a few things on a Saturday

Best photo ever.

Are YOU joining the Final Girl Film Club this Monday by watching The Devil's Daughter starring Shelley Winters? I certainly hope so.

There's a new Final Girl forum type-thing in town, except it isn't a forum, it's a group. It's a Facebook group. Are you on Facebook? You should be. It's much less glittery and musical than MySpace, and you can play Scrabble. So, if you're on Facebook, join the group! If you're not on Facebook, join Facebook and then join the group! The old FG forum has gone ka-blooie because, as we all know, I'm a big fat lame. But this will be better. Come on, everyone's doing it! You DO want to be popular, don't you?* JOIN USSSSSSS.

Well, that's it. I guess it was a very few things. Oh wait, there's this:





*popularity not guaranteed

awesome movie poster friday- the HAL HOLBROOK edition!

You've seen some of these before, but certainly they bear repeating...I mean, that blue-faced woman in the poster for The Fog will never get old. It took me about 5 reads to get the Girls Nite Out tagline; either it's really awkward, or I'm really slow. I'd like to blame it on the movie, since I kind of hated it.

watcher in the woods

Ahh, another day, another cheap-ass 50-pack of B-movies is cracked open. I've mooned over these multi-packs and my propensity to scarf them up before; while it's an undeniable fact that the majority of the movies included in said packs really blow, my undaunting optimism means that every once in a while I'll score a hit- or at least something that's so bad I manage to eke out an enjoyable review.

This newest purchase is "Drive-In Movie Classics" and I'm super psyched about digging into these 50 films. My "these movies simply have to be awesome!" meter is in the red, kids. Really, how is Mama Dracula starring Louise Fletcher not going to be the best movie ever? Or Rattlers? Or Black Hooker (what is that about, I wonder)? Or Jive Turkey?

Dude, I own movies called Jive Turkey and Mama Dracula. I feel like the prettiest girl in the world!

But! Mama Drac's time will come...for today, I'm here to talk about The Creeper (1977, aka Rituals), a Canadian riff on John Boorman's Deliverance that is thisclose to being super duper.


A bunch of cranky, almost-middle-aged doctors head off into the Canadian wilderness for a bit of fishing, R&R, and male bonding over the bonfire. Someone busts out an inflatable doll at one point, and I'm not sure if it was supposed to be funny or a prelude to...shenanigans; either way, the doll is forgotten before anything happens. Regardless, the men are indeed in the middle of nowhere, miles from somewhere, and the seaplane that dropped them off won't be returning for a week. No matter! The men are happy to galavant around the woods in their matching yellow terrycloth fishing hats.

It takes no time for this idyllic getaway to get all screwed up, however; when the fellas wake up on the second day, they find that all of their boots are missing. Who the hell steals boots from campsites in the middle of Nowhere, Canada and why? One of the Dr. Campers opines that the boots were taken to...uh, I guess resell on the black market ("They're $40 a pair!") or perhaps they've all fallen victim to a "boot freak". I fell victim to a "Dr Scholl's wooden sandals freak" once in 1982, and that was unpleasant enough; I was totally relating to these guys at this point.

Fortunately, DJ (Gary Reineke) had the foresight to bring along an extra pair of shoes. While every one else stands around, he heads off to find a hydroelectric dam he spotted on the map. The thinking is, dam = people = rescue from walking barefoot in the woods. The next day, the remaining doctors find another morning surprise when they emerge from their tents: some rascal has strung up a freshly-killed deer and...err, put some snakes on it.

Everyone decides that things are getting a bit too hinky and, shoes or no shoes, they're gonna head after DJ to find Yon Dam. Unfortunately for the docs, they ain't seen hinky yet! Before they can trudge too far in their spiffy new moccasins made out of bags (moccabags? baggasins?), somebody throws bees at them! As the bees go nuts, everyone flails around and heads into the water- sadly, it seems that poor Abel (Ken James) headed in head first and...err, hit his head and...drowned. Or something. Regardless, he's dead. As the three remaining men try to figure out what to do, one of them utters the words that I so want engraved on my headstone (with a gender change, natch):

He was such a boob...such a gentle boob.

Wouldn't we all like to be remembered as gentle boobs? Yes, I think we would.

