Shows in History: Van Morrison – Rotterdam, The Netherlands (03/30/91)

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I’m going to try this again. I do like this idea. I like looking at what shows were played on any particular day. There is a part of me that loves stats. I love seeing if there are particular days that have a lot of shows or others that have very few shows. When I am good at this sort of thing, you can follow a tour and see how often the setlists change, etc.

But really, right now, I like listening to shows that happen today. I have a lot of shows, and it is always difficult to know what to listen to. Finding a show that was performed on this day sometime in history is easy. And fun. And here we go.

As much as I love Van Morrison, I’m not well versed in his different eras. I know about Them and the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, his time with Pee Wee Ellis, his brief stint with Linda Gail Lewis, etc. But I unlike with the Grateful Dead or Bob Dylan, I couldn’t tell you my favorite year for Van Morrison performances or anything really about a specific time period. For me with Van I’m usually just picking out something at random and giving it a listen. I should work on that.

I mention this to say I don’t really know what was going on with Van in 1991. I know he released Hymns to the Silence this year, and that’s a good album. But I don’t know if this is considered a good year for Van or not.

Listening to this show, I suspect it is a good year. The liner notes indicate the bootleg Pagan Streams was recorded around this time, and that one’s a killer. This is a long show with something like 29 songs being played and running just over three hours in length.

Most of the first disc isn’t really my thing. I don’t tend to like his bluesy numbers. Songs like “Stormy Monday” and “Baby, Please Don’t Go” are fine, not bad, but they don’t really do it for me.

Things pick up toward the end of Disc 1 with “And the Healing Has Begun” and the rest of the disc finishes out strongly. Disc 2 begins with “Help Me” which is another song I tend to not gravitate toward, though I’ve heard some good versions. This one is certainly energetic.

But then we get to “Orangefield” and I’m in heaven. The rest of the set is wonderful straight through. “Summertime in England” lasts a full twenty two minutes, which I think is the longest one he ever played. Certainly the longest version I’ve ever heard.

Van is in good spirits throughout. He talks a lot, and the conversations are interesting.

The sound quality is mostly good. The liner notes talk about how there was a low quality AUD that circulated for a long time, but then they found a new source of a much better quality. Unfortunately, that source doesn’t have all the songs, so they are spliced in, which can be a little jarring. Especially in the middle of “Summertime in England” which I guess got cut off in the best-sounding tape.

If you don’t already have this, email me, and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Just for kicks I played around with it today and managed to upload “Whenever God Shines His Light” to YouTube. I really just wanted to see if I could do that.

Here are the full show notes.

Van Morrison
March 30, 1991
De Doelen – Rotterdam, Netherlands

Source: Daud clone, except for the three Georgie Fame selections, the conclusion to Summertime in England starting at approximately 17:00, and Caravan through end of show , which are from unknown generation cassettes > CD

The Complete Show

CD 1
1) You’re The One
2) Out of Sight
3) Ain’t That Loving You Baby
4) Stormy Monday,
5) Baby Please Don’t Go
6) We’re Gonna Groove > Who Do You Love (Van with Howlin’ Wilf and the Vee Jays (James Hunter)

7) Parchman Farm
8) Yeh Yeh
9) Green Onions (Georgie Fame and band)

10) And The Healing Has Begun
11) See Me Through
12) Moondance
13) Youth of 1000 Summers
14) Whenever God Shines His Light

CD 2:

1) Help Me
2) Carrying a Torch
3) Orangefield
4) It’s All In The Game > Make It Real One More Time
5) Northern Muse(Solid Ground) > When Heart Is Open
6) I’ll Go Crazy
7) Enlightenment
8) Summertime In England

CD 3:
1) In The Garden
2) Vanlose Stairway > Trans-Euro Train
3) Caravan
4) Send In The Clowns
5) I Can’t Stop Loving You
6) Why Must I Always Explain
7) Gloria (Cuts. Tape apparently gave out at 3-hour mark)

Band: Haji Ahkba, trumpet; Richie Buckley sax; Dave Early, drums; Georgie Fame, organ; Howard Francis, piano; Steve Gregory, sax; Ronnie Johnson, guitar; Nicky Scott, bass.

