Treats That Will Get You Tricked

You know, now that we are getting close to Halloween, I feel it is my duty this year to shed some light on what is not the appropriate candy/treats to hand out. Reading Pam’s blog from today inspired this and hopefully I may save someone from a November first morning of pulling toilet paper off the branches of the trees. I am not saying I am the know all of candy or what is acceptable to the average ten year old, but I have many years of getting my pillow case weighed down by sugary shit and alternative treats. And being the little prick I was, the poor souls found out the hard way that their disconnect from Halloween led to mayhem in their front yard.

Stop right there! No! No! Bad treat giver! If you even think about giving out blue mints or sugar free hard candies you need to choke yourself. Think about this general rule: if you can find it at the bottom of your great Edna’s purse, you shouldn’t have it in the trick or treat bowl. No kid needs these. Not even the diabetic kid. Brach’s never intended these candies to be used as treats and this should be apparent since I have yet to see bats and pumpkins on the bags. No, Brach intended these to be after “early bird special” mints. So, if you hand these out the result might be this:

See? See what can happen? All because they gave out grandma-treats.

Oh Ho! Yep, people still do this. I have memories of getting five pennies scotch tapped together and wanting to say, “no, no…you keep it. I’ll only throw it through your garage window when you shut the door.” I still don’t understand the thought process behind this. These people actually taped five pennies together which, if i did my elementary math correct, meant they probably blew the same amount of money pissing off the neighborhood kids that could have been spent on Snickers. Plus, a handful of pennies can do this if thrown hard enough.

Well, maybe if Randy Johnson threw them. But you get the point.

The next treat is a no brainer. So let me break it down for you.

Eaten by these:

Looks like they were shit by these:

And primarily given out for Halloween by these:

You guessed it! It’s one of the worst tricks that poses as a treat.The mother fuckin’ raisin.

Now how does this box of death find it’s way into the treat bag? I can only venture to guess that it is the underground society of Dietitians Against M & M’s (D.A.M.M.). I mean really, there is nothing good about dried fruit and various forms of fiber supplements when there are thousands of better choices available. And cheaper! So grandma, I know you want to fight the system but your efforts will be futile. And if you still don’t get it, it’s your funeral! See?

This will ruin your Stride Rites! So take heed, and resist the temptation to hand out nutritious boxes of bullshit. Or deer shit. Whatever.

I am on the fence about giving out coupons for Halloween. Sure I still have a few retro McDonald’s coupons from the 80’s and as an adult they are neat to remember but when I was a kid I thought, “I bet this will stay on the fridge way passed the expiration date”. And I was right. Growing up, my folks only stopped at fast food restaurants on cross country road trips. So in order to utilize a coupon that meant a special effort had to be made. And it never happened. So I guess this treat is really a trick on the parents. You maybe safe from reprisals but like I said, I was a little dick and this could happen:

“That there is a felony offense…” Kids can be just awful, you know? So why tempt fate?

Oh don’t do this. Don’t make your own Halloween candy! I remember after a long night of trick or treating the first order of business was to get the “ok” from Dad to eat the candy. The “ok” was only granted after he visually inspected all the candy for anything that looked suspicious and the first thing in the garbage was the homemade treats. So keep that in mind before you make 300 vampires on a stick. And god forbid a kid gets sick.

There are worse things than getting the house egged. I know this looks extreme but we live in the age where neighbors sue neighbors over barking dogs. Just wait to see what happens when little Johnny Snot Face pukes on the family sofa after eating a gourmet chocolate mummy you made with a touch of love.

“Oh how cool! Candy in the shape of toothbrushes! Talk about irony. Wait a minute…..these aren’t candy at all. These are fucking real toothbrushes! What the….?”

That is a conversation I had at age 11. For the life of me I could not wrap my head around the fact that someone could hand out hygiene products in place of sugar. Are they being funny? Are they transplants from Indonesia and missed the point of Halloween? Or is it something more sinister? I went with that.

See what can happen when you mess with tradition? When you buck the system, the system can buck back. There is meaning behind “trick or treat”. If by “treat” you think toothbrush then by “trick” kids mean burn your damn house to the ground. That’s how we do things in America.

