Halloween. It's Bigger Than Christmas

It is stating the obvious to say that Halloween has grown leaps and bounds in popularity, beyond anything I remember as a kid, when our flammable costumes came in boxes and could be thrown on in less than 30 seconds. Today's Halloween isn't just for kids anymore. In fact, I think adults get into it more than kids do, especially here in New York. Halloween is a huge deal here. Something about New York and costumes just feels right. Unlike the burbs where everyone has to drive to someone's house for party, here, the parties are on the streets. There's the Greenwich Village Parade, of course, which is worth seeing at least once. And on Halloween in New York, it's not at all unusual to see people walking around, riding the subways, and sitting in restaurants having dinner in costume. It's quite the spectacle and yet another thing I love about living here. This Halloween falls on a Friday, so I'm afraid to ponder what tonight is going to be like.

I'll say it: Halloween is now bigger than Christmas. And it's starting to catch up to New Year's. In fact, more and more, I'm starting to see Halloween and New Year's merging into twin events, separated only by a couple of months. More New Year's events have become costumed affairs and more Halloween events carry the fanfare that was once unique to New Year's Eve. And now, if you have no Halloween plans, be prepared to feel like an outcast. Last Saturday, I was visiting KB and someone asked me what I was going to be for Halloween. For a second I felt this bizarre sense of obligation, like during Christmas, when I have to buy presents for everyone in my family or I'll look cheap and unloving. As Christmas has now become about buying presents, Halloween has become about finding the funniest, sexiest, or most clever costume possible, dressing up and going to a Halloween Party. So when she asked me and I said "Um, nothing," she looked at me like I'd just dropped a deuce on KB's couch. I felt like a loser. Truth is, I have an emergency "go to" costume or two somewhere in my closet that I can break out at a moment's notice, though they'll probs need some serious ironing. But I hadn't been invited to a party (by that point) and so, I'd made no Halloween plans. But her reaction, which was by no means unusual, struck me as kind of funny. Everyone is expected to kind of do something on Halloween now, especially this year, when it falls on a Friday.

I love Halloween. It's one of my favorite.... what? It's not a holiday. We're not taking the day off or anything. What the hell is Halloween, now that I think about it? All Hallow's Eve. There's an origin to it that if I wasn't in a hurry, I'd look up and tell you. I know it's a pagan holiday. Christmas is also a pagan holiday. Those pagans, you have to love them. They really know how to enjoy life, don't they? More people should be pagans. But maybe we already are. You don't hear too many Christians talk about it, but a LOT of their most sacred rituals and holidays have pagan origins. And "pagan" doesn't mean Satanic, for goodness sakes. Look it up.

Anyway, I'm off topic. I love Halloween, and this year, because it falls on a Friday, I'd planned to get more into it than I have in recent years. Last Sunday, Sister T., brother-in-law @L, and his and my friend, Hunter E. Thompson (not his real name), went to see a documentary on Keith Haring which is playing on 12th Street (it was quite good actually, if you like Haring and want to experience what life in New York was like in the late 70s and 80s, it's worth seeing) and then we grabbed a bite and went to a Haunted House that they'd set up in a location near Delancey Street. Sister T. and @L are really good at coming up with ideas like this that I wouldn't have thought of myself. I hadn't been to a haunted house in years, but I used to LOVE them as a kid and when we'd go to Salisbury Beach or Canobie Lake, the haunted house ride was always my favorite. This one was pretty good, they had actors who were in costumes and covered in gore and who made noise and jumped out to try and scare us. There was the requisite chain saw guy, the crazy girl in the bed who kept chanting nonsensicals, people missing arms, disorienting walks through thick, billowed walls of sheets where you couldn't see in front of you, and a crazy nutjob who peed on us. Yes, we paid $30 to get pissed on. I can't tell you I was scared, I think the haunted house rides as a kid were scarier. But it was still fun and it really got me in the mood for Halloween.

Hunter E. Thompson invited me to a party at his apartment tonight, but alas, I can't go. My dad's having some health problems, and at my mother's request (demand?) I need to drive up to New Hampshire this weekend to help out with some things. Sorry to be so vague. I'll elaborate another time. I can say this though. Real life can be a lot scarier than anything Halloween can come up with.

HAPPY HALLOWEENS, EVERYONE!

Wanna Hear Something Really Scary?

It's that time of year, again, people. It's Halloweens! This year, instead of waxing erotic over Slutty Nurse and Trampy Schoolgirl costumes, I thought I'd go old school and try to induce a few bloodcurdles by providing you with a short list of things I think are kinda scary.

Airport Screeners. It's no secret to any regular reader of this blog that I've had my share of run-ins with airport fascists and have come to detest the bullshit one must now deal with to get from point A to point B on an airplane. Flying has never been worse. But after reading this week's Time magazine, maybe it's time for me to just be happy that I'm landing in point B in one piece. Those TSA screeners we're paying through the nose for? The ones who look like they were dragged out of retirement homes and Off Track Betting lines by the busload? Well, they're not working out. A recent study found that these geniuses missed over 75% of simulated explosives at LAX (that's L.A. airport for you out-of-towners). TSA screeners at Chicago's O'Hare Airport missed more than 60% of test bombs. If these results are remotely accurate, this means that a terrorist has a 3 in 4 chance of sneaking a bomb onto a plane at LAX and a nearly 2 in 3 chance of doing it in Chicago. Now, I'm no math wiz, but those numbers don't sound very good to me. In fact, those would be pretty good odds in a casino. Here's an area where perhaps privatization, i.e., getting private companies to do this work, makes a lot of sense. In San Francisco's international airport, which employs private screeners, only 20% of the fake bombs were missed. Not great, but not bad either. Wonder what the success rate is at JFK and LaGuardia? Hmmmmm.

Guinean prisons. I'm currently representing a man from Guinea who is trying to get political asylum in the U.S. He was arrested by Guinean authorities last year for engaging in political activities against the state, which basically involved: (i) being a member of an opposition political party; and (ii) participating in demonstrations in favor of student, teacher, and union rights. The police arrested him at his party office, then took him to prison, where they stripped him down to his underwear, interrogated him on and off for 48 hours straight, and beat the hell out of him with rubber batons, rifle butts, and billyclubs. When they were done, they threw him into a 5 x 8 cell (measure it, it's fucking tiny) for two weeks with three other men who were hardened criminals. He was barely fed. Some days he didn't eat at all, and when he was fed, all he got was bread and hot water.

The cell had no windows, no light, and worst of all, no toilet. To go to the bathroom, they had to bang on the iron door (which also had no window) and beg the guards to take them to the bathroom down the hall. Virtually every time, the guards wouldn't answer, so these men had to relieve themselves on the floor of their cell, which again, was no bigger than the area in front of the desk in my office. Then the guards beat them up for defecating in their cell and gave them dry (not wet, dry) rags to clean up the mess. At night, there was no place to sleep because the cell was so small. Only one or two men could lie down at a time, if they even wanted to, given the abhorrent conditions I just mentioned. My client was the smallest of the group, so he ended up sleeping on his knees most nights.

Imagine it. How long could you last in that situation? He was that hell-hole for two weeks and only got out when his wife paid the police a bribe, after borrowing the money from a friend, who also helped him escape the country. Last year, 98 prisoners in that prison died of neglect. After hearing his story, I was surprised the number was that small. The capacity of human cruelty is truly boundless.

The Superbug. As if we don't have enough diseases to worry about. First we had AIDs, then we had the flesh-eating Ebola, then the SARs, and then we got the bird flu. Now we have to worry about the Superbug, i.e., methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Say that 20 times fast. You can call it MRSA. Or "staph." This thing is on the march and it's killing people left and right, mostly kids and the elderly. A seemingly healthy 17 year-old in Virginia died of it a month ago, and a staph infection just killed a 13 year-old in Brooklyn the other day. They call it the "Superbug" because it's resistant to penicillin (thanks in part to all you morons who use antibacterial soap every time you wash your hands). It's prevalent in locker rooms and hospitals, where it kills 1 in 20 patients who get it. The scary thing is, staph lives on the skin and in the noses of healthy people. It only becomes deadly when it enters the bloodstream. So think about THAT the next time you're showering at the gym or grabbing a doorhandle with that open boo-boo on your index finger. Mmmmmooohahahahahaha!!! (Knock on wood -- it's just a joke, bad spirits, so back the fuck off).

The deadly brain-eating amoeba. Ooooh, this one's my favorite! She's like MRSA's psycho cousin. Apparently kids, there's this deadly organism that lives in lakes, hot springs, and even dirty swimming pools that just looooves to eat brains. You see, when you go swimming and you happen to snort a little water up your nose (pretty common, yes?), the organism enters your body by latching onto your olfactory nerve. Then it moves up your nasal passage until it reaches your brain, which it feeds on until you die, usually within two weeks. (Gives new meaning to the term "brain food," heh heh.) You get minor symptoms at first, a headache, a stiff neck, or a fever. Then, before you know it, come the hallucinations, the crazy visions. Then, after a little while uh... comes uh... Death. Eeesh. This thing's right out of a Stephen King short story, I tell ya. The brain-sucking amoeba has killed 6 people so far this year, and scientists expect the body count to climb rapidly due to global warming. It seems the brain-eater or Naegleria fowleri, really likes warm water. So pack those noseplugs, peeps! And wear a brain helmet, cuz the amoeba's comin' to GET YA!


Scary Ha-Ha Bonus Round: Hank Steinbrenner. Gotta end this on a light note, of course. Just when I thought George Steinbrenner was on his way out, and getting set to ride off into that baseball diamond in the sky, in walks his son, Hank Steinbrenner, Blowhard Extraordinaire to carry Dad's torch. It's amazing, the man looks and acts exactly like his big-mouthed father. First he takes on, and ultimately shitcans, Joe Torre, one of the most respected managers in the game. Then he goes and puts a big ol' boot into the ass of the Yankees' best player and this year's likely MVP, A-Rod. Keep it up, Hank! We love you in Red Sox Nation. Loveitloveitloveit! Pretty soon, you'll have the Yankees back where your egomaniacal father had them in the 80s: in the friggin' turlet. If you're a Yankee fan, Hank Steinbrenner is truly scary. If you're a Red Sox fan, he's scary ha-ha.

And with that nonsense out of the way, I'm off to wait for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.