My Life With Clive Barker

If you didn't know: I honestly think that Clive Barker is one of the most important people in modern popular culture. There! I said it!

Everything I have ever read by him has had some resonance. Some have even changed my life.

He has branched from horror writing to Baroque fantasy to children's literature to action figure design to painting to directing/producing films to video game design (all in no particular order).

My first experience with Barker's work must have been the first Hellraiser movie. Pinhead was so damn different than Freddy, Jason and Michael Myers. He wasn't a semi-indestructable revenge seeking maniac. He was a creature from Hell coldly and methodically getting a hard-on over pain. No...that's not right. His essence is pain. He stopped receiving pleasure from pain eons ago.

You can see how this might have an effect on a 10 year old.

After that I dove right in to his novels. Damnation Game, Cabal, The Great and Secret Show (although it took a second reading almost a decade later for it to have its effect), Everville, Weaveworld, etc.. etc..

This led rightfully so to his horror masterworks: The Books of Blood. Of which the story Midnight Meat Train (it is as obscene as the title suggests) he has scripted and is giving the film treatment. It should set right any wimpy subterranean train horror started with Creep.

His ability to create worlds goes far beyond any other writer I have ever come across. Imajica alone should fill you in on that.

I have found that much of my writing has been influenced by him which is a good thing and a bad thing. I have thrown out short stories and ideas for novels/comics that seem too Barker. As an influence he has to be the biggest. Barker raised me as a writer. Weird.

He is probably single-handedly responsible for my enduring love of horror and fantasy.

Here is a recent interview

I played volleyball...

for the first time in 10 years yesterday.

And I was good!

I'm confused.

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A few things people have searched for and found my blog:

-bitchfights (this is the like the 6th one! Somebody get this guy some bitchfights!)
-scientology x-ray (Something that tells you what is wrong with your scientologist head. Hint: everything)
-sin city storyline explanation (it's about people getting revenge in the most brutal means possible. Is that so hard to understand?)
-"all star batman and robin" vale underwear (people are searching the internet to see pictures of Vicki Vale in her underwear? Real porn seems like a much more viable option.)
-wifey movies (not of my wife you sicko bastard!)
-"des is weak due to a short key length" (that awful faux google site that I can't remember the name of. It offered lots of awful ways to lower my self esteem and this was one of them.)

Still more disturbing searches for Lucy Monostone. Is she real? I'm frightened.

Old man...

Everybody go tell Davinder "Happy 30th Birthday" now that he's all old and stuff...

Got comics the other day and was reminded again of a few things: why Ex Machina is fantastic, Flash is always best when there is more than 4 speedsters in the issue, and that there is no reason for me to be buying OMAC Project!

This time you actually needed to buy that horrendous Superman crossover to have any idea what was going on between issues three and four! WTF?! That's four fucking issues of story. Why didn't they make it a 10 issue mini? I hate you Greg Rucka...

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Went to the Sounds of the Underground and am now, like Dav, beginning to feel like an old man (Sorry Dav, you'll be getting this for quite a while).

12 hours of heavy metal is just too damn much!

Although I did get to see Clutch, Strapping Young Lad, and the almighty GWAR in one day!

Stage banter highlights:

-"Stab yourself with a turd!" Devin Townsend of SYL
-"Go buy a Tshirt and get the fuck out of here!" Devin Townsend of SYL
-"I spread AIDS verbally" Oderus Urungus of GWAR

and by far the winner of the day...
-"This song is called: URRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Randy Blythe of Lamb of God.

That's me for today.

I'm tired...

Sweet jebus have I done a lot of driving in the past 3 days!

I'm back from Kamloops where my family fed me booze and breakfast food for 2 days. Mmmmm...booze and breakfast food....

I have a strange compulsion to buy tons of Heavy Metal magazine back issues and am scrounging on eBay for them...I could go to that comic store Dav took me to downtown but have none of the drive to do so.

Catholic or Careless...

Had lunch with my Grandmother in Kamloops today. It was lovely until she started talking about birth control (she had 8 kids so clearly nothing was working). A very odd experience.

