On The Dark Tower Book 1: The Gunslinger

If y'all haven't realized by now, I'm an avid Stephen King fan. My fandom began in high school when I picked up my mom's discarded copy of Dreamcatcher. It didn't take long for me to become hooked. By the time I finished the book, I wanted more. Over the years I've coll
ected and read several of Mr. King's books, but I never wanted to delve into The Dark Tower series because, whenever I heard about it, or read synopsis' of it, I was like, I don't give a shit about this "Gunslinger" or "The Man in Black." What do I care about two dudes chasing each other through the desert trying to reach some mystical tower? I don't care! Which is why I never bothered to pick up these books and just held fast with his other library of fiction. I've always been content with all the other works, and never wanted to explore his Magnum Opus. I guess I was just being a fiction snob.

Well, if you're not living under a rock, you may have heard that a movie is being made about The Dark Tower. As a King fan, I feel obligated to see this movie, whether it's shit or not. Most of the films based on his books are straight up garbage. Probably some of my favorites are the aforementioned Dreamcatcher, Stand By Me, Misery. I also enjoy Pet Semetary despite the fact that it's an awful, festering turd of a movie. So, The Dark Tower movie is supposed to be out this winter, I figured it's high time that I haul ass and get to reading these books so I can be critical and compare the movie to the books. I'm sure filmmakers being as they are will try to stretch out this series, it's eight books in total, so they may turn this in to eight separate movies. If that's the case, then I've already got the first book down and I'm ready to watch this flick.

As I began this book, my initial thoughts were holy shit this is boring, I wish I was reading anything else besides this. To me, King's writing style in this book is not very reminiscent of the majority of his other work, but maybe that's the whole idea. Maybe that's why he's a writing master. The book started out with Roland, the Gunslinger in some desolate town, probably looking for a rest after chasing Walter, The Man in Black. The time isn't really specified in the story line, it seems to be some sort of alternate reality, such that, our reality for example, exists, but Roland has no knowledge of it. While he's on the hunt for Walter, he sees mirages and experiences mind tricks sent to him by Walter. In this dusty little town, he meets a woman, naturally. She owns one of the little taverns. She tells him about the town loony toon who's trying to push her crazy religion on everyone. Roland and the tavern woman begin humping, he gets more information about Walter out of her after each hump session. He suspects this woman is placed before him as an obstacle, that the whole little town is placed before him as an obstacle. Crazy church lady is holding service a few days later and is spewing nonsense about Roland being an evil sorcerer and he needs to be stopped. The townspeople become zombies, essentially and Roland has to blow everyone away, including his hump buddy.

Through the story, we flip flop back and forth between now and Roland's childhood. He was brought up to be a gunslinger by his teacher who is a total dip shit and treats the kids like shit. Eventually, when Roland reaches the age of 14, he decides it's time for the student to become the teacher and challenges his teacher to a fight to the death. Roland has a pet hawk named David that he's going to use as his weapon. The teacher uses a staff. When they arrive to fight, Roland commands David to attack the teacher. He does so, clawing at him with his talons and ripping his eyes out with his beak. It's some pretty graphic business. Teach and Roland tussle, Teach inevitably kills David with his staff, which I found to be the saddest part of the whole book, thank you. Teach gives up and gives Roland the key to the gun cabinet so he can take his father's guns and frig off. And.. we're here with the Gunslinger today.

He moves on to another sleepy town where he encounters a youngish boy, Jake. Jake is apparently from our reality, he talks about living in a city and bus lines, the whole nine, and Roland has no idea what the hell he's talking about. It's implied that Jake may be an apparition, but he sure as hell seems pretty real. Roland agrees to let Jake come with him since he is on his own, and we basically follow them through the desert for the rest of the book until they make it to a cave where Walter is apparently hiding. In the cave they are attacked by some random creatures. and after fighting them off once, the creatures return and Jake inevitably falls down a crevasse and is seemingly worm food. Roland pays no mind and continues on to Walter. He meets with him and one would expect them to start duking it out, but they just hang out, have a fire and have some nice conversation. Walter says he has no intentions of killing Roland, but warns him a drawing is taking place, and Roland should be prepared. The next book in the series is aptly named "The Drawing of the Three" so... a little foreshadowing, eh?

My take on it is... I really had no idea what the hell was going on the entire time. The writing was obviously great, but I'm glad it was a shorter book. I'm sure it was just meant to be an introduction to the key characters and to set the basis for the entire adventure. Last night, as I was finishing the book, I found my mind wandering to different books in my "to-read queue." In any case, I'll be starting book two tomorrow, maybe that shit will make more sense to me.

On a Book Series Review

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!

Seriously, dude. If you have not read and of these books and have any intentions of doing so, this is not the post for you, because I am going to give shit away.

Last night, I finished the last book in the series, End of Watch. Actually I read the last twenty or so pages aloud to G Money as he curled up in my bed. Inappropriate to read to a three year old? Probably. However, I reworded the curses, and totally skipped the questionable material. Since his mind is running on all cylinders all the time, and he has an extremely active imagination, I couldn't go in to too much detail with this boy, he'd have the horrors all night long. He did particularly enjoy one of the final scenes where they (Bill and Holly) were trekking through a snow storm to get the bad guy (Brady.) This kid is all about snow.

