The Headless Horseman In My Office

I have a weakness for CVS Halloween decor. During late August I pop into a CVS at least every other day to quickly traverse the aisles in hopes that some proactive manager gets an early jump on Halloween. I don’t know why I bother because they never start until the first week of September and all I really look like is a meth maker checking out the supply of cold medicine. I don’t like getting the suspicious eye from a twenty year old CVS clerk with a crossed out name tattooed on his neck.

What I was really looking for was a replacement to the Grim Reaper I bought last year who, unfortunately, did not survive and broke in half. I did not find him BUT I found something so much better. In fact, I will be hard pressed to find anything better this Halloween season.

Introducing The Headless Horseman himself from the famous folklore tale of Washington Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It is not only a great Halloween display but it just so happens to be my favorite horror icon of all time. Ever since I was a young kid, that story captivated my imagination and chilled me to the bone. Even the Disney version! From the creepy autumn setting of a superstitious northern New York town to the belief that at night no one would venture in the woods because that is where ghosts and specters lurked. I love it all even though that sort of thinking back then led to witch hunts and burning at the stake. Oh well.

This guy is pretty big with a height just under six feet. Not bad for a price tag around $60! You will see in the video he doesn’t move around but his pumpkin lights up and he says a few witty phrases that are either activated by pressing his hand or motion sensing. It’s a pretty neat addition but I really wish he had a Robert Goulet voice. RIP Bobby!

It was pretty funny when I bought this guy at CVS because he kept going off in the box which was half the size of my car. Of course the clerk took a year to ring me up with all sorts of questions like, “Are you a CVS card member? Would you like to be? and “Is this for Halloween?”. It’s hard for me to tone the sarcasm when people throw me softballs. I was nice and said no.

Well, I won’t ramble on too much about this Halloween decoration that makes me want to sing a verse from “Putting On The Ritz” in a Peter Boyle style Frankenstein voice. I will just let you watch me ramble on about it and you can hear him for yourself. I must apologize for my appearance, I’ve been operating on a couple of hours sleep a night thanks to this place that gives me paychecks. I like paychecks.

Also! This is just one of a couple Sleepy Hollow type posts that are coming your way. I have a special treat with an artist who isn’t far from me who art-ed this commission just for me! It’s a special so be excited! (Art-ed does not sound as smart when said aloud)

October 8, 2014 4

Fall Is For Cookies And Coffee And That’s Good Enough For Me

I don’t know where you live but here, Fall has arrived in a fantastic fashion. In what feels like an overnight assault, the trees are bright red and orange, the air is cool and dry and little pumpkin patches are springing up all over, each vying for the most sincere. Over the weekend I wasted no time drinking enough cider to safely say I ingested a bushel and watched Halloween 4 at least four times. Needless to say, we are in the season when you freeze in the morning and have a heat stroke by noon. I love it.

Besides the great weather and horror movies airing on primetime, lets not leave out festive cookies. I am not one to eat a lot of sugar so rarely do I indulge in cookies but this time of the year, how could I not? The entire Nestle Toll House package is a thick sheet of glorious dough, filled with orange and brown chocolate chips. I can’t help but bite at the package leaving teeth marks up and down the dough. It’s a weight x girth/cube size equation for me. If all numbers align, I bite.

Perfect little squares are a weakness of mine. It makes me want to peel these apart and build the talking prism from the show Out Of This World. There is nothing that you cannot do with building blocks of cookie dough if you can get past the salmonella. That’s the only show stopper for me. I know millions eat raw cookie every hour but the chances are still not in my favor when Lady Luck has anything to do with me, numbered odds and a toilet. I will bake these cookies and scrub my hands as if I am engaging in exploratory surgery.

While those magnificent cubes are baking let me wax poetry to you about Fall coffee that is NOT pumpkin flavor. Don’t get me wrong, I love pumpkin flavoring this time of the year but it’s nice to see a contender who brings it with straight beans. The monopoly of Starbucks has come out with a “cozy” blend for the nice price of $12 a bag. And by nice I mean stupid. But it’s not the price or the obvious repackaging of Springtime blends in a Fall bag but when you say the word “cozy” on a coffee bag, it is coming home with me.

Back to the cookies! Well, after a few minutes at 350•, we have Halloween cookies which are no where near as impressive as the cookie on the package. But after all these years writing on the same topic, you would think I would know this by now. Or at least not frown when I stare at two limp-dick cookies. I mean, look at my dog’s face! You wouldn’t know it but he has a pretty refined palate, aside from chewing his butt.

And the coffee?

