Recipe For Romance

Pork fried pomegranates, watermelon soup

Applesauce Ring Dings, strawberry scoop

Marinated chicken bones, gummy bear pie

Sautéd ramen noodles, warm Bud Dry

Pilsbury Toaster Strudel, homestyle meat

Gluten free calamari, salted pigs feet

Microwaved mashed potatoes, soggy Cap'n Crunch

Laffy Taffy Laff Bites, afterschool lunch

Farm fresh Reese's Pieces, zero sugar fish

Chocolate covered cacciatore served in a dish

Healthy Choice hashbrowns, under-seasoned cake

Maple bacon Mac & cheese, sugar-frosted steak

Caesar salad breakfast bars, sweet potato pork

Fried prosciutto pickle juice eaten with a fork

Cotton candy casserole, corned beef wings

Mozzarella donut holes, Singapore slings

Fun size falafel wraps, caramel cottage cheese

Banana cream coconut-filled carrots, corn, and peas

- p

FAUSSES FESSES

The world crashes in, into my living room

"Do you like that movie?"

What's a good, sincere response to that question? Depends on the movie obviously. Depends on who's asking too. Depends on my mood. There's a million factors resulting in a million answers, but there was always one standard reply that was the most honest and most explanatory and it is now almost entirely Out Of Order.

"I'll watch it if it's on..."

A perfectly poetic shorthand used to describe 75% of Cinema, indicating that "yes, I enjoy being in the company of that movie, if it happens to be in my presence." And it wasn't any form of placation; countless films that I thought were alright but the mandatory companionship of TV's warm, glowing, warming glow would disperse them into my atmosphere to the point that over time, I may like them, loathe them, or love them. 

This isn't how art should work, this is how art does work. You can take your hot takes to the judge and plead temporary stupidity because no one cares about your partially formed opinion. It takes an individual made of sterner stuff to watch Young Einstein or Clifford 25 times and think "y'know, this is pretty good!" It's like radio, and before long you're hooked on a feeling. That's not to say that repetition decidedly leads to adoration (or even appreciation) but it was, at least for me, a luxury; a real blessing to peripherally reevaluate through reruns, but more than anything (and I mean anything) television was the outlet for discovery. More than movie theaters, home video, or digital streaming, regularly scheduled TV programming was a gift wrapped surprise at any given glance. I can't count the amount of movies I fell for simply because they were, in fact, on at the right time: Bound, Cobra, Beetlejuice, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, The In-Laws, The Exorcist, and The Conversation are just a small fraction of the notable knockouts that went out of their way to find me. 

On the surface, one could ask "Who cares? How's that much different than the way it works today?" The irony, I feel, is that the way it used to be was actually easier - not a claim often made about old practices, especially with technology. But that's not what they would have you believe; the foundation of every consumer empire from McDonald's to Amazon has been "affordability and convenience" and we buy into that bullshit to the point that we're left without any more choices. And that's the gag: these corporations pride themselves in selling us endless options, except they're not endless and they've got us glued to the ground. But I'm overshooting my point - it's not just all these evil companies that destroyed the joy of channel surfing for gold on a Saturday afternoon. Even just the regular old video stores that boomed in the 80s could be blamed for further enforcing the burden put in place by the multiplex: commitment. 

Yes it's true, online shopping (and dining and everything else) prompted streaming companies - all of them - to inflate their "libraries" as a response to the obvious demand that folks don't wanna go anywhere or do anything. Easy enough when Comcast buys Universal and Disney buys Fox and Marvel, but Netflix suddenly and swiftly began to manufacture original content to beef up their bogus burger to meet the need of the stay-at-home public. As a result, new movies and shows were greenlit and rushed into production and released off the assembly line to a passive public; artistic integrity and discretion were largely disregarded in lieu of quantity over quality. That's not subjective opinion, that's mathematical fact: Netflix is serving rancid leftovers and undercooked chicken on a silver platter and there's enough of it to last our lifetime (as long as you skip the intros and end credits). But this isn't about the quality of the crap we're shackled with, it's about the quantity. Poring over mountains of unrefined garbage isn't easier or more convenient as intended, not to me. If anything, it creates unneeded anxiety in a situation that's designed to provide comfort.