Soon they find DJ's rope strung up across the river. Hooray, they're on the right track! As they cross the river, though, that pesky creeper proves he's always one step ahead: there are bear traps under the water, and poor unlucky Martin (Robin Gammell) steps on one. Harry (Hal Holbrook) and Mitzi (Lawrence Dane) (yes, "Mitzi") are then saddled with the sucky task of hauling Martin around with them- as if hiking through the Canadian wilderness wearing baggasins and enduring the creeper's antics weren't enough to deal with!

Once AGAIN, the boys wake up to a surprise; the creeper has also started leaving behind clues, like Army x-rays from 1945. Wait...x-rays? Doctors? Could they be related? Stay tuned and find out!


He hasn't just left medical documents, though, oh no. The creeper is getting really...uh, creepy! In the night, he planted Nathan Lane with a horrible toupee Abel's head on a stick next to their campsite. Eww.

Hal Holbrook disposes of it in a delightful manner, however; seriously, there's no end to the glee I feel when someone chucks- and chucks hard- a macabre head-lollipop over a cliff. NO END I SAY.







Unfortunately, I don't think I was supposed to be feeling glee at this point...but come on. It's even better in the screen cap, because Abel now looks like a mulleted Michael Myers.

Anyway, what's left of the gang finally makes it to the dam, only to find it abandoned and decaying. Bummer! Then they find DJ tied to a chair, barely alive! Another bummer! Then Hal Holbrook gets his mercy kill on and takes care of DJ! This totally grosses out Mitzi, who decides to splitzi! Then Hal Holbrook decides to leave Martin behind since he can't carry him alone! Bummer to the tenth, y'all!

I used all those exclamation marks to add some excitement and pizazz.

Eventually, Hal Holbrook finds a cabin in the woods that looks straight outta Wrong Turn; this cabin belongs to both The Man With the World's Biggest Beard No Really It Was Fucking Huge and his brother The Creeper Or As I Like To Call Him, Good Ol' Winky McGee!


So, those x-rays and stuff? Well, Beardo says that his brother "ain't been the same since the war"- whether that means his unfortunate face is due to Army doctors or enemy fire or what, well, that's up to us to decide. Stuff happens and Hal Holbrook ends up sitting in the road as the sun rises, waiting for a car to come along, I suppose. This shot was also used on the cover of Hal's 1978 album of lite rock, "On the Road to Soft Gold".


Sadly, it only sold 956 copies. This was a blessing in disguise, for after his musical failure Hal continued to act; as we all know he went on to star in two of my favorite horror movies, Creepshow and The Fog.

Judging from other reviews, The Creeper is held in somewhat high regard amongst horror fans. I'd like to join that club, but ultimately I can't. It had a lot of the right elements but they never quite came together for me into something awesome or scary. For a superior stalker-in-the-woods flick, check out Deliverance or Wilderness. Eh, my expectations weren't too high so I wasn't too disappointed- at least it was never terrible. 49 movies to go!

To sum it up:

THE GOOD

- The scenery was great and really added to the atmosphere. As the group fell farther and farther into despair, the setting subtly changed from lush forests to desolate, rocky cliffs, which is all, like, metaphorical and shit.
- It was nice to see a group of adults featured on screen instead of the stereotypical teens. There was a lot of talking and several of the characters were very well-drawn. Kudos for having a gay character who wasn't a joke and none of his buddies thought it was, you know, weird.
- Kookadook stalkers in the woods are pretty much always welcome no matter what.
- Again, chucking a head-lollipop over a cliff will never, ever get old. Ever. My only wish is that it had exploded upon impact.

THE BAD

- The film was way too dark in parts, making it impossible to see what was going on.
- Good Ol' Winky McGee was interesting, but his story wasn't realized completely.
- It didn't feel as tense to me as it should have.

THE UGLY

- The instances when Hal Holbrook resembled some weird love child of Michael Stipe and Bill Murray *shudder*

The Wednesday BFF

Holy friggin' frig, I've been gone so long...so long, I don't even know where to start. Where have I been? Take your pick- one or more of these might even be true!

1) I was stuck in a fugue of blog ennui
2) I was stuck in front of my Xbox 360 playing Grand Theft Auto IV
3) I was stuck working, working, working
4) I was stuck where the sun don't shine
5) I was stuck on you, and you didn't even notice
6) I was stuck in between my glass shower doors after I slipped and fell getting out of the tub, just like that morbidly obese woman I saw once on Sally Jessy Raphael. I was on the phone with my friend Brandi and we were both watching it and after recounting her tale of getting stuck in between the doors, the woman said "I could have died", which is really kind of preposterous if you think about it.

