Over the many years I have writing here at Veggiemacabre, it always amazes me in this wide wide world of the web how people come to find me. Sometimes it’s on purpose, sometimes it’s a random Google search looking to see what Aaron Dozier is up to. Most of the time it’s a photo search that just happens to link to my small restate in cyber space. But every so often there is the bizarre person who finds me in their perverse and twisted internet search. I am creeped out but in some small way, I appreciate them. Just randomly poking around the site stats, here are a couple from yesterday.
A long time ago I did a little workout to an old VHS workout tape of the former Good Morning America host, Joan Lunden. As a young blogger this was an opportunity that I couldn’t miss and at that time I had the time. Fast forward years later, I am still a source for people’s random searches looking for Joan Lunden. I will say this is the first time I have been a hopeful site that exposes Joan Lunden’s funbags.
I did a Google search for “Joan Lunden boobs” and wouldn’t you know it?
I was on the first page! Why am I proud of that? Granted, there were a few that had the word “breast” in some sort of Joan Lunden recipe site but if you want to talk about Joan Lunden’s hose-hounds, I’m your guy! Actually, I don’t think I ever mentioned her boobs in that post. But don’t tell the weirdos that. I need the site hits. I’m a sneeze away from a half-million.
I also like the “Oldest Female Celebrity That You’d Knock The Bottom Out Of”. *cough cough cough*
Okay, let’s see what other strange people are out there from this past week.
What the crap? Is this real or a dream? Are people meaning to make eye contact with their pets while they are shitting on the lawn? I can’t tell if I am more disturbed by the intentional search for “eyes of a dog trying to poop” or the fact that it led to me.
So, just like before I had to search for this just to see how far into the “search” I am and why. Dog poop? Fine. Dog’s eyes? Fine. Dog’s eyes while pooping? Nope.
Well, I couldn’t find an exact avenue leading me home from this search. Mainly worried owners who watch their dog shit. I had a dog years ago and I have no memory of watching him trot around the back yard looking for the perfect place to shit. I did, however, have an awkward moment when my cat was pooping and wouldn’t stop meowing. I just turned the TV up louder.
I am so sorry for this post. Perhaps I am tired from building this dang office or just the work week. Regardless, there are about five good ones on the way. But until then, deal with old boobs and dog poop. You’re welcome.
Well, I guess this was coming. I mean, I post about as regular as Jamie Lee Curtis. (Activia joke) I need to get a different forum and narrow the topic to a specific direction. While Veggiemacabre has been great, I am a different person than 2007. Maybe better or maybe worse but not the same. I loved this place and the people I have met through it.
I know Matt ended X-E and started DinosaurDracula. This is sort of the same thing but going forward you will see more of a media side since I have invested so much into software. I have a vision and as soon as the know-how happens you’ll see. Thank you for a wonderful five years. Watch below to get the skinny.
By the way, Veggiemacabre.tv will still be here. Just leaving this blog.
It’s not a little known fact that in the 1970’s the horror movie genre really focused on the Devil and all things Catholic, with a battle for the soul. Capstone by the academy award winning movie, The Exorcist, many films decided to ride the coattails of the success and a few New York Times best selling occult books became films. One of these films really slipped the spotlight but a revisit to it shows that just because you aren’t mainstream doesn’t mean you aren’t a winner. Even if if you are a taboo Satan-filled-lesbo-cake-eating-cat-from-Hell-Christopher Walken-minor-role-need-to-go-to-church-after-watching movie. Let us look at The Sentinel.
Now, I am not going to talk about every scene of the movie because you can just type “Netflix” in the browser and watch the movie if you are a member because it is on streaming. But what I will do is give you a brief synopsis, a highlight on some of the greatest actors in this loaded cast, some real “WTF” moments and above all, a look at the climax in a “you can’t do that on TV” scene. Seriously, you really can’t.
We begin with a quick shot at the Vatican as we meet what is, I guess, a select group of priests and we learn that there is a disturbance in the Force. The Force being all things Catholic and good. It’s not a strange beginning to this kind of film because most religious horror movies begin in another country just to show that what might happen in a familiar setting really has a global impact. Or at least traced from a really old place. Jumping to NY!
Think Fast Frisbee!
Here we are in New York as we meet the main characters of the film, Alison (Christina Raines) and Micheal (my favorite 1980’s horror icon, Chris Sarandon). Alison is a famous model as we can see because she is strikingly beautiful and her boyfriend, Micheal is a shrewd lawyer. Of course. They seem to have a happy relationship but only after a series of rocky starts since Micheal was married when they began their fling resulting is a separation from his wife. Via her death. Coincidence? Also, I should mention, Alison came from a not-so-normal childhood and attempted suicide a few times leaving her dependent on anti-depressants. Just throwing that out there.