They were right. Completely cozy and perfect for early Autumn mornings by the fire. Especially when you grill bacon and sausages in beer. Life could be worse, my friends. Life could be worse.

Also, I built a bar. Sorry about the eyesore trashcan in the frame.

I know this post was weak but I have a few including a video tonight staring guests you very well may know! I am showing my love for some of the most fantastic TV horror as well as ramping up the Halloween Spook Show with prizes and discussions! Be afraid, it all starts tonight!

October 6, 2014 2

The Haunted Barn 1988

I grew up in Marietta, Georgia just north of the city of Atlanta. Back in the 1980’s and 90’s it was one of the biggest suburbs which was about as close to a Tim Burton version of middle class America as you could get. Every house was similar, the grass was cut on Saturday mornings while the kids watched cartoons until eleven o’clock or when high school academic game shows came on. That was a sign to get outside to ride bikes. The ball games were always on an outside radio and errands running families crowded Sears or whatever was on their lists. It was an awesome place and time to be a kid.

One of the Saturday staples was the Chattahoochee Nature Center located right on the bank of the Chattahoochee river. It was a place of many great childhood memories for me ranging from a five-year old to a young soldier at home on leave. The Chattahoochee Center was the place I spun around so fast on a tire swing, I puked in the parking lot and Mom made me take off my pants in front of my preschool class and lay down in the backseat of the car on the way home. Which, of course, resulted in more puking. A place where my best friend Simon teased a goose causing it to chase him around the park, instantly transforming him from a manly seventeen year old boy into a screaming twelve-year-old girl. A place where my other buddy Johnny got so high he went to pee in the river, lost his footing causing him to uncontrollably slide down the embankment into hip deep into the water resulting into the infamous cry of desperation, “OH NO!”. (I still laugh at that today) And it was also the place where I took a long walk with my Dad the night before I headed back to base to be deployed to a combat zone. The discussion we had that night I would not like to have again.

I think my fondest memory of the Chattahoochee Nature Center would be on the month of October, 1988. That was a pretty magical Halloween season for a number of reasons. One, I was finally dressed as something for Halloween my parents invested more that twenty dollars on. I was a knight with full body armor, shield and a sword and aside from the LA Gear sneakers, I was pretty convincing. Also, that year I was able to trick r treat alone without the parental supervision. Looking back, I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal because the neighborhood was barely a mile long.

Just about every weekday night during the month of October, the family did something Halloween-ish. Whether it was carve the jack-o-lantern or decorate the yard, as long as the homework was done, we celebrated. This is probably why I am thirty six with a Halloween Spook Show. Just a theory.

One fateful night, Dad read in the paper the Chattahoochee Nature Center had a haunted attraction featuring the “Haunted Barn” which was run by the local Walton High School. In those days, I regarded high schoolers as grownups so right away I knew this attraction was going to be something of the serious note. My Dad, however, thought much the opposite. In fact, he thought that this was more of a fun and family attraction which possibly had nature conservatory lessons mixed in with a ‘Trick or Treat” motif. That was far from what we would be experiencing.

The Nature Center was a Saturday morning place where every morning Dad and I would drop off bottles and newspapers to the recycle center and feed ducks. That Thursday night the mood was much different. I can still remember pulling into the gravel parking lot with lit jack-0-lanterns spacing the lot. There was hardly anyone there and for good reason because it closed at 9:00 sharp and at 8:30 on a school night most kids had been through the attractions and on their way…to therapy. I had homework and Dad’s work ethic would never allow for fun before responsibility. Makes you wonder what happened to me?

We paid a “donation”, I think. There was no fee that my Dad can remember (we talk of this often every fall season). Just followed the path on the candle lit road which led to the barn. That barn, which was always a place of discovery and cuteness throughout my elementary days with field trips and summer camps, was transformed into “THE HOUSE OF SATAN”.

I shit you not, in Marietta Georgia, The Chattahoochee Nature Center named their barn, “THE HOUSE OF SATAN”.

I have yet to meet a peer or a long time friend who remembers this but I have family who can validate. And for whatever reason had no problem taking me into “The House of Satan”.

I will say, looking back on this event, the high schoolers did it right. They recreated the famous Exorcist scene when the priests read rites which makes a rotting girl screech in horrific tones. The next room had a person rocking in the corner as a defiled and chopped up corpse lay on the floor. After that, a room where a wondering girl kept trying to pull me from my Dad to come with here into the heavens. Holy shit, I remember this with such detail I even remember her shoes. Her shoes!

Dad laughed. That is what I remember but for me, this was horrific. Every room led to more nightmares my brain was not ready to comprehend. That is until we met the stairs. The stairs went up to the loft of the barn and at the top stood a figure.

