It's the Great Pumpkin, Pat Bastard!

Before I begin, I'd like to reveal to you a bit of background that will help you understand this story. You see I always identified with Linus in the Halloween special. All Linus ever wanted was to get a great big pumpkin for Halloween. All I want is someone to tell me I'm a good boy. All the other kids laughed at Linus. They called him a "silly billy" and a "shithead". Every year I plotted my revenge for poor Linus. Why couldn't those kids do like the other kids in the 60s, and play in old refrigerators? That was how my dad died*.

I was never the most popular kid. When I fell down a well, Lassie went to get lunch. As a baby, I was passed around as an emetic. Sometimes baby birds die when I walk past a nest.

One day in late October, I was being chased by a group of townspeople (as usual). They were shouting "freak!" and "scallywag!" and one of them threw a pitchfork and it missed me and hit an old man in the heart and he died.

Then I turned round a corner and saw that they were making jack o'lanterns out of pumpkins. There, in the middle of it all, was the greatest, biggest pumpkin I had ever seen, more like a pumpKING. I asked the boy who was scooping out the insides of the pumpkin, "quickly! Let me climb inside the pumpkin! I shall give you gold". Then I dove into the pumpkin and I hid inside while the  mob passed me by.

Up inside that warm soft pumpkin I crawled and nestled, until I fell asleep. I curled up in the pumpkin, warm and safe from the outside world, with its deadlines and wild animals and piers morgan. I fell into a deep, deep sleep, sleep, sleep, for hours after hours after hours.

I went to sleep bathed in an orangey glow, but I awoke in total darkness. The pumpkin was still, and a faint breeze blew in from the eyeholes and mouth. Outside it was night. Suddenly the pumpkin's sides started contracting, and I was pushed slowly, head first, into the world.

I flopped onto the front steps of a stranger's house. The pumpkin that had birthed me sat there wheezing like a squeezebox. As I looked up I was carried away by two pumpkin doctors in white coats and stethoscopes. They took me to an incubator, where I was tubed. Looking around, I saw dozens of other people incubated too. Then I saw the pumpkin doctors come and carry one away - a great big dinner lady from my primary school. The pumpkins took her out to a spot behind the building and planted her. THIS WAS WHERE PUMPKINS CAME FROM!!!!!

"Oh no", I said, looking all around me to escape. What would Linus do, I wondered? No, snap out of it; Linus is a child. I'm a great big manchild. When the pumpkins came, I would make my move. I would pick them up and punt them. I was so happy with my plan. Then trick or treaters came running down the road, dancing and prancing with their costumes. One of them was Charlie Brown.

With a sheer effort of will, I leapt from my incubator. Summoning all my wits and guile, I screamed at the nearest pumpkin doctor, his attention buried deep in a chart. "HEY FUCKSO THEY'RE OVER THERE", I yelled, and legged it into the night. The sounds of children screaming rang in my ears and I laughed manically as I fled like a coward through the night.

*I'll tell you the story another time. It's even better than this one.

ZOMFG new Jack the Ripper theory!!!

A few years ago, I published an article about the then-current Jack the Ripper identity. I have no idea if this theory is still popular, or if it is now widely agreed to be nonsense (but it's that one), but it got me thinking about the true identity of the Ripper, and I've come to a shocking conclusion.

"A Study in Scarlet", the first Sherlock Holmes novel, was published in 1887, marking the first appearance of the popular TV detective (Dr Spock). Shortly afterwards, in 1888, the Ripper struck.

Why wasn't Sherlock Holmes, the best detective in London's history, successful in catching the killer? Indeed, I contacted the Metropolitan Police Force in a dream I had, and they denied any record of working with Holmes at all on the case. Fans of BBC ITV's Sherlock Holmes will be aware that the police, in the guise of Inspector Gadget of Police Squad!, always turn to Sherlock Holmes to help them solve their most important cases. Yet where was Sherlock Holmes during the Whitechapel murders?? Coincidence??????????????????

????????????????

I can therefore reveal, for 100% truth, that Sherlock Holmes himself WAS the Yorkshire Ripper.

Case closed.

France loves me!

I'd like to give a shout-out to my French fans. Even though I've spent a total of about a day in France when I was too young to remember much (last night), it's good to know I've made an impression. I've always been a fan of you guys' rousing yet fucking terrifying anthem about blood and violence (La Marseillaise), and your policy of keeping hunchbacks in the towers (just kidding hunchbacks; I know you're my main demographic).

I feel confident in saying French universities teach an advanced qualification in me, which is a considerable honour (source). Plans to rename the Eiffel Tower "The Bastard Tower" in my honour are expected to be rolled out in the new year, by at least one person.

Why does France love me so much? Is it because I smell like onions? PLEEZ ANSWER BEFOAH AI DAI.

Movie Sunday Presents: DEAD END!!!

Dead End is a 2003 movie starring Ray Wise (everything) and Lin Shaye (everything else). It's about a family who go to see their relatives for Christmas, but fortunately get stuck on an endless road to nowhere instead.