So, one or more of those. Yes, I have neglected FG for far too long, but let's not dwell on that. Let's live in the NOW, which is all fresh and exciting!


Umm, okay. You know what, Charles Nelson Reilly? That really doesn't help matters. I've acknowledged my lameness and I'm moving on. We're all moving on, and I think you should, too. Existing in the now and all that. Thus, let's get on with it! This is gonna be a big one, so look out!

*that's what she said*

ITEM! It's Wednesday. You know what that means by now, right? It's AMC day! Head over to read all about horror movie moms. Because last Sunday was Mother's Day, and I'm all ten kinds of timely and shit.

ITEM! Look what I made! See? I was busy while I was away. I got another commission and I made it a reality. Go, Cthulhu, go! RARR!

As always, check out my MySpace gallery to see what's available, or get in touch with me to request your own Very Special Painting. These are 12" x 12". These are $100, including shipping. These are fun to do.

ITEM! Thanks to a terribly kind and enterprising reader (and owner of an awesome horror website), I have finally seen [REC].

Hotchie motchie, I fucking loved it. LOVED IT I SAY. The word "ride" is used to describe an awful lot of films on posters and whatnot- "an action-packed thrill ride" or some such shit, but it's incredibly rare when the word actually applies. I think it absolutely applies here- once the action kicked in, [REC] didn't let up. Only when it was over did I realize I'd been holding my breath; seriously, the last...oh, ten minutes or so had me curled up, clutching a pillow, and not breathing. It was fucking awesome. It's not a film that I want to pick apart, to analyze and review- it was more of an experience I want to savor. Horror movies can be so damn unscary, that when one comes along that scares the bejesus out of me (and this one did- I actually had a nightmare about it. I don't have nightmares! I woke up and I was all freaked out and I didn't want to open my eyes and I couldn't go back to sleep), I want to hug it and treasure it and cram the DVD down my pants. I will say, however, that it's one of the very best (if not THE best) "found footage" films I've seen. The sound design was amazing. It was so fucking intense!

I'm not sure whether or not I'll bother with the forthcoming remake, although I am terribly curious to see what's done with it.

Is it bad that I wanted to type "I am terribly curious to see how much Hollywood fucks it up"? Yes, that's bad. Don't be a hater, Stacie!

THE BIGGEST ITEM OF ALL!

NO, REALLY!

Okay, so listen to this. I review movies and blog a bit for a website called After Ellen (yes, I blog for other sites, as you know. Seriously, I need to have an outlet for my love of America's Next Top Model and I doubt you people want to read about it here...unless Leatherface is a guest judge or something). Well, After Ellen and Logo recently sponsored a contest calling for a new webseries to premiere on both sites, the only rules for which were basically 1) it must be rated PG and 2) there must be some lesbian content. Thought I, "I will enter this contest!" and I did. Knowing me as you do, surely you figure that my series would be horror related, yes? Yes!

WHO LOVES LESBIANS AND HORROR MOVIES AND ANY COMBINATION THEREOF?

The whole entire world, that's who!

See? Everybody!

So, I created a webseries, made 3 episodes of said webseries, entered the contest, and was crowned RUNNER UP in said contest. I'm super pleased, as I figured I didn't stand a chance in hell because...well, horror can be a bit of a tough sell to some crowds, never mind crappy horror films. As my prize, I get to...uh, make ten more episodes, which will be shown on After Ellen and Logo Online.

EPISODES OF WHAT?

Episodes of Ghostella's Haunted Tomb, that's what! Here's the deal: Ghostella is a bargain basement Elvira-wannabe who hosts awful B- and Z-grade lesbian horror movies from her garage. Each episode, clocking in at under 20 minutes, will feature a complete B- or Z-grade lesbian horror movie (written and directed by moi) as well as Ghostella's antics. That's kind of an awesome idea, right?

Ghostella tries her best

The series launches today! There's a little interview with me talking about the series right here, which includes a link to the first episode. Ghostella presents Taste of Flesh, Taste of Fear, a true schlockfest of lesbian vampire erotica all the way from 1968.

Lesbian vampires! Who knew?