I hope I was able to shed some light on what are acceptable treats for Halloween. I feel it is my duty to pay it forward after a childhood of being mischievous. Karma has a way of kicking you in the nuts if you don’t and believe me, I have a lot to pay forward. So this year, keep it Wonka. That way you can avoid waking up and finding the mob has “taken care” of your jack-o-lantern.

October 23, 2008 16

All Hell-o-Weenish Stuff

SAME? Keeping with the October theme I want to shed some more light on my favorite thing to do this time of year and that is watch horror movies without getting weird looks from friends and family. Trust me, I have watched Jacobs Ladder on Easter morning and got more than a few raised eyebrows. It was my silent protest after spending two hours outside, freezing for sunrise service. But anyway, I do love the frightful TV programs on AMC and The Chiller Channel so much. It is what makes Halloween now that I am an adult. So today I will talk about some of the more memorable scenes, some fellow website pals that do a better job of listing horror favorites and some my odd childhood scares and items that I still hold close to my heart thanks to Tobe Hooper and the like.

MOVIES!

Ho-Boy! The 1981 classic, Ghost Story, isn’t well known to those who are fans of SAW or The Grudge but it will beat them hands down when it comes to the creepy factor. This movie has a little bit of everything for everyone and includes gore shots, boob shots and the controversial full frontal male nude shot. I wasn’t a fan of the penis shot but in a genre full of boobs I guess there should be equality.

The premise of the film is a group of four gentlemen who befriend a young woman and they accidentally kill her… so they thought. In their panicked state they load her body in a car and push it into a lake only to see her scream as it slips under the frozen water. Tormented with grief they vow never to tell about this until they are old men and she comes back to haunt them, taking their lives one by one. Excellent. Plus Alice Krige is super hot in this film, for a ghost. Take a look but please put down anything that can be spilled or dropped (i.e. coffee, tea, water, cat, baby….)

GOOOOO! That’s just great, isn’t it?

Robert Wise 1963 film The Haunting is the creepiest movies of all time and I say the with hesitation. I know in a day full of special effects and gore, the possibility of a black and white film to be of the same scare caliber might seem iffy at best, but it blows any film away. I have seen this countless times and it keeps getting better. It truly holds up and even the remake by director Jan de Bont in 1999 couldn’t touch it proving that the only thing special effects do is remove the viewers imagination. And that is a crime.

This movie was as much psychological as it was supernatural. The camera angles, the inside the head conversations and the muffled ghostly sounds makes The Haunting truly terrifying. Wise hit a home run and please, please watch this clip. This has to be the greatest ghost moments of all times in the cinema and probably made our parents completely sleep deprived for weeks. Enjoy.

Poltergeist. (whistle) Just the name sends shivers down my spine. Who hasn’t seen this Spielberg/Hooper classic? Well if you haven’t, stop what you are doing, go to the movies store and get it. That’s an order. I can’t decide which scene is the best so I’ll just leave you with the trailer. I love the dude’s voice. I have already reviewed the movie here, so, that’s that.

SITES!

Robert Berry’s site, RetroCrush is by far the greatest site on the web when it comes to pop culture. He does an amazing job of archiving, interviewing and listing all things cool from yester-year and today. Recently he made a top 100 horror movie character list and it will have you blowing at least an hour out of the day scrolling through the actors. Even though I would move a few of the characters’ places around, he hit everyone and that takes eminence effort. Stop by and don’t forget to check out his list of the worst Halloween costumes. Hilarious!

Mystie has done some great work when it comes to Halloween reviews for the holiday, both food and cinema. If you haven’t been there it’s a trip down memory lane especially if you are a girl that grew up n the 80’s and 90’s. To me, her snarky sense of humor makes even an article about Polly Pockets fun. What can I say? I’m a fan and she is a very good friend. Click the Crown Combo picture above!

The Flesh Farm is all things great when it comes to archiving, reviewing and sharing clips and trailers to every horror movie available. J.P. Butcher and staff have outdone themselves with this site and I have been a fan for a couple of years now. Be careful when viewing this because there is some language and nudity so it’s not for the office or public computer viewing but when you get home, late at night, it’s a great way to spend the time. I give this site two severed thumbs up! Click the picture above to see what I am talking about.

