I built this website,
when I was still helping my uncle with his website's content. The
content I wrote for him was never used. So typical of him.
Anyway, I have my
2nd Q&A blog ready for you all to read. Pay attention to bold answers. I hope you're pleased with my responses!
It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns Questions & Answers:
Richard: Are you a cat or a dog person?
Answer: I'm a dog person. My last dog (Lexi) was a Doberman/Rottweiler Mutt.
She had to be euthanized 10 years ago because she was becoming vicious. In fact, the last time I went to pet Lexi, she grazed my left temple.
My grandfather also returned for an in-home hospice my college junior year. Lexi's vicious temperament would've exacerbated problems.
Mimikoko: With your love of music, did you ever try to learn a musical instrument(s) or sing?
Answer: Growing up, I was ALWAYS required to sing in school concerts. By the time I was in middle and high school, I always ended up taking choir. In middle school, it was required to either take choir, or band.
I wanted to take guitar lessons but there weren't enough students for the sign up. Therefore, the class was dropped.
I never had a chance to practice playing my old electric guitar. It was bought for my 6th Christmas and had '80s Metal written all over it. My electric guitar was black, shiny, and V-shaped. ~16-17 years ago, it was ruined in a basement flood at our last house.
DJ Scott: Do you have any archives of past DJ work?
Answer: Unfortunately, no. 11-12 years ago, I never had a chance to do an on-air promo for All Things Frightening, either.
There was so much chaos happening in my life, 10-12 years ago. I juggled UW-Parkside's classes full-time, a radio show, being a part-time student at Carthage College, and other people's issues. This was along with post 9/11 racism.
Post 9/11 racism was a major contributor to my own problems so much so that it hurt my campus housing at Parkside.
I was just lucky if I could sleep in peace WITHOUT having a roommate and her obnoxious friends literally hovering over me to watch me sleep.
Anyway, had my original boss stayed, I believe my promos would've been recorded. We already bonded over some Type O Negative.
DanniDarkness: Will you keep the Halloween colors? I really like them!
Answer: Thank you, Danni! I am glad you enjoy my latest scenery! I actually changed it on September 1st rather than October 1st.
I have It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns decorated for Halloween. This current scenery will stay, until November.
I love changing my template designs and font colors with the seasons and holidays. Thanksgiving will be coming up next!
Jesse Steele: Which states have you visited in the USA? Also which states did you like visiting the most? Are there any states in the USA you would like to visit? If so why?
Answers: Since my family used to always take road trips, I have visited quite a few states.
Illinois is next to Wisconsin (my state). I have also visited Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York (we had to drive through New York to get to Canada).
Most of my relatives live in Detroit, Michigan. I am amazed the entire city of Detroit is not my family because so many of our relatives live there.
I really enjoyed traveling to Arlington Heights, IL because it has a lot of Japanese companies and stores.
I haven't been on a Japanese field trip in 11 years. I started going on those field trips, when I was in 7th grade because my Japanese classes always went.
By the time I was a college junior, I still went on Japanese field trips to Arlington Heights with my classmates, and we always rode in coach buses.
Reaper69: Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical of those, who forbid Metal for it's horror and gore, but don't think there is any problem with the most grotesque of films. Art is art, or is it not?
Answer: Yes, that is hypocritical.
We watch violence on the news, TV shows, and movies daily yet angry soccer moms and media watchdog groups are quick to condemn Metal. I've noticed over the last decade, that most Horror movies have Metal soundtracks. Horror and Metal go together like PB&J, salt and pepper, etc. You want to know something even more hypocritical?
Last year, I bought a Halloween decoration for my office desk. My decoration is a witch house in the woods with pumpkins, skulls, crosses, bats, and a witch. She resembles the witch from The Wizard of Oz and she is brewing with her cauldron. My uncle did NOT have a problem with me having it as a desk decoration.
Then, literally 3 days before Halloween, he stormed into the building claiming, that his shrew flipped her shit over my Halloween decoration. They supposedly don't celebrate Halloween. I told him to his face, that Medusa was a hypocrite.
This is the same pretentious, gold-digging shrew, who reads all those STEPHEN KING NOVELS and watches MORE Horror than me.
Meanwhile, she goes to church and wears this HUGE, self-righteous facade as a Christian woman. I told my uncle and the rest of my family, that Medusa only had a problem with my decoration because she saw HER OWN reflection in that witch.
I'm just calling a spade a "spade." You know what I mean?
Marquis DeBlood: Glad to have you aboard! And congrats on your anniversary!! You seem to enjoy your Anime and are very particular about certain shows and what naught... What would you consider to be the best Anime series out there and why?
Answer: Thank you very much! I'm glad to have support from the Horror-Punks Community.
There's no simple answer because Anime has such a broad range of genres and sub-genres.
