Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

When we show up, we win.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans do not trust women.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Happy Halloween! (Open Thread)

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76Comments

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    Very creative! I don’t love piders* though, so I’ll vote for the second one.

    (*what we called spider mobs in my old MMORPG)

    A Halloweeny list of music. These aren’t all exactly spooky songs, but they fit the bill in one way or another. I don’t have Spotify and I’m way too lazy to look all of these up on YouTube, so just go seek out the ones that sound interesting, LOL (Some of these have versions by different bands, but these are my preferred ones)

    And of course, we have to kick it off with…

    Every Day is Halloween – Ministry (my anthem back in my goth era)

    Monster – Big Data
    Evil Night Together – Jill Tracy
    Bloodletting – Concrete Blonde
    Spellbound – Siouxsie and the Banshees
    Seven Devils – Florence & the Machine
    Witches – Switchblade Symphony
    I Am Stretched On Your Grave – Dead Can Dance
    Dead To Me – Chloe Adams
    Release the Bats – The Birthday Party
    Haunted – Evanescence
    Ghost – Depeche Mode
    Knock Three Times (On Your Coffin) – Black Tape for a Blue Girl
    This Ready Flesh – TR/ST
    I Put a Spell On You – Annie Lennox
    Catacombs – Cold Cave
    Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo
    The Chill of October – Client
    Now I’m Feeling Zombified – Alien Sex Fiend

    And we can’t forget the gothest song ever written…

    Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bauhaus

    And also obligatory…

    This is Halloween – The Citizens of Halloweentown (meaning, the version from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, NOT the cover of it by MM because fuck him)

  4. 4.

    Trivia Man

    I used to play the Apocolypse Now Sessions by Mickey Hart and the Rhythm Devils for trick or treaters. Spooky stuff. 

  6. 6.

    NoOneOfConsequence

    Can we get one of the TFG mugshot, so we can watch it rot a bit more, day by day?

    Oh, come on, the hair would be fake, and so would the orange flesh! You’re just jealous you didn’t think of it first. (At least, not the rotting away aspect. Because what kind of jumped up crazy person thinks of that? Me? And you think this *weakens* my point?)

  7. 7.

    Dangerman

    Excellent work. First one looks like ET opening a phone bill and realizing that dialing 976 numbers was NOT the way to phone home.

    If we are doing music, this is worth 8:39 of your time:

    The Ghost Of Tom Joad Bruce Springsteen with Tom Morello (aka known as the Night Watchman, which seems appropriate)

  8. 8.

    bjacques

    Bates Motel – The Hitmen

    Ward 81 – The Fuzztones

    Hot Dog – Hasil Adkins

    The entire soundtrack to Return Of The Living Dead, especially Deadbeat Dance by The Damned.

    GooGoo Muck – The Cramps

    Die Die My Darling – The Misfits

    Silent Scream – TSOL

    If You Have Ghosts – Roky Erickson

    Terrorvision – The Fibonaccis

    Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner – Warren Zevon

    Camouflage – Stan Ridgway

  9. 9.

    MomSense

    Has anyone seen the videos of chickens carving pumpkins?  The human scores the shapes of the jack o lantern they want and then they give it to their chickens.  They will peck the pumpkin where it is scored and it’s really fun to watch.  I’ve only seen one fail and that was Joyce White Vance.  Apparently her chickens aren’t fans of pumpkin.

  13. 13.

    brendancalling

    Obligatory metal post for the occasion. And who else but Helloween, doing what else but “Halloween.”

    Please enjoy one of the finest (and most unintentionally hilarious) bands Deutschland has foisted on the world.

  14. 14.

    Citizen Dave

    Love Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party”, thanks for reminding me!  7:07 and I think we’re done with the little trick or treaters.  Had around 15.  So cold and windy

    ETA: ooh, a little Woody just arrived.

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    Posting here too

    BECAUSE

    My legs shouldn’t feel like January after walking to and from the store!

    Chicago’s Halloween dressed up as winter this year!

  18. 18.

