Burned out and Frustrated..

Some of the more jackassy among you will be overwhelmed with joy over this tidbit of news. As I was leaving for work this morning my sister called me on my cell phone and informed me that we can’t go to Zombie-O-Rama IV on Friday, which was the one little bright flicker of light left for me in regard to going to an actual horror event. The reason is because my sister broke her glasses and without them she can’t see to drive at night. Of course, none of the other people in our household will jump up and help us. That is a certainty. So once again I’m screwed over. In past years it wouldn’t matter that much to me, but this year it’s to the point I was ready to cry and put my fist through a wall. I’m so frustrated. I’m so fucking burned out with all this fucking bullshit I've been put through this year. If it isn’t fucking convention organizers fucking me over and excluding me from everything…it’s just the fucking attitude I get from you people in the horror community. It’s like, Oh, what the fuck are you so angry about…who the fuck are you. Then when I answer them and defend myself I get called an ego case and a trouble maker. The hypocritical thing is the people who make these accusations are royal fucking ego cases themselves. Then I try to do something positive. I try to open up opportunities and what do I get…nothing…no support…silence. What’s royally fucked up about that is I bust my ass to support and help other people in this community. If someone I know (Hell, in some cases people I hardly know) is doing something, and could use some help promoting, I’m right there no questions asked and no hesitation. Do you see that with many other people around here? Do you see that from the people who have fucked me over this year??? The answer is hell no! Yet, that bitch that screwed me over this year gets nothing but support and I get fucking blackballed from the convention scene and treated like dirt. What the fuck is that? A person asked me on Facebook why I don’t post pictures of me smiling….Give me something to smile about. The thing is, people, I’ve lost my faith in you. I wanted to believe that someone might show an ounce of humanity…but I’m still waiting. And, since you are all too dense to understand what I’m saying, this is a scream of pain. This is a cry for help…And, guess what? I know the answer already…Nothing…Silence…or Criticism. Have a good laugh…

900

We have reached and surpassed the 900 mark. This royally means I'm either feeling the love or the hate in spades. I never thought I'd get this far in so short a time. Congratulations readers. I hope those of you with open minds can understand my idea of inclusion rather than exclusion. The horror community needs a little horror unity rather than the bullshit, immature high school style class system the socials like to impose on the rest of us. As I've said socials are not elite and they have no right playing bosses. The true elite in horror in my opinion are the people who have watched so many horror films that they have an appreciation of every decade of horror, from its silent beginnings to the modern remakes and found footage films of today....
So, onto 1,000 and beyond...

Adventures in Bus Riding…

My friend Lucas Malone tells me that my life is like an epic novel. Yeah, a totally fucked up novel written by Terry Gilliam. A good example of why I make this statement is what happened on the bus ride home this afternoon. I had to take a side trip to a costume shop near my work named House of Humor (I had to get makeup for the zombie makeup jobs I’m doing next Friday so we can go to Zombie-O-Rama in San Jose)  so I didn’t catch my usual bus at the usual location. Instead I caught the notorious 390 bus. This bus is notorious to me because every time I catch this damned bus freakiness ensues. This time it was in spades. I got on the bus, which was pretty much full and I had to try to fit myself, my backpack, and my computer bag, aka my mobile office, into a very narrow seat next to Jabba the Hutt. I’m serious, people, this guy had to weight at least 500 pounds. He took up two entire seats on the sideway row of seats in the back that I tactfully call Skid Row. But that isn’t the freakiness I’m talking about. In the sideway handicap row in the front of the bus sat an old gentleman who literally looked like Caesar from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I’m not shitting you. This guy looked like a chimpanzee in a tan suit with a walking stick with a silver-looking handle. Anyway, ten minutes into the trip Monkeyman exploded into a rage and back handed the four foot tall Japanese lady sitting on the side row in front of him. A big, buff, Italian guy with a heavy black mustache and bald head got up to stop him. But Monkeyman (Yes, I am going to continue to call him that…If that’s not too much of a problem, Chief…) swung his walking stick at the guy and glared him down. He then told this large man, who reminded me of Bane from The Dark Knight Risen, that he was a mental patient with dementia. He then introduced the Japanese lady he had slapped as his nurse. He warned Italian Bane guy that he was crazy and if he didn’t back the fuck off that he was going to beat his skull in with the walking stick because he wasn’t afraid of him and didn’t give a fuck if he killed somebody. The Japanese lady started yelling at him. Also, the bus driver yelled at him to back down and take his seat, which also caused the bus driver to nearly hit another vehicle because he was distracted by the conflict. Monkeyman continued to threaten Italian Bane. Amusingly enough Italian whimped out a bit and hit Monkeyman with the “I’ll call the cops” strategy. Monkeyman told him to try, because he’d knock the cell phone out his hand with his walking stick and beat the fuck out of him before he could get the call through. Then Monkeyman informed Italian Bane that he was a crazy fucking black man that hated all I quote, “… fuckin’ white honky motherfuckers, chinks, spiks, and anyone other motherfuck on this bus. So don’t fuck with me. I’ll kill you all!” Well, the bus driver, who was still driving even though he had passed two stops and could have stopped and dealt with this personally, ordered the Japanese lady to handle her charge (but not in those words). After a few more moments the tiny Japanese lady managed to get Monkeyman back into his seat. Italian Bane went back to his seat too, but Monkeyman wasn’t finished. He kept looking back at Italian Bane and calling him names and threatening him more. This went on until finally Italian Bane got tired of Monkeyman’s special attention and came back to Skid Row with me and my sweaty companion, Jabba. This didn’t stop Monkeyman, because he was on a roll. He found three other people to harass before I thankfully got to make my retreat when my stop came.

