A Brief Introduction

 My name is Max, and if I could have a different name, it would be Sailor, after Nicolas Cage's character in the film Wild At Heart. I don't really like that film all that much, but it's a cool sounding name. I consider myself to be a fairly regular type of guy. I play the piano rather well, and the singing saw rather poorly. I collect Criterion Collection DVDs, memorabilia of the diet soda TaB, trading cards of things that suck (Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Saved By the Bell, Hulk Hogan, etc.), and most of all, records. I'd say I have over one hundred records, the crown jewel being either a copy of the soundtrack to the 1977 Japanese horror film Hausu or an original copy of Buddy Holly's first album. I also like art, with Edward Hopper and Francis Bacon being my favorite painters, and Diane Arbus being my favorite photographer. I am deeply fascinated, yet terrified, of abandoned amusement parks and small Mayberry-like towns, for some reason. I also like non-abandoned amusement parks. There's something comforting, yet unexplainably eerie and surreal, about visiting one. I would even like to rebuild Disney World's Haunted Mansion ride in my backyard someday if I ever become incredibly wealthy. I like trivia a lot, especially when it's on useless topics. For example, I know more about Scooby-Doo than I do about my own family tree. Despite the fact that I am fairly quiet, I am prone to go on forever once I get started on something, as evidenced by the length of this entry. Beyond all that miscellany, I have a vast variety of interests, mostly in the fields of music, film, and literature. Starting with film, I like to write screenplays, but I do not like to finish them, resulting in many unfinished scripts on my computer. I hope to someday find one that I can stick with all the way through, and perhaps film it. At this point, my closest brushes with the world of cinema have only been in strange encounters with some of its stars, including, but not limited to, discussing Bruce Lee with Crispin Glover, riding an elevator with Luke Perry, standing in line at Arby's with Winston from Ghostbusters, and having Corey Feldman flirt awkwardly with my mother. I am not sure what my favorite film is, as I like way too many, but my favorite director, and probably my hero, is Werner Herzog. I appreciate that he isn't afraid to go against the normal conventions of cinema, and especially his endless dedication to his craft. I even like to look at life like it's the making of Fitzcarraldo, but that's a very complicated simile that will probably fall apart completely if I attempt to expand upon it, so I'll just leave it there. I also like David Lynch, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, John Cassavetes, David Cronenberg, Lars Von Trier, Takashi Miike, Wes Anderson, and many more. While I appreciate quality cinema, I also have an undying love for the over-the-top and trashy, especially in the genre of horror. As far as music goes, it's in the same boat as film, as far as scope goes. I like way too many artists to name. The Smiths will always probably be my favorite band, but everything else fluctuates rapidly. Recently, I've been listening to a lot of Scott Walker, Serge Gainsbourg, and, oddly enough, a pretty good amount of second wave Norwegian black metal, which usually isn't my thing. I've also discovered a huge compilation of hundreds of the favorite songs of Lux Interior and Poison Ivy, two members of one of my favorite punk bands, The Cramps. It mostly consists of 50s rockabilly and 60s garage and girl group stuff, but its variety is really pretty much endless, I've never seen a more diverse collection of songs. I definitely recommend it. In the area of literature, it's a little easier to narrow down. My favorite book of all-time is undoubtedly Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. I know it's an obvious choice, but I just find it amazing how Nabokov's writing is so beautiful that he actually makes you come fairly close to sympathizing with a disgusting protagonist. When I read, I like to pair books to read one after another that I feel go well together. For example, I recently finished Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk and am now reading Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, for a look at two different decades' "lost generations." Next, I'm planning on reading Keeper Of The Clown, a biography of Jim Varney from those Ernest movies, and Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders to get a real feeling of two very different madmen. This blog entry is running a little long, so I'll end it here. I hope you feel as if you now know my interests better.

My favorite websites: A consistently clever site that lampoons one of my unexplainable fascinations, newspaper comic strips and a blog dedicated to perhaps the best worst movie of all time, A Talking Cat!?!

These companion pieces, designed by a friend of mine, say more about life than I could ever hope to.

And while I'm at it, here's a Heathcliff strip that I've been struggling to understand for many months. If anyone can explain this punchline, they will be forever in my debt.