Notes:
Many years ago I received two Maxell analog cassette tapes containing this show.
The sound on the tapes was very muffled and sounded like the show was duplicated on a boom box with dirty heads.
Oh, those were the days.
Despite the sound quality caveats, Van and the band’s performance was a treasure that I cherished and studied because of its depth and length. I believe the Summertime in England is the longest ever performed by Van. It runs almost 22 minutes. Morrison talks about Christianity, psychiatry, and cults, among other things.
I searched and searched for a good quality recording of this gig for years, and finally one surfaced, but it ended 17 minutes into Summertime, then cut abruptly. The entire rest of the show involving an additional 7 songs was missing.
Recently, in a true labor of love, a friend and Van archivist and my brother helped prepare this complete version of the show, which contains the original nearly two hours of good quality recording, plus the rest of the show from a higher quality analog cassette tape.
I remember that on my original cassettes of the gig, the final song, Gloria, cut, as it does here. It appears that the taper just “ran out of road” as the show went just over the 3-hour mark!
The show has never been uploaded in as complete a condition as this project. This upload runs just a few seconds shy of 3 hours, and contains the opening set of Van with Howlin’ Wilf and the Vee Jays. Georgie Fame then performs for three songs before Van takes the stage again.
Rotterdam was the first show of a legendary 3-gig run that also included The Hague and then Utrecht, made famous as Pagan Streams.

Here are some other shows that were performed today in history.

Eric Clapton & Friends – Malibu, CA (03/30/76)

10,000 Maniacs – Our Time In Eden Tour Rehearsals (03/30/92)

Pink Floyd – Miami, FL (03/30/94)

Bruce Hornsby – Williamsburg, VA (03/30/99)

The Dead – New York, NY (03/30/09)

Adele – Milan, Italy (03/30/11)

My Life in Music: Queensryche – Empire

queensryche empire album cover

In my last post I talked about how I got my first CD player from my brother and how excited I was that it was a five disc changer. The idea of owning five whole CDs that would fill that changer was so exciting to me. I didn’t know what I was going to do when I bought a sixth CD, and I’d have to make a decision as to which disc to hold out.

I can’t remember now if Queensrÿche’s Empire was my second or third CD. I know I also bought U2’s Achtung Baby around that same time. Whatever number it was, I absolutely loved it.

I’m sure I bought it because of the hit single “Silent Lucidity.” That’s a great song, and it is part of a long tradition of power ballads where hard rockers show off their sensitive side with acoustic guitars and introspective lyrics. As a teenager, I was a sucker for that sort of thing.

I have a great memory of watching them play that song at the MTV Video Awards with a full orchestra. I thought that was the coolest thing.

The rest of the album rocked. As a teenager, all of 14-15 years old, I thought the social and political lyrics were amazing. They spoke about real things. Important things. They spoke directly to me.

The opening track “Best That I Can” told the story of a man in a wheelchair who dreamed of being a writer, of doing big things despite his disability. “Della Brown” talks about a woman living on the street. “Empire” was its magnum opus, a big, loud song that talked about gun violence, the illicit drug trade, and the lack of federal support for law enforcement. That was big stuff for little old me.

I took a drama class in eighth or ninth grade. For extra credit, you could lip synch any song you liked. You needed to get the synch just right, but you were also supposed to dress up like the character in the song or bring in props.

I was way too shy to actually do any of that, but I used to sit in my bedroom, listening to this album, thinking of all the ways I could perform these songs. I created all these little dances to go with them, gyrating in tune and doing my best to create a story. I thought it would blow their mind to hear “Empire.”

Like so many of these early albums, I haven’t listened to this in a very long time. Listening now, I still mostly like it. The hit songs are still great. I still love “Silent Lucidity” and “Jet City Woman” is a banger. I like “Another Rainy Night (Without You),” and “Best That I Can” has a nice beat. I like the progressive rock angles of many of the songs.

The lyrics seem a little pompous and simplistic to me now. “Empire” has a spoken word bit about how little the federal government spends on law enforcement, which seems absolutely wild now when you realize how much we spend these days and how little it has worked.

I added a few of those songs to my regular playlist, but most of them I’ll leave off and probably never listen to again. I can’t see myself listening to the album again any time soon.

This is by far the best album out of the three I’ve thus far talked about in this series, so that’s something.

