The Million-Dollar Question

Anyone? Anyone?

My guess would be that they both fight crime. Batman took an extremely proactive approach, while Jesus used more preventative measures (the 10 commandments, thou shalt not steal, etc.).

Another One Bites the Dust

courtesy Salem News

It's November 2nd, and Salem is slowly returning to normal after yet another Halloween season. Thank God Halloween fell on a Wednesday, which was my day off, so I didn't have to make my way downtown to go to work. I headed out of town to a nearby mall instead, where, despite some sales staff and a few kids being in costume, it felt like any other day. But at work on the Saturday before Halloween, we dressed up in Halloween costumes at the shop. I wore a school uniform with a Gryffindor patch on my sweater. I was supposed to be Ginny Weasley, because I have red hair, but everyone just assumed I was Hermione.


courtesy Salem News

Sure enough, as I predicted in my previous post about Halloween in Salem, there were a few "incidents." This year, there were two stabbings and a shooting on Halloween during the revelry, although they occurred late at night after the official celebration had ended. And local officials are calling it an "overall success" - "better than last year"! Yikes! In all there were 14 arrests, mostly for drunk or disorderly conduct. But perhaps the most notable arrest was that of a controversial homosexual-hating preacher for disturbing the peace by accosting people with a bullhorn and arguing with them (above). After his arrest in Salem, this preacher chose to go to trial rather than dismiss his case if he paid $100 in court fees. These religious fanatics have been coming to Salem at Halloween time for several years now, preaching and passing out flyers in an attempt to get people to repent - because we all know trick-or-treating is just one step away from devil worship. Apparently they were so busy trying to get slight sinners to repent that they failed to notice Satan himself walking past them (below).


courtesy Salem News

Despite these incidents, overall the season seemed a bit less frantic than past years, possibly because we had 80+ degree weather for much of October, so maybe fewer tourists came because it didn't seem like autumn in New England. But today was a more seasonal 45 degrees. That's what usually happens. Fall is my favorite season, but it gets shorter and shorter every year. The weather stays warmer longer, and then as soon as November begins, it gets cold and turns to winter, so we really don't get the crisp, refreshing autumns I remember as a child. I blame global warming.

I loved that "autumn" smell in the air while I went trick-or-treating as a kid- a mix of cold air and fireplace smoke, as the leaves crunched beneath my feet. As as little kid in the Seventies, every year I got one of those Halloween costumes that came in a box, with those masks that you couldn't breathe in because they only had a tiny slit for a mouth. I always got too hot and ended up pushing it on top of my head so I could breathe. Completing the ensemble was a one-piece pajama-type suit printed with whatever design corresponded to your mask - whether it was Spider Man, Wonder Woman, Cinderella, Scooby Doo, etc. Not that you could see what it was because my mom made me wear my cardigan sweater over them anyway because it was cold out. But I still remember how excited I'd get when the local five-and-ten put the costumes out on display, officially kicking off the Halloween season. I couldn't wait to pick out my costume from the piles of square boxes stacked on top of each other. Of course, those costumes were probably not flame-retardant, but what's Halloween without living on the edge, right?



Last year there were about 40 arrests in Salem on Halloween night, compared to the 14 this year, so yeah, I suppose this year was better than last year (two thumbs up!). Although I don't recall anyone getting shot last year. I guess if there's anything crazier than downtown Salem on Halloween night, it's the emergency room at Salem Hospital.



courtesy Salem News

Go Sox!!!

Save The Doctor, Save the World

I'm such a geek. Last week I purchased the Series Three Dr. Who and Martha Jones action figures. It looks as though the manufacturers cheaped out this time around, as the figures don't come with any accessories like those in Series One and Two. The Doctor doesn't even come with a sonic screwdriver this time, even though one of his hands is shaped to hold it because they used the same mold for this action figure as they did with the other two series. See what a geek I am that I can differentiate between the series of action figures? Next thing you know I'll be comparing the paint jobs on the faces before buying them to get the "best ones," and I'll be afraid to take my action figures out of their original packaging because MIB doesn't increase in value as much as NRFB. I like how they made the David Tennant-as-Dr. Who action figure wear glasses this time because, in the words of David Tennant himself, "The world need a speccy hero." As one who is cursed with appallingly bad eyesight and can't see two inches in front of my face without corrective lenses, I say Amen!

