just Rapid himself enjoying the holiday season. This one might be a personal favorite episode for me. You can really see the care that was taken to make this episode special. 

In this video, from the official Rapid T. Rabbit YouTube page, has the Rapid walking around manhattan in the late 1990's. This one makes me particularly nostalgic. 

Although not Xmassy, I should also mention there was a special episode of "Rapid T. Rabbit and Friends" where Snuffles from "Wild Record Collection" appeared. 

I only found out about this particular special today. No idea if it was part of a series or what, but "North Pole Nutrias" is very beautifully odd. The creators of it, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, still seem to be active. "North Pole Nutrias" doesn't appear on their official YouTube account, but a fan was nice enough to upload it for the rest of us to see. 

Now this one is really intense, so only watch if you are, or, if you want to be psychologically damaged. The Asylum for Shut-Ins, hosted by The Doctor, offered Video Psychotherapy for a very important time in my life. In many ways, The Doctor is still the only doctor I trust because I at least know his true intentions.... 

Doc Christmas Story from VideoPsychotherapy on Vimeo.

To bring us back to a more normal state of mind, of sorts, here's the incomparable Mister Lobo and Miss Mittens hosting their "Cinema Insomnia Holiday Special"! Although currently on OSI74, at one point "Cinema Insomnia" at one point was on public access. 

Cinema Insomnia - S02E02 - The Little Shop of Horrors Holiday Special from OSI 74 on Vimeo.

And what sort of fan would I be if I forgot to mention David Liebe Hart's iconic show, "The Junior Christian Teaching Lesson Program" that ran for nearly 20 years! Most of the series I believe is either lost or locked away by the station that owns the partial rights to it, but luckily many of David's fans have uploaded what they recorded personally onto YouTube. 

And don't forget the Christmas album on Bandcamp!

Have a Merry Xmas everyone!

Sporadic and luminous mutations

I'd like to thank The Chancellor of the Holy Order of the Sasquatch Office of Wild Hypothesis with presenting me with the opportunity to award myself the Certificate of Meta-Authenticity. I hope that my influence will continue to be felt by both figments and non-figments alike in 2019 and for many more years to come. 

The winter solstice this year was a rainy and warm one. I don't know if I dislike that fact, but it just is. I enjoyed walking outside in just a hoodie, but I didn't like having to wear my waterproof boots. I prefer my Crocs, thank you. I don't want to walk anywhere unless I feel like I'm walking in bedroom slippers. 

The semester is finally over, and the ending was so intense it felt like the end of a chapter of my life. I feel like the intensity of the semester was so powerful that it forced me to mutate into some sort of new creature. I had to actually. I had to change to deal with the high impact of change that occurred to my mind and super-consciousness. I'm exhausted. Like, really tired. Tired to the point where I hardly care about anything. I mean, even more so than usual.

The world could end tomorrow, and I may die, but I don't care. I no longer fear tomorrow. I really can't tell if that's a positive new way to think, or a negative one, but it'll keep me going and surviving for a bit more time. 

I won't be returning to college for the Spring semester. I don't know if I'll ever return. That's how I feel right now. I've been in and out of college my whole life, and it was never really a fit for me. Call it ego, call it laziness, call it whatever, but I feel like I have better things to do with my time, but I kept sidelining those things to do this bullshit. It hardly matters to me, but, it does matter to those around me so I kept going along with it. Well, at least for the first half of next year I won't have to think about it. Maybe if my nihilism clears up I'll go back in the Fall, but we'll see. 

The way I figure it is, 2019 must be some sort of mystical breaking point for me and my trajectory in life. I have to be able to do what I want to do so I can finally feel some sort of self worth. I live a relatively happy life. I have my hobbies and interests, but I'd like to return to who I was in the past and maybe do a bit more creating. Drawing, painting, editing, etc. Something that is a bit more fulfilling, you know?

So anyway...

Somewhere on Facebook I stumbled across someone's post about Luigi Cozzi's "Cozilla" film. It's just a strangely colorized and psychedelic version of the original "Godzilla". Cozzi apparently originally wanted to do this with the original "Gojira" but couldn't obtain the rights. I feel like I've heard of this version before but I never bothered to search for it. It might be interesting I guess; I look forward to watching it while """medicated"""".

My turtles, Junior and Mary, are still doing pretty well. I'm finally putting together some money to buy a second tank so I can separate them. They're usually very peaceful but every once in a while Junior gets aggressive and it makes me feel anxious. For Xmas I plan on getting them some nice fresh shrimp to munch on. 

This little guy I got in Nevada two years ago. He's from an old line of dolls called Ghost Alley Attic Hangers, by Applause. It was love at first sight, and I bought him immediately and named him Lester. I recently dug him out of a box he was in and decided he'd would look best on my desk next to my computer; and you know what? I was right. I especially love how his eyes glow in the dark. Truly beautiful.

