Ray Van Horn, Jr.
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Occupation | writer/music journalist/mtg title processor |
| Location | Taneytown, Maryland, United States |
| Introduction | Ray Van Horn, Jr. is a seasoned music and film journalist, having written for venues such as Blabbermouth.net, The Big Takeover.com, Fangoria.com, Noisecreep, About.com, Horror News.net, Metal Maniacs, AMP, Dee Snider's House of Hair Online, Pit, Hails & Horns, Unrestrained, Impose, DVD Review, Music Dish and others. His blog The Metal Minute won Metal Hammer's Best Personal Blog Award in 2009. Ray is the host of "Comic Books" at ReadWave and is a former NHL game analyst for The Hockey Nut. Ray has been a local beat reporter and photographer for newspapers and journals such as Metromix, an affiliate of the Baltimore Sun, Carroll Magazine and The Northern News. Ray is the winner of Quantum Muse's short fiction contest for 1999 and his original character superhero stories were collected in the paperback anthology "Playing Solitaire." In 2013, Ray published fiction stories at New Noise Magazine and Akashic Books and he appears in the horror anthology, "Axes of Evil." He recently contributed work to Neil Daniels' Iron Maiden and ZZ Top biographies. |
| Interests | Pursuit of peace, establishing a deeper relationship with the higher entity...writing, music, movies, cartoons, art, animals, hockey, football, history, hiking, travel, Renaissance...am open to new experiences for the most part, I feel like one should strive to get the biggest quality of life before checking out, which means enrichening yourself with other cultures and points of view...knowledge is power, cliche but true. |
| Favorite Movies | Star Wars...need I say more? If my life wasn't smothered with writing and music, it'd be hovered around movies. Other favorites: Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Virgin Suicides, Rebel Without a Cause, the original Dawn of the Dead, the first Halloween, A Clockwork Orange, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Woodstock, American Beauty, A Christmas Story, Gladiator, Monsters, Inc., Nosferatu and too many more to even scratch the surface. |
| Favorite Music | Aside from writing, music is my life. I am most fond of metal, punk and hardcore as I primarily write about those genres, but I am deeply into other genres: alternative, old-school rap and R&;B, funk, classical, jazz, world, Celtic, drum, electronica/techno, 50s RNR, psychobilly, rockabilly, Texas swing/bop and so on. It would take me a good hour to list most of my favorites, but suffice it to say I've got much covered with 1800 CDs. Despite my metal roots, Prince will always reign supreme in my mind as the greatest musician and guitarist of this generation. |
| Favorite Books | Le Morte d'Arthur - Sir Thomas Mallory; The Autobiography of Malcolm X; Fight the Power - Chuck D; The Shining - Stephen King (the master who inspired me to write); On a Pale Horse - Piers Anthony; Buried Alive, The Biography of Janis Joplin - Myra Friedman; Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow; Catch-22 - Joseph Haller; Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer; By Bizarre Hands - Joe R. Lansdale; To Die for the People - Huey P. Newton, The American Night - Jim Morrison, Watchmen - Alan Moore, Sandman series - Neil Gaiman, The Wisdom of Confuscius |
You're going to the moon! What did you forget to pack?
Phone # to my life insurance agent.