A Gruesome Circle of Life

The Flea Market was a bust. There were less than ten vendors and not one offered anything remotely Halloween or horror themed. That's not true - the vendors themselves belonged in a creepy backwood horror movie. If one was to take all their teeth, there would almost be enough to make a full set. That's not nice - but neither is life.

I dozed off to sleep last night watching part of UFO Kidnapped, a silly movie made by and starring the people who brought me You Can't Do That On Television. YCDTOT was one of the first shows on Nickelodeon. Absurd sketch comedy for kids. For decades after, Nick was synonymous with slime and it was this show where that slime came from. Tangent off. UFO Kidnapped is terrible. I adore it. I've decided to try and break the 50 minute film into sections, like an old time serial. Last night's episode featured a burglar, who looked to be a relative of Barf, the dinner chef in YCDTOT.

Barf's twin broke into a house and was preparing to steal jewels when the lights began to go haywire. Frightened and unsure if this was an alarm, he leaped out of the 2nd story window. There, on the ground, he saw it was simply a UFO floating over the house. He ran away. An orb shot out, chased him down, and drew him back up into the ship. Similarly, two actors from YCDTOT, were camping with their dog when the UFO shows up. They hide, the dog runs out and gets sucked up, and they mourn quietly. In time, a cop car arrives, they get inside, it's actually an orb disguised as - why am I reciting each scene for you? Go watch it yourself.

After the Flea Market, I bought materials to make soap. The soap was delightful. Beyond this, to return to the Halloween theme, I encountered wonderful Halloween products at the craft store.

Mr. Mummy up there has a Tim Burton feel to him. The Day of the Dead theme is nice. It's over done this year. Not only does Day of the Dead appear in this simple scrapbook thing - wtf do you call this, it's not a sticker - but everywhere. There was an entire end cap set up for Day of the Dead. I do love that creepy, festive style. However, one thing that makes it nice is its obscurity. And, frankly, it doesn't belong in the spotlight along green skinned, crooked nosed witches and their pasty vampire boyfriends.

But yeah, the Mummy's up there were nice. I'd have purchased them, but I didn't want to have to take out a loan. They were $900,004.00; give or take $900,000. Three figures and some flair aren't worth that much.

I don't know why the picture decided to show up sideways. Screw it, it's a coffin. Great non-sticker scrapbook thing, yeah? Also the price of an island. I like this one more, though.

It's currently 1:09. I haven't gotten anything done for today, other than eaten Taco Bell breakfast. This is no small thing - I've been wanting to try their breakfast all summer. I tried it. It was tasty and shot through me, eager to escape. Too subtle? It gave me the shits. Anyway, I was going to say something witty about Spider Cider, but I don't have time to think up a great deal of wit. "I don't cider, but when I do ...", said the woman who swallowed the fly. There, did you slap your knee? Go ahead, give it a pity slap.

Imagine living here. First, that's a hell of a drop from the brown plateau to the mossy ground below. What the picture didn't capture is the size of this enclosed town. There is no damn way a train could do anything other than drive back and forth, a trip less than a minute long. It couldn't go fast, but if you're trying to drop down to the mossy grass below to mail something, you could easily be ground up into train-cheese. Then again, everyone here is so unhealthy, I doubt it would matter. A visit to the mad doctor and you'll be all stitched up.

The "roach coach", driven by Gurgle the Clown, sells grubs and other gross things. Who the heck is his clientele? Sure, this is great for a gag, but the guy's got to pay for gas, right? All those signs took time to make. Does he catch those insects or pay for them? How does he make money to pay for all that? Is there really a market for grubs? No. This prop is not very realistic.

The casket maker and venus fly trap nursery have clients, surely. I expect they have a deal going. Caskets sell well, no matter the season. The giant fly trap people may earn a second income by selling their customers contact information to the casket people. What else does someone who buys a giant fly trap expect to be, other than dead?