I'll be totally honest with y'all. I don't remember the finer details of the series. It's a terrible thing, I'll read a book, and by time I get to the end, if it's a longer book, I have no recollection of what happened in the beginning. Why bother reading at all? You might ask. Well, when I'm in the moment, it's great, that's why. In any case, the first book, Mr. Mercedes, came out in 2014. I don't remember much of the details other than, the hero, Bill Hodges, a soon to be retired detective is chasing down a crazy person, Brady Hartsfield who steals a woman's... Mercedes to plow through a crowd at a job fair. To preface Brady's behavior, he's entranced with getting people to off themselves. He convinced the owner of the Mercedes, through letters and other forms of communications to take a long walk off a short pier. He then used her car for the heinous crime. In the loss of Olivia, the owner of the Mercedes, Bill meets her niece, Holly who is pretty much a middle aged basket case who lives with her parents for various reasons. Bill meets a woman who he gets into a relationship with and it seems like he's headed for the aisle again, that's when Brady swoops in and plants a car bomb on her car that was meant for Bill. It was pretty much heartbreaking for ol' Bill. Since this book came out two years ago, I don't remember much else, other than, Bill retires from the force by the end of the book, Holly decides to try to help Bill track down Brady because he's responsible for her aunt's death, and so it goes, Brady gets away.

In Finders Keepers, which came out in 2015, Bill and Holly have started their own private eye service, "Finders Keepers." Brady is up to his old tricks again, trying to off a bunch of people at once. One of which is one of Bill's neighbors, Jerome and his sister, whose name escapes me. Jerome is off to college by now, but his sister is going to a concert for some sappy little boy band that all the kids love, sound familiar? Brady's big plan is to bomb the place, and everyone will go out in a blaze of glory, himself included. Naturally, we go through the book to realize what Brady's plans are and it's up to Bill and Holly to stop him. They show up at the concert to deter Brady, eventually finding him in the crowd, and just as they're about to pounce, Bill drops to the floor, suffering a heart attack. Holly takes the reigns and smacks the shit out of Brady with Bill's secret weapon, a sack of ball bearings, rendering Brady nothing more than a breathing vegetable.

In End of Watch, out this year, we pick back up with Bill and Holly doing their thing at Finders Keepers. Bill has recovered from his heart attack, but is plagued with a new "unknown" illness, that sounds suspiciously like cancer. Eventually, about a quarter way through the book, our suspicions are confirmed. Between the second and third books, Bill has been visiting Brady in "The Bucket" which is the brain damage unit at the hospital. Brady is catatonic, doesn't respond to or acknowledge Bill, but every once in a while, Bill will notice something moving around Brady's room, whether it's a sway of the curtains, or a door closing over. We come to find out that one of the doctors caring for Brady, Dr. Babineau has been administering experimental drugs to Brady, drugs which miraculously give him telekinetic powers and the ability to manipulate the minds of other people. In fact, he's able to enter their conscious and become them. Scary shit, right? Brady is introduced to a little tablet called a Zappit by Library Al, who just wanted to get Brady to interact with something. Of course, Brady finds a way to use the Zappit and one app in particular, The Fishin' Hole to hypnotize unsuspecting victims, enter their conscious, and control them. Ultimately, he gets them to off themselves as he controls them and he conveniently hops back out and into his own catatonic self.

Shit gets real when Brady targets Jerome's sister again. Jerome comes back from helping out at Habitat for Humanity and teams up with Bill and Holly to end Brady once and for all. Brady partners up with one of his old co-workers at an electronics store, Freddi to get her to start up a website convincing people to end it. Jerome's sister is hit by a car, but only suffers a broken leg, so she escapes easily again. Eventually, Brady realizes his own body is going to serve no purpose to him, so it permanently jumps into the body of Dr. Babineau as masquerades as him. In the meantime, Bill is putting off treatment until he's able to stop Brady. Holly gives him two days to do so.

We get to a point where Brady, as Dr. Babineau has headed up to a remote cabin that the doctor shares with a handful of other doctors. Bill and Holly tail him, leaving Jerome behind because he's got to be the back up in case something happens to them. They tramp through the snow storm, and sneak around the cabin, thinking they're undetected with all the weather. Of course, Brady has installed a camera on the outline of the property so he knows when they arrive. Brady sneaks out, gives Holly a good rap on the head with a rifle and shoots Bill in the shoulder. They herd into the cabin, Bill carrying Holly where Brady then forces Bill to get online with a Zappit. Through the Fishin' Hole game, Brady is able to tap into Bill's consciousness, but not able to fully take him over. While Bill is in la la land, Holly wakes up and takes a shot at Brady with the pistol she had stashed in her coat. She wings him, and takes another shot. In the meantime, Bill is able to toss the Zappit into the fire, preventing Brady from body snatching further. Brady runs off into the night like a crazy person leaving Bill and Holly to collect themselves. They hear a growling outside that sounds suspiciously like a snow cat or something of the like. Sure enough, it's Jerome, not listening to anyone and showing up to be the hero. Jerome finds Brady easily in the dark with the bright search lights and mows his ass over, shredding him. Bill and Holly are there to see it and Brady asks Bill to help him or kill him. Bill tells him to do it himself since he's so obsessed with suicide. Brady is unable to move very much, so Bill places Brady's arm well enough so he can pop himself off. It's ended by Brady blowing his own head off. Bill, Holly, and Jerome pile into the snow cat and head back toward town, Bill is passed out by time they get there.

We finish with Bill in the hospital getting treatments for his pancreatic cancer. Though, it's too far advanced. There's a small party for his 70th birthday he lies to everyone there saying treatments are going well and everything is fine. Fast forward to eight months later, and we're at Bill's funeral. Bill has left Finders Keepers to Holly who will run it with Bill's old partner, Pete. It's a sad end to the trilogy, but I suppose it's fitting.

Overall, despite not being able to remember some of the finer points, I enjoyed the series and eagerly waited for each one to come out, but that's pretty standard for any new release. Tonight, I'm going to start on the Dark Tower series since the movie is supposed to come out in February. If I can burn through right books in six months, it might still be fresh enough to compare the books to the movies.

