Not Bad for a Human - Book Review

Being a fan of Lance Henriksen for most of my life, I was excited to learn about his biography Not Bad for a Human. I’ve never been one to submerge myself into a public figure’s personal life. I don’t care what clothes they wear or what food they like, but once in a while one of them actually has an interesting story to tell and just by looking and listening to Lance Henriksen you can easily infer, this guy has had some intense experiences. Lance Henriksen’s story is a grand odyssey and I thank him for having the graceful courage to share it with us.

His childhood would be considered a nightmare by most people, and as much as it was indeed for him, the way he shapes the story, you still sense the compassion he had for the one person that probably hurt him the most consciously and subconsciously.  His love for pottery is contagious as are his moral standards which he upholds before accepting any role.

What struck a chord with me mostly was that his greatest success occurred later in life. In his early days, Lance Henriksen was a rudderless ship without a compass so he had to learn life’s rules the hard way. He had to make all of the mistakes before finding the path to success, but he never turned his back on his principles. Some movies he did because he needed the money, but he never betrayed his ideals no matter how hard times were.  Plus, he drops f-bombs all over the place. I don’t think I would have ever imagined that about him, but it’s exciting and refreshing to know that there’s a star who talks like the rest of us.

From the reading onset I did not want to put this book down. Any moment I was interrupted or life’s necessary routines got in the way, I became frustrated because I had to stop reading Not Bad for a Human, but I grew excited because I knew it was waiting for me once I was finished. Co-written by Lance Henriksen and Joseph Maddrey, they have created an addictive, quick, fulfilling reading experience out of a humble, eccentric man’s whirlwind life.

Before, I was a fan of the actor and was pleased with what I read and saw of the man in interviews, but now I’m definitely a fan and admirer of the man Lance Henriksen.

Thoughts on Spirituality

I bow to no one. I practice no religion but I maintain my faith in a higher power; the sight unseen.  

Spirituality stemmed from religion. A person became spiritual if they felt driven by the Holy Spirit with the definition changing throughout centuries. There was a time when it meant being in touch with your feelings. After World War II was when a clear discord between religion and spirituality became present in the public and continued transitioning through different influences such as Buddhism and secularism until reaching the modern meaning of discovering one’s inner-self, seeking their own spirit path, but religion is still never far behind.

I’ve never been skeptical of higher power(s). I have witnessed several unexplainable phenomena and radical experiences such as syncing in tune with Mother Nature as she conjures up a soul refreshing wind to aid you on the last mile of a run. I’ve aided practitioners of white magic and black magic in performing their craft.  I myself should, logically, should be dead. I should have died several times naturally, foolishly, and incidentally, but I’m not sure I could ever say needlessly. I don’t believe that anyone or anything dies needlessly. A terrorist attack can cause as much damage as an earthquake, but the planet always finds a way to maintain a balance within itself. Human beings threaten to tip that balance to the point of straining the planet’s rations, so the Earth finds a way to once again level the playing field.  Some people choose to believe in destiny or fate; certain religions would have you believe it to be God’s will.  

Call it whatever you’d like – God, Aliens, Creators, Protectors; Architects – a power exists beyond our eyesight. Not just the paranormal, more like the ultimate insight; the kind of enlightenment that is achieved through questioning and meditation and ultimately understanding the ways of others through compassion and tolerance without a need to agree or disagree; simply accept.  Acceptance leads to peace.  

Iron Sky (2012) - Yeah, I Saw It

Since 1945, the remains of the Third Reich have been hiding on the dark side of the moon.  Now, in 2018, they are prepared to launch an invasion to seek vengeance upon America complete with flying saucers and a doomsday machine.

Iron Sky is an homage to the classic 1950’s b-movies such as This Island Earth and The Forbidden Planet. Within this tribute to these cheesy classics is the social-political satire that made the cheese so tasty.  Astronaut James Washington stumbles upon the Nazis’ secret fortress. Astronaut James Washington happens to be African-American. Let the experiments commence.

