May All Your Labor Day Dreams Come True!

It's been a lazy Labor Day for Ray Jay.

I'm working at the station today, but the work that usually keeps me occupied for the first half (approx. 5 hours) of my shift was completed Friday.

So I've been watchin' TV all day! (Not as sexy as it sounds; I don't get to change the channel...)

Before work, though, I got a little further on TOMB RAIDER: THE LOST ARTIFACT! I found a quad-bike and jumped it over a moving subway car, barely missing this deep, deep pit of glowing green stuff. (Well... I actually fell into the pit 3 times before I figured out how to avoid it. But that's the beauty of the Save feature of videogames!!!)

Let's see... Last night I all but finished this animated short I'm doing for a friend. It's not, say, INVADER ZIM good, but it holds up to, say, SEALAB 2021. I'm pretty proud of it.

Also, watched most of PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL again!

THAT MOVIE RULES!!!

Seriously, that movie is just PACKED with genius!!!

For instance, I noticed this one really odd, quirkly line: Captain Jack Sparrow is trying to convince Barbosa to let him into his confidences by way of making him commodore of his own fleet. And as the final bargaining chip -- one that seems to work, even! -- Sparrow says, "I'll even buy you the hat. A really big one."

GENIUS!!!

And I point this oddity out to Brian -- whose all about quirky humor, and the character traits they appear to reveal -- and Brian points out that at the end of the movie Sparrow compliments Will Turner on his hat, and is particularly concerned with his own hat earlier in the movie.

CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW IS OBSESSED WITH PEOPLE'S HATS!!!

How kooky is THAT?!

And it's the type of thing that you don't even notice until the 5th or 15th viewing of the flick, because there's SO MUCH going on in that movie!

Next summer, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST!!! Can't wait!!!

Oh, also I've been reading some Ray Bradbury: THE OCTOBER COUNTRY. It's a collection of dark short stories that he wrote between 1943 and 1955, all before he turned 26 years old!

Bradbury has STYLE! In fact, in a couple of his weaker stories one could argue that perhaps he has a bit too much style.

Not that I would argue that.

I mean, the worst episode of a Sorkin-written WEST WING is still pretty good TV, because Sorkin has his own style and he's not afraid to just run with it! Same could be said of Rod Seling's weakest TWILIGHT ZONE script, or Stephen King's weakest story.

But MAN, Bradbury has style! Reading his 40s stuff, you might even confuse him for one of the Beats -- Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burrows. There's sometimes this stream-of-consciousness, and sometimes he'll just describe the shit out of a person, place or thing! I mean, he makes up words like Dr. Suess, and like Suess, his made-up words hold more depth and meaninful explaination that 100 words used by the best 100 news reporters all put together! It's like Bradbury's wordsmithing razors into the heartscape of our mind, dimples the grey matter, claws taking firm hold, then forges an elecrtified communication line between his writing and our soul.

You know?

Anyway, I'm not really reading Bradbury so much for the education, but to try to capture that Halloween feeling from my childhood. THE HALLOWEEN TREE and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES are able to tap into this sense of harmless fearful excitement I used to enjoy, dressed as The Wolf Man for an elementary school costume festival, or watching FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES one summer afternoon. OOH! Videotaping HALLOWEEN off Network TV at the house of my then-girlfriend, Kim Dobbs!!! (Could any man have a hotter girlfriend than someone who will sit at home with them and let them tape a classic horror movie, and then make out with them during the commercials?!! Shouldn't have let HER get away!!!)

There's this odd thing we experience -- particularly when we're children -- in which the possibility of ghosts and monsters open up this door to a more "magical" version of our own world! And there's this feeling that's, like, 20% dread, 30% awe or wonder and 50% straight-up JOY OF LIFE! And there's something about that mixture -- the little bit of negative emotion mixed with a whole lot of positive emotion -- that just IGNITES the imagination! Makes ya feel ALIVE!

And somehow Bradbury comes closest to reviving that feeling for me than any other storyteller so far. Mattheson, Serling and King can get me close, too, but not as often, it seems, as Bradbury.

Anyway, pretty groovy Labor Day.

AND I'M OFF FOR THE NEXT 2 DAYS!!!

My Special-Makeup-Effects Buddy Marvin is leaving for the East Coast Thursday morning -- The East Coast is SO LUCKY!!! -- but Wednesday night he's playing his last gig with his band, the Gorey Boys. (Marvin's last gig with them, but not their last gig.) The show starts at midnight, and knowing Marvin and his crowd the night should be off-the-hook.

So I hope to have one or two really crazy stories for ya by Thursday. (We'll see.)

MERRY LABOR DAY! Go shoot off some fireworks or ask neighbors for candy or something!