On More Shit My Kid Says

We're coming up on three years of parenthood. I like to believe I'm getting the hang of this whole "motherhood" thing. With every passing day, I'm seeing more of myself in G-Money. I've decided he's the unfiltered version of me. He's very quiet and inquisitive. He's shy, he doesn't like very many people. He knows what he wants and what he doesn't. He'll size up a person before deciding whether or not they're an asshole. He's been delving deeper into the whole reasoning scenario. He's quite good at stating his case. He sometimes flies off the handle if I don't make his meals correctly. Sometimes he wakes up convinced that his favorite movie characters are dead and I have to talk him down. Then again, he's three. Most of the time, he makes me laugh my ass off. Being almost three, he also says whatever is on his mind, he's at that blissful age where he doesn't give a shit about the repercussions of anything he says. It's wonderful for him since he doesn't have to care, a little mortifying for a parent.

Case in point. We went to the park over the weekend. When you have a child, you sort of lose any shred of dignity you ever had right there in the doctor's office, and if you didn't lose it there, that shit is gone by the time you reach the delivery room. Perfect strangers have seen more than you've ever cared to show anyone. Your spouse or partner probably also received an eyeful and either immediately vomited, passed out, or is scarred for life by the gore that confronted them while watching the "miracle of life." But, I digress... while he was busy playing and having a whale of a time, mommy had to use the bathroom. I must add, public park bathrooms are detestable. I know that you know this, there's no further explanation needed. The situation went down like this:

Me: Hey bud, we need to take a pause from playing, mommy has to use the bathroom.
G: Oh yeah? Where's the bathroom?
Me: It's that brown building, way over there.
G: Okay, I'll meet you there!

G proceeded to tear ass across the park at full speed with no hopes of me catching up to him. If I wanted to skip using the bathroom all together, I probably could have chased after him at full speed.

Me: Hey, thanks for standing here and waiting for me, that was good, but someone could have snatched you away.

G: Everyone's pooping, they can't get me. Where's the girls' potty?

LOL

Me: Just around the corner here, bud.

Walking in.... G: It smells in here mama.

Me: Yes, well... it's a public bathroom..

Found a relatively clean stall and latched us in...

G: Mama! We're locked in this prison like jailbirds! Why's the door locked?
Me: It's a public bathroom, you need closed off areas to do your business.
G: It's a prison!

He proceeds to try to peak under the stall to see what's going on...

G: Mama, that girl is peeing in there and she's wearing green flip flops.
Me: Buddy, you can't peak under the stall, that's inappropriate, everyone needs their privacy.
G: You said it was a PUBLIC bathroom.

Shit... the kid has a point

Me: True, but even though it's a public bathroom, people do private business in here that you can't see. You don't want strangers seeing you naked do you?
G: That doesn't make any sense mommy.

Another lady may have expelled some gas in another stall, the boy proceeds to unleash his maniacal laugh.

G: That girl farted! She's pooping in there!

And that's where the mortification set in. Laughter from the girls waiting in line erupted.

Me: Shhh... we don't need to announce what's going on in here, everyone already knows.
G: If we know, then why are you shhhing me?
Me: Okay, we're done, let's go wash our hands... and hope no one says anything about the opinionated little boy in the ladies room.

As we're walking out, the boy in his beach wear and sunglasses, strutting out of the bathroom, the girls in line were all like... "Oh my God, he's so cute!" This led me to believe that he'll be able to say whatever is on his mind in the future as long as he remains strikingly handsome.

In the moment, I wanted to clamp my hand over his tiny little mouth to keep his hilarious observations at bay, but by then, I had already touched the stall door to close and latch it. Think of the fecal matter flying all over that mother, I couldn't contaminate my child with poo. Seriously though, it was hilarious. Luckily, most of the dialogue occurred behind closed doors, and we were able to usher our way out quickly with mommy's head down.

What it all boils down to is, he's going to say what's on his mind, and it's wonderfully freeing. I envy him for that. Right now he's not bogged down by having to filter himself, he doesn't care what other people think, he's just being himself. It's not like he's a lunatic just spewing out everything little thought all the time, but he's carefree.

So carefree in fact that as he spotted a random fly buzzing around grandma and papa's house yesterday, he grabbed the flyswatter and reported: "I'm going to smack the piss out of him!"  

On Broken Monsters

Okay, it took me a while to get through this mother. At over 400 pages, it's certainly not the longest book I've read, but I found that it was a bit hard to get through.

The premise of the story kept me interested, but as I was getting near the end, I was like alright, we really need to wrap this shit up now, I want to move on. We centered on four seemingly main characters, Gabi Versado, her daughter, Layla, Jonno, who is an out-of town douchebag "journalist" who moved to Detroit to get a good story, and the bad dude, Clayton Broom. We're based in Detroit which is a bonus simply because it's a local story. For an author who lives in South Africa, she had some pretty solid contacts to make the scene believable.  Gabi is a Detroit homicide cop who comes across some gruesome murders, we're talking some freaky shit, like people cut in half and sewn to deer carcasses.

Layla and her best friend are stalking child predators and luring them in to meeting them so they can bust them and expose them for what they really are.

Clayton seems to be the hapless loser whose nightmares control him and force him to commit said murders, because his nightmares want attention... right.

Layla in her obstinate teenage angst ends up getting in trouble at school for defending her best friend's honor regarding some social media video that was shot of her at a party. Another reason it's wonderful that there was no such thing as social media when we were younger and why I weep for my boy. Layla beats the shit out of the kid that posted the video, we're talking knocking some teeth out and breaking his jaw. Of course, mom and dad of said victim want to sue the shit out of Gabi, but Gabi being a calm and collected officer of the law, diffuses the situation by informing them of the charges their son would face should the situation escalate.