Oh you didn’t think that was going to exclude X-E from the site shout out list did you? Of course not. It’s not like I haven’t plugged it about 300 times. But Matt is the king of holiday preparation and review so he earns a spot anywhere that Halloween centers as the topic of conversation. Even though the past couple of years haven’t been like the previous in scale it is still the place to go to find out what is hip in the world of spooy treats and decore. You can’t blame him. It’s near impossible to keep 45 days of holiday reviews alive while working full time and having a life. But we appriciate his efforts. Again, click the picture above to visit Matt and all of the X-E cult.

TV SPECIALS!

“You owe me restitution!” Who doesn’t love the classic, It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charley Brown! ? Well besides one person I know. I won’t say who but you know who you are! Anyway, this signifies that Halloween is upon us and much like A Christmas Story, I will never miss this CBS Special that, for some reason, generally lands on a Tuesday night. I haven’t figured that one out yet. This is one of my favorites and no matter how many times I have seen it, it never gets old. My dad has seen it, I have seen it, my kids will see it, their kids will see it, their kid’s kids will see and then maybe an asteroid will hit. So, with that said I am going to go out and bury a copy in an airtight titanium case in the backyard. It must survive.

“‘Arrrr, I been Orange Beard The Pirate Cap’in, and this be me first mate….Odie the Stupid.”

This comes in a close second to Chuck Schultz’s master piece above, but still, it’s a classic. I can’t remember if they aired it last year or even the year before, but I hope so. When I was little I owned all things Garfield and the Halloween special really was close to my heart. Even the pirate ghosts were scary. Ok, ok…are scary. Happy?

COSTUMES!

You see this? When I was 8 I would have sold my soul for this plastic and cloth piece of shit. I begged for it from August to the last week of October. There were so many dreams of showing up to school, dressed in my amazing costume and wielding my deadly fist of blades. But when my Dad finally caved and bought the Freddy Glove, the thrill quickly faded. First off, it didn’t fit. Yeah I was eight and had hands the size of a cellphone but even today, and I still have it, it doesn’t fit. If I had bear paws for hands, maybe, but human hands? So that year I was knight. I love my Dad.

Here’s another one! I saw Halloween II and I knew that I was destined to be Mike Myers for Halloween in 1991. That meant my parents needed to shell out another $25 bucks for latex shit. And it was. The mask above pretty much looked identical and when I was at home looking in the mirror, the realization that I would be the subject of ridicule was eminent. Not only did I not look like “the Shape” but I didn’t even look scary. I looked like a dead Don Knotts. So that is what I went as. I put on a Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants and took off to plunder treats from the neighbors as a zombie Mr. Furley. This was my father’s idea and that makes him uber cool.

CANDY!

Fruit Stripe Gum was always in the Trick or Treat bag and I loved it. It’s too bad that the flavor only lasted 3.2 seconds. I remember that a lady went the cheap route and gave out individual sticks and later on that night it did not pass the parents/customs treat inspection. Still bummed and now that I am an adult and can buy mt weight in Fruit Stripe gum I must say, the thrill is gone.

Here is my second favorite Halloween candy, Spree! Doesn’t the sight of these just make that thing behind your jaw and under your earlobe tingle? Mine does. In fact, one year I ate so many Spree I numbed my tongue out until Christmas. Honest! Moderation is key when it comes to Spree.

OLD DECORATIONS!

Holy Hell! Remember these wall decorations? Tell me these weren’t all over your homeroom walls and windows in elementary school! I remember being truly terrified of the eyeball skull and witch as a child. But back in the early eighties, the folks thought the fright was cute and even tormented me by putting them on the outside of the front door. Do they even make these classics anymore? Or do I have to roam around the neighborhood and steal them off the elderly home’s like I did last year. Am I joking? Maaaaaayyybbbeeee……

Here are some more of the classics. God I love this time of the year! But seriously, that flaming skull still fucks me up.

I apologize about this post. There isn’t really any organized thought process behind it other than just verbal vomit of all things Halloween. But it was fun to write and I hope it was fun to read. Please check out the sites. They do a much better job but then again, they get paid for it. So they should.