    oldgold

    I told this harrowing Halloween tale once before on this site. It might bear repeating.
    My most frightening Halloween occurred when I was 13.
    My Church had a Halloween teen dance.  I did not want to go.  My Mom made me – “OG, you will have fun!”
    None of my buddies were there. The kids there were all older than me. I had never danced before. Ugh!  I tried to melt into the Church’s  basement wall and get through the night nursing a dixie cup full of punch and chewing on a few pieces of candy corn.
    Then, I heard a female voice shout “OG!“ Damnation, it was the Right Reverend’s wife, Pearl, with her 15 year old Daughter in tow. OH NO! “OG, Gladys would like to dance with you. Now, get out there!”
    Now, Gladys was in no danger of winning any beauty pageants, which was the very reason Pearl had matched her with the sorriest ass boy there – me.
    Gladys grabbed me and pulled me out onto the dance floor. As the music played, I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. Miserable. Then a slow song came up.  I found myself in Gladys’s clutches. She was very well endowed.  Gladys pressed into me. The Right Reverend and Pearl were standing only a few feet away.  I feared, if the Right Reverend got a close look at me, I was going to be publicly outed as a hardened sinner.  I was sweating profusely and praying fervently for divine intervention. Instead, the Devil showed up.  After all, it was Halloween.
    At some point Gladys’s parents were distracted and Gladys took me by the hand and led me through a labyrinth of dark passages that led up to the balcony in the Church’s sanctuary.
    Now, I was greener than grass when it came to interacting with the opposite sex.  I immediately learned this was not the case with Gladys.  Soon, in the shadowy darkness of the sanctuary, a boy, who had never been up to bat, was rounding second base and digging for third.  My testosterone besotted mind was wrestling with two conflicting thoughts: this is SO GREAT – (ahh, the pleasures of the flesh) and this is SO WRONG – (whoa, you are pawing and panting on a pew with the Right Reverend’s Daughter)!
    Boom! The lights in the sanctuary blazed on. I heard the Right Reverend call out, “Gladys?“ The Holy Ghost flashed before my eyes. Off the balcony pew and onto the floor we ducked. Tense seconds passed like hours.  Finally, the lights went out.  After rearranging our disheveled garments, we stealthily crawled back through the dark passages to the Church basement. The dance was shutting down, without saying goodbye, thank you or a damn thing to Gladys, I bolted out of the Church.  Although I had not reached third, I raced on foot, as if the hounds of Hell were at my heels, full of angst, through the moon lit streets of my small town for the safety of home.
    The next morning, Sunday, I was sitting in the family pew, between my Mom and Grandmother. The Right Reverend was sternly raging against the weakness of the flesh and the grim Hell that awaited those who fell victim to earthly pleasures.  In the front pew I saw Gladys sitting primly between her Mother and big, burly, older Brother – ugh.  I glanced up at the balcony.  At that moment, a cold shiver shot up my spine that no Halloween fright has ever come close to matching.

  25. 25.

    bbleh

    That Johnson guy has a face that’s pretty much made for carving into a pumpkin.  Kinda looks like it already has been.  And come to think of it Mitch too.  Okay, no more politics, I’ll shut up now.

  28. 28.

    Sure Lurkalot

    We are all ready with our bag of 50 minus 2 mini (and I mean mini) candy bars (Reese’s, KitKat, Hershey’s Milk and Almond Joy) and no traffic as of yet. Same as it ever was. You’d think kids would hit up a duplex community with lotsa doors. But they don’t.

    I’m not sure why I buy the candy…i guess hope springs eternal. I was the one who broke into the bag and ate two pieces but truth be told, I don’t like sweets so the rest of it will be left for the spouse to eat or bring to golf games.

  30. 30.

    Dan B

    @oldgold: Sounds scary all right.

    My math teacher blackmailed me into taking the class salutitorion to the prom.  We sat with the valedictorian and talked math, or at least the val and sal did.  It was like being unable to breathe for three hours.

  31. 31.

    dexwood

    @NoOneOfConsequence:  You won’t get one of the Orange Monster from me. Fuck that guy. I did carve a Dick Cheney pumpkin years ago. It was a decent likeness. A guy offered me 50 bucks for it. I gave it to him.

    Thanks, WaterGirl.

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    Got ZERO trick-or-treaters tonight.

    Usually we only get a few. We’re on the main street of our neighborhood, but we’re in the last block before it ends in a cul-de-sac. As you pass the last intersection before my block, there’s a slight rise before the road goes back downhill. If the first few houses on the block are dark (normal in recent years), few kids bother to go past that last intersection to see if there are any houses past the rise that are giving out candy.

    But this year, some families with kids have moved onto our block. Not many, but still, every morning there are three kids from different families waiting at the foot of our driveway for the elementary school bus. So I figured we’d at least see those kids, and maybe an older or younger sibling or two. Plus like I said, we usually get two or three kids that have the energy to make it over the rise to our end of the street.

    But no. A big fat ZERO. The porch light is on, and while we didn’t decorate lavishly, we did put up some Halloween decorations. But ZERO kids have come up our driveway. (It’s not even a long driveway. You can’t even park three cars end to end on it. So it’s not one of those driveways that’s a long hike from the road up to the house.)

    I’m bummed.

  37. 37.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    We had a pumpkin-carving party on Sunday with our daughters and their families. I was hopelessly outclassed by everyone, even the grandkids. I’m OK with that, I have no artistic aspirations.

    We had a pretty good crowd but about half of them were high school age. The last teen group grabbed what was left in the baskets by the fistful, cleaning us out, and we closed up shop and shut off the lights. But they were pretty much the last group out on the street anyway.

  39. 39.

    Ohio Mom

    @oldgold: Your mother was right, you had fun.