Episodes will run every Wednesday, which means I have a lot more short horror films to make. HOORAY! I'll let be sure to post here whenever a new episode is up. Ghostella rules!

the wednesday dee cee cab

There are at least seven disturbing things in the photo above- see if you can find them all!

Well, another Wednesday means another AMC column. That being the case, oh won't you head over there to read my treatise on killer cars? Writing it made me think about the fact that I haven't reviewed any killer car movies here and I totally should. The Car is being released this week on DVD; no time like the prezzie, I always say.

No, I don't talk about Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! in the column, so yes, the above picture really has nothing to do with anything beyond the fact that I'm getting the itch to watch it again, stat. I swear, that movie is like water or crack: if I don't have some with frequent regularity, I will simply DIE.

Why, oh why have they gone and cast Tom Atkins in the remake of My Bloody Valentine? Between the Atkinsosity and the 3-Dness, it's getting so I want to see the film. Excuse me, but I am a blogger. I write on The Internet. As such, it is my duty to remain negative, to bash films sight unseen and to take no joy whatsoever from this hobby of mine. I'm not supposed to look forward to movies, or to say "Hey, that sounds swell. Yes, I will go see it upon the time it opens at my local multiplex! I will make a true experience of it by also purchasing a snack, although I will shun the "better value" extra-extra-large soda. Perhaps it is true that getting 9843256 more ounces for 0.19 additional cents is a great value, but if I partake of that much soda then surely I'll need to use the bathroom frequently during the movie, and I'm so looking forward to it that I don't want to miss even a second! My Twizzlers, however, I purchase in advance at a local candyorium, saving myself upwards of $76 by making the extra effort and not buying directly from the theatre. You know, I should really read the ingredients on the back of the Twizzlers package- I wonder if they contain gelatin? As a vegetarian, gelatin is a no-no and BOY do they sneak it in to the most unassuming places! I have to freshen my breath with mints that are not Altoids; at Halloween I ate some Starburst only to find out that they contain animal parts- the same is true for the Rice Krispie Treats a friend brought to my party last week. Well, they weren't "Rice Krispie Treats", they were Ralph's brand "Marshmallow Munchies", but, you know...same difference. Isn't it interesting when a product brand name becomes the name of the product itself? Like Kleenex or Xerox. Someone might say, "Excuse me, can I Xerox this paper?" when there's no Xerox machine involved, or perhaps "Say, would you be so kind as to hand me a Kleenex?" rather than using the word "tissue". Isn't it interesting? ISN'T IT?"

Umm.

Apparently there are several clips from The Strangers floating around Yon Internet, but I'm avoiding them completely. I want to go into that one completely blind beyond the trailer I've seen. I'm not reading articles, I'm not checking out stills- the movie is dead to me until it hits theatres at the end of this month! I like things better that way.

The one I might have saved

Not so long ago, good ol' Arbogast wrote a little something titled "The one you might have saved", chronicling the hows and why fors as to which character from a horror film he, uh, would have saved given the chance. It's a great idea for a post; surely we've all been moved, from time to time, by a character's death, no? Not everyone who gets killed is a vapid nameless teen or that despicable jerk who really gets what's coming to him and we all cheer when he heads off to meet his maker (I'm looking at you, Paul Reiser in Aliens, you spineless coward jerk, you). Sometimes instead of "Yay! I can't stand Paul Reiser!" we yell out "No! Not him! Not her!" and we actually grieve a little bit for a fictional character who bites the big one.

After reading Arbogast's post, I began to ask myself "Gee, I wonder who I'd sa--", but I didn't even need to complete the thought before I knew my answer, before I realized who'd be the one I'd gladly help survive and get to safety if I could: poor old Barbra from George Romero's Night of the Living Dead.

Let me say right upfront: I adore this film. It's in my Top Ten or whatever number would actually make up the list of my all-time favorite horror movies. I think it's an absolute masterpiece of genre filmmaking, and in my opinion it's on the short list of Romero's best (the others being Dawn of the Dead and Creepshow, although my soft spot for Creepshow is so soft that I have no idea whether or not it's actually a good movie, you know?). Night of the Living Dead is all shock and far gorier than you remember it being; it's all exquisite lighting and camera angles; it's all horror with a bit of rotting meat on its bones, terrifying in its simplicity. Somehow, this film is one of the very few that I can always manage to watch with the mindset of the era in which it was made, and perhaps that's why it's one of my favorites, why it never fails to work for me, why I still get scared.

