Listen up punks,

If you show up on my doorstep looking for candy on Halloween night, I’m telling you right now that you had better come correct. I have a rigid set of criteria that I use to determine if you’re going to receive a treat, and if so, what kind.

Here’s the deal.

If you’re not wearing a costume, you’re not getting any candy.

And no, your little league uniform doesn’t count.

You could at least put some effort into it, and make yourself an undead little leaguer or something.

Seriously, stop being such a goddamn slacker. If you don’t change your ways now, you’ll probably grow up to be one of those assholes who wears their work uniform to a Halloween party. Ooohhh, you’re a spooky UPS driver? Great costume, bro…

The quality of the candy you receive from me is directly proportionate to the quality of your costume.

I’m not wasting my Kit Kats on some lame ass store bought costume. And if I tell you, “That’s a Whopper of costume!” it’s not a good thing. It means your costume sucks. You’re getting Whoppers.

Bottom line, if you’re wearing a lame costume, I hope you like Dum Dums, Dum Dum.

And don’t be grabby. Halloween candy isn’t cheap and this bowl has to last all night. If you want to gouge the dopes that leave an unattended “honor system” bowl on their porch, have at it. Take all their candy. Break into their obviously unattended homes and rob them of their valuables if you want, it’s the least they deserve for being such nitwits. But at my house you’re going to get one piece of candy and that’s it.

Also…

If you come to my house sporting real facial hair, you’re too old to be trick-or-treating and you’re not getting any candy. Note: This rule applies to both boys and girls.

If you’re putting out a cigarette as you walk up to my house, you’re definitely not getting any fucking candy.

If I suspect that you are drunk and/or high, not only will you not get any candy, I will be forced to contact the proper authorities. I may be persuaded to look the other way if you agree to surrender all of the alcohol and/or illegal drugs in your possession, as well as any candy you may have collected, to me for “proper disposal.”

​I realize that I may be coming across a bit harshly here, so I want to assure you that the most important thing to me is that you kids to have a safe and happy Halloween​. As long as it doesn’t include being stupid, annoying me with you half-ass costumes, or interfering in any way with my enjoyment of the holiday.

My rules are strict but they are fair. And as long as we are all on the same page when you come knocking, maybe, just maybe, we can all have nice Halloween for once. Or, you can keep being a jerk-off your whole life.

Your call…

I just came across this video on Facebook after it was shared on a friend's wall and I had to share.

It's Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young with Tom Jones delivering an earth shattering rendition of "Long Time Gone" from an episode of the ABC variety show, This is Tom Jones originally aired on October 16th, 1969.

Only a few months after Young joined the group, his blistering guitar work lays the groundwork for this loose and raucous performance. The guys in the band, Crosby and Nash in particular, are clearly amused and/or impressed by TJ's vocal prowess and collectively, they bring down the house.

This is officially now one of my favorite live performances of all time.

Enjoy!

It’s well documented that the story of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys is a dark one, filled with horrors both real and imagined. Child abuse, mental health issues, familial bickering all, in some strange way contributed to some of the most beautiful music of the modern era.

And although The Beach Boys will always be remembered for their sunny pop melodies, there have been a few occasions on which they have dabbled in the macabre.
 
They included a cover of “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & the Crypt Keepers on their 1964 live album, Beach Boys Concert.

​Here they are performing the song live on the December 23, 1964 episode of the ABC variety series, Shindig!. Whatever your personal feelings towards Mike Love are in regards to the legacy of The Beach Boys, you have to admit it’s entertaining as hell to watch him ham it up in this clip.

It turns out The Beach Boys have a more than a passing association with “Monster Mash.” According to this 2014 Noisey article, before they broke big themselves, they backed Bobby “Boris” Pickett on one of his first live performances of the song.

And apparently it still holds a special place Brian Wilson’s heat, as he has used the song to sound check with his band at least as recently as 2009.

Brian Wilson has often been described as a mad scientist in terms songwriting and studio production, and nowhere does he embrace that persona more than in this 1970 demo recording. Intended be his spin on the concept of a Halloween novelty song, “My Solution” features a trippy spoken-word rap over a bed of Gothic synthesizers, laboratory sound effects, and some signature Beach Boys harmonies thrown in for good measure.

On the surface, “Never Learn to Love” the B-Side to The Beach Boys’ 1968 single “Bluebirds over the Mountain” wouldn’t seem to have any association with anything horrific, but it does have the dubious honor of being a rewrite  by Dennis Wilson of a song  by infamous murder conspirator and guru, Charles Manson called “Cease to Exist.” Manson was allegedly furious that his not only did Dennis change the lyrics to  his song, he also failed to credit him as a writer on the album, and as a result, threatened him with murder after its release. 

​It's clear that while much of the music of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys was about having fun in the sun, they were no strangers to the creepy, crawling things that come out long after the sun has set.

Check out this absolutely smoking live performance of "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group from a 1973 television appearance. 

Edgar, a talented multi-instrumentalist, is a  beast on synth, sax, drums and the soundboard itself throughout the course of this MONSTER nine minute jam.

​Enjoy!

​My plan for the month of October was to focus most of my blog posts on the fun, scary horror-related stuff that goes along with the Halloween season.  But I’d like to take some time today to address a real life horror that many women in our country and around the world still face today, domestic violence.
 
My family recently participated in the Women's Center of Montgomery County's Walk/Run to End Domestic Violence. The purpose of the event was to raise and awareness of domestic violence and to generate donations to the Women's Center which is a volunteer community organization with a primary focus on freedom from domestic and other forms of abuse.
 
