Happy Halloween

I think all the trick or treaters have gone back home to fill their bellies for the evening and I’m enjoying a glass of the Concha y Toro Casillero Del Diablo wine I forgot to mention in the Halloween Mix post. It’s the Carmenere, which is kind of like a spicy Cabernet – very good.

We got slammed with trick or treaters tonight, especially since we thought we might not get any. We were prepared for them though and even have a lot of candy left over. We always get what I referred to as a kid as “the good candy” – in no particular order, Reese’s, Snickers, Three Musketeers, Hershey’s, KitKat, Butterfinger. The mini-size of course, but I remember when I was a kid and the word got out that a house was handing out full-size candy bars, that was like the Holy Grail of Trick or Treating! That house didn’t have candy left for long.

Lago is at choir practice right now singing Christmas songs. She’ll be part of the Carolina Voices Singing Christmas Tree this December. She loves that she gets to sing Christmas songs so early. I love Christmas and especially Christmas music, but I like to wait until at least Thanksgiving to break out the Christmas music. Because I like it so much, I don’t want to get tired of it before Christmas even gets here. Lago on the other hand wants to break out the Christmas music November 1st. She looks forward to when they make the change to Christmas music on the Sounds of the Season cable music channel just like the preverbal kid at Christmas.

Carolina Voices:
http://www.carolinavoices.org/

Later tonight when Lago gets home we’re going to watch the SciFi Channel’s Ghost Hunters Live Halloween special at the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write “The Shining.” It’s not the hotel in the Kubrick film, which we watched last night and the remastered version looked great on the big TV.

From IMDB.com – “The Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon was used for the front exterior, but all the interiors as well as the back of the hotel were specially built at Elstree Studios in London, England.”

Anyways, the Ghost Hunters will be at the Stanley Hotel and you can get more info about them at http://www.scifi.com/ghosthunters/ or tune into the show every Wed. at 9pm ET on the SciFi Channel.

Happy Halloween, ya’ll!

Boo!

We carved pumpkins tonight!







And now for the scariest photo of them all...

Halloween Mix 2006

Each year I update my Halloween Mix. It grew to two CDs a few years ago and it may grow to 3 CDs soon. Last year I created a companion CD of classics from all the classical pieces and movie soundtracks which I had incorporated in small snippets into various tracks. I think it was also last year that I decided to make the first CD more laid back and the second CD more rockin’.

The tracks are listed below, but this does not do it justice since most tracks are peppered with Halloween sound effects and movie clips. However, most of these tracks are available on iTunes for downloading.

One of these years, I may bring “The Martian Boogie” by Brownsville Station back to the Halloween Mix. It appeared in the first couple mixes, but I decided to cut it a few years ago. I mixed in a clip from the original radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” which fit in perfectly in the beginning. The track is really long and even when I did have it in the mix it was edited down to four minutes.

I cut “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins this year. I thought it kind of dragged down the opening of the second CD. I replaced it with an edited version of “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds with “Canadian Sunset” by Gene Ammons and “Devil’s Dance (from Witches of Eastwick)” by Gil Shaham & Jonathan Feldman mixed into the opening. If “Red Right Hand” sounds familiar it’s because it was used in all three “Scream” movies and “Hellboy.”

Every year I think, well that’s it I’ve found all the Halloween songs I’m going to find, and then I find another and another. Last year, I stumbled across “Trick or Treat” by Otis Redding and couldn’t believe I had never heard it before. Another new edition this year is “Beautiful People” by Marilyn Manson. His cover of “Sweet Dreams” may be more creepy for Halloween, but it’s too slow for where I wanted to place it in the mix. So I went with the more rockin’ “Beautiful People” which needed no extra Halloween sweetening.

If you're wondering why "Mack the Knife" by Bobby Darin is included in the mix even though it's not very "Halloween-ie." Well... the lyrics taken out of context could be somewhat spooky even though the song is about a loan shark. It's mostly included here because I have a clip from "The Blair Witch Project" included in the beginning of "Mack the Knife." It's the clip from the movie when their tent is being attacked by who knows what and they run from the tent screaming into the darkness. It's a very scary moment in the movie. I think most people either found "The Blair Witch" movie really scary or not scary at all. I found the movie scary, not so much while watching it. It's real scare factor came when you left the theater and thought about it after you got home - that creeped me out big time. But anyway back to the mix. I found it kind of funny to juxtapose the very scary clip from the movie with this bouncy, almost happy-sounding song about a murderous loan shark. So there ya go.

What to drink while listening to the Halloween Mix, you may ask? Well then, I'll tell ya...

For wine, the Halloween Mix goes nicely with the Concha y Toro 2005 Casillero Del Diablo - Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. BTW, "Casillero Del Diablo" means "the devil's cellar" - now that's Halloween! Please be advised: there's a Pinot Noir out now from Transylvannia. We got it just to try it, but sometimes for six bucks you can go wrong.