October 15, 2008 25

Turkey Stalked

For anyone who knows me personally they are fully aware of my irrational fears. Am I scared to swim with sharks? No. Can I watch the movie, The Exorcist at 2am and sleep fine. Yes. Will I hug a frothing pitbull? Of course! But somethings I just can’t grasp and like a typical human, what we can’t understand we fear. My new irrational fear is wild turkeys.

If you are a first time visitor to my blog let me explain. I have recently moved from the hustling bustling city life to far north Idaho where I live in a cabin-like house on a mountain. Everyday has new and exciting challenges like trying to avoid hitting moose on the winding gravel road to retrieving well water. I am loving every minute of it but I will tell you, there are certain things up here that I am unsure of.

Now sure, there are bear, cougar, Indian burial grounds (just up the road 😐 ) and perhaps an occasional shit shot hunter that mistakes runners for deer. But none of those have the audacity to gang up on me in my own backyard like the gang of wild turkeys. I know there are far worse things like what I have already stated but when I went out back on Saturday, these stupid birds charged me! Can you believe that?

As a 30 year old male that still believes he can be rough and tough, I refused to run back into the house. I calmly turned and walked, fast, back into the safety of the house. But i didn’t realise turkeys can also fly. I felt the feathers hit the back of my head and that’s when I took off. Maybe screaming. I made it in the door and looked out the window to see them gathered as if to say, “Come on out! We got all day!”. This pissed me off. It would be different if it was a bear or a mountain lion but these were birds.

I don’t own a fire arm because, well, I don’t hunt. There isn’t a reason to own a killing devise if you don’t plan on killing. But I do have a lucky football and that was my weapon of choice. I opened the door, walked to the corner of the porch and threw a perfect spiral right at the main tom and missed, throwing my football off the side of the mountain. Mother fucker! I really did, as you can see my backyard drops off to the base of Hauser mountain. The turkeys looked off the edge and back to me as if to say, “nice arm, Marino.” I went back inside, defeated.

Turkeys are just awful. They look like their heads are inside out and they don’t ‘gobble’ like you would thing. They sound like a demonic Hamburgler. “Robble Robble”. There is a reason that they are not in a flock or a gaggle but travel in a gang. So all in all I give wild turkey both middle fingers as now they they are my least favorite in the animal kingdom. I even Googled a story that proves turkey’s suck. I found this in Field and Stream.

Between five and 10 large male turkeys, or toms — apparently a little giddy with the onset of turkey breeding season — have been bullying postal workers as they make their rounds, pecking at them and even trying to rough them up with the sharp spurs on their legs. One of the birds launched itself through the open door of a mail truck and scratched the driver.

Eric Lobner, regional wildlife program supervisor for the state Department of Natural Resources, is on the case, investigating the turkey gang.

“They are being threatened by the turkeys, ” said Lobner, who received a call from Wilhite about the situation.

Lobner said other residents should not be too worried about marauding bands of wild turkeys in the streets. He said this particular group of toms has a reputation and has actually been a problem in the past at John Muir Elementary School, chasing school children around the playground and even pecking at the doors after the students were rushed inside the school.

See? I’m not a total Nancy boy. There are documented cases of turkeys gone bad. But I refuse to be tormented so the next day I went outside and sat down with Kootenee. We hung out for a while but I could tell we were being watched. And soon there was a familiar “Robble” in the woods and I turned to Kootenee and told him to get them. Kootenee took off for the safety of the porch. Such an ass!

So here I sit, stalked by wild turkeys and slowly going mad. I imagine I may exercise my 2nd Amendment before my time here in Idaho is done. There maybe a post in the next few weeks with pictures of me in a full feather jacket and a necklace made of beaks. So, just be prepared. Now I will leave you with me in my mind, here on a mountain.

All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy. All work and no play makes Will a dull boy.

All work and no play makes Will a dull boy.

All Work

And No play

Makes Will A

Dull boy.

EDIT: Stop over and say Happy Birthday to Social Pariah! She is turning almost 30 today! Happy Birthday Mandy!