Now, here is my question in this situation…Where the fuck was the bus driver in all this. Why the fuck didn’t he stop the bus at the next stop and deal with this very volatile situation like the captain of any ship would. I would think that any bus driver worth his metal would have stopped the bus at the next stop, called his supervisor, and then the cops. Then he would have gotten in the middle of this standoff and disengaged the situation, reminding both parties that if they dared touch him or made any aggressive move against him it would five years in the pokie as some tattooed guy’s bitch (it says that on a poster next to the driver’s area…though not the part about being someone’s bitch..). The thing that gets me is this outcome didn’t happen. The bus driver just kept driving no matter what.

After I got off the bus I called SanTrans (our bus agency) and reported the situation to their customer service person. When I asked why the bus driver didn’t stop and take action she informed me that SanTrans had changed some of their policies in regard to bus schedules and she guessed the bus driver didn’t want to be late and get penalized. Suddenly, I found myself channeling my one mentor Mr. Harlan Ellison. I said to her I quote “ Excuse me. Are you saying that your bus driver was more worried about keeping to his bus schedule than a potentially life threatening situation happening on his bus?” She informed me that if a bus is late, according to their policy, by more than ten minutes driver is penalized thirty minutes pay. I said, “Are you shitting me. A bus driver has to stop to stop a fight on his bus and protect the safety of his passengers and you ftards are going to penalize him because his bus is off schedule because of this…Are you fucking shitting me?” Then of course customer service girl informed me that she didn’t appreciate my vulgar language. I informed her in no uncertain terms that I didn’t like the fact that SanTran is more worried about keeping their damned schedule and the safety of their drivers than they are the safety of their own passengers. I also reminded her that an assault had actually happened on the bus. Customer Service girl said, in a controlled voice, that she was well aware of that. I smacked back with “You just don’t give a flying fuck...tThat’s the problem.” Then I said that I honestly hoped that Italian Bane guy (though I didn’t call him that to her) has some balls and sues SanTran and fucking ends up owning them. Before customer service girl could make another statement or excuse I told her to go to fucking hell and hung up on her.

So there is my amusing tale of my public transit experience…What you think? Is Lucas right? I look forward to your comments, readers…

Fear

A friend of mine, Kathleen Wilhoite, recently did a show on her podcast Suck the Joy about her and her co-host Koare Bonell’s personal fears. I found this interesting and thought I’d put in my thoughts on this subject. Though I’m going to be coming from a more raw and less amusing way of expressing this I think it will still be interesting and thought provoking…

 Fear is a constant in life. The truth is that even the toughest marine is scared senseless when they go into battle. The difference is the way they handle it.