Have to go: internet is free for the first 15 minutes but $10 for 60 minutes!!!!! Whah?

I'm out!

More Unused Band Names (for Dave)

Compadre Dave was told today about my growing list of unused band names so I'm adding one I've had brewing forever and posting it for him to see but every one is free to comment, laugh, insult and deluge me with hatemail:

As per usual this is a growing list, the new ones will be in italics and all are free-for-the-taking as long as I'm told and possibly get an mp3:

1) Bastard Sockhop
2) Sack of Ferrets
3) Openly Straight
4) The Mung Beatles
5) Detritus
6) Terrible Beauty
7) Schnauzer Snake
8) Sirius
9) Orion's Belt
10) Miss Take
11) The Stephen Hawking Project
12) Thunderpope
13) Horny Cheese Grater
14) Anarchist Breakfast
15) Dirty Bastard
16) Painstake
17) The Suffering Fools
18) Superfluous Mandingo
19) Steaming
20) The Lager Tops
21) The Crackspackles
22) Thirteen Stone
23) The Ultimate Pen
24) Homolka Sunbeam
25) Technocult
26) Narcissistic Fibrosis

There ya are, Dave. In all its glory. Maybe your buddy Rob would like to take one of these...

Avatar Change

Avatar is my new favourite word...

I am only really posting today due to the fact that the picture in my profile hasn't changed and this is what changed it last time. Got new comics and stuff but haven't read them yet...

Megan has no love for Dennis Hopper so he goes bye-bye and everybody welcome one of the greatest album covers of all time: Faith No More's "Album of the Year"

RIP Jim Aparo and a little bit of sunshine

Jim Aparo died last night.

Jim Aparo drew the DEFINITIVE Batman...Ten Nights of the Beast, Death in the Family, Many Deaths of Batman, etc... When I think of Batman it's the old blue and grey version that Aparo had mastered. He drew an issue (well, more than one) of Brave and the Bold featuring Batman and I...Vampire that I devoured as a kid and will devour as soon as I am in ownership of my comic collection once again.

My condolences to his friends and family.

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On a day when I was saddened by Mr. Aparo's death I was cheered up by some of the funniest things I have ever read. Linked to by Thighs Wide Shut and found on gorillamask.net are: The Greatest Letter Ever Written to an Airline and the even funnier The Greatest Essay Ever Written. The following is the best introductory two sentences ever written:

"A man can only justify his actions if he regards his demeanor with deductive
thinking. This man was not Oedipus mainly because he was a fucking douche bag."

Thanks Thighs Wide Shut.

Sunday Television...

I suppose I could be marking and stuff but instead I am left to ponder the studpidity of television evangelists.

"Lord Jesus, please help us heal our wounded brothers in London and bring the vicious Islamic predators to justice."

I couldn't tell you which show it was because I watched three of them today...it was either "Good News," "A Call to Worship" or the other one...you know the one with the crazy woman with the long hair who also does that show with the puppets?

Okay, I'm pretty sure it wasn't the crazy woman but she still terrifies me.

Referring to the bombers and those who planned the bombing as vicious predators is fine but the whole overt mention of the word Islamic is entirely meant to create a religious divide.

I have nothing against Christians, in fact some good friends of mine are Christians, but this intense jingoistic, cross-waving, holier-than-thou attitude has to go.

So I've decided on a prayer of my own:

"Sweet Jebus, help to wipe televangelists from the face of the earth in a painful and fiery culling. Or at least get them off of the television. And tell our wounded brothers in London to ship me a case of Carling Extra Cold Lager, Pronto! Amen and Gesundheit!"

Call me Mufasa.

Not the first sentence in a postcolonial remake of Moby Dick but rather a comment on student writing.

I collected a lot of personal writing from my ESL kids and got a lot of kissass comments from students about how handsome I was. One kid even tells me that girls and boys are crazy for me. But many were quite flattering...

