I love Halloween!!!

Last weekend I ordered several cheap wigs online  - a pink bob, a “Storm” (X-men) one, a black one with red (like lipstick red) highlights, and this multi-colored 80’s rocker mullet number. The site said they would absolutely be here by today, and now the site is all screwed up (php problems, I know ye well), and I can’t find a phone number to call them and check up, and the wigs aren’t here. Bastards.

You've seen this one before, but it seemed extra-appropriate. This is me (and my brother) worshipping Satan and encouraging the curses of a thousand demons to come down on us.

Oh well. They could still come later today (***fingers crossed***) or, if not, they’ll get here eventually. In that case, I’ll just sprinkle the photos into blog posts from time to time as I’m inclined.

Meanwhile, in honor of the holiday, it occurs to me that putting razor blades into an apple or poisoning a snack-size Snickers is so passe.

Plus, there’s the whole ’spending the rest of your life in prison’ thing to contend with – and probably not one of those nice prisons where they put embezzlers –  and where’s the fun in that?

That’s why I was so glad to find this article by Kimberly Daniels, founder of Spoken Word Ministries, entitled “The Danger of Celebrating Halloween.”

It turns out it’s much, MUCH easier to ruin some little kids night (that’ll teach ‘em to dress up like The Little Mermaid or Spiderman) than previously thought.

Allow me to share entirely too much of this illuminating piece of, um, journalism. I think you, like me, will be glad you’re armed with this information before the trick-or-treaters start showing up at your door (unless, of course, you’re not American, in which case that will probably  not happen. I tell you though, you guys are missing out. Some of my happiest childhood memories involved trick-or-treating):

The Danger of Celebrating Halloween

Halloween—October 31—is considered a holiday in the United States. The word “holiday” means “holy day.” But there is nothing holy about Halloween. The root word of Halloween is “hallow,” which means “holy, consecrated and set apart for service.” If this holiday is hallowed, whose service is it set apart for? The answer to that question is very easy—Lucifer’s!

Word.

The key word in discussing Halloween is “dedicated.” It is dedicated to darkness and is an accursed season. During Halloween, time-released curses are always loosed. A time-released curse is a period that has been set aside to release demonic activity and to ensnare souls in great measure.

So is this ‘time-released curse’ thing like the time of the year when The Real Housewives of Orange County is on? You don’t want to watch it, and you kind of hate all of them, but you find yourself standing in the kitchen watching it, and perhaps even while part of your brain is like “Turn this shit off! This is terrible! Stop! No more! I can’t take it anymore! You’re losing brain cells!”

I’m totally vibing on this time-released curse. The Real Housewives of Orange County have ensnared my soul…but for only a few months out of the year.

During this period demons are assigned against those who participate in the rituals and festivities. These demons are automatically drawn to the fetishes that open doors for them to come into the lives of human beings. For example, most of the candy sold during this season has been dedicated and prayed over by witches.

I grew up near Hershey, Pennsylvania and have been through the Hershey Chocolate Factory tour countless times and they NEVER show this (obviously standard and critical) part of the candy-making process. They never even mention sorcery or witches or dedications. I feel cheated.

It’s no wonder those Krackel bars don’t taste how I remember. Most Hershey chocolate is made in Mexico these days. It must be the distinct flavor of the south of the border bruja witchcraft I’m picking up on. More shamanic/Don Juan the Nagual, less Mother Earth paganism.

I do not buy candy during the Halloween season. Curses are sent through the tricks and treats of the innocent whether they get it by going door to door or by purchasing it from the local grocery store. The demons cannot tell the difference.

Stupid demons.

Even the colors of Halloween (orange, brown and dark red) are dedicated. These colors are connected to the fall equinox, which is around the 20th or 21st of September each year and is sometimes called “Mabon.” During this season witches are celebrating the changing of the seasons from summer to fall. They give praise to the gods for the demonic harvest. They pray to the gods of the elements (air, fire, water and earth).

So what exactly is found in a demonic harvest? Is that a normal harvest but with evil overtones, or is that just a bunch of gnarly stuff no one wants to eat?

For me, a demonic harvest would consist of nothing but celery (which I detest),  green bell peppers (which mess me up something fierce.), and mushy apples.

