Tuesday, December 15, 2009

A Christmas Poem

This was written by my Grandmother under the pseudonym "Bea Kay" several years back when she was still actively writing. I have a collection of her poems that have never been published before and am attempting to gather them together into a self-published book. A lot of them were written particularly for her children and grandchildren, so perhaps this would be a great gift to the family next year...


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Sad Clown


I was sifting through some old pictures that I scanned for my parents the other day, to see if I could find some old Halloween ones from when I was a kid and found this cute one from when I had to have been about a year and a half or so...

This is clearly not a happy clown...

Obviously I don't remember being dressed up as such, but knowing that I never, as a child or adult, had much tolerance for having my face painted up for Halloween (still don't), that might have contributed to this bought of melancholy...

Of course, having battled depression for years and seeing my other pics as a kid and not really smiling, could be a sign of the fun I would be having with my emotions! Joy

Friday, November 20, 2009

Ah pity da foo...

Not really Halloween related...


  Recently, in World of Warcraft, they added an NPC called Night Elf Mohawk (actually several of them) stationed near the starting area of the various races. By chatting with this Mohawk, he gives you an item to use at your discretion: the Night Elf Mohawk Grenade. By using said Grenade on fellow players, you give all within range the "Mohawked" buff and also a Night Elf Mohawk head. Lasts about an hour or until the next time you die.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Monday, November 16, 2009

Gahan Wilson


Some of the art of Gahan Wilson was featured on the Golden Age Comic Book Stories blog last month. I just found it and thought it cool. I do remember seeing some of these, possibly in old magazine or on the web in the past. He has a very distinctive style and sense of humor

Friday, November 13, 2009

Finding Motivation

Tittivillus Web Comic
Why do we do it? What makes normally sane individuals spend countless hours in their garage/basement/workshops creating props of nameless horrors that are used once a year to scare the @#$% out of kids and adults, then spend the rest of the year mouldering in the corner of some dank basement?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Braaaaiinss...


Release the inner-undead in yourself! It's liberating to not have to worry about how you look, how you feel... and tiresome things like breathing... You too can lose weight on the Zombie plan! Shed those unwanted pounds as the fat literal falls off your body as you shuffle mindlessly down the street in search of low-calorie, high-IQ brains. That can be yours for the low, low cost... of your life!

I found this site a little while back called Zombieland: Zombify Yourself. It's apparently put together as a promotion for the movie Zombieland. I haven't seen the movie (yet), but it stars Woody Harrelson, so it's probably good in its badness...

Thursday, November 5, 2009

First Annual Pumpkin Burn



Heretofore, our traditional method for getting rid of our post-Halloween Jack O'Lanterns has been the old "throw it in the woods and wait for it to rot in the springtime" method. And it worked. The pumpkins usually froze whole throughout the wintertime and in spring, they would melt into the forest floor like so much orange ooze. However, this always seemed to me to lack that bit of closure for the Halloween season...

But while perusing PumpkinRot's Blog a while back, he posted a link to some photos of an artist doing something I'd not done before: burning one's Jack O'Lantern...

Hmm.... Halloween + Fire? Truly a winning combination...

Thus was born the 2009 1st Annual Pumpkin Burn!

 Note: click the image above for more photos...

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Photos from beyond....

Halloween has come and gone. November 1st is kinda like Christmas afternoon. The excitement is done and all you really get to look forward too is a big clean up and packing stuff away for next year... :-P


Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Raven

by Eager Allen Poe




Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.'

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Haunting My Childhood


Way back in time, when this ancient ghoul was but a smaller ghoul, there was an awesome TV show in Northern Michigan, on Channel 4 out of Traverse City. It featured this sinister figure introducing cheesy horror movies ("Ben", "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and the like). This was way back before cable, and before MST3K. Originally it was on late, late on Saturday nights, but later it moved to Sunday afternoons. Count Zappula (aka Don Melvoin) and his little dog "Igor". Besides the movies, I remember the Count and Igor doing silly skits on either side of the commercial breaks, and reading fan letters. Unfortunately, the Count has passed beyond the veil, but he will always live on in the twisted hearts and perverted minds of his fans.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Don't Go Into The Light...!


