April 2019 – Ray Bendici

monster mashup

Apr 292019

So the other night I was watching House of Dracula—one of the first crossover horror films. Like, think The Avengers, but with the classic Universal monsters: Dracula, The Wolfman and Frankenstein’s Monster.

Also like The Avengers, the movie was a commercial success, although not quite on the same scale. It features Lon Chaney Jr. in his iconic role as eternally tortured Lawrence Talbot (aka The Wolfman), whom he transformed into numerous times throughout the 1930s and ’40s.

Glenn Strange was the Frankenstein Monster—and I always like to point out that in Mary Shelley’s original book, Frankenstein is the doctor’s name, and arguably the real monster of the story.

Rather than Bela Lugosi, Dracula is portrayed by John Carradine, who is the patriarch of the Carradine acting family that includes sons David (“Kung Fu” and Kill Bill), Robert (Lewis from Revenge of the Nerds) and Keith, who has dozens of great roles and is father to the criminally underrated Martha Plimpton (Goonies and “Raising Hope’). Thems some good acting genes!

So as I gander around at the entertainment landscape, it’s apparent that we’ve hit a weird mental block when it comes to monsters since we see the same ones over and over and over again. Every other show/movie is about vampires or zombies. Or vampire zombies. Or even worse, zombie vampires. And don’t get me started on the number of serial/axe/slasher/torture killers on TV shows and in movies—pretty sure they outnumber the number of victims at this point.

Endlessly tapping the same veins for terror is just lazy, especially when there is now a new generation of monsters terrorizing us in real life, an assortment horrific creatures sallying forth from the darkest of places to plague us. Among them …

Social Medusas—Rather than having snakes for hair, this genderless gorgon deploys a tangle of cellphones, tablets and other digital devices to incapacitate, essentially turning people to social stone as they endlessly check their messages, play games and eschew human interaction.

Super Egos—An insidious pseudo-intellectual entity that craves digital validation with tweets, posts and snaps to draw an infinite stream of upvotes, likes, retweets and responses. Catchphrase: “I post, therefore I am.”

Gully Bulls—A cadre of crazed freaks who suck intelligence from the rest of us by falling prey to every half-baked conspiracy, from global warming and moon landing denial to anti-vaxxing and essential oil pyramid schemes.

AWGs—The most entitled of all monsters, Angry White Guys want to oppress everyone not them and run roughshod over decency, tolerance, equity—all in the name of making things “great again,” you know, when they irresponsibly wielded power with cruelty and avarice.

Anticreators—A multiplying horde of ignorance who constantly reproduce but take no responsibility nor exerts any interest or control over its progeny, which continues to grow, sucking more resources from the rest of us and creating more waste.

Drama Llamas—A myopic cretin who turns every molehill into a mountain, finds crisis in the casual, and feeds off sowing chaos into calm. They appear to be a perpetual victim of circumstance, but before you realize it, you’ve been drawn into the spirals of their mania.

Private Pirates—Surreptitious electronic critters who continually steal bits of your privacy for their nefarious purposes by asking for your name, email, phone number, shoe size and dental history for every site, purchase or service in creation. Via security cameras, they watch every breath you take and every move you make. Your phone gives them access to your face and thumb print, your home “assistant” constantly monitors your every word, and your web browsers track the nuances of your web habits. (Too bad for you I just randomly linked to adult diapers) They watch everything you do, everything you say, everything you’re thin—

OH GOD, THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE YOUR OWN HEAD!!!

Okay, that might be a bit too silly. I’m overreacting and overreaching. These are just a bunch of made-up monsters that aren’t really all that monstrous. As per usual, this is just me being stupid ….

Then again, with every good monster, the victim never sees it coming, do they?

draft party

Apr 212019

Okay, with the NFL draft nearly upon us … I’m going in a completely different direction this week.

Psych!

Sooo … I’m struggling with writer’s reluctance, but I thought I’d share the opening of a fiction manuscript I’ve been working on for a few months. It’s a coming-of-middle-age story, of sorts, drawn on a short story I wrote like 100 years ago. I feel compelled to add that it’s NOT based on actual incident (fiction, remember), so if someone out there thinks it’s about you … well, it’s not about you.

Anyway, I still have a long way to go in writing—and more importantly, re-writing—but I have the entire story framed out. I’m hoping that sharing it here will keep encouraging me to git ‘er done.

Oh, and even though this is still a draft, all copyright and legal stuff goes here. I have a title, but I’m keeping that off the intrawebz for now, thanks.

Okay, deep breath. And exhale. And enjoy ….

I tried not to think about Hayley’s husband while I was kissing her.

First off, it was totally ruining the buzz of the moment—the magical head-rush of a first kiss always should be drunk in deeply, especially when it’s been long while since the last first kiss, and who knows how long (if ever) until the next.

Secondly, it was forcing me to keep my eyes open so as not to have the mental image of him standing there, glaring at me. (I’m a very visual person, you’ll come to discover.) When I was young and still figuring out girls, and the whole making-out thing, I did smooch with my eyes wide open so as not to miss anything. The view was weird and myopic at best, and as I got older, more experienced, and more jaded, I realized there may be nothing less arousing than watching someone kiss you, so I eventually got into the habit of closing my eyes. Now, however, the distraction wasn’t quite working the way I had hoped.