Mother earth is highly celebrated during the fall demonic harvest. Witches praise mother earth by bringing her fruits, nuts and herbs. Demons are loosed during these acts of worship. When nice church folk lay out their pumpkins on the church lawn, fill their baskets with nuts and herbs, and fire up their bonfires, the demons get busy. They have no respect for the church grounds. They respect only the sacrifice and do not care if it comes from believers or non-believers.

I just cannot get over how naive I have been.

Of course. Pumpkins are the root of all evil. Pumpkins and mother earth. Pumpkins and mother earth and fruits and nuts and herbs and baskets and church folk. I should have known.

The gods of harvest that the witches worship during their fall festivals are the Corn King and the Harvest Lord. When we pray, we bind the powers of the strong men that people involved in the occult worship.

If I was an evil entity, I would pick a scarier name that the Corn King. He should consider a change to something like “Skeleton Warrior” or “Death King.”

Same goes for the Harvest Lord. How about “Demon Lord” or “Harvest Annihilator”?

Halloween is much more than a holiday filled with fun and tricks or treats. It is a time for the gathering of evil that masquerades behind the fictitious characters of Dracula, werewolves, mummies and witches on brooms. The truth is that these demons that have been presented as scary cartoons actually exist. I have prayed for witches who are addicted to drinking blood and howling at the moon.

Holy crap!

I think my dog might be a witch! He, too, is addicted to howling at the moon.

No wonder he’s always trying to get at the candy…

While the lukewarm and ignorant think of these customs as “just harmless fun,” the vortexes of hell are releasing new assignments against souls. Witches take pride in laughing at the ignorance of natural men (those who ignore the spirit realm).

You had me at ‘vortexes of hell.’

Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.

I had no idea my pink bob was demonic.

Is it wrong that I’m still excited about it?

The word “occult” means “secret.” The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:

1. Sex with demons
2. Orgies between animals and humans
3. Animal and human sacrifices
4. Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
5. Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
6. Revel nights
7. Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
8. Release of “time-released” curses against the innocent and the ignorant.

Holy hell. What kind of neighborhood does this lady live in?

If you ask me, somebody had better stop writing bizarre articles and start a Neighborhood Watch program.

Another abomination that goes on behind the scenes of Halloween is necromancy, or communication with the dead. Séances and contacting spirit guides are very popular on Halloween, so there is a lot of darkness lurking in the air.

Somehow I thought necromancy had something to do with having sex with dead bodies? I guess you start by contacting them in a séance, and it’s a slippery slope from there…

p.s.

A million, billion, trillion thank yous to The Fat Geek for fixing my blog this morning!!!

Once again – as you may have logged on and found – it went kerplooey, and TFG worked some witchcraft of his own and raised it from the dead. I am a stone cold idiot when it comes to technical blog stuff, and I guarantee it would still be down without him (and I would be having a conniption fit). THANK YOU AGAIN!!!

p.p.s.

If you must know how the story ends (it had to do with renouncing demons and throwing out candy), you can find the original article here.

Can somebody please get a message to Mel Gibson for me?

I’m thinking something like this:

Mel, WTF? You are not God (Good God, I hope you’re not God…)

Wait, let me start over.

He almost looks happy?

Mel, WTFF? (which is my own shorthand for ‘What the effing eff?’). It happened, dude. We all know it. And I have a memory like a goddamned elephant. I will remember. So you can’t rewrite history.

In fact, let me give you a little history lesson: You went out on a drunk joyride, got picked up, said a bunch of regrettable stuff about ‘The Jews’, and had a mug shot taken in which you smile, which is strange in and of itself, but we won’t go there.

Going to court and having it removed from your record is not something the rest of us would be able to do because we are not famous, filthy rich movie actors with a god complex.

Scratch that part.

Going to court and having it removed from your record does not mean it didn’t happen.

And suing TMZ for publishing the photos?

That doesn’t undo it either.

The photos are EVERYWHERE, baby. And this is the Internets. They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever go away because that’s the way the Jews want it.

(Kidding. Although I wouldn’t blame them.)

So sorry to break it to you, Mel. Sue everybody you want, but until you invent and operate a brainwashing machine and use it on every last one of us, we will all remember the one night you used too much hair gel and did this weird little curlicue thing in the front and got in your car and drove around and got busted.

