Month: July 2013

The day after tomorrow: It didn’t feel like the Fourth of July but it sure feels like the Fifth

FRIDAY JULY 5 2013
Yesterday I wrote a longer post dedicated to my feelings, or non feelings, on this year’s Fourth of July holiday. Why didn’t it feel like the Fourth in 2013? At least one email I received told me the reason was simple: Because it was on a Thursday and Friday was a back to work day. I think it’s a little more complicated than that, however.. I did find this website that shows a little bit of history, and how we celebrated the Fourth of July 100 years ago when America was 137 years young.. Call me crazy, but these parades of yesteryear seemed larger.. the spirit of America seemed greater. There seemed to be all-day affairs… In 2013 we update our Tweets and Facebook accounts telling everyone how much ‘fun’ we are having so much that we actually don’t have fun, instead we just get glued to a screen… So I stand by my article: This did not feel like the Fourth of July .. And I am upset by this because the Fourth has been my favorite holiday since childhood.
In 2014: Let’s bring back the spirit of this Republic again..
And now .. on to the news, for better or worse..
Vatican says Pope John Paul II will get sainthood.. Pope Francis signed the decree Friday morning, the Vatican said..
The weather sure has been strange lately (when isn’t it, of course?) .. but we know why it’s strange: The Jet Stream, which appears to be on a wild summer pattern in 2013. Dr. Jeff Masters from Wunderground writes about it, describing the worldwide weather patterns and upheaval being caused by this surprising and erratic movement of air masses.
Eruption from Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano grounds US flights.. Four airlines have suspended flights to Mexico City because of the volcano.. it spewed ash for 50 miles.
This is the comet Ison.. and you will be seeing it in November, very clearly in the night *and day* sky.. This latest photo has been released by NASA..
The future is now: This article describes how a new device will soon turn transportation windows into ads by beaming sound into your brains .. this is not science fiction–and the news is being reported in mainstream sources. You will be receiving advertisements without even being aware of what it happening.. It’s all about money..
The Loch Ness Monster mystery has been explained, according to one researcher.. Italian geologist Luigi Piccardi says that underground rumbling and bubbles are not the monster, but instead evidence of a fault line under Lake Loch Ness..
Remember that best selling book called PROOF OF HEAVEN written by Dr. Eben Alexander? If not, it sold two million copies and Dr. Alexander appeared on media ranging from radio to print to television.. In the book, Alexander says he had experiences during a seven-day coma that proved heaven existed .. Those claims and that book is now being challenged, even now with hospital officials stating that a number of examples of dramatization and ‘artistic license’ being taken.. Alexander says he stands by his story..
The inventor of the computer mouse is dead.. And soon the computer mouse will be to, replaced by fingers. But by God it worked while it was working..
This is what the abortion debate has come to? Pro Lifers in Texas sing Amazing Grace, pro choices chant “Hail Satan” as a taunt.. Divided we scream.
Wood told the AP: “I love Mike Meyers. He didn’t have a long shelf-life because I didn’t love all the iterations of that character. He’s a great rendering of the boogey man. Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Shining” is extraordinary. I tend to find characters from a more rooted, real place to be more frightening and unsettling. What happens to Reagan in “The Exorcist” I love and find horrifyingly scary. Freddy Kruger is more fun. He becomes a jokester which is fun to watch. That’s another angle with horror.“
It’s all about the marketing.. and it seems that Elijah Wood understands that..

A Fourth of July or a July 4th?



JULY 4, 2013


AMERICA STRONGER AND BETTER


237 YEARS YOUNG


There are a few traditions that the HORROR REPORT faithfully upholds every year–and have since 2001 when the first beginnings of this website occurred..First, we have a blinking Christmas logo, and second, we celebrate the Fourth of July each year with patriotism and love for country..  Included with that Johnny Cash’s rendition of the ragged old flag and the final five minutes from the WONDER YEARS series finale, titled Independence Day.

So why does this Fourth feel like it has little feeling?
Is it because Edward Snowden revealed what our democratic republic has allowed private contractors to collect on us? Is it the inability for Congressional leaders and the White House to work towards any goal that would better the nation? Is it because our infrastructure is badly in need  of repair and really rebirth, such as a high speed rail that could connect small and big cities alike throughout America? Why this year..? Why does it just feel like stagnation instead of a patriotic nation?
The nation is, for the most part, the same as it’s been other years, really. 
Throughout the 2000s, in the post 9/11 world we have come to accept as our profound reality, the nation fought like cats and dogs, and Democrats and Republicans, about issues of war and peace, economic policy and social justice.. we hated each other, we despised opposite opinions.. and yet somehow those Fourths of July still felt like … the fourth of July.
Until this year.
And I cannot help but go back, again, to what we know now is occurring at the highest levels of national security.
What Edward Snowden revealed about the government was one thing. But how about our reaction? Or lack of one.. That reveals more about the nation than anything else.
For we are not outraged.. we are not even defending the government’s actions. Instead we have come to accept them..
We are fine with pat downs that seem inappropriate at airports.. We are seemingly more worried about ‘safety’ than we are about civil liberty.. We seem to have accepted long-term high unemployment .. we appear to be ready to simply put up with machinery in motion replacing human beings in action in assembly plants and even restaurants across our great land..
The mountains with purple majesty.. well, maybe they are a little tarnished.
In 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, anything and everything seemed possible. 
In 2013, we wonder why nothing that would have been possible ever happened. We question why we became even more divided.. why we chose to go the path most taken as opposed to the one not..
However,  Americans are good people. That is the saving grace.
That is the truth that will carry this nation, tarnished and angry, into another year…
Great societies go through great upheaval.
What America needs to know is that civil disobedience, truth and justice, social equality, and passion for freedom and love of country all fit together very well. The American experience is unique in the world, and unique in history.
We’re young when  compared to other nations–dynasties that collapsed in our history should give us pause and allow a lesson to be told.
Sometimes things don’t happen as they should..
In the Wonder Years, Winnie and Kevin didn’t get together.. their past was in the little town on the Fourth of the July but their future wasn’t.
And to think of it… America has been through tougher and rougher times. 
Civil Wars.. World Wars.. and a racial divide that created generations of hatred.
So compared to that, we aren’t faring that bad.
So why does this just feel like July 4th instead of the Fourth of July, 2013?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV3L6cWiRKQ]

Chaos and crisis.. the world is at war

But wasn’t it always?
I now have a niece who just became a nurse.
I have a nephew who just became a Marine.
Things fall into place, somehow..

Even with the chaos and crisis, like Egypt’s newfound Arab Summer and Coup-d-e’tat … things seem ‘ok’ on the Fourth of July.
But just ‘ok’..
This year, it feels strange. Edward Snowden.. spying.. the NSA.. what have we become here? Lady Gaga sings about the home of the free and land of the gay.. it often seems we’re more divisive than ever.. but when we unite, it’s often unification against the weak.
I will have some more thoughts coming on this year’s July 4th observance.. Once I develop them.
They are quite complicated this year.. indeed.

From the high desert, Artbell51 tweets

You read that headline correct, radio great Art Bell has now joined Twitter. He even joking this Facebook page, but finally he has arrived into 2013 now that he is excepted the newest form of short phrases and brief new snippets..

Here is a screen cap taken directly from Mr. Bell’s Facebook page:


Meanwhile the website artbell.com maintains three red white and blue exclamation points, causing some to wonder if the unveiling of the site will take place on 4 July.

The matter what the plans are you can be sure of one thing: the suits at Premiere radio are cautiously watching from a safe distance..

Over the DOME

Last week, the HORROR REPORT didn’t review UNDER THE DOME so well.. as a matter of fact the acting was worse than the typical made for TV Stephen King special.. week number two wasn’t much better.

And audiences are responding..

Though UNDER THE DOME is still considered a success, the ratings dropped 12% compared to the first week.. Apparently at least 12% of the folks who watched it originally didn’t care much about what exists under the dome or how the residents will get out.

Experts say 12% isn’t a big deal since the original ratings were so high (no one to go but down) .. but if week three has a big drop, the DOME may start cracking..

I didn’t care much for the book, unfortunately. I thought maybe the TV version would be decent.. But so far I’m not impressed..

THE CONJURING looks really, really good

Sometimes Hollywood can be creative. I say sometimes only because its creative brain appears limited lately.. we have been handed solid storylines of destruction–booms and doom that occurred at box offices before.. and will again. So often, viewers and reviewers get the same storyline over and over again. This summer, the White House blew up and … we snored. Box office bust for WHITE HOUSE DOWN–though it was promised to be big.. It was certainly expensive.
But what  have we here? 
A little good horror movie that we’re told is ‘based on true events’–and we have been told that before. This time, though, it may have been based on some true events.. even if those true events are only true in the eye of the beholder, or the lens of the paranormal ghost hunter..
Six new clips have been released for THE CONJURING.. each one looks a little better than the previous. James Wan may have developed a decent movie from this supposed real story.. 
Summer appears to be the new Halloween for horror. So many movies now for the past ten  years or so have been released in middle to end of summer. And sometimes they do very well. 
Way back in the stone ages of 2001, when we didn’t know Victor Salva was sort of creepy in a not so good way, JEEPERS CREEPERS surprised by becoming a summer sleeper. And since then Hollywood realized it can capture an audience of young teenagers off from school and ready to peak at movies that their parents need to get them into.. 
I didn’t see THE CONJURING –unfortunately big studios haven’t noticed THE HORROR REPORT enough to give me the access–but I read the reviews from others who are praising this as creative and refreshing.. I assume, only based on these reviews and some amazing clips, that I will find the movie to be filled with fear and wholesome horror.

Children’s horror

Life can be scary.. so as a result adults attempt to often limit those needless scares from a child’s already frightened youth. Until a grocery store sells coloring books featuring macabre images from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS and PSYCHO..

According to reports, the supermarket chain Tesco, in the UK, was forced to say sorry after coloring books for children featured images from horror flicks, including those mentioned above.

Also included with the bloody pages: HELLRAISER,  THE SHINING, CLOCKWORK ORANGE..

The store says the books were for adults, but placed in the children’s section by mistake..

Which brings up the even more profound question in all of this: They have coloring books for adults?

Turns out they do. If you want to buy the, go here to AMAZON. No need for Tesco when you can get them direct.. right..?