Halloween (almost)

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Thanksgiving is a close second and Christmas is a close third. The sentiment of Christmas is more important, of course, but it has become so commercialized and unrecognizable that it’s more like a secular, uber-spendy holiday than a recognition of peace, joy, charity, and goodwill. (And forget about it being acknowledged as the birth of Christ. That is long, long gone.) Christmas, minus the commercialization and minus drama, would be my favorite. But it’s not a perfect world. Halloween is what it is: a day to dress up in scary costumes, watch horror movies, tell ghost stories, eat candy, scare trick-or-treaters in the neighborhood and have a rollicking good time. At least that’s how it should be. Seems like as Christmas gets more and more consumer-oriented, Halloween is falling by the wayside altogether. I can remember when networks would show tons of scary movies ranging from modern stuff to the classics. Not so much anymore. It’s like they sort of half-ass Halloween. AMC’s Fear Fest this year has suuuuucked. ABC Family’s 13 Nights of Halloween has suuuuucked. I think SciFi Channel is doing a corny marathon of their Ghost Hunters show. Where are the good movie marathons? Why run The Shining and Alien 50 times over again? Laaaame. And what happened to the good paranormal documentaries? All I’ve noticed are two or three shows on werewolves. I liked it when AMC would run classic monster movies. I also think one of the networks should show the Louis Jourdan version of Dracula. That would be much better than rotating showings of Alien and the Halloween franchise movies. A silent era horror movie marathon would be good, too. I will never forget sitting in the haunted library back in college watching a documentary on German Expressionist Cinema and being truly disturbed. It was cold, I was alone, and I felt creeped out anyway. Those films are still so different from what is made today that the shock value can be enormous. As far as I am concerned, one of the creepiest moments in cinema is when Faust (in Murnau’s version of Faust) runs home after summoning Mephisto and finds Mephisto sitting there with glowing eyes and a wry, sadistic smile. He coolly states, “You summoned me,” smile turns to scowl, “Here I am!” I have watched that film many times in the course of my academic work on it and that part still gives me goosebumps. It plays into that fear that someone could make one terrifically bad judgment call and pay for it millions of times over. There are many, many good scenes in that film . . . Mephisto spreading his wings over the earth to envelope it in darkness and plague; Mephisto lurking above Faust’s bed; Mephisto laughing after he goads Faust into killing Valentine, screaming “Murder! Murder!” through the streets. It’s an amazing film. If you’ve never watched it, this is the perfect time of year to rent it.



Having said all that, it feels like I have had to make it to Halloween this year clawing and fighting the entire way. This has been a crappy week for me. I am tired. I am cranky. I am tired. I am sick of people stomping on my raw nerves. I am tired. I would like to cook, eat, and hibernate. It’s been one of those weeks at work where everyone wants something and, more specifically, they wanted it 10 minutes ago, thanks. This entire week I have wanted to come home, eat, watch TV, and go into a hard coma. I have forced myself to be active to fight off the winter bloat. The last thing I want is to hibernate and, unlike a bear, emerge from the winter as a fat ass. I made enough Chicken Brian Griffin that I could eat leftovers for a couple of days and that was soooo good. Goat cheese is a food from the gods. I think I’m going to whip up a cottage pie this weekend to gnaw on, only do it with extra lean beef and a boatload of vegetables to keep the calorie count reasonable. Watching the F-Word has been a good influence on me. I’ve been watching Season 3 lately since it’s finally out on DVD and the focus was on fast food not having to mean fast food, i.e., if you’re pressed for time at night, you don’t always have to resort to bullshit food at McD’s. Once you get in the habit of being able to heat up something that you’ve made fresh at home, it spoils you to want to do it more often. It can’t be healthy to eat stuff that’s swimming in grease all the time. I got burned out on eating food at restaurants that was greasy and felt like a salt lick. Why pay $30 for a meal and feel like a bloated gasbag all night? I don’t mind splurging occasionally but I don’t want a steady diet of that crap. I’ll have my giant meal at Cheesecake Factory for my birthday and call it good. Someone might have to wheel me out on a tow dolly but that’s alright. I give myself permission every year to eat and drink whatever I want on my birthday. Since I seem to have the Frasier Crane Party Curse, it makes for a much easier night to plan on dinner and cocktails and leave it at that.