Physically I don't hafta go out to the theater or the video store or even to my disc playing device, I can just scroll for days, and that's presumably the desired scenario set forth by the business casual bozos who pretended they were doing us a favor. You ever found yourself browsing this nonsense for like an hour? Even if you find something good, something you know, something new that looks interesting, you keep browsing because the stress and effort it takes to commit is far more grueling than putting on my shoes and going down to Cinemaworld and choosing between 7 pieces of shit rather than 7,000. What if I make the wrong choice? What if it's not what I was in the mood for? What if it sucks? Do I waste 140 minutes? Is it unfair to turn it off prematurely? Then I'll have wasted 20 minutes and I'm right back where I started. I have shelves of physical movies and shows that I actually do like and I can waste a whole evening trying to decide before I give up and go to bed. A wider selection was never the answer. Yeah the format prompted a buncha new bullshit but it's balanced out by The Criterion Channel, Tubi, Kanopy, and dozens of off-center channels that advocate the good, the great, and the weird. And so there is room for discovery, but you need to look for it, and then choose, and then settle. 

This isn't me just rejecting modernity in some knee-jerk fashion, I don't do that. It's the act of searching, then assessing through a brief synopsis, runtime, year of release, and some absentee critical star rating that makes the difference. To stumble upon a gem at 12am and find yourself overcome with the euphoric wonder of "What is this?" is miles away from the comfortable preparation and casual calculation of selecting something to accommodate your "movie night." In the end, the result is the same: there, you've seen it. But I've always held a torch for the journey over the destination, and that's the part that always gets fucked with over time: the means of experience. I didn't discover The Beatles because they were "suggested" to me by a robot, but the outcome would have remained the same. A chance encounter that feels like love at first sight could end up in a relationship that lasts as long as with a companion you meet in an online dating site. I can analogize it a hundred different ways and all the dolts and dunces will hear is "I used to hafta hunt & kill and my nourishment was that much more satisfying because I knew I'd earned it." They can minimize my observation to fit their agenda all they want, but if they held any stock in curiosity, adventure, or critical Film analysis they'd appreciate the value of embarking into Saturday Afternoon Programming and finding yourself following Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg from the future on a killing spree and wondering "Where is this going?! This is fantastic!" It'd be more exciting to lay my eyes on the Mona Lisa in the Louvre if I didn't already know what it looked like. 

- Paul

STATIC SHOTS

Lord of Illusions (1995)

Bonkers NES Box Art!

Once upon a time, I played video games. Also once upon that very same time I'd even go so far as to blindly rent them from the video rental store, sometimes based on hype or sequel familiarity, but often I found myself lured in by the lurid box covers. And not unlike the folks who would rent movies based on the picture on the front, it was extremely rare that the content would match what was suggested. Obviously an 8-bit video game was never gonna resemble the Frank Frazetta painting they used to sell it but man did they sell it, and I bought it.

I have favorite covers - and by favorite I mean some of them are on my list of greatest artworks of the 20th century, and I bring them up here pretty often. But while this list is still in the rad to awesome range, these are the weird ones: whether they're indicative of their game or entirely misleading, these masterpieces of consumer art were too off the wall to be ignored and continue to hang nicely in my headspace gallery. 

- Paul

Bomberman

This game is a pixelated grid; squared squares upon squares. And yet, this depiction is pretty accurate. The action shot is soft and simple enough to be a frame from a Saturday Morning Cartoon (probably a pretty good one). Bomberman himself is from the exceedingly generic gene pool of armored warriors that headlined so many games around this time, but it's less about the predictability of the costume and more about the color - of everything. Atypical of the dreary, confusing SciFi hellscapes that grace the covers of games like this, this one is an all-over rainbow jumbled into a janky design of letters and shapes. Nevermind the red, purple, and pink, it's that orange on that blue that just drives me wild. 

Super Contra

This is the kinda overly ambitious SciFi art I was talking about, but I'm totally all over this one. Notably, the game actually is this exciting; every level is continuously running and jumping and shooting at soldiers, machines, and monsters, always in various locales - from a tropical setting to a black void in which the ground breaks beneath your feet. All adequately represented, so literally that I don't even notice the aesthetic gulf between game and box. All that context aside, it does what these covers usually tried to do: to give one pause and ask themselves, "Is that a movie poster?" Aliens and Predator were a constant influence in this realm, but no film ever could live up to the imagery here. 