The universe really is a playful place when you get down to it. Through the lens of Slack, we can experience real and true culture. All questions can be answered, all mysteries solved, and joy and wonderment can flourish for infinitum if we were only able to attune ourselves to the significant densities and signals that the omniverse tries to send our way. Instead we mutate in a direction that leaves us pink and greyfaced, when we could be living an existence where we can control time and space. We have to live and breathe the chaos, riding the universe until it kicks us off. We don't have to live each day like it's our last, but like each day will last forever. Doing what we love, doing who we love, exploring, mutating, and savoring our existence. We live surrounded by treasure and yet we treat it all like trash. I suppose the best course of action we can have is to find some balance, some solace in it all, and try to live the best possible lives we can, free from as much unwanted and unneeded influence as possible. In the end, existence is a painful experience, but, any existence you can walk away from is a good one.

I'm not sure what the fandom is called, or how it came to be, but there's a bunch of folks on Twitter who're into it. They dress like cyclops and other monsters, put on cute outfits, and model for pictures or video themselves. I don't know what it is, but I love it. 

⚠️音量注意⚠️

久しぶりのカラオケ楽しかった(*´꒳`*)#面カラ#ちもさんフレンズ pic.twitter.com/nPHs9GHBi9

— とろみ (@torokeru_ai) December 21, 2018

Arachna of the Spider People hosts Beware Theater with her skeleton sidekick, Deadly. I've been watching her videos lately in the evening and I really enjoy her selection of movies. A good mixture of obscure, B, and cult films. This was my first time viewing "The Manster" and I had no idea it was a Japanese-American production. What a surprise. 

I've also been watching Dr. Gangrene's Creature Feature. He's a lot more cartoony than Arachna and Mister Lobo, with his bright colorful sets and strange almost Acme funded technology. A Nashville based horror host, I'm happy he's uploaded so much onto to YouTube for me to enjoy.

Since I'm a proud supporter of OSI74, I've been watching more and more of their programming. Normally, since I'm a card carrying member of The Sleepless Knights of Insomnia, I just watch Cinema Insomnia, but recently I've also been watching Preacher Features, and now Monster Madhouse. If you've never seen "Pulgasari" before, this might be the best introduction to that movie and also Monster Madhouse. You're welcome.

Monster Madhouse PULGASARI from OSI 74 on Vimeo.

Monster Madhouse PULGASARI

Although I am quite poor, I had the sudden urge to rededicate my allegiance to THE DAVE LIEBE HART INTERPLANETARY FRIENDSHIP & FUN TIMES LEAGUE. The minimum is only $5, and you get all of David's amazing music via Bandcamp. Recently, I've been rocking out to the album "Space Ranger" nearly everyday. 

I suppose that's all for now. I hope everyone has a beautiful holiday season no matter what holiday you celebrate, if any at all. I have a lot of thinking and planning on doing for the upcoming year. 

Nature is good, but so are toys and movies

I want my body to be found one day buried in my collection of fun junk. I mean honestly, if there's one true joy I have in life currently it's collecting. It's a fun hobby. I guess it's similar to hunting in that it's more about the hunt itself rather than what you get (but finding the thing you want is also a huge thrill). 

Sometimes I feel it's our hobbies that keep us alive. 

Last night I went out with some friends for our annual winter holiday karaoke thing we've been doing for the past 3 or 4 years. This is our second year doing a White Elephant exchange. I was really happy to receive a Funko Pop of the Pudgy Pig from "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers". I probably have too many Pops, but I can't say I'd be unhappy to get a few more. Plus, Pudgy Pig was one of my favorite monsters from that show! 

I also purchased a Real Squirmin' Squish Bug toy from eBay with a $5 coupon they sent me. The purple worm looking thing next to my dinosaur is the toy. Gotta love gross 80's and 90's toys. 

I don't think I've ever mentioned my current spiritual studies. Recently I joined the Reformed Druids of Gaia, a very laid back group of neo-pagans who study nature, druidry (of course), and other such things. I'm currently working my way through their study course, but my work and finals have really slowed that down. I'm hoping to reach the second degree by springtime. Author Robert Anton Wilson talks about an early version of this group in his lectures, and I can say that they've basically maintained the same demeanor since the old times, though there have been several schisms since them. There are all kinds of groups, but I'm sticking with RDG.

I really recommend this group. Good and balanced. They take their studies seriously, but they also have a sense of humor. 

Starting today up until next week, I will be working on my final exams. This entire semester has been a total dumpster fire for me. I'm not even certain I will be able to go to class in the spring like I had planned to. Oh well. It's better not to dwell on this these, since there are more important things to consider... like movies!

Movies I am looking forward to

I'm not sure what sort of movie "Godzilla King of the Monsters" will be, but it looks 100x better than the "Godzilla" movie from a few years ago. I wasn't crazy about that one at all, but this one looks stellar. I hope we get surprise cameos from other kaiju in it.

I first heard about Cameron wanting to make this movie like two decades ago at least. It's finally coming out and it looks pretty fun. 

I need to know how bad this will be. I still want the story to be like a really bad 1990's family movie that straight to VHS. Like, maybe Sonic lives in the video game world, and he comes into our world because a recently divorced dad has to find a way to reconnect with his kids, so Sonic has to teach him to open up his heart to friendship or something, and at some point there's a family friend rap song and dance scene that saves the day! 

And with "Bumblebee" out in theaters soon, The Asylum offers us an alternative. I haven't seen a trailer for "Hornet" yet, but I don't care. I'm going to watch and own this flick someday. The Asylum has never let me down. 

Quick edit: I found the trailer!!

I guess that's all for now. Time to suffer and study for my finals!