The President of the United States in 2018 bares a remarkable resemblance and dimwitted personality to one Sarah Palin. However, women are among the strongest personalities and activists in the entire film, which has been a mainstay in science fiction. Renate Richter is the last voice of reason among the Nazi party. The more she discovers about Earth and how the world and its people associate and live together, the more she questions the ideals of the Reich.

Iron Sky is a film that questions the ideals of government and society, and how one affects the other in a vicious circle, but most importantly it tries to make us laugh at ourselves for what fools we can truly be when we disagree about creed and color and how we allow greed to corrupt our own will. However, first and foremost Iron Sky is a special effects driven film. It is green screen at its finest. The lighting and texture is infallible; the moon and fortress scenes director Timo Vuorensola and his visual effects crew created are some of the best I’ve ever seen.

Iron Sky is visually striking; the acting is suitable, nearly honorable considering it is a tribute to some movies that most critics consider the worst of all time.  Iron Sky is far from that. The comedy may be dry but it is funny especially if you understand the truth about the world you are living in.

R'ha - Yeah, I Saw It (and You Can Too)

Included below is a link to the short-film R'ha:

R’ha is a computer animated short-film from fresh talent Kaleb Lechowski.  The 22-year old has written, directed, and animated the 6 minute tale of an alien being tortured for information by a robotic despot.  Under duress, the alien reveals his backstory and the origins of hatred between his race and the machines that hold him hostage.

The majority of this presentation is high quality. The direction is crisp, the animation is outstanding; there are times you forget you’re watching computer graphics except for one moment near the end which is completely forgivable. The lighting completely sets the mood appropriately for the story, which is what helped make the film so good; the simplicity of the story and the dialogue. The wow-factors were the animation, even the voice overs (provided solely by Dave Masterson), and it all seems so remarkable due to a well told story. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen or read this kind of tale, if there is committed passion and a hint of talent, it will be remembered amongst the other great stories of its kind.

Hopefully, R’ha will lead Kaleb Lechowski to greater things; best of luck to him.

Aquatic Blood Prophecies

This was the other dream I had the previous night. It started in sequence after the other story - Laughter in Crimson - ended. The transition was flawless....

Exiting the walls of the institute, I met four friends awaiting my arrival. We promptly made our way to the boardwalk where a couple of friends of ours, actual gypsies, a brother and a sister, were performing magic tricks as a sideshow attraction at the aquarium.

We had access to the rear entrance as guests to the performers, which felt cool; even cooler was being able to see the underbelly of the aquarium. Gypsy Brother opened a door to what one could have assumed to be a small maintenance shack, but instead of tools and brooms there extended a staircase down into darkness.

Without hesitation we followed the performing duo into the cellar where we were met by a single light showing us a garage-sized room full of control panels and all sorts of gauges (temperature, pressure, etc.).  Another door around the corner of the stairwell opened. A haggard woman stepped from behind. She told us hello the way a cannibalistic witch encountering two lost twins would say hello. She stepped into the light, dressed purely in black; a netted rose hate like ladies wore one-hundred years ago to the fair with a classic gown to match.

“We're here, Nanna,” said Gypsy Sister.

“Splendid,” said Nanna in her squeaky, innocently malicious voice. “Go on you two, but first why don’t I show the two of you a preview of the show?”

The siblings trotted off leaving the two of us behind.

“Come here, lovely girl,” Nanna instructed. She unveiled two empty jars from the unknown universe beneath her garb. “It’s an easy trick.” She placed one jar to the side of Lovely Girl’s head, with her ear within the opening. “Get ready to hear the ocean.”

Nanna lifted up the other jar except now there was a lengthy needle, at least a foot long, protruding from the center. Nanna shoved the needle through Lovely Girl’s ear until it exited out the other end. Blood instantly began filling both jars without a single drop spilling to the floor.  