October 13, 2008 27

MoonPies and Starships

There is something to be said for youthful indiscretion. Rational thought usually takes a backseat to terrific stupidity that is completely ignorant of any consequences. I was one of those youths. If there was a food fight in the cafeteria I was the clown to throw an apple. I feel fortunate my indiscretions never resulted in incarceration, maiming or death but that doesn’t mean I escaped all disciplinary actions. Here is one of my finer moments.

It was October of 1992 and I was a freshman at a Catholic high school, bred for mischief. A few neighborhood friends had invited me to the annual Fright Night at Six Flags amusement park and for a 13 year old kid it was one of the highlights of the year. To be unchaperoned at a theme park until midnight was probably the greatest opportunity a kid could have. It was an afternoon and night with creepy characters, roller coasters, funnel cakes, and no parental oversight with contingency plans and meeting points. Nope, we were young men in charge of our own destiny.

We all met, the four of us, at my friend Sandy S’s house since it was his parents who volunteered to take us. Now Mr. and Mrs. S were the envy of the neighborhood when it came to Halloween. They gave out full size candy bars, turned the garage into a spook house and after the trick or treating was over they hosted a Halloween party for all the kids. I don’t know what I looked forward to more, the trick or treating or hanging out at the S’s house? Needless to say, I was of a fan of the S’s.

When we were about ready to leave my friend Ben pointed out that there was a case full of orange MoonPies at the front door. If you are unfamiliar with MoonPies than you must be from North Korea. Ha! No, they are marshmallow filled cookie thing covered in a wax chocolate. You either love or hate them. I was not a fan and a little disappointed that this was the candy of choice for the S’s this year. It had to be stopped.

I explained that giving out individually wrapped MoonPies could only lead to a night of tricks by ungrateful little twerps. It’s bad karma to follow the previous years of giving out full size Twix and Snickers with a treat that was popular in the 1930’s. So we, as caring and thoughtful kids, volunteered to alleviate them of the Moonpie burden and stuff your windbreakers with the individually wrapped Moonpies and Mrs. S could stock the house once again with proper Halloween candy. We did her a favor.

So why would kids who didn’t like MoonPies to begin with want to take thirty of them to Six Flags? To throw them off the top of roller coasters of course! We weren’t going to eat them, silly. No, we came to an unspoken agreement that made sense only to 13 year old boys. There is no rationality behind it, we just knew that it was the right thing to do.

So after we stuffed our jackets to the brim with the said treats, we piled in the car and took off to Six Flags Over Georgia, blasting Smashing Pumpkin’s “Cherub Rock” all the way. Mr. S always was a teenager at heart and he kept current to what the kids were listening to. I remember the car ride there so clearly and how unusually warm it was for a late October day. So the first order of business, we decided, was to dump the cargo and ditch the jackets.

Right when we got to the park and through the entrance the decision on what to go on first was primary. This was the chance to get the mischief out of the system and relieve ourselves of the Moonpies in a glorious display of stupidity that will be the envy of Monday’s lunchtime stories. Should we go on the “Mindbender” with multiple loops and corkscrews? Nah, too short. Should we go on the famous “All American Scream Machine”? No, it’s mostly over water and no targets to hit. How about the “Cyclone”? Maybe, but it doesn’t quite fit what we are looking for…

Ah shit, that’s it! “The Looping Starship”! The one ride in the park that suspends you fifty feet in the air, completely upside down. It was as if it was designed to drop things from it. How many pairs of sunglasses and flip-flops perished on that ride? One could only imagine. Within ten minutes of arrival we were standing in line to meet our destiny as the new world record holders for dumping Moonpies off the Looping Starship. If only mom could see me now.

After an agonizing wait it was our turn to strap into the coaster. The shuttle was wide enough for all four of us to sit together on the same row. The lap-belts were tightened and the hydraulic bars came over our shoulders, securing us from plummeting to the depths below. All we had to do now was some how pull all the Moonpies from our jacket pockets and wait for Ben, the mastermind behind the plan, to say when to release.And then the ride began…

I suppose I should explain the mechanics of this coaster. There are about eight rubber tired wheels on the base underneath the flat belly of the shuttle which keeps the momentum and also slows it down. The shuttle itself rocks back and forth, like a pendulum, until it become totally inverted and completes a series of loops. Here’s a video of the exact ride.

