Author: elvisgumby

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Halloween Scary Stories

Why Slim Pickens Scares Me

The horror film The Howling is considered one of the better horror films of the 1980’s.  When it first came out, I went to see it on the first weekend it was showing.  My wife and I weren’t married yet and we went to see this on a date.  Just outside of the theater while we were waiting to get in, we saw some friends who had just watched it.  They didn’t like it and warned us that it was bad.  They had walked out early on the film. I didn’t trust our friends taste in horror movies. This was the same person that didn’t like Night of the Living Dead. Either way, I enjoy watching bad movies too, so their warning didn’t discourage us.  We were convinced that we would have a fun time that night.

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Halloween Scary Stories

Why Olivia de Havilland Scares Me

In 1964, Olivia de Havilland made a movie called Lady in a Cage.  It’s considered a “psychological thriller”.  Her character has a broken hip and in order to get up and down the stairs in her mansion, she has a small elevator installed.  While she is home alone, the power goes out at the house, trapping her between floors on the elevator.  Ringing the alarm on the elevator only attracts the attention of teenage hoodlums who come into her house to rob it and terrorize her.  This film features James Caan in his first credited role.  It also features some gruesome scenes of violence that were controversial for 1964. 

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Halloween Scary Stories

Why Joe Spinell Scares Me

In the early 1980’s there were horror films being released nearly every week.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, my college friends and I went to see almost all these films.  We even formed a loosely defined group who regularly went together to see these films.  This group was called the Bad Cinema Club.  The name of the group doesn’t always reflect the quality of the films we were seeing.  We were mainly dedicated to watching horror films and enough of them we were seeing were bad enough for us to take on this name.  One of the films that turned out to be not so bad was called Maniac.  

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Halloween Scary Stories

Why Night of the Living Dead Scares Me

Night of the Living Dead is one of my favorite horror movies.  I have watched it at times with audiences that laughed all the way through it.  Other times, the audiences have been more likely to scream.  One of the most memorable times watching was when I was in high school and my friend Ricky invited me and several friends over for movie night.  

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True Stories

Music Club Profiling

Most of my followers are old enough to remember the old Columbia House and BMG music clubs.  They had deals where they would sell you 8 to10 albums for a penny if you would agree to buy a certain number later.  They started with albums but over the years, their selections included 8-Track tapes, cassette tapes and CDs.  The number of records in the deal also varied over time.  Ultimately, you ended up paying about the normal price for each record. The nice thing about the clubs were that you could start getting a lot of music for practically nothing.  The drawback was buying the other music to fulfill your obligation to the club, paying more for those albums that you would normally pay at the store.  The other hassle was the “selection of the month” that they would automatically send you unless you declined to inform them with a card you returned.  Many deadlines were missed, and albums shipped that people didn’t want.  The other hassle was trying to return albums you didn’t want.  

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Kids

Evolution of Parenting Skills

I am the father of three kids. They are all adults now. As is probably the case with most parents, our parenting style and skills evolved with more kids added to the family.  We tried to be as much by the book as possible with our first child.  By the third child, we loosened up so much, she was probably raising herself.  When my kids were little, one day my son, the middle child, asked why his little sister was so wild.  I told him it was because he and his big sister were not raising her right.

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Kids

God Bless Godzilla

I enjoy watching movies. I have passed this love of films on to my children.  I have what is probably best described as eclectic taste in movies and I think my children have this as well. My wife called me at work one day when my oldest daughter was about 4 years old.  While we were on the phone, my daughter asked to talk to me. She said, “Daddy, do you know what I want to do tonight? I want to watch The Hideous Sun Demon.”  I’m sure we watched it that night.

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Kids

Watch Your Language

One day when my kids were much younger, my youngest daughter, Mary was arguing with her brother, James, in our kitchen.  I don’t remember how old she was but if she was school age, she hadn’t been in school very long. She got mad enough to tell him, “James, you’re an asshole!”  My wife was in the kitchen with them and asked Mary, “What did you say?” Mary replied, “I called him an asshole!”  My wife told her, “you aren’t supposed to say that.”  Her response was “Oh!”  Like she had never considered calling him anything else.  There has been much finger-pointing and speculation about where she heard this language.

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Elvis Week Graceland

Sweet Souls at Elvis Week 2019

Shortly after we arrived at Graceland, I saw a lady talking to three Elvis Tribute Artists. She caught my eye because of the picture of Elvis on the back of her dress ran from the shoulders down to the bottom of the otherwise black, floor length dress.  While getting my picture with her I found out that she was from Shreveport, Louisiana.  She said this was her 19th straight Candlelight Vigil because she started coming in 2000.  A quick check of her math says that this was actually her 20th trip but I didn’t argue.  She that during one of the trips, she traveled in a black limousine with an ETA (Elvis Tribute Artist).  She said they had two blowouts on the interstate.  Her husband, who was taking our picture, said “And you know a limo only has ONE spare.”  As the lady continued telling her story, I noticed a slight lisp that I couldn’t help noticing when she said, “We were stranded on the side of the road until some sweet soul in an SUV stopped and saved us.” Go back and read that last line out loud with a lisp.  

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Restaurants

Chicken Sandwich Wars – Phenomenon and Food Review

In the last month, Popeyes Chicken has introduced a new chicken sandwich.  The sandwich is so similar to a Chick-fil-A sandwich that Chick-fil-A started a small feud on Twitter.  That Twitter war got enough attention that people are flocking to Popeyes for these sandwiches in numbers large enough to create lines around their stores similar to what Chick-fil-A sees every day.  Popeyes is also selling out of their sandwiches. I decided to visit my favorite Popeyes to try the new sandwich to see how it compares to Chick-fil-A.  I also wanted to experience the cultural phenomenon of being at a store riding a wave of success.

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