I take pride in the fact that OCTOBERFEAST is an event in which everyone can participate. The FEAST doesn’t discriminate — any fool daring enough to step into its camp grounds is eagerly swallowed alive. Male, female, gay, straight, blind, elderly, mentally challenged, Chinese, Native American, rich or poor — OCTOBERFEAST consumes all.

Today, a less fortunate contingent of the revelers is being represented. I know in my heart of hearts that all you sorry sons of bitches without an adequate allowance know about this treat…

KRACKEL

The KRACKEL is a bar of chocolate enveloping tasty, crispy wafers of rice. First and foremost, the candy is dang delectable. Also, the rice in the bar produce a fun *crunch* with each bite. Yeah, it’s the *crunch* that really defines the KRACKEL, setting it apart from all other Halloween goodies.

Except the much more beloved & recognizable Crunch bar. Oh shit.

Think about it — have you ever heard somebody say, “Damn, I could really go for a KRACKEL right now”? Invariably, the answer is “No.” If anyone craved such a chocolate delectable, she/he would go buy a Nestle Crunch.

Thinking on it now, I’m not even sure that I’ve ever seen a full-bar version of the Poor Man’s Crunch. Could it be possible that Mr. Hershey is so strapped for cash that he can only produce fun-size KRACKEL? Truthfully, I can only recall eating the candy when it was part of my Trick-or-Treating loot or included in a candy grab-bag.

Maybe I’ve mischaracterized the KRACKEL as an outcast; the sad, pimple-faced fat kid crying in the corner of the middle school dance while macho CRUNCH bumpz-n-grindz with Kit Kat. Instead, maybe our crispy friend is just misunderstood; he’s the artistic weirdo who just needs to be given a chance to flourish.

I say fuck the `ole standards. This year, go out of your way to eat a KRACKEL. You don’t need to become politically aware or start recycling or donate time to a charity or help out at a soup kitchen…if you eat a KRACKEL before the end of OCTOBERFEAST you are guaranteed a spot in Heaven.

Oh, and remember not to wolf it down. Savor the candy bar, as demonstrated in the video below:

As intimated in previous post, OCTOBERFEAST is going to get pretty damn metal. Since its inception heavy metal has been identified as sharing genetic material with Halloween — a predilection for the occult, the subversion of the innocent and a profound respect for Satan. Of the metal family tree, the cousin most closely related to Hallow’s Eve would have to be DEATH METAL!

Hailing from the uber-metal Sweden, Opeth are goddamn masters of heavy metal. The mindchild of Mikael Akerfeldt, Opeth can alternatively play the heaviest shit imaginable and ballads that will make you weep. Unlike a lot of metal acts, Akerfeldt’s growls are balanced with a crooning sweet enough to lullaby a baby to sleep. With stylistic versatility, musical virtuosity and a knack for tune-crafting, Opeth are in a league of their own.

Yes, these Swedish rockers are capable of holding their own against the songwriters of most genres. But this is OCTOBERFEAST, so I’m going to focus in on Opeth’s ability to conjure the Devil. In fact, I’m fairly certain that The Grand Conjuration is about just such a divinely-defiant act.

The Grand Conjuration is the seventh track of Ghost Reveries, a loose concept album [arguably] about one man’s emotional distress after killing his own mother.  This track in particular  seems to be some sort of an appeal to the Dark Lord himself.

The hands of Satan
Assembling his flock.
Pale horse rider
Scouring the earth.

Whispered conjuration –
A belief takes form.
Choking hand tapping
The veins in your throat.

His orders in your mouth
A decree for domination.
Beneath the tides of wisdom
Spins the undertow of hate.

I’m not 100% sure what the above lyrics mean, but I know that they’re fucking evil. I can just picture a dark priest from a Stephen King novel reciting those lines as he prepares to sacrifice a school bus of Girl Scouts.

