1 Year Down...

Hey there readers.

If I didn't know better, I would think you came here to read my blog. But instead of finding your average post from a man who's infamous for writing about nonsensical bullshit and bad horror films, today you'll find something a bit different.

My name is Matt McClane, and I run things around here.

This week marked the one-year anniversary of The McClane Tirade. Thinking back on it—there are a lot of reasons I started this thing.

Instead of beating around some bush and/or moving forward into another paragraph about memories and junk, I'll go ahead tell you some reasons why I started blogging. These reasons will make us both feel better about why we come here to read. Call them a true foundation.

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1. While hiking in the outer boundaries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, living off the land and growing out my beard, I stumbled across a strange cave. I make no bones about it; this cave was definitely one of the scary ones. It wasn't some cave full of bats, cars, superhero costumes, motorcycles and teenage sidekicks; nor was it a cave full of gold.

This cave looked just like this one:





Inside this mangled hole of rubble and terror was this old man stirring some shit up in this big ass medieval cauldron. You know the kind. If you don't know the kind, get your ass to the video store and rent "Clash of the Titans" immediately, loser.

Anyway, this old man was stirring up some stuff in this pot, and he was startled to see me at first. After I explained that I had magical powers and also a big ass machete, he totally gave me all the secrets to life and junk.

Later I came home and started the blog.

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2. While driving home late one night from the bar, I spotted a groundhog crossing the road in front of me. Since it was a dreadfully foggy night, I grew wary. The mist seemed to crawl through the trees, roll across the pavement and pierce my very soul like a big ass bowl of Jello pudding. The groundhog made it to the other side of the road safe & sound... probably to get back to his hole earlier than expected... more than likely surprising his little groundhog wife while she's getting it on with the little groundhog cable guy.

At any rate, right before my eyes was a woman, quickly and violently bouncing across the hood of my truck, into my windshield and finally into the bed in the back. It was like a nightmare.

I was pretty concerned: my windshield looked cracked and slightly damaged.

I thought about how much it must cost to buy a new windshield. I also remembered that time that Jon's windshield in the Jeep got hit with a little rock from a truck, and the crack eventually stretched the entire distance of his windshield.

How would the mechanics remove it? It seems like there would be some suction-type of issues, in order to properly seal the windshield in place.

"Maybe when I get a new one," I thought, "I can get one with the little strip of tint at the top." I wouldn't want that kind of tint that seems green. I think the green tint is slightly obnoxious. I'd much rather have a dark blue or black. Maybe the new windshield would come pre-treated with that Rain-Ex stuff that makes the water bead up and run off without even having to turn on your windshield wipers?

I thought about all the different possibilities, and then stopped to consider that there's probably a dead, old-woman corpse in the back of my truck, and I've more than likely just killed somebody.

She didn't die (at least right away). She looked at me with this heated, vengeful glare, and started to do some Native-American-sounding chant or something. I was hoping that these mumblings were actually her trying to remember the number of her insurance company, or maybe even her recommendations for a good mechanic, since she pulverized my windshield with her big gypsy-looking ass.

Unfortunately, she just kept chanting, then grabbed my shirt, pulled me closer and whispered in my face that she's putting this curse on me. She says that unless I scream some kind of random Arnold Schwarzenegger line (in his voice & accent) at least once a day, my dick will fall off and I'll most likely die of some no-dick-having disease.

I was NOT about to mess around with that, bud. Since then, I've definitely screamed some type of Schwarzenegger one-liner every single day of my life. If you don't believe me, smart guy, ask any other human being who knows me. They'll set you straight.

Soon after that creepy old woman died, I came home and started The McClane Tirade.

She didn't have insurance.

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3. I was starving. When a man like me is hungry (a real hunger: the kind when you've dreamed of eating giant steaks, bowls of delicious various items of delicious stuff you put in bowls, bread and more steaks... then you wake from your dream and realize you're actually chewing on either your own fucking arm or a half-eaten flip flop), he goes to the one place that can always satisfy both his mental and physical longings:

The Waffle House.

