• Dandy Dan

    Sep 6 2013

    This is true: Daniel “Dandy Dan” DiGiacomo once saved my life at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). We were sitting in a small, private room set up by the people at TDK. Dan and I were sitting on a sofa, and Dan had the great misfortune of playing Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis for the Xbox. […]

  • I Remember Darryn In That I Do Not Remember Darryn

    Aug 21 2013

    A long time ago, I got a phone call from Darryn. At the time, I was an addle-brained and oftentimes pantsless college student, a far, far cry from the addle-brained and wholly pantsless adult I am today. The voice on the other end of the phone was slow, lazy, and thick. Darryn, being from the […]

  • Tin Man

    Jun 17 2013

    Man of Steel is perfectly entertaining, with a shirtless and bearded Henry Cavill for the ladies, and enough whiz-bang explosions to nicely round out the movie’s last half-hour. It’s exactly the kind of spectacle that pulls in enough money to ensure the mortgages are paid in perpetuity on the solid-gold houses. But Superman kills a […]

  • I Remember Pain…

    Jun 12 2013

    My hair is cut. Short and with the back and sides shaved. I go to a barber in Oceanside, a tiny place right near the library. And I can’t help but remember pain. I used to work for the publishing house Ziff-Davis. It was a long time ago, and I think Ziff killed and ate […]

  • My Friend Marc

    Nov 25 2012

    I remember Marc. We’re dancing in a tiny, partially enclosed room — Wizard: The Comics Magazine’s copy editors. Our tormentors are away. They positioned their desks so they could spy on us with impunity, but they can stop neither the rhythm nor the funk. We are free and alive, and the music is glorious. They […]

  • Second to the right, Shemp, and straight on …

    Nov 14 2011

    My friend Shemp died today, sitting on the veterinarian’s table. Mom held him while he fell asleep, the final kindness. I’m sorry, Shemp. I’m so sorry. And I’ve used up all my words, a 15-year stream of curses, exclamations, inanities you only babble to cats, prayers, confessions, well wishes, and random musings — thousands of […]

  • The Last Days of Shemp

    Sep 23 2011

    Shemp is a bad old cat. Shemp is also a friend. I don’t have many friends in this world. It’s sad when a grown man has to cite a cat as a friend, but this is a sad sentiment for a sad day. Shemp has cancer. We got Shemp a lifetime ago. I lived in […]

  • Like a Twit…

    Mar 26 2011

    “Sucker Punch = godawful. It was like my eyes got taken out back and forced to watch my brain get shot in its face.” I wrote this on my Twitter. It’s the Twitter equivalent of criticism which, in its own way, can never be anything other than a sucker punch. People worked long and hard […]

  • A Return To Monsterville

    Mar 26 2011

    It’s been far too long, and Monsterville has fallen into disuse. That will end now. It’s time to unlock the gate, dust off the cobwebs, and turn the juice back on. I don’t know if Monsterville is a trip or the final destination, but it’s time for me to figure it out.

  • Bravo, Green Hornet!

    Jan 15 2011

    Green Hornet was a largely unremarkable film. I knew that coming in, more or less. Seth Rogan is no great American actor. He’s not even very good. He has his one character, and I guess he plays it dutifully, the sort-of slacker guy who’s kind of smarmy and who, if you ever met him in […]

  • Thanks…

    Nov 24 2010

    Today, I’m thankful for the little things. The triangular lights approaching; the train to take me home. Health, and the small island of it I cling to. It won’t be around forever, but for now I’m holding the high ground. The music I hear in my head and in my heart. It’s got a good […]

  • Buried, Maybe Alive…

    Sep 25 2010

    I don’t want this to become a movie blog. I go to the movies a lot and, unfortunately, it’s the safest thing I can write about. Monsterville is a strange and weird place, but I’m not sure how much I should be sharing. Out in the real world, I am horribly secretive, and although it’s […]

  • Go Ask Alice …

    Sep 12 2010

    I went to see Resident Evil today, fully expecting at least a trainwreck and came away satisfied. They piled extra trains for this one, loaded them all up onto one track and then made a good show of running them, full speed, at one another. The film is a series of endless nonsensical moments punctuated […]

  • ROOMBA WILL DESTROY YOU!

    Aug 19 2010

    Haha! Silly Roomba. I own a Roomba, which makes me now officially too lazy to plug in a vacuum cleaner and make halfhearted pushing motions. Roomba is a vacuum. Or it would be a vacuum if it produced any suction, which it most certainly does not. Do not presume to know the mind of Roomba. […]

  • Join me in LA

    Aug 14 2010

    All right, so clearly this daily blogging thing needs some work. I’m in Los Angeles. Again. The last time I was here was for the video game show E3, and I ended up in a bathroom, unbelievably tired and strung out, listening to a grown man snore while I contemplated my latest (and greatest) spiritual […]

  • Salt, With Popcorn

    Jul 25 2010

    I’m going to have to come right out and spoil Salt for everyone. I can do this because I honestly believe no one, including me, reads this blog. I can also do this because I am attempting to become a better human being, and by ruining this movie for everyone, I am performing a valuable […]

  • My Mansion, My Miracle

    Jul 8 2010

    It had been my earnest intention to hold the news until both Fox and the Cartoon Network aired the four-hour documentary on the life of times of me, Greg Orlando, but this certainly cannot wait. Rather like the news that Lindsay Lohan did something, somewhere, news of this magnitude cannot be allowed to simmer, to […]

  • I am a big jerk, and my name is this guy…

    Jun 26 2010

    Allow me to paint you, dear reader, a picture. My friends and I are attending a baseball game. We have good seats, but they’re on an aisle, which means there’s a lot of traffic up and down. The game, which was already pretty good has, as they say, hotted up. The Giants have their ace […]

  • Model Citizen

    Jun 24 2010

    In which I reveal that I have, in fact, been a model…

  • A Garden of Delights…

    Jun 18 2010

    Wednesday. It’s either very late or very early, and the angels are awake. The snoring pierces the bathroom walls. Previously, I had tried to block it out with headphones and music, but it was unceasing, undeterred. It is the kind of jackhammer operatic you can’t escape. Not with ears you can’t. I am too tired […]

  • Monsters of Chicken (AND Waffles)

    Jun 14 2010

    How could I measure up to anyone now after such a love as this? Roscoe’s won my heart tonight.

  • That’s Not A Real Movie…

    Jun 4 2010

    Understand I have nothing against the people who made, say, Soul Plane. I am sure they are all of them fine, upstanding folk. I just don’t believe Soul Plane is, in fact, a real movie. It’s astounding how many times I’ll be sitting in some movie theater somewhere, accosted by previews for films that simply […]

  • Days in Monsterville…

    Jun 1 2010

    In which I introduce Days in Monsterville.