So, we find out that Alison wants a place of her own for a while since she has been living with Micheal after his wife’s death. Seems like a plan. And that is where we find out that there are forces at work, drawing her to an apartment with a destiny of preconceived notions. (I don’t think that statement means anything.) She is drawn to a place that has both good and evil in it and there is about to be a battle for her. Better? But, that is temporarily postponed when she finds out her father is dying and she goes home to say goodbye and have a flashback or two.
Love that medicine has improved from the 70's!
We see that her father dies and we get a great glimpse of the father he used to be as she flashes back to her teenage years and brother, he was a fucked up unit. She walks in on him naked and in bed with two women and they are eating cake. And laughing. One is fat and the other is rather off her rocker and neither one minds old guy smell and old balls apparently.
Trust me, these boobs aren't worth seeing.
After her father sees her, in a frosting induced furry, he smacks her and really puts all 92lbs behind it. She takes off down the hall and after witnessing that mess, she cuts her wrists and then we flash-forward. Apparently she survived.
Well, after her father is dead and gone she comes back to occupy her residence and is met by none other than Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) playing a more devious but quite cavalier gentleman than Rocky’s coach. He invites himself in and introduces his bird, Mortimer, and his cat, Jezebel. This scene reminds me of when Yoda meets Luke for the first time inTheEmpire Strikes Back. He’s a quirky guy but you know there is more to him than what he is representing.
Well, after excusing himself he exits, leaving behind a framed photograph of himself. (I find this classy and plan on doing that myself.) But if you think he is a strange neighbor then you gotta meet the two chicks that live below her. Gerde (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (Beverly D’ Angelo) are two…odd lesbian ballerinas? I think? Anyway, after a brief introduction, Alison learns that Sandra is a mute and unable to talk. Gerde leaves the room to get tea and then this happens…
Claaark! Slow down!!!
This awkward masturbation scene was both funny and a tad out there. Trying to regain composure, Alison makes an attempt to be conversational but when she asks what they do, Gerde says matter of factly, they fondle eachother. HEYOOO! Alison bolts.
Didn’t I say that I wasn’t going to do a play by play of this movie? Damn. Okay, I will be a little more brief.
Soon the apartment begins to take a toll on her as her fainting spells and headaches become increasingly worse. At night she has reoccurring nightmares and is awaken to her chandelier swinging by upstairs disturbances though it has been vacant for years. All spooky. Though her neighbors seem friendly, especially inviting her to a birthday party for Jezabel the cat, her dreams warn her that something isn’t quite right. “Black and white cake; Black and white cat.” I actually didn’t get that reference. Nevermind. Skip to a scary night.
Alison is again having a tough time sleeping in her new apartment and finally, she gets up and armed with a kitchen knife and a torch she ventures off to see what is going on. And she finds out!
While she is investigating, wouldn’t you know it, her light burns out. That always happens! Especially when a zombie in a diaper robotic-ly walks past you and stops, facing the wall. This is horror to me! It’s a real “what the fuck just happened” scene. There is no jump scare or some creature attacking Alison. It’s as if she isn’t there and this thing has no real destination. It just mechanically walks from one side of the room to the next! UGH!
Well, curiosity gets the best of Alison and she approaches the remote control Gobot-that-hit-a-wall slowly asking who or what this thing is. You know who?
BAH! It’s her dead father! Alison laughs and gives him a huge hug. It’s very touching.
I’m just kidding. She screams and goes stabby on him, cutting off his nose and all. Bolting, she runs out of the apartment and collapses as people gather around her and call 911.
Jump scene! We are at the hospital.
Oh yeah, remember her boyfriend, Micheal? He is there and being interrogated by police since his new girlfriend is stating she stabbed her dead father and he is still under suspicion for wife’s death. But being the cunning lawyer he is, he gives no details to the investigators even though they coincidentally have a body that fit the description to the havoc Alison said she caused with a knife. This has two great things in that scene; a very young Christopher Walken and the lead investigator’s tie is as wide as it is long.
Micheal starts a little investigation of his own because he believes that there is something more sinister at work after he and Alison visit her apartment to retrace the moments when she stabbed her dead father. But nothing really makes sense to Micheal and after she writes in Latin from a book he reads to be in English, he is convinced the old recluse priest that is on the top floor of the Apartment may know something.