Clayton and his "dream" end up hacking up three people. A young boy hanging out at a bus stop, he's the one that gets sewn to some deer legs, a nice pottery lady who runs a pottery shop similar to Pewabic Pottery. She gets shoved in her kiln and baked after she gets her feet chopped off. Finally, he pride and joy is a fellow officer of Gabi's, Marcus.

Meanwhile, Jonno meets some DJ, Jen Q. who exposes him to the different areas of the city that aren't so played out, like the old train station. She convinces Jonno that he should do a documentary of the grisly murders and he'll be catapulted to A-list status. I'm not going to lie, I loathed the very existence of Jonno, his character was the ultimate smarmy scumbag, and I wished he was one of the folks that got offed by the dream.

Basically, in the end, Gabi, Layla, Jonno, Jen Q, and some homeless dude, and Clayton end up at an abandoned car parts factory trying to track down a kidnapped fellow cop. Layla and the homeless dude are somehow entranced by the factory or the dream and they just don't know what the hell is going on. Jen Q dies a gruesome death by her own bird tattoos bursting out of her chest. Supposedly another victim of the dream. Jonno gets over her death quite quickly, records the whole thing and moves on throughout the factory. Marcus, the kidnapped cop is found to be dismembered with his face missing and is somehow reanimated by the "dream." Gabi shoots him to death, again, Clayton gets his brains blown out. It all ends well, right?

With my curt review, it certainly sounds like I didn't like this book. It was decent, it did keep my attention for quite a while, but as I said, I drifted a bit.

I just started the last book in the "Stephen King recommendation list", Day Four by Sarah Lotz. which will be your next review. I may consider another book on the recommendation list, Frankenstorm by Ray Garten, but maybe I'll save that for a birthday request.

I'm glad I made myself drift outside of my typical authors so that I could experience other writing styles and story-telling, but I find when I'm reading another author, I'm often longing for my favorites. All I've been thinking about is the new Stephen King book that is out TODAY, End of Watch which completes the Bill Hodges trilogy.

On Persistence

When I was working on my first super serious I plan on actually publishing this manuscript, I set a very distinct goal, but still providing myself some leeway since I know I'm an epic procrastinator. I wanted it to be out the world by time I was 30. After I completed it, it took about six months of edits and rewrites and research on the publishing process. It's been nearly five years since it's been published and I don't have my next book out yet. I'm not trying to be Harper Lee up in here, especially since the first book has been a fizzling turd, while To Kill a Mockingbird is a rave success. Yes, I'd like to get more work out there, just so it's out there. I don't want to mistake this with just putting any old shit out there. A lot of people do that, they think everything they write is worthy to be published. Mostly, it's not. I love thinking up imaginary worlds and scenarios and twisting them into something that will scar my readers for life. One could argue my book is drivel, and as its writer, I might tend to agree with you. But when I get rave reviews trickling down the grapevine from strangers, it makes one think, hey, maybe I don't suck so hard.

Granted, I'll throw in the fact that I've had a kid with these five years of no follow up novel. Being knocked up and sick most days while falling asleep at 8:00 pm was not conducive to writing. Having a newborn and sleep deprivation was not conducive to writing. IE: read... excuses for not writing, right? I'm rationalizing my lack of work. However... I started my short story project, probably about a year ago. It's been placed in the imaginary holding station for now. That plan on that one is to create about four novella length stories the revolve around some of the sketchiest situations you can imagine. I started my current project last fall. I should be almost done, right? No! My problem is, I've got the meat of the story in my head. I know what's going to happen. I know the main event, I know how it ends. I just need to piece it together. I need to get my ass in the chair and get all those in-between spots filled in. One could definitely argue that I'm not a real writer because I can't make myself set time aside to write every day, but to be honest, it's tough to find an hour even to have some quiet time to write when there's a full time job and a toddler at home who I want to lavish with attention. The truth is, I may not write every day, but I think about it every day, I think about my story. I think about how my characters are going to be affected, they're real in my head, after all.

I can't help but wonder how to high producing authors do it. Are they more dedicated? Probably. But where do they find the time? How did they get off the ground with their own full time jobs and families?   I'm sure they just say hey, this is my time to work, piss off! Before the boy came along, I was very structured, I had the time to work for hours on end after leaving the office. I could stay up into the evening working because I would have uninterrupted sleep. I could pour over my work and scratch out the shit. I could be obsessed. However, now, now that I like to be an engaged parent, I get about an hour to myself in the evening, after everything has settled down and the boy is sleeping soundly and instead of spending that time writing (like I ought to be), I sometime pour a drink and watch my stories, or I read. I can't help myself. While I'm reading, I feel guilty, like, damn, I need to be writing my own book right now so some crazy broad or dude can be reading my shit while sitting in bed.

The point of my blithering here is that I'm trying to keep myself in check. I am cutting out small sections of my day to write, even if it's only for a few minutes at a time. I don't foresee this current book being finished (completely) in 2016, though it's only April. If I hustle hard, maybe I could get it ready for a fall release, I'm thinking November. That's not much of a stretch if I give myself about five months to finish it and another month and a half for editing and re-writes. That's doable, right? Basically, I just don't want to add another year to the gap between books.

One final note is, I've posted a teeny, tiny, almost incomprehensible shred of a paragraph of the new book on my author page, I think every once in a while to keep all five of you interested, I may post a teaser or three, to keep hype it up.

