On my commute to work there’s a huge, Victorian stagecoach smack in the middle of someone’s lawn.  A dead person appears to sleep inside of it, his skeletal hands dangling out the window. At night it glows with blue lights.  A few blocks down there’s a shambling haunted house made out of cardboard and splattered with fake blood.  Many other houses have sickly orange lights strung across them, as though they were Christmas lights that came down with malaria.

This has to stop.  Christmas decorations have become increasingly more elaborate over the years--large chemistry sets recreating the eucharist ("blood goes here, wine exits here") and whatnot--but is it really necessary that Halloween follow suit?

These displays aren’t scary; they’re garish. And Halloween needs to be about the scary. It needs to be a quiet, creepy pulse tapping in your veins--not elaborate sets and lightshows.

What I find particularly disturbing is that their creators are the same people who get crazy in December as well.  So they spend tons of time on the Halloween decorations, pull them down, and then spend tons of time on the Christmas decorations.  I would like to visit these people door to door and suggest a variety of hobbies for them, including scrapbooking.  Perhaps they could volunteer at a soup kitchen.  Perhaps they could travel to interesting and exotic parts of the globe, and perhaps not come back.

I live in a condo, but if I owned a house, I would not go to these extremes. I would hang up a few choice decorations designed to elicit sharp feelings of terror--such as paper mache skeletons, the last few Supreme Court opinions authored by Antonin Scalia, and some of my recent attempts at cooking. That’s it. No need to drop three hundred at Home Depot.

Aside from Christmas, I can only think of two holidays that truly deserve this kind of in-depth decoration and design. The first is Arbor Day, because really, who doesn’t want more trees?  The second is Valentine’s Day.  I would greatly enjoy a world where suburban families tried to outdo each other in terms of increasingly romantic, and then erotic, lawn displays: “Honey, you’ll simply have to do better next year. The ‘Honeymoon Night’ scene was impressive last year, but the Parkers have just built recreations of the first seven chapters of the Kama Sutra. I won’t be able to face Phyllis at the PTA meeting if we can’t up our game.”

Much like a salmon swimming upstream, every five years or so I find myself returning to a particular point on the map--Disneyland.  It calls out to me and I must answer.

There is always learning in store at Disneyland. For example--how much will the little clam-chowder-in-a-bread-bowl thingie cost this year? Shouldn’t the “Princess Fantasy Faire” be relocated to a more adult park, based on the name alone? If you speak to the actress playing Jasmine in Arabic, will she be able to answer?

This time, my friend and I found ourselves talking a lot about kids and how one should treat them while at Disneyland. My first rant was about taking very, very young kids in the first place. My niece is four, and she hasn’t gone yet--because, according to my brother, she’ll be too young to remember anything. I agree with this wholeheartedly. What’s up with all the strollers?  Why not stay in your living room, put your babies in a stroller, and spin them around until they’re dizzy? That’s about the equivalent of going to Disneyland as far as they’re concerned.

Also, if you do bring young children, don’t put them in Woody’s Halloween Roundup, which is an arts and crafts tutorial:

You want your kids to compete in the real world. Make them toughen up and ride Space Mountain, not make little crummy arts and crafts.  Disneyland is not a goddamn kindergarten class.

On the flip side, though, don’t scare the hell out of your kids. We were riding Pirates, and my friend overheard the parents telling their four year old: “See over there? It’s a dead person!  See that? They’re shooting at each other?  Oooh, scary!” And then afterward they said “Did you like the ride?” “NO,” screamed the boy and burst into tears. It’s okay to help your children separate fantasy from reality, people. That’s actually part of the parental job description.

Otherwise, kids won’t know whether this sort of image is fantasy or reality:

(Hint: it’s reality.)

My friend and I split on the subject of leashes. Is it okay to keep your kid on one?

She says “no.” Even if the kid doesn’t seem to mind at the time, she feels he will grow up tainted by the experience and feel diminished as a person.  “And become a furry,” I suggested, although she did not think that was inevitable.

However, I am sympathetic to the idea of leashes.  If I ever became a parent, I would be worried that I would lose or misplace my child. I mean, my luggage gets lost half the time; what might happen if I carted a kid around? That said, I do think the leashes are distasteful.  I regard them the same way I regard reality TV show contestants--I wouldn’t want to legislate them out of existence, but I can’t imagine becoming one myself.

And in regards to how old a kid can be before hanging out at Disneyland just becomes weird?

Your mileage may vary, but my vote is 108.

My good friends Adam and Meredith got married yesterday.  They both live in San Francisco, but Adam is from England and Meredith is from Michigan. They placed some helpful signage directly outside of the ceremony area:

It was a very solemn wedding.

Thanks to Baltimore’s Mix 106.5 for apparently reading the below post over the air during their morning show.  And thanks to Mary S. for emailing me and telling me that it happened.

This fulfills one of my long-time fantasies, of having something of mine read to a bunch of commuters and they have no way to escape.  That is, aside from putting in a CD or just turning off the radio, but shut up, this is my fantasy and I make the rules.

One thing I really hate about the current election is the sudden widespread use, by both parties, of the term “Main Street” to refer to average Americans.  I grew up in a town that did have a Main Street, but the primary street was actually called “State Street.” Do any of these politicians know anything about State Street?

My recollections of State Street include cruising up and down it with my friends during high school.  There was never a lamer activity for teenagers than cruising.  We went up, turned around, and went back down, always feeling as though some major piece of our lives was missing.  We couldn’t put it a name to it.  Now, of course, I can--it’s called “The Internet.” But back then we didn’t know that so we just kept cruising.

State Street also had a scary bar called The Forest Club.  Creepy regulars hung out on the street corners and looked at us, their rheumy eyes swimming with alcohol and regret.  Is the new administration going to assist these people?  They are not just Joe Six Pack; they are Joe Carton, Joe Case, and Joe Five Bottles of Jack.  Although actually, later in life I was old enough to go inside the Forest Club and found out they had a shuffleboard, so the place turned out to be not scary at all, but still.

I am not impressed by references to Main Street.  These days I live on Moss Avenue. I would like it if my potential candidate stared directly at the camera and rumbled, in a Harvard baritone, “I intend to help out everyone on Moss Avenue by ensuring that they’re employable for the rest of their lives, except maybe for that one guy who picks up aluminum cans while mumbling to himself--he seems to be all set.”

Or if the candidate turned to the camera, winked, unbuttoned the top three buttons of her blouse, hiked up her skirt, and said “I’m going to make sure that the residents of Moss Avenue have a brand-new Wii, and they’re also invited to my house for a Truck Drivers and Schoolgirls party.  Although, maybe not the guy who picks up aluminum cans while mumbling to himself.”

I have nothing in common with these candidates, which I expected from the outset, but I am tired of them throwing around the term “Main Street” as though they have something in common with me.  In the final analysis, they are all only marginally better than having a Czar or a Pharaoh.