The Official K Chronicles and (Th)ink Website

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN
I will celebrate my first Halloween in Los Angeles with the Wifey in West Hollywood, which I hear it’s like San Francisco’s Castro (‘cept without all the violence and shootings and stuff).

Anyhoo. Below is my top three scary movie list for all y’all to peruse. Starting with number three: (By the way, see the UNCUT versions of these movies. Not the watered down crap)

3.Suspiria– I never saw this one for years simply because of the trailer. It had a woman with her back to the camera, combing her hair. Saying “la-la-la-la-la-laaa” She turns and it’s a skull face with hair on it and “Suspiria” appears across the screen. That was enough for me.
Anyway, Rene Murray in my 6th grade class would always mention “the maggots on the ceiling” but the knife blade sticking in the beating heart was what gets me. There ain’t no story here. Just weird colors, 70s film stock, dwarves in cloaks and women dying. Rough-ass movie.

2.The Exorcist– I don’t care that you can see the strings when she’s floating above the bed. This was another film I was afraid to see for years because of the people I’ve met whose parents took them to see it in the movies when they were 10. Junkies, reprobates, pedophiles. Don’t see the cut T.V. version. In fact, don’t see this movie at home. It should be seen in the theatre in the dark where you cannot pause it to answer the phone, or go to the fridge. Part of what is scary about it is you wonder why Linda Blair’s parents let her do dirty things with a cross screaming “Eff me Jesus”. But that’s the 70’s for you. See the latest cut where the kid “crabwalks” down the stairs, but wear a diaper, cuz you will soil it.

1.The Wizard of Oz– Straight up the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Probably because they advertise it as a kids film so you end up seeing it when you were small. And they don’t take out any scenes even when they play it on network T.V. Everything is scary about this movie.
Judy Garland. The tornado. The feet stickin’ out of the bottom of the house. The munchkins. The sets. The effects. The songs. The trees. The Flying Monkeys. The dudes shes meets along the way. Both witches. It’s lasting effect is obvious when you see Garland doing her pill-poppin’ freak-out singing routine decades later. And her daughter Liza Minneli? Why do you think she married that weird dude? The most traumatizing movie of all time.

*LETTERS OF THE WEEK:

RE: Jena K Chronicles

Ok, so I wrote you ages and ages ago to tell you about a push poll call against then US Senate Candidate Ron Kirk, who would have been the first African American US Senator from Texas, when he was running against John Cornyn back in 2000, and how “someone” called elderly white FDR Democrats in Central and West Texas and said “this is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance calling to remind you to vote for Ron Kirk for US Senate – Ron will help us get gay marriage – so remember, vote for Ron Kirk.” Needless to say, nobody from the Kirk campaign, nor any known GLTB group commissioned those calls. I don’t know if that alone cost Ron Kirk the election, but I do know it had to freak out that category of Democrats, who were already a little wiggy about voting for a person of color, but completely would flip about gay marriage. I was working for a Democratic Congressional campaign at the time, and the only reason we knew about it was one of the calls went out to the San Saba County
Democratic Party Chair’s mother’s answering machine.

I guess I go into that because anybody with eyes from Texas or any other Southern state knows that racism is alive and well in our part of the world. But sometimes I wonder why it ferments so in small towns, which in other ways are good places to live – people notice if you don’t come into town or miss church (are you sick? is everything ok?) people literally plow each others fields in times of sickness or hardship – and often you see people who otherwise would be completely intolerant of so-called social misbehaviors accepting of the social misfits because they are local – part of our tribe, so to speak, so while we may not approve, we still accept them. For example, when I was in college I had several friends from one small town in South Texas who were very intolerant of any illegal drugs, though you could drink yourself into having your stomach pumped once a week, except for their one screw-up friend, who they felt if he was only doing pot it was a big improvement from
when he was snorting tons of coke and whatever else he could find back in the day.

So I have about decided it is because those that could and would make changes, that would negate the racism and narrow-mindedness all leave – both black and white – they go on to college and big cities and take their brains and commonsense with them and sit around with their city friends and try to explain their backward hometown and go home at Christmas and shake their heads but get in their car afterward and head back to Shreveport, or Dallas or Atlanta and leave those behind to continue to simmer in their pot of poor economic development and ignorance. Which leads us to your cartoon, which has so much truth in it that it sickens – all those protesters boosting Jena’s economy more than anything that has happened since the sawmills closed. Economic development based on hate and teenage idiots.

So I guess this rant has no real point to it, except keep up the good work.

Thanks,

A.

RE: Life’s Little Victories:

Hello Keith! Just a quick note to say how much I enjoy “Life’s Little Victories” and your other presentations over the years in Funny Times. Your work in particular helps pull me up out of the doldrums when things get tough! Keep on keepin’ on — PLEASE! Thanks, C.

(Look for another full color Little Vics in the Dec. ish of the Funny Times.-kk)

RE: Throwin Tomatoes K Chronicles:

Hey Keith–

Now, that’s a great story (and cartoon, as usual). Good idea too, about car
horns. (Now, if we can just think of an incentive for car-makers to do that…).

I once planned to stand at the intersection near my house — where I’d nearly
been taken off umpteen times, by jackasses sailing merrily through *red lights*
— with several water balloons, the water dyed red. Waiting.

I was stopped only by the fear of getting punched out. Maybe a justified fear,
too, as I’d found a few years before. I was peacably riding my bike through
another intersection — green light in my favour, mark you — and was nearly
greased by some oncoming dolt pulling a screeching left-hand turn, all of a
foot-and-a-half behind my rear wheel, and without benefit of signals. Almost
automatically I flipped him off, whereupon he pulled a screeching U-turn, came
after me, and… well, I’ll just say that the ensuing exchange of views was
ugly. From my point of view, leastways.

Ah, well. Glory days. Speaking of which: Go Sox!

best,

B.
Vancouver

RE: Tax the Rich K Chronicles

Keef, I haven’t written in a while, but first of all,

HI! Hope you and the missuz are doing great.

Second of all, your comic this week is such a big DUH…it is pretty slick how this very simple concept is lost on so many. Oh wait – maybe it’s not, but the fact that it’s rich people that have most of the power means that it doesn’t matter how obvious this is.

By the way, as a straight white upper-middle class male, the Bush Era has been really good to me…so why am I so pissed, ashamed and sad?

Peace, and continuing to care about poor women of color (even though it’s against my best interests),

E.
San Jose

*CAN YOU DIG IT?
Ahhhh…Another Sox celebration had. Congrats to the team and those of us who have followed them through think and thin. The new empire? Ha! Boston spends money on decent players who fit in (barring Gag-ne with a Spoon and a few others), and have plenty of great prospects that were grown through the org (Pap, Pedroia, Ellsbury). The Sox are gonna be set for years to come.
Pats got next. Celts got after next.

*IF YOU WERE TO RENAME THE K CHRONICLES (NOT THAT I’M GONNA), WHICH NAME WOULD YOU PICK:

1. “The Knight Life”

2. “For Keef’s Sake”

3.”K by Me”

Send me an email with your vote at keef@kchronicles.com