My all-time favourite piece of writing (not just ESL, I'm talking better than Karl Marx, Clive Barker and James Joyce here people!) has got to be:

"My teacher is Mr. Des. Mr. Des is kind, patient and handsome. Like Lion King."

I wish I could say I made that up. Comments like this make my day.

Psychic Powers, Land of the Dead and New Comics

I have psychic powers!

Either that or a mind-controlled iPod...

I was sitting here with all of the songs on my iPod on shuffle and thought: "I want to hear some more Ween."

Eerily enough the next song was "Dancing in the Show." Testing the theory I said to myself, "Pink Floyd would be nice" and "Marooned" is the next song.

I am hoping for Turbonegro next...only 2 songs out of 2821 on the iPod belong to the Oddly homo/heterosexual Finnish Glam-punkers ("I Fucked Bette Page" being the better of the 2) and that is really stretching the boundaries of psychic powers...a minute and a half until I find out.

Whoa...Slayer. It could have been worse.

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George A. Romero's Land of the Dead was pretty damn good. Nothing compared to any of his previous zombie films but a good effort anyway.

John Leguizombie was tolerable when I generally find him revolting so that was kind of nice.

Dennis Hopper made this movie quite enjoyable. Stupid dialogue that I could have written better in grade three seems to sound so damn natural from that nutcase's mouth...I love it!

This film did, however, have my favourite zombie ever. A headless priest zombie SPOILERS who swings his shoulders to have the head fly up over his shoulders and bite an unsuspecting soldier only to be killed by being shot through the chest and thus being shot through the brain END SPOILERS.

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New comics were alright but I thought I'd mention All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (Eisner award winner for longest title).

Frank Miller really has a lot of ground to make up for this shitty showing. Ugh. Vicki Vale spouts totally unbelievable dialogue while walking through her apartment in lingerie? I'm beginning to think Miller is misogynistic. Oh, but wait, Batman stalks little boys and waits for their parents to be assassinated. Weak.

I'll still buy the second issue though.

iHallelujah

Ian has fixed my iPod by wiping it clean and adding a backup library (gotta love the fact that he has enough space on his hard drive to back up my 12 gigs of iTunes) with a relative loss of nothing but a few songs and my playlists.

I stopped listening to my playlists months ago anyway. Love it.

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Jesus! I'm losing at Millarworld's Write-Off voting 7-4! Let's move people! ;)
I kid I kid!

I only want the vote if mine's better and naturally I think it is but that's just me.

Home...uhm...full?

A lot can happen in a day.

Meg and I found the place where we'll live this year. The place where our child will first call home...whoa!

It needs a little work but the size, area and price are perfect so there we go.

My iPod picked this joyous time in my life to bitchslap me by getting into a constant turning on and off loop. Brother-in-Law and resident techie is on the case.

I'm losing the voting at Millarworld by 3 to 5 now...piss. Go vote for the very good Batman story. I have no shame.

Homeless

Okay...so it's not as dire as I've made it seem with the post title but Meg and I are in Port Alberni - our future hometown - and looked for rental property today to no avail. We found one place but due to its ideal location just up from the bottle depot and the bowling alley we decided it may have been too metropolitan for us.

The iPod was a lifesaver on the trip over as I finally got to hear the whole album "City of Evil" by Avenged Sevenfold thanks to brother-in-law Ian for putting it on there for me. My comp, and thus my iTunes, is still in storage.

Reading "Quicker than the Eye" by Ray Bradbury. I'm only one story into it but it promises to be pretty sweet.

Go check out the Write-off 20 entries at Millarworld by clicking the title of this post(sorry, can't hyperlink on this unruly Mac) and guess which one is mine (hint: it's got Batman in it). I'll post the script here when the voting is done. If you email me and ask I'll tell ya which one to vote for ;)

I'm out!

Radio Silence for a while

Hello all,

Going to Port Alberni for the weekend and won't be back til Sunday. Chances are I'll be prepping for Monday's classes and won't be back until Tuesday after Monday's mad dash to finish report cards.

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New comics day was a alright...

I bought an arc of Y the Last Man (one of the best books being made right now although I haven't read it since Christmas) and issues 4,5 and 6 of the Ultimates.