As an added bonus, the music video for The Grand Conjuration is a perfect treat for any OCTOBERFEAST evening. In addition to the standard “dudes in an empty warehouse” motif, the video features trash-can fires, rats, and interrogations conducted by a creep who looks like a  cross between Zorro and Frank Miller’s The Spirit (yes — Frank Miller’s, not Will Eisner’s).

Also, because Gene Hoglan was touring with Opeth at the time he makes an appearance. An automatic +5 points.

I’m not sure if the Devil listens to music. But if He does, I’d like to think He’s an Opeth fan.

OCTOBERFEAST just wouldn’t be the same without the lovely recess that is Columbus Day.

Personally, I couldn’t care less about Christopher Columbus himself. Yeah, his travels really paved the way for European exploration of the New World. I guess that’s pretty cool. But it’s kind of hard to overlook the raping/pillaging/plundering aspects of his genocide. So in that regard, he’s pretty lame.

More important than the Christopher Columbus is the holiday bearing his name. I am a firm believer that human beings need days off. Without the occasional three-day weekend, society is apt to implode. If the only way to officially cancel a workday is to replace it with a bogus holiday, then by all means go for it.

The usefulness of Columbus Day reveals itself it many different ways. For college students, this first three-day weekend of the semester provides an excuse to travel back home, attempt a road trip or just enjoy an extra day of binge drinking.

For sports fans, Columbus Day provides an otherwise absent opportunity to nurse post-game hangovers. This is  an appreciated prospect, considering that the MLB playoffs are in full-swing, NFL action is heating up, the NHL season is beginning and the NBA preseason is looking to come to a close.

And for many more, Columbus Day is a chance to enjoy autumn. With a full day’s freedom, it is a lot easier to plan a trip to an apple orchard or pumpkin patch. Living in the suburbs, it seems to me that this is the day that the neighbors start tossing scarecrows and goofy Halloween decorations onto their front porches and lawns. I’m not sure if agricultural competitions are the October-thing-to-do everywhere, but residents of the greater Boston region use this day to get their asses to Topsfield.

Truthfully, I always try to use the holiday as an extra day of rest. While I always find OCTOBERFEAST to be the  most pleasurable of all seasons, it is also generally when I’m at my busiest. Today I made a point to lounge around, eating too much food and trying to catch up on some television I’ve been missing; I can’t say that the combination of caramel apples and Californication is a bad one. I haven’t been terribly productive — and this is a design with which I am comfortable.

In the case that you had to work today, I offer my sympathies. At the very least you can take comfort in the fact that we’re well on our way to Halloween.

Oh, and just in case you’re unfamiliar with the exploits of Christopher Columbus – the video below is a hard-hitting documentary about the explorer.

Since the dawn of the cinema, an incalculable number of feature films have been produced. Some are good, others are atrocious, and most are some shade of cookie-cutter meh. The members of this homogenous body are usually enjoyed at the time and then forgotten for the rest of eternity. And I’m fine with that — more than fine with it, really.

I have a problem when it seems as though people forget about quality pictures.

There are a lot of movies that deal with ghouls, ghosts, and all the other staples of the supernatural world around which we base Halloween. But I have a terrible feeling (about this!) that today’s heaping of OCTOBERFEAST has been largely forgotten by pop culture. I can’t remember the last time I saw this movie on television or referenced in a bullshit Top 10 Best Something or Others list. And it’s a damn shame because the movie is a wonderful intersection of comedy, horror, zany special effects, and Michael Keaton.

I’m talking about Beetlejuice.

Let’s  hop in the Delorean and go back to a time  before  Tim Burton only made movies  so that studios would  cut fat checks to Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. Back in the day, Burton made some genuinely unique movies that weren’t afraid to take chances. I dare you to watch Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and suggest that it is anything other than an extraordinary journey, told with a self-awareness and darkness that only reinforces the humor. In fact, I probably don’t have to tell you to watch Pee-Wee because you most likely remember it.

