Tag: Halloween

Halloween music 2020

It’s the pelvic thrust That really drives you insane

Now that my daughter doesn’t do Halloween anymore, it’s difficult for me to get worked up over it. Yet I do like to see the costumes of the little kids and not so little kids coming to my door.

Still, some of the teenagers REALLY need to make even a modicum of effort to at least feign the idea that they’re doing some sort of outfit. Many’s the time I’ve said, “What are YOU supposed to be?” The response was an inaudible mumble.

And I have this Halloween music CD I like to play. It has generic spooky tunes, interlaced with screams, groans, and other presumably horrifying sounds. The atmosphere is everything.

I decided to pick some vaguely Halloween/spooky/scary/sinister/weird songs for the post. If you Google, you’ll find tons of similar lists. For instance, 66 killer songs for your Halloween playlist and 50 Spooky Halloween Songs You Need to Play at Your Costume Party. There is, inevitably, some overlap with each other.

But there’s only one song on my list that’s on either, or in this case, both lists. That’s Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I love more than is justifiable. In part, I think it’s Susan Sarandon, who later became a Serious Actor, as Janet.

Classical

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor – Bach

Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary – Purcell

Pictures at an Exhibition – Gnomus – Mussorgsky

Pictures at an Exhibition – Catacombs – Mussorgsky

Night On Bald Mountain – Mussorgsky

The Isle of the Dead, Symphonic poem Op. 29 – Rachmaninov

Requiem – Gy Ligeti from 2001

Popular

Evil– Howlin’ Wolf

Celtic Rock – Donovan

Your Long White Fingers – The Gothic Archies

The Dead Only Quickly– The Gothic Archies

The Top Ten Horror Movie Themes

Paint It, Black – The Rolling Stones

Voodoo – the Neville Brothers

I Put a Spell on You – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Everyday Is Halloween – Ministry

Zombie Jamboree – Rockapella

Time Warp – Rocky Horror

Spiders and Snakes – Jim Stafford

Wastepaper-Basket Fire– Brian Dewan

Frankenstein – The Edgar Winter Group

Halloween 1978 with Sid and Shirley

makeup debacle

I have no recollection of any Halloween costume I wore as a child. If there were pictures, I’ve not seen them for years, if at all.

Perhaps there were a couple of times I think I dressed up in college, but they’re lost on me as well. The year I turned 25, in 1978, I remember, perhaps because there was a picture.

My girlfriend Susan had a friend who was having “a Halloween costume party. I’m not sure that I had any costume ideas, but Susan did, and when she suggested, I embraced it. (Or so I remember.)

“I had a beard and a mustache at the time, so I shaved them. Then Susan and a couple of her friends made me up. We found a dress in a second-hand store, a wig and shoes from somewhere, and we went to the party, she as ‘Sid’ and me as ‘Shirley.’

“I affected a high pitched voice, but frankly, I figured that people would know it was me. After all, I was still a six-foot black person. Much to my shock and amazement, no one recognized me! Well, not until later in the evening, when my ‘five o’clock shadow’ starred to appear.

“The Halloween of 1978 inspired me to dress up for several years thereafter, though never again in drag.” I have pictures that I need to scan. My favorite was a skull mask, a wizard’s hat, and my college graduation robe. There’s a picture with me leaning on a car, reading the New York Daily News comics section.

Another involved a Frankenstein mask, beret, and a seersucker jacket. I’m sure I bought both masks from FantaCo, where I worked. Boy, were they warm.

My daughter did Halloween for a few years, often utilizing dance outfits she wore when she studied ballet. I was not inspired to dress up as I took her house to house.

SamuraiFrog

Still, I relate to the sentiment of my buddy SamuraiFrog: “This is my favorite time of year, but it always brings with it the disappointment of seeing some of my fellow Halloween lovers being total hypocrites.

“Seriously, if you’re a person who starts visibly celebrating Halloween in August, don’t turn around and attempt to dampen anyone else’s spirits just because they start getting excited about Christmas in November or October. Don’t try to make people feel bad about being excited about something you’re not, you selfish prick.”

Makeup debacle

I know it wasn’t for Halloween, but Justin Trudeau’s brownface debacle seems seasonably appropriate for discussion. TIME magazine obtained a photo of Canada’s prime minister at an ‘Arabian Nights’-themed party at a private school where he was teaching in 2001.

