What If

So the other day I was at my grandmother’s house in my old room rummaging through a pile of forgotten belongings that were resting in the giant old wardrobe that takes up a quarter of the room where I spent a good part of my childhood. In this pile I found weird old games (Crocodile Dentist, Just Say No), a Incredible Hulk Uno game, a painting of a cat, and a strange pile of homemade cards that apparently dated back to when I was in the second grade. That was when I lived in Florida, and these were going-away cards. They were all written to me by friends I had when I was nine, who I have since long forgotten, and who in turn have long forgotten me. Reading these gave me a pleasant, sad feeling, as I imagined a parallel world where I stayed in Florida and stayed best friends with Andy, Mitch and Katey. These letters were handmade, with bizarre illustrations of palm trees, conch shells, and people made of bubbles. Two of them have squares cut into the middle, simulating windows, while one is actually a note proclaiming the maker’s love for a girl named Catherine. Catherine herself wrote me a good-bye letter, where she say’s that she will miss me even though I used to call her a “cockaroach”.

I miss them.

Suprisingly Beautiful

One surprisingly beautiful, near-winter day found me walking into Rite Aid looking for iced tea. I found it, and started walking over to the checkout counter. Once there I couldn’t help but overhear the conversation taking place between the young man ringing me out, and his boss, a middle-aged chubby woman. She said, “…God was smiling at you, the day you got this job.” The young man agreed, nodded his head, and said “Yeah, I was looking for work, and I guess no one was hiring, then I walked in one day, and saw Joe.” At this point, I had bought my iced tea, and felt strangely compelled to listen to this young man’s story, so I stayed. He continued. “Joe said come here, and I followed him into the back room where he had a row of cans on a shelf. All the cans had different markings on them. He picked up a blue can with an orange triangle on it, popped it open, and began eating what I assumed were Vienna Sausages, as they were small, wet and pink. He started talking, and this is what he said:
“’When I first started working here, my boss was a man by the name of Kevin. One day I came in and saw Kevin, and he took me into the back room, and started to lick my face. I didn’t like it, I told him to stop! The more he licked, the worse I felt, but he wouldn’t stop. He would lick, and I could feel pieces of me evaporating, small chunks flaking off of my soul. He said, ‘don’t worry, stop complaining, they will regrow, you won’t lose those pieces of yourself forever, they will come back! Just think, I need this more than you need yourself! Don’t be selfish, my needs are immediate, and you will eventually recoup your losses, so stop resisting!’ He was right, so I stopped complaining and let him lick my face.’”
Joe then stopped eating his Vienna Sausages, put his arm around me, smiled, and gave me a Rite Aid shirt!” The young man had finished his story, and I was surprised to see that a small crowd had gathered around him, listening to him speak. His boss, the middle-aged woman, nodded. “God smiled at you the day you got this job.”
I went outside and drank my iced-tea.

How did you know I play golf?

Back in the 1960s, DC comics began publishing something called 80 Page Giants. What this meant is that instead of a normal issue of your favorite comic, you would get a nuts giant extra-large issue, twice the price, and filled with crazy reprints, usually with a theme. Take for example Batman issue 218, cover date Jan. – Feb. 1970. By 1970, the page count has been cut down to 60-something pages, and is now just known as a “Giant”. This Giant issue features “The Strangest Cases From Batman’s Crime-File”, and has 6 reprinted stories, all from the 50’s. These stories are all fun, and have a heavy emphasis on Batman being a Sherlock Holmes-esque detective who is all about noticing stuff. From “The Man Who Couldn’t Be Tried Twice” where Batman remembers that the letter Q isn’t on a telephone dial, to “The League Against Batman” where Batman deduces that the villain trying to kill him plays golf, this Batman is all about noticing and knowing about stuff. My favorite story is “The Hand From Nowhere”, which has Batman and Robin facing off against spooky looking scaly green aliens with cat-whiskers, and their ally, a giant green hand that comes out of a cloud and smacks Batman around, enabling the cat-whiskered aliens to steal important stuff, like zinc and copper ore. All joking aside, I love the imaginativeness of these old stories, where plot is important, and nothing is too weird. And from other 50s batman comics I’ve read, this ain't nothing! I like the one where Batman fights a caveman.

Hello Hellhound

Hey my name is Joly and this is my blog. I think i'm going to start by doing reviews, probaly mostly movie reviews. But first i'm going to tell you a story:

One day I walked into Capricorn Comics, located on Fairfield Avenue in Bridgeport CT, and perused a tall stack of comics. There I saw a tattered old Batman comic with no back cover, found out it only cost a dollar, and bought it. Then I read it, thinking I would write a review of it for a seperate project that didn't pan out. After I stopped crying, I started carrying it around in my backpack, and left it laying around in odd places about my room, til my cat puked on it. Then I wrote a review of it.

Also, "Straight Talk Only" is a quote from Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors, I really like that movie.