On Yet Another... Book Review with Spoilers

It's been entirely too long since I've graced you all with my smarmy musings. Or maybe you disagree. Maybe it hasn't been nearly long enough. In any case, admittedly, I've been slacking in the review department. I finished this book weeks ago and jumped right in to the next one, like a fiend looking for a fix, I just couldn't help myself. Since it has in fact been a few weeks since I finished this book, I'm almost certain I'm going to leave out some details, or some important part of the story that might make you all wonder, how the hell does she get anything done in the first place?

I will preface this whole review by saying, this is the first book on the "Fright List" that has actually been true to its hype. I've been looking forward to reading this one ever since I got my grubby little paws on it. I withheld reading it right away because I felt this one for sure was going to be good, and I didn't want to jump right in with the best one and then be constantly disappointed with the others on the list. So you see, I indulged in disappointment in the beginning, had a good story in the middle, and maybe I'll be wrought with more disappointment in the stories to come. Who's to say?

The POV is told by a grown-up little sister, Merry, who is helping a non-fiction writer write the story of her family. The story revolves around the Barrett family, a quiet New England family with two girls, one of which, newly teen aged Marjorie is thought to be a schizo. Then again, aren't most teenage girls considered schizo, in one form or another? All those hormones, all the drama! It's a wonder anyone gets out alive, but I digress.

Dad has been out of work for over a year. Of course this adds stress onto any family. With a seemingly crazy daughter, and therapist bills adding up, shit gets real, real quick. Marjorie and little sister Merry are inseparable. Now, I know this is fiction because what 14 year old wants to hang out with her younger sister? Marjorie progressively does weirder and weirder shit, which leads her church going father to believe that she might possibly be possessed by a demonic spirit. Again, we're talking about a 14 year girl, of  course she does weird shit.

With all the oddities and thoughts of their child being possessed, sure enough some story tellers and television producers come sniffing around looking to make a buck. Mom and Dad confer and decide that the family could really use some extra money, and this is just the thing to get them out of the hole. They agree to let a camera crew come in and follow their family around 24/7 with the hopes of catching some of the said "weird shit" on camera and making a series out of it. Reality TV is all the rage right now, right?

As time goes on, as we read about Marjorie and Merry confiding in each other, being sisterly, all that fun stuff. Marjorie comes into Merry's room in the middle of the night and pinches her nose shut until she gasps for air, writes gruesome stories to her in the notebook they share back and forth, you know, typical sibling stuff. At one point, Marjorie tells Merry she's just faking all her symptoms to make the TV show more interesting and to make Mom and Dad some money, but the best is yet to come.

As time progresses, Marjorie does more and more "demonic" things, such as talking with an entirely different inflection, contorting herself, the whole nine. Dad thinks it's time to get a priest involved an possibly have his daughter exorcised of the demons. Of course, this is perfect for the TV show. Viewers are flocking. The prep up to the exorcism is sort of drawn out, and I was like... come on, just get to it already! But, that's how us writers keep you on the hook, right? When we get down to the night of the exorcism, Marjorie gets tied down to the bed like most exorcism candidates do, don't want them hurting themselves or someone else, right? She then says she's not on board with the whole exorcism thing anymore, but the priests and dad are like... too late now! As it progresses, of course Marjorie breaks free of her restraints, stabs the priest, sending her little sister flocking from the bedroom in hysterics. There's a truly haunting scene where Marjorie is depicted as hovering over the second story banister watching her sister. In all actuality, she took a flying leap and ended up breaking her foot when all was said and done. Good job, dumb ass!

Flash forward to a few weeks after the botched exorcism. Marjorie pulls Merry aside and tells her that she thinks Dad is really the possessed one. She found all sorts of weird shit in the basement including an alter with some oddly telling "white stuff" sitting in the middle of it. She pocketed a small amount of it to prove it to Merry and told her she discovered it was arsenic. Daddy was planning on poisoning the family, she read about that kind of shit on the inter-webs. Marjorie says, "let's put a little in tonight's spaghetti dinner, just to teach Mom and Dad a lesson. Just enough to knock them out and bring them to their senses." Of course, she convinces Merry to dump it in the spaghetti pot while Marjorie is off distracting Mom. Of course, the kids plan on not having any sauce on their spaghetti because "their stomachs are sour." Come dinner time, Mom and Dad slurp up the spaghetti like any other day, and Marjorie lays the sauce thick on her own plate and starts gobbling it up. Naturally, Mom, Dad, and Marjorie drop dead leaving poor little Merry wondering if her family is just sleeping. It takes a few days of her hanging out with her dead family before the cops show up.

The novelist is floored by all this information as told by the grown-up Merry and is hoping for a best-seller with this newly released information. We're left with a pretty shocking final moment with the Barrett family that's actually pretty horrific. So yeah, maybe your parents are crazy, maybe your kids are crazy, who knows? Makes you want to sleep with one eye open and cook your own meals though, doesn't it?

While this was a fiction novel, it read like a non-fiction novel, which I really liked about it. It made me think The Amityville Horror which is quite honestly, the scariest book I've ever read. Of course, with my over-active imagination, I let my mind wander while I was reading the book and scared the hell out of myself while sitting in my bed with all the lights off. So, all in all, this book made its point, it got my imagination working and scared the piss out of myself. Good job, Paul Tremblay!

On Another Inconsequential Book Review

Your latest installment of mediocre book reviews features, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. This is her fifth book, but first successful one. Word has it that it's going to be adapted into a movie as well. Hey, maybe my fifth book will be a huge success... but I'm planning on making my second one a success. I digress however, let's get on with it.

This book revolves around the point of view of three women. The main character, Rachel, an apparently slightly overweight drunk who is divorced, has lost her job to drinking, but still commutes into London on the daily so her roommate won't give her shit about being unemployed. Then there's Anna, a perfect, blond haired specimen who was having an affair with Rachel's husband and inevitably ended up marrying him and popping out his baby. Finally, there's Megan, the also stunningly beautiful little waif who lives a couple doors down from Anna and (Tom, the ex of Rachel.)