Legacy of the Wizard

In several cases the artist was only given a written description of the premise without actually witnessing any real gameplay. It's entirely possible that this was the scenario here; the game is crude, but its music and sound design and graphics all create a very specific and pleasing aesthetic that I've always loved. This Fantasy Porn painting is totally its own separate thing - I link them together due to forced context, but one doesn't put me in the world of the other. My only complaint is that as much as I love this red, I feel shortchanged on a lotta potentially atmospheric sky and terrain by this compromised composition; I want a larger sense of this world. 

California Games

I had no interest in games depicting easily accessible, real life activities: sports, board games, even Pinball (yes that's a video game) were all life's other options outside of this electronic land of make-believe. My interest shifted when I spotted a photograph made entirely of legs, nestled in between Burgertime and Castlevania. They clearly knew what they were doing, at least doing to me; what chance did Q*bert have against bikini bottoms and roller skates? To be fair the game was kinda okay - I enjoyed perpetual forward motion scenarios, even if it was skateboarding, surfing, etc. but that's still not as exciting as this tanned & oiled tribute to 1989.

The Guardian Legend

This is the best example in my mind of the cover and the game having nothing to do with each other in any literal sense, but they compliment each other in weird thematic ways. The game is a creepy, complex maze full of monsters and creatures and symbols and things that generally just don't resemble anything in nature. By that same token, the box art always seemed to me to be a traditional depiction of Hell - particularly these devilish eyes that I always thought they lifted from Tim Curry in Legend.* I've never been able to beat the game, so in my mind I still hang onto the wonderful probability that it all culminates into something vaguely echoing this atmospheric nightmare. 

*Years later (like 3 decades later) I stumbled across an alternate poster for the 1985 movie Creature and I was incredibly startled and a little saddened. It wasn't out of the ordinary for artists to borrow or steal imagery for this burgeoning platform so I'll let it slide. (Honestly the Creature poster is also a gross misrepresentation of the film.)

Pipe Dream

My entire reason for starting this list, as it's one of my favorite artworks of all time in any medium. I was obsessed with it when I was like 8 years old: the concept, the colors, the composition, all somehow embodied things that spoke to me on a molecular level. I could draw straight lines or make analogies about the checkerboard tiles or green slime or the overall playful abstraction and surreal minimalism, but in the end it's not quite like anything other than this graphic tribute to the blossoming Pop Art of the 1990s (predominantly spearheaded by Nintendo). Without a smudge of irony, this is a Modern Art Masterpiece, and it belongs in a museum. 

NO PARTICULAR ORDER : Harry Dean Stanton

PAUL

Fire Down Below

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Alien

Christine

INLAND EMPIRE

One Magic Christmas

The Green Mile

The Last Temptation of Christ

Repo Man

Wild At Heart

BABES

Big Love

Alien

Paris, Texas

The Last Temptation of Christ

One Magic Christmas

Pretty in Pink

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

One From the Heart

Christine

Wild At Heart

Itchycoo Park

1988: It was just too late to know

Childhood ends at different times in different ways for different people: tragedy, responsibility, sexuality, whatever shatters the safety and innocence of which we're rightly entitled during those first years. For me, it was the invasive yet subtle introduction of school - namely Kindergarten. It slipped in like a virus, asymptomatic at first but soon the effects began to take hold. Not that there was anything particularly bad or upsetting in chocolate milk and finger painting, but the realization slowly started to set in: I'm missing all my shows!

In a larger more fatalistic scope, I'd just entered into a steel cage of doom that would detain me until retirement or, more likely, death; daytime television had become a symbol of illness, Summer, or unemployment, and no one alerted me to this new reality prior to my blind compliance. Before September of '88 my schedule was largely dictated by Cable and it was a more engaging and informative classroom than I would ever encounter. The afternoon block of programming titled Nick Jr. debuted at the beginning of the year, mostly comprised of Asian and European cartoons like David the Gnome, Adventures of Little Koala, and Mysterious Cities of Gold. Added to their regularly scheduled lineup of stuff like Count Duckula and Mr. Wizard and it was a fully educational day covering all the major subjects. There were children's shows all over the dial like Jem and Zoobilee Zoo that I'd watch casually, but the bulk of them were of an already bygone era: Flintstones, Popeye, Mighty Mouse, Looney Tunes - even then these things were 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, and as I sit here now they're still around and popular and considered all part of a gold standard. 