The movie is very cool and funny and it piles on the creepiness very nicely, with the family so distracted by typical family bickering at first that it only slowly creeps up on them: the realisation that they're the only car driving on this long road through the woods, and there's no one around to save them.

Part of the movie's genius is to situate a normal family car journey at the heart of its weird, purgatorial premise. The family are afraid to get out as they're surrounded by dark woods and nothing else, but they don't want to stay in the claustrophobic space of the car where they all have to put up with one another.

Dead End is very creepy and cool, well paced and has a mysterious vibe to it. It also uses creepy vocal sound effects well, which is getting pretty rare among the horror movies of today. Compare this year's own Deliver Us From Evil, which employs dark lighting to make it dark, but then has the possessed lady talk like your aunty trying to scare a small child.

Dead End is the best. Watch it alone at night and then go for a drive on a deserted backroad. Very cool movie.

Imagine...

Being a fan of horror movies, perhaps as a consequence of an active imagination as a child, you always check the backseat of your car before you drive at night. There's never anyone there, and it's reassuring. You won't feel the sudden urge to look behind you in the mirror as you're cruising down the yellow-brown-lit motorway.

What you don't do is check the boot, of course. You're five miles into the stretch and it's dark, and you're almost starting to drift a bit in your lane, as your eyelids flutter just a little. You shouldn't have left so late, but what choice did you have? It's not like you have time to do everything. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

So when you hear a bump coming unmistakably from the boot, you're easily startled. Did you leave something in there that's got loose? You try to remember and your eyes drift just a second from the road, and you quickly lurch to correct your idle drift. It's probably nothing the first time. Then it happens again, a deliberate bang, like a fist hitting, like someone trying to get out. Is there something in there? Or someone?

You check to the side. There's no hard shoulder for another mile, and no one on the road. You wonder what would happen if you stopped. And then did what? Opened the boot? You don't know what could happen. Who would see you? Who would stop for you? You'd be alone with whoever - whatever was in there.

You keep on driving, trying to ignore it. The banging increases. Your breath's catching in your upper chest now, and you try to correct it as you notice it. You'll get to where you're going. You'll get where it's safe, where there are people all around you. Then you'll call someone. You'll call the police. This sort of thing just doesn't happen. There's no way you're opening that boot by yourself, in the middle of nowhere. You've barely seen another car since you've been gone. You can imagine it being hours before anybody stops to check out the pulled-over car with the empty boot and the empty seats...empty of you. No clue as to what happened. You imagine everyone reacting to you as a missing person, all your friends concerned, your close ones crying. Anything but what might happen to you. Focus on their grief, that's easier. You're dealing with a known quantity there.

As you've been drifting deeper into this morbid anxiety you've failed to notice that the banging's stopped. It takes you a second to realise, like all the creatures in the forest suddenly went silent. What happened? Was someone in there? Did they stop? Are they OK? You can imagine rushing to their aid to find a killer, a grinning stranger reach out grabbing for your throat. No. Don't risk it. If there's someone there, they'll wait until you get to help. That's if there's someone there - it could have been some object, something you forgot to throw out. You're tired. It's late. Maybe there was nothing. There are no warnings on your dash. The car was locked when you got to it. There's no reason to suspect something's amiss. How would someone have got into the boot in any case? Who else has a key?

You shake your head to clear it of the thoughts. This isn't going anywhere. You're tired. You're stressed. It's probably nothing. And then that barrier of silence is broken by a voice coming from back there. "Pull over". "Pull over".

Your heart beats madly in your chest. You didn't recognise that voice. It's thirty miles to where you're going. You look for a sign to somewhere there are people. You fear that you'll be missing in tomorrow's paper.

Diary entry #2

There was a face at the window. I went downstairs to get a glass of water. It was dark inside and out but I was lit by the streetlights from across the road. There was a face there, not more than two feet from my kitchen window. I had never seen that man before. I still wonder to this moment what was in his eyes? Was it anger? Pleading? Fear? Was that face afraid of something in that big night, or was he the something to be feared? I didn't know. There was no knock, and he said nothing. He just looked at me, and my heart stopped dead. I don't know who he was or where he came from. No one else on my street heard or saw anything.

I have no idea who that man was, or what terrors his expression told.

Diary entry #1

I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night and was surprised to see my mother standing there in the hallway. She was wearing a long white dress like a nightgown and had a serious look in her eyes. She said to me "did you go to church today?" I hadn't seen her all day. Her mouth opened very wide and the back of her head tipped back as if it were flopping loose from its connection to her neck and spine. I walked very fast into my room and shut the door tight. She's been out there for a long time now and I've heard nothing. That was not my mother.

Movie Friday Presents: ZARDOZ.

Quick, name the best movie ever mWRONG. ZARDOZ.

Actually set in 2293, which handily avoids the Terminator problem where we pass the future in real time. Also avoided sequels.

Zardoz is the classic science fiction fable from the mind of John Boorman (Point Blank). It was made in the 1970s, when everyone wore awful clothes, dropped acid and listened to Pink Floyd. This was the best era for ridiculous future-society epics, such as the dystopian classics A Clockwork Orange and Soylent Green, and the utopian classic Logan's Run, in which everyone is killed off at 30 (awesome).