Thirdly, and probably most importantly—she was married! That still matters, to me at least.

Really!

Ever-so-reluctantly, I pulled back. “Look, we can’t do this,” I whispered.

Hayley squinted at me, her hazel eyes dancing in the shadows, then smiled. “It’s because we’re in a storeroom, isn’t it?” she said, gently scratching the back of my neck. “And you’re afraid if we get caught, we’ll both get fired, right?’

“Uh, not exactly,” I said, glancing around the steel shelves, dusty file cabinets, and silent boxes of old magazines. “I thought that part was sorta cool and exciting, to be honest, right up to the moment you mentioned getting fired. That’s not so cool.”

“Come on,” she said. “No one is gonna fire us for this! As a matter of fact, I bet half the office cheers.”

“Well, I’m not that good.”

“You don’t suck,” she said, sliding her lips back up against mine. “Yet.”

“Mmm . . .” I said, allowing myself a nano(no-no)second of pleasure before brushing her back again. “No. Come on. We can’t do this. It’s not right.”

“Feels right to me,” she said, snuggling her firm little body back up against mine.

She wasn’t wrong. From the moment the strawberry-blonde firecracker strode through the doors of our media group ten months ago, it’d been Chemistry 101—spark, snark, and constantly hitting each other’s mark. (Sorry, that sounded cooler in my head.) A game of cat and cat ensued, each of us seemingly finding reasons to cross each other’s paths, not easy to do with me in the editorial department and her over in client services. Through a carefully calculated series of “accidental” break room encounters, “coincidentally timed” restroom visits, and “necessary” emails (plus a very happy happy hour or two), we drifted closer and closer and closer until we found ourselves in the fortuitous position we had a few moments ago: the two of us in the storeroom alone. Together.

And then she kissed me! Or I kissed her. It all happened inexplicably fast, like a train wreck or how “Gangnam Style” got to one billion views. I knew she was married—I saw the shiny gold band on her left hand Day One, except she never mentioned her husband, and if she had, she never uttered his name, now that I thought about it. (Once I took a moment to look at it, the mental picture of “him” glaring at me was really that stupid sexy Ryan Gosling!) On those ultra-rare occasions she did discuss her marriage, she kept saying those kinds of things that make a relationship seem not particularly lovey-dovey, or that it was seriously adrift and about to wreck on the rocks. You know, comments that float hope to interested third parties.

Besides, the game had been flirty and exciting and more fun than I’ve had in a hound’s age, so I kept playing along, never thinking anything would actually come of it. Then, somehow we bumped into each other in the storeroom . . . the banter got cranking . . . things escalated quickly . . . someone threw a trident . . . and boom! Kissyface.

Regardless of how our lips came together, it wasn’t too late at this point for my annoying conscience to stop it all before substantial damage was done. I gave her one big, overlong last kiss and eased her away, although everything in my chromosomes was screaming to pull her closer. “I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry. I mean . . . it’s not right. What about your husband? What would he say?”

She glanced to the side for a moment, then leaned back into me. “I am one hundred percent certain he won’t say a damn thing.”

“Really?”

She grabbed my shirt with both her hands, and with a reckless urgency, pulled my mouth hard to hers again.

Okay, for the record, that’s all titillating and true, but this isn’t the letters page of your second-favorite porn mag. (“Dear Squish, I never thought this could happen to me . . . .”) Although neither of things are things any more. Man, I’m old!

Anyway, I should slow it down here a second so I can get you up to speed. Don’t want you to think it’s that kind of story. (Not that there’s anything wrong with it.) You might even be interested in other events that led up to the aforementioned storeroom snogging session.

Actually, other than the lurid tease of an intro you just read—which, come on, will be an awesome opening scene if this ever gets made into a movie—I really don’t know where to begin ….

Again, still a work in progress. Thanks!

the coolest frontier

Apr 152019

I’m sure you’ve already seen it, but just in case you haven’t:

Courtesy of the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration

Yup, the headline-grabbing “picture” of the colossal black hole at the center of galaxy Messier 87—although it’s actually the stuff around the black hole because, you know, something that neither emits or reflects light can’t be seen or photographed. And some of what you’re seeing is dust, gases and other material that’s swirling around and behind the black hole because the massive gravity bends light around it and under it … and ….

Okay, I’ll let this guy explain what you’re gawking at and blow your mind in the process. (Note: I’ve never taken hallucinogenic drugs in my life but if I did, it’d probably feel like this)

If you’re mind isn’t warped yet, this comes (paraphrased) via Reddit:

Its event horizon is 3 million times the size of our planet, which means it’s larger than our entire solar system.

It weighs 6.5 billion times more than our sun.

And the light we’re seeing is so old (55 million years) that when it was taken, our world was basically entirely covered in forests because of the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum. Europe and North American were rainforests. Alaska was temperate forests (and even palm trees). Even the poles had forests (Antarctica had sub-tropical rainforests).