In my life I have constant fears that I deal with on a daily basis. Recently, one of those fears came true. My Uncle, Eric Von Falconer (Eric wasn’t actually a blood family member but he was as close as a family member), died. His death was very quick and unexpected. He had been forced to go to the doctor after a long period of not going because he was having radical weight loss. Within two weeks he was diagnosed with colon cancer and died from this condition. When he was diagnosed the cancer had traveled into his other organs. One of my major fears is that I could get some kind of cancer or illness and not know until it was too late to save me. The reason for this is because I don’t have medical insurance and simply can’t afford it. I live pretty much from paycheck to paycheck with nothing in reserve. It isn’t that I fear death. I’ve experienced and seen so much in life that I know we are more than biological machines and death is not like shutting off a mechanical device. Something of us goes on. I know some people don’t believe that, but I know that with every fiber of my being. My fear is that I end my life the same way he did painfully and without hope. I want to die peacefully. I know I will die alone, I’ve known that all my life. I guess that is one reason I’ve been so brave when I’ve ended up saving people (but I won't get into that here)…someone was with me (the person I was saving) so I believed I couldn’t die.

Another fear I have is a common one, and that is of becoming homeless and losing everything I have. This became an honest fear after my mother died. I kinda find it odd that it didn’t emerge when my father died. I think the difference was the fact that when my father died all his estate went to my mother so, life went on except my father was not there. After my mother died there was fighting and bad blood over the estate. Also, I went from an occupant to an actually land owner with all the obligations and burdens. Now, if we default on taxes or things get screwed up my sister and I could be thrown out on the streets. Except for the two years my family had to live in a rental house after our fire, I’ve lived in the same house all my life. I’ve set down roots. The idea of having no place to go scares the crap out of me. The worst part of it is I know that is a very real possibility sometime in the future. My sister and I barely keep the house going as it is. If something happened to my sister I’d be screwed. Though my sister often accuses me not realizing this, it goes through my mind on a daily basis.

Associated with this fear is my fear of being out of work and unable to find a job. As I’ve said, I live literally from paycheck to paycheck now. If I lose my current job I’m royally screwed. Oh, but you could look forward to unemployment, you say. Sorry, I’m an independent contractor. The company I work for hasn’t put a cent into unemployment. So, I lose my job and in no short order I don’t eat, I lose my phone, my internet disappears, and in a few months I’m homeless….fun. I’ve been trying to find a secondary part time job, but good luck with that given the state of things. Hell, we have newly graduated people with BA degrees working at Burger King. Good luck to a forty-eight year old, guy with arthritic knees and bone spears on his feet being much of a pick in the race for jobs. Add in the fact I’ve been the CEO of a company, that doesn’t make it any better. I have to shake my head…

Ok, with all the fun I've mentioned, here is my fear in regard to the horror genre. My fear is that after all the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve put in being Eric Morse the fickle fans of horror will forget me and my works will disappear. You asses out there have wondered why I get so angry when you call me a has been and fluff off my books as out of print, thus unimportant. This is all I have in regard to a legacy. I don’t have a wife or children and don’t expect to get any in the future…sorry ladies, but you’ve made it quite clear you don’t want me. The only lady I truly loved is lost to me… The only thing that I have that is any indication that I’ve even lived on this earth is the body of work I’ve created…My artwork, books, poetry, songs, scripts, films, and radio shows. But it seems that there are those out there that take sadistic pleasure in trying to push those things into insignificance and try to turn me into a ghost. So, you wonder why I turn into Sargent Slaughter when these ass wipes pull shit and say my work is nothing or I’m not good enough to be at their conventions and meet my fans, or even that my work isn’t significant enough to the modern horror genre to be worth of an article in their magazines or websites. I’m fighting for the only piece of immortality I will ever truly have. You fuck with that and I will be merciless and it will be bloody because I will not let that happen….ever.

So, when it comes to fears I have my share. I deal with them on a daily basis. In some cases I use them to gain strength or to motive myself. I don’t let my fears rule me or disable me.  Fear is part of life; it’s how you deal with it that makes you a winner or loser or even a survivor…That is your choice….

48 Candles…

Well, I’ve finally reached my forty-eighth year on this Earth.