Anybody that knows me can tell you how much I adore the Waffle House. For other McClane tales in the adventures in steak and eggs, consider clicking HERE, HERE or HERE

If the Waffle House was a woman, I'd pick it up at a bar with the most witty line ever, buy it a rose from the bald, roaming Knoxville flower salesman guy, introduce it to a world of romance, euphoric escapades and never-ceasing orgasmic, fantastical sweet lovin'. Then I'd take it home to mom, introduce it to my grandparents, let it play with my family dogs and then ask it's father permission to marry it. 50 years later, we'd still be living happily together in the foothills of some big ass mountains, with a house with a fence or something... lazily looking across the wooded landscapes and holding each other tightly in an embrace that would last a lifetime.

So anyway, I ordered the usual steak and eggs (and was enjoying the hell out of 'em), and suddenly the door opened and a crew of old guys walked in with a interesting-looking nurse lady. It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that these guys were somewhat mentally handicapped. Definitely.

One of the men, named John, was having some problems adjusting the straps on his overalls. His friend was pulling them up for him, but didn't have much luck. The nurse lady, named Faye, came to the rescue—and that overalls adventure turned out wonderfully. The overalls looked really smooth with his dark red collared shirt. On John's left ear was a set of two earring hoops. For a guy who looked older than 60, this was an interesting observation. He would pull and tug on his massive long, white beard as he took his seat.

They all sat down at the counter, just past the register from me. I was sitting in the middle of the bar, shoveling my covered hash browns down the hatch, when I felt the chair beside me being pulled up. A large, old man quickly landed in the seat beside me.

This man was balding with tiny strips of gray hair coming across his forehead like straws of hay in a recently-mowed pasture. His thick glasses hung low on his nose, and his obvious absence of teeth gave his entire lower-face a sunk-in look. This, however, DID accentuate his smile...which stretched (most literally) ear to ear. He smelled like tobacco and the way pavement smells when the first little bit of summer rain covers it in water.

He stuffed his pack of cigarettes deeper into his shirt pocket before I had the chance to spy on the brand, and pulled out his handkerchief to wipe his nose off. I grabbed my napkin, silverware, cell phone and keys and moved them over to give him some room... when I noticed that there were empty seats all the way down the bar. This guy just pulled up right next to me for some reason.

"This is my seat," he said to me. I laughed and asked him how he's doing.

"Good, good," he says, and then asks Tiffany (best waitress ever) for some coffee and pennies. The way he spoke made it extremely difficult to understand him. Maybe it was the lack of teeth, or maybe something else... either way, he had a mumble to him.

John, in his overalls, misheard the man say "pennies" and yelled out (literally), "PIZZA?? You guys make pizza here???" Tiffany seemed pretty annoyed and just shook her head. Under her breath I heard her say, "I wish I could order some about now."

"There's no pizza?" John said disappointedly.

"No pizza," said Tiffany, and then she went back to washing dishes under the bar. I looked over at John and noticed him with a confused face, shaking his head at Faye the Nurse.

"Tiffany gives me pennies," said the man. "I got a bunch of 'em. A whole bunch of 'em that I keep in my piggy bank."

"Is it pretty full?" I asked

"Oh yeah, real full," he said. I just laugh a little bit and cut another piece of steak. He gets his coffee and takes a long, slow slurp. "Oh that's good." He looks at me again, "you workin' hard today?" I told him that I'm hardly working. He had a little laugh and suddenly told me that he's bought himself a new harp.

"This one I paid twenty bucks for," he said as he pulled out this small, beat-up, rough-as-hell looking harmonica. "This is a good-un." He fished even deeper in his pocket and pulled out this massive plastic Zip-lock bag. Finally, he leaned and and said, "I gave a hundred and fifty for this 'un."

This one was in a plastic case. He turned it over and pointed to the little faded tag on the bottom of it and sure enough...$150.00.

"Look here," he said, while looking around to make sure nobody else was paying attention. Nurse Faye wasn't looking and neither was John or the other two guys at the far end of the bar. He looked up at Tiffany, who had gone back to the back room for some reason, to make sure he was in the clear. He popped this clean, shiny, $150-dollar juice harp in his mouth and begin loudly cranking out "Coming For to Carry Me Home" in perfect key.

