Happy Heart Day!

Here's a vampire I could get really exited about (I say "could" 'cause I'm a married severed head, and well, she's a painting):



More of a vampire in the "Theda Bara" sense, though I took a classic portrait by the great pin-up artist Gil Elvgren and gave it fangs.

So today is really "Fangsgiving!"




Protected as parody. Rights to the original reserved to the owner.

A friend and a frenemy

The friend is Kiki La Mer, of the blog A Rockabilly View, who recently gave me an award. She feels I'm a "versatile blogger." Ms. La Meris pretty versatile herself, having re-invented herself a few times. (She used to be a "chav," she says--will someone tell me what that is?) She is the only person I know who wants to be buried in a giant lipstick, which is a pretty cool way to take one's dirt nap. Thanks much, Kiki (a/k/a Coral)! Kiki happens to be the name of my wife's cat, although sometimes I suspect it to be my wife's familiar.

As part of this compliment from ARV, I'm supposed to share seven things about myself. Soooo...

Before I became a severed head, I once created life in a laboratory. Dr. Elsa Kast and I had been drinking, and her biological clock was ticking, and she wanted a break from her work, and, um...

My middle name is "Vargo Tienda Consuelo de Las Rumpus-Rachmaninoff."

I am allergic to stoats and weasels but not ferrets.

I once spilled Thousand Island all over myself, but a beautiful waitress came over and undressed me.

I want to change the name of air hockey to "balloon juice puckwhack."

I once met Robert De Niro before he was famous.

I have trouble thinking up seven things to share.

But I can think of eight things, like the fact that at least one thing above is true!

Oh, heck--you wanna know more, go here and here.

_________

And now for the "frenemy." That is my blooging enemy (no , that's not a typo--she's a big ol' blooger!) Melissa Castro of the Edge of Forever blog, a vampire maniac who rambled on about something related to Pittsburgh's Super Bowl loss and zombies I could quite make out. (Either I was inebriated or she was-- I think it was her--if only I could remember!) She showed just how much pop-power zombies have right now by posting a Glee zombie dance in her post! She makes our "zombies versus vampires" blog wrestling so easy for me!

She also sent me this picture of something she says I need to use:

Guess she thinks I don't bathe, or can't handle myself in a zombie attack, or do both simultaneously. (And maybe I can't--but still...)

By the way, the soap above can be found here.

Well, Mel, I think you should use this--


I mean, you're no Buffy and will need all the help you can get. I think they sell these at Olive Garden, your favorite restaurant. Here are some other items to buy and recommend to your bloodsucker-enabling friends:

It's a box selling for $187 that contains an alleged "Vampire Immortal Transformation Spell" inside, which using will allegedly "make you stronger, faster, quicker and powerful." (A membership to a gym will do the same, and can be had for less, but I guess many of today's vampire fans are Barnum-bait.)

Hey, Mel, buy the box and then you'll have a place to store this hat (you're always talking out of one):

It's a hand-made cap with colors whose "inspiration" comes from "Edward Cullen's eyes." OOOOOOOH!

Yeah, I know--you're that rare modern vampire fan who doesn't like Twilight. So maybe these shoes are more your style:

Image found here.

How spookiwy pwecious dey are! I could just noms dem.

Or you could store this in it:

Image found here.

Dip it in hot water for vampire tea! Bleah, bleah!

Okay, THAT's enough o' that!

So many vampire fans today seem to yearn for a better domestic partner. Maybe if they had only met and married a nice, hot zombie doctor:


My thanks to the lovely and kooky Kiki, who is really a top, and to the crazy-but-dedicated Melissa, whom I use as a mop. Now I must stop.

Check out this colorful site

Brand-new place for monster lovers to spend hours at:

Mark Thompsen's MONSTERZ

Highly recommended!

Melting snow means food, furniture, pets for zombies

Image found here.

From the Associated Press:

"NEW YORK - The mountains of snow that have covered the Northeastern landscape for the past month and a half are finally melting, revealing oozing lumps of garbage, gaping potholes, bicycles, rat-infested sofas, discarded Christmas trees — even bodies."

Read more here.

The horror of LOSING

Above: REAL Pittsburgh zombies attack after the 2009 Super Bowl win.

Well, there is "no joy in Mudville," if by Mudville you mean Pittsburgh, the town that's home to the newly-defeated Steelers football team and also to the Drunken Severed Head. (Yes, I know I'm using a line from a poem about baseball, but so what? Sue me.) Hey, the name of the Steelers might as well BE "mud" right now, in this joyless town. (And another besides: I moved here after many years of living in St. Louis--a baseball town if ever there was one-- and some things just stick to you after a while.)

Pittsburgh is a drinkin' town right now...hard, grim drinkin'. (Not "drinking" with a g--the g is used only with happy occasions.)

Two Pittsburgh guys who love horror and weirdness as much as I do are Ed "Drink 'til Yer Dead" Quillin and Rich "I'm Getting Blotto" Dalzotto. Ed is a talented caricature artist who creates zombie portraits of his customers, and Rich is an organizer of the Horror Realm convention and classic and cult horror film screenings. Both are sad that the tradition of setting ablaze one's furniture during a Super Bowl celebration in now not only illegal, but it's moot with the Steeler's loss. (It's so beloved a pastime that even our firefighters here take part in couch conflagration.)

Here's their post-Bowl Facebook conversation to click on and read. I post it here (with permission) as THE conversation that all brain-dead, walkin' dead, hard-drinkin' men in this town are having right now:





I think some zombie "little people" lesbian friends of mine may just rip Rich up and make their own Pitts-burger, but who knows? All my zombie lesbian friends have a high tolerance level for nonsense and trash talk. But on the other hand, they do like Rich food...

_______________________

Related link: Burnin' Down the Couch

The passing of the King

Today I'm remembering the King of Terror, Boris Karloff, and BLACK FRIDAY.

Not the 1940 film Karloff made with Bela Lugosi, but Friday, February 2nd, 1969. Forty-two years ago today--the day the King of Terror was taken by Prince Sirki, and all horror film fandom wept.

I know I did. I was 7 years old when my father told me my favorite actor was gone. I cried hot tears in my bedroom. I had looked forward to growing up with new Boris Karloff films! Wasn't he the man who vowed to never stop working? Hadn't Famous Monsters magazine informed monster kids everywhere of his future film plans? I couldn't imagine Forrest Ackerman no longer cheerfully reporting on Boris' busy schedule of appearances on TV and film. Karloff's workload was amazing for a man in his 80's, despite crippling, painful arthritis and debilitating emphysema. He seemed to be imbued with the immortal life force that Frankenstein's monster was given. But like the films Boris appeared in, that was only a wonderful illusion.

He was a man I wanted to be like. He was courteous, energetic, and dedicated to a profession that made others happy. Respected and loved, his life was productive, despite his ailments and in spite of his experiencing the tragedy of divorce. My young life had known a lot of illness, and my family had suffered through divorce. But Mr. Karloff had overcome these problems, so I believed life was not as scary as the films I watched Boris in.

And now he was gone, joining Bela Lugosi for a final time. My mother had died a year before, and the power of death to change life for the worse was absolute, it was clear. So I sobbed until I couldn't anymore. I lay on the bed, miserable.

My father came back with a copy of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. I said nothing. He said nothing. He just smiled an awkward smile, set it on my bed, and left.

Inside were new photos of Boris not run before. I lost myself in the pictures, imagining the stories they seemed to tell. Boris' baritone was speaking words of menace and power, and in the back of my mind was the thought that there were future issues of FM to look forward to. And no one ever died in Famous Monsters of Filmland.

I wish I still had that issue.