Super intelligent monkeys running a counterfeiting scheme. Empty graves outside an atrium full of people-eating plants. Traveling through time to steal Genghis Kahn's bow and arrow. And those are just, like, 6 pages from the Choose Your Own Adventure® book, House of Danger, published in 1982 (that’s the year I was born). It is bonkers– hallucinagenically unexpected paths to 20 different endings. It's a good reminder that jumping into an open grave is a bad idea. It’s a suiting name for a monthly newsletter from me to you.
House of Danger is monthly roundups of media, comestibles, and consumer goods that are subjectively good things but worth a quick glance before you delete it. There’s also a monthly Spotify playlist at the bottom of every one which is possibly as exciting as whatever bullshit they put in a box of Cracker Jacks!
Listening
Los Crudos - Discografía
You and I are 30 years late to the most punk rock band ever. This entirely Latino band formed in Chicago and then went unreasonably hard against xenophobia, homophobia, and every punk's favorite- US imperialism- in 90-second Spanish-only conflagrations. Discografía is the oeuvre of one of the crustiest punk bands I've ever encountered and somehow more relevant now to our current Fox News afflictions.
Dangerous Track: Crudo Soy
The Skatt Bros - Walk the Night
I fell asleep watching the movie, M3GAN, but I woke up halfway through the dance sequence scored by this absolute fucking bop by The Skatt Bros. It was part disco, part Judas Priest, part the-spooky-sinister-Vincent-Price-from-Thriller (but way before that) and, upon closer listen... pretty homoerotic!
The Skatt Bros were the sleazier, more extreme version of The Village People. Gene Simmons said, "It was uncomfortable. It was too edgy and dark and represented something that most people couldn't relate to," and I guess he was pretty edgy for his day, so.
Dangerous Track: Walk the Night
Laufey - Bewitched
I loathe jazz standards. Why does Bewitched by 24-year-old Chinese-Icelandic chanteuse make me swoon? It makes me not trust myself anymore. I tell myself, “The arrangements are gorgeous. The warmth and roundness of the recording are unimpeachable. The lyrics are schmaltzy but they also border on heartfelt, so whatever." The title track is a wonderful song.
Dangerous Track: Bewitched
Watched
Sisu
Do you love revenge? Westerns? Do you also hate Nazis? Then I have a movie just for you. 90 minutes of a Norwegian zaddy kicking the shit out of a bunch of nazis as he tries to get home with his dog and a saddlebag full of gold.
Love To Love You
I had no idea just how important Donna Summer's song, "I Feel Love" is to all of our lives. Tough to overstate but this biopic, created by Ms. Summer's daughter, gets pretty close. This is the moment that precipitated electronic music, raves, and modern R&B.
Telemarketers
You start watching this 3-part documentary about a bunch of degenerate telemarketers doing rails of heroin off their desks while cold-calling innocent Americans. You finish watching this 3-part documentary rooting for those self-same degenerates to bring down the billion-dollar industry that is telemarketing.
Read/Reading
Exhaltation
To read these stories is to pour ice cold milk over a bowl of Honeycomb™ cereal and wiggle back into a couch next to your pals Nietzsce and Lovecraft to watch Sunday morning cartoons. It’s an anthology of easily devoured and wildly inventive stories that ask big questions around what it means to be human in very fun and nihilistic ways!
Inc.
Inc. is a newsletter by my friend, Daniel Incandela. Seeing him build a format where he could be creative and disgorge whatever he wanted on whoever wanted it made me want to do the same thing. Daniel is very cool, very smart, and I think you should subscribe to his newsletter too. [Thank you for your blessing on this, Daniel!]
Buy This/These
Rohto Z!
A cocktail of liquid nitrogen, listerine, and vodka in a gemstone eye dropper. They're the most aggressive commercially available eyedrops on the planet. As far as I know you can only buy them non-retail from Japan.
Order them from Japan on eBay right here.
Next Month
Spooky season is the season I’m best at seasoning and I would like to help you make yours way spookier.