Welcome back to Annie's Acropolis, my virtual Halloween theme park which I guess is technically open year round since I don't ever delete the blogs. You're currently in the Camino Real, a café on the edge of desperation courtesy of Tennessee Williams. I've selected it as my central hub for you to wait in while the other attractions open.
A little back story: Camino Real was a Williams play that I got to act in in 1993. It's a combination nightmare/allegory/we-don't-really-know-since-Williams-is-dead production that kind of defies explanation. My character Lord Mulligan died halfway through the play, and then I got to play the corpse of the lead character towards the end. It's strange how my college friends who were also in it and I used to love hating on the play, but it somehow left a real impression on me. Evoking famous figures like Don Quixote, Casanova, Lord Byron, Esmeralda (of the Hunchback of Notre Dame fame), Kilroy (of...'was here' fame, perhaps?), and the occasional appearance of possibly zombies, kind of robots, and an offstage plane crash, it was all over the place. I can't help but wonder what it might look like if it were adapted into a video game.
But why should I try to help out Mr. Williams's writing career when I have my own work to promote? Here are links to all of my past blog posts that I can argue are Halloween related, with a few more to come throughout the month. Please enjoy these attractions!
Walk Through Spook Houses: The bread and butter of all Halloween tourist traps.
MTV's House of Horror: Journey through the nightmares of the golden age of music videos!
The Maul of America: Just a fun day through a shopping mall. It's not our fault that Universal's Halloween Horror Nights icons have taken up residence in it.
The Checkered Game of Death: A tour of the home of Mrs. Parker and her sons, who love classic board games as much as the next children. Maybe even more.
Breakout Rooms: Want something a little more interactive? Try not to get lost in these puzzle-based stories.
Thinking Without Portals: No Portal gun, just you, GLaDOS, and a virus that mustn't be unleashed. Mustn't it not? No, it mustn't.
The Zodiac's Labyrinth: Signs, signs, everywhere a sign! And it's not just your sign you have to worry about, it's the whole horoscope! Your fortune awaits.
The Twelfth Toll: Pursued by one stalker through the woods, you take refuge in an old house. Get in. Get out. But be warned, the inhabitants might be even worse than whatever is already chasing you.
Live-ish Music: Dungeons and corridors not your thing? Why not relax and let the pros (and amateurs) entertain you?
Welcome to My Nightmare 1&2: Nobody does horror like Alice Cooper! Sit back and hear the tale of Stephen spanning through both Welcome to My Nightmare albums.
Bat Out of Hell: Two albums not enough for you? How about three? Come hear the whole Wagnerian opera trilogy in the amphitheater. Three out of three ain't bad.
The Halloween Soundtrack: I did a deep search to bring you a few spooky anthems that don't usually show up on most Halloween soundtracks but are certainly as ghost worthy as the latest edition of The Monster Mash.
The Outdoor Theatre: Let's watch some movies together! And then tear them apart!
The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The original! The music still rocks and the plot still befuddles.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show remake: The remake! A chance to fix the issues of the original, and they totally didn't do that.
The Saw franchise: A look back at the whole series minus the 2017 film. Gory? Yes. But it could have been worse. And then it got worse.
And a few film montages. The best horror theme songs, and the best death scenes on film.
The Children's Pavilion: Entertainment just for all the stupid little kids.
Top Ten Scooby-Doo stories: The title is pretty self-explanatory, I don't know why you're even reading this. But thank you for your thorough attention.
Scooby-Doo's Unsolved Mystery: Better known as my five chapter Scooby-Doo fan fiction. I'm proud of it. You should read it. Right now.
Maleficent (a tribute): She's awesome. She knows it. And deep down inside, so do you.
And lastly, a few trick or treating safety tips to at least keep you from getting punched in the face.
The Wooly Side's Museum: A personal collection of stories, real and mostly made up.
Decorating the Lawn: My favorite Halloween memory.
A Thousand Words: A gothic flash fiction piece that Edgar Allen Poe never wrote. I have to do everything around here.
Grand Exit: A comedy sketch with a mummy. What more do you need?
Stakes and Ratings: Even vampires have nightmares.
Review of The Ogre: A review of a silent film that I had the pleasure of acting in. Includes my famous "I am So Ugly" song.
The Treehouse of Horror Marathon: I got frustrated with the crap The Simpsons had been giving us for Halloween as of late, so I drew up my own version. My Exorcist parody predated theirs by two years. In your face!