In response to the photo surfacing, Trudeau apologized for his actions, agreed that the photo is racist, and said it “was a dumb thing to do.”

There have been many debacles, for Halloween and otherwise, about blackface. Megyn Kelly, who’s only about 14 months older than Trudeau, ended up off her NBC News show for suggesting that blackface on October 31 was no big deal where she grew up in upstate New York. But Virginia governor Ralph Northam is still in office.

On a hopefully less problematic topic, here are Halloween costumes on Pinterest. Also, 29 Best Halloween Events Near You, From Festivals to Costume Contests.

Banning teens from trick-or-treating is ridiculous

Margaret Hamilton in her first reprisal of her role as The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

Places to Spend Halloween[Source: U.S. Census Bureau]

Why banning 13-year-olds from trick-or-treating on Halloween is ridiculous:

“The city of Chesapeake [, Virginia] has an ordinance that bans anyone 13 years and older from trick-or-treating. If teens are caught in costume with a sack full of free candy, they could be found ‘guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine of not less than $25 nor more than $100 or by confinement in jail for not more than six months or both.'”

Such laws are not anything new in the state. Rules with undoubtedly selective enforcement – officials say they won’t be actively looking to catch teenage trick-or-treaters in the act – make me nervous about its application.
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Here’s a plug for my old boss: If you missed the Monster Art of Basil Gogos campaign on Kickstarter or just want to order an extra book, please go to FantaCo.net to place your pre-order. This second chance offer ends on Halloween night!!! Do not miss your chance.
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The Paul Lynde Halloween Special is a Halloween-themed television special starring Paul Lynde broadcast October 29, 1976 on ABC. It featured guest stars Margaret Hamilton in her first reprisal of her role as The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

Also guest starring are Billie Hayes as Witchiepoo from H.R. Pufnstuf, Tim Conway, Roz Kelly, Florence Henderson, rock band KISS, Billy Barty, Betty White and, in an unbilled surprise appearance, Donny and Marie Osmond.
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The Best Horror Movies in One Boo-tiful List

From the Census Bureau’s Facts for Features. Dating back 2,000 years to the Celtic festival of Samhain, Halloween is an ancient tradition associated with images of witches, ghosts and vampires.

Haunted and Historic Pub Crawl of Ten Broeck Mansion

The Isle of the Dead by Sergei Rachmaninov

Halloween Safety poster

The Official “Trumpkin” Pre-carved Halloween Pumpkin

It takes a village to raise a giant pumpkin

Newly Discovered Goblin Spider Resembles ‘Predator’ Alien

Would you try this candy corn pizza? (NOPE)

5 Halloween Safety Tips for Pets

70 Best Homemade Halloween Costumes for Kids of All Ages

Macabre flower

Home Depot’s New Hauntingly Cool Halloween Decorations

October rambling: Twilight Zone & the Confederacy

We are living in a kakistocracy

Hands up, don’t shoot (Nah, that never happened…)

The Twilight Zone and the Confederacy.

In 1939, 20,000 Americans rallied in New York’s Madison Square Garden to celebrate the rise of Nazism

How the Nazis Used Jim Crow Laws as the Model for Their Race Laws

Trevor Noah: Race and Identity (NY Times interview)

No longer a convicted murderer, Carl Dukes faces life after 20 years in prison

A Fire Story -Brian Fies

Journalists’ lament

Heather Fazio’s exodus from the Times Union blogfarm

John Oliver: Why The Equifax Breach Is A Big, Scary Problem

The lie that poverty is a moral failing was buried a century ago. Now it’s back

How the Elderly Lose Their Rights

Labour will lead NZ Government

LIGO Detects Fierce Collision of Neutron Stars for the First Time

The day the sky turned red in the UK – but what caused rare phenomenon?

The Story Behind the Chicago Newspaper That Bought a Bar

We are alienating each other with unrestrained callouts and unchecked self-righteousness

Chuck Miller: Crossing past my failures

Burger King ad: Bullying Jr.

Vikings Razed the Forests. Can Iceland Regrow Them?

Archaeology in Albany

How did people sleep in the Middle Ages

The shortest regularly scheduled airline route on earth

Swedish death cleaning is the morbid new way to de-clutter your life

28 Boring Words and What to Use Instead

Where do mansplainers get their water?
From a well, actually.