Tea and Sympathy (1956)

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The Hollywood Production Code did not allow for homosexuality to exist in their movies. Gay people were not acceptable. That doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. Clever filmmakers often included gay characters in their films. They just couldn’t come out right, and state it. But if you look closely, you’ll find all sorts of gay-coded characters hiding in plain sight.

Tea and Sympathy is a great example of this. Based on a play in which the main character is explicitly gay, the film was never allowed to call Tom (John Kerr) a homosexual, and he never shows any interest in men. Instead, he’s just not “manly” like the other boys at his school. He likes poetry and art and listening to classical music by himself. When he’s caught sewing a button on a shirt while hanging out with a bunch of teachers’s wives instead of horsing around with the boys, things come to a boil.

His only refuge is the housemaster’s wife (a wonderful Deborah Kerr), who seems to understand who he is, and who attempts to help. This is still a 1950s movie, and it is still entangled in that production code, but it is a surprisingly sympathetic and heartfelt little drama. You can read my full review here.

It All Came True (1940)

it all came true bluray

Humphrey Bogart is my favorite actor. He made some of my favorite movies – The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Casablanca, and so many more. But the thing I always have to remember is that he spent more than a decade as a second-tier star. He played gangsters and heavies for a long time. He was often the third or fourth actor billed on a poster or in the credits before he became the star that we know and love.

He is exactly that in It All Came True. Originally he was third billed. He plays a gangster causing trouble for top-billed Ann Sheridan. But not long after this movie came out, Bogart did become a big star. In subsequent rereleases, suddenly Bogart was top billed. They even changed the opening credits for him.

Which is kind of dumb because this is Ann Sheridan’s movie through and through. It is an odd movie. Part of it is a fairly serious drama, but then they keep injecting magic tricks, show tunes, and vaudeville acts. That makes it less than a great movie, but it sure is fun. You can read my full review here.

Salem’s Lot Is the Pick of the Week

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Last year a bare-bones DVD release of Tobe Hooper’s terrific TV movie adaptation of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot hit the streets (I reviewed it here.) It was an odd release, as we live in the time of 4K UHD, so it’s confusing as to who would want a DVD with absolutely no extras. Especially since there was already a nice Blu-ray release of the film with plenty of extras selling cheaply on Amazon. But I guess there are still folk who just have DVD players and aren’t looking for extras.

At any rate, Arrow Video is now releasing the film in UHD with loads of extras. I’ve got a soft spot for the film (I also reviewed it just for my blog, which you can read here). Despite its being made-for-TV in the 1970s, it is surprisingly effective and genuinely creepy. Now I’m glad I didn’t buy that Blu-ray because this is a much better upgrade.

Also coming out this week that looks interesting:

Marty Supreme: I have to admit I’ve never seen a film by either of the Safdie Brothers. They are directors I keep hearing good things about, and there is no reason for me not to see their films; I just haven’t. This one stars Timothy Chamelet as a guy who dreams of being a ping pong star and will stop at nothing to achieve that goal.

The Blade: Criterion presents this Japanese film about a blade manufacturer who quits his job and looks for revenge.

Eiichi Kudo’s Samurai Revolution Trilogy: Modern takes on the samurai film that push back the classic noble samurai idea and show how corrupt the systems really were.

Lupin the 3rd: Specials Collection 1: Lupin III is a Japanese character who is supposed to be the grandson of the great fictional thief Arsene Lupin. There have been lots of movies, shows, comics, etc. based on the character. This package delivers five TV movies inducing: Bye Bye Lady Liberty, The Hemingway Papers, Napoleon’s Dictionary, From Siberia with Love, and Voyage to Danger

Greenland 2: Migration: I didn’t know there was a Greenland 1. This one sends the Garrity family out of the safety of their bunker and across the barren landscape.

A Man and a Woman: Criterion presents this classic French film from Claude Lelouch about a race car driver’s romance with a script girl.

Tea and Sympathy: Beautifully drawn drama about a gay-coded young man (John Kerry) and the bullying he receives at a prep school for not being manly enough. Deborah Kerr plays the only woman who seems to understand. You can read my full review here.

She Killed in Ecstasy: Jess Franco directs this exploitation classic about a woman seeking revenge on the people who forced her husband into suicide.

