DAMAGED Goods: Tapatío Doritos? Tapatío Doritos!

Some people enjoy dipping their Doritos in bean dip, others in guacamole, and a few in sour cream. Hey, to each their own, no matter how morally wrong and mentally deficient it is.

I, on the other hand, have always enjoyed splashing half a bottle of Tapatío Salsa Picante Hot Sauce deep into my well-worn bag of classic Nacho Cheese Doritos, shaking it up and enjoying the mouth-watering spiciness mingling with the powdery, rich nacho cheese dust like some sort of South of the Border, Mescaline-induced variation of Shake-N-Bake. I love and, for far too long, lived, for that lip-burning heat that comes from downing such an inventive mixture, one that I was sure no one would ever remotely understand, let alone duplicate. It reminded me of why I've admired Goth culture for so long.

For Doritos to make these, other people must want them, unless they got tired of all my letters and phone-calls. And that's probably what makes the discovery of new Tapatío Doritos so devastatingly mind-blowing: the realization that there are other people out there like me, people that can honestly relate and have probably cried alone on a Saturday night, lying in their bed, cramming the spicy food-stuffs deep into their gob, asking God why they must suffer through this life alone, woefully falling asleep before the Lords of the New Church record even finishes. I sincerely hope someone starts a Facebook group for us.

Now, to be fair, the pre-Tapatíoed Tapatío Doritos aren't as spicy or as satisfying as the real thing, but, you know, I dig 'em. They are cheesier than my own concoction (the Tapatío seems to be powdered and mixes fantastically with the omnipresent nacho cheese powdering), and it's certainly dryer--it's definitely a tasty snack-treat that manages to minorly improve on the already proven Doritos formula. If this is your first time even hearing about the Tapatío/Doritos configuration, this is a perfect starting point. As for me, however, after a couple of handfuls, I got the idea and ended up still shaking half a bottle of my own Tapatío into the bag as always. I'm pretty sure it's what God serves at his Super Bowl party. Praise be!

MONDO SASQUATCH: The Latest News, Happenings and Personal Internal Fears!

Remember MONDO SASQUATCH? It's the Bigfoot trash-fiction anthology that Bookgasm, Cinema Fromage and I have been putting together, hopefully for a May, June or July 2011 release. Definitely by August. September at the latest.

When we undertook this endeavour, I gotta be honest with you: I had no idea how much work this was gonna be! I thought it was going to be all collect some stories, read some stories and, in a stroke of luck, get Harper-Collins to put it out, saving us a good lot of the job. Sadly, that last part hasn't worked out the way I hoped. But, hopefully, when the final product rolls off the print-on-demand factory line, you'll buy a copy, enjoy it and then, you know, it'll all be worth it. We've got a cover--designed by the incomparable Jim (THE GUILD, THE PLAIN JANES) Rugg--and I think it's a total work of art. You'd probably buy the book based on it. I'm kinda hoping you would.

As for the stories themselves, we received 50 or so entries and had to narrow it down to about ten. I honestly wish we had room for all of them, so picking out the ten best was insanely difficult and, often times, a maddeningly repetitive process of hand-written checklists and red-ink, but, in the end, I think I--and we--did a great job and picked all the right, most appropriate ones for this introductory volume. So, with that, the final selections for MONDO SASQUATCH are as follows:

• “I Have Always Wondered What Bigfoot Meat Tastes Like: An Introduction” by Louis Fowler
• “Arlo Felling Exists” by Richard Tiernan
• “Bigfoot and the Bone Face Murders” by Michael May
• “Bigfoot Must Die” by Frankie Marino
• “From Hell’s Heart” by Desmond Reddick
• “Incident at Crater Lake” by Casey Criswell
• “Roadside Attraction” by Matthew P. Mayo
• “Sacrifice” by Shawn Gilbreath
• “Sasquatch vs. El Chupacabra” by Douglas Waltz
• “Strike” by Michael D. Winkle
• “The Ballad of the Skunk Ape” by Jarret Keene
• “The Encounter” by Mike White
• “The Tale of Peter Rabbit and the Sasquatch” by Beatrix Potter and Rod Lott
• “The Tragic Hazing of Bryan Igfoot” by Eric Dimbleby
• “Theodore Roosevelt and the Great American Anthropoid” by Bill Adcock

Now, it's time to really get my ass in gear and work on the layouts. I gotta admit that this is the part where I feel like I am really in over my head! I want it to look not only good, but professional. I don't want it to be confused with every other carelessly designed self-published tome that seems to continually cross my path--as a book reviewer, at least once a week there's a new contender for the new worst book design I've ever seen and, sorry to say it, but people do judge books by their covers. I know I do. This type of extreme self-awareness make designing pretty hard to do, especially when self-publishing for the first time with few real resources. If you have any experience and want to help do layouts, by all means, please, e-mail me at damagedhearing@gmail.com. After all, we're all in this together, right bro? Right?

BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 03.21.11

Another entry in my continuing series of spectacular DVD finds at national closeout chain Big Lots, where DVDs are not some paltry public domain affair. No, the Lots gets major movies from major studios, often times selling them for under $5. In today's economy, that's cheaper than a night at the movies--and you could probably even pick up a guitar-shaped canister of cheddar Elvis Presley popcorn while you're there. Why even go out? Here's my collective haul from the past few weeks--feel free to post yours in the comments!

The last time I posted a Big Lots update was a little before Christmas, so, as you could guess, my pile of priceless finds has become rather unwieldy, begging me to brag on this, my only forum. More than three-fourths of this entry's DVDs are from Paramount and New Line Cinema, who I guess they're liquidating their back-stock, probably after losing so much money on the belief that people are clamoring for copies of THE ICE PIRATES. Which brings me to...

* THE ICE PIRATES - A mid-80s HBO classic, this sci-fi comedy never really caught on with the general public who, at the time, refused to buy VEGA$ star Robert Urich as a swashbuckling intergalactic buccaneer. Their loss. But, just think: somewhere, in an alternate universe, this was a huge hit and SPENSER: FOR HIRE never existed. I want to live in that world.

* THE FILTH AND THE FURY - The best music documentary ever made, and I say that without any hyperbole. Even if you can't stand the Sex Pistols, Julien Temple's take on their story is McLaren-level mesmerizing.

* LIPSTICK - Another late-night HBO classic, Margaux Hemingway is a high-fashion model who gets raped. Quite a bit. It would be horrible and unnerving if the movie wasn't so, you know...exploitative and trashy.

* RESURRECTION BLVD.: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON and PRICE OF GLORY - 90% of movies and television shows based around Latino families seem to focus on generations of failed boxers and their last great brown hope for redemption. Even though I am Latino myself, I can't identify with the boxing stuff because my family was more into getting good grades--which, now that I think about it, I probably would've been better off training in a ring of some sort. However, if these movies are to be believed, my little brother would've been shot by gang-members eventually. It's quite the double-edged sword that should probably only be experienced vicariously through media.

* LA BAMBA - 10% of movies and television shows based around Latino families seem to focus on dead Hispanic singers and songwriters who were their family's last great brown hope for redemption. Even though I am Latino myself, I can't identify with the singing stuff because my family was more into getting good grades--which, now that I think about it, I probably would've been better off training my vocal cords or learning an instrument of some sort. However, if these movies are to be believed, my little brother would've been shot by gang-members eventually. It's quite the double-edged sword that should probably only be experienced vicariously through media.

* THE ANDY MILONAKIS SHOW: SEASONS ONE and TWO - You know what, you can hate on me all you like, but I found this show funny when it was first on MTV, and dammit, I find it funny now on discarded close-out DVDs. To quote Tupac, "Only God can judge me."

* NORBIT - I had always derided and ridiculed Eddie Murphy's NORBIT. But, with a seemingly full pallet on display right in the aisle, something called out to me in that Big Lots bin, begging me to take a copy home. For $3, I thought, what could I truly lose? Long story short, I identified with NORBIT to the point of tears. TEARS.

* NATIONAL LAMPOON'S LOADED WEAPON 1 - The last great spoof, the last great National Lampoon's movie, the last great Emilio Estvez performance. Please come back, Gene Quintano, the parody-genre needs you more than ever.

* PERFECT / STAYING ALIVE - Two of the three movies that ruined John Travolta's career (c'mon Big Lots, get in TWO OF A KIND so I can make it a hat trick!). So, of course, I'm gonna buy them on sight. STAYING ALIVE is the Sylvester Stallone (!) directed sequel to SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and is embarrassingly fun. PERFECT, however, is not as fun, especially if you're not a fan of a scantly-clad Travolta doing aerobicized pelvic-thrusts in your general direction. Of which, sadly, I am not.

* THE WENDELL BAKER STORY - One of my favorite discoveries of the past few years, I remember reading about this Luke Wilson-directed comedy, but it disappeared, only to be unceremoniously dumped on DVD and, almost de-ceremoniously, dumped in the waiting, gaping Big Lots bins. It's an extremely charming deadpan, low-key 70s-esque movie, all with a welcome and warm Texas-twang. And, you know, Eve Mendes. So, yeah.

* JUICE - "You got the Juice now, grandma..." I really wish Big Lots would get some copies of DON'T BE A MENACE in. That movie's the bomb.

* MOST WANTED - Remember that period of cinematic history, in the early-to-mid 90s, when Keenan Ivory Wayans headlined just about every other action movie released? I was such an IN LIVING COLOR fan that I saw A LOW DOWN DIRTY SHAME, THE GLIMMER MAN and this, MOST WANTED, in the theaters. And you know what? I thought he made a pretty darn good action hero. But, most of America disagreed because they enjoy keeping a brother down. A--holes.

And, finally, it's not a DVD, but I did find Don DeLuise's EAT THIS TOO! cookbook, featuring numerous low-fat recipes and is endorsed by Angie Dickinson, Burt Reynolds and Dennis Franz. And if it's good enough for them, then by God, it's good enough for me.