I remember when I was young birthdays were a major event. We had the entire family come around and have a party on a birthday. The thing was my dad and I used to have our birthday party on the same day, since he was born on August 12^th and me on August 13^th. Those were wonderful days. We’d have a huge BBQ and cook burgers, hot dogs, and chicken. We’d have a big cake, because we used to have up to thirty people at our parties. My dad and I would blow out the candles together, though I think he had me to most of that work.

Then, we bought our cabin in Clear Lake and our parties got a bit smaller. We still had plenty of family, because my Aunt Skippy (I still don’t know her real name…I think it was Mavis) lived up there. Also we would invite our friends that lived in the cove our cabin was located in. 

But then in 1986 my dad died and the large parties we had ended. From that point on we simply had our present family. I had started working so I started buying my own birthday cake. I had a bakery that made awesome cakes, but they were very expensive. This was the time when I had my Star Trek cake, Freddy Krueger cake, and ET cake. We’d also still have a family BBQ but our numbers were reduced to five to six people, but it was still fun. Also, during this time I was going out with K and she always did something special for my birthday. I remember a special picnic in Central Park with KFC (It was Kentucky Fried Chicken then) and she made strawberry shortcakes…(tears). Then K lost me and my mom died. After that for a few years my birthday party ended up at Fresh Choice (I’m not complaining) and a Safeway rum cake after.

Then I started working at my document research job and I started buying my own sheet cakes again. Then document research projects died down and I started working as a concession assistant manager at Cinemark Theatres. It was at this time I had the worst birthday experience of my life…seriously. It was my forty-first birthday. Cory Stevens had complete work on the film adaption of my novel Friday the 13^th: Mother’s Day and I had decided to have a combination premiere party and birthday party. I invited all my friends from the San Mateo Courthouse and Cinemark Century Redwood City Theatre, around forty-five people to the party. I got thirty RSVPs. I ended up spending $400 on food, soda, beer, and a huge full sheet cake with the Mother’s Day poster art on it. On that birthday I got up at 6am and set things up and filled our huge formal dining room table with food, including, my special sweet and sour meatballs, chicken wings in BBQ sauce, a meat and cheese platter, veggie platter (I used to do catering for Togos), and mini sandwiches… I had all the chairs set up in our living room for the premiere and put out four big bowls of popcorn. Then I waited. One hour turned into two hours. Two hours turned into three hours. I started calling people but no one answered. My sister and my niece and two of her friends ended up watching the film. I was completely and utterly crushed. I went to work at Cinemark the next day and got nothing but lame and insulting excuses from all my supposed friends. Even my supposed best bud that I works with in our document research firm, BRASS, said he didn’t come because he and his wife didn’t want to spend the $4 in all to take the bus to and from the party (which they would catch in front of his house and would let them off one house away from my house…). I have to say I’ve never forgiven any of them and none of those assholes made it up to me….

After the birthday of knives, as I call it, I completely stopped having birthdays for three years. During those years, my birthday was not a pleasant day. All I did all day was feel sorry for myself and think about how people didn’t give a shit about me after I had done stuff for them all year. And, during that time none of my friends did anything to turn that around, not even say “Happy Birthday”. Nice. My sister would try to make me feel better by buying me a cake but I would ignore it until the day after. This, of course, lead to arguments that didn’t help the situation.

In 2010 my niece and sister finally pushed me into having a birthday party. I didn’t take part in the planning except to invite my new friend at the time Jordan “The Eye” Moller and his wife Michelle. My sister had put together a Tiki themed party (complete with Tiki torches) and we actually had it in our front yard. I had a wonderful time.

Last year money was really tight so we saw a movie had lunch at Togos and I bought myself a red velvet cake. This year my sister paid for us to go to an 80s style dance party and I’ll be getting a chocolate mouse cake for myself when I get paid…The biggest thing for me this birthday is that my Facebook, Google+, and even My Space friends are sending me birthday wishes in droves. At the time of this writing I stopped counting at 200. At least in this case they are showing some humanity…which means a lot…