I enjoy Comedy, Action, Mecha (Mecha is still a part of the Action genre but mostly military and war themed), Mystery, Romance, Horror, etc.
Each Anime genre and sub-genre caters to both genders, sexual orientations, and age demographics. I enjoy the darker and lighter themed Anime titles.
I really love the NANA franchise. NANA is like a Japanese animated soap opera, which mostly focuses music, rival bands, and romance.
NANA has Music, Romance, and Dramedy. There's even a love triangle/paternity test arc.
Josei Anime are completely different from the stereotypical Shonen Jump Anime, which are mostly meant for teenage boys. NANA is mostly meant for young women, who love music and romance.
To give you a better picture, imagine Lifetime, WE TV, and The Oxygen Channel but in the form of Japanese animation.
Speaking of, there is another Anime about music and romance, which is mostly meant for men. It's called Detroit Metal City. It is similar to Adult Swim's Metalocalypse. However it is mostly about this guy, who lives a double life as a musician.
He fronts this Death Metal band and is forced to live a notorious facade of supposedly killing and raping his parents. In reality, he is a nerdy Japanese guy, who loves writing Swedish Pop Music.
I really enjoy NANA and Detroit Metal City because they are both romance and music oriented, which is rare in Anime compared to the stereotypical Shonen Jump Anime.
Amanda's Questions:
1) I know you have a minor in Creative Writing but what brought you to writing Horror?
Was it derived from your interest in Japanese culture and the language or is that a stereotypical cliché of Japan?
2) When, you joined the Adult Swim group, you wrote on it being 'fascist' (my interpretation) and chauvinistic. I am NOT asking you your political views (LOL) but I'd be interested in what your perception is of the politics surrounding the shows on Adult swim.
3) You were also a Radio DJ, would you do it again if you could?
My Answers:
1) Actually, I started writing my own Short Horror Stories in 3rd grade.
Throughout each month, my 3rd grade teacher gave our class subjects to select.
When it was October, we had to select a topic everyday and write Short Halloween Stories using that specific topic.
My elementary school teachers in general always loved that I could take a simple topic and write a story about it.
The more I think about it, I have been a Creative Writer for most of my life.
2) Adult Swim appears to be in a bigger rut than I realized.
I always knew the network had problems pleasing their main audience (men). It is mostly spin.
For example, the Toonami block is mostly Shonen Jump Anime and dubbed Anime from Funimation Entertainment monopolizes the block.
There are several other Anime companies, genres, and sub-genres that Adult Swim purposely overlooks.
I'm glad there have been more Seinen Anime with leading female characters.
All the while, the network still fails to acknowledge its female audience by not airing Shojo and Josei Anime.
I have read some of the female YouTubers' complaints about Toonami not airing any Shojo Anime.
Adult Swim only wants to air Sailor Moon's reboot, which is the most irksome. I don't hate Sailor Moon. Although, it's not the only Shojo Anime to ever be released from Japan.
I think the main reason why the male audience wants to watch Sailor Moon so badly is because it has lesbian characters in it.
Also, it pisses me off that Toonami only would air a Shojo Anime for men that fantasize and fetishize 2D lesbian characters.
I'm not opposed to watching GLBT shows. It's just that most of us know there's a perverted double standard, when it comes to accepting lesbians.
Meanwhile, the social atmosphere of Adult Swim's forum is mostly cold, territorial, misanthropic, and unwelcoming. There are some nice posters on the forum but the atmosphere rivals YouTube.
It's almost impossible to have a civil conversation without someone instigating a fight. Also, some veteran posters will treat new posters like criminals. Rather than trying to learn more about a new Adult Swim poster, they assume the worst because the site is already swarming with trolls.
New posters must prove themselves much harder, in order to be liked and/or accepted. The constant psychoanalysis, negativity, arguments, animosity, inferiority complex, hatred, and territorial behavior drove away their newer and older posters. Mind you, this doesn't even include degrading and dehumanizing other posters.
3) Yes, I would love to be a Radio DJ/Hostess, again.
Throughout my 20's, I have applied to local radio stations and they never called back. In regards to local radio stations today, they only want to air dated and highly overplayed songs.
Otherwise, they are airing the worst American Top 40 mainstream songs in existence. With the way technology is constantly advancing, more people will continue to podcast.
When hosting All Things Frightening 11-12 years ago, I never heard of podcasting. Our college radio shows were heard both locally and online. I predict that traditional radio stations will become obsolete, sooner or later.
This concludes my Q&A on It's Not All Gumdrops & Unicorns. I want to thank my loyal friends/subscribers from Xanga 1.0, Blogster, and Horror-Punks.com for always Liking, commenting, and sharing my content! You have no idea how much I appreciate it.
Since I mentioned Detroit Metal City, I'll leave you with the live action music video/theme song. Once again, thank you!
Detroit Metal City "Satsugai" [Murder] (2008)