I always feel the tension ratchet up a notch when Johnny ghoulishly intones the immortal line "They're coming to get you, Barbra..." Zombies slowly shuffling through a remote cemetery in the Pennsylvania countryside still gets under my skin (side note: if there's one thing needed in the damn glut of zombie films being churned out every day, it's some fucking CEMETERIES). I can't stop hoping against hope that Tom and Judy will get the gasoline in the truck and get out, that they'll come back with help and rescue everyone trapped in the farmhouse. To this day, few scenes disturb me as much as the one in the basement when Karen attacks her mother with a garden trowel.

There, in the middle of the undead maelstrom is Barbra (Judith O'Dea), someone most viewers can't stand. After all, she does spend a good portion of the film either catatonic or like this:

No one wants to watch the one who can't cope with the horrifying situation, the one who can't simply snap out of it and kick ass, the one who can't comprehend what's happening and who won't do a thing about it...the one who, in all honesty, is the most like us. Sure, we all want to think we'd be like Ben, formulating plans, setting zombies on fire and punching out honky jerks- or, we'd like to be Barbra 2.0 (from Tom Savini's 1990 NotLD remake), totin' shotguns, kicking ass, and shooting honky jerks in the forehead. Though we'd like to think it's not true, however, somewhere deep inside we all know that chances are we'd be more like Barbra '68 and we hate that. That fear of weakness, of ultimately being useless when we're needed most or of finally getting with the program when it's too late translates not to empathy for the character, but rather to hatred for the character.

Not for me, though- she's the one I'd save.

Barbra's a good girl, dutifully making the long trek out to her father's grave to place a wreath every year without protest. She's a good girl who goes to church, who's always been easily spooked by her brother's teasing. It's no wonder Barbra flips out when she's suddenly- I mean very fucking suddenly- thrust into a situation beyond comprehension. In the span of, oh, an hour or so, she's attacked in the cemetery, she watches her brother get murdered, she's chased through the middle of nowhere, she finds a gooey corpse in a farmhouse, and eventually ends up holed away in said farmhouse as flesh-eating corpses try to break down the doors and get inside. Yeah, I think my wires would short-circuit, too- and I'm not exactly a good girl raised in the 1950s and/or easily spooked.

Eventually Barbra does lend a hand as the survivors try to defend themselves against the growing zombie horde's final siege. She grabs a board but it's too late, for by that point Night of the Living Dead has progressed into FUBAR-land, as all good zombie movies must. You know that point, when the plucky band of survivors finds out how very wrong they were to think that they had everything under control. Someone fucks up, a window breaks, a zombie gets into the fortress, and it's all over.

As we all know, Barbra meets her end thanks to her brother Johnny who's come back from the dead, driving gloves and all. Somehow he's found her, and my heart breaks every time he pulls Barbra out through the window to be devoured by the living dead, as the hands descend upon her and her screams and protests die away. Seriously, folks, Barbra meets a bad end. Granted, pretty much everyone in the film does- but Barbra's the first victim of the type we've come to expect in zombie movies: the person torn asunder while still alive. Generally this fate is reserved for the characters we kind of want to see die (like that nutter Captain Rhodes in Romero's Day of the Dead), not the ones we've been with from the beginning, not the good girl who's supposed to be the protagonist. It's just not fair, dammit. Still, when I watch Night of the Living Dead, I hope Barbra will elude Johnny's grasp, that her really fucked up day will go on a bit longer and she'll make it out of that farmhouse alive. I'd help her if I could.



At last weekend's Fangoria convention, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Judith O'Dea and spending some time talking with her about Barbra, about independent filmmaking, about certain shots in NotLD, about a whole bunch of stuff. One of O'Dea's favorite shots in the film, incidentally, is this one:


I hate to say it, but I'd never really noticed the nice detail of the bullet-riddled cemetery sign before. I mentioned to her my intention of writing this post and why, how Barbra's always been one of my favorite characters, how it seems impossible that this film is 40 years old. O'Dea is someone I'd always wanted to meet, and hers was the only autograph I cared to get last weekend. Hopefully, if they DO get me, too, someone will write a post about how they would have saved me if they could.