And so I return to Beetlejuice, a strangely overlooked classic. This movie sees the young couple of Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis just trying to enjoy their time in a relaxing rural home. But since this is a movie and therefore requires a conflict, they die. Shortly after they bite the dust, Baldwin and Davis realize that they’re actually ghosts! Unfortunately, their house has been sold to a couple of new-age yuppie scumbags and their goth teenage daughter named Winona Ryder.

Befriending Winona, Alex and Geena try to figure out a way to scare the yuppies into leaving. With no luck on their own, they look to the assistance of Betelgeuse — a perverted ghost whose business lay in conducting reverse-exorcisms. Even with his relatively limited screen time, Michael Keaton shines as the self-proclaimed ghost with the most.

Betelgeuse is a crass, vulgar misogynist with whom you cannot help but laugh. He’s fucking hysterical. When questioned about his qualifications in convincing living beings to vacate the premises, Betelgeuse retorts:

Ah. Well… I attended Juilliard… I’m a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague and had a pretty good time during that. I’ve seen the EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE IT… NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU’RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY… NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I’m qualified?

Also, it was because of Beetlejuice that I learned there is a time and place for swear-words. No more than four years old, I emulated the title character by kicking the air and proclaiming, “Nice fucking model!” My mom told me that I shouldn’t have used the sentence’s middle word…but she did so with a smile.

"I gotta show up at shopping centers for openings and sign autographs and shit like that and it makes my life a hell. Okay? A living hell."

I’m not doing this movie justice. Just trust me on this one — Beetlejuice rules. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and buy/rent/download a copy and enjoy. If you have seen it, give it the respect it deserves. The fact that Beetlejuice is forgotten while Rob Zombie’s Halloween remakes are the objects of salivation brings tears to my eyes.

Believe it or not, The Simpsons was once a great television show. In fact, I would argue that in its prime (somewhere in the mid-to-late 1990’s) The Simpsons was fucking untouchable. Marge vs. the Monorail? Twenty-Two Short Films About Springfield? The Itchy & Scratchy and Poochy Show? Episodes like these embody the spirit of the sitcom at its absolute finest.

So while its epic nose-dive has been enough to keep me away for the last decade, I still feel warm, fuzzy things for The Simpsons. Some of the warmest and fuzziest of these funny feelings are connected to Treehouse of Horror — the show’s annual Halloween special.

Every year, Treehouse of Horror would take everyone’s favorite family from Evergreen Terrace through parodies of horror & science fiction movies, strangely murderous tales and other similarly bizarre romps. It was insanity — the residents of Springfield killing one another before my very eyes! I guess part of the charm was that for one episode every season, the best show on television took it upon itself to make kooky stories about the zany shit I love.

Also, Treehouse of Horror always featured Kang & Kodos, two of the best alien characters of all-time. I think it was in the `96 episode that they inhabited the bodies of Bill Clinton & Bob Dole, then ran against each other for president. Genius.

Kang & Kodos hoping to hitch a ride.

Maybe I’ve constructed a false memory, but I really think that I remember coming home from trick-or-treating and watching Treehouse of Horror. As an eight-year-old, there was no better feeling than stuffing my face full of candy, paying my dad off with Almond Joys to look the other way, and watching Homer Simpson do silly shit. That was the life.

I’m not so sure that The Simpsons will ever reclaim the glory it once possessed. But at least once a year, when the pumpkins are screaming in terror as their captors approach them with kitchen-knives in hand, I’ll think of Treehouse of Horror and smile.

Before I even start tearing into this week’s brew review, I have to pause a moment to issue a statement of gratitude. Without the assistance of my good buddy Riff-Daddy, this week’s entry would never have been possible. Riff-Daddy took it upon himself to drive all the way to Troy, New York just to pick up a six-pack for me. He totally wasn’t there anyways to visit his girlfriend. He told me that he was just sitting around in his underwear watching episodes of Charles in Charge and he thought, “Damn, I should drive four hours each-way to help out Pepsibones.”