Missed Direction: A Carousel story where a paranormal debunker goes up against a fake psychic who's a little smarter than he is.
Return to Nevermore: Pretty much this blog from last year, but with my Poe version of Janet Jackson's "Black Cat".
13 Hitchhiking Ghosts: Speaking of Disney, here is my experienced collection of the creepiest things from Disney's theme parks.
The Haunted Hayride: And finally, a laid back tour of my childhood nightmares, with a discussion on fear and a haunting children's rhyme for added measure.
Now then.
I don't imagine a whole lot of you are going to even be viewing this particular blog post, much less sticking with it all the way down to this point. But for those of you who have: first off, thank you. You rock. Secondly, when I first started my blog back in 2014, I had created a personal cutoff of 238 posts. 238 was the number of a bus I rode as a child and subsequently adopted as my lucky number. With that esoteric limit in mind, I thought "238 is a decent run for a blog site. I imagine I'll be out of things to say by then".
Well, it turns out that this particular blog happens to be my 238th post.
Am I out of things to say? Maybe not quite. I've been dealing with a lot more writer's block this year than ever before, but it still feels incomplete (that damn Disney fan fiction is only half written, for starters). I don't know how many more posts I have in me, or how much longer I'll be doing this, or if there's even an end in sight at all. So I won't say "Here's to another 238," or commit to a full 814 (another bus I rode on), but suffice to say this blog post represents a monument that really only means something to me.
I knew it was coming up, and I expected I would do something kind of self-indulgent for it as a celebration. As it just so happened to coincide with my annual Halloween kickoff I thought it appropriate to go full on nobody's-going-to-understand-this-but-me mode. Which brings me back to The Camino Real.
As I said earlier, I was in the play in 1993. Peter Gabriel's Us album had come out the previous year, which included my favorite of his songs "Steam". Being a college student, I would look for any reason to postpone actual schoolwork in favor of feeling like I was working on something. And one of those 'things' was a parody of "Steam" which summarized the 'plot' of Camino Real as best as Gabriel's rhyme scheme would allow.
Thus, I give you a link to the song, and the my lyrics with which you're more than welcome to replace the originals. The rest is all on you.
Camino Real
Turn back!
Ransack!
They turned
a Trique into a rug
That can hug
The street
Retreat
It’s a dream
With what
appeal? Camino Real
Seal the
fountain turning green
And it’s dry
Pass the Ovaltine
Go call a
student from Ahmed.
We’ll have
to cut him in half.
I hope he
won’t laugh
Or I will
too
Your knees
at center scrape the stage.
We’re
stranded in each other’s space
I wish I'd brought my mace
Disgrace is
blue
A sour meal –Camino
Real
Steal the
play behind the screen
Pour the
wine
Dress for
Halloween
Abstract
The lunar
restoration of virgin-hood
Is a good
Career
Sincere
An endless
spiel –Camino Real
Deal the
Queen of cuckoldry
Get her high
Off the potpourri
I think they’ll
both crash the plane
Let her go
to Bide-a-While
No man is an
aisle
And I’m here
too
Don’t ask
her Nursie where she’s been
The king has
traded in his throne
So leave the
guy a loan
An IOU
A broken
wheel –Camino Real
Reeling down
a steep ravine
Here I lie
Let the
cleaners clean
Patsy down,
what’s up Jacques
A. Ratt,
vacant mat
See the
Fugitivo dive and splat
White
shipped, cash gypped
Cabaret is in-equipped
Kilroy’s
killed, his heart is ripped
I can’t see
my f**king script
I’m in deep
trouble
Once Camille
has returned
But I’m
moving through the snow
And I haven’t
ever learned to ski
Don Qui!
And how you
feel Camino Real
Is real as
making desperate scenes
Never write
On
amphetamines
Where is the
greyhound depot?
The violets have broken the rocks
Mr. Gutman!
Saint Mary have me pumping, thumping,
Clumping, slumping, bumping, jumping
Off the balcony
Hear me scream -landing
Give me a beam I'm trotting now
Into the light!
Exit stage right!
I'm living the dream...
Saint Mary have me pumping, thumping,
Clumping, slumping, bumping, jumping
Off the balcony
Hear me scream -landing
Give me a beam I'm trotting now
Into the light!
Exit stage right!
I'm living the dream...
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