Vampires, Shmampires

So a few days ago, "New Moon" the sequel to the movie "Twilight" opened and it has already been a huge success. Holy crap, the first day that thing came out, it made $72.7 million. Overall, I'm pretty sure that the entire series is going to make right around, oh...say...lemme see...carry the three...yeah, about a gazillion dollars. And why is that again? It's because of the subject matter, of course! And what, exactly, is the subject matter you ask? (OK, maybe you didn't ask, but I sure as hell did because I had not a clue.) That would be vampires. Vampires? Yes. Vampires.

Why vampires, you ask? OK, again, maybe you didn't, but I sure as hell did because I'm remembering vampires being around, oh, forever, and I don't recall them being $72.7 million worth of popular. But they are. And apparently they are because they're (get ready for it) sexy. That's right. Vampires are now sexy. Behold!

Wow. They kind of are sexy. And sparkly. They seem to sparkle just a little bit. Is there such a thing as a sparkly vampire? Huh. Well, there is now! Vampires that sparkle! It's a great time to be alive!

No, seriously, when did this happen? The sexy vampire thing. I'm not recalling vampires as being presented (in the strictly historical sense, of course) as a sex object. Let's take a look at some of the vampires of yore and see if we can spot any sexy ones. I'm pretty sure they're making this whole sexy, sparkly vampire (the ol SSVs) thing up.

One of the most, if not the most famous vampire would be that portrayed by a one Bela Lugosi. Behold! Bela!

Yeah, I'm not quite seeing it. No, that strikes me as kind of creepy, actually. And being a vampire, I find that to be rather appropriate. Vampires are supposed to be creepy. AND scary. Granted, most of the time creepy in and of itself automatically denotes the scary, but considering that people are suddenly finding them to be sexy, I thought I should point that out.

Speaking of vampires that are scary and that are absolutely not sexy, here we have Bram Stoker's Dracula. Or, at least, we have the movie poster from it, but it's still pretty darned scary. Behold!

Yeah, I'm not finding so much sexiness in that crazy looking thing. Hey! All of you teenage girls who are flocking to see the skinny dude that looks like he hasn't seen the sun since 1997! What do you think of this vampire, eh?! Not so sexy now is he?! I didn't think so. Moving on....

Speaking of not so sexy and kind of scary is this guy from something called Dracula: Year Zero. Behold!

OK, I'm pretty sure that if I saw that standing over me in some field somewhere, I'd be way too easy prey for him because I'd either pass out or just die right there on the spot from fright. I'd probably pass out and on my way down to the ground I'd probably croak, but I'd definitely be dead shortly after witnessing that. Oh, and in the middle of my demise, I would, in no way, think how sexy that was and boy, am I lucky! What a way to go! (By the way, I don't know why I'd be in the field, but in these sorts of movies, the characters always end up in a field. I don't know if they're just that softheaded or if they're always disoriented farmers of what, but there's usually a field of some sort involved.)

Next up on the List of Vampires That I Do Not Find Sexy would be Count Chocula. Behold!

What? Are you kidding me?! Of course he counts as a vampire! He has that long face and those teeth that are supposed to be fangs! And he has that hood with the turned up collar! That is definitely a vampire trait! But see, I don't find him sexy. I find him to be delicious. Sexy? No? Chock full of chocolaty goodness? Oh, yeah!

Then there's my favorite vampire from childhood, the one, the only, Count von Count! Behold!

The Count is the reason I love math. Nothing gave me more pleasure than watching him noodle through how many of something that someone had, all by way of counting. Again, not so much sexy. Not so much sparkly. But very, very useful when trying to do math quickly. I love The Count.

Next up, possibly the least scary vampire that is not a Muppet, nor on the front of a cereal box, Grandpa Munster! Behold!

Grandpa Munster was sort of like the Joey Tribianni of his time. Very, very lovable, but not so well endowed in the smarts department. Definitely not so well endowed in the sexy department either. (My point here has been way too easy to make so far.)

And how could I get this far on my List of Vampires That I Do Not Find Sexy without mentioning Count Duckula! Behold!

