Big Lizard In My Back Pocket

I suppose this year's attempt to attend Monsterfest 6 was fraught with peril from the very beginning. Despite asking for this weekend off way in advance the store was trying to make me work from noon to 5pm today, which are the exact times that the convention hours take place. Switching days with another guy at work solved that issue. But Joe had to test drive a potential new car this afternoon at noon but I figured that wouldn't take very long and Joe really needs a new car. Most crippling of all was waking up this morning with one of my occasional headaches. I get these sometimes, and although they are not of the migraine intensity they are pretty bad and last the entire day, so I napped while Joe was testing the car and I overslept. So we end up getting to the library a little after 3pm, where we run into Lee in the parking lot who tells us that he's getting ready to start the panel discussion on Godzilla films at 3:30pm so we don't have much time before we have to find our seats. Then my camera conks out, either from dead batteries or who knows what, so I manage one single blurry photo (above) of Lee on the left during the discussion, so terrible a shot from my shoddy Motorolla that you can't even see the giant Godzilla slippers he's wearing on his feet under the table.

But it was a nice and interesting Godzilla discussion, being that Lee is always funny as hell and a huge Godzilla fan. The discussion ranged from the first, frighteningly edgy 1954 film Gojira to the campier productions of the later years, touching on not only the allegories about the atomic bomb which the Japanese people were still recovering from less than ten years previous, but controversially an allegory about the American occupation of the country up until 1952, which like the American Cold War films of the 50's involving space alien takeovers, Godzilla embodying America itself storming in, crushing traditional Japanese culture, and changing people's lives with western influences as a result. Funny, but through the entire conversation all I could think about was the Mattel Shogun Warrior Godzilla toy I used to have as a kid, back during my own obsession with Godzilla when the local station showed the movies on Sunday mornings (as well as the goofy Saturday morning cartoon of the same name that ran from 1978 to 1982) that I got for Christmas around

one of those years. It had a lever poking out of the back of its head that shot a little flaming tongue out from between his yellow teeth, and a button at his wrist that would fire one of his fists at you, which my little brother often got the business end of that initial year. But mostly it was my great love for dragons, dinosaurs, reptiles, Godzilla movies, the Godzilla cartoon, and this one commercial that ran continuously that holiday season that filled my head with fantasies of taking Godzilla to the beach and have him crush mighty sand castles with his big... flying... um, hand?



Eventually I lost the fist altogether. But I carried around that damn Godzilla to school, to Nana's, to church, and yes, occasionally to the beach. Although the commercial doesn't point out how much sand can get into a large hollowed-out Godzilla body when sand castles topple over him (or salt water when your little brother throws him into the sea).

Speaking of the lame Saturday morning cartoon, I did own a Godzooky doll. This one in particular, which actually looked nothing like Godzooky with his jaundiced skin, blue armpit wings and blatant "Godzooky" written across his chest in case you couldn't figure out what the hell this thing was supposed to be. I guess they did gradually put out more recognizable Godzooky toys at some point but I must have missed that somehow. Still, I really wish I still have both these Godzilla franchise toys again. My mother insists that she never threw any of of my toys out, but dang if I can find them in the attic. I think she just tells me this to cover up what must have been a gigantic bonfire in the backyard sometime around 1982 containing all the things that I loved but which grossed out my mother to no end that suddenly just disappeared. Namely my Godzilla toys, my Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game, and the comic book that I was obsessed with when I was twelve. And I'm pretty convinced that was followed up with a second bonfire around 1987, when all my Dead Kennedys and Bauhaus T-shirts when mysteriously missing.

But back to Monsterfest. With my headache and overall sleepiness from both of us, we opted out of coming back to the library after the vendors cleared out for the all-night horror movie lock-in festival, despite how much fun it would probably be to get to see Motel Hell and Scream Blacula Scream on a giant screen with about 200 roaring nerds. But once we got home we had a pretty decent time of our own with a DVD that Joe bought from one of the tables called Virginia Creepers, a cheaply and locally made documentary on the history of television horror movie hosts from Richmond, Hampton Roads, and Fairfax dating from the 1950's on up through the 80's and 90's, before cable TV and the internet boom made such late-nite weekend fare obsolete. Of course Doctor Madblood was the one I grew up with, every Saturday night at one in the morning, usually when I had a slumber party, with the perpetually stoned mad scientist in his castle in Pungo (a local punchline of a rural backwater stretch of land), his wiseass brain in a jar, and the opening guitar wail of Sugarloaf's "Green-Eyed Lady" during the opening credits that to this day I still cannot associate with anything else but Doctor Madblood. So it was kind of nice catching up with his legacy again, even though he still does local prime time Halloween specials to this day, as well as make routine appearances at horror movie sneak previews, and Monsterfest itself. Still, it's nice to have. Something to show my non-existent children someday. If children didn't already seem to know as much about Madblood today as I did when I was their age.

Anyways, so much for today. I'm heading to bed to sleep off the rest of this headache. Lunch tomorrow at a friends' house, followed by hours of football. Yes, apparently THAT is what I'll wind up staying awake for. Sigh.