A worthy cause for sure, and my participation in the event gave me cause me to reflect on my own experiences with domestic violence and how it has impacted my life. 
 
Although I never had to deal with domestic violence first hand in my own home, it was commonplace in the streets of the neighborhood I grew up in; a small, low-income community of row homes in the suburbs of Philadelphia.  

From the time I was very young, I remember a couple, deep in throes of substance abuse, who lived off-and-on with the husband's mother a few doors down from my family, and whose fights would sometimes spill into the streets or the alley that ran behind our houses. These fights could erupt at any time with no rhyme or reason. It was not uncommon for me to be woken by the sound of them screaming obscenities at each other in the middle of the night and often the verbal barbs would escalate to physical violence.
 
I vividly remember looking out my bedroom once at a very young age and watching this man drag his wife by her hair through the gravel of the alleyway behind my house. Sometimes the cops would should up, sometimes they wouldn't. The cycle of violence continued either way. This behavior went on for years. As a child I could never understand why this woman would continue cohabitate with a man who routinely laid his hands on her. To be honest, as an adult I still have trouble wrapping my brain around it. Even though I know now that there are many reasons why...

​The idea of a woman not leaving an abusive relationship was taken to the extreme in another incident that happened in my neighborhood when I was probably eleven or twelve years old. This one involved different couple with whom I was not really familiar prior to the incident because they were not immediate neighbors. They were immigrants who as far as I knew spoke little or no English and kept very much to themselves. As result they were not people that I had any meaningful contact with, other than passing them on the street or occasionally retrieving a lost ball from their yard.
 
I remember it was a sunny, Saturday morning when a couple of police cruisers and an ambulance descended on their house down the street from my own. Curious, my friends and I approached the scene and witnessed paramedics loading a woman on a stretcher into the ambulance while her husband was loaded by police into a car in handcuffs. Apparently the man had, in a fit of rage, repeatedly taken a meat cleaver to his wife's neck and face. If I close my eyes, I can still picture clearly, drops of the woman’s blood glistening in sun on the concrete path behind their house where she had run to escape him.
 
It was on that day that I learned that horrible things don't only happen on dark and stormy night nights. Sometimes they happen on picture perfect days, when the sky is blue and the sun is shining. This lesson would be reinforced for me years later on September 11, 2001; another time I felt a similar creeping sense of dread on an otherwise idyllic day.
 
Thankfully, the woman survived the attack. But amazingly, not only did she not press charges against him, he was back living in the house with her within just a few days.

But the domestic violence issue that hit closest to home for me was a an assault case involving two of my co-workers who also happened to be neighbors that lived just a few doors down from me.

At the time, I was working at a mom-and-pop meat market behind the deli counter. The incident involved the woman who worked in the deli with me and her live-in boyfriend who also worked at the market behind the butcher counter. Like many of the people in my neighborhood, they were what some would probably describe as “white trash” that lived two doors down from my family with her son who was a few years younger than me.

She was a timid and nervous woman.

The boyfriend no so much...

He was loud and outspoken, and though he tried to project an of air gregariousness, it was clear that something darker was bubbling below the surface. He was often visibly intoxicated around the neighborhood, if not in a state which can only be described as “tweaked out”. As a result, his mood and behavior were extremely unpredictable, and although he never showed any malice towards me directly, just being in his presence always made me uneasy.

When this particular incident occurred it was a Sunday morning at the meat market and the after church rush was in full effect. The line at the deli counter was probably ten deep. This woman and I were working, but the boyfriend was scheduled off. Nevertheless he appeared behind the deli counter, seemingly out of nowhere, red-eyed, and smelling of alcohol. He was carrying on about not being able to find what was apparently his prized possession, a baseball cap featuring the Boar’s Head lunchmeat logo, which his girlfriend had decided to wear to work that day.

As with most acts of random violence, everything happened almost too fast to register. I was in the middle of slicing lunch meat at the time, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stumble towards her say something to the effect of “Give me my hat.” As he grabbed it off of her, he pushed her head downward into the stainless steel meat slicer she was working on. It did not come into contact with the blade, but it was enough force to cause her head to “bounce” back off the machine.

I could only stand there dumbfounded. It all seemed to happen within a split second and the next thing I knew he was stumbling past me to leave and as he did, he looked me straight in the eye and smirked, “You didn’t see anything, right Pat?” before leaving the building.

Remember, this was in front of a huge line of customers waiting at the deli counter. If was willing to do this in a crowded store, what was he capable of in the privacy of their home?

I was later subpoenaed to testify at his hearing regarding this incident. I was terrified at the idea of having to do it, knowing that not only was he an unstable and violent drug addict who knew where I worked, but because we were neighbors he knew exactly where I lived. At the preliminary hearing I remember him sitting there stonefaced in that orange jumpsuit watching me as I told my version of the events that transpired that day.

At the subsequent trial he showed up in a suit, with his parents and family minister in tow for moral support. I can’t recall exactly what the judge’s verdict was, but I know it wasn’t long before he was back out on the street and living with his girlfriend and her son again. Despite my fears, he never came after me, or even threatened me, but sadly the same could not be said for his girlfriend. Eventually, they moved out of the neighborhood, so I can’t say how their story ended, but my gut tells me that it was badly.

All of the events I have described here had a profound impact on me, possibly more than I even realize. They introduced me to horrible reality of domestic violence and in doing so helped to strip away some the innocence of my childhood. They made me feel scared, and helpless and guilty just for bearing witness to them. And this is coming from the perspective of someone looking in from the outside. I can’