How to Pronounce Paraskavidekatriaphobia

5 Zombie Walks to do for Halloween

Magazine of the Living Dead: The bloody rise and frightful fall of Fangoria – at FantaCo in 1980-1988, we sold a ton of back issues; #9 was considered rare

A brief history of Bat-marriage

The Great Catnip Caper Of 1909

Now I Know: Why Things are Tawdry and When Baseball Players Left it on the Field and The Special Sound a Mercedes-Benz Makes Before a Crash

Steve

THE MADNESS OF DJT

We are living in a kakistocracy

Taking Hostages and The chaos grows

The Self-Dealing Presidency

Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump

Grief, compassion -advice ignored

George W. Bush: Bigotry in any form is blasphemy

Lawrence O’Donnell: ‘Stunned’ by John Kelly’s attack on Rep. Wilson and video of her 2015 speech at new FBI building

How Badly Is Neil Gorsuch Annoying the Other Supreme Court Justices?

MUSIC

We Will All Go Together When We Go – Tom Lehrer

Almost like Praying – Lin-Manuel Miranda and friends sing for Puerto Rico support

Since I Don’t Have You – Skyliners

What goes on – Beatles (Lennon vocal)

Coverville 1190: Indie Hodgepodge & Lynyrd Skynyrd Tribute

K-Chuck Radio: But they’re not doing the Time Warp…

Hey Ya! – Walk off the Earth (Outkast Cover)

Up In A Puff Of Smoke – Polly Brown

You’re Still A Young Man -Tower Of Power (1972)

Go Go Shoes / Go Go Place- Lonnie Youngblood with Jimi Hendrix, May 1966.

Shocking Omissions: Joan Armatrading’s ‘Walk Under Ladders’

Female-female songwriting teams

Joni Mitchell: Fear of a Female Genius

Hallelujah! The Songs We Should Retire?

Why we really really really like repetition in music

Who first said, “Writing About Music is Like Dancing About Architecture”?

CAREER IN MUSIC IS DAMAGING TO MENTAL HEALTH

Cubs, Cronkite, and Halloween

Wet leaves on wooden inclined plane = nearly horizontal person, somewhat in pain.

chicagocubsI swear I read a number of people who treated the baseball World Series win by the Chicago Cubs as, “Oh, that’s nice,” rather than the astonishing event that it was. Heck, even Arthur wrote about it, not once, but twice. He noted that “Some things transcend all of that, and sport can, for some, be one of those things.”

And the stories I read about fans remembering parents, or grandparents, who loved the Cubs, but never had the joy of seeing them win the National League pennant (last time, 1945), let alone the whole enchilada (1908, 108 years ago; 108, like the number of stitches on a baseball). This was touching, for example.

I was rooting for them, once the New York Mets were quickly eliminated. General Theo Epstein, who got the long-suffering Boston Red Sox fans a pennant in 2004 and 2007, may be a miracle worker.

Apparently, there were a number of people who predicted the Chicago Cubs would win the Series this year.
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Today would have been the 100th birthday of Walter Cronkite of CBS News. I’ve remembered his natal day since about 1980 when I realized it coincided with the date the hostages in Iran were taken a year before.

So much in the news has changed since his heyday, the 24-hour news cycle, and competing with the TMZs of the world, not to mention Facebook and Twitter as news sources.

I read his autobiography and reviewed it here.
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Monday, I decided to ride my bike to work. But the front tire was light and failed to inflate, so I stuck it back into the shed, locked the door, turned around, and, as I wrote in Facebook about 45 minutes later:
Wet leaves on wooden inclined plane = nearly horizontal person, somewhat in pain. I’m hobbling to work now…

Managed to hit my head to the right of my left ear, and my left shoulder, and my back (wearing the backpack), and turned my left ankle. It happened so fast, I didn’t have a chance to put out my hand to try to save myself, which, I suppose was a good thing. No lasting damage, but I was sore for a couple of days, especially my back.

Got a very angry IM on Facebook that evening about something I wrote which a person believed was a mischaracterization of their feelings, and was quite possibly friendship ending, which made me both sad and exhausted, as I tried to explain my POV. I had a nice IM exchange from an old friend about something else I had written.

The highlight of the day had to be, when I was handing out Halloween candy, a half dozen College of Saint Rose students Halloween caroling of this Thomas Tallis piece. I even sang along on the repeated section.

That’s when I could still sing because subsequently, I’ve lost my voice; hope I can shake whatever bug is irritating my vocal chords, or my vocal cords.

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