Once drained of life, Nanna pulled the jars away from Lovely Dead Girl’s ears, letting her fresh husk crumple to the floor. I felt nothing. I wasn’t afraid; I wasn’t excited in any way.

Nanna handed me one of the blood jars. “Look,” she said to me. I did. I looked in the blood; maybe I looked past the blood, but within was the world around us. I could see the Gypsy Siblings performing their act. I could see the dolphins flipping through the air. But in the clouds, above all of that, within the clouds was a dark presence gathering itself, slowly growing stronger. Destruction was among us. Annihilation was coming.

Laughter in Crimson

This was a dream I had last night. It left me chilled and a tad frightened.....

Visiting my cousin at a juvenile mental institution, he was in the middle of a class located in a science laboratory, all the students were dressed in white jumpsuits. On the television was a repeated showing of the incident that sent him off the deep end. During the halftime of a major sporting event, my cousin reached out to hug his father when a heart attack claimed the man’s life. My cousin caught his dying body and held him until he died. He then yanked the boy behind him to the ground and broke his neck and then broke his dead father’s neck. It replayed on an endless loop while everyone watched it except him. The psychologist on duty was using it as a tool in some form of group therapy.

Assured that my cousin was accommodated appropriately, even though he never lifted his head up once to look up at me; just kept coloring a picture he’d drawn, I left the classroom to meet with a detective and a staff member to fill me in on details of a string of murders plaguing the institution. Mostly young women strangled or stabbed. There had been a man found stabbed much more violently than the women, but it was believed that he had stumbled upon the murderer during his ritualistic killing and ruined the murderer’s momentary bliss. While they explained it to me, I felt like on the horizon I could see what the killer saw; the locations of the murders, the blood flying in the air, my hands around their throats. I could even feel the cold steel of the knife and the peeling off of blood soaked gloves from a clown outfit – yellow with multi-colored polka dots and white ruffles on the cuffs.

I checked out the locations myself. One was at the bottom of a stairwell leading from a rear parking lot to the nurses’ changing stations. The area was cold and resounding. The entire time there were two men, I’m assuming they were janitors as they were dressed in grey jumpsuits. They kept watching me, talking about me. Frustrated, I chose to confront them, but they disappeared.

The other murder happened inside the storage unit closer to the back of the institution. Entering, there was a walkway stained with blood where the man, the groundskeeper, had stumbled upon the murderer during his killing. The walkway was paralleled by a fenced in storage house where old furniture, books, and old everything else were kept before they were auctioned off, donated, or forgotten. While studying the scene, again, the room was cold. I almost felt in the presence of omnipotence. I definitely felt eyes watching me. I turned to see a shadow fleeing the area, but no sounds of a door being opened or closed; but someone else had been in there with me.

On my way to share my thoughts with the Institution’s director, I crossed paths with a tall, heavy set man who seemed naturally strong. He was dressed in a white muscle shirt and the bottom half of his jumpsuit with the rest hanging behind him. I stopped. “Excuse me, sir,” I said. He slowed down but hesitated to turn. I rushed over to him before he could have another thought. “Sir!”

He turned around. I saw fear in his eyes. “You,” I said. He tried moving back but I grabbed him by his shirt and insinuated major violence with my other hand and malice in my eyes. “I’ve got you, motherfucker.”

In failsafe wall hidden behind his locker paneling was the yellow clown suit I had seen in my vision along with a clown makeup kit, a rainbow wig, latex gloves, and a knife that had been rinsed well but still held traces of dried blood.

The killer had been hauled off, the drama had died down; the campus was quiet again. Suddenly, I felt ill. I felt frightened. I turned around – at the entrance of the stairwell leading to the changing station was another clown dressed in a red pointed hat, a red and black outfit, smiling a wicked red smile, waving at me with bloodied white gloves. Then, he shuffled back into the institution.