So it is with the utmost sincerity that I thank you, Riff-Daddy. You’re a good guy. I love you.

Ok, transitioning away from traces of homoeroticism and into a beer review…This week sees me guzzling Oatmeal Stout from Brown’s Brewing Company. I first encountered this brand when Riff-Daddy and I, on our way to a concert, stopped into their signature taproom in Troy. Their drafts nearly blew my shoes off. Seriously, if I hadn’t made sure to securely fasten the Velcro straps I would’ve been in big, big trouble.

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Over the course of the last week or so I’ve been rereading Arthur Miller’s quasi-historical The Crucible in preparation to teach it. I had forgotten the density and poignancy of the play — Miller’s work is pretty much a head-on condemnation of our current power structure, criticizing the fact that it is based on racism, sexism, paranoia, religiously justified oppression and the process of othering.

Of course, I’m going to have to water down all of these ideas as I attempt to present them to a body of fifteen-year-olds who couldn’t care less. And while I abhor the concept of compromising sick ideas, I am willing to do so as long as I keep a promise to myself. No matter how little interest these teenagers show, I am going to ensure that they walk away from The Crucible knowing one thing for sure:

Giles Corey is the motherfucking man.

In true, historically-verified terms, Giles was an old-ass man accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. When you think of him, think of that bad-ass geezer who isn’t afraid to speak his mind or take a stand. In Arthur Miller’s words, “Giles Corey, eighty-three…He is knotted with muscle, canny, inquisitive, and still powerful.”

According to Puritan Law, any man who would not plead either guilty or innocent to an accusation could not be tried in court. Giles refused to plead innocent because he didn’t want to subject himself to an unjust trial and he wouldn’t plead guilty because he wasn’t a goddamn witch. In such instance, the Puritan authorities would lay a suspect on his back and then place as much weight on him as required to elicit a plea (thereby justifying a trial).

But Giles never succumbed to the (literal) pressure. Subjected to this torture for days, Corey never issued a statement regarding the accusation of witchcraft. Elizabeth Proctor from The Crucible clarifies:

He were not hanged. He would not answer aye or nay to his indictment; for if he denied the charge they’d hang him surely, and auction out his property. So he stand mute, and died Christian under the law. And so his sons will have his farm. It is the law, for he could not be condemned a wizard without he answer the indictment, aye or nay.

In fact, the only words slipping out his mouth during the entire endeavor were “More weight.” Giles Corey is the definitive old-man bad-ass.

Found  below are a campy recreation of Giles’ fatal pressing and the music video for Unearth’s Giles.

The OCTOBERFEAST has proven to be a true labor of love. When I created the general outline I had no clue that I would find myself so bitterly conflicted about some of the specific details. Looking towards today’s post, I was at a loss. Perhaps I had originally left my schedule partially incomplete with the faith of later discovering a naturally fitting entry. I couldn’t help but feel my stomach bottom out when I looked at the calendar and saw:

October 8^th — Iron Maiden — (Figure out song later).

Fuck.

I find it foolish to argue against the notion that Iron Maiden is the most legendary of active metal bands. With a career spanning over thirty years, one would expect them to be mere shadows of their former selves. Not the case. Unlike Metallica, Iron Maiden can still put on a live performance without butchering the songs or relying on theatrics. And while Maiden’s recent studio albums aren’t their best efforts, they’re hardly the self-parodies of which Megadeth seems so fond. These are old dudes that can still actually lay it down.

With  an enormous repertoire — fifteen studio albums — how can I choose one song for Omega-Level’s seasonal celebration? Thematically, the occult is embedded into almost every single piece of Iron Maiden’s catalogue. Therefore, the inclusion of any one track necessarily results in the exclusion of all sorts of songs about demons and pharaohs and warlords (Oh My!). Simply put, the task at hand is daunting.