Five Cool Things and Dune: Part Three

excalibur blue

As I’m about to start writing this week’s Five Cool Things, I once again remember I forgot to post the last one. It featured an excellent Japanese manga about killer spirals, The Bride!, a wonderful crime drama from Denmark called Bleeder, Hamnet, my new Arrow UHD of Excalibur, and the new trailer for Dune: Part Three. You can read all about it here.

The Friday Night Horror Movie: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

golden vampires poster

In 1974 Shaw Brothers Studio teamed up with Hammer Films to produce The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. On paper that sounds like a dream come true. Both studios are known for making terrific genre films with high production values on low budgets. Hammer was the king of remaking classic monster movies with gothic style and extra violence and sex appeal. Shaw Brothers mastered the art of kung fu style. Mixing them should have created an incredible film full of beautifully drawn castles whereupon kung fu masters battled vampires, werewolves, and other assorted demons.

Sadly, the actual film is rather dull and poorly produced.

The plot is a simple thing. Kah (Chan Shen), a Daoist monk, travels to Dracula’s castle in hopes that he can restore the glory of the 7 Golden Vampires who have ruled a small Chinese village for centuries, but when a poor villager killed one of them, their power was drained.

At first Dracula (sadly not Christopher Lee, but here played by John Forbes-Robertson) is like, “Nah, I’m good,” and “I don’t take orders from people like you; I make them my slaves.” But then he realizes he’s been stuck inside his castle for some reason, and the only way to get out is to take control of Kah’s body. Once that happens, he figures he might as well see what the whole Golden Vampire thing is about. Then he disappears for almost the entire film, only showing back up at the very end.

Professor Van Helsing (Peter Cushing, yea!) is lecturing at a Chinese university about vampires but gets the shrug-off by most of the intellectual community there. Only one kid believes him. Hsi Ching (David Chiang) is from the village of the Golden Vampires, and it was his grandfather that killed one of them.

He convinces Van Helsing, along with his son Leyland (Robin Stewart) and a rich blonde woman, Vanessa Buren (Julie Ege), who is financing the entire thing, to follow him and his martial expert six siblings to travel to the village and kill the Golden Vampires.

The journey is long and difficult and filled with many battles. Eventually they get to the village, fight the Golden Vampire, and then Dracula comes out to fight Van Helsing one on one.

So what went wrong? It was a troubled shoot from the beginning. They shot at Shaw Studios in Hong Kong with a British director (Roy Ward Baker), a mostly English cast (at least for the speaking roles), and a Chinese crew. Communication was difficult as most of the Chinese didn’t speak English and vice versa.

Baker had made some decent films for Hammer, but he doesn’t seem to know what to do with the kung fu aspects of the film. Eventually the Shaw Brothers people hired Chang Cheh to handle the action sequences because Baker was out of his depth with them.

Trouble is they shot most of the film outdoors on the rather barren, scrabble mountains near Hong Kong. Hammer Films is known for its great use of gothic castles, intricate sets, and bold color designs. You get very little of that by shooting outdoors in the sunshine. There are a few scenes indoors, and Baker really shines there, but there are far too few of them to make things interesting.

The kung fu scenes are mostly unremarkable as well. There is none of that jaw-dropping stunt work that made the Shaw Brothers famous. The story is mostly dull. Even Peter Cushing seems to be phoning it in.

Truth is Hammer Studios was running out of steam. Their glory days were behind them. Shaw Brothers would keep making numerous films well into the 1980s, but even though this was shot on their home turf, they seem to have been relegated to the second string.

In the end, this is a curiosity piece. If you are a fan of both studios, it is worth watching, but you’ll probably end up much like I did, wondering what could have been.

Westerns in March: From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

from dusk till dawn poster

I first watched From Dusk till Dawn in the theater when it came out. I liked the first half a lot more than the second. It felt more like a Quentin Tarantino film with its interesting dialogue and stylistic flourishes. The back half was too goopy and gore-filled for my tastes at that moment. It had some fun dialogue, and I certainly wasn’t going to complain about that Salma Hayek dance number, but it seemed like a completely different film than the first half, and I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much.

I do remember immediately after watching it having long conversations with my buddies about the film. We loved that opening scene and those little stylistic flourishes, like how Richie Gecko (Tarantino) imagines Kate (Juliette Lewis) saying something crude to him, or how they do a little X-ray vision of the trunk of the car showing the kidnap victim inside. We all agreed that once the vampires show up, the film takes a dip.

I can’t remember if I watched it anymore during my college years, probably so, but then I took a very long break from it. I watched it again maybe ten years ago, and I didn’t like it at all. I felt the first half felt more like someone trying to write like Tarantino instead of an actual script written by him. It no longer thrilled. And the back half was even worse, just puerile horror that was more interested in goopy explosions than telling a story.

But Ryan Coogler was clearly influenced by this film, and I keep seeing people on the worst social media site basically saying that Sinners was a poor imitation of From Dusk till Dawn, so I wanted to give it another chance.

I think I liked it this go-around more than all the previous viewings. The first half does feel like Tarantino-lite. This was early in his career. He was paid to write this film in 1992 on commission. They say Tarantino took the best parts of this script and put them into Pulp Fiction. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but this is definitely not his best work.

The Gecko Brothers, Richie and Seth (George Clooney) are on the run after a daring escape from the courthouse where Seth was in custody. They’ve killed several people, including two cops, and have a hostage in the trunk of their car.

They stop at a hotel in El Paso, to plot how they are going to cross the (heavily guarded) border and into Mexico, where someone Seth knows will hide them until things cool down.

When Seth steps out to get a better view of what they are up against, Richie rapes and murders the hostage. Seth is a criminal who will not hesitate to kill someone when he deems it necessary, but Richie is a psychopath.

Salvation (or damnation, as we’ll soon find out) comes in the form of a loving family and an RV. Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) is a former Baptist minister who lost his faith when his wife died in a car accident. He’s taking his two kids, Kate and Scott (Ernest Liu) to Mexico as a getaway from their grief.

There are some nicely tense scenes with the Gecko brothers forcing the Fuller family to drive them across the border and not get caught. Then they head to a skeevy biker/trucker bar called the Titty Twister. It is open from Dusk to Dawn and is the seemingly perfect place for them to hide out until the man can come and give the brothers safe passage.

After some minor confrontations and a pretty darn sexy dance, the vampires come. Things get wild and blood-soaked from there. Tom Savini plays a biker named Sex Machine. It doesn’t seem that he did any of the special effects/makeup work, but this is the type of thing he became famous for doing. There are lots of great practical effects. The vampires have grotesque faces, and they turn to slop when staked and sometimes explode.

It can be a bit much.

When this came out, I thought Quentin Tarantino was the bee’s knees. I saw Pulp Fiction in the theater and thought it was amazing. We watched Reservoir Dogs in the dorm room and went nuts. I also very much liked Robert Rodriguez (who directs this film; Tarantino just wrote it.) I thought Desperado was a lot of fun, and El Mariachi was brilliant for a no-budget film from a first-time director.

But I’ve since very much cooled on Tarantino. I think he is a very talented director but kind of an obnoxious human. I always watch his films and often enjoy them, but the days of them being an event for me are over. The days of me having to see them in the theater are long gone. I now think Rodriguez is a hack.

This feels like the best and worst of what a collaboration between Rodriguez and Tarantino could be. There is some clever writing from Tarantino (and I find it hilarious that he wrote his character as a foot-loving, psychopathic pervert), but it’s also sloppy and disjointed. Rodriguez is at his best when he’s able to let go and just have fun with all the vampire carnage. He doesn’t do nearly as well when he’s dealing with Tarantino’s more dialogue-heavy front end. The two are very good friends, and they seem to let each other indulge in some of their worst instincts. For example, Rodriguez once again uses a crotch gun, and Tarantino gets a scene where he literally sucks beer off of Salma Hayek’s toes.

This definitely falls into the category of movie where you just have to let go and enjoy the ride. I definitely did this time around.

I know this barely qualifies as a western. It takes place in modern times and no one wears a cowboy hat or rides a horse. But it is set in the barren landscapes of Texas and Mexico and its characters would certainly fit into the lawless wild west. So I’m counting it.

Westerns in March: Decision at Sundown (1957)

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Every time Westerns in March rolls around, I find myself drawn to one of the Ranown Westerns (seven films director Budd Boetticher made with Randolph Scott). In a few years I’ll have them all reviewed, and then I don’t know what I’ll do.