Tonight was the American premiere of the last episode of the most recent season of "Dr. Who," wherein Dr. Who is imprisoned by his nemesis The Master, and it's up to Martha Jones to save all of humanity, and indeed, the entire universe, from utter chaos and destruction. But we all knew she would, didn't we? What I didn't expect was the kiss-off Martha gave to the Doctor at the end when he asked her to continue to accompany him on his trips through space and time. After initially being secretive with her about who he really was, and ignoring the fact that she was in love with him - at times to the point of being insensitive - did he really expect that she would continue to risk her life traveling in a shabby old police call box to uncertain danger and life-threatening encounters with species from other universes, just because he doesn't want to be alone? Boo hoo! Hell, even The Master blew him off, choosing to kill himself rather than spend the rest of his life traveling with the Doctor (albeit as his prisoner). But Girlfriend took the Doctor to task, possibly being the only person to make the Doctor feel ashamed of himself. And I'm guessing this is the first time the Doctor ever got dumped. I like the fact that this new series of Dr. Who doesn't paint the Doctor as the perfect, infallible superhero. He has faults. He makes mistakes. And for once, someone called him out on it. You go Martha Jones!

Of course, Martha's exit paves the way for next season's new companion, comedienne Catherine Tate. She will be reprising her role as the annoying Donna Noble from last year's Christmas special. I can't wait! But don't worry, we haven't seen the last of Martha Jones. I hear she gets a job at Torchwood, the Dr. Who spin-off show that I've also become addicted to. Torchwood heroine Gwen Cooper kicks butt too, but that's probably going to be another post for another time. And if the rumor of Torchwood action figures turns out to be true, I'll have to get a Gwen action figure too. And I will take it out of its original packaging.

Where Have All the Tourists Gone? Everybody's Askin'

Despite my previous post about how Salem gets crazy busy in October, this season is off to a slow start. There are tourists in town, but it doesn't seem as crowded as past years. And these past two weeks have been excrutiatingly slow at the tea shop. Today I made a total of 60 cents in tips - not even enough for bus fare home. Last year there were lines out the door for hot apple cider and hot chocolate. It's only the first week of October, though, so hopefully things will pick up. Tonight is the Haunted Happenings parade through town. It officially kicks off the Halloween season. It goes right past the tea shop, but I decided to go right home after work because I didn't want to deal with the crowds and the re-routed traffic, which might have affected my bus ride home if I left later. The fact that it's early October and it was 85 degrees out today doesn't help to make it feel like autumn in New England.

And speaking of autumn, it's time for the new fall season of television shows. Last night I watched "Pushing Daisies" on ABC. I don't watch any of the shows on the ABC network except for "Dancing with the Stars" (and don't even get me started about how they pre-empted last week's dance episode until 1:45 am because of football, which means I missed it and didn't realize it until I tuned in for what I thought was the dance episode but was in fact the results show). But now I will have to make an exception. "Pushing Daisies" is about a man who has the ability to bring the dead back to life if he touches them, but only for a minute, because if he doesn't touch them again, which makes them dead permanently, then a sort of cosmic equalization takes place and someone else dies. So he uses his ability to re-animate murder victims, asks them who killed them, touches them again, and then collects the reward money. But when one of those victims is his childhood sweetheart, he can't bring himself to touch her again to make her die permanently. The show is full of black humor, and is very quirky and charming. It has a magical Dr. Seuss-meets-Tim Burton quality that makes it unique from most of the shows out there, right down to the use of a narrator (British actor Jim Dale), which gives it the feel of a strange yet fascinating fairy tale for grown-ups being read aloud. British actress Anna Friel is absolutely adorable as the protagonist's dead childhood sweetheart. She has a gamine quality that makes her a modern-day Audrey Hepburn. And it's great to see Ellen Greene and Swoosie Kurtz again - two veterans of stage and screen in roles so quirky and eccentric that only they could play them.



Next week, ABC continues its new fall season of quirky shows with a program about a woman who's lost her memory, called "Sarah Who" - not to be confused with "Dr. Who."

Halloweentown

Salem in October is insane.

Since I live in Salem, Massachusetts (not Salem, New Hampshire; or Salem, Oregon), you could say that I do in fact live in Halloweentown. Now that it's mid-September, the summer tourists are giving way to the autumn crowds which come here to enjoy the Halloween festivities. It's early yet, but many stores are already decorated for Halloween in anticipation of the throngs of visitors to this fair city. During the month of October, the population of Salem swells to twice the usual number due to all the of out-of-town visitors. Streets are packed with pedestrians, many of whom wear oversized witch hats with feathered brims or ceramic devil horns tied around their heads, waving around magic wands or pirate swords. And I'm talking about the adults, people. And the fairies! Don't even get me started about the fairies.

