The Clock Is Ticking...

Night fell over the landscape like a burial shroud.

Wait... is that too overbearing? It feels like it might be a little much. I know this is Halloween and all, but shit. That's a bit of a cliche. "Like a burial shroud"? I need some new material.

I admit, when I started typing, my original intent was to create a short narrative, something chilling and suspenseful, with a comedic twist thrown in right at the end. That's how this started. But after typing out that first line, I just couldn't bring myself to go any further. What a mistake that was. I figured I needed to do something appropriate, considering the occasion.

If I'm being completely honest, I've got nothing. The last couple of years tapped me out regarding Halloween. I've already told you about the origins of the holiday, and I've even regaled you with a few wistful memories of my trick-or-treating past. I can't even bring up Something Wicked This Way Comes because I already played that card earlier this year, what with Ray Bradbury's recent death.

So here I am, staring at my monitor, wondering how I'm supposed to fill this space. Nothing's coming to mind.

I did see Bride Of Frankenstein on the big screen recently, at Wichita's historic Orpheum theatre. That was fun. And it only cost five bucks. A good deal, to be sure.

This gave me the opportunity to hang out with my pal Titus and his brother Josh, a man I haven't seen in the better part of a decade. A worthwhile endeavor.

I had initially intended to record a Halloween-themed podcast with these gentlemen, but we never got around to it. We were simply having too much fun cooking pork chops and laughing like madmen to bother. No big loss, really.

I watched my brother get married over the weekend, which was nice.It wasn't a holiday-themed wedding, which I believe to be a missed opportunity. A few tasteful images of a blood-drenched bride and her zombie groom would have been a lovely addition to the wedding album, I think. But what do I know?

I certainly don't know how to write a blog post, which is disturbing, considering the fact that I've been doing this for over three years. I figured eventually I'd get used to this stuff, and it would become second nature to me. But that's not happening. Where did I go wrong? That's a question I've been asking myself for 13 years. I'm still no closer to the answer.

It was a lovely wedding, though. I have very little frame of reference regarding weddings, this being only the second ceremony I've attended, but I liked it. Everybody seemed to be having a good time, and there were no unfortunate deaths. That's always a plus. Unless that's what you're looking for in a wedding.

I've never actually seen Four Weddings And A Funeral, so I have no idea what the film's really about. But I like to imagine that the funeral mentioned in the title is the direct result of one of the four weddings. Perhaps a tragic suicide when a bride realizes she's married the wrong man and feels trapped in a loveless marriage built on a web of lies. I doubt it's anything so dark.

And that is why I will never see the movie. I don't care if Richard Curtis wrote the movie, and I've enjoyed basically everything else the man has ever done. You can't make me watch Four Weddings And A Funeral. I've got better things to do with my time. Like rambling uncomfortably on my blog.

Do you ever daydream about nuclear armageddon? Am I the only one? I saw The Day After when I was a kid, and it scared the ever-loving shit out of me. The part that really frightened me was the ending, when a title card appeared informing me that the events in the film were actually a more optimistic version of potential events, and that the real-life scenario would likely be exponentially worse.

I had recurring nightmares about mutually assured destruction for months. I would sit in the classroom staring out the window, wondering if today would finally be the day when the sirens blared and the bombs dropped. I grew increasingly paranoid about the inevitable radioactive end of all life on earth. I even asked my mother at one point as to why we didn't have a fallout shelter in the house. She told me that if nuclear war became a reality, then a fallout shelter wouldn't really matter, and we'd actually be lucky to die in the initial blast.

That made me feel a lot better, let me tell you. A scared little kid looks to his parents for reassurance, and what I received was a bracing shot of reality. I realized that there were horrors in this world from which nobody could protect you. I've never done anything to deserve nuclear annihilation, but if some dickhead in this world gets bored, he could utterly destroy me, my family, and everything I know and love with the push of a button. How selfish can you get?

I must have been seven or eight years old, and I saw the world in a new light. My mind still dwells on that nightmare fuel from time to time. But it doesn't scare me, not anymore. It's just another one of those things in life over which I have no control. If it's coming, then I can't stop it. All I can do is keep living my life the way I've always lived it, and hope that horrible moment never comes.

We're all going to die eventually. That's just the way it is. But if you spend your entire life obsessing over your inevitable end, then you're not really living at all. I wasn't lying when I said my mother's ominous words made me feel better. Not at first, of course. At first, they just further terrified me. But upon reflection, I understood their meaning.

I was thankful that my mother chose not to bullshit me with any reassuring platitudes, instead trusting me with a simple truth. Perhaps she could have worded her response better, maybe sprinkling in a few of the phrases I have provided above, but that's a small matter. My mother is not a particularly verbose woman, choosing instead simply to say what she means. And I knew what she meant on that day.

A mother wants to protect her child, but good luck protecting your child from a fucking mushroom cloud.

Are you still here? Probably not. But if you are, then I suppose now's as good a time as any to get to my real reason for doing this. I'm pretty sure you can guess what this was all leading to.

Wait, what was that? A podcast? Holy shit, you're right! A fucking podcast! Because that's original, right? After all, that's all this blog's good for, these days.

But this is a special occasion. It's Halloween, and that means we need a special podcast. That is why, for one night only, I have exhumed the corpse of The Podcast Of Lies and re-animated it in the confines of my dungeon, for your enjoyment, Dear Imaginary Listener!

This very special episode, entitled The Horror Show, Part 3: Re-Animated!!! deals with things that go bump in the night. Vampires, werewolves, Large Marge... it's all here, and it's all weird. The differences between Twilight and True Blood are discussed, as well as the dubious quality of 1980's New Year's Evil. We also talk about vintage spook houses and satanic cults. Because that's topical.

Sit back, crack open that bottle of whiskey you keep in your old Castle Greyskull playset, and listen to the following 26 minutes of bone-chilling comedy:

The Horror Show, Part 3: Re-Animated!!!



Happy Halloween, you ungrateful bastards!