Sorry, kids, I really flaked on this year’s countdown.

It started off on a decent note, but the general state of affairs led me to call time on the spooky stuff halfway through the month and opt for more cozy comforts.

It’s not doomerism. Just a general sense of distraction.

Thanks to those of you who did tune in for what little there was. It was nice seeing those familiar names in the comments. It still haven’t written this place off entirely, but the stars aren’t quite aligned yet for me to consider what that would look like in practice.

Happy Halloween!

Recommended listening:

“I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked.

But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what they must be — sexy as fuck.”

Fun Fact: My maternal ancestors founded the real life community upon which H.P. Lovecraft based Innsmouth. There’s even a marker there featuring several appearances of that branch of the family’s surname.

Recommended listening: More inexplicable strangeness from forgotten aeons.

If you’re going to tamper in God’s domain, the least you can do is invest in a shatterproof containment flask.

Recommended listening: Breaking up is shard to do.

Running into a ghost while spending the night in a haunted mansion? Scary.

Fleeing the room and running into Vince Van Patten wearing a pair of novelty boxer shorts? PURE NIGHTMARE FUEL.

It truly put the hell in Hell Night.

Recommended listening: When you get caught between the goth and New York City.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, Phil, but I was asking if you folks wanted to go to Applebee’s or the Olive Garden for the weekend’s infernal meet-up.”

Recommended listening: Until even the Horned One gets sick out your antics and boots you out of his band.

Swan: Madame, Swan here. I want you to answer a question for me.

Madame: Yes?

Swan: What would you give me for a starring role in a syndicated sitcom?

Madame: Anything you wanted, sweetheart.

Swan: Anything? Would you give me… your spot on Hollywood Squares?

Recommended listening: The devil is real and spent the better part of the 1970s programming celebrity variety hours as summer replacement series.

Status update, 2024:

The Vampire: Actuary for a major insurance corporation.

The Ghost: Middle school guidance counselor.

The Werewolf: Sells souvenirs made from painted shells in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The Clown: The Tri-State Torso Ripper, still at large.

Recommended listening: Tick tick tick.

If you’ve wondered what I’ve been up to during my long hiatus from this site, the answer is “trying to enjoy and reconnect with things without feeling like I have to mine them for content.”

What kinds of things?

A lot of shit from first three decades on earth, where imperfect memories and rosy nostalgia needed a reality check. Videogames, comics, books, music, and midden pickings such as Deadly Lessons…

…a 1983 ABC made-for-TV movie with an incredible cast and some dubious decisions.

Donna Reed! Ally Sheedy! Larry Wilcox! Diane Franklin! Bill Paxton! Rick Rossovich! It’s as if the Love Boat crashed into a Hemdale movie production!

Mostly though, it’s an odd artifact of what happened when the made-for-TV movie hunger to bite some cultural trend — in this case the “slasher at an all-girls school” horror thriller — grappled with the need to square things with the wholesome-ish standnards of prime time network TV.

No gore. No titty flashing. No cuss words or anything within the same galactic sector of a R-rating. Just a whole lot of familiar faces going through the bowdlerized motions as genre cliches demand.

In short, it’s a fucking hoot and a half.

Recommended listening: Welcome to the house of fun.

Last time I tried this, I ended up in the ER.

So let’s see how things go this time around.

Recommended listening: Some rockabilly thunder from Down Under from an artist who has since gone on to be a synth-goth Kylie.

Two weeks back from yesterday, I went to urgent care to get some antibiotics for a tooth infection. Part of the process involved having my vitals taken, which resulted in being told that my heartrate and blood pressure were at IMMEDIATE HEALTH RISK levels.

They wanted to call an ambulance then and there, but I said I’d wanted to consult with my primary care folks before making a decision. So I signed some liability waiver forms, went home, and gave my general practitioner’s office a call.

…and thus ended up taking an ambulance ride to the ER down the road from me.

The Nurse Practitioner at the ER told me it was asymptomatic (meaning that I felt otherwise fine) hypertension, which was serious but also not worth the three ring panic circus that likely exacerbated the problem at hand. I got set up with some meds to bring my numbers down and an appointment with my GP two days later, who put me on a couple of other prescriptions.

And, in a couple of hours, I have to go and check-in to see how things have been progressing.

None of this was unexpected. This shit runs in my family and I assumed blood (pressure) would eventually tell. The brusque confrontation with my mortality was a bit of a trip for a day or so, but there’s nothing to be done that I’m not actively working on right now.

What did run me through the ringer, however, was my body trying to adjust to the blood pressure meds while also going through a stiff antibiotic regimen. It knocked me on my ass for the better part of the week, and also left me craving popcult comfort food over Spooky Season tricks and treats — less The Blob and I Drink Your Blood and more The Soup and I Love the 1990s (BBC version).

My Halloween mojo has make a comeback over the past few days, but I’d already written off hopes of salvaging this year’s countdown.

Such is life, with maximum emphasis on “life.”

Recommended listening: …unless it’s your physical manifestation on this plane, in which case you should probably observe a proper preventative maintenance routine.