Rachel, through her daily commutes into London on the train always passes her old house and the house of Megan and Scott. Though, since she's never met them, she calls them Jess and Jason. Every time the train trundles by, she sees "Jess" out on the balcony, reading, sipping wine, whatever, just having a fine time. She sees "Jason" dote on his wife adoringly. To her, these two are have the perfect life. One day however, she see some other man that is definitely not "Jason" manhandling "Jess". The next day, Jess/Megan has disappeared.

The POV of Anna is really background information. Let's be honest, no one really gives a shit about Anna. She's a spoiled little whiner. She won her man by banging him in a fancy vacant house she had listed... gross! She's exhausted by Rachel's constant appearance in her new life with Tom. Rachel calls a lot because she's still mourning the loss of her marriage. Rachel lurks outside their house, most of the time drunk. Dude, get a can of mace, you'll be fine.

We don't hear much from Megan despite the meat of this story being about her disappearance. Though, toward the end, we get to find out what really happened, even though, but then, you pretty much already know.

Rachel is key here because she recognized the man that was not Megan's husband and decides that she should reach out to Megan's husband, Scott to let him in on this information. Of course, the dude is furious, but he goes to the police with this information who promptly ask Rachel to come in and ID him to police, or the Bobbys, if you will. This dude was her shrink. Naturally, it came out that she was having an affair with him, so all fingers were pointed at this dude for her disappearance. Long story short, the shrink is relieved of charges, not enough evidence. So, as disappearing spouses go, the fingers then point to the husband.

Yes, yes, there is a lot of stress being accused of making your wife disappear. Rachel hanging around said husband all the time really isn't helping. At best, Rachel is considered an unreliable witness because she's a drunkard, especially considering the information she gave didn't turn out, and she lied about ever knowing Megan personally. Not to mention she hooked up Scott a time or two. However, Rachel is the last person to see Megan before she disappears, she thinks she was blotto though, so the events weren't particularly clear. She thought she saw him getting into a car with her shrink.

Here's the final summary, Tom, Rachel's ex, who she thought was so perfect, turns out to be an abusive prick. A lot of the time during their marriage, sure, she was drunk, after not being able to get knocked up or whatever, but what she thought was her being hammered was, in reality Tom knocking the shit out of her and blaming it on her drinking. Tom was also having an affair with Megan (this girl gets around) and Megan told him she was knocked up, though, who knows if it's Tom's baby, or her husband's baby. Tom tells her to get rid of it, she refuses, he gets all pissy and bashes her face in with a rock.

Rachel eventually recalls that it was Tom that picked up Megan the night she disappeared and went to warn his current wife, Anna. Naturally, Anna doesn't believe her, because well, it's crazy Rachel. However, Anna find out about Tom's affair with Megan. The two ladies confront Tom when he gets home from "the gym" and Tom proceeds to attack Rachel. Blah, blah, blah, Rachel gets the shit kicked out of her, and eventually comes to, to continue fighting with Tom. She runs out into the yard to try to garner some attention from anyone while Tom is trying to beat her to death. Anna comes to her aide and stabs her husband in the neck.

So, you've got two corpses in the end, everyone is sleeping with everyone, it's all pretty smarmy. It was a good read, a little predictable in the end, but overall, entertaining. I can't imagine the film adaptation will be a box office hit, but it might be a good matinee if you're still willing to pay $10.00+ to see a movie.

On An Honest Star Wars Review

Okay, so I know the movie has only been out for a few weeks, and not everyone has had an opportunity to see it yet. If you are one of these people, you gotta go! I am going to spoil the shit out of this movie, so if you don't want to see it, take a hike.

First of all, for whatever reason, I read the spoilers before I even saw the movie. Of course I heard rumors, and hoped that they weren't true, so I was really just scouring for information to see if they really were true. Then, as any good creeper knows, getting little pieces of information here and there can become addictive, so anything related to Star Wars that popped up, I read, naturally.

After reading my own spoilers, I was not expecting much out of this movie. I knew it would be better than Episodes 1-3, because you'd have to be god-awful to not make something better than those festering turds. I sat in the theater with a sour face, knowing what was coming, when it was coming, but, I really tried to get in to the movie.

Let's start with the name, The Force Awakens? Really? Was it sleeping? Where was it? I'm pretty sure it was always there, just dormant, maybe? I guess I can see what they were trying to do there, but it's lame. I don't have any good recommendations on what this should have been called, but I feel like they could have done better.

There have been opinions that these new additions, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega were great in the movie, their charisma was much better matched than anyone in Episodes 1-3. I'll give them credit, they do seem to be pretty good at what they're trying to accomplish, but I really didn't feel any connection to them. Like oh boy, poor Rey was ditched when she was a child and stuck on some desert planet where she had to trade junk ship scraps for food. So what? Life sucks, salvage your scrap metal and get over it. Oh, and Finn, this dude was running all over the place like he was looking for his inhaler. This poor little Storm Trooper reject was trying to cop a feel on Rey whenever he had the chance. Who cares about these people? No one, that's who!

Han and Chewie entered the scene, and there was the magic. Harrison Ford at 73 is bad ass, I don't care who you are. If you listened close, you could catch on to the homages to the original flicks, especially with the banter between Han and Leia. Obviously, this time around, since it's a Disney flick now, Han isn't quite the smarmy scumbag he was in the old days, but the likability and the underlying scumbaggery of the character is still there.