Oh yeah, there is a blind priest that is on the top floor that stares out the window all day. Well, he is seen at the window. That’s an important part. (God, I’m not very good at these)
With no luck getting into the apartment to talk with the recluse priest and even less luck from the Archdioceses, he decides to take matters into his own hands and calls up an old buddy to break in and steal the file on this priest.
THE BLESSING!
Well, in a hurried fashion and better conclusive skills than Velma from Scooby Do, Micheal figured out that all the people who live there have tried to commit suicide at one time in their life and each converted to the Catholic church and reside as a sentinel. And Alison is targeted to be next! No shit!
Armed with a gun, Micheal leaves Alison at a party, though she feels awful, and heads off to stop this rite of…sentinel-passing. When he arrives he sees a split in the wood on the wall and decides to bust it open. Not really sure why. But underneath is a sign straight out of Dante’s Divine Comedy. And sneaking up on him is…
Thank God we haven't invented smell-a-screen yet
…Father Freaky! Yes, the priest tells Micheal this is the gateway to Hell and as random as he came in, he leaves which pisses Micheal off. In a murderous rage, Micheal chokes the priest after he fails to answer his questions. But, little did Micheal count on there being two priests in the room. The other armed with a cement statue. Never expect murder from a priest. Hmmm.
Enter Alison. Of course she returns. She comes back to the apartment only to find Micheal…acting a bit strange. Almost instantaneously Alison knows Micheal isn’t himself. No, he begins to explain how he is damned to Hell because he killed his wife and that she is required to commit suicide and release the gates of Hell. It’s a stretch but that’s what is required.
No, there aren't strings attached to his makeup! What are you talking about?
Now this is the part that separates this movie from all other horror movies. You will never see this again in cinema for a few different reasons. 1: Special effects are much more realistic 2: Plastic surgery is quite advanced since the 1970’s and 3: this would never ever never ever fly with the FCC or any other super PC group. This is as fucked up as cinema gets.
So, Alison runs from decaying Micheal and meets the debonair Charels Chazen who is far less warm and goofy and a tad more…the Devil. He explains that she needs to finish her suicide and become apart of them. Not hearing the noise, Alison turns to run but is met by this…
and this…
and this…
Yes folks, they used real deformed people in the casting for The Sentinel. It is pretty crazy to think that there was an add for extras needing physical deformities to play the role of demons from Hell. This creeps me out to now end. It’s the kind of creep out that makes me want to shower or watch Nickelodeon to counterbalance my “ick” factor.
Well, long story short she is saved by the priests and she takes up the cross as the dominions from Hell shirk back to the abyss from which they came.
This movie is an old favorite of mine. I’m not really sure why? The plot is scattered, the setting seems to be hollow and the lead actress never really makes you care for her outcome. But there is this 1970’s high production feel that I love in horror movies from that time. That fast-paced city life that every-so-often rubs elbows with midevil beliefs and tears at the fabric to what is more important; sanity or soul. Like Matt said. I give it a B+ out of 17.
So I moved this past week and it was quite they event. Of course it was an event! If I am involved, it’s going to be an event. So let me start this epic tale of how I moved an entire apartment alone in under two days. I know that might not seem like much of a feat but to a person like me it was so BACK OFF! ….sorry.
I live, as many of you know, in a small town in the northern sector of Idaho that is home to a huge University. During the summer months the town drops in population by about….everyone. The only ones around are the locals and the neurotic students who live in academia and refuse to accept that summer can be for fun too. I fall into the latter. But balancing a full-time job and research doesn’t leave much time for beer drinking and river floats. I am okay with that because really, summer vacation died years ago as well as it should have. If I am drunk at noon on a Tuesday sitting on a raft I need to reevaluate my commitments.
So, since there are not too many people around that means there are not too many people to help me move. No matter. I found a better place closer to campus and that’s a good thing since the 2010-11 winter forecast for the Northwest calls for something like an apocalypse of snow and my Georgia driving skills still don’t cut it for such weather. I can literally hit the campus with a football from my front porch. However…I must have been high when I toured the inside completely over looking the pink carpet and a wall color that brought up images from a Beatles song lyric “…yellow custard dripping from a dead dog’s eye…”. I get to that later.
Whenever I tackle a large project I tend to stand in a spot and stare, not knowing where or how to start. I know that things go in boxes and boxes go in a truck but the details overload my brain and if you stand close enough to me, I have been told, you can faintly hear the same alarms that a 737 has before it slams into the ground after being batted down by windsheer.
I do everything wrong while packing, like stack all my books in one astronomically heavy box and this is only after I get distracted halfway through by reading one of them because I forgot I owned it. Then I will pack another box with tissues and my collection of helium balloons. There is a reason I was never a bagger at the grocery store growing up. Guaranteed I would bag your milk, cat litter and eggs together and then tell you to go long.
I will say that I had help with the boxing of stuff and if I didn’t have that help, well, I would have a lot of broken shit. I even learned through observation how to do it! It’s somethin’ to add to the resume’. I am pretty grateful for that but unfortunately the hardest part was yet to come because the new place was not yet available and I would be on my own.
The day of the move was here and I was strategically set to transfer my stuff from apartment one, to truck, to apartment two without total confusion and minimal hernia. I really felt the only problem that would occur would be navigating the two section couch out the front door because it requires a certain angle and twisty motions to make it fit. While I was contemplating this geometrical dilemma there was a knock at the door. Peeking through the peak(p?)-hole I saw the type of visitor I really didn’t have time for: Jehovah’s Witnesses. Cheesus! It was 9am on a Saturday so who else could it be? I reluctantly opened the door and was greeted with a, “hello brother, do you have a few minutes to talk about the Word?”
“What word?”, I thought. I came so close to replying, “yep, I know the bird is the word, everybody knows that the bird is the word. Don’t you know that the bird is the word?” But instead I stood there and patiently listened to their mission and looked at their pamphlets. And then it hit me that perhaps there could be a barter between us.
I did this. As if I learned nothing from karma lessons in life, I conned the Jehovah Witnesses into helping me move my couch in return for a bible discussion later on in the week. Oh, and I gave them a made-up number too. Double farts.
Well, retribution was swift and immediate because when I went to move the Uhaul truck later in the day it completely died and I had to wait the next day for a replacement truck. Boppa Ooma Mow Mow.
Without going into a novel about the two-day war against gravity, stairs and knuckle-smashes I will just highlight a few key issues that will haunt me for time to come and why my next place with be a purchased ranch-style home and include professional movers.
My TV
I was given a TV from possibly one of the greatest people I have met during my time here in Idaho. It was a very generous gift but for a brief period of time I was certain that this gift was not out of love but sheer hate. The TV is an older model that has a 52″ screen give or take a few. But I don’t know what goes into the construction of this piece of technology because it’s 200 lbs of awkward weight displacement leads me to believe that it is full of water, lead and a dead midget that used to power the reception before everything went digital. It is quite possibly the worst thing to move in the history of pushing, pulling, lifting or setting down and doing it by one’s self up stairs is what I could only imagine to be like reverse child-birth. Once I have this thing set up in the den I think the first thing I am watching is porno because I feel that this TV needs to give me something back.
Futon
The funny thing about a futon is how many moving parts the frame has to make it transform from couch to bed. No matter which way you turn the damn thing to negotiate an obstacle, a lever or panel will come crashing down on a finger and cause you to involuntarily speak in tongues. I think I made noises similar to beluga whales mating because on my way up the stairs to my new apartment I heard two girls say “Oh my god, let’s take the other stairs. Something is wounded down there.” Remind me to light dog shit on their front door later, will ya?
Odds and Ends
When all the big items and boxes are finally moved, the little details are left in the old place and I have come to find out that this is the part that will cause fist-itches. I never knew how many pennies one can collect in a year but they are everywhere. God I hate them so. Because of the Uhaul dilemma I found myself in a race against the clock to do one last clean before the landlord showed up to do a final walk through. I was vacuuming like Charro on a four-foot coke rail. Right up to the point the vacuum found a penny causing the vacuum to go from “VROOOOROOOO” to “VROOOREEEEEEE”.
There is nothing like sacrificing a late move-out charge of $100 over one cent. But I made it just in time. I even got the deposit back too. I guess they where surprised that I was a neat tenant since this place was full of college kids that treat these units like Motley Crüe treats a Hyatt room.
So getting settled a new place is taking time. Well, that’s not true because I have collectively been in the place for a day since I have been on business trips since I dragged in the last piece of furniture. But yesterday I was able to come home and begin the second phase: unpacking. This is when I find out that little things like the stubby leg of the coach actually is important and not to be discarded. Oh and wires for all electronics shouldn’t be thrown into one box and tied in a knot. And that in a rush, I probably should have just thrown away my bananas rather than placing them in a box marked “random” and forgetting about them.
Also, dimensions are not always universal. Take my drawers.
HAHAHAHA! *shoots self*
For about 6 hours yesterday I painted the place because living with the current color is like living with your high school science fair awards displayed on the wall; people will notice and most likely not tell you there is a problem. I went to Home depot and $200 dollars later I have a weekend project. The pink carpet however will be a fight worth fighting. I just need to be in the same time zone for one fucking day to do it.
Oh! One more lesson I learned. No matter how careful you try, you will get paint on yourself so don’t wear your favorite pants. Actually, if it’s a latex based paint, do it in the nude. It washes off skin but clothing gets screwed. If you need me I will be freaking out the neighbors while painting with my windows open. Chao’!
Tis the season to be watching tons of the most merry programing and movies Hollywood has to offer. Even though I consider the Halloween season to be the most anticipated time of the year for fun TV, the Christmas season is arguably the most popular. Why I say this is because of all the cable channels that are 100% dedicated to the Holidays like AMC, Hallmark, Lifetime, ABC Family, QVC and TMC. Plus, Christmas movies outnumber any other holiday movies probably 51,687,342 to 1. So today I am going to pick a few of the 51,687,342 Christmas movies and see what the actors are up to today. I hope there are not too many dead.
“Stuck? Stuuuck? STUUUUUCCCKKK!!!”
Poor Flick. The kid that proved sticking your tongue to a flagpole is not an urban legend like previously believed. His role in the Christmas movie to end all Christmas movies, The Christmas Story, was really a prominent role to me. I think it was because he captured what kids were really like and that was his high pitch, shrill screams he belted. Bravo Scott Schwartz!
Holy Jingle Bells! Since his most famous role as Flick, it looks like Scott Schwartz has gotten his tongue stuck on more things than a flagpole. Unbelievably so, Scott made a pretty good run in the porn business through the 90’s. It never ceases to amaze me when writing these “catch up” articles what a few of these childhood stars delve into. But to be fair, he has done other things like his other famous role in The Toy and many after school specials. Today he runs a card shop with his dad and still acts in lower budget movies. His porn star days look like they have gone the way of the Dodo. I mean he is only 5 foot 6 so how impressive could he be? I’m just stating what others think.
“I am not a piece of undigested potato, you fucking dick-hole warrior!”
I don’t know if I quoted that completely accurate but I think I am pretty close. Anyway, Frank Finlay played the ghostly assistant to Scrooge (George C. Scott), Marley in the 1984 made for TV movie Charles Dickens’ A ChristmasCarol. And holy holly shit, Marley scared the nog out of me. Really though, that part of the story was always the most unnerving. Much more than the Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come.
Frank is one of those actors that has been a film legend but has not been privy in my limitless film knowledge because, well, that knowledge is reserved for films like Flight Of The Navigator and Mega Shark 3 (director’s cut). No, Frank is a “serious” British actor that has been in so many films, plays and TV specials from the 1950’s to present, I couldn’t read off the list without taking a pee break. But in that whole list that I am not willing to type, I really only recognized a few like The Pianist, Life Force (amazing space vampire movie) and The Three Musketeers followed a year later by The Four Musketeers (no idea). So with that, thanks Frank. Thanks for scaring the figgy pudding out of me on the most joy-est day of the year.
I don’t know if you will remember the “Claymation Christmas Special” but if you do, you will be just as outraged as I am that this isn’t a Christmas classic like “Merry Christmas Charlie Brown” or” How The Grinch Stole Christmas”. No, this amazing TV special died with the dawn of Pixar animation because let’s face it; claymation takes artistic talent and computer geeks out number them 10 to 1. You can probably find the clay animators working for “Ace of Cakes” or something.
So where are our hosts Rex and Douches-Tricer-whocaresish?
Like you didn’t already know that?
“Santa, there is a little boy who wears bear sweaters and corduroy pants that lives in Marietta, Georgia. I think his style is amazing and I totally want to go steady with a guy like that.”
That was actually in the 1985 movie Santa Clause and the actress Carrie Kei Heim said that. I think they edited it out in the TV formated version but I remember it.
Seriously though, I had a huge crush on the young actress as a kid. And if you are a 31-year-old straight male that remembers 1985, you did too. Unfortunately she wasn’t in too many other movies other than Parent Trap II and a few TV programs like “Pippi Longstocking” and “The Equilizer”. No matter, though because she has a successful life as a lawyer, wife and mother of one in Boston. I like learning that child actors have another destiny besides being a guest on “The Smoking Gun TV show”.
That’s where I am going to leave this addition of “Where Did You Go” for the 2009 Christmas season. We learned that Flick’s pole licking led him to a carrier in pornography, Marley is arguably the scariest of the ghosts in The Christmas Carol (except for Goofy), Claymation is awesome and the only way for a comeback is to go buy your own Play-do set, and the cute girl in Santa Clause grew up to be boring and a lawyer. So that means she is damned to Hell. Well, that’s pretty interesting.
Casserole of Disaster 
