Halloween at Paradise 2011 Part 2 of 3

I knew I wanted to experiment with a werewolf costume and since Saturday was going to be our big costume party I went as a werewolf on Friday

 --not Wolverine thank you--lol--as some mistook me for, and I have to admit my hair was perfectly Wolverine.

 I used spirit gum to attach the hair and nose. The hair lasted all night.

 But by the end of the night, the glasses were holding the nose up.

 

The hair and make up matched in my house and in the dim bar but couldn't hold up to flash photography. I had to blend the color of the nose into my skin tone. I did a better job than flash photography reveals.

 Ha. The receding hair line adds character, especially in werewolf makeup.

 It took me about 90 minutes to put this together, but I had thought up a plan in my head all week long. I finished two hours before work. If I knew some aspects were going to be easy, I would've taken my time, kept the spirit gum under the hair, layered the beard more, blended the hair more with mine, etc.

 Great shot. Had to dig up the shirt out of moving boxes, but it was worth it.

 Not bad. The sink was worse when I was a Dr. Zombie a few weeks before.

 There are more pics I just have to get them from others. Hope you enjoyed.

Night of the Living Dead

Goya Sleep of Reason

Toshiba Laptop Zombie Commercial

Great commercial.

Horror Songs Creedence Clearwater Revival

I'm updating my blog, so please bear with me. And now that grades are in I'm continuing my Halloween in May Event.

Creedence Clearwater Revival is one of my favorite bands, and one of the bands I grew up listening to on vinyl, which my mom played turned up all the way while cleaning house. And, like the Beatles and only a few other bands, they don't have one bad song in their catalog.

When it comes to horror songs you probably think I'm going to talk about "Bad Moon Rising" or "I Put a Spell on You," but you're only two/sixths right. I can add four more horror songs from their oeuvre.

"I Put a Spell on You"
"Pagan Baby"
"Chameleon"
"Tombstone Shadow"
"Sinister Purpose"

"Bad Moon Rising," foretelling doom and the end of the world, is a classic and a shoe in for any werewolf movie soundtrack, but is too on the nose.

"I Put a Spell on You," too, is a classic, remade many times, and tells the story of love and casting spells.

"Pagan Baby" and "Chameleon" are pushing it. "Pagan baby" is probably more about a free-spirited woman and sex, but could be about the darker side of Paganism, while "Chameleon" is probably about miscommunication in a relationship or maybe a relationship with a fickle or flaky girl, though it would certainly work for a shapeshifter movie. Either one with the right footage could add to a good horror soundtrack.

"Tombstone Shadow" is one of their best little-heard songs, and is about a man with bad luck who sees a gypsy man to get rid of the curse.

And then there is "Sinister Purpose," whose evil is much more frightening than "Bad Moon Rising." It seems to be about the devil, or the four horsemen of the apocalypse, but it could be about any eternal evil, vampire, wandering Jew, or any others.

Zacherle, one of the most important horror hosts, sang the vocals for the Southern Culture on the Skids cover of this song from the great album, Halloween Hootenanny, featured below. There might be a few more CCR songs that could work as horror songs, but it's interesting to see that they have so many, even if you don't include Pagan Baby and Chameleon, although they did write a lot about Louisiana, which is known for voodoo.

Review: Adam Rex Frankenstein makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake

Continuing my Halloween in May event here is a short introduction to Adam Rex's two works Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Frankenstein Takes the Cake, the subtitle of the former being And Other Stories You're Sure to Like, Because They're All About Monsters and Some of Them Are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don't You? Well, All Right Then.

Submission guidelines for children's story mags and books--when I was looking them up in the '90's that is--were not that keen on the children's writer/artist. They wanted to match the writer and artist themselves. In a way they are like movie producers--while there are some great movie producers out there, most of the time they are business people with no real sense of art. Besides, I understand why these book publishers would say that. It's because writers/artists might fancy themselves as good writers and good artists. But then they're simultaneously ignoring could-be Seusses and Sendaks.

Whoa! Sorry about the digression.

I've read a couple of these poems for Halloween poetry readings at Northwestern State University at Leesville-Ft. Polk where I teach. Rex's breadth of artwork ranges from Norman Rockwell caricatures, classic black and white parodies of Universal monsters, great ink drawings and apparent parodies of Gnomes by Wil Nuygen and Rien Poortvliet. But his style isn't limited to these. You can check out Adam Rex's website and his blog.

My favorites from the first book are the

• "Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich"
• "An Open Letter from Wolfman's Best Friend"
• "The Dentist"
• "Count Dracula Doesn't Know He's Been Walking Around All Night with Spinach in His Teeth"

Incidentally, I've just realized that there is a subgenre of dentist horror stories and nothing makes more sense really. Doesn't it? The Dentist, and Little Shop of Horrors (pick your version), and even Marathon Man--"Is it safe?". I'm sure there are more.

And here's a video of Rex discussing his second set of children's horror poetry.



Thanks for reading. Enjoy.

Halloween in May: Poem and Event

Ever hear of Christmas in July--as if it doesn't already last two months as it is. Well, I've been waiting six months to do this, ever since I wrote the following poem. Yes, it's Halloween in May. Look forward to horror movie and book reviews, photos from my horror collection, more horror short stories on Smashwords.com, horror lists and maybe some more horror poetry--not sure what else I might do, but it all starts with the poem.

Halloween in May

The pumpkins on the railing

Are wilting

One looks like an old man without

Any teeth

But the life size skeleton

Is still on my office door

And when I go home tonight

The eyeball lights around the doorframe

Will give me enough light to get my key in the lock

The scary stuff is on sale at the stores

While the happy stuff has taken over

But I’m thinking

of making

A pilgrim hat

for my skeleton

And then a Santa hat and maybe even a new year’s eve hat too

And I will keep it all up for a ridiculously long time

Like people keep up

their Christmas lights all year long

Until it all catches on and we make it official

Halloween in May