He bent the notes, slid in and out between the bars and nodded his head the entire time.

He finished up, looked at me and said, "Can you do that?"

I laughed and laughed and told him there's no way I could do that.

"Can you do that?" he asked again while laughing out loud. I shook my head and watched him for a second. Absolute happiness. It was the most innocent of moments of complete joy.

Out of nowhere, Tiffany popped up carrying a gigantic handful of pennies. He quickly sat down his harmonica and pulled out the giant-sized Zip-lock bag. He carefully slid them in the bag, and took time to make sure it was zipped up tight. "Thank you, girl," he whispered.

"Tiffany gives me those pennies," he said with a chuckle.

I'd finished my plate clean, and Tracy (the other best waitress ever) got me all checked out. While she was ringing me up, he reached over and grabbed my keys. He eyed the little black keyless remote device and saw the little red button with horn on it. "That's your horn," he said, "and there's your lock and your unlock. That's good."

I told him that it always came in handy and he nodded and smiled. When Tracy came back with my receipt, I slid my change in my pocket, and I left the receipt sitting on the bar. "Get that receipt now," he rushes, "you might need that. Always keep that receipt; that's important."

I told him that he's absolutely right and slid it into my pocket.

"You leaving already?" he asked.

"Yeah, I gotta get on down the road," I told him.

"Well what's your name?" he asked as he put out his hand. I told him my name and squeezed it tight.

"They call me Money," he said.

Then he introduced me to all his friends. Even Nurse Faye. I went down the line shaking hands and exchanging smiles and pats on the back. Nurse Faye looked at me and nodded with a huge smile.

I came back to Money in the end. He grabbed my keys off the bar and said, "come back in here, now and we'll talk some more. You live close?"

I told him that I only lived two minutes away.

"Oh good," he said. "We'll see you back in here later then." He reached out and handed me the keys. "Drive safe now."

I patted Money on the back and walked out into the hot sunshine.

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Moments like these in life will escape you without you even realizing it. I wish I had the time to collect all these parts of my life, but life has a way of letting them slip out of pocket. Do you think the same?

After one year of writing about all kind of random things... thoughts... moments, loves and more crazy, crazy moments, I thank you, reader. I thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to take a quick glimpse at the things I write about.

Thanks for the messages, comments or emails. Thank you for laughing with me at my misfortune or putting up with all the weird random crap that comes out of my brain.

This blog has kept me sane through the past year, and it's without a doubt been a huge element of fun and total joy in my life.

Please keep on comin' back, because we're already in year two.

Happy Anniversary, Tirade.

Love you guys,

-M

P.S. Oh yeah, I've got my penny collection started... feel free to contribute. I have a new friend who'll be really grateful.

Tyrannosaur Power!!!

This might be the most awesome poster I've seen in a while. I'm just going to throw this one out there and let you, the reader, enjoy it.

Best. Tagline. Ever.

-M



Yes, this is seriously a movie that's coming out sometime in 2009, and it's also a movie that I'll plan on seeing opening night. Seriously... what the hell is this movie even about??? Does it even matter??

Sad Sad Day

I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I've been pretty upset about this whole thing. I know there's gotta be thousands of blog posts out there today, all of them hating, celebrating, remembering and mourning the loss of George Carlin. There's probably thousands... and there could never be enough.

I loved that man.

-M

Talk about the blues.

Would it be horrible to say that I'm in love with this video? Can you truly love a video with all your heart and soul?

I've been an ENORMOUS fan of this band since Thomas E. Forrester III played the album "Now I Got Worry" in the horrible-sounding CD player of his busted old blue Jeep Cherokee in 1997. You think I don't remember our awesome lunches at Pizza Hut in the Morristown mall? You'd be wrong.

Anyway, this band is close to my heart, and this video is close to my crotch, since I want to make sweet love to it.

Enjoy, fools.

-M

Hey Phillips.

Dear Phillips,

I'm sorry for what I did and I hope you can forgive me. It was wonderful to hear from you, and I'm so happy you're doing well. I want to talk to you some more and get more caught up, so let's do that soon. It would be great to get together too, since I haven't seen you since Moby Dick was a minnow. Let me know when is good for you, and we'll make it happen. Please.