    @lowtechcyclist: I think a lot of times parents drive their kids to neighborhoods known to be good for trick-or-treating. It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The good streets get lots of kids, the residents there know to stock up on candy. At least, that’s how it seems to work around here.

  40. 40.

    Dan B

    @dexwood: My father was a wood carver.  His were very mixed abstract and figurative.  There are about 50 here in the house.  My brother has many as well.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @Alison Rose:  One year, decades ago, I played my step mom’s E Power Biggs organ music album for Halloween.  Apparently some of the trick or treaters were afraid to come to the door.

    :-/

    Unfortunately, I don’t recall the album.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    Steve in the ATL

    No “red right hand” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, or the super obvious “dancing with Mr. D” by the stones?

    that’s all I can manage on a snowy night in south bend.  Raven, did you know that Notre dame has NEVER beaten Georgia?  Of course you did!

  52. 52.

    trollhattan

    @Alison Rose: Fun!

    Driving home I pulled into the Total Wine parking lot with Siouxsie and the Banshees playing on the public hippie radio station. When I got into the store they were playing Siouxsie and the Banshees, different song.

    A thing that will never happen again, but color me impressed.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    Btw I’m happy to report that we wrapped up tonight with a whopping 4 M&M’s “fun size” candies and two beat-up comic books left over.  Everything else went out the door to some very happy kids!

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Ohio Mom: I think parents also feel safer letting their kids go door-to-door on streets where there’s a lot of it going on already. It calms traffic, at the very least

    We had our massive trick-or-treat event on Saturday, so around here a lot of kids “double dip” by hitting us on Saturday and somewhere else tonight. My daughter used to do that hanging with extended family in Hampstead, NH on the 31st.

  60. 60.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ohio Mom:

    @lowtechcyclist: I think a lot of times parents drive their kids to neighborhoods known to be good for trick-or-treating. It’s sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The good streets get lots of kids, the residents there know to stock up on candy. At least, that’s how it seems to work around here.

    Yeah, that happens here too, and everybody knows which neighborhood is the good one around here; it’s been that way most of the 25 years we’ve lived here.

    But we always got some kids in past years. Not many, but some.  But never zero before, and we at least had some reason to expect maybe more than usual, like high single digits.  But no.

  63. 63.

    Anyway

    I have about 8 pieces of candy left — perfect. About 80 kids, I’d say. None of the costumes stood out. Lighted (sparkly?) finger rings seemed to be in.

  65. 65.

    Princess

    300 pieces of candy, 300 kids and then we ran out. And we saw one child almost get hit by a car running across the street. Parents seemed oblivious.

  66. 66.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    Best comment regarding our decorations so far: “Oh my god, they’ve got a baby hanging up there!”

    It’s the torso of a mummy that is hanging upside down from a pole. It thrashes as kids pass by.

  67. 67.

    Gvg

    Well lots less than last year. They were coming quite well then just seemed to stop. I guess school night. Last year it was Monday but I think it fell on a teacher workday for the district or something because my nephew got to spend the night and stay up late and kids kept coming. I will have a lot of left over candy because last year I almost ran out so I bought more…

    Also it appears my jack o lanterns weren’t as visible at the street as I thought. I need to do it differently next year. Some of my shrubs are bigger. I did buy solar path lights this year, but it wasn’t obviously Halloween candy house. When I went out to see if any kids were still out, some were trying to see if my house was participating or not..

  68. 68.

    Annamal

    One of the wonderful things about Aotearoa New Zealand not really embracing Halloween yet is that even low effort stuff goes down really well.

    Despite being ridiculously high up in the hills (and sharing a suburb with a street notorious for being a great trick or treat spot) we had multiple groups of kids and almost ran short of sweets.

  71. 71.

    RevRick

    Being a churchy guy I love the sound of the organ when it comes to generating spooky music. The bassoon too.
    Halloween, after all, was originally a church holy day, the night of preparation for All Saint’s Day when the church honored the previous year’s dead. And if you’ve ever been to a European cathedral, you know how intimate that relationship was, since people vied for the right to be buried in the church (as in literally under the slate floors of the sanctuary). Imagine the smell!
    Unless you were a great benefactor, those graves got reused as soon as the corpse had fully rotted, and the bones were then placed in an ossuary/charnel house where you could visit.

  74. 74.

    Carlo Graziani

    Banded together with a bunch of co-HOA townhouse owners in our Hyde Park (Chicago) neighborhood, putting a fire pit on the front stoop to keep warm, and handing out several Costco-units of candy to passing Trick-or-Treaters. Some fairly good costumes in the passers-by.

    I picked up an orange prison jumpsuit and a “Mr CEO” wig at a Chicago costume shop, and put on some tanning makeup. No prizes for guessing who I channelled, but I did tell some bemused passers-by “I got the best penitentiary, and I got one of the best cells at Marion, Blagojevic was totally envious of the red carpet treatment that they gave me…” All that orange color was a Halloween perk.

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