Same thing with grownup shows; I spent some time with syndicated Scrabble and Win, Lose or Draw as well as Soap Operas like All My Children and One Life to Live. But again, this was the midday dumping ground for "Classic TV" like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, The Monkees, Hazel, and every other pre-1970 Primetime program that limped its way into local broadcasting - not to die, mind you, but to become immortalized through me which strengthened me. Kindergarten extinguished this flame without mercy, and I became both stronger and dumber for it. I still had years ahead of me filled with baseball, bike riding, and Batman, but leisure time was now a luxury to be worked into my structured schedule. 

God bless the advent of Nick at Nite to keep me caught up in the continuing adventures of Ozzie, Harriet, et al. Though 1988 wasn't just about old TV for me. I'd received a bounty of ghost bustin' gadgets at the end of '87 so I'm sure I spent some amount of time neutronizing Sumerian gods while trying not to look directly into the trap. A life of adventure -- so much so that I began the year by cracking my skull open on the corner of an industrial dumpster in a sledding accident (a threat they didn't warn me of in the Juicy Fruit commercials). But that's part of the bigger idea: I played. I galavanted and cavorted. I shot lasers and slew vampires and stuck stickers and ate fluffernutters; my time of freedom leading up to my life sentence was not wasted, and was dedicated mainly (but not exclusively) to Dick Van Dyke, California Raisins, and severe head trauma. That's time well spent. 

I attended one theater visit, Roger Rabbit, the only real new movie I saw that year. But looking back now at what was in theaters back then, yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers! A few Box Office Blockbusters, but an otherwise bonafide bonanza of Cult cuisine and 80s pinnacles, all amounting to a cavalcade of choices so overwhelming that I had to scale back to present a nice round list number. The twit in me would describe the output as "colorful and inventive" but really the word for this year is "wacky."

Something like 20 sequels came out, and aside from a few clunkers (Caddyshack II, Arthur 2) they were mostly great (and mostly horror). Other than that, big splashy originals and fresh genre efforts are what 1988 was about, and ultimately became a lot of the defining pictures of not just my life, but also of Film History and Popular Culture as a whole. 

My son starts Kindergarten in September of this year but he's already been doing the Preschool thing for a while. Recently my sister asked him what he thought of it, and his response was "School is nonsense. I wanna be home with my family." Who's to blame for this defiant attitude that's clearly expanding and intensifying with each new generation? The declining quality of the classroom environment? A rigid framework forced into fragile developmental stages too early on? Or is it Dobie Gillis? Time will tell. 

- Paul

1. Midnight Run

I feel like I publish praise for this flick every few months. And why the fuck not? There may be a little nostalgia mixed into my adoration for this, the greatest Action Comedy of all time, but that doesn't minimize its greatness of all timeness. Everything about it feels so simple, yet it continuously unfolds and surprises in its story, its humor, its excitement, and even its drama.

2. Beetlejuice

Also not much left to be said about this extremely popular movie. I remember seeing the TV spots and thinking "this is definitely for me," but ironically could never remember the title. It wasn't until it made its way to Cinemax and I thought "this is it! This is that movie!" I was turned on by how bizarre it looked, and it's one of the few times I can remember a film surpassing the abstractions of its trailer; it was even more absurd than what they sold. 

3. Vibes

A small budget Romantic Comedy Adventure somewhere between Raiders and Romancing the Stone seems to be the perfect speed for me. But I'm intellectualizing - Jeff, Cyndi, and Peter Falk are like three of the most likable and watchable screen actors anyways so I defy anyone to not be entirely enchanted by this. 

4. Die Hard

It took me years to recognize that it didn't reinvent the Action Movie, but satirized it in such a bombastic way that it works as both a Comedy and a straightforward thrill ride. And a Christmas movie. 

5. A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

If it had to have humor, if it had to have action, if it had to be rushed into production to meet the demand of this rapidly growing pop icon, then this truly was the best we could possibly get. Again, even more than Freddy's Dead, this is the parody of the fun and the dumbness of Elm Street and should be championed as such. 

6. A Fish Called Wanda

Leave it to a couple of Pythons to make the British Crime genre so silly. Though at the same time, it's refreshingly buttoned-down and accessible - both in its plot and its humor. Added to that, Jamie Lee and Kevin Kline are notable dramatic actors, and they carry the movie as the comic relief. 