Your other option, of course, is a time machine…but things start to get so tricky when you tinker with the space-time continuum, so my vote is for the brainwashing machine.

If I get a vote…

I have a huge crush on Tony Bourdain. I love his dry sense of humor. And his willingness to eat anything.

I was watching Anthony Bourdain No Reservations, and he was actually in the outer boroughs (which was interesting because he’s a New Yorker, but knew nothing about anything outside Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn), and he was in Staten Island with David Johansen of the New York Dolls and asked him, “What’s great about Staten Island that people don’t know?” and his response was, “We have a lot of think tanks here.”

And that got me thinking.

First, it got me thinking that was one of the most unexpected ‘what’s great about Staten Island’ responses ever. David should get a prize just for saying something so random.

The next time someone asks me what’s great about the town I live in, I’m going to say, “Skunks. We have a lot of skunks.” And it’s both true AND unpredictable. (But if you know anything about what I went through with said skunks, it’s also a wee bit out of character. Oh well. Being impossibly delightful sometimes requires a selective memory.)

See what I mean?

Second, it got me thinking that David was some kind of long-lost brother or cousin or illegitimate spawn of Mick Jagger. Or the Aerosmith guy. What’s his name again? (***doing some of that impressive thinking I’m about to be known for***) Oh yes, Steven Tyler. Some kind of hybrid baby made out of the rock n’ roll DNA of the both of them. The lips don’t lie.

Then I continued on thinking that the man looks like he has lived a seriously harsh life. You don’t get wrinkles like that playing tennis at the country club all day.

From there, my thoughts turned to how David looked weirdly familiar and although I know what The New York Dolls are in kind of a collective unconscious but not super specific kind of way, I don’t really ‘know’ them. Which is another way of saying, I’m not a big fan or anything – in fact, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever heard their music – so where could this sense of familiarity possibly come from?

And THEN I started thinking through possible reasons he might be drinking out of a pineapple and why there seemed to be so many tiki bars on Staten Island, and that’s when it occurred to me: I am a thinking machine.

All I DO is think.

Hey! I think I have that belt! And that hot pink t-shirt! And maybe the skirt... Not the belly, though. Definitely not recognizing the belly.

I was born to think.

And I was born thinking.

Thinking is my calling.

And all that thinking led me to an obvious and inevitable conclusion:  A think tank should hire me.

And pay me handsomely.

To think.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not very nice of you. Don’t scoff at my dreams, bust my balloon, pee on my parade.

A think tank would be damn lucky to have me. Let me break it down for you: I’m sure what they’re used to are all these stuffy, boring, academia types who think exactly the same.

I could come in there, introduce some cultural references and slightly irrelevant trains of thought and get the proverbial blood flowing. And if providing a little ‘eye candy’ were necessary, I can rock a pencil skirt and 4″ heels like nobody’s business and get the actual blood flowing.

So to all think tanks out there: Drop me a line. Give me a jingle. Have your people call my people.

I’m available to work for you…for a price. And not full-time or anything. I’ve got a lot of side projects. And a book I should be editing right now instead of writing this nonsense.

I'm digging the leather coat, David. Come to think of it, if I get this Staten Island think tank job, I should come over. We could share clothes!

Oh, and I don’t really want to sit in an office.

Unless your office is somewhere cool (and no, I don’t mean the temperature. I mean cool as in awesome. For example: Staten Island is not cool. Manhattan is cool. Palm Springs, CA is cool. Kilauea, Kauai is cool.

But you’re smart people. You can put some brain power on it and figure out what I might consider cool.)

So, like I was saying, not going to sit in an office more than one or two days a month, not available full-time, willing to wear tight skirts, and of course, I can think it up until smoke comes out of my ears.

Act now.

Operators are standing by.

(A Google search on David Johansen cleared up the familiarity mystery: He has an alter ego called ‘Buster Poindexter’ that had that song “Hot Hot Hot” in the 80’s. How weird is that? Weird, right? That’s what I thought, also. You should probably work for a think tank, too. No really. You’d be good at it. I’m sure you would. That’s what I think, anyway.)

Crazy, right??? Methinks he might have been in 'Scrooged' too. Anyone with me on that?

And let me know what airline you’re all flying for so that I can avoid it.

I am in the process of going home.

While waiting in line today to find out what the odds were that I’d get off the waiting list and into first class (zero), I was standing behind one of the pilots. After lingering a while, I happened to glance down and notice that his luggage was decorated with bitter bumper stickers like:

• “Is there a future for me here?” and a pair of dice. (I assume this has to do with the NWA/Delta merger.)
• “I’ve had enough of the uncertainty” (ditto)

and – just so I didn’t think he was only angry with his employer

• “You trust us in the air, why not in the security line? Special clearance passes for crew.”

Ummmm, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the Johnny Depp character in Blow get started by having his flight attendant girlfriend run the cocaine back to Boston in her bags?

That’s why no special line, buddy.

Should I die before I wake, here's a little memento for you.

Go to more movies on your day off, and maybe cool your heels on announcing to the passengers at your mercy (and paying your wages, thank you very much) how miserable you are with your career. Let’s consider that on a ‘need to know’ basis.

I don’t need to know.

Meanwhile, I came very close to dry drowning on the very same flight. Those of you who did not spend their teens working as a lifeguard may not know that dry drowning is the phenomenon wherein someone can drown in a puddle of water. All it takes is a few tablespoons of water directly in the lungs and – sorry Charlie – you’re a goner.

In fact, I shouldn’t rush to use the phrase ‘came very close.’ I could still extinguish my own flame tonight seeing as dry drownings often occur a few hours after the original incident.

All the more reason to get this blog recorded now – while I’m still wedged into seat 12C – for posterity’s sake.

And here's a less squinty one from the really bad weather day. My brother was trying to capture how much the wind was whipping my hair around, which also caused about three cups of sand to blow into my eyes.

Anyway, I bought this rather huge bottle of water at the airport, and when I opened it, the plane jerked every so slightly and a giant geyser came shooting out of the bottle. A notable portion of it landed on me – although most of it went down my cleavage and my shirt only had one little tiny drop of wetness, which I guess is a good thing – whereas a significant portion went up my nose.

Yeah, you read that right (unfortunately): My bottled water went up my nose.

And no small amount. Enough that I started coughing and sputtering and felt the burn in my sinuses.

Now, if I had read the bottle beforehand, I would have learned that it is a special Poland Springs “Eco-Shape Bottle” designed with 30% less plastic which makes it, more or less, a water gun. It has no form. Truly, it borders on being a balloon.

Thus, exerting little to no pressure, one can easily maneuver the squishy decanter in order to fire a powerful torpedo of water right up your very own nose!

It’s cheaper than a Neti pot AND it’s good for the environment.

Hurrah!

(And if you look up Neti pot on Google to find out how to spell it [as I did] or to find out what it is, and end up watching that YouTube video with the hairy wildebeest guy, don’t come crying to me. You’ve been warned.)

p.s.

Speaking of noses, some stupid stowaway fly on the plane keeps landing on mine.

Hope he’s got relatives he can bunk with in Minneapolis…

In the continued interest of improving the quality of your life (because that’s the kind of altruistic give-back soul I am), allow me to share a few of the hard-won lessons of the summer, in no particular order or urgency.

As always, if you find them useful or life-altering (particularly if you find them life-altering), feel free to thank me with a beer and/or the beverage of your choice. Mazal tov!

Don't even think about it.

1. First and foremost, and without hesitation, do not get up and eat a half-dozen cold Buffalo wings with blue cheese dressing for breakfast no matter how delicious that might sound. Sure, it seems harmless enough as they’re sliding over the lips and past the tongue but- as you damn well know – now it’s ‘look out stomach, here they come’ time.

And that ain’t good.

What am I trying to tell you?

I’m saying that two hours later when the vinegar, butter, and cayenne-based hot sauce is eating a hole through your stomach lining, you’ll have only yourself to blame.

I would know. I speak from experience…today’s breakfast.

2. When offering to ride along with a friend through unmarked roads in rural Mexico for the sole purpose of preventing her from being maimed or raped or murdered, inquire first as to whether or not there is a map. Or at least some kind of half-baked directions culled from the internet. Or hieroglyphics. Or smoke signals. Or if she has ‘the shining’. Or ANYTHING.

In other words, inquire as to whether or not there is any hope in hell that you will actually get there without being maimed, raped, or murdered yourself.

3. Whenever humanly possible, do not use a port-a-potty/Johnny on the spot/Honey Bucket/*Insert name of portable plastic public restroom brand here* in the complete dark.

The sight of all these human waste receptacles gives me the heebie jeebies.

Acknowledging that was a lengthy rule, let me highlight the two most important nuances: public and pitch black dark of night.

Whether or not this actually happened to me, let me just say that it’s entirely possible to be at a Michelle Shocked show, wait in a lengthy line to use the portable public bathroom unit, and finally get inside…only to realize that you cannot see a damn thing.

And since it’s a handicapped portable bathroom unit, it’s very large and roomy in there, and thrashing your feet about does not allow you to locate the actual toilet part of the room, you must resort to using your hands to braille your way around. That’s right. Feeling your way around a portable public bathroom in the dark, folks. It’s not for wimps, and if it isn’t cringe-inducing, I don’t know what it.

But then it gets worse.

How’s that?

Well, because you can’t see anything you’re afraid to sit on the seat, so you do your best to crouch over what you suspect is the toilet itself, and when you’re done with your business and come back outside, you realize that your entire left pant leg is wet.

In short: stay out of port-a-potties in the dark.

Enough said.

I know what I said, but I think if this thing was parked outside, I would go inside it. And I may or may not be sober when I did so.

4.  Don’t run with scissors.

Don’t run with scissors while drunk.

Don’t run with scissors while drunk and in a carnival fun house.

Stay out of carnival fun houses even while sober and scissorless, because if you’re old enough to be reading this far, you’re too old for carnival fun houses.

5. When potentially vacationing with a group of women that you don’t particularly know, inquire ahead as to how closely their idea of fun resembles Senior Week Daytona Beach 1991 and approximately how many hours per day they plan to spend buck naked and discussing their (ahem) personal landscaping preferences.

As before, enough said.

6. Editing sucks!!!

If you can, write everything perfectly the first time around, because EDITING SUCKS BALLS!!!

7. Do not date a double-amputee rock star, especially Bret Michaels (should he be involved in a freak accident that causes him to lose both arms and thus become a double-amputee. Not that I’m wishing anything like that on him.)

Once again, I know from experience.

He makes one hell of a pissy amputee, but at least if he didn't have arms maybe somebody could do something about that hair?

Okay, it was a dream, but it happened to me (in a manner of speaking), and thus I choose to count it as an experience.

So in short, Bret Michaels was a double-amputee, and I was dating him (and whether or not I’d been dating him before the accident/incident/whatever was unclear), and he was a seriously difficult chip-on-his shoulder grouchy bear to deal with.

For instance, I would offer to help him with things that seemed like they would be exceptionally challenging without any arms (and I’m not talking condescending things either, like feeding him with a spoon, although if I should ever become a double-amputee, do not hesitate to offer to feed me with a spoon. Odds are good that I will cheerfully take you up on it.) Okay, so I offered to do something that I felt was truly useful, like button up his shirt, and he WENT OFF on me about patronizing him and don’t try to do things for him that he can do himself, and it was really unnecessary and rather uncalled for to overreact on me like that.

I thought.

Because I really was just trying to help.

You can talk to me in a normal tone of voice, you know. And maybe after you calm down.

And note to self, if I ever really do find myself in this situation, remember to watch My Left Foot in order to bone up on what one can and cannot manage without arms.

Regardless, like I said in the opening sentence, watch out for romantic entanglements with washed-up hair band rock stars who are now missing limbs as they can be rather prickly and even a touch mean and how can anyone be all that good in bed without any hands anyway?

(And I have to add this because it’s just too stupid, but I all of the sudden remembered at one point I felt kind of bummed out that if I stayed in the relationship I’d never be hugged again [because he had no arms, as you know, but perhaps have forgotten, which is why I’m explaining it yet again. Perhaps you have arms, but your brain isn’t all that functional for reasons I won’t begin to speculate on?], and that I really could go for a good hug, and I thought about asking him if he’d figured out how to hug with his legs.

But then I decided not to because I reasoned that would just piss him off and make him yell at me some more. Figures a rock star would be a prick.)