Zardoz concerns Sean Connery's exploration of a future world divided between the Eternals, who live forever in an enclosed community called the Vortex, where they hoard all learning and knowledge and dress like one of those scary Greek college houses that are always covering up dark secrets, and the Brutals, who live outside the Vortex in poverty and ignorance, and dress like BDSM dungeon keepers. Sean Connery plays a Brutal given guns and instructed to act as an Exterminator by the flying stone head known as Zardoz (all capitalisation necessary for great scifi). Zardoz drops such Ingsoc-sounding wisdom as "The gun is good. The penis is evil", for great dystopia. Connery and his moustache must discover the connection between Zardoz and the Vortex, instigating a chain of events designed to bring down the Eternals' self-imposed dystopia. I won't reveal what happens but it's better than my life and twice as weird.

Zardoz is the most visually inventive movie ever made. Every frame looks like a prog rock album cover. Everything from time-lapse aging to the sum of human knowledge being projected on people's faces and reverse slow motion gets a look-in, making the last 36 years of Best Picture winners look even lazier by comparison.

One of the most amazing things about this movie is how many people seem to think it's unintentionally funny, like a kitsch embarrassment best forgotten, when in fact it's completely intentionally over the top. Like Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers, it's a pretty overt satire using camp as a device, like mood lighting or soundtrack, to give a certain insight into the madness. One clue is when the floating head of Arthur Frayn says "it's a fucking satire" right at the start of the movie (aktyooal kwote). I think people who don't get that think that people in the 70s were stoopid, probably based on their clothes.

The themes of Zardoz concern class and social hierarchy, overpopulation, groupthink and politically correct consensus, length vs quality of life, and the importance of LSD in shaping the art and culture of the 20th Century. Zardoz is the classic time forgot. I can't even find a Halloween costume of it, while stupid shit like Avatar keeps shifting units every year. Let's bring back Zardoz, for great justice.

Diary entry #0

Today I saw a man dressed all in black wearing a cowboy hat walk across a busy box junction. I have no idea who he was or why.

Several days ago, I saw a lady pushing her dog in a stroller, like a human being.

Life is going slowly, very quietly, insane.

Travel broadens the mind (Warrington kills it).

Ever since the womb, I've hated flying. Flying is when you wait twelve hours to get shoved into less space than a bus, between a great big fat person and the one window seat that doesn't have a window, only after getting molested by jackbooted throwbacks who used to beat you up in school. I'd rather travel by Cuban refugee boat: seventeen twigs held together with rubber bands and prayer and a crew of wild-eyed desperadoes paddling with their dicks. The good news is, flying can take you to places in other countries, specifically that aren't Warrington.

Vans around the world: New York and Barcelona. Note that in Spain, Garfield bears the eight-pointed Star of Chaos.

Everywhere I've been around the world has had something interesting to show, except Warrington. Some have thought-provoking art and history, others beautiful scenery, or unique culture, or wildlife, or even inexplicable craziness like this:

Berlin statues, left to right: Boy staring melancholically at armadillo; holy shit!

Dicks on sale in Barcelona.

Even cool things can be found in unexpected places: Green River, Utah, which is basically a truck stop, five houses and two joggers (source) has a sweet cool museum about John Wesley Powell, the one-armed Confederate Civil War veteran who mapped the Colorado River, losing nearly all his crew in the process. This is exactly the kind of thing you could drive past and never know.

Pictured: Green River + entire population.

The great mad bastard himself.

Warrington is the worst place on Planet Earth. In a survey of over 100 squirrels, not one person recommended Warrington as a tourist destination. The only recognisable picture of Warrington you'll ever see is of these big gates:

Looks impressive...until you go there, and there's nothing to either side of them. Spread the word: Warrington crops.

Warrington's top attraction.

Return of the Thinking Barbarian

The unfathomable thought processes of posters on the Internet's most popular websites.

Presenting the best and most inexplicable posts from popular websites. All screenshots are edited only for cropping purposes and represent the entirety of the threads at the time of this writing.

Click on image to read (source)

I have no idea who Sid Paxton is, or what this poster was hoping to achieve by posting about him in the Basket Case board. Since doowopfan is convinced that Sid Paxton has been dead since the Great Depression, it's possible that mwschoon was referring to another Sid Paxton, maybe from his high school, who was a fan of Basket Case, or films about a boy and his deformed basket-dwelling companion in general. mwschoon doesn't seem to have replied to doowopfan in the last seven years, so we may never know.

Click on image to read (source)

This is probably my favourite piece of original writing on the Internet. The title "jo oj jo" defies our cultural norms and clickbait expectations by providing no information whatsoever, and the resulting feedback doesn't disappoint. There can be no higher seal of integrity than GCD's top reviewer rank of 5,330,585. Shine on you crazy diamond.

Who were these people? Where did they come from, and where were they going? Questions like that shouldn't keep me up at night, but they invariably do.