I do enjoy all the Halloween-related events leading up to October 31st, such as the Bizarre Bazaar, a two-day craft fair held on the pedestrian walkway, as well as the special events some of the stores or local organizations hold, such as psychic fairs, or the children's and pets' costume parades. But as much as I love living in Salem, I don't want to go anywhere near downtown Salem on Halloween day itself. An eight minute drive home can turn into forty-five minutes or more when many drivers display a blatant disregard for traffic rules, ignoring red lights and continuing to go through intersections, thus leaving those who have the right of way unable to proceed. And taking the bus to avoid the hassle of driving through town doesn't help, either. The buses are re-routed on Halloween day, but the city doesn't publicize it. On my first Halloween in Salem, I waited over an hour for my bus, and when it didn't come, I started walking, only to learn halfway through my walk that the bus took an alternate route. By the time I got on the bus, I was so close to my apartment that I should have just walked the rest of the way home.

When I first visited Salem as a tourist, I loved taking part in the Halloween festivities. Now I find them to be a pain in the ass. I still love Halloween as much as I always did, but now, as a resident, I find the hordes of tourists converging on my city to be a major inconvenience, preventing me from going about my business as usual. I can't get a parking space. I can't get a table in a restaurant. There are long lines to the ladies' room in the Visitor's Center (because sometimes I can't wait until I get home). Add to the influx of tourists the charletan "psychics" who don't live or work here but who come into town to compete with the established Salem psychics for the tourist dollars. It got so bad that the city now requires psychics to have a fortune-telling license, which led to "witch wars" in town, as a couple of local "witches" left dead racoon carcasses in front of the shops of a few of the established psychics in town. Yes, my friends, Wiccans can get downright nasty where money is concerned.

My sanctuary from all the craziness of Salem at Halloween is Salem Common. Although it is right next to the Witch Museum, which is arguably the most popular witch attraction in town, most tourists bypass it. I guess it's not exciting enough for them. Thus, even in the middle of October, the Common is still mostly filled with residents, people who continue their normal routine amid the chaos to take a walk, jog, ride their bikes, walk their dogs, push their baby carriages, or just sit on a bench and read. I can take a walk around the Common and feel like I'm a part of this city, and not remotely connected to the swarms of people taking up valuable walking space on the sidewalks.

At night on Halloween, I prefer to just stay home, because Halloween night in Salem is the craziest time of all. Each year I can't wait to read the local paper the day after Halloween to see a) who got drunk, b) who got stabbed, c) who got into a fight, or d) who got arrested. Not that it's really that bad, but honestly, there are a lot of drunken idiots walking around downtown on the busiest night of the year in Halloweentown. Which reminds me, it's the time of year to watch "Nightmare Before Christmas" again.



image courtesy of halloweentown.org

Well I'll Be Googled (Part Two): Quite Literally

Do you ever Google yourself? Sure, we all do! After all, we have to make sure no one is posting any malicious rumors about us, don't we? (thank God my name isn't Britney Spears or Paris Hilton). So imagine my surprise one day when, with a lot of time on my hands during my longer-than-expected period of unemployment, a Google result of my own name turned up a listing for an old 7" vinyl 45 rpm single by an artist with the exact same name as me. I'm talking first and last name (although I've obscured the last name in the photo above to protect my identity, as well as the name of the song to prevent searches for it, sort of like a blogger protection program - not that I don't trust you guys). Even the spelling of my first name is the same, spelled with one "n" rather than two, which is unusual, but it's spelled that way because it's my nickname. It's really weird looking at the record label and seeing my own name on it. So of course I had to buy it from the online vintage record site on which I found it. The single dates from the very early Sixties. I did a search for "Dot Records" and came up with some information about the label. It was started in Gallatin, TN in 1950 and moved to Hollywood, CA in 1956, where it continued to release records in many genres, including gospel, soul, R&B, country, pop, and early rock and roll, until it was discontinued in 1977 (maybe disco killed it?). Dot recording artists included Pat Boone, Gale Storm, Liberace, Leonard Nimoy, Lawrence Welk, the Andrew Sisters, Donna Fargo, Barbara Mandrell, and Roy Clark (of "Hee Haw" fame), as well as this person with the same name as me that nobody had ever heard of before or since.

The site from which I bought the single featured a short MP3 sample of the song, and upon listening to it, I could discern through the many crackles and pops of the old vinyl record that this Lyn was an African-American man, and not a white girl originally from Long Island, NY. Weird, huh?

What's even weirder is that I found another single on another vintage vinyl website by an artist with the exact same name as my sister, and using her nickname too. What are the odds? Needless to say I've got to get my hands on that one too. Maybe I'll make retro-looking shadow boxes, or buy those 12" album frames from Restoration Hardware and put vintage fabrics and postcards in with the singles to make some funky art for our apartment. After all, how many people could boast of owning a record with their name on it (unless their name happens to be John Lennon, or Barry White, or Diana Ross, or...well, I guess a lot of people could, actually).

So add to the many disappointments in my life my failed career as an African-American male soul/R&B artist of the early Sixties. But that's okay. Good thing I turned to blogging.

Who do you share a name with?