We didn’t know if we were supposed to proceed up and I remember looking at my Dad. He studied the figure long and hard then looked at me with a shrug. I grabbed his flannel shirt and we head up. But then the figure spun around and bolted down the stairs as if it too was being chased by something horrific.

We miracled ourselves straight through the back door and was chased by a hooded figure almost halfway to the car. I can still to this day remember screaming without care. When you scream without care it is something you never forget. As a child it is something to possibly look back on with a smile but never as an adult. It is animatistic in a way. My Dad stopped, laughing hysterically and so did the hooded kid who removed his said hood and thanked us but said that was where the attraction ended. He didn’t mean to scare us so badly and made an attempt to assuage my fear with a high-five.

I will never forget that night. Forever will Halloween be that barn with jack-o-lanterns lighting the way of a path and the orange illuminated barn filled with monsters and demons who scared me so badly the adrenalin put my feet to sleep. We dumb down so much in today’s society. I feel bad for the kids who will never get to experience something that made me a forever-fan of Halloween. That night forged a connection and even tough it scared me to down to the marrow and I loved it.

Thank God I didn’t have an easter experience. Those people are freaking weirdos.

September 19, 2014 2

How I Ruined A Halloween Play

There are certain moments in our life that define us. Whether it is an act from another person or an event which forces us to rise or fall to an occasion, there is no doubt these moments shape the way we are, how we view the world and how the world views us. A particular defining moment happened to me way back on an October evening in the year 1985. I was in the first grade and even though most of that year is a clouded-jumbled mess, I remember this evening vividly clear. The annual Mt. Bethel Halloween Play.

From kindergarten to fifth grade, every class participated in this play which took place at 7:30pm, some weekday evening in October. The whole cafeteria/auditorium was decorated to the nines with hay bales, overstuffed scarecrows, pumpkins and what seemed like hundreds of the iconic Beistle Halloween decorations. It was absolute heaven and for the couple of weeks leading up to this performance, we got to eat square pizza at lunch in a literal Halloween wonderland proving yet again, the 1980’s was the decade to be six.

As the play drew closer, each classroom practiced their song or skit or whatever during music class. We had one music teacher who was responsible for the whole Halloween play and looking back, that would be like training twenty dogs to bark “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” while at the same time worrying about one of them shitting. I have a lot of respect for the patience and organization of that woman.

The younger kids had a simple song to learn while the third grade and above incorporated instruments like bells, a piano and the dreaded recorder. Goddamn, I hated the recorder. No kid in the history of anywhere was decent at the recorder. And when you have thirty-five kids blindly blowing in those things, it’s like listening to Celine Dion seven octaves higher and backwards with her hand in a blender.

Lucky for me at that time, I was only in the first grade. Our class had just one song to perform for the night but this wasn’t just an ordinary Halloween tune about spooks or lame pumpkins. No sir, this had a hidden surprise at the end and to a first grader, little surprises where never taken lightly. In fact, it captivated the minds of me and my little group of buddies.

The song is “Stirring Our Brew” and to my surprise, it’s still a relevant children’s song. The melancholy tune has three parts which goes:

Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew

wooo wooo

Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew

Tip-Toe Tip-Toe….

This all builds to a climactic end when we slowly turn backwards then spring out screaming “BOO!”. That was the part we could not wait for. In fact, my cohorts and I wanted to secretly take it a step further with arm motions and an improvised “BOO”. It was the one chance we had to shine and mediocrity would just not do. In our little minds we absolutely thought this would put terror in the hearts of our peers and parents.

If you are curios how the song goes, click here. This kid does it justice.

The day finally arrived for the Halloween Play. We all wore the costumes to school that we would wear that night. I guess a dress rehearsal of some sort. It’s an unwritten rule that no teacher ever wants to put on a play and leave a kid to his or her creative accord without giving a nod of approval first. Once the lights go down, their butts are in the kids hands.

I was a hobo. See, if I didn’t have an idea of what I wanted to be or the folks wouldn’t buy me a $40 oversized latex mask, I went as a hobo. It was part laziness, part an opportunity for my Mom to put blush on my cheeks and nose. Later in life I learned she dressed me as an alcoholic, homeless man with blown out capillaries on his face but back then, I was closer to a clown than a guy who cleans windshields with newspapers. I think there were at least five hobos that year.

Another standout memory from those autumn plays was the fact we were at school during the nighttime. That was almost taboo to me. It was crazy to see my friends in a school setting past 2:15. The windows that were always so bright were now darkened by night and in some weird way I felt this was like seeing your teacher in her bathrobe. The school felt vulnerable and there was black and white difference with everything. As if there was an absolute difference between my desk during the day and at night. Is any of this making any sense? It’s okay to say no.