So there we were, MoonPies in our arms, awaiting the command to drop. I have to give Ben props, his patience paid off because there was a point when the shuttle was completely suspended upside down and that is when he yelled, ‘BOMBS AWAY!”. And so we did. All thirty, individually bagged orange MoonPies fell from the Looping Starship. It must have been some sight from the ground to see such a shower of an iconic American treat.

We did it. Laughing and yelling as all the blood in our body rested in our heads, there was sense of forbidden pleasure that swirled around us. And then I noticed something. You see, foresight is not something a thirteen year old boy possesses yet. That comes many, many years later. Only after the deed does reality become apparent. Below us, resting on the tires were the thirty MoonPies, still wrapped in their air filled bags. And the shuttle was making it’s way down again towards them. And this is what we heard when we ran over them.

POP PIP PIP POP BOB PIP POP POP BIP PIP BOB POOF PIP POW BOP!

It sounded as if there was rapid fire machine gun, laying waste to the crowd below. And really, it wasn’t too far from the truth. As we began to ascend I looked up to see that the MoonPies had disappeared from the rotating tires. There was only a glimpse of an orange and white splotch on the spinning tires. But there was also a splat line of orange that lead right to the line waiting to ride the “Looping Starship”. And there were people laid out, covered in orange and white MoonPie goo. Our triumph soon became terror as the ride slowed abruptly and came to a halt.

Everyone else’s hydraulic shoulder harnesses released but ours did not. We were trapped and I was still holding a MoonPie that didn’t make it out of my pocket. So screwed! The conductor (?) approached and yelled, “I’ve called security and you’re not going anywhere. Look at what you’ve done!”

I did and I still have an image of a poor black woman pulling a glop of marshmallow from her hair and another who was peppered all over her back. Her head was cocked back and shoulders were raised as if she had an ice cube dumped down her collar. Those images are still with me today. But every year they get funnier.

Soon the security guards arrive in golf carts and we were pulled from the ride by the elbow, much like a 6 year old who is bad at a Toys R’ Us. We were whisked away while the caked crowd jeered us. They wanted blood and I was relieved when we were taken behind the secret alley behind the skee-ball machines. That is when the interrogation began.

As the guards conversed with each other, Ben turned to us and said, “whatever happens, do not give them your real name.” That sounded like sound advise and when the guard approached with pad of paper in hand and asked Ben for his name, he verbally shit himself.

“My name? It’s uhhhh….Beeeeyoorrnn?”

“Your name is Bjorn?”

“Yes?”

For the life of me I can’t recall how the whole security guard encounter went. All I know is that we had our Polaroid picture taken and kicked out of the park soon after. We lasted only an hour at Frightfest ’92. I suppose it wasn’t all that bad. Mr. S wasn’t due to pick us up for another 6 hours and we played “capture the flag” in a parking lot of 5,000 cars. We agreed not to tell anyone of the incident but right when we were picked up and asked how it was, Sandy cracked and confessed the whole affair. He was such a cock suck. Regardless it was time to remember.

Boys will be boys.

October 9, 2008 27

Ghosts: Maybe?

Ok, let me throw out a disclaimer before you read this. I am normal and I put science and reasoning before all oddities and paranormal conclusions. BUT, it is fun to think the things that go bump in the night might actually be spooky. So, read this with a level of skepticism, as I only believe what I see. I just find it fascinating.

Have you ever watched the show Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel? I love this show and it’s not because of the scare factor. Really, it’s neat to watch blue collar folks take a hobby to an epic scale and then get thrust into celebrity status by doing what they love. Jason and Grant, the founders of TAPS (The Atlantic paranormal Society) and plumbers for Roto-Rooter, travel around the country with a few other members “debunking” claims of paranormal happenings. Sometimes they are able to do so but at times they can not. There is nothing cooler than watching their evidence of paranormal anomalies. Check this out from the St. Augustine Lighthouse. INSANE!

Yikes! I have been to that lighthouse and I can attest to the fact there is no way to fake this video. Unless of course everyone is in on the hoax. But that isn’t likely. I like to live in a world of blind naivate’ so let me believe in that.