For beer, the Halloween Mix pairs well with Pete's Wicked Ale or any of the Octoberfest brews by Sam Adams, Otter Creek, Harpoon or Becks. It also goes well with a traditional Black & Tan - Guinness and Bass. You could go with a pumpkin ale, but I haven't found a bottled pumpkin ale that I liked enough to drink more than one.
Enjoy.

Halloween Mix 2006 - Disc 1
1. Autumn Leaves (Harry Potter Mix) – Morbid Miles Davis
2. Moondance – Van the Invisible Man Morrison
3. Witchcraft – Frightening Frank Sinatra
4. Hell – Shrieking Squirrel Nut Zippers
5. Blue Light, Red Light (Someone's There) – Harry the Horror Connick Jr.
6. You Do Something to Me – Evil Ella Fitzgerald
7. Old Devil Moon – Frightening Frank Sinatra
8. Bad Moon Rising – Creepy Credence Clearwater Revival
9. Werewolves of London – Warren the Warlock Zevon
10. Spirit in the Night – Bloody Bruce Springsteen
11. Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing – Chris Hell Isaak
12. Superstition – Stevie the Stake Wonder
13. Trick or Treat – Wretched Otis Redding
14. Psycho Killer – Terrifying Talking Heads
15. The Time Warp – Rocky Horror Picture Show
16. Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo the Beheaded
17. Queer – Ghoulish Garbage
18. Vampire Song – Bludgeoning Concrete Blonde
19. Mack the Knife – Devilish Bobby Darin
20. The Addams Family – Vic the Mangler Mizzy

Halloween Mix 2006 - Disc 2
1. Red Right Hand (Sunset Devil Mix) – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
2. Bela Lugosi’s Dead – Bauhaus the Banshee
3. Gravedigger – Dastardly Dave Matthews
4. Friend of the Devil (2X Trouble Mix) – The Grateful Dead
5. Brain Stew – Gangrene Green Day
6. Run Like Hell – Putrid Pink Floyd
7. Devil Inside – INXS the Incubus
8. Santa Monica – Everclear the Exorcist
9. Possum Kingdom – House of 1,000 Toadies
10. Bullet with Butterfly Wings – Smashing Pumpkins
11. Halloween – Dastardly Dave Matthews & his Barbaric Band
12. Only Happy When it Rains – Ghoulish Garbage
13. The Witch (Season Mix) – The Cult
14. Wicked Garden – Stonehenge Stone Temple Pilots
15. The Beautiful People – Murderous Marilyn Manson
16. Closer – Nine Inch Nails in Your Eye
17. Highway to Hell – AC/DC the Sorcerer
18. Sympathy for the Devil – The Rotting Rolling Stones

Lunch with Jimmie

I know this isn’t a very “spooky” post considering the time of year and not to mention I’m not even a NASCAR fan, but I had lunch with Jimmie Johnson the other day. He was down at our corporate HQ just south of town shooting some TV spots for us. My pal Sammy invited me along to go down to the shoot. He had to take a script down so I tagged along. We got there just before they broke for lunch and we were invited to sit down with Jimmie for lunch – something the crew who were shooting the spots weren’t even invited to do. We were introduced to Jimmie and we shook his hand. He talked a little bit about last weekend’s win at Martinsville and that he expected to get bumped from behind in the final laps, but “that’s short-track racing.”

Sorry Monkey, I didn’t get an autograph, but I saved my pickle from lunch. It’s in the mail. :~)

Halloween is Coming

Halloween is our second favorite holiday and last night we went to the Queen City Ghost & Graveyard tour. I was hoping it would be more about telling ghost stories and walking through old graveyards, but it was more theatrical going from haunted place by bus with actors taking on ghostly personas at each location. Still good Halloween fun.

We went to dinner after at the LaVecchia's Seafood Grille. It was our first visit to the four-star restaurant. They’re a seafood and steakhouse with a funky décor and live music on the weekends. We discovered a new Pinot Noir – new to us – in the Lange Pinot Noir from Oregon. It was very nice. I started with the she crab soup and Lago had the oysters rockefeller. Then Lago got a lobster done LaVecchia style, which is all the meat pulled out and saute’d in a buttery wine sauce over veggies. I had the filet and crab cake. All the food was excellent and so was the service. We asked the waiter to take his time and he did just that. We like to take our time between courses, drink our wine and chat. Much better than getting slammed with one course on top of the other, and wham bam you’re done and didn’t even have time to enjoy it.

Going on the ghost tour reminded me of going up to Salem, Mass. It’s one of my favorite things to do around Halloween. Lago and I went up to Salem back in 2001 and had a great time. The pumpkin ale at the Salem Beer Works is reason enough to go in itself. Around Halloween, Salem is anything and everything Halloween. We didn’t get to go to the big Halloween Ball they have every year, you have to get on the waiting list almost a year in advance. We had a great time and I even showed Lago around Boston too.

