EDGE on the Net

I always suspected those Canadian Geese were suicide bombers. While everyone else chimed "Miracle on the Hudson," I anticipated the next attack by avoiding low-flying birds and jungle gyms. When the Connecticut chimpanzee went on a suburban rampage, I did the logical thing and set free all the monkeys at the Bronx Zoo, hosed myself down as penance, then rode to Battery Park with my girlfriend, Nova, to make sure Lady Liberty was still intact. Now that a black man is President, I’m on high alert for earth-destroying meteors, and if there’s one omen I’ve taken to heart from the Pope’s latest trip back to the land of denial, it’s that the Church, even more than Crystal Lake, is the true home of undying evil.

Unlike those of you who wasted precious adolescent years on academics, I actually learned valuable lessons growing up. Instead of engaging in useless activities--sports, math, catechism--I plopped myself down on the living room couch, fired up the Jiffy Pop, and watched every horror film ever made. I never learned the Three R’s, but I can tell you all about the Three Sixes. It might not have been a conventional education, but the wisdom gained is enough to make your head spin.

There’s a reason I live in Manhattan, and it ain’t for the apartment space. Despite crime statistics to the contrary, the majority of ax murderers prefer the quiet atmosphere of charming summer resorts, the quaint serenity of small towns where no one locks their doors and girls have big breasts, little brains, and no clothes, and any suburban dwelling where teenagers still get excited about Senior Proms and major holidays. New York does have its risks, but take a few precautions and you’ll be fine. If you’re determined to cheat on your husband and have anonymous taxicab sex with a stranger after a stroll through the Met, always check behind you for lingering transvestites, ask the trick about any STD’s he might be carrying before intercourse, and never take the elevator after you sneak out of his apartment (for the record, this rule pretty much applies to all gay one-night-stands).

Current resident Rex Reed is the second-scariest thing about living in the Upper West Side’s Dakota; your biggest fear is, of course, being impregnated by Satan. However, you don’t have to be wearing Rosemary-colored glasses to realize that, if your starving-actor husband can afford a 7 million dollar a month apartment on Central Park West that has ten rooms and no waiting list, he’s probably conspiring with someone unethical. Run for your life now, and do not stop at a dimly lit motel with a "Vacancy" sign.

Should you be forced to spend the night because your car ran out of gas, you flipped your vehicle over to avoid hitting the ghost of the woman you had an affair with, or you find you’ve been traveling in circles for the past eight miles, never answer the phone, do not plug in the VCR--or touch the TV screen--and run at the first sight of an angry Japanese child dressed as a bad American version of everything Asian. If all else fails, take comfort in the fact that you’re probably already dead and the others can’t hear you scream.

My horror-movie upbringing is the bible that guided me through life, with the added bonus that it doesn’t burn my hands when I touch the pages. Unlike the popular kids at my high school, I made a point to be kind to the loser girls with psychic powers and no tampons. I don’t take baths or swim in the ocean--or any place with the word "Lake" in the title. When the world sleepwalked through the Bush Presidency, I’d prepared myself for that day of reckoning, content in my knowledge that, after the brain-dead mobs tore everything down and crushed anyone with an I.Q., the night of the living dead would turn into daytime. I am convinced that the only reason I’m not tied up in some hospital lab waiting to have my organs sold on the black market is that, just before my recent surgery, I informed the doctor that I’d seen "Coma" seventeen times and had sent emergency instructions to Michael Douglas, just in case.

I never fly on a plane if Karen Black is the stewardess, I never accept cursed African pygmies sent to me from Karen Black, I don’t stay in mansions that Karen Black once rented, and I know that, should I ever meet a blond woman who resembles Karen Black, it will undoubtedly be her evil twin alter-ego, or Kim Novak’s, or Melanie Griffith’s, or Margot Kidder’s--although, in that case, it’s more about my knowledge of manic-depression than repeated viewings of "Sisters."

"Logan’s Run" prepared me for life after thirty in Chelsea--I ran for Sanctuary on the Upper East Side. Katharine Ross’s classic 1975 film, "The Stepford Wives," taught me that, in the not-so-distant future, robots that looked like real people would replace humans, but without any sense of humor, imagination, or originality. And that these same people would make one of the stupidest movies ever made and call it a "Stepford Wives" remake. "The Omen" is one among endless movies ("The Bad Seed," "Don’t Look Now," anything with Shirley Temple) that has taught me something more valuable than anything I ever could have learned in college and that I am determined to share with the rest of the world: Rich or poor, black or white, boy or girl, children around the globe share one equal trait that needs to be understood in order that we can all help them to grow and flourish--they’re evil.

The one classic that, sadly, disappoints is "The Exorcist." A single, working mother comes home to find that her daughter has a bad case of acne, pees on the floor, vomits in people’s faces, cuts herself, rearranges the bedroom furniture, sticks objects up her private parts, claims she’s the anti-Christ, and says the F-word every chance she gets. That’s not a horror film; that’s a typical day raising a pre-teen. Like most parents in that situation, she makes the silly mistake of turning to God to solve the problem.

And don’t get me started on faux horror flicks that have no basis in reality, like the "Saw" franchise or Bobby Jindal stimulus rebuttals. An absurd premise, a disconnected voice, torture, and the same storyline over and over. How long can Republicans keep remaking that movie? I also have little use for "My Bloody Valentine" or "When a Stranger Calls"--the originals or the remakes. Any movie in which your phone’s ringing off the hook or a man’s stalking you on February 14 is not a horror flick; it’s a gay man’s dream. As for "The Happening," unless director M. Night Shyamalan is a prophet who anticipated the reaction of theater audiences when he told the story of seemingly happy people suddenly offing themselves, the movie was about as believable as Kate Winslett’s Oscar-winning "The Reader" performance, and not nearly as eerie as the drapes Jessica Biel wore to the ceremony.

As I get older, I’m not sure how my spiritual knowledge of the spiritual world will continue to guide me. On a practical level, I’m certain that, were I still in high school, fingernail knives, masked Scream goblins, and cheesy Chucky dolls would be child’s play compared to terrifying school administrators who think "Rent" is too mature for students. If you decide to hire a nanny, know that she will eventually stab you in the back--literally. Never spy on a creepy stranger across the alley; it’s rude, it’s addictive, and, besides, sooner or later he’s going to be staring right back at you.

When pondering your reflection, know that a spirit is thinking of you too, and that you’ll see that ghost in the mirror when you close the medicine cabinet or glance in the rear-view mirror. Take solace in the fact that people, like Cher Farewell Tours, never really die; they only get remade and digitally enhanced. Most important, remember that everything you do in this life will be judged in the next. I can’t tell you how much of my past has already come back to haunt me.