The next video is also from a Sci-Fi show called Ghost Adventures. Now this chilled me to the bone. I like to think that I am an even keeled person and all that is on TV should be looked at through an eye of skepticism but what these guys film had me believing. I don’t know what’s going on in these south western ghost towns but jumpin’ Jesus it was frightening. Mainly because you can hear the sheer terror in their voices that you know is legit. I have been in real life situations where I have heard grown men scream in a way that I have never heard in any movie by any actor. I heard them scream that way in the documentary and that alone frightened me very badly.

You can’t believe everything people tell you and I understand that. I don’t understand why people would make up stories though. Personally I would be embarrassed if I was dealing with a problem of no specific origin. I mean, who would you turn to and what would people think? It’s not like you can walk into a church and fill canteens full of holy water. Plus, the people who dabble in the occult and paranormal, for the most part, can be eccentric at best.

The next couple of videos is from a British documentary and I must say it is creep as hell. You be the judge but I can’t say that it is hooky. The dude being choked in the beginning looked kind of funny but the ninth minute of the first video was just cool. I’m sorry, but that looked as ghostly as anything I have ever seen. And the pictures at the beginning of the second one just gives me the heebs. I’m glad I am writing this at night, alone on a mountain in a rainstorm. I think I just saw Scuzzlebutt.

Sorry about that last part. I hope you didn’t spill something on yourself. Fuckin’ eh, I did.

So if you are asking yourself, “why is this dude writing about such a ridiculous thing”, I will answer, “because I want to assmaster!” Just kidding. But seriously, I have had an experience and it has had me thinking for sometime. But most of all, it has been comforting. Do you think that is crazy? So here is my story.

I have been to Savannah, GA no less that one thousand times. Shit, I used to live there when I was in the Army. But it has only been the past few years that I have taken interest in the history of the old city. And it is a dark and macabre past. Did you know that most of the city is one giant grave yard? They just buried people where ever back in the day. Only the rich were given Christian burial privileges. So Savannah is known to be the most haunted city in America and it was there that I became a believer.

It happened here at The Pirate House. I knew about this place and the fact real pirates used to drink here as well as the ghost sightings but as many times as I had been there before, no luck. Only a fat bill and over priced beer. I dragged my poor ex-girlfriend there every time we visited and she had to put up with my dumb questions about peoples’ experiences.

But last year I went on business and I was able to pop over there at 10pm for a quick few Ghost Ales (excellent). They close at 11pm so I was the lone person at the long bar. I kept my dumb questions to myself because the bartender was busy closing down and didn’t seem like the chatty type. I couldn’t blame her. So, I half payed attention to the game on the flat screen at the opposite end of the bar and flipped through my Blackberry.

Then I heard someone running down the steps, very fast and loud, just out of view where the TV was. The figure stopped smack infront of the screen. I didn’t look right at him but kept flipping through old messages on my phone, quite aware that this rude figure made a better door than a window. Finally I put my phone down, picked up my beer and looked to see who was blocking the view and there was no one there.

I felt like I was floating. Finally, I have touched the ethereal plain. I can’t remember if I was holding my beer or I put it down but just as I was about to close my open jaw the bartender kick the double doors open from the kitchen, holding a glass rack. I about jumped out of my skin. She saw my face and just ginned.

“You saw something, huh?” Her candor towards the matter was about as shocking as the experience itself. I told her what happened and she smiled and nodded the whole time. When I told her about the loud noise of running down the stairs she stopped me and asked me to follow her to the end of the bar. I did so and when I turned the corner every hair stood on end.

There were no stairs at all. It was just a wall and an old wine barrel with a model ship on top. She explained that before the kitchen expanded there used to be a staircase to the upstairs but that had been removed years ago. I think she felt that I needed another drink so she and I went to another bar and proceeded to get drunk. I needed that.

The more I thought about my experience the more comforting it felt. Maybe there is something beyond death? I am hard pressed to believe that when we die there are pearly gates and a list but maybe we do go on? The thought that is disturbing is whatever came down the stairs, stopped for a good five minutes and I don’t think it was looking at the TV. It was looking at me. Goooood God that is creepy!