Every once in a while a question comes up in conversation: “Have you ever seen mat angry?”
I’m not talking about heated arguments over politics or religion. I’m not even talking about the natural “I’m fed up and extremely annoyed” reactions that everyone has now and then. I’m talking angry as in: I am on the precipice and about to do some serious violence.
Unless your name is Deejay, this aspect of me has never appeared to anybody I know (and even Deejay has only seen it occur once, while we were in high school). I once had a buddy of mine from Grand Island say “What do you do to vent? It’s not healthy that you never get pissed”. Some people yell and scream. Others break things. It takes an incredibly rare occurance to make me honestly angry about anything. I’ve always been able to internalize anger by ignoring it in my own way. I’ve seen some of my friends in meltdown mode before. Being an observer to it rather than participating brings an interesting perspective. I suppose it is sort of like being the only sober person at a party where everyone is drunk. When you’re the sober person, drinking seems a lot less interesting when you see the transformations around you. Flipping out is similar. It’s just plain odd to see someone go nuts. So I just never do it.
The past 10 days or so are driving me nuts. For example, earlier last week the image popped into my mind, out of the blue, of punching someone in the throat as hard as I could and then standing back to watch what would happen. The choking, the gasping for air, all of it. And I don’t feel bad thinking about it, either. Now of course, I would never actually do that to someone, but I’m not sure it is entirely healthy to think things like that 
It’s just that every single thing, major and minor, feels like a knife jabbing me and I want to blow up in a hurricane of rage destroying everything around me. In other words, I feel like Steve feels every day of his life 
Maybe this is my way of venting. In any event, watch out for Hurricane MaT. He’s close to Category “Wrath of God” status. Steve, send me some pointers on how to deal
Deep Discount is doing a Buy 1 Get 1 Free Anchor Bay promotion that has some really good stuff. I think I’ll pick up Demons and Demons 2. Maybe the Children of the Corn and Creepshow 2 special editions if I splurge. If you know how Deep Discount operates and when they post their sales, it can be a terrible addiction. If you put in the time, you can take advantage of their “secret prices”. For example, they had the Salo Criterion priced at 18 bucks the first day they posted it for pre-sale on their site. The problem is you never know when they’ll put the film into their system, so if there is something you are anticipating, you’ve got to keep checking day after day. Still, a few minutes out of your day is worth saving 8 bucks, in my opinion.
FSU’s offense imploded against Wake Forest on saturday. It was spectacular in a surreal way. I’ve never seen a team look so inept on offense in my entire life. The silver lining is that the defense looked pretty rock solid. They didn’t give up a touchdown even though the offense forced them into short field situations constantly. As I was watching the game, a thought occurred to me: “I’ve grown up”. When I was younger, I would have bitched about how much they suck and have your typical “fan” overreaction. I was cleaning my kitchen as the game was on and when it was over I didn’t even care. I was sort of like “Oh well”. I think as a fan, you still root for and want your team to succeed, but there comes a point in time when you reconcile that, really, you’ve got no control over what happens. I mean, it ain’t like I’m out there playing Quarter Back or anything No need to upset yourself over what you can’t do anything about, I suppose.
I’ve been getting a kick out of the reaction to my last post. As I expected, it’s fallen to the usual battlelines of “artistry” versus “personal standards” type of argument. Of course, “gratuitous” has nothing to do with the artist in the context that I was talking about, but if there is one thing that seems to be true in this world it’s the fact that I can’t explain anything to certain people. Our forum pal Fake Larry points out all the time that we start arguing over what is, essentially, separate points. After 80 posts, the perumutations have multiplied in so many different ways that the initial point is completely lost and/or misunderstood from its initial purpose. And he’s absolutely correct that it happens with everything. Take a film theory class. You’ll understand why “gratutious” statements are absurd.
As of right now, Wednesday, October 8th is the day that Deejay and I will begin our new live internet radio show courtesy of the fine folks over at Horror Movie Fans Radio. We’re the second portion of a back-to-back that, I think, is going to involve a female horror show called Gore Girl (not 100% positive on that last part). Fear not friends, we’re not going to step all over the Splattercast’s turf with wall-to-wall horror. Deejay and I are still ironing out the details but we’ll be doing some interesting things. To give you an idea of the odd ideas we’ve been batting around: a segment where we re-enact Spanish soap opera storylines in English ala Splatterpiece Theatre. Yes, I think this will be a show that might interest some of you
Campbell Brown calls the McCain campaign sexists for not letting Porky Palin speak with reporters. That’s a funny way to turn sexism back on them. But really, what’s John McCain scared of?
Maybe the root cause of my anger stems from the still, as of this moment, missing Outpost Doom tape. Where art thou opening scenes?
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