Day 671: November – More Than The First Grey Spittle Of Winter

originally published November 1, 2013 It never fails. You’re meandering through the crispy clutter of October’s autumn, steering clear of the path-side puddle of vomit from over-candied children, breathing the warm scent of massacred pumpkins, when suddenly the ground gives way and you plummet head-first into that fetid murk known as November. Here in the […]

Day 670: Tricking And Treating And Singing And Eating

originally published October 31, 2013 In a few hours I will be visited by a myriad of Captain Jack Sparrows and Spidermen, Walking Dead-types and three-and-a-half-foot Jedi. Some kids will get the good chocolate, while others will get the crap made with compound chocolate (damn you, Oh Henry!). The pathetic kids over 15 with dollar-store […]

Day 669: Watch Out, It’s Fear-The-Teens Night Again

originally published October 30, 2013 Tomorrow night your little angel may be hitting the streets, going door to door to beg for candy like a gin-soaked hobo with nothing left to lose but his last shred of dignity and the Tinky-Winky costume his mother had bought him. But tonight your angel’s older brother or sister […]

Day 668: Canada’s Dead Won’t Shut Up Either

originally published October 29, 2013 For an old building, the rumor of spectral haunting is a compliment. It’s one thing to have a turn-of-the-20th-century gothic hotel in your town, creeping out passing pedestrians. But if you can pepper the building’s history with the tale of a chambermaid whose head was decapitated by the dumbwaiter door […]

Day 667: Five Spine-Tingling Must-Sees Of Haunted America

originally published October 28, 2013 As you may or may not be aware, you are required by law to scare yourself at least once between now and Thursday. Perhaps you’re fortunate enough to have plunked your belongings into a house with a ghoulish past. Maybe like most of us you’ll shirk your requisite tribute to […]

Day 666: How Many Number-Fearing Superstitious Nutjobs Does It Take…

originally published October 27, 2013 All month long I have been receiving emails, letters, semaphore flags and be-noted thrown bricks, asking if I’ll be devoting Day 666 to Apollyon, the Father of Lies, the King of Babylon, the Ruler of Demons, the Roaring Lion, the Serpent of Old, the Wicked One… you know, that dude […]

Day 665: A Monster Lives On Royal Street

originally published October 26, 2013 As we meander into that designated portion of our calendar during which the broadcast networks expect us to tune in to the same retread gore-fests and creep-flicks they run every year, allow me to suggest a somewhat richer experience. There have been numerous true horror stories that have played out […]

Day 664: The Toys In Marvin’s Playroom

originally published October 25, 2013 Do you recognize this man? Probably not, but if you’re over 30 he probably had a thunderous impact on your childhood. That’s Marvin Glass, concoctor of toys, brewmaster of amusement, mixologist of mirth. Marvin Glass & Associates was a fiendishly clever company, foregoing the tedious chore of peddling their goods […]

Day 663: Movies For Those Who Hate Themselves

originally published October 24, 2013 Ever since I began working toward my vocationally hopeless major of film studies, friends and family began assuming that I would drift into the realm of the film hipster. That I would forego whatever movies won the weekend and instead find inspiration in the unfathomably absurd. I thought this too […]

Day 662: Mr. Snuffy & The Revamped Street

originally published October 23, 2013 There are some aspects of life that should probably remain unexamined. For example, a number of the rusty cogs of childhood that prop up our very being – do we need to look too deeply into these things? When I learned about Freud’s theory of the anal phase in infantile […]