Wagner's Writings

  *As a little preface note, this is blog post is either for people just approaching 30 or approaching 40, but I think everyone can take a little something from this one.  I finished up my last paper for college - a proposal essay on how adults should go after making some new hobbies. I won’t be posting that essay here because I totally phoned it in. I only got an A because I just followed the rubric closely. But that’s just my theory. Maybe I will. You know, for the CONTENT.  But the subject sticks with me. Especially since next year I’ll be 30. A big year if you’re younger than 30 since it’s the first indicator of ‘the end.’ Which isn’t true by the way, since 30 is still so damn young. You place just about any achievement with “… at age 30,” and suddenly it becomes exceptional. “Wrote a book at 30,” “Died at the age of 30,” “Became President of the United States at age 30.” You look at those possible headlines at figure, “Damn! That person was young!” Yeah, because 30...

  Mala Sangre are a hardcore punk band from Erie, Pennsylvania. They’re also most likely your favorite local band’s favorite local band.  Consisting of Carlos Rivera (guitar/vocals), Eliezer Rivera (bass/vocals), and Mike Lozano (drums), they’re a powerhouse trio and their shows are an onslaught of energy, speed, and vigor with a healthy amount of ball busting to go around. And last month they put out their sixth album, Mata Mata.  For a little background, Mala was one of the bands Massive Denial opened for when we had our first show as a group, which was also my first show in six years after a sabbatical from performing music live. It was them, us, Maniacial Device, Requiem for Oblivion during a particularly hot July day in 2021 where I performed a good portion of my gigs - Basement Transmissions. I get off the stage and up comes Mala Sangre.  The only thing I’d known about them at that point was that they’re an old school hardcore punk band and their guitarist/l...

Myconaut are a progressive rock/metal band from Meadville that’ve picking up steam in the Erie scene. They’re a band that if you didn’t know who they were, you definitely knew them after their set. They’re cut from the same cloth as Tool, Sabbath, Kyuss, and all that good, jammy  stoner/desert rock with flares of metal mixed in.  I’ll briefly delve into how I became familiar with their work. Spoiler: I’m totally biased here, but I’ve been waiting for this record for a long time. That and I felt compelled to write this because I missed their release show, and this is a sin in the cardinal rule of fellow progressive dorks and must be rectified on my part.  It was the summer of ‘23 and my band Massive Denial was invited to the reinstated Metal Massacre Festival. Many, many sweaty metal heads crammed in a barn with nonstop music playing throughout the weekend. And if you were a local metal/rock band, then it felt like the big leagues. So, I get there early to check out (nea...

Popeye, the Slayer Man Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey (I and II)  Pinocchio: Unstrung  Bambi: The Reckoning  Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare  The movies listed above, and they are actual movies that’ve been released or are soon to be released, are from the mind of Rhys Frake-Waterfield and the Twisted Childhood Universe with the exception of the Popeye movie. Given the name, the idea is that you have children’s IP and turn a horror spin on them. Bonus points if it’s media where the copyright has expired and they’re now in the public domain.  The first slew of these movies was Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey in 2023. I thought the idea was a little cheeky and it tickled me that Winnie the Pooh’s copyright expired and some indie director decided to twist it into a horror direction. I’m all up for reimaginings, so why not? The end product, however, ended up as a gore slog with very little imagination. It’s a movie that just has some burly guys in masks vaguely lo...

I’m always a person who’s down for a new show to watch… When I have the time for it. I have to make the time for it which I have to be economical about how to spend my time; it’s a valuable resource! My philosophy then follows that if I don’t watch new and exciting shows or films, then I’m not stretching those writing muscles. So, for shows I tend to wait a couple seasons in so that a critical census reaches a point as to whether or not it’s God’s gift to the world or is a Sucksandwhich. I wish that weren’t the case, but the blog ain’t paying the bills (yet, anyways…). Then the fourth season of Succession on Max was announced…  Succession was a show that circled around my recommendation list from time to time. I didn’t have Max at the time, so it fell under the radar for a bit. It was around the same time I renewed my Max subscription for the then-new show The Last of Us came out. Then I finished that show and found Succession on the top of the Top Series consistently with The Last...

               Where is hope? Man, everyday it’s getting harder to find it with the search getting longer. To find solace. To find peace. Hope; It’s something that’s been misplaced in recent memory. I used to believe in goodness and that everything would turn out alright in the end. With recent news and a sickness in my family, the sense of doom and dread permeates seemingly all around me, crushing me with an unbearable weight. What a cruel world is being said less ironically by me with each passing day. Hope is something lost on me recently, but I came to a realization: Hope exists whether I like it or not. Bad things will eventually unravel given enough time.  I had this revelation recently. That hope is a thing that’ll always exist with the likes of war, love, hate, and, God willing, peace. In Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, a vile character of Judge Holden says this on war, “ War was always here. Even before man was, war waited...