Monthly Archives: October 2013

13 Helpful Halloween Hints

I don’t consider it a real holiday unless a corporation has found a way to brand it.

Halloween has come a long way since it’s inception. With its origins in the ancient pagan tradition of asking your neighbors for food, it is now celebrated by children across the nation as the one night they can take candy from strangers. But whether you’re a child looking for a sugar rush or an adult celebrating a pop culture icon by dressing up as a sexy version of it, here are a few tips to keep your Halloween super spooky. Continue reading →

Video: Ghosts in the Milk: A Review of Halloween Crunch

The Greatest Halloween Album Ever Made

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I’d dress like that every day if I didn’t eat like an asshole.

Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare is the greatest Halloween album ever made. It’s the AIP Poe Picture of albums, striking the perfect balance between fear and fun with a heavy emphasis on atmosphere. It’s often referred to as a concept album, but it’s really more of a theme album, with songs based around ideas rather than a story. Certainly, there are songs that tie together both thematically and musically, but the through line is ultimately unimportant. The feeling is what counts. Continue reading →

The Sound of Halloween

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I had a shirt with this on it for years until I realized that the fact that it said “20 Years of Terror 1978-1998” let everyone know exactly how old it was.

Yesterday, we talked about how the lack of music shaped one of my favorite films. Today, I’d like to talk about what the perfect score did for another favorite.

John Carpenter’s Halloween is a simple film. It’s the story of a boy who stabs his sister on Halloween night, then comes back 15 years later to stab some more people. He wears a mask. His doctor may be just as crazy as he his. That’s it. That’s all you need. Simple, but effective. Continue reading →

Silence, Dread and Frankenstein

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Allow me to present my qualifications.

Any talk of whether or not Universal’s 1931 production of Frankenstein horrified audiences of the time is mostly speculation at this point—speculation surely tainted by Universal’s press department—but judging by what the censor boards did to it, someone, somewhere was fucking terrified. That somewhere was probably Kansas City, whose censor board cut the most, effectively halving the already brisk running time of 71 minutes. Continue reading →

A Tale of Two Jasons

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This was almost the cover of my book.

When I was younger, I thought that Jason Voorhees was living in my toilet, waiting to stab me in my asshole.

Maybe I should back up a bit here. Continue reading →

Can’t Eat, Can’t Breathe… Now Available in Audiobook Format

Can’t Eat, Can’t Breathe and Other Ways Cystic Fibrosis Has F#$%*d Me Book Trailer

The More Things Change… Part II

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Here’s another batch of 3rd grade journal entries. If you missed the first round, you can catch up on them here. Again, these are reproduced as close to their original form—errors and all—as can be. Continue reading →

The More Things Change…

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At the end of my book, I transcribed the food diary I wrote when I was first diagnosed with diabetes. I find things like that fascinating, because you can’t run from a journal. It’s “of the moment”, with very little distance or reflection to get in the way. I may try to tell you that I was great at changing my diet, but the food diary tells a different story.

When my Mom told me she had dug up a couple of school journals from 3rd grade, I was excited to look back and see what’s changed. The answer, unfortunately, was not much. Here are some of my favorite entries, reproduced exactly as they appear in the journal. I’ve also included the teacher’s responses (also reproduced as written) and—where appropriate—commentary from 30 year old me. Continue reading →