Rocktober and Shocktober are fast approaching....

As in, they are coming tomorrow. As in, tomorrow is October 1st. October is great for a variety of reasons. One of them being, hopefully, that the Fall is really and truly here. Temperature-wise this week has been in the 70's and 80's and muggy, and when I get back from North Carolina it looks like it will drop precipitously into the 50's. When it goes below 60, it is officially time, for me, to retire the shorts for the year. Albeit very reluctantly.

Rocktober starts in earnest next week, there seems to be a whole bunch of shows this October. It usually happens this way, for whatever reason, touring bands are either starting up tours or ending them and coming through the area. Maybe because everyone's finally back in town and they are hitting it at just the right time. It starts early for my wife, who has tickets to see Mos Def and Talib Kweli on Sunday night, which I unfortunately won't be around for. But Tuesday night, we're going to see M.I.A. and Wednesday I am going to see The Hold Steady. And, I am not sure if this counts but I am going to see Paul F. Thompkins, stand-up comedian on Saturday night, in a very small local theater.

Last, but certainly not least, it is of course, Shocktober. Why? Because its the creepiest month of the year. Halloween time, when things are especially spooky. My original idea was to watch a scary movie a night for all of October and writing about them here. I am going to still try to watch as many as possible, but I am already going to be a bit behind because of my small trip away this weekend, but I can try to make up. We already have a bunch loaded on the old Roku/Netflix watch-instantly queue. Maybe I can even get the Mrs. to guest write a couple things.

So, you might say, I am very excited.

Two things before I wrap this up and try to get some sleep:

I would usually never do something like this but I have a book suggestion you should check out in honor of Shocktober: World War Z: An Oral History of The Zombie War

This book is so much better than it has any right to be, really. Its basically a cross between George Romero and Studs Terkel, the historian that perfected the idea of the oral history.  In World War Z, Max Brooks (Mel's son!) plays the role of a post-apocalyptic UN agent trying to piece together the stories of the key players during a worldwide zombie outbreak. Seriously, its sad, scary, exciting...not only of the best horror stories I have ever read, but probably one of my favorite books to come out in the last decade. 

And since we are talking about zombies and horror movies and stories, someone put together a fan-made opening credits sequence for the upcoming The Walking Dead AMC show. The guy that made it is Daniel Kanemoto. He's actually an animator for the Travel Channel, Nickelodeon, the USA Network and even his own short films. He used artwork that comes from the original graphic novels by Robert Kirkman. The music is "Fresh Blood" by the Eels. AMC would probably be smart to go ahead and buy it because I doubt they would come up with anything as good as that.

THE WALKING DEAD "Opening Titles" from Daniel Kanemoto on Vimeo.

-K