7. Crocodile Dundee II

The first was a neatly packaged first act, and the only reason it required a sequel was because we wanted more. This installment is all about Mick's macho charisma and magic tricks that were the highlights of Part One, stretched out into the poignant 80s premise of taking down some Columbian drug lords. We didn't know we needed it until we got it. 

8. Flesheater

One of my most sacred "Halloween Season Mandatory Viewing" movies, primarily because of its weather accuracy. Seasonal setting aside, the cast has more depth than nearly any other 80s Slasher movie, and the culmination of score, gore, and suspense is on par with the best of Fulci. 

9. The Last Temptation of Christ

I consider this the dawn of Marty's most inventive era as a visual artist. It's one of the earliest examples I can think of where the subject matter of the movie was less of a draw than its actual moving parts; a true filmmaking achievement to capture my interest almost entirely through photographic storytelling. 

10. Big

The effect this movie has is still as relevant and unique as it was then. It's a hard kids' movie with a zany premise but it doesn't shy away from the terrifying reality it creates; adulthood is scary, but a supernatural overnight transformation that alienates you from your safe childhood is some fearless fiction.

11. Ghosthouse

One of the last great Italian Horror flicks of the decade (and Umberto Lenzi's career) mixes 80s Slasher tropes with a malevolent ghost, resulting in a bonkers, directionless plot that's most concerned with surreal imagery and gruesome kills set to a creepy score. Part of a dying breed. 

12. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

There seems to be a recurring formula around this time: fantastical ideas that capture the imagination, saturated in adult themes - violence, sexuality, fear, sadness. In other words a well-rounded movie that's not confined to the boundaries of genre or a target audience. I'm grateful to have been a kid when this came out. 

13. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!

To think the TV show on which this was based was cancelled for being too subtle. Admittedly I'm a fan of the subtleties of slapstick, sight gags, wordplay, fart sounds, and concrete dildos. 

14. The Blob

Glad we're all finally in agreeance that this is one of the best remakes of any film genre -- which is a backhanded way of saying it's just a great movie. Considering it's an FX heavy SciFi flick with a literal faceless blob as the villain, it's pretty remarkable how much suspense and good dialogue comes out of it. 

15. They Live

I caught it for the first time ever on Cable, right at the beginning of the fight scene, and soon thought "...is this it? Is this the whole movie?" And that forever set the tone for me - and rightly so, because it's the correct tone: a comedic satire played entirely straight. Strangelove for the 1980s? You'd better believe it, brother. 

16. Imagine: John Lennon

Extremely telling and also guarded and superficial - like the man himself. A complex life and soul in under 2 hours is gonna have some hiccups, but the depiction of his murder and the news footage sequence of grieving fans is a powerful ending to any kind of movie. 

17. License to Drive

Not a lotta Teen Comedy options this year, but this Ferris Bueller-meets-After Hours hybrid kinda transcends its subgenre, resulting in just a straightforward Comedy with shades of realism (who wouldn't risk their lives for a date with Heather Graham?).

18. Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood

My favorite of the franchise as it's the first time I found Jason to be cool. Ironically this is the first to feel most like an Elm Street movie which is probably also why I respond to it favorably. 

19. Daffy Duck's Quackbusters

During the periods it wasn't perpetually on HBO, it was my consolation video rental; when nothing else seemed good, I'd get this. And understandably so, it's practically a Looney Tunes Greatest Hits without commercial interruption - a true content binge before it became a way of life. 

20. Pulse

To this day I don't fully trust any of the machinery in my home, and it's not because of Poltergeist or 2001 or any of those - it's because of this. That's an effective Horror movie no doubt, but even without the carnage (but especially with it) it's yet another great kids' movie to come out of this year. 

21. Elvira: Mistress of the Dark

I'm always fascinated when a one-dimensional character suddenly finds themselves dealing with conflict and having emotions. (It worked for Pee-wee, didn't work for the Mario Bros.) To see her get off the couch and go on an adventure and sass the locals and dance naked in a Vegas musical is so much more than we deserved. 

22. Ernest Saves Christmas 

The fact that it features very little Ernest is solid proof that his longtime production crew knew how to craft a good movie without the bumbling hillbilly antics. Good for them, but even still, in his limited screentime Jim goes full force, busting out several of his "characters" and securing him amongst the ranks of Peter Sellers and Eddie Murphy. 

