Stitches

Something strange happened to me earlier this week.  I witnessed a monster weep.  

As if you couldn't tell by my last blog post, I'm more than a little obsessed with this guy... 

"Fire BAAAAD!!!"

Good ol' Boris Karloff, flat top and all.  AKA "Frankenstein's Monster,"  "The Monster", or simply "Frankenstein."  

Now I don't want to hear any of you nitpickers saying "HEY!  The DOCTOR'S name was Frankenstein, NOT the monster!"  True.  Sort of.  In Mary Shelley's original novel the monster has no name to speak of.  And in the classic starring Mr. Karloff he's just known as "the monster."  But in the SEQUEL, "Bride of Frankenstein",  a new mad doctor dubs him with his original creator's name.  So there.  Nerd debate over.  I was re-watching "Bride" when I saw something that I had never really noticed before, possibly one of the most touching moments in classic monster history.

In case you don't know the plot of "Bride of Frankenstein" (we'll call it BOF from now on), it goes like this.  It picks up almost immediately after the original.  The old windmill has been burned to the ground.  The Doctor survives and is returned home to his waiting fiance.  The monster is presumed dead.  But of course, as it is with any horror sequel, that's not gonna happen.  The monster rises from the ashes, burned, alone, and furious.  He escapes into the woods and continuously runs into the very villagers that had just tried to destroy him the night before.  He attempts to save one from drowning, only to be screamed at and chased off.  He comes across a group of them roasting meat over a fire and hungrily asks for some food, struggling to form words he has never used before.  As you can guess, more screaming ensues.  He is soon chased deeper into the woods, pursued by hunters.  Then he comes across a cabin in the woods.  To see how it plays out, watch it here.  

Fearing for his life, he dares not to enter.  But inside is a kind old blind man.  He begs the monster to come inside and keep him company.  The blind man reaches out and touches the monster's hands.  He is shocked to feel the scars and burns that cover his new friend.  And then the old man does something amazing...he prays for the monster.  He thanks God for this new friend and prays for blessing.  

And the monster weeps.  

Not only is it a great example of an actor being able to emote so strongly through pounds of makeup,  but it was a moment where I felt as if God was speaking directly to me.  

There are times where we all feel like monsters.  Past hurts, words that have cut us to the bone...they stick with us.  We take our broken selves and try to stitch ourselves back together without going crazy.  We walk around carrying this pain in a kind of living death.  We feel hurt, lost, and alone.  And that hurt translates into our actions.  We say things we don't mean, do things that in the end only bring us down.  And what's even worse is that other human beings look at our ugliness and can turn us away.  

I think I finally realize why I love Frankenstein so much.  For the longest time I felt like I too was a bit of an outcast, a misfit...a monster.  But I've been given new life, life that is worth living.  Daily my scars and hurts are cleaned and healed.  I do not feel like I'm a mistake, just spare parts stitched together.  I have a purpose.  In a movie all about creatures and death, I remembered to embrace life.  To anyone out there feeling as if they are hurt and lost, looking for safety and friendship...

You are not alone.  

Feeling inspired by this epiphany (along with the visual barrage of Halloween that's beginning to pop up everywhere) I whipped up this handsome, brooding fella.  

Like him?  Leave a comment below and he could be yours!  I'll announce the winner in the next post!  

That's all for now, kids.  Happy trails.  

P.S.  If you want to watch the blind man scene parodied HYSTERICALLY, click here.

Halloween, USA

Have you ever had a moment where all of the sudden you are sucked back to your childhood?  The world becomes vast.  Colors are more vivid.  You smile so hard it hurts your face.


I experienced that today.


To get you in the right mood, we may need a little music. Play this this and come back.  Listen to it while you read.


Ahhhh, that's better.


Let's get something straight.  I love Halloween.  Not "like", not "strongly admire" either.  I truly LOVE the holiday.  I'm not talking about gory, blood-soaked, horror movie Halloween.  I'm talking about bobbing for apples, making your own costume, Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, ghost stories, carving pumpkins, hayrides, "Trick-or-Treat-bag-so-full-you-get-a-hernia" Halloween.  As soon as the first days of September begin I start getting excited.  By October 1st I'm practically drooling.  And it's been like this for as long as I can remember and I honestly don't have a specific reason as to why.  


Maybe it's because I'm naturally a performer.  I always loved writing stories and pretending to be someone else as a child.  For the majority of the year I only had a couple of close friends, but during Halloween season I was always asked to tell scary stories on the playground.   Imagine a group of eight year olds circled around a chubby boy in giant bifocal glasses animatedly describing the ghosts that walked the woods behind our school.  


 Maybe it's nostalgia.  The 90's were the golden age of Halloween for me.  The candy was better, the movies were cooler, and I have to say that  Nickelodeon had some of the greatest Halloween specials of all time.  Click here to see what I'm talking about.


In third grade I held a Halloween party at my home for my class.  I made coffin invitations out of black construction paper with skeletons drawn in Wite-out.  Much to my mother's shock and joy (along with my father's exasperation) the entire neighborhood showed up.  It was loud, crowded, and ruined our brand new carpet.  It was talked about for months afterwards.  These are some of the happiest memories of my life.  


