Why I hate Halloween

I hate Halloween.

I’ve always hated Halloween. It’s in my least favorite month. Of course now that I live in Los Angeles, I guess I don’t have a least favorite month. October used to be my least favorite month when I lived in Minnesota because it’s the beginning of the end of nice weather. October in Minnesota is usually cold and grey and dark, with six more months of cold, grey and dreary weather to follow.

I hate Halloween for many reasons. One is it was almost always freezing when I was going trick or treating in Minnesota. You had to bundle up, so no one could see your costume anyway. I remember dressing up as the devil, Superman, a left over 70s person (using my dad’s old clothes), a hippie, a ghost, a vampire and some other things I’ve forgotten. I never got to go as my favorite choice Wonder Woman, although I did wear a schmata on my head for a long time as a little boy so that I could pretend I had long flowing hair like Kelly Garret (Jaclyn Smith) from my favorite show “Charlie’s Angels”. I wore a towel on my head with a belt on top to keep the “hair” from falling off my head. I don’t know which disturbed my parents more, me wanting to have long pretty hair or that fact that I also looked like I was trying to dress like an Arab.

I’ve always hated carnivals, amazement parks, the circus, fairs, and those sorts of things. I can remember my grandmother taking me to Valley Fair (an amusement park in Minnesota, not sure if it’s national) when I was maybe 6 or 7 and I didn’t want to ride on the rides and wanted to leave. She yelled at me, telling me that I was not a normal kid and why couldn’t she have a normal grandchild. I was her only grandchild, so she was constantly frustrated.

When I first went to Las Vegas to visit my Grandma, (this was the first time I had ever left Minnesota; I was 13) she took me to the Hoover Dam and to Circus Circus. I hated them both and told her so. We had a big fight that day. She and my mother always loved carnivals and events like that. They also both loved women in prison movies and cafeteria food.

On Halloween day you were supposed to come dressed to school in your costume. I refused to wear my costume because I didn’t like my classmates knowing who I wanted to be. I still don’t like to wear costumes. I always feel stupid in a costume. I was always the only kid who came to school not in a costume.

My mother had a Halloween tradition of scaring me and eating most of my candy. She would wait until I got home from school to scare me. Usually she wasn’t there when I got home from school. She’d hide and when I came home, she’d either jump out at me dressed as witch or I’d find her at the bottom of the stairs covered in fake blood, pretending to be dead. I never found any of that very amusing. I also didn’t like it when we’d play the blind game and I’d be the blind person and she’d walk me into things, but that’s not a Halloween story, that was the rest of the year.

After scaring me, she’d invite her mother over and we’d scare grandma. Mm mother would say she had to go downstairs to get something. She’d make a lot of noise like she fell down the stairs. Grandma would rush downstairs and discover my mother “dead”. Just when she would get close enough to touch my mother, my mother would rise up and laugh. It really made Grandma angry.

After I’d come in from a cold night of trick or treating, usually by myself or with some weird friend I found, my mother would take my bag of candy and tell me she had to "inspect it for razor blades and poison". I’d go to bed and in the morning, the crappy candy and only apples would be left. The good stuff would be already eaten by my mother or stashed away somewhere.

This year I will be on my way to Austin on Halloween day. I arrive that night. It will be the first time I’ve ever been to Austin or Texas. Texas scares me, but I’ve heard such great things about Austin. If I like it, I will move there and I will get on with my life.

I tried to find a Halloween type song, but hell, it’s not even Halloween so today the song is “Tomorrow, Wendy” by Concrete Blonde. This is an amazing live version from their 1994 “Still in Hollywood” CD. I’m still in Hollywood, so I know how that feels. The song was written by Andy Preiboy, the same person who wrote another one of my all time favorite songs “Loving the Highway Man” (posted on this blog in September). I love the vocals and the lyrics of this song.

Concrete Blonde—Tomorrow Wendy (live)

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43273994057dac

“I told the priest
don't count on any second coming
god got his ass kicked
the first time he came down here slumming
he had the balls to come
the gall to die and then forgive us
no, i don't wonder why
i wonder what he thought it would get us.”