23. Critters 2: The Main Course

Also my favorite of this particular series, and I've gotten the most use out of it as an Easter movie (which also helped Last Temptation). B-side holidays aside, of all the Gremlins ripoffs over the years, this is the one that captures the excitement, humor, and inventiveness of its supposed source material. 

24. Dead Heat

Horror Comedy can be some pretty bad medicine. And to be fair, the clever and bizarre Horror outweighs the tepid and uncomfortable Comedy just enough to give it a sharp enough edge to become (wait for it) a great Action movie. 

25. Above the Law

I've seen it 40 times, I still don't know what the hell it's about. Don't care, it's still a sleek Crime Thriller from Andrew Davis (Fugitive, Under Siege) that introduced us to the whole Seagal genre (complete with the usual topnotch who's-who of supporting roles). 

26. Hellbound: Hellraiser II

As good as the first, which is my brand of highest praise here. The most honest and logical sequel since Godfather II - even with a new director; it answered questions, raised new mysteries, and actually managed to create even more grotesque sights to show us. 

27. Scrooged

I was initially bummed on it because it just wasn't funny enough. I still am a little. But it makes up for it in mood; it really does have a somber creepiness to it that is so accurately Dickensian, it works as Horror. And Bill's frantic monologue at the end is clearly Oscar worthy. 

28. Talk Radio

When Oliver Stone aims small he misses small. The fascination with the "shock jock" bled into so much Film and TV (and stage) that it just felt like a hallmark of Fiction. But this one has no chance of humor or redemption, it just spirals into darkness until it's pitch black. 

29. Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach

After 4 films I finally stumbled upon one that worked for me. And why does it suddenly work? Because it's broader and bolder and dumber than all its predecessors; this is when they stopped trying to be real movies in any traditional sense and just let the mayhem ensue. 

30. Not of This Earth

When I hear words and phrases like Drive-In, Exploitation, Roger Corman, Creature Feature, I imagine a specific kind of imagery, and all of it appears in this film. It's almost as if New Concorde and Jim Wynorski were entirely self aware and knew exactly how to make a great movie. 

MiLK

MY POSTER PAST :: part 8

I'm bewildered by people who don't hang things on their walls. When I'm in someone's home and I'm faced with bare enclosures I'm overcome with some kinda urgent loss of equilibrium; how does one live or even function in such a vacuous void? I'm pressed to question their mental health, but more often their intelligence - not in an irate manner, but more of a pity approach. Aw, that poor stupid idiot. Or perhaps their minds are filled with such wondrous imagery that they've no need for external stimuli of any kind. They must be the folks who watch movies to "turn their brain off" - their intellectual stamina requires a lotta naps. 

I digress, sorta. Point is, some striking artwork in my everyday field of vision was and is an easy passion to hook into. As noted, we're eight chapters into this exploration and I've barely approached adulthood. And I share these with you not as an invite into my own boring nostalgic recess but mostly as an extra branch of Art Appreciation; outside of symbolic mile markers of whatever I was into at any given time, it's important to note that these masterpieces of mass produced merchandise are still out there - some more easily attainable than others but all readily available for you yourself to own and ogle. Consider this your marketplace of fine art and design. 

- Paul

Madonna

One day, unannounced, a traveling art print vendor set up shop in the lobby of the main building of my college for what seemed to be a single afternoon, and I was lucky enough to be passing by at that right moment.

Madonna's been in the spotlight my entire life. And so, at the age of 20, after two whole decades of being on this planet the same time as her fame, this 24x36 Holy Grail was a well earned reward and a more fitting monument I could not imagine. (Except for my Blank action figure.)

Lord of the Rings

Yeah, I had a Lord of the Rings poster, what. I didn't get it because it was Lord of the Rings - my father had the books but I wasn't gonna read 'em. I wasn't even entirely aware that this was a depiction of any previously published material - the "Lord of the Rings" typeface was so barely legible that I didn't even notice it. This was around my mystical wizards and magic spells period and this detailed illustration spoke to me. I'll tell you, had the movies looked anything like this, I wouldn't be constantly bitching with every breath. 

