The Long-Delayed Lucky Seventh Newsletter of Zack's Newsletter
EXTREME! Little Orphan Annie! OG Reading Rainbow! Highly Specific Life Advice!
Hey everyone! I’ve been a bit busy the last few weeks and have…dear lord, four different newsletter installments in draft form. Let’s start getting them out tonight!
…I edit for length and also multiple people I admired kept passing and I kept adding new tributes, so that’s a whole installment by itself.
HOW I FIND THINGS:
A brief look into my ADHD mindset:
So, I saw that Amazon Prime had Richard Lester’s 1973 THE THREE MUSKETEERS, which I’ve meant to watch for years. You had to pay to rent THE FOUR MUSKETEERS, the second half of the story, but it was great fun.
Anyway, Oliver Reed was one of the Musketeers and that got me thinking about how he had such scary, distinct features, which led to me Googling some pics for reference, which in turn led to my seeing many pics of him in the Hammer Horror film THE CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF, which reminded me I’d never goten around to seeing THAT film, so I looked it up on Roku to see if it was streaming anywhere, and I found it was FREE on a streaming app I hadn’t heard of before, Movieland TV.
And then it turned out Movieland TV had dozens and dozens of legit great old movies, all free and ad-free…and also not sure if they’re in the best picture quality, horribly organized, and not 100 percent certain HOW they got all these…and now I have a major list of movies I’ve meant to see for years that are on the service, and I’m telling you about it so you can see if you can get it on your TV as well, and I’ll probably wind up recommending some movies from it to you.
Frankly, not even sure this service has these movies up LEGALLY, but gonna try and fill in some gaps while it’s up…
But now you see how my brain works. I get curious about one thing, and it leads to another thing, and then I find 50 other things along the way.
AN IMAGE THAT MAKES ME HAPPY:
Hasbro recently shipped out giant figures of the mutant-hunting Sentinel robots the X-Men fight, which were funded at $350 a pop last year through preorder crowdfunding. I didn’t get one, not so much because of the money but because I have no damn room for such things. If anything, I’m trying to divest my assets to avoid compromising my floor space.
Anyway, a nice look at just how dang big these things are showed up on Instagram, and it made me happy. Which reminds me: When you have something that brings you joy, try and use it to bring joy to others as well!
LESS HAPPY BUT STILL AMUSING
AND ON THAT NOTE:
On Labor Day Weekend, I took a day trip to Wilmington, NC, where I was born! It’s a couple hours from where I live, and my family used to get together for Labor Day weekened at Topsail Beach. Covid and other things have salted that, but after working remotely out of the house all week, I wanted to get a little change of scenery!
I took a route down NC-50, then 242, which avoided the highway and had a lot of nice sights along the way. There was also not a lot of shoulder to pull over to take pictures of these sights. Well, I got a couple.
While in Wilmington, I went to some bookstores and one of my favorite places, WHATEVER…WILMINGTON, a shop that specializes in all manner of kooky used stuff. There’s books, comics, music, antiques, and any items from the film crews that have come through the area.
I’ll post some pics from past visits in another newsletter, but here are a few things I saw this time, offered with NO CONTEXT WHATSOEVER:
And that was a very nice day! I also recommend Memory Lane Comics, Fanboy Comics, and the usedbookstore McAllister and Solomon, where I got a few Xmas gifts for friends and family…they had a sale.
I need to do some other day trips! In part, I put them off because my GF has started work on a Ph.D and she only has limited windows of free time, and I want to take her along to a few of these. I keep meaning to go to the “Land of Oz” park in Beech Mountain, but it’s only open a few weekends a year! Fingers crossed…
BUTTERFLY IN THE SKY…..
LeVar Burton’s been in the news a lot lately, mainly from whether he’s going to host JEOPARDY! or even WANTS to host JEOPARDY! or what. Like a lot of people, I first encountered him as the host of READING RAINBOW, where he was the kind of friendly, gentle presence who made seeming curious about the world something to be proud of and excited about.
Recently, plans for a READING RAINBOW documentary were announced! That inspired me to look up some old episodes. I actually found the VERY FIRST ep (albeit from a later airing with updated opening credits), which focuses on the book TIGHT TIMES, a serious-yet-humorous look at a child seeing his family’s economic problems. It’s surprisingly daring material!
I HONESTLY HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO MAKE OF THIS:
Recently posted on Twitter were some designs by comics legend Alex Toth, who helped design such cartoons as SPACE GHOST, for a proposed adventure-based LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE cartoon from the 1990s…that looks very, very 1990s. I have no information about it, but based on these designs it would have either been brilliant or a trainwreck.
LOCAL FOLK MADE GOOD: Here’s a CBS profile of Ashley Christensen, a chef in my area who owns a series of acclaimed restaurants. Her food is one of the things I’m proudest about Raleigh!
AND FINALLY:
An old Facebook post that came up in “Memories” that I was fond of.
25 RULES TO LIVE BY I HAVE ACCUMULATED:
Always say no to Lucifer.
Do NOT read the Latin.
When someone asks you if you're a god, you say yes.
When summoning an invisible swordsman, make sure you fire your shot up into the air.
Never follow what appears to be a little girl in a red hood, especially if you're in Venice.
Don't whiz on the electric fence.
Wait until you SEE it's monsters coming out of the mist to kill you before mercy-murdering your kid.
That bite? DO have it looked at.
What exactly are you going to DO if you make it to Mexico?
Listen to your friend Billy Zane. He's a cool dude.
The fancy cup is never the Grail. Choose wisely. Also, do not throw him the idol; he will not throw you the whip.
Have an extra pair of glasses in case the apocalypse happens.
Always sterilize a teleportation pod before you try it.
Never mutate sharks. Or apes. Any animals really. Also, convicted murderers are poor choices for Guinea pigs. If you program them not to hurt you, make sure you also program the rest of their runnin' crew as well if they ask for them to be brought out of cryogenic suspension.
They may offer you fortune and fame, love and money and instant acclaim. They may offer lots of cheap thrills, fancy condos in Beverly Hills. But whatever they offer you, DON'T FEED THE PLANTS. This advice is especially important because it comes from a DELETED SCENE.
Do NOT great the strange new creature with "Hey, little fella..."
TELL people where you're going.
Phrase any wishes to be granted as carefully and/or literally as possible.
The full history of a property is important to know before moving in.
There is NEVER still good in him. You know it.
Know when to hold 'em.
Know when to fold 'em.
Know when to walk away.
Know when to run.
Never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.