Got the new JSA which concludes the tie-in storyline to Day of Vengeance. Something happened to Atom-Smasher (who happens to be my favourite JSAer) and I'm not sure if he's dead or alive. Perhaps I should read it again. It seems like he's dead though. I got the Black Vengeance trade a couple of weeks ago and love Black Adam and his Kahndaqi exploits!

The new House of M confirmed my suspicions/predictions. Somehting is wrong with the world and only Wolverine knows it. Sigh...can't they have someone else like Moon Knight or Stingray be the hero for once?

The latest issue of the Return of Donna Troy makes little sense but still is better than the first.

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I'll try and post the image above for getting your own cyborg name...otherwise go to the link and try it out for yourselves...

Every Little Thing, is Gonna Be All Right

Today London exploded. I can't get that Bob Marley song out of my head.

Today we took the group of ESL students downtown for a tour (none of us teachers have any idea about the history of Vancouver) and convinced them that Gassy Jack (of Gastown fame) was my grandfather.

On the bus home a Mexican girl told me that she liked my earrings and when I offered to switch for her extremely large hoops she told me that "Could be gay."

Had conversations with another teacher wondering (since I'm the comic guy) how much his large collection of Death of Superman comics are worth. He was distressed when I told him that they were worth less than what he paid for them.

A shirtless, black rasta guy on roller blades with a guitar followed us around Gastown and sung Bob Marley to the odd shock of 50-odd Taiwanese kids.

Dave, another teacher, taught me a few phrases to use on my students when caught speaking Chinese. They now think I speak Chinese and walk on eggshells around me.

A very odd day.

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Shout Outs (very few, as I have fewer friends than Kiki)
Portia-Yes, you, Meg and I should hook up for coffee or something
Dav-Get that computer fixed you lazy mug! Hehe...
David Hasselhoff-I love you. Why won't you return my calls.
Meg-We live together but didn't want you to feel left out. Love ya. Hehe

Search Keywords, a Welcome and Unused Band Names

Here are some of the things people come to this blog to find:

-bitchfights (because, really, who isn't?)
-student+teacher+doctor+sex+fuck (Jesus! You have got to love the internet)
-the ragman monologue (No. It's the Vagina Monologues you're looking for...)
-Crackspackle producer (Hehe...no funny comments for this one. Just loved to type those words.)

and tons more searches for Lucy Monostone (the never pictured technocult leader from Takashi Miike's "MPD Psycho" TV show). Really scary. A few more for unused band names so therefore I must answer with more band names.

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More Unused Band Names

As per usual this is a growing list, the new ones will be in italics and all are free-for-the-taking as long as I'm told and possibly get an mp3:
1) Bastard Sockhop
2) Sack of Ferrets
3) Openly Straight
4) The Mung Beatles
5) Detritus
6) Terrible Beauty
7) Schnauzer Snake
8) Sirius
9) Orion's Belt
10) Miss Take
11) The Stephen Hawking Project
12) Thunderpope
13) Horny Cheese Grater
14) Anarchist Breakfast
15) Dirty Bastard
16) Painstake
17) The Suffering Fools
18) Superfluous Mandingo
19) Steaming
20) The Lager Tops
21) The Crackspackles
22) Thirteen Stone
23) The Ultimate Pen
24) Homolka Sunbeam
25) Technocult

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And finally a welcome to my new linked blog Captain Corey! Good stuff. Check it out.

Suggestive Post.

I had a couple of odd things happen today that just struck me...

I have made suggestions three times today (at orientation for the job I used to do before going to Glasgow [yes Dav, that job]) and all three suggestions have been met with total disregard. Not unusual for me to be ignored, shocking I know, but the funny thing is these suggestions popped up 10 or so seconds later in conversation. They were worded exactly the same.

I have come to realize that maybe I have developed some sort of subliminal talking superpower. I can think of a villain that has the same power but can't remember his name.

Instead of worrying about this I thought I'd let you know something weird and part by saying give Des money.