Decision at Sundown is the third film together and sits somewhere in the middle in terms of my love for it.

Bart Allison (Scott) rides into the town of Sundown with his pal Sam (Noah Beery, Jr.) Sam had been scouting the place out as Bart has been scouring the Earth looking for a man he thinks was responsible for his wife’s suicide.

That man is Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll.) He came to Sundown some time before and has essentially taken the town over. On the day Bart arrives, Tate is set to marry Lucy Summerton (Karen Steele).

At first Bart takes his time scoping the situation out, but he makes it clear to anyone near him that he has no love for Kinbrough. He gets a shave and tells the barber he’s no friend of the man. He gets a drink at the bar, and even though all drinks are being paid for by Kimbrough, he makes a show of giving the bar keep a coin.

Eventually, he’s had enough, and he bursts into the wedding ceremony and announces that before the day is over, he will kill Kimbrough dead.

The townsfolk chase Bart and Sam out, and they take refuge in a livery stable. From there the film becomes a base-under-siege story. But something is happening in the town. The people don’t seem all that interested in capturing our heroes. Oh sure, Kimbrough’s got some hired guns who keep shooting at the stable, and the sheriff (Andrew Duggan) is Kimbrough’s man, though even he seems reluctant to put his life on the line for Kimbrough.

Plus there is that thing that Bart said at the wedding. Did Kimbrough really seduce Bart’s wife, leading to her suicide? Certainly Lucy wants answers to that question.

All of this loosens Kimbrough’s grip on the town. Dr. John Storrow (John Archer) has never liked Kimbrough or his influence on the town. Bart has given him the courage to stand up. Others begin to wonder why they’ve been letting Kimbrough run roughshod over them for so long.

At the same time, Bart learns more information about his wife. Maybe she wasn’t the chaste, loving wife he thought she was. What does that do to his need for revenge?

It all wraps up fairly neatly, though not as happily as you might expect. That’s the thing about these Ranown films: they aren’t afraid to give you a thoughtful, even downtrodden ending. Scott is his usual taciturn self, and Boetticher’s direction is as solid as ever. This isn’t a film that’s going to get counted as the genre’s best ever, but it is sturdy and so well made that it is still worth watching. And then a few years later, watching again. I keep it in regular rotation with all the other Ranown Westerns.

It Was Fifty Years Ago Today…

The Birthday Haul

Today is my 50th birthday. I can’t believe I’m typing those words. I cannot believe I am that old. I gotta admit it is hitting me pretty hard.

What am I even doing with my life?

I am definitely not where I thought I would be at this stage in my existence. I am not the man I imagined I’d become.

Have I lived my best life?

It hasn’t been a bad life. I’ve done a fair bit of traveling, seen a few amazing things, made some great friends, and created a loving family. I own a house and have filled it with the things I love. I’ve never been hungry, etc.

There are things I’ve failed at and mistakes I’ve made that find me in the dark hours of the evening and make me shiver. This last decade has been difficult. Covid, work stresses, loss of church, declining health, and I don’t really have any real-life friends. But I have a great wife and an insanely amazing daughter, a job, and plenty of real-life comforts. I can’t complain. Not really.

Then there is this blog. I’ve been writing it for 22 years. That’s nearly half my life. That’s unbelievable. Like me, it has gone through many changes. It has had its ups and downs. But it has been one of the few stable things for most of my adult life. That’s amazing.

My readers were very generous to me when I was sharing music. I appreciate that very much. I know writing about movies and pop culture isn’t the same. I know most of the folks who enjoyed my music sharing are less interested in what I’m doing now.

Still, this isn’t nothing, and I hope it is maybe worth something to some of you. So I’m going to put up a little PayPal link. If you enjoy my writing and think it is worth some monetary value, I’d appreciate anything you can give. I don’t expect much; I’ll probably get nothing. I’ll eventually put a link in the sidebar and let it just sit. But for now it is going at the very bottom of this page.

Whether you give or not, I appreciate anyone who comes by, likes, and comments. Here’s to another 50 years of life and many more years of this blog.

If you want to give please click here.

And for those interested, the picture if all the gifts my wife gave me. I’ve been on a comic book kick lately so I got lots of those, plus a couple of silly movies.