Everyone is talking smack about how Carrie Fisher has not aged well. The chick is 59, she's a former drinker and druggie, of course she hasn't aged well. Do people really think she's going to look like Christie Brinkley given her past? To her credit, I don't think she looks as bad as everyone is saying, and who cares anyway, the broad is pushing 60! The bigger shocker is how deep Leia's voice is now. I bet Han wasn't expecting that when he saw her again. Seriously though, she was Leia, but not really Leia, if that makes sense. There was that sense of Disney again. She couldn't be her sassy little self anymore, but maybe she and Han grew up.

Don't even get me started on Kylo Ren. Basically, he is a huge pussy with daddy issues. He's a spoiled brat who can't control his temper and throws tantrums whenever he doesn't get his way. He sucks as a villain. Grandpa Vader would have whooped his ass on any given day of the week, and he was essentially just a torso. He thinks he's going to be some bad ass Sith Lord, so in an ultimate bitch move while facing his father, Han Solo, he cries like the little bitch he is saying his emotions are tearing him apart, whatever! This is the scene where Kylo impales Han with his stupid looking light saber and Han falls to his death. On a side note, Harrison Ford wanted George Lucas to kill off Han in the original trilogy, so I guess, he ultimately got what he wanted. But... why couldn't they kill off Leia instead? Nobody would miss her.

A battle between Kylo Ren and Rey ensues where Rey is starting to realize her abilities with The Force. Okay, Rey is a newbie to The Force, people! She doesn't know shit about shit, and she beats the cat piss out of Kylo Ren. Does this not provide an excellent example how much Kylo Ren sucks? He is not a force to be reckoned with, and frankly, he's a goober.

Perhaps the biggest slap in the face comes at the end of the movie. Chewie, Han's loyal friend doesn't seem that distraught by his friend's untimely death. Like, oh, I'm going to holler about it for a minute, but I'm pretty much over it. He shows up in the Millennium Falcon to pick up Rey after she beats Kylo in one of the sorriest light saber battles ever, and takes her back to base to celebrate blowing up yet another Death Star-like station. Chewie and Rey then set out to find Luke since they have the completed map of his whereabouts. This bitch has the audacity to sit in Han's captain seat and take over HIS ship while Chewie rides bitch. If anything, Chewie should be piloting the ship, and she should be in the back making sandwiches or something. They arrive on the planet that Luke has been sulking on since quitting training Jedis and they just stare at each other while she holds out his old light saber to him. Oh by the way, she's probably his kid. Way to be an absentee father Luke!

This will of course lead us into two additional movies that I'm loathe to see, but I feel obligated to, just like everyone felt obligated to watch Episodes 1-3 even though they'd probably rather gouge out their eyeballs than actually sit through that rubbish. The movie was done well, okay. It was missing something, it was missing emotion. You could feel the chemistry between the seasoned vets, but those kids don't really have the chemistry or the chops yet. This movie wouldn't have worked at all without Harrison Ford. Nobody would have went to see it, and it wouldn't have broken records. Everyone can bitch about how he got paid so much more than anyone else, well, that's why. Because he's the meal ticket and the execs knew it.

Is it worth it to see? Sure, I guess. If you're a true Star Wars fan, you've already seen it, or plan to see it soon. I mean, I was pissed off about this movie for the whole day after watching it, so that's got to mean something, right? If it were a little less Disney, and a little more rock n' roll, it might sit better with me, Oh, and if Han Solo wasn't slaughtered. The end.

On Christmas 2015

Christmas with a child is a lot different than any old, regular Christmas. It's different in that, you can't get plowed on egg nog Christmas night and party with your pants off. You have to be somewhat respectable, simply because there may be photos and/or videos taken, and no one wants to see your pasty ass on camera. I'll get this disclaimer out of the way right now, I'll admit it, I was pretty excited about Christmas this year because G actually seemed to almost give a shit. We talked about Santa, even though, before G existed, J and I always said, if we have have kids, we're not going to fill their head with lies about Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc. Yeah, that lasted real long.

G seemed to be interested in the idea of Santa, not so much Santa himself. In his eyes, Santa is some scumbag in a red suit plying kids with candy so they'll sit on his lap. While the boy has become increasingly interested in candy, he cannot be duped to talk to strangers just because he's got a white beard and a candy cane, and promises to bring presents. There were Santa encounters, of course. You couldn't go anywhere in the month of December without seeing the fat man. Luckily for me, G had no interest in standing in line to come any where near the old coot. For this I am grateful. Instead, during one even in particular where there was a line out the door to see the old "S" word, G told me he didn't want to see him, talk to him, or sit on his lap. We lurked just outside of where Santa was sitting and peered in a giant picture window and watched as kid after kid climbed up on his lap. I told him, even though he wasn't face to face with the fat man, he could still tell him what he wanted for Christmas and he would hear anyway because he's magic. This sweet boy of mine said Santa, I don't want anything for Christmas. Shit, I sure wish "Santa" would have known that before he went crazy trying to find the perfect items for the boy.

Admittedly, I was probably more excited for Christmas morning that anyone. I had big plans for the boy to leave out carrots for "Santa's Reindeer", we'd leave out some of the ugly ass cookies we made right before the holiday, and a sip of milk. I'd make sure to leave evidence of Santa's presence, with the carrots being gone, a bite out of a cookie, you know, the same old song and dance. However, the boy just wanted to party his ass off on Christmas Eve, we didn't get home until way past his bedtime and he needed/wanted to go to bed as soon as we walked in. Okay, no problem. I still crept up and down the stairs as he slept, placing all his presents under the tree, trying to contain my excitement for the next morning when he would open all the carefully thought out gifts that Santa got him.

