At Days of the Dead Indianapolis this year, my life changed
forever. Fred Vogel stormed the
screening room at 4am on Sunday, None of the drunken crowd who witnessed what came
next were ever the same again, for we had been exposed to The Crazy Dave
Tape. It is the most insane mashup of
movie clips, bizarre porn, weird pop culture stuff, and sheer insane
awesomeness that you will ever see. You
are absolutely not prepared for what these mixtapes contain, but you need it in
your live. Check out their website HERE. It carries the Son of Celluloid’s highest
possible recommendation. Anyway, I knew
that I had to have one of the sickos behind this brilliant filth involved in
this countdown. Luckily, JP (the guy in
the gorilla mask) was down for the cause.
So, JP, what does Halloween mean to you?
"Back when we were little turds, life primarily consisted of
cartoons and pro-wrestling. Indoors, we had G.I. Joe guys getting their asses
kicked by Cobra Ninja and the Baroness (who would always somehow end up
molesting Lady Jayne in front of Destro), and outdoors we had a combination of
Rambo meets the Road Warriors. Hawk and Animal teamed up with Rambo (under our
leadership, of course) as we fought to regain control of central headquarters.
Central headquarters was a shed with a few lawnmowers in it, by the way. Action
figures, elbow drops, and imaginary gun battles pretty much dominated this
little turd era.
Oddly enough, we never paid much attention to Halloween at the
time. I mean, we definitely went out and scored candy, but the thrill of the
night wasn’t really there yet. If your pal is Spider-Man and you're a fuckin'
Ewok, basically Halloween kind of sucks. Really now, Cobra Ninja would mutilate
Spider-Man (and then have the Baroness rip his dick off in front of Destro) and
The Road Warriors looked like they lived on a steady diet of Ewoks! We always
thought there must be something more to Halloween than oversized chipmunk suits
and candy...
And then we discovered Fangoria magazine. Tom Savini. Creepshow,
A Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason; this amazingly scary yet fascinating new
world that we were probably too young for, but completely loved anyhow. That
prick from Lifeforce—you know, the skeleton man with Ronald Reagan's
hairstyle—between him, the father's day zombie, Ted Danson zombie, Freddy,
Jason, Michael Meyers, Leatherface, and that contortionist fucker covered in
tar from Return of the Living Dead, we were a bunch of scared little
turds! Scared, but loving it; now Rambo and The Road Warriors were allies
against Freddy and Jason, who apparently had a hangout spot down our street, in
the woods. Yeah, basically it was our job to secure the street by keeping both
Jason and Freddy at bay with a plastic bat (supposed to be a machete) and
invisible grenades. This still happens on occasion.
Anyhow, this dark discovery helped us transition from little
turds into little pricks; making fake blood with food coloring and Karo syrup
(which never looked right), scaring our parents, each other, and generally
acting like idiots. Then the realization struck like a machete through teenage
flesh—we now had real reasons to celebrate Halloween! You could pretend that
Jason cut your arm off, get fake blood everywhere, ruin clothes and possibly
furniture, and not get in trouble! Sure, the candy was still pretty damn
important, but being able to use and abuse our ever-growing collection of
masks, appliances, and whatever other ridiculous things offered in the back
pages of Fangoria became priority one!! Side
note: I vaguely remember there being a life sized latex zombie-corpse for
sale—via mail order—from one of the companies we ordered from...only back then,
man...now it would be delivered by an F.B.I. agent ready to escort you somewhere
“safe”.
So basically, every Halloween our plan was the same: get
candy, act like idiots, scare anyone wearing Spider-Man and Ewok costumes, run
from older kids who we pissed off, and then get some more candy. Come home,
listen to my older brother's metal records, eat candy, and draw pictures of
Jason, Freddy, and Cobra Ninja doing various things. After the folks went to
bed, the tradition of watching Scream Greats Volume 1: Tom Savini was
generally observed. Either that, or a crappy SLP version of Creepshow I
recorded from Cinemax—mainly because it also had a late night titty-movie on it
called Fiona (which would be one of many recorded during this era).
Classic Halloween memories, man...
Although this golden era didn't last that long, it was
definitely birthplace for everything our mixtapes ended up being—a beautifully
disgusting mess of laughter and horror, stitched together with a massive VHS
collection that started way back then. And for us, Halloween over the years has
become less about candy and more about acting like complete idiots in public
without getting arrested. Well, more accurately stated; the modern Halloween
candy is alcohol, and the results are generally more than we could get away
with any other time of the year. So Happy Halloween to all you party-freaks out
there!”
No more days ‘til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. No more days ‘til Halloween. Silver Shamrock.