Catching your breath as you chase helplessly through this unending night, a light through the trees catches your eye. Praying for salvation you plunge headlong into the thicket once more, heedless of the danger, until you are brought up short by the eerie spectacle before you.

You find not assistance, but an eldritch swirl in the forest. A sanguine vortex manifests within the weald, swirling and rippling, silent as the grave. Every impulse in your lower brain screams to flee, for this is the antithesis of life itself, a beckon ingress to the world of the dead and damned, but your legs find themselves as rooted into the very earth below. Your eye is captivated by the dance and sway of the light orbiting and swirling that ebon center, and you feel your life's journey nearing its slow, torturous end.

You find yourself having moved from your stationery position ever closer to the void, but not remembering taking a step. Reaching out a quavering hand, you yearn for release and the cold quiet extinction. It's only the snap of a branch from another arrival to this portal that breaks the spell, and you recoil in horror and begin to flee once more...

Lasers are really, really cool...

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

More Stones!

I found the work on the Elvis gravestone wasn't as difficult as I thought. My neighbors kindly gave me some spare 2" foam they had lying around (they do diaramas of castles, etc) and I've begun work on converting a lot of my older stones into this newer style.

The oldest stones are also 2" foam, being the classical rounded-over gravestone style with my witty sayings painted on. These I am doing a recessed carving. On the new foam, I'm doing them in the style I did the King's, with the area around the lettering being recesses.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Tripping over stones...

The grapping branches of the dark trees release their fettering hold as wood gives way to a clearing in your flight. Thinking only of escape, notice is not given to the fixed stones at your feet, until the solid shock of impact is felt, and the ground rushes up to meet you.

Gasping for breath, you climb to your knees to examine the object that brought your exodus from this night to a halt. The rough feel of cut stone greets your hands as you search through the air. A light is risked to examine the object, and names and dates, rudely cut into the stone appear, indicating a gravestone.

Casting about with your dimming light, more and more cut stones reveal themselves all about. But the residents are not quiet in their repose. Indignant on this night from the intrustion of the living, they surrender their rest and begin to push their way up to pushing this interloper...



Years ago, before the kids, my wife and I bought a house in Dearborn, MI.

Friday, September 11, 2009

This monster is growing out of control...

Your skin tingled and the hairs of your arm stood erect as you beheld the sight from your hiding spot. The witch had returned to her seething cauldron and begun chanting in some foul tongue not meant for Man's ear nor should have ever been uttered in the light of the brightest day, let alone this cold dark eve.  The ground convulsed in agony and was rent asunder. Upwards from their dark prison spilt these ashen and phantasmal denizens of another, alien world. Escape seemed to be their goal, but they were soon transfixed by the uttering and swaying of the witch. Massing together, they were powerless against her trance and were compelled to serve her will...



It seemed like a simple project...

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Through the Stygian Shadows...

Following the fetid stream meandering the dark wood, through the tangled, grabbing underbrush that urges you to proceed not further, you emerge upon a tableau that forever sears itself unto your immortal being. Between the tangled limbs and scratching branches, and through the stygian shadows dance the loathsome populace, both large and small, of this very night of nights.


Fear upwells within your breast as the beat, beat, beat of that damnable, unruly drum pounds in your ears, like your heart about to burst from fear, but there is nowhere to turn to, no where to run. The dancers gimble and gyre around you, twist and twirling, calling and beckoning. First one step, then another, until, you too, are caught up in the fray.


Dread and dismay, one by one, whirl you away through the dark of the night and through that rude wood, until the dawn, but there is no return. There is only the crazed drum, drum, drum in your ears as your very soul faces away into its grim recesses...