Each year around this time we also start watching all our Halloween DVDs. “Sleepy Hollow” is one of our favorites and many times we end up watching it in September or the beginning of October because we can’t wait to watch it. I also like watching some of the old B&W classics like “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “The Ghost Breakers” – I think of these as “daytime movies.” They’re great to watch on a rainy autumn day and save the evening for new classics like “Hellboy,” “From Hell,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” and “Van Helsing.” Yes, I know none of these are fine cinema classics, but they’re great Halloween fun. Back when I was in high school my friends and I were always going to the latest “slasher” movie that seemed to litter the 1980s movie-plexes. Today, I don’t own any of these bloodfests on DVD. We do have the first “Halloween” and all three “Scream” movies, but I can’t remember the last time I watched “Halloween.”

Almost forgot, for those that are into ghosts and ghost hunting, be sure to watch “Ghost Hunters” on the Scifi Channel on Wed. nights. They have a live special Halloween night. Lago wants to stay up and watch the whole thing overnight. We like them because they only show what they capture on video or audio. They don’t employ a bunch of dopey psychics who just walk around and make stuff up. Be sure to check ‘em out - http://www.scifi.com/ghosthunters/.

Timber!

Back on Tuesday, Sept. 26, we had two trees removed from the backyard. Over the summer a tree came down behind the house during a big storm, before we owned the house, and was removed by the former owners. That left this one tree with all its limbs on one side kind of leaning over the house. Our plan was to definitely remove that tree. The other tree we removed wasn’t near the house, but it was dying. It looked like it may have been damaged when the tree came down during the storm. We have a third tree on the side of the house that we also had trimmed. The tree crew did a really good job. The tree that was trimmed has a nice balance and you wouldn’t notice it was trimmed unless you saw it beforehand. We’re having the stump nearest the house removed, and they’re coming back to do that next week. They mulched the limbs and the tree trunks were hauled away by a lumber company. I decided to keep the mulch and spread it around the trees in the front and one on the side. It was a lot more mulch than I thought. We still have some left and I may put that around the tree on the side that was trimmed. In case you're wondering, I don't have a photo of the tree crew actually cutting the trees down because they did it while I was at work. Lago was here when they brought one of the trees down, and she said it shook the house. From the sound she thought it might have hit the house, but all was fine. And yes, the tree crew company was fully insured if anything did happen.


Before


After
(The tree in the photos to the left of the house is the one that was trimmed)


Another view of the tree nearest the house before it was cut down.


One of the tree trunks left for the lumber company.


Another view of the tree trunk after it was cut down.


Mulch pile at the back of the driveway before I spread most of it in the front yard. (For perspective, that's a 96-gallon trash container on the right)

Dave & TJ

Dave Matthews Band at UVA's John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Va., 9/22/2006.

We got back from Chicago just in time to watch football on Sunday afternoon, what luck! Then it was another short week before we were heading off again, this time back to our old stomping grounds in Charlottesville, Va. We drove up. We stopped at Lago’s parents place on the way there and the way back to drop off and pick up JP Stinkerbutt. We stayed at the Day’s Inn, about a mile from the new arena at the University of Va. (UVA) where we were going to see the Dave Matthews Band (DMB) perform Fri. and Sat. nights, the last two nights of the tour. We picked the hotel for location, not for amenities. Wasn’t bad, but wouldn’t have stayed there if not for its walking distance to the arena. We checked in and then walked about halfway and had dinner at the Ruby Tuesday’s in the Barracks Road Shopping Mall. That was our plan from the get go. We got there early and got a table. People who came in after us had to wait. I forget when I got the call from ol’ Lazy Acres, but they were at the arena with a prime tailgating spot and we headed up to meet them after dinner. It was good to see ol’ Lazy Acres and have a few brews before the show. We went in a little early to catch the opener, Robert Randolph & the Family Band. We’ve seen Robert Randolph play with DMB before so we were really looking forward to the entire evening because we knew Dave would bring Robert Randolph onstage to play with the band at the end of the show, which he did both nights. I only moderately agree with Lazy Acres about the show Fri., mostly because the first 4-5 songs of the show were the same as in Chicago, something DMB rarely do. Sat. night had a looser feel and they hit all the songs they didn’t play Fri. night. The guests were great and Robert Randolph and DMB really rocked the last couple songs Sat. night. There was a weird guy in a rain coat who walked onto the back of the stage late in the show and just as he was about to walk out front beyond the drum riser and speaker stacks, security rushed him off the stage. He looked a bit “crazed” and I was glad security was on top of things.

Ol' Lazy Acres and the Mrs.

Sat. afternoon Lago and I went over to the home of Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, since in all the time we had lived in the area we had never been there, together anyway. I took a visit over there with the Monkey in March of last year when he was down to see G. Love at the Star Hill. It was a perfect day and it was nice to go again because the gardens were green and alive. I thought it was also fitting to go there since we were seeing DMB at the university Thomas Jefferson founded. The entire weekend was a nice trip, but we were looking forward to getting home after two trips in two weeks.

Thomas Jefferson's Monticello

Pumpkins growing in the gardens at Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson referred to this as his "sea view."