Back to the play. We all gathered in the hall outside the auditorium/cafeteria as the school principal, Dr. Butts (I know), thanked the parents for coming and praised the staff for putting together such a great play. My parents were in the packed crowd and I was excited to give them the scare of a lifetime. My buddies and I had agreed to take this climactic “BOO” to the next level. Some bragged how high they were going to jump, others mimicked their clawed fingers and snarled faces. I, myself, had a spin on the “BOO” adding extra parts. This was jump-in-place excitement.

The retarded kindergarteners were finally finished and Mrs. Hudson rose us from the Indian-style seating position and we were shuffled onto the three leveled stage. I remember vividly the enormous crowd with flashing cameras. It was a sight to be taken aback by but before I knew it we on the stage, me dead-center. The piano started up and with over exaggerating mouth movements, Mrs. Hudson began the chorus.

“Stirring and stirring and stirring our brewwwww“

“WOOOOO-OOOO WOOOO-OOOO…“

The excitement was almost more than this kid could bear. Did they know what was coming? How scared will the audience be? Do you think someone will have an accident and have to throw out their underwear like Ms. Taffle made someone do the first day? The possibilities were endless and the cross of anticipation was getting to be too much to bear.

The distraction of my excitement would be my undoing, however. You see, while my mind was busy imagining shrieks of horror from the audience, I lost where we were in the song. I was a whole stanza ahead.

While the second part was halfway through and the kids were still stirring their brew, I slowly began to turn backwards, completely missing the fact the entire first grade was still looking ahead. I curled my fingers and raised my lip over my teeth, making the most intimidating six-year-old face a person could ever lay eyes on and waited to the last “Tip Toe Tip Toe..“

What I thought to be that said last “Tip Toe” was the cue to spring around in the most violent fashion imaginable and yell at the top of my voice “BOOO!”. But I didn’t just yell “boo”, as you remember I improvised the startling “boo” sounding more like “BOOOYOOODLELOOPIELOOPIE WOOOBOOP!”.

The piano kept playing but the class stopped and every six-year-old pair of eyes were on me. Also, every audience member’s.

Mrs. Hudson made a face like this:

And in that single moment I was frozen in time, making monster fingers at an audience who were both confused and humored. I collapsed into my peers, completely mortified. They didn’t even finish the song! We were walked off the stage to a lukewarm applause and laughing adults.

I remember that being the first time I experienced what it is like to truly blow it. Almost everything after that is a blur except when we were allowed to find our parents. I was greeted by my Dad who was over the top with how praise totting how great I was. It was the final straw and I busted out in tears. A six-year-old with running hobo makeup. Leave it to Dad to solve and cause all problems in a young kids life.

Life moved on, of course. The next week Jeremy Pricket pissed his pants when the fire department came to visit doing disorientation practice by spinning us around and having us crawl to the fire escape. That will always take the heat off of any faux pas. Beyond those two district memories, I don’t remember much of the first grade. I know I passed.

So, while this may have read a little depressing, it really wasn’t. Even today, Dad will still tease that timing is everything. We live through these funny moments that do shape us, even if they seem silly or trivial to others. It’s been thirty years since that funny night and I still remember it so vividly and worst yet, that annoying song, “Stirring Our Brew”.

BOO!

September 9, 2014 3

FLTO: Brach’s Weird Flavored Candy Corn

Brach’s, you magnificent bastard, I READ YOUR BOOOOK! Sorry, that was from the movie Patton. But in all fairness, Brach’s Candy Corn is the Rommel to the autumn mixes. When you think mellowcreme® pumpkins, you think Brach’s. Shit, they’ve only been doing this for over a century. I think they deserve the crown.

Today (last night) I reviewed their breakaway from the mold. In every business there is a ceiling to a product’s life until it is copied and duplicated hundreds of times. That’s when companies alike diversify. Brach’s did just that this year with three new flavors that may woo a few of you candy corn haters over. And if your thinking the Starburst debacle from last year, you can rest easy. These are nothing like that.

S’mores, Caramel Macchiato and Apple Pie are the three newest members of the Candy Corn flavors to hit the shelves this season. I found these at the local Wallgreens for a little under $1.30. Now, I am not a huge candy corn lover outside of what it represents nostalgically, (the literal definition of “eye candy”) but these surprised me!

Check out my review and see what my jury of taste buds thought.

September 5, 2014 1

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Like me on Facebook!