And, you know what? When it came down to it, he could have really cared less about the whole affair. For weeks we talked about Santa coming and leaving presents under his tree because he was such a good boy, and he genuinely seemed stoked about it. He did "Face Time" with one of his lady birds Christmas morning who wanted to see him open the gifts she got him. He point blank told her, "I don't want to open your presents." Great, I've got a 2 year old Grinch on my hands. He came around eventually, of course, but this kid needed some serious convincing. Some of the things I thought he would go totally ape-shit over, he just gave a passing glance and moved on to the next. Way to leave Santa crestfallen, boy. However, there are a few items that seem to be his new pride and joy, the cheap drum set for kids, which, I've quickly discovered that I'll need to start socking some cash away for real drums, because this boy has a passion, and his Paw Patrol truck and cars. To be fair, the boy really packed it in this Christmas, with so many different things. I'm sure he's overwhelmed, and like his mother, can only concentrate on a thing or two at a time.  

Overall, it was a successful holiday. Despite me making him weep because I made him come home with me Christmas Eve instead of spending the night with grandma and papa, and then making him weep again on leftovers day, because he had to come home with me again. Maybe I smell funny? His social anxiety was also slightly present Christmas Eve as he preferred to retreat to the basement away from the rip-roaring party crowd, but there were no meltdowns from being overwhelmed, score!

Sure, I can reminisce about Christmas' past where the hooch was a staple and crayfish were talking at the dinner table, but honestly, I enjoy having G around to spend the holidays with, as cliche as it is, the boy might have brought back the magic feeling of Christmas.

On Living In Chaos

Most of you who follow me on Facebook know all about the epic shit storm that is my home. The mess that started all the stress about a year and a half ago. See, J and I were shopping for a new home, while the "gettin' was good" so we could raise G in a nice little area with a great school district. We looked for months and months, even considered shit holes that should be condemned as a nice little fixer-upper project. Well, after looking at a plethora of said shit holes, we decided that undertaking such a huge project with a boy under a year old would be moronic on our part.

Eventually, we found our little abode. It had everything we were looking for. Great area, close to the freeway for work, great school district, big lot. It was freshly remodeled and looked great. Granted, there were some issues. The attic was covered in mold due to poor ventilation, which was taken care of prior to closing, there had been some foundation work done in the family room and basement which we received receipts and warranties for, okay, a little off-putting, but the work was guaranteed right? There had been evidence of a little bit of water in the basement, but definitely not a swimming pool's worth of water, we weren't overly concerned.

The problems didn't become apparent until the first Spring that we lived there. We began to notice a horizontal crack in the drywall in the family room, right at the ground line, strange, right? This is a wall that had formally been worked on. I contacted the contractor who worked on it and he deduced in time that there was some movement happening and that fix would be under warranty. Great! We wouldn't have to worry about a huge fix we couldn't afford.

To make a extremely long and boring story short, it took a year and half of nagging and legal involvement to get said contractor back over to complete the warranty work. These "C" channels and tie-backs are the fix and we currently get to look at these until we get this wall re-built. Merry Christmas. However, this wall shouldn't be doing much moving in the foreseeable future. This fix, if we were responsible would have cost in the ball park of $21,000. Nice, right?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Moving on to the basement. We knew we had to find the source of the little stream of water flowing into the basement every time it rained even remotely hard. J knocked out all the drywall and found it covered in mold. Hooray! It took only a moment to realize why we had water coming into the house. "Step cracks" are typically not a huge deal, they are in fact, pretty common, but do you know what's not common? When your shit is vertically cracking and you can see the road from your basement! Uncovering this little gem created a sea of "Holy shit!" responses. 

But did we try to contact our insurance company to see if they could help? Yes, of course. Guess what, they won't help. They can not do anything for foundation issues. Thanks Bro, I'm glad you're getting our hard earned money every year to not protect our house from this shit. Well, what about the legal route? Did you try to sue the seller? Absolutely, but sadly, being an investor, their ass is covered, so we got to bend over and look at this...

The good news is... if you can see it through this hot mess is, my boss knows people, who know people. So, after having several contractors and builders over, we settled on someone we were very happy with to tear this shit down and rebuild a brand new wall. So, after a week of hiring said contractor, we do have a beautiful new wall that should be as strong as a bomb shelter.

We got to have the front part of the house ripped off, a giant hole dug to rip out the old wall, our porch and walkway needed to be ripped out because water was just flowing underneath the porch. The sump pump was not connected under ground which allowed water to just sit there and freeze and melt year after year. Luckily now, we have a working sump pipe, we'll have a new porch which is properly waterproofed, and in the Spring, we'll take advantage of having the walkway ripped out to install a lovely brick paver walkway. Silver Lining?                        

Finally, we long suspected our garage was sinking as well. We had it tuck pointed when we moved in. A year later, there were giant step cracks about an inch wide right where the tuck pointing was completed, just at this front corner. However, after having the brick stripped, our contractor found that there were no wall ties (which are required) so the weight of the brick was pulling on the wall and pushing down on itself creating the broken bricks. Good news? Maybe... or maybe this shit really is sinking, though upon putting a level on the foundation, it's as level as can be. Initially we were planning on having the garage underpinned, which upon conversations with an engineer and our contractor, it was ultimately decided underpinning would be a waste of money that we don't have.

The place is coming along. We'll have most of the brick back on the house today, possibly a new porch poured. The mess will work itself out. It supposed to rain for the entirety of Christmas week, but at least I won't have to worry about making G wait to open presents while I get down in the basement and mop up rain water. 

After this wonderful experience, we're hoping this place will be worth it in the end. One of our neighbors pretty pointedly said, "Well, this just shows your commitment to staying in the neighborhood for the next 50 years!" Yeah, pretty much, because who the hell wants to deal with this again?