If you aren't cool with that, I will stalk you until I find you, sneak around outside your bedroom window, make scary noises like two cats in a fight and then brandish some big ass knife—like a meat cleaver or something intimidating like that—at your face while chanting some creepy Native American songs I learned from Wikipedia.

I miss you.

-M

Camp Voorhees is LIVE!

Hey guys, just wanted to make a quick announcement that my buddy Justin's new site is up and running, and it's got more Friday the 13th content than you can handle.

Roll over and scope out CAMP VOORHEES!!!

Sure, it's got a death curse. But it's way worth it.

-M

Unstoppable

Hey there, all my little McClane-amaniacs!!

Have you guys been trainin', sayin' your prayers and takin' your vitamins?

NO??

Let me tell you something right now, brother: God created the Heavens, he created the Earth! He created all the McClane-amaniacs! Then, he created a set of 24-inch pythons. MY 24-inch pythons. (a.k.a. my arms)

Anyway, I've come to talk to you about my second favorite animal on the planet.

For years, my favorite animal has been the Raccoon, and everybody knows that. I love those little guys. I love them so much that I made a little dirt sculpture out of one... and I married it. We were together for a very long time, until a group of miscreants came by and kicked the raccoon dirt sculpture over. I fought most of them off, but the biggest one of them shot me in the chest, and it was all over. Before I died, though, I looked that son of a bitch dead in the eye and told him: "I'll be waiting for you in heaven. With a gun."

Anyway, we won't go into the reasons why I love raccoons so much here, because that'll be another 5,000-word story. Instead, we'll focus on my second favorite animal:

The Honey Badger.

Let's get down to brass tax here: The Honey Badger has been named "The Most Fearless Animal" in the Guinness Book of World Records for a good while now.

The reasons for this range a full spectrum of badass, but the biggest reason is this:

Jon Voit once said that "you never look into the eyes of the ones you kill...[because] their eyes will haunt you forever."**

Let's put it this way: The Honey Badger, commonly called a RATEL, will look into your eyes. He'll look past your eyes into your very soul. He'll take it all in, nice and slow. Then he'll rip your entire face off with his razor-sharp claws, use it as a mask to rob some banks, leave you on the side of the road somewhere for dead, and then sleep like a baby that very night. Fearless and remorseless. That's the name of the game he plays.

Anyway, these Ratels are amazing creatures, obviously. They apparently live mostly in Africa, which is really good for us, since these aggressive bastards won't try to smash their way through our bedroom windows when their taste for blood overpowers their senses.

When the day comes when the animals take back the planet, I feel damn sorry for those guys over there in Africa. They're going to meet the devil. The last thing they'll see is the powerful jaws of one of these killing machines chomp down on their crotch with a merciless ferocity. It's basically the same technique I use whenever some homeless guy asks me for change more than once in a given day.

Anyway, back to the point, somehow—these guys are obviously fierce hunting machines who've made a name for themselves with their unbelievable snake-hunting skills. Apparently they grab snakes by the back of the head with lightning-fast speed, rip it to pieces, and then—no shit—devour an entire snake (5 feet long) in less than 15 minutes.

They get their name from this insatiable craving for honey in beehives. These guys don't give two cups of damn about getting stung; their tolerance for pain is just like John Rambo from the original First Blood. What I'm trying to say here is this: If mother nature was Col. Troutman and the Ratel was Rambo, mother nature would tell the small-town sheriff this:

"You don't seem to want to accept the fact you're dealing with an expert in guerrilla warfare, with a creature who's the best, with guns, with knives, with its bare hands. An animal who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam its job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill! Period! Win by attrition! Well the Honey Badger was the best."

At any rate, they can get stung a hell of a lot of times before it will EVER give up, which is pretty much never. Apparently a lot of honey bee farmer guys will find dead Honey Badgers laying around dead next to the hives they tried to eat. These things literally died before getting their honey. You just think about that next time you're in line at McDonald's.