There are plenty of other stories waiting to be told about this place, but I'm running out of daylight. Slowly, but it's still running out. The last thing I wanted to mention was the blatant commercialism of the neighborhood. Imagine what it would be like if everywhere you looked you saw a price tag attached to something. These price-tag picket signs probably cause discontent among the residents. Gossip abounds. Neighbors are competitors. I mean, is the "Roach Coach" worth that much - does it really do a third of the business of the Nursery?

Wait! The Roach Coach isn't an ice cream truck of bugs. The Roach Coach is a delivery truck. It's on its way to delivering bugs to the Nursery! They aren't competitors, but suppliers. Bugs go to Nursery, bugs feed fly traps, fly traps feed on people and make corpses. Corpses go to Coffin Maker's and then into the ground to become bug food. Roach Coach digs up corpses, sells bugs to Nursery, and so on. It's like a gruesome circle of life.

Yeah. Upon further investigation, this is a self-sustaining community. The only question I have is how the crap the Roach Coach makes it up that sheer cliff face.

Razor-blade Medusa

Technically, it'll be 41. I was born on August 15th, 1974, so October 31st 1974 would have been my first Halloween. Did I celebrate that first Halloween? I've got to check with my mother. She may have put me in a plastic jack-o-lantern and trotted around the neighborhood like some deranged witch. My body may have celebrated Halloween until I was at least three; I don't remember. Until three, I was essentially a doll for my parents to dress up and present to neighbors on October 31st. "Here. Look at what we made! Now give us candy."

They may not remember, nor will I ask them or show them (or anyone) this blog, so let's agree that was the case. From the age of zero to three, my body, with my slowly forming mind, was trotted around the neighborhood and presented to neighbors. My mentally unstable parents covered me in venomous snakes and razor blades. They'd shake my body at the neighbors and demand candy. My terrible parents would threaten to attack these innocent neighbors, using me as a weapon, like some little razor blade Medusa. I like that. Razor-blade Medusa.

This blog was inspired by X-Entertainment's own Halloween countdown blog. Matt, the genius behind over a decade's worth of articles about 80s and 90s pop culture, hosts a yearly celebration of Halloween. He started his countdown yesterday and I highly recommend checking it out. You, the reader, don't exist, so I don't expect Matt will be inundated with views. But I've already decided that I'm making my own reality here, in recalling my psychotic parents weaponizing my infant body. I'll invent my own reality here as well. This is the new front page of the internet. If anyone opens a browser on any computer or portable device, it comes to this page. All electronic devices point here. If it has a display screen, this blog is what comes up. No, better, anyone who opens their eyes they don't see the blue sky or their loved ones, they don't see anything except for this page. This page is all they see! Muhaha.

Anyway, here's the link to Matt's video blog.

He made a humorous countdown link. Here.

Go there, humanity. Go and crush his vlog with a tidal wave of views. Shut down youtube. Hit his channel so hard the bandwidth builds up and a black hole is opened at Youtube headquarters. Or where ever their servers are housed.

As for me? What are the intentions of this blog? Besides driving humanity insane as this is the only thing you will ever see, I'm going to try and write every day. I'm also going to chronicle this, my 40th Halloween. The culmination of this blog will occur exactly two months from now. How will I be different? It's 12:33 right now and I'm late for a Flea Market. What will I find at the Flea Market? Will I survive or will some crazed person attack me, their hands flailing in front of them as they are blind to anything but this blog. How will they know it's me? Oh, they'll know.

Will this be the last entry of this blog? I hope not - and if Obama taught us anything, Hope is a hell of a campaign slogan.

Oh yeah, check this out. I've been listening to that site's cheesy music for as long as I can remember reading X-Entertainment (now Dinosaur Dracula). Yep, I like old stuff. You'd figure that would mean I was egotistical and loved my own old ass. You'd figure, wouldn'tja?
http://www.13thtrack.com/