But I’m no sissy — I’m the Grand Admiral of OCTOBERFEAST! And this means that I’m the guy who has to make the tough decisions. So here we go. Even though almost any track could fit, I think that one of Iron Maiden’s songs works especially well:

The Number of the Beast

Sharing its name with the album on which Bruce Dickinson made his debut. The Number of the Beast is one of Iron Maiden’s most recognizable hymns. Iron Maiden create more of an epic journey in Beast’s five minutes than many bands could manage in twenty. The band delivers a haunting introduction, soaring melodies, Harris’ signature bass lines and the breathtaking vocals for which all of Brazil would scream. Musically, The Number of the Beast is the ideal towards which all rockers strive.

More importantly, The Number of the Beast is a perfect anthem for Hallow’s Eve. Before any music starts, the listener is treated to a ghoulish voice announcing —

Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea

For the Devil sends the
Beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short…
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the Beast for it is a human number —

Its number is six hundred and sixty six.

Every time that I hear that, I begin to think that I should forfeit agnosticism and begin worshipping Satan.

Once the song kicks in, Dickinson sings us through hellish landscapes and evil intentions. The chorus (which plays great live as a sing-a-long) screams “666 — The number of the Beast // 666 — the one for you and me!”

You should check out the music video. It is a seriously awesome combination of performance, clips from cheesy horror movies and an appearance by Eddie!

Iron Maiden – The Number of the Beast

Halloween is all about candy — candy corn, candied apples, free candy, and sometimes even candy girls. It’s wonderful! Provided the shady neighbors aren’t slipping crack cocaine into the trick-or-treat bags or luring children into their drug dens, the prospect of free candy is truly a beautiful thing.

But I feel the need to pause for a moment. I mean, I can’t go on eating candy forever! That’s kid stuff. I’m almost twenty-three goddamn years old. It might be time to grow up and start thinking about being an adult. That, of course, means doing adult things like wearing a tie during the work week and eating a well-balanced diet.

And in case you’ve been out of the loop for the last bajillion years or so, a well-balanced diet starts with a nutritious, complete breakfast. Typing this phrase into the patented PEPSIBONES-INTERNET SEARCH ENGINE, I found the perfect foodstuff to get my day going:

Boo Berry.

The flavor is roughly equivalent to what you would be left with if you dumped a pound of blueberries into a bowl of sugar and then took them right out. The mascot is a (mentally challenged?) ghost with a hat. And, as stated in the 1973 advertisement posted below, Boo Berry is both nutritious and part of a complete breakfast.

I mean, seriously, what’s not to love?

Effective immediately, Boo Berry is to be recognized as the official breakfast of OCTOBERFEAST!

Ben Bishop is a sick artist out of Portland, Maine that I met at a Boston comic convention last year. Although strapped for cash at the time, Ben cut me a deal and I walked away with a sketchbook. I was so impressed by the work within that I ended up ordering Nathan the Caveman, his self-published debut. If you ever get the chance, check it out because it is an extremely strong first-effort, a genuinely affective love story spanning across the history of humanity.

But even if  you’d rather do yourself a disservice and not read Nathan the Caveman, you can still help out Ben Bishop. Ben is submitting a t-shirt design (as seen above) to Threadless.com. However, he needs votes in order to stand any chance  of having it  printed. As he stated in an email to his mailing list:

hey everyone, PLEASE help me out and VOTE on my TSHIRT DESIGN! if it wins it gets printed and sold and   i could get $2,000 , which i could REALLY USE! haha. its very simple, all you have to do is follow the instructions after this link! please please please. if you know anyone please have them vote as well! thanks so much!
http://threadless.com/submission/234157/killagorilla

—
– Ben Bishop

So there you have it. Help the dude out – he’s a great artist who deserves support (and could use some cash). Also, in case you couldn’t tell – that shirt design is fucking rad.

And if this Bishop’s t-shirt gets printed, maybe we could convince this Bishop to loan us his shirt: