Visiting Mad Monster Party Carolina 2019

Greetings and Salutations Horror Fans!

On Saturday, February 23rd, your favorite blogger found himself driving in the rain north on I-77 to Charlotte to attend Mad Monster Party Carolina 2019 at the Hilton Charlotte University Palace Hotel.  

This was my second official visit to Mad Monster Party since my last visit in Rock Hill in March of 2017.

Mad Monster Party is a Horror, Sci-Fi and Fantasy themed convention that brings the world's top genre celebrities and vendors together with their fans to trade stories, attend informative panels, buy autographs and outstanding merchandise. 

Y'all know by now how much I despise driving in Charlotte (or any other major city) especially in the rain. But the trip was well worth it, despite a couple of small issues and one major disappointment -- I was unable to get the autograph of the person I really wanted to meet: Bruce Campbell, the star of the Evil Dead movies and one of my all-time favorite cult classics Army of Darkness. 

The line to see Mr. Campbell was literally out the door and around several hallways. As y'all know I never attend conventions for more than four hours, or so, largely due to my autism issues with noise and huge crowds, and standing in line for hours to get an autograph isn't good for my bad knees either. Even worse I was unable to get close enough to get a decent photo of the guy. Dammit!

Oh well, I was able to get some other autograph from some really outstanding actors and actresses in attendance -- including an really awesome autographed Jason Vorhees hockey mask signed by the man himself, Mr. Kane Hodder! I was in line for a half hour to see him, and it was worth the wait. 

Fortunately I did arrive early enough that I did not have to wait in long lines to see other really great actors and actresses. I added at least six new autographs to my growing collection. All of them were truly marvelous folks that I enjoyed meeting and talking to, if only too briefly. 

The convention became crowded really quickly and there were several times I had to go outside -- claustrophobia is a real bitch! the noise levels were about what I expected and was able to deal with this time around with no problems. Everyone was really friendly, and the cosplayers were outstanding as always. 

The following are the photos I took of the event:

Yours truly meeting horror actor Mitch Pileggi.
He played Horace Pinker in Shocker, Walter Skinner on
The X-Files, Colonel Steven Caldwell on Stargate Atlantis.

Yours truly with WWE Hall of Famer and former
World Wrestling Federation Champion
The Iron Sheik.

Yours truly with WWE Hall of Famer and former
World Wrestling Federation Champion
SGT Slaughter.

Sarge put me in the Cobra Clutch.

Yours truly with actor Eugene "Big Daddy" Clarke
from George A. Romero's Land of the Dead (2005).
Yeah, we kinda blinded a few folks with the glare, LOL!

Okay, okay! Jeez!!! LOL!

Yours truly with actor Sid Haig, best known as
Captain Spalding from the Rob Zombie films
The Devil's Rejects (2005) and
House of 1000 Corpses (2003).

Yours truly with actress Adrienne Barbeau.
She is famous for her roles in Swamp Thing (1982),
Creepshow (1982), and the voice of Catwoman in
Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995).

There he is, the man himself -- Mr. Kane Hodder.
Jason Vorhees from four of the Friday the 13th films.

Thank you sir!

Artwork and autograph of horror actor David Howard
Thornton portraying his character Art The Clown
from the 2017 film Terrifier. Poor Daphne!

Yes they float. They allllll float....

Feed me Seymour....uh, I mean Carl!

No I checked, it didn't come in a size 14.

My two favorite cosplayers!
Jack and Sally from Tim Burton's
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

Yours truly with the actress Danielle Harris,
famous for her roles in several horror films
including the Halloween films, the teenage daughter
in The Last Boy Scout (1991), and as the voice of
Debbie Thornberry from the Nickelodeon animated
series The Wild Thornberrys.

Oh man, I'm so screwed!
Actually these two were pretty awesome, though they didn't
say much.

Aside from not getting Bruce Campbell's autograph, I had a great time hanging out with fellow fans. I also received several complements on my official Svengoolie glow-in-the-dark t-shirt. 

Looking forward to my next fan convention -- mostly because I finally plan to cosplay for the event! Yes folks, I have a great idea for who I will go to this year's South Carolina Comic Con in Greenville as....but for that y'all will just have to wait and see. 