Hammerhead sharks wouldn’t evolve for another 30 million years, the earliest versions of modern mammalian orders (bats, primates, elephants, modern rodents), same for birds. Snakes grew 42 feet long. It was a crazy time.

We can barely mentally handle the 4,500 years since the great pyramid was built. This is over 12 thousand times farther back.

After I saw this, I started thinking that since the black hole we’re seeing is from 55 million years ago, if you were there (and not being crushed by its gravity), you’d hypothetically see Earth from 55 million years ago. And since black holes bend light and time, it seems as though if you’re going to figure out time travel and go into past, it involves somehow getting to a black hole faster than light, and then somehow looping back to Earth. Oh, and math. LOTS of math ….

This, as Joopiter pointed out to me, apparently is kind of the plot of Interstellar, which I’ve never seen.

D’oh! Oh well. Great minds and what not.

Anywhoo, I’m a huge fan of space and space exploration. To wit: One of the most amazing photos in humankind:

This is a picture of NASA’s Curiosity rover and its parachute as it was landing on Mars, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter. That’s right—one human-built spacecraft taking a picture of another—WHILE ON ANOTHER PLANET 33.9 MILLION MILES AWAY! Not science fiction, science FACT!

More amazing science and space reality: We’ve “seen” the evolution of seeing disputed dwarf planet Pluto in 20 short years, going from a blurred image to a high-def picture. (And Pluto ♥s us!)

Speaking of planets that love us, recognize this tiny dot as seen through the rings of Saturn?

You should since you’re in this picture! Yeah, that’s Earth, taken by the Cassini spacecraft while it was near Saturn in 2017. I think you’re on the left, sorta near the top somewhere ….

Again, mind blown.

Not surprisingly, I hate that our generation is the first in all of humankind to actually see up close these celestial wonders that humans have stared at and worshipped and pondered through the millennia. Mainly because too many people sort of shrug and say, “That’s cool—but look, Dina Lohan broke up with her online boyfriend!

*sigh*

Some days we don’t deserve the awesomesauce that is science.

But if you think about it, exploring outer space is like exploring our innermost space, our brains. Both are complex environments that we don’t fully understand and are subjects of a tremendous amount of research. Both are critical to life, yet vastly unexplored and unappreciated. Either can be hard to access, dark and cold, but also beautiful and full of wonder. The past is always on display in each. Oh, and there are some huge empty voids in both, to be sure.

As much as I’d love to explore space, I’m not sure I have the skills necessary to be an astronaut—then again, the vast majority of people come up short as there has only been a total of 257 NASA astronauts EVER, which is about 0.00007 percent of the current population. (And if you can’t figure out the math on that, your odds are even lower.)

The good news (for me, anyway) is that I don’t need any special abilities to blast off and explore my own inner space, and maybe even stumble upon my own black hole. Even if it can be equally hazardous at times.

And I can still drink all the Tang I want!

not bad guys—the worst guys

Apr 072019

Okay, I recently mentioned that I have a ton o’ content that, for whatever reasons, I’ve never finished or posted, or it’s just fallen through the cracks. While recently reaching into one of those fissures, I found this little foray into foolishness that I can’t think of why I never posted, other than maybe there wasn’t enough for a whole post? But as the Great American Attention Span has shrank, this seems long enough. Right now, at least—come back in an hour and it’ll seem like “War and Peace.”

Anywhoo, it’s from six years ago when my sons were edging into adolescence. As I recently went with my younger son to the accepted student day at the university he’ll be attending this fall [*My baby—hold back tears here*], I’m reminded how quickly it all goes—even if I’m pretty much permanently stuck at 14 in my head.

So maybe think of this as a nostalgia trip and a salute to silly, plus a nod to the goofy kid who lingers in the best of us.

So as I was hanging out with my sons the other day, we got into a silly discussion as we’re prone to do—at the center of it: Villains who would NOT strike fear into the heart of anyone.

Here are that the Bendici boys came up with:

The Diabolical Deli Dude: With his catchphrase “Take a number!” he terrorizes the innocent by making them wait even longer to get sliced meats.

The Sinister Sink Soaker: This twisted maniac gets his jollies by going around and drenching helpless sinks—with water! The fiend.

Leap Year Lunatic: This madman appears once every four years for one day to wreak havoc and throw the universe in chaos by trying to make leap year a permanent annual event!

The Toilet Chameleon: Has the ability to blend in with any commode, often with disastrous consequences—let’s just say you do NOT want to accidentally sit on his lap when you have the squirts.

Shiny Penny: She possesses the proportional strength and abilities of a brand-new one cent piece, and all the horror that comes with that.

The Floppy Disk: Watch out! Outdated technology has a new evil overlord who wants to send us all back to the unsophisticated horror that was the 1990s. How would we survive?

The Terrible Towel Snapper: Don’t drop the soap—or your guard! No lockerroom is safe from this wet terrycloth-wielding menace.

The Window Washer: Sure, randomly cleaning huge panes of glass doesn’t sound particularly diabolical, but when you realize that you can better see the world through a spotless window, well …

Mr. Mime: He doesn’t actually commit crimes—he just pretends to!

A regular … well, not rogue’s gallery … let’s say, assembly of annoyances!