These guys are near the top of the food chain in their area. They take on animals of every kind, no matter what gets in their way. On the list of shit they eat is: earthworms, termites, scorpions, porcupines, hares, tortoises, illegal immigrants, deadly poisonous snakes, British children and even small crocodiles. (SERIOUSLY!!)

They, of course, get attacked by Lions and Leopards, but pretty much to no avail. Their super thick and badass hide is also loose, making it extremely hard to grip, pierce of suffocate. These things will fight to the very end before being eaten. On a show on Animal Planet, an older female Honey Badger that was nearly toothless and had one blind eye was attacked by this big ass Leopard. This poor old woman Ratel should have been eaten and ripped to pieces instantly, but it took the Leopard more than ONE HOUR to finally kill her.

Damn these guys are tough!!!

Their favorite snake to grapple with is the ever-so-deadly, nightmare-inducing Puff Adder. Here's what happens:

1. The Ratel takes on the Adder just for the hell of it.

2. The Ratel does some serious damage, roughing it up a bit.

3. The highly-poisonous snake bites the Ratel in the neck.

4. The Ratel falls over, completely paralyzed, maybe for even several hours.

5. The paralysis will eventually wear off, the Ratel will come back to life, get up, and savagely follow the Adder to finish the job. Which he does. Basically, he's the best there is at what he does... and what he does isn't very nice.

The son of a bitch will NOT go down. He just keeps getting back up for the kill.

You might have made the connection here already, but in case you're slow, retarded or have recently eaten some bad hot dogs and aren't thinking clearly, let me spell this out for you:

There's another animal on the planet with these same exact traits. Here's a hint: He wears a hockey mask, uses a machete, and stalks teenagers having pre-marital sex.

That's right geniuses, the reason I love Honey Badgers SO much is because they're basically the Jason Voorheeses of the animal world. They keep going down, but keep getting right back up to kill even more stuff. They will absolutely DIE before giving up.

This hasn't been proven by scientists or anything, but I'm determined to prove that if we killed a Honey Badger, buried him, then 8-10 years later dug him up, stabbed his corpse with a giant metal pole—attracting a gigantic double lightning strike (energizing his body with electricity), he would get back up, even MORE powerful than before, and go on yet another killing rampage.

Anyway, I'll leave you one last thing to think about here: These animals are tremendously intelligent. Apparently there was a documentary made in 1997 called "Land of the Tiger," in which a Honey Badger was caught on film actually using a tool. The Badger rolled a big ass log all the way over to the edge of an underground cave, so it could stand up and reach a little Kingfisher bird who was hiding in a series of roots coming from the ceiling.

Dude, that's terrifying to me. This thing could actually figure out the combination to the safe where I keep all my guns, go on a killing rampage, and then put the guns back in my safe, so that I'd take the fall for his transgressions. A diabolical killing machine.

According to Tommy Jarvis, hero of Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives, the only way to stop this monster is to return it to its original resting place. For Jason Voorhees it was Crystal Lake. For a Honey Badger? We have no way of knowing.

The scientists better friggin' get to work on that ASAP, before it's too late.

Until next time, brothers, Matt McClane out!!!!!

P.S. McClane-amania is runnin' wild like it's never ran before.



**Anaconda (directed by Luis Llosa, 1997)

Happy Friday the 13th!!!!

Hey Crystal Lake fans,

Today's a fantastic day in the world of classic horror!!





I don't have a lot of time to write as much as I'd like, so please enjoy this fantastic video that chronicles all 140 kills (SO FAR!) of the entire Friday the 13th series. Celebrate with your loved ones! Pop in a DVD and let it bring you closer together as a family!





I'll be bringing you more info soon, of course, but in the mean time, consider re-visiting my now-infamous essay, Friday the 13th: A Requiem for a Lackluster Chronology!





Also, be sure to re-visit the Crazy Ralph Collection for a walk down memory lane.

Have a great Friday the 13th, and tonight when you drink, make a toast to Jason Voorhees. He's still out there somewhere, and if he were here, he'd probably toast to world peace, titties and beer, and to ridding the world of teens having pre-marital sex, drinking and doing drugs on their summer vacations.





Cheeeers!!!

-Steve Christy