October 2014

I walk down city streets of an unsuspecting human world. Inhuman in your midst, this world is mine to own.

Allow me to propose that a caroling component be included in the trick-or-treat tradition. youtu.be/pQa1etCmxmE

Gwar’s great cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “West End Girls” has a nice surprise finish that may have made me tear up a bit. avclub.com/video/gwar-cov…

If you’ve wondered why it’s hard for me to relate to sports fans, the guy from Staind recently sang the national anthem at the World Series.

The last paragraph nails it so hard: “Two Minutes of Walking on the Internet as a Woman” theawl.com/2014/10/two-mi…

My new @TWC modem is supposed to triple my internet speed but has instead cut it in half. @TWC_Help

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Nine Inch Nails (15), Run the Jewels (11) & Scott Walker + Sunn O))) (5) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

More than two months in, Gamergate is still, at its worst, unbridled misogyny; and at its best, a farcical conspiracy theory.

Kinda surprising that there hasn’t been a major shooting incident at a Target store.

There are no lessons in cynicism.

To name one’s magazine, board game, or breakfast cereal after life itself takes a special kind of hubris.

Recently realized my longtime Twitter bio, “Slow learner,” is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Time to try something more optimistic.

Circus journalism is overrun by “advocates” for better treatment of lions. We must protect the big top from corrosive LJW lies. #tamergate

Seinfeld STILL isn’t on Netflix. We as consumers demand the entertainment industry cater exclusively to our 20th century tastes. #kramergate

The Constitution was written by white men for white men. We mustn’t let others fraudulently claim rights by it. #framergate

If we’re forced to give women a voice in the Boy’s Club, then who’s next? The gays? We must stand against this tyranny. #flamergate

In my increasingly rare Facebook visits, the routine always includes debunking a “satirical” clickbait hoax article someone posted unawares.

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Captain Beyond (27), The Philadelphia Orchestra (26) & Today Is The Day (14) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

Having cut his teeth producing Stuart Gordon’s celebrated H.P. Lovecraft adaptations, Brian Yuzna aims for the same audience with Society, his directorial debut. Its turbo-charged sex drive and comic body horror will be familiar to fans of Re-Animator and From Beyond, but unlike his work with Gordon, with Society Yuzna appears to have giddily assembled a special effects crew before he even hired screenwriters.

The plot, such as it is, follows a high school basketball… See more →

On the surface, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò seems like it requires some unpacking, at least for those of us without graduate degrees. Relocating the Marquis de Sade’s depraved novel The 120 Days of Sodom to Mussolini’s northern Italy in 1943, it name-drops Nietzsche, Proust, Ezra Pound, and others as it systematically humiliates and tortures a group of eighteen captive adolescents. But Salò’s goal is not opaque intellectualism for its own sake. Its poetic and… See more →

After reading up on Black Sabbath a bit, I wish I had sought out the original Italian version, rather than settling for the sanitized English version released by American International Pictures (which is the one currently available on Netflix in the States). Of the film’s three short stories, one (“The Telephone”) is edited severely enough to completely change its meaning, but thankfully, a discerning eye can still spot traces of its more lurid giallo origins… See more →

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Bad Religion (6), Technician (6) & Misfits (5) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

“Who did we bomb when I lived with Melissa?” — @drinkerthinker

Binders full of Juggalos.

There’s not a single original moment in this vengeful ghost story, but the care it puts into presenting its collection of haunted house tropes makes it surprisingly enjoyable. Soaked in atmosphere, The Woman in Black’s familiarity doesn’t prevent it from being frequently chilling.

Yesterday marked nine years with my @ChamberMonster. We celebrated by both completely forgetting the anniversary.

My Top 3 #lastfm Artists: Shudder To Think (15), King Tuff (14) & Nirvana (12) tweekly.fm/twitter/robweycher…

In The Mist, a few dozen townspeople are trapped in a Maine grocery store enveloped in a thick fog which is inhabited by mysterious, deadly creatures, and order dissolves at roughly the same rate as the hope of rescue. Conceptually, the film’s central interest in humanity as its own biggest enemy is intriguing (á la The Twilight Zone’s “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”), but its expression of that theme is somewhat ham-fisted. Marcia… See more →

The internet is the giant slap fight arena our ancestors could only dream of building.

Every October, I try to watch as many horror/suspense films that I haven’t seen before as possible. Dates and times (subject to change) are listed for any friends who want to join me.

The Devil’s Backbone

Guillermo del Toro (Spain, Mexico, 2001)

After Carlos – a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War – arrives at an ominous boys’ orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets which… See more →

Oh, hello October.

When @lowtheband sent its first demo to labels in the early ’90s, it “got a nice note from [@dischordrecords].” I’d love to see that note.

Noted without comment: “Slipknot Reveal Why Their Music Festival Will Smell Like Burning Camel Poop” rollingstone.com/music/news/sli…