Yeah, Night of the Living Dead is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and on May 20th a special edition DVD will be released. I can't wait to get my mitts on it; I've got a shitty copy of the film already- who doesn't? It's been in the public domain forever, and you can find copies of it for a buck practically everywhere from Rite Aid to Dollar Tree. This edition will be boasting some sweet bonus features (commentary tracks, documentaries, interviews) and, one hopes, restored audio and video. Now if only there'd be some long-forgotten alternate ending where Barbra makes it out alive...

I should be working...

...but why work when I can post about...err, stuff?

ITEM! All right, remember just the other day when I claimed to be cutting-edge a mere 86% of the time? Clearly I underestimated myself to the extreme! I mean, why else would Logo Television ask me to be on the nominating committee for their NewNowNext Awards? I had no idea that my finger was so firmly planted on the pulse of what's hip and happening in the world of pop culture, but I guess it is. Before I go completely mad with power at the notion of being An Academy Member, however, I'm going to use said power for good and implore you to vote for my friends in a couple of categories. No, I'm certainly not above nominating my friends when and where I can (in all honesty, if they deserve the nomination) and then asking people who don't know my friends to vote for said friends. Isn't that what the internet is for? Well, that and arguing over whether Darth Vader could beat Jason Voorhees in a fight.

He totally could, by the way. He'd bust out some Force shit and Jason wouldn't be able to get within machete-swinging range.

*sniff* Hey, do you smell that? Eww. It smells like nerd all of a sudden.

Anyway, you can see all the categories and nominees and get your vote on RIGHT HERE. No, there's nothing horror-related, despite my attempts to wield my nominating power to further my horror agenda. However, if you happened to vote for my pal Bridget McManus in the Brink of Fame: Comic category and my pal Jill Bennett in the 'Cause You're Hot category, I promise that in return you'll get ample good karma and at least 75 cool points.


ITEM! Who likes toys? I have to admit, I do. Then again, you may know that by now; you saw Michael Myers lend me support that fateful day in '05 when I had my Halloween movie marathon, and Freddy has hung out with my peeps on occasion (OMG Hot Cocoa is so cute).



NECA has this cult classics line which is pretty damn sweet. Check it out!

If there's one toy I'm going to have to break down and buy at some point, it's good ol' Baghead Jason. He seems to be popping up all over the place lately! Plus...interchangeable head!

The best part about this Patrick Bateman figure is the little videocassette. Clearly he was on his way to return it when he got sidetracked.


It's nice to see Dapper Transvestite Leatherface get immortalized in plastic, no?

One of the most "Wait, that's so silly...no wait, that's kind of scary...but it's stupid...yet frightening- does not compute!" moments in horror becomes one of the most "Wait, that's so silly...no wait, that's kind of scary...but it's stupid...yet frightening- does not compute!" moments in toys: a besheeted Michael Myers from Halloween. I think I made up "besheeted". Use it in a sentence today!


I remember going to see The Exorcist when "The Version You've Never Seen" was released in theaters, and I remember every person in said theater being completely fucking blown away by the infamous spider walk sequence. It was so unexpected, so ridiculous and over-the-top, and I'm telling you, the place went nuts after Regan busted a move down those stairs. The plastic version of this sequence leaves me feeling decidedly less nuts, I'm sad to say.

It's kind of cool, but it also kind of just looks like a kid falling down the stairs.

Holy crap, I love love love the Flyboy figure from Romero's Dawn of the Dead. I hope they keep making these- where are Sweater Zombie and Nurse Zombie and Machete Zombie? And I want the biker gang! And Ken Foree! And then a scale model of the mall! And a helicopter with a rotating blade and a zombie with head-chopped-off action!

And a pony!




So, do you fancy yourself to be a toy collector? What would you like to see hit the market? What would you buy? I kind of want a little army of snowsuit-clad dwarves from The Brood, but I'd be way too creeped out to sleep with them staring at me so I'd have to put them in a box at tuck it away at the back of my closet every night and that would be a pain.

ITEM! I'd like to take a moment to wish a wicked HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Jim, whom I've known longer than anyone in the whole entire world besides my family. Here's a touching old photograph of Jim and his son.


Whilst trying to find a picture of him that wasn't completely humiliating I came across this one, taken in...Memphis, I believe, when we took a big fat road trip a couple of years ago. It speaks for itself, doesn't it?