Consumer Advisory

I was 11 or 12 and was immediately drawn to any image with the most nudity. Unfortunately at this time in history that meant a lotta blondes with fake boobs, which wasn't really the vibe I sought. This one, on the other hand, was such a zenith of smut that I was excitedly embarrassed to own and display it. And because of the angle of the photograph and the anatomical infatuation I share with both Sir Mix-A-Lot and Lt. Vincent Hanna of the LAPD, it became a sort of centerpiece.

Freddie Mercury

Decent Queen posters were a bitch to come by in the early 1990s. However, Freddie's death did prompt some new (though uninspiring) art and I was so desperate I took what I could get. There was a whole wealth of imagery that I wanted so badly to be on a poster (namely the other members of the band) but I was instead cornered into advocating AIDS awareness. Whatever, it was the 90s. 

Playboy

For all the bathing suit cheesecake festooning my chambers, this one held the most intellectually carnal subtext of all the airbrushed T&A in my gallery. Ever since I was conscious of popular culture, this name and logo was (understandably) emblematic of Nudity and Strong Sexual Content. It felt grownup, sophisticated: I don't require actual photographic depictions of breasts when it's explicitly implied by this all-encompassing symbol. It's like the Bat Signal - it lets them know he's out there. 

STATIC SHOTS

1988

Baby, baby, I'm taken with the notion

EASTER TREATS!

More than Summer, more than Christmas, more than Valentine's Day, even more than Halloween, Easter Candy is King of Kings. The whole pastel aesthetic is such a delight and an exciting indication of Spring's arrival, but equal to (or perhaps greater than) that is the quality and inventiveness of the candy itself. I mean an egg is a beautiful shape: you can make them out of anything you want, fill them with anything you want, color them however you want; it's just a rainbow medley of perfect ovals filled with divine flavors and their remarkable abundance creates a pronounced facelift for any retail outlet. It's no easy feat disguising a CVS as a world of pure fucking imagination, but that's the power of Christ (and Cadbury) and we should give prayer and thanks to whomever for brightening our world for these coupla months. 

I have plenty of favorites and go-tos but I wanted to share with you some oddities and newcomers that may or may not be worth your time (and mine). 

Walk, don't run, rabbit. 

- Paul

Marshmallow Crispy Treat M&Ms

It's a startling revelation to finally realize that I'm not an M&M guy - they're just sort of daunting and aimless. So when these novelty ones come out my hope is for a little excitement, and I get some of that before the inevitable boredom. As suggested by the non binary character on the package these probably work best when baked into a larger confection - they're ridiculously small and the colors are drab. But on their own a good handful does create the impression of a Rice Krispie Treat.

Froot Loops Jelly Beans

I went into these with a confident skepticism: I'm sure these taste exactly like jelly beans. I shit you not, dear reader, these taste exactly like Froot Loops! Green, purple, yellow, all have different flavors and all taste like they're part of a complete breakfast. How'd they do that?? Now, I love jelly beans, and I love Froot Loops... but this is a troubling adventure of curious mouth feels; I'm eating them out of sheer amazement but it's not satisfying any snack cravings. 

Jelly Belly Sparkling Water

I always fall for sparkling water - with every sip I'm expecting to taste something like soda and then I'm like "what the fuck is this, where's the beef?" But somehow I thought Juicy Pear would be the right amount of blandness to compliment an already dull experience - and boy was I right: it's a good time if you're looking for a sense of a delicious beverage in your mouth that slightly burns your tongue. 

Fruit Punch Peeps

Peeps are like oil paintings: beautiful to look at but taste just awful. I've had marshmallows, they're not supposed to taste like this. But these offered the possibility of maybe a different sensation: better flavor = better Peeps? The result was like snorting Kool-Aid powder while simultaneously pouring Hawaiian Punch into your eyes. Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream. Again, another promise of a specific flavor fulfilled, but the decadence is so overwhelming that it feels almost criminal. 

Peeps Pepsi

Apart from their aesthetic beauty, Peeps have a soft, pleasing texture. You take away both of these elements and we might have a problem. Credited as "Marshmallow Flavored Cola" it's not too dissimilar from all the Mystery Flavors Coke has been putting out -- that is to say it's exceptionally sweet to the point of palate disorientation beyond any truly discernible seasoning. It tastes better than the candy (though I was good after 1/3 of the bottle) but I wouldn't replace it with the true symbol of the season. 

GROOVE APPROVED

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