600

Congratulations, readers. We have reached and surpassed the 600 reads mark. This means you love me...or hate me if you are one of those numbers of Socials who read my blog shake their heads in disgust and contact their other Social friends to tell them "the horrible things that Eric Morse person is saying..." Then of course their friends come on this blog to see if Eric Morse dared open his mouth, because after all they are the elite of horror and nobody says nasty things about them...Well, nobody except me, because I know their just a bunch of shallow, heartless, social climbers, who when it really comes down to it don't know shit about horror. They just grabbed onto horror because the other Socials...you know the real Socials we dealt with in school would look at them and laugh their asses off. As I've said, Socials are not elite...they are jokes. The true social elite in horror are those people who get together with their real honest and loyal horror friends and with anything horror, be it a silent horror film, Asian horror, remake, creature feature...or whatever. These people don't bow to Comic Book Divas, Women in Horror, Horror Drunks or whatever exclusionary group that is out there promoting an us and them agenda. Get this straight, we are horror fans. We should unite in our love of horror. The outside world looks at us as wrong, we shouldn't look at each other that way. We need to strive for Horror Unity...where every horror fan is accepted and included by their peers in horror...I know that is a pipe dream....Ok, enough of the speech. Once again thank you for reaching this goal, now on to 900 ...you know what? The next goal will be 1,000. Can you do it, people? Do the Socials hate me that much? Let's see...

A Night at Club Fox

 

I have to say I love going to live musical performances. It’s always an amusing experience even if the band happens to suck; that’s because the audience, especially those dancing, are part of the entertainment.

Tonight, the evening of August 11^th, my sister, Jeanette, and I went to my favorite night club in San Mateo, The Club Fox, which is next to The Fox Theatre in Redwood City. We went to an 80s style dance party featuring the excellent band Rebel Yell, which plays hits from twelve different bands and artists like ACDC, Journey, Heart, Madonna, and Michael Jackson. We went to this performance as my sister’s gift to me for my birthday.

Rebel Yell was fantastic. They featured both a male and female vocalist. The band captured the feeling and the style of the multiple bands whose songs they played.

The most amusing part of the evening was sitting at our table watching people dancing. Most of the dancers proved the old joke that white people can’t dance. Oh, my god it was amusing. There was at least four shemales in amongst the crowd. Crowds of gals were gyrating and dancing in circles. Guys were trying to look cool, but really looked comical. There was even the amazing spaz that seems to come every musical performance I attend ( I wonder if the club hires him). Also, among the crowd there were some amazing and frightening celebrity look-a-likes. I saw a Japanese guy who bore an amusing resemblance to Laurence Harvey. There was a guy with orange dyed hair that looked uncomfortably like The Dark Knight Arisen killer. There was an Elissa Dowling look-a-like who was dancing with a older gray haired gentleman, unfortunate for him. Also, there was an uncomfortably close looking Reyna “Miss Misery” Young look-alike hanging and dancing with a very tall shemale in a lovely blue dress. I knew it definitely wasn’t Miss Misery because I know for a fact she would be doing her cheap little public access horror, or is it horrible, show at Chabot College….No, her majesty, the so called Queen of Horror (can I vomit now?), wouldn’t be caught dead at such a goshe` club as Club Fox. Oh, and there was also a very frightening Miss Love Chunks ( for those unaware that would be Michelle Shields) in attendance as well. I have to say that chunky girls with big asses shouldn’t wear leather pants. But, the most frightening look-a-like of the evening was the freaky and manic female who just happened to look like a blond version of my ex-pinup girl Angela Cottrill. One thing I have to say is she doesn’t look that attractive with blond hair and black eyebrows…Sorry Angela… This person whom I ended up finding out was named Angelique (it had to be the name of the witch from Dark Shadows…I’m so lucky) somehow thought I was giving her the eye, so she came over,  grabbed me up against my will, and made me dance with her. I looked back at my sister as she dragged me onto the dance floor with a look of terror on my face, but my sister just waved me on…thanks sis. So, for the next half hour I had to dance with this nut case. I’m serious, think Glen Close in Fatal Attraction nutty. I was lucky I didn’t dislocate my bad knee since she wouldn’t let me stop. I managed to get away from her, but not before she licked my ear (YUK!) and asked me for my phone number. I gave her my buddy Phil’s number and while she was writing it down (yes she actually had a pen and piece of paper in the leather jacket she was wearing) I made my escape. I grabbed up my my sister, who was amused as hell and took a hike.

So, that is the story of my evening at Club Fox. I have to say even with the amusing ending I had a fun evening…sort of…