Five Song Friday: A Handy Guide to Going Hardcore This Halloween
Episode #129: Nice Sandwiches, Geography Typos and Canadian Car Surfing
How scary do you want to make your house this Halloween?
So scary that, even in the daytime, the daily strollers take the long way around to avoid looking at your home?
So scary that the nice lady who delivers your mail says OH HELL NO and just chucks your catalogs in the bushes?
So scary that even the crows think your place is bad news?
When the rowdy packs of superheroes and zombies and princesses show up on Halloween night, are you ready to make them think twice, maybe three times, about whether it’s worth it to ring your bell?
Are you ready to make the parents wonder if sending their kids to your door is considered child abuse?
Then you need to understand the difference between “Ooh spooky!” and whatever it is that terrified Slavic grandmas mutter when they clutch their crucifix necklace and go paler than Emma Stone in a wedding dress.
I’m here to help.
But if all that sounds too extreme for you? Keep walking.
Enjoy your apple-bobbing and saying BOO and dressing up like a soccer mom with a head wound or whatever.
The following advice is not for the faint of heart or the weak of sauce.
This is for you if you’re ready to level up your terror game.
You want to leave an impression. You want wet pants and recurring nightmares. You want people to wonder if the crime scene tape is real and ask out loud, “What IS that smell?”
Every dry heave is a tiny victory.
Well, the first thing you do is skip the stores. Forget Spirit. Avoid Target and Wal-Mart and their overpriced, hokey, not-scary-at-all, big-box garbage.
Tell Lowe’s thanks, but no thanks.
Nobody thinks your 8-foot skeleton is real because Shaq is still alive and we just saw him hanging out with his friend, the cartoon general who sells car insurance to people with DUIs.
Let everyone else spend too much money on plastic junk. This year you’re doubling down. You are going HARDCORE HALLOWEEN.
What does HARDCORE HALLOWEEN mean?
It means that you don’t cut corners. You go big. You get bloody.
Time to Go Gore-cery Shopping
Skip the spider webs and spooky lights and drape your home in viscera.
Head to the meat section of your local supermarket and tell the butcher that you want a large order of entrails.
And not the fancy stuff they put in the display case, garnished with lemons and lettuce or whatever. You want the stuff that made him gag when he opened the box. You want the stuff they had to put out back that even the feral dogs won’t touch.
When he tells you they don’t sell entrails (which he is legally obligated to say), just wink and ask him again, while doing that magic trick where you pull a five dollar bill from behind his ear.
Works every time.
Everybody Must Get Grave-Stoned
Whatever yard you have is going to need some headstones. And not the corny styrofoam deals with dumb phrases like “Rest in Pieces” or “Tomb Sweet Tomb” or “A Woman’s Right to Choose.”
Authenticity is what’s going to set you apart. That means you need to head to the nearest cemetery.
And before you get all squeamish, NO I’m not suggesting you STEAL the headstones of actual dead people.
You’re only BORROWING them for two, three weeks tops.
Holy Mother of Gourd
Pumpkins are the worst.
The good news is that you don’t need to carve any this year.
After all, fancy Jack-o-Lanterns are just how crafty, artsy-farts show off to their neighbors.
The only thing a beautifully carved pumpkin says is LOOK AT ME! I spent tons of money at art school and now I carve vegetables to look like faces!
I didn’t learn any practical skills, but I can silently judge the art in your home! I have an Etsy store! Ask me about my found object yard sculptures!
Carving is for suckers. You don’t want head-turning pumpkins. You want stomach-turning gourds.
Here’s what you do: Get the biggest one you can find and drop it in your front yard (or porch or apartment building hallway). Cut the top off. Pack it full of cherry Kool-Aid powder (like A LOT). Then stab a hundred knives into it and hook up a garden hose.
Find a hiding place, kink the hose and, when the time is right, let it rain blood!
OR get a bunch of small pumpkins, scoop out the guts and fill them with overcooked spaghetti, chicken blood and lukewarm sweetmeats. Get yourself a bat and whack them like Joe Pesci pinatas!
Throw Candy Curveballs
When it comes to handing out candy, you need to keep them guessing.
In between the Sweet Tarts and Snickers bars, mix in the occasional uncooked pork chop (enhanced with hot-glued googly eyes and a crooked smile made from real baby teeth).
That should get you started.
I think you’ll find that once you get going, the ideas will come fast and furious.
Just remember, if it sounds twisted and wrong, if it makes you queasy or feel like a bad person for even coming up with something so dark… you’re on the right track!
The only rules I have are to do no real harm. Make sure the chain is off the chainsaw. Don’t use the demon baby hand puppet near people who look like they have a heart condition.
And if the cops come around asking questions, just tell them “that cow was already dead when I found it.”
Five Song Friday #129
“Alive for the First Time (In a Long, Long Time)” - Tampa
Maybe I’ve been to Tampa, but I can’t remember. What does that say about Tampa? What does that say about me?
“The Lottery” - Hamell on Trial
Have you noticed how big the lottery jackpots have been? I honestly don’t know what I would do with a BILLION dollars. I don’t drink champagne and I don’t like shrimp, so my options are really limited. I guess I could buy a super yacht and have fancy sandwiches delivered by helicopter? Or maybe wear jumpsuits made out of 24k gold material? I could pay famous artists to tattoo my body? Or buy a bunch of Super Bowl ads and just talk about myself? Now that I’ve thought about it, I’m definitely going to play the lottery this week. And every week until I win and can finally see what it feels like to warm myself by a bonfire of hundred-dollar bills.
“Afrika” - DJ Yoda, Jungle Brothers
I don’t mean to be THAT guy, but they misspelled ‘Africa.’ Did they not have a globe or Google? I mean, come on. Details matter. If you don’t take your spelling seriously, how am I supposed to take your dope-ass rhymes seriously?
“Bat House” - DoFlame, DEAR-GOD
This song works much better when you see the video and realize this band exists in a blunt-smoking, head-banger, skate-punk bubble in suburban Canada that seems like a really fun place where a middle-aged guy could really fit in. Is it weird that I’m attracted to the idea of trading in everything for a life of surfing on cars and getting in slap fights and wearing retro rock t-shirts while doing the Beastie Boy fish-eye lens thing in a tattered and tagged abandoned house? Because I don’t think it’s weird. I think it’s awesome.
“You Dropped a Bomb on Me” - Michael Hearst, Stephin Merritt, Xavier Smith
If you think I’m sharing this song just because I used to live next door to Michael, you’re wrong. I’m sharing this song because I love the eighties and I love cover songs and this particular jam reminds me of childhood memories where everything was as fresh as a bright blue sky. He plans on doing 80 songs from the 80s with a rotating roster of guest musicians. This is track two and I’m in it for the long haul. Viva la nostalgia!
(YouTube Music didn’t have some of these songs so I’m skipping them this time.)
“Giving, not trading or selling, is the basis of success. The most rewarding thing you can do is just to give the world something good. And ultimately you will be paid so much more for that gift than it you had tried to trade it for something else.”
― Russell Simmons (Born October 4, 1957)
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
DJ CrankyPete