So, as you can probably guess, whenever a Halloween superstore opens up in town I get pretty pumped. As a child we would have our annual trip to Party City, then behemoths like Halloween Express started popping up.  When those simple signs appear, blazing orange with black letters announcing "COMING SOON", I light up inside.  


Recently a new (to me) store has opened close to our apartment.  Spirit Halloween.  Never heard of it.  The hype for it has been huge.  Throughout August the doors have been boarded and black with no sign of activity.  I finally got to visit today.  The doors were still black, but a small neon sign flashed "open."  I mumbled underneath my breath "please don't disappoint me, please don't disappoint me.."  I walked through the doors.  The walls were high.  I couldn't quite see what was going on inside, but I could hear it.  Howling wolves, clanking chains, organ music blaring.  My pace quickened.  


And oh...oh what I saw.  


I grinned, laughing out loud in pure amazement and joy.  Costumes, decorations...and monsters.  The MONSTERS!  Zombies!  Vampires!  Giant Spiders!  FRANKENSTEIN!!


Down the road I'm going to make a post all about my obsession with movie monsters, special effects, and animatronics.  For now let's just say that this place more than wet my appetite.  And more than anything else it stirred in me a child-like excitement.  I turned to an employee walking next to me wearing a giant multi-colored afro and said "Can I just live here?"  


I spent the next two hours just walking around, soaking it all in.  And then it made me remember something, an idea I had as a teenager.  A seasonal Halloween theme park.  


It was simply called "Halloween, USA."  Open from September 1st to December 1st.  It would have the look of an early 1900's New England town.  

In the town square would sit a MASSIVE pumpkin with a clock in its center.

The town shops would include "Headless Horseman's Hat Emporium", "Mummy's Wrappings", "Eyegor's Spare Parts", "Van Helsing's Odds and Ends", "Fangs for the Memories", and other bad puns.  


There would be hayrides, corn mazes, and pumpkin carvers.  And the carousel from Something Wicked This Way Comes that would run both backwards and forwards, a large seaside Victorian mansion acting as the local haunted house, a tree covered in pumpkins like in Ray Bradbury's The Halloween Tree.  There would be a water ride with sea monsters, and a Frankenstein roller coaster.  Carriages pulled by phantom horses.  On one side of the town there would sit a street dotted with homes called "Trick or Treat row" where children would be greeted at the door by classic monsters, awaiting to give them candy and prizes.   It would be slightly steampunk. It would be spooky. It would be funny.  And most importantly it would be designed for families.  


As I walked through the store, memories of all of these things flashed through my mind.  I remember even drawing a detailed map and showing it to my mother.  In complete seriousness, she said, "Promise me you'll do this one day.  You have to."  


Perhaps one day I will.  The past few years I have been dissatisfied with where Halloween is going.  (I'm looking at YOU, Universal Studios theme parks.)  It's focused solely on the scares and violence.  What about the mystique?  What about atmosphere?  What about imagination?  What about the kids???


I don't know.  Maybe my nostalgia goggles are on a little too tight.  


What do you think, folks?  A seasonal, family-friendly, Fall/Halloween theme park.  Pros?  Cons?  Disney does it every year.

And so it begins...

They say the most difficult part about starting anything is exactly that...STARTING.  I honestly don't know who "they" are, but as long as this cone of tin foil stays on my head then they are not capable of knowing my exact location.  But then again, I am writing this on the Internet.  


I digress.


My name's Josh.  I get to be creative for a living.  I doodle.  I write.   I shoot then edit videos.  I make special effects for those videos.  This also requires the lifting of various heavy things.  Not the most fun part of the job, but daily I get to say to myself "I get PAID for this!"  And paychecks are nice.  They give me things like an apartment, a cat, and tin foil.  Oh, and I'm married.  Getting my wife things that make her happy in tern make me happy.  But I still have a lot of ideas bubbling around in my head at night and I so desperately would like some sleep.  


This is what this blog is for.  I get to make a lot of cool things, but the ideas keep coming and I cannot find an excuse to let them out...until now.  You, the unwashed online masses, will be my guinea pigs.  You'll have a little wheel to run around in and wood chips to do your...business.  As long as you don't break out and hide behind the sofa and leave your little pellets  we'll be cool.  I'll be using this blog as an outlet for the stuff that just pops into my head.  Maybe it'll be a  drawing, a video, a song I really like.  I don't know WHAT exactly, but I definitely need an outlet otherwise my imagination's going to stagnate and die, and that's what is paying the bills right now.  


This is my exercise.  My catharsis.  Here goes nothin'.  






First off is something simple...a doodle.  A chalk-doodle, to be more specific.  (Is that even a real word?  It is now.  It's now on the Internet and Google owes me a penny.)  


This was done roughly a year ago at a MASSIVE community chalk drawing festival for art students at the Clinton Library.  There is a fantastic comic artist by the name of Skottie Young who draws aliens that look a little bit like this.  This one is a particular fave of mine to draw.  

It IS a recession, after all.  

That's all for tonight, kids.  Happy trails.