venangago-go

"Night of the Living Dead" director George Romero is the keynote speaker at the 2006 Eerie Horror Film Festival. He'll be showing his film "The Crazies" (According to imbd: "A biological weapon gone awry is only the start of problems in the little town of Evan's (sic) City, Pennsylvania. Bouts of insanity in the populace are leading to murder and rioting, until the US Army turns up - and things really start going to hell" Wait a minute, isn't Arthur the Aardvark from Evans City. My God! No!)

Oh, it's Ellwood City. Never mind.

According to Times News, Greg Ropp, Festival Director's "...shortlist included Romero, Wes Craven, and Rob Zombie". Ironically - that's the short list for my answer to "What three people would you most like to have dinner with?" You have to dig a little deeper to find what this story is really about -- the fact that this strange little fest is exploding - moving to a bigger venue (from the Roadhouse to the Playhouse) and separating itself from the Great Lakes Film Association and picking up a big corporate sponsor in the Horror Channel.

Bob Hoover, book editor at the Post Gazette - doesn't think he's gong to blog, He's decided not to, because, although "There's been little or no feedback to [my] columns . . . I don't write them because I'm lonely and want mail. I do it to let you know what's happening." I think we can all sleep a little sounder knowing that you promise to continue to be irrelelvant, Bob. Wow.

I killed Kerouac (again) last night in the Beat Generation book I'm working on now. Leading up to his death, several witnesses saw him drinking 14 boilermakers AN HOUR during the time he was awake. You'll never guess what he died of, right?

This politician, a ''Professional Common Man,'' executes his rise by relentlessly attacking the liberal media, fancy-talking intellectuals, shiftless progressives, pinkos, promiscuity, and welfare hangers-on, all the while clamoring for a return to traditional values, to love of country, to the pie-scented days of old when things made sense and Americans were indisputably American. He speaks almost entirely in ''noble but slippery abstractions''-Liberty, Freedom, Equality-and people love him, even if they can't fully articulate why without resorting to abstractions themselves." - It Couldn't Happen Here - Upton Sinclair.

Local bands might want to check out tunecore - a service that will put your work on itunes and rhapsody for small price...
If that fails, you can always shill for PETA...
Midwest Book Review has a great list of book lover's resources online

And Neglected Books is a great time suck as well..

Listen up Erie Times News, "I want a daily newspaper that looks as good as Vogue but smells like a cinnamon bun instead of perfume."

...statistics on readership have been pointing downward, significantly downward, for some time now. Four-fifths of Americans once read newspapers; today, apparently fewer than half do. Among adults, in the decade 1990-2000, daily readership fell from 52.6 percent to 37.5 percent. Among the young, things are much worse: in one study, only 19 percent of those between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four reported consulting a daily paper, and only 9 percent trusted the information purveyed there; a mere 8 percent found newspapers helpful, while 4 percent thought them entertaining.

"The height of art-house snobbery? laughing at an unsubtitled bit of dialogue in a foreign film." Which reminds me, Cheaper By The Dozen 2 is playing at the Iris Theatre.