A little bit of the old punk rock style, complete with lead vocals that sound like they have to pass through vocal chords made of barbed wire, followed through with simple, steady percussion. Hot Water Music is a nice variation of a classic theme. This is the type of band that sold out, pop kids like blink-182 only wish they were. This band is the real thing. How is it that I know this? There is a simple integrity to the music that is incontrovertibly sincere. These guys aren't writing every song with the idea of making it into an MTV video.

"Industrial jungle pussy punk" is how Mindless Self Indulgence (MSI) describes their sound. Here's how I'd describe it: a hyper-cartoon version of an A.D.D.-suffering, over-caffeinated, video game-addicted ten-year-old, Mike Patton-channeling, Prince-singing over Atari Teenage Riot drums and industrial guitars. Okay. Maybe their description is better. Regardless of how you try to explain them, MSI is singer Little Jimmy Urine's attempt at keeping he and his bandmates, Steve Righ? (guitar), Lynz (bass) and Kitty's (drums), attention-deficit minds from becoming too bored.

John Carpenter's The Thing is one of my favorite movies and easily Carpenter's best film. Yeah, yeah; Halloween, Smalloween. Shut up! Naturally, I chubbed up when I heard that Konami was making a game based on the movie, and couldn't wait to get my dick skinners on the PlayStation 2 version. As Blake, you are the leader of a military rescue team sent to find out what the fuck happened to MacReady and the gang. The cool thing about this game is the squad-based game play.

Adam looked up to the sky, wiping his hair away from his forehead. "You know," he began, "I think it's starting to rain."
Kim let out a burst of laughter at Adam's comment. They'd been caught completely unprepared in a torrential downpour for the past few minutes. The church was still a few blocks away.
"Oh well," she replied. "Not much we can do about it now."
Adam grinned, putting his hands back into his jacket pockets. "I think God's trying to tell me that I'm not welcome back."

I shot a man to save my life. I didn’t really want to watch him die. A foreign man, who just happened to be going through my pockets while I slept by the tracks in a solitary jungle of frost and drunk. I had to bed down under the bridge because I missed the last train out. By the grace of God, I had some scratch, some hooch, a loaded .44, and a gritty will to survive. Come hell or high water, I’d live to see it through. That night, my dream of a Vegas girl seducing me lustfully was abruptly muted by a blade at my throat and an unknown hand in my front pocket.

Wayne called me the other day to remind me that when I write my Pen & Think piece, to keep in mind that this issue is a Halloween-themed issue. Every day since then, I have sat in front of my computer screen and stared at a blank Word document. “Halloween,” I say to myself. I murmur a silent chant: “Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, the Halloween issue.” And then I turn the computer off and eat almonds. I have to be honest with you here-- I grew up in a very religious household. Halloween was the “Devil's” holiday, and we were NOT allowed to celebrate it.

Halloween is probably my most favorite holiday. I love everything about it. And I love the idea of getting dressed up for a day and pretending to be something you're not. I love costumes, and I'm always looking for a way to come up with the one costume that will blow away everyone else's.

School is back in full swing, and so are the door-to-door brats. At least once a week some snot-nosed punk knocks on my door, trying to fence everything from magazine subscriptions and coupon books, to overpriced cookies and candies. This is shit I don’t need. More importantly, it’s shit I don’t need to be interrupted from dinner to deal with. I could ignore them and continue eating. But the joy of seeing their little faces of rejection warms my jaded heart. The best are the ones that try to con me into buying their religion. These assholes have absolutely no sense of timing.

The font above makes me want to fabricate tales about longing to join the circus, which I have never wanted to do. (Join the circus that is. I always want to fabricate tales.) Being a circus man, or even a carny, seems like an honest way to make a living; much like a blacksmith or a steamboat captain. Sure, you would probably end up being a lush from trying to drink away the memory of that last gag that no one laughed at. And since you were tight, your next performance would be a little bit worse than the previous one, making it necessary for you to drink even more.

Suppose you knew you had just one more precious hour left to live; that your existence on earth was definitely going to end in sixty minutes. So you ask for a piece of paper and a pen, with which to compose your final words. Try to fit every subtle nuance about your life within the eight-and-a-half by eleven inch perimeter-- use both sides if you like.