Till then, Have A Wonderful Dixie Day, and y'all come back now, ya hear?

My Best And Worst Valentine's Day Stories Ever -- A Tale Of My Existence (NSFW)

 
My Best (And Worst) Valentine's Day Stories Ever

A Tale Of My Existence

By C.W. Roden

Ah Valentine's Day, perhaps one of my least favorite holidays.

Romance? Phooey! Give me Halloween and lots of candy and scary movies any day!   

I've never had too many good memories associated with this holiday, as most of them involve me spending it alone with my television, a game system, and lately my computer.

That is not to say I don't have some romantic stories related to Valentine's Day. In fact, I have two of them that stand out for widely different reasons. 

One of them is the very cute story of my very first kiss, which took place on Valentine's Day in 1983 when I was 7-years-old. The other is the terrible story of Valentine's Day in 2000, at age twenty-three, when I nearly suffered a broken neck giving oral sex. Yeah, sadly you did not misread that last line, and also yes, that story is as bad as it sounds.

The following, submitted for your reading enjoyment (and probably my complete humiliation) are the very true stories of your favorite blogger's best -- and worst -- Valentine's Day stories to date. 

My second grade class photo, taken a month before Valentine's Day 1983.
Yours truly is standing in the back glancing down at a certain someone I'm going to talk about shortly.

The Best -- Valentine's Day 1983 

That year my second grade class was doing Valentine's Day cards for that day. It was a mandatory assignment for everyone to do, so I got my parents to go to the store and get a box of cheap Valentine cards, along with a few boxes of those heart-shaped Valentine candies that seem to be traditional. 

I wrote out Valentine's Day cards for every girl in the class, and put them in the box at the front of the class. Since my first five grades were at a private Christian school, the class was small. In fact there were only thirteen kids in my grade, and half of them were girls. 

The last two school periods were Valentine's Day activities. Well, the first part was, while the second would be playground for last period. I remember that it was a Monday, and that the weather was cold, but not too bad and sunny. 

The Valentine's party was just soda, holiday candy and, of course, the Valentine cards. I got one from each girl in the class. Nothing extraordinary, just the usual generic greeting: To Beau (my childhood nickname), From Yadda-yadda.

I passed out candy hearts to everyone, giving everyone about two. When I handed them out to the girls in my class, one of them, my favorite female friend at the time, Sandy, laughed and joked about the candy hearts from Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown -- a favorite for most of us at that age. She gave me a grin and said that she got one that read Sweet Baby. She ate it before anyone could confirm this. She was a bit of a story teller, and I'm not sure candy hearts actually had that on them. I mean I never got one that said Forget It Kid personally. 

Later when we got on the playground, I found myself alone next to the side of the building just in the line of sight of the teachers monitoring us. I usually liked to be by myself because I was more comfortable away from the usual noise, to be alone with my thoughts. Later I would learn that this was a result of the autism spectrum, but at the time I just thought of myself as shy, and many of my classmates thought of me as a weirdo (though more in a young Gonzo from Muppet Babies type of way rather than a really negative one). 

As I was using a pencil to write down something on one of the Valentine cards I got, Sandy surprised me a little, having appeared behind the corner of the building out of sight of the teachers. She told me to follow her around the corner. I did so. 

Sandy looked up at me, brown hair and round smiling face and handed me a candy heart. "Here you go," she said, then added, "Read it." I looked at it and it read: Kiss Me. I told her what it said, and she quickly stood on her toes, grabbed both of my shoulders, and brushed her lips across mine for what was probably about a second, or two. Then she pushed me down and ran off. 

It wasn't much of a kiss. I mean Anna Chlumsky and Macaulay Culkin's kissing scene in the movie My Girl was probably more involved. I remember being surprised and a bit disgusted by it at the time. My reaction was a bit more like T.J. and Spinelli's in the Disney's Recess season one episode "The Experiment" -- namely to wipe my mouth with my sleeve before chasing after Sandy toward the nearby swings. For her part she acted like it wasn't a big deal. I kinda forgot about it right afterwards too in the short term. At that age romance isn't really a big deal, you know? In truth I was more in love with dinosaurs at the time. 

All the same the moment did mark my very first kiss with a female someone who wasn't my mom or grandma -- even if it was a surprise kiss I wasn't prepared for. 

Sadly, by the time school started back after summer vacation later that year, Sandy would be gone having moved away with her family. No goodbye when the school year ended. Likely she wasn't told herself because when she said goodbye last day of second grade, she acted like she would see everyone again after summer. 

As pathetic as it sounds, that somewhat innocent experience would be my best memory of Valentine's Day.


   

Yeah, that pretty much sums up the next story.

The Worst -- Valentine's Day 2000

WARNING!
The next story contains NSFW references and may not be suitable for the young and immature. You've been warned!

A then 23 years old yours truly was at a birthday party for a friend of a friend -- yes, that person's birthday was on Valentine's Day. 

While attending, I ended up having this strong connection with a young woman about a year older than me with dark hair and dark blue eyes wearing one of those strapless tube dresses. We clicked almost immediately and, by this point in my life I'd been around the block enough times to know when a girl is interested. 

We snuck off to a dark bedroom and undressed a little. After a few minutes of making out it was then that I realized that I didn't have my supplies on hand. Thankfully, my intended partner was more than prepared. She had condoms, K-Y, and some folded plastic wrap. The latter confused me a moment, then I had the weird thought she was one of those girls who likes to be smothered during sex -- not one of my favorite activities. She then explained to me about how to use thin plastic wrap for safe oral sex -- DUH!

Yeah, I felt stupid too at the time.

Truthfully, I am not really into oral play much. Safe oral sex is pretty much non-existent for the most part. Sure condoms and dental dams can help, though I kinda have a gag-reflex and a really weak stomach, so the idea of actually having my face close to those parts of the anatomy kinda make me queasy. 

Still, even though I was new at it, I put the K-Y on the plastic as she pulled up her dress and took her underwear down. I knelt on the floor in front of the bed and then nervously started. 

Now here is where things take a turn for the worst -- in more ways than one!

Because I was on my knees on the floor in front of the bed and her legs were wrapped around my head tightly, I could not hear or see anything beyond what was in front of me in the darkened room. I really couldn't hear very well because of the thick legs pressed against them, so I had no idea that she was being a little extra loud. 

All of a sudden, the world became very bright and my knees left the floor, followed by a popping sound and pain in my neck before I found myself slammed down on a thankfully thick carpet, though the impact still hurt my elbow and back. My neck was completely sore though, and I was afraid it was broken as my body had gone numb! 

The feeling in my body thankfully came back a few minutes later, but not before about a dozen people -- including my intended romantic partner -- were frantically standing over me worried, and slightly amused. 

What happened was that another couple burst into the room ready to use the bed for the same reasons, and cut on the lights abruptly. My partner had been too into what I was doing downstairs to notice when the door opened, but when the lights came on and two people stared at her with her dress undone and down at the top and bottom, in an effort to protect her modesty (too late!) she flipped on her side to face away. 

Since I was unable to hear anything, I had no advanced warning when she flipped and was completely gator-rolled onto my back. The popping sound was the pressure on my neck and the loss of sensation was from several nerves being jolted by the vice-like twist of my neck -- which I was told later was the equivalent of getting whiplash in a car accident. As it was the jostled nerves in my neck and shoulders would go on to give me pain for about two weeks, or so. 

Even worse, there was a bite reflex and the girl herself didn't come away completely unscathed -- thankfully no blood, just a scratch though the plastic wrap on the inside of one of her thighs, but yeah, not too good.  

I don't really remember her name, and that is probably for the best since I never saw her again after that night. I remember her frantically saying sorry to me about a dozen times, and my own apology for the uh, unintentional hickey.

Needless to say we never got to finish what we were doing.

That my friends was the story of my worst Valentine's Day experience ever and why I don't think much of this particular holiday.  

Well my friends and fellow travelers, that about sums up my best and worst experiences on Valentine's Day. I hope y'all enjoyed these Tales Of My Existence.  

Once again thank y'all for taking the time to stop off and read my humble blog offerings. Have a wonderful Dixie day, and a happy holiday -- and y'all can bleeping keep it!  

Halloween is only 8 months away....thank Samhain!