Aww. I heart Count Duckula. He is far from scary and even farther from sexy. He doesn't have fangs and his favorite food isn't blood, it's broccoli sandwiches. He doesn't exactly fall into the sexy, sparkly vampire mold that the "New Moon" folks are trying to sell us, now does he?

And finally, we have Count Blood Count. I'm thinking he might be a cousin or other distant relative of Count von Count. He's not a muppet, but rather he's the vampire that starred opposite of Bugs Bunny in "Translyvania 6-5000". There was the famous duel of magic words between the two of them where Count Blood Count announced to Bugs, "I'm a vampire!" To which Bugs replied, "Oh, yeah? Well, abacadabra! I'm an umpire!" I really don't know what one has to do with the other, but it was definitely funny. Very funny. Not sexy. Not sparkly. Funny.

While I can appreciate the whole SSV concept that the "New Moon" folks have going on, you have to admit that they certainly aren't basing it on anything of historical fact. It is completely unlike anything that I have just demonstrated here. Vampires are one of two things. They're either scary as hell, or they're funny as can be. They are not sexy. But hey! If anyone out there wants to pay me $72.7 million to do something that I'm not, I'm in!

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Acquitted of Vampire Sex

There are times when I read a news story and, even though I like my news to be informative, I sometimes just think (or shriek) "Too much information!" A story titled "Man in vampire Case Acquitted" was one of those times.

From the fine folks over at news.com.au, we learn about 39-year old Warwick Acott, of Seaton (that's in Australia), who was acquitted of assaulting and unlawfully sexing a teenage girl that he met through a vampire website. Wait. What?

Correct. It took a jury 4 hours to acquit Acott of one count of unlawful sex with a teenager and two counts of assaulting the same teenager. He had met this teenager on the vampirefreaks.com website. Then things start to get weird.

The girl had made numerous claims/statements (call them what you'd like), some of which included how he stalked her for four years by sending her sexually violent messages and pushing his way into her house in 2006 (she was 16 at that time) and then biting her breast, whipping her with a cat o' nine tails (That's a whip. Why can't they just say whip? Why all of the drama? It's a whip and it has one purpose. To whip. Don't try to make it sound all exotic and mysterious with that "cat o' nine tails" stuff. It's a whip. And it is meant to whip. So whip it. Whip it good.) and forced her to perform fellatio.

Of course, Acott denied that what the girl described was EXACTLY what happened. He says that she, naturally, pursued him, telling him how good looking he was and how she wanted to be his slave. She told him all of this after finding his picture on the above mentioned vampire website. Of course, Acott was flattered, but he became instantly fascinated when the girl allegedly told him that she was "a pain junkie" and would just love to be his whore!

Acott told the jury that he had stopped having contact with the girl twice after finding out that she had lied about her age. (He found out once she lied and stopped having contact and then what? Found out she lied again and stopped having contact again? Can you stop something you've already stopped? Would you need to? I'm thinking NO on both of those.) But I guess that after he had stopped all of the contacting, he was very happy to see her again on her sixteenth birthday when he bumped into her in, of course, a sex shop. And since it was her birthday, she did what any teenager who had just turned 16 would do and asked him to buy her a whip. Of course, that was followed, not by cake and ice cream, but by her inviting him home and asking him to whip and bite her, which he did (Naturally. I mean, unnaturally. I mean, never mind. He did it. That's what I mean.)

But he said that said fellatio did not occur. That's because he said he pushed her away when she "revealed that sex would be unlawful due to her age." (I'm having a hard time believing that those are the exact words that she used. Actually, I'm having a hard time believing that ANY words that would have indicated to him that she was underage occurred.)

But get this: Down under in South Australia, seventeen is the age of consent, UNLESS BOTH parties are 16. Huh. So if you're going to be doing stuff and you're 16, make sure the other party is 16. Otherwise, wait. Interesting.

Part of the reason for the acquittal was the girl admitted that there were some holes in her story. Mainly the parts that she had lied about, including the time when she claimed that Acott had cut her with a scalpel. (Yeah, that seems like it would be pretty easy to determine if it had happened or not. She might want to try coming up with a lie that doesn't involve blood, bleeding, cuts or scars.)

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