Life During The Pandemic 1

Hello everyone. I'm on day ... actually I don't know exactly how long my family's been cooped up but I think it's been about fifteen or sixteen days. I think, in order to distract ourselves and keep happy that we should talk about what we've been doing with our time. I encourage any and all to respond with an account of how you've kept busy.

For the past week or two I've been doing things inside my family's home. This actually doesn't too much of a change in my routine because I used to be a bit of a hermit; outside of school I'm still slightly like that. I watched a lot of movies, mostly low budget movies from the '70s and '80s, as well as horror films from all decades. I'd say that one out of every thirteen movies was actually good, but most of it was, let's just say not great to be nice. There was 1987's "Blood Harvest" that starred Tiny Tim as a creepy clown, and 2018's "Manos: The Rise Of Torgo" a prequel to the infamously bad "Manos: The Hands Of Fate".

Then there was 1980's "The Shining". When I first sat down to watch The Shining at the tender age of thirteen, I was excited to see the story and characters I'd gotten to know so well from the book in stunning visual form. I was confused by how different the film was, but still sort of liked it. Now, rewatching it after six years, I don't know what I saw in it. The story is drastically different, entire elements are cut out, the characters act differently, and half of what happened never happened in the book. However, I believe the most lacking element to be the exclusion of Jack's father from the narrative. He set up a precedent for the thing that Jack would become as the hotel and the isolation twisted him, haunting him with it's past and his own. Jack's also not as likable, there's no sign of the good father figure, instead he seems slightly crazed from the start. There's also no moment of redemption where he let's Danny leave. In short, I don't like it, even less so when I think about the chaos that occurred behind the scenes. If you're like me, I recommend the 1997 TV miniseries that was scripted by King. If you disagree, good, we need different opinions, they help the world go round.

Anyway enough with tirade. Sorry about that, this is really just stream of consciousness stuff. Among the good films I watched were 2019's "Color Out Of Space" an H. P. Lovecraft adaptation that manages to keep the fear of the unknown and features some Nicolas Cage freakout moments, 2018's "The Man Who Killed Hitler And Then The Bigfoot" a nice action vehicle that stars the incomparable Sam Elliott, 1976's "The Man Who Fell To Earth" a film that started David Bowie's acting career, and, strangely enough, 1972's "Blacula" a amazing little movie that rises above many others of the blaxploitation sub-genre to deliver a truly good horror movie. It starred William Marshall as the title character, who gave a performance that's, in my humble opinion, just as good as Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee. Gene Siskel gave the movie three stars out of four, and it won the Best Horror Film title at the first Saturn Awards.

I've been listening to a lot of different music, from Jethro Tull to Jack Off Jill, The Specials to The Ramones, and The Monkees to My Chemical Romance, with a bit of Weird Al Yankovic in between. I found a small group that's pretty good, they're nothing special, just plain old good rock n roll. They're called the Reggie Bannister Band, and they're led by lead singer Reggie Bannister who you may recognize as the ice cream man from the "Phantasm" film series. Fans of the first Phantasm movie might remember the scene where he and A. Michael Baldwin sang together. This is the result of that. The Reggie Bannister Band have one album, "Naked Truth". He also made an album with the Jizz Wailin' Ya Doggies as Reggie B. The album is called "Fool's Paradise". Bannister also wrote and recorded the songs "Land Of The Free", and "Love That's Gone" which protests the Yellowstone Buffalo slaughter.

I've also been reading plenty. I like to keep a well stocked library of sorts. Stephen King, Richard Matheson, Erin Hunter, Ray Bradbury, Neil Peart, all kinds of different stuff to keep one entertained and to keep one's mind sharp. I have been looking up/researching a lot of stuff as well. For instance, did you all know that that Liberace appeared on the Monkees' TV show and destroyed his piano with a gold sledgehammer? Or that Micky Dolenz was invited to the Beatles Sgt Pepper sessions? "I was expecting this incredible, crazy love fest be and psycho jello freak out Beatle hippy Carnaby's thing. I don't know what I was thinking. So I got all dressed up in my paisley bell-bottoms and my tie-dyed underwear and the beads and my hair up, and I must look like a cross between Charlie Manson and Ronald McDonald. And I go down to Abbey Road Studios in the middle of the day and it looks like my high school gymnasium: it's florescent lights, just the four guys in jeans and t-shirts sitting in folding chairs. And I must've looked like such an idiot. And I'm like, "Woah, man, where are the girls?" And John Lennon, I'll never forget, he says, "Hey monkey man", that's what he called me, monkey man, "You want to hear what we're working on?" And he points up to George Martin, and I heard the tracks of "Good Morning, Good Morning", that was the song I remember hearing." - Micky Dolenz

Well, that's what I've been up to. I'll try to post more often so the posts aren't as long and dense as this one. Remember, I want to hear what you guys have been doing. I'll try to respond in kind. but it might take me a bit. I'm a fast reader, but a slow typist. Have a good day, and remember to be happy and have fun.

Song recommendation of the post: "An Angel Is Missing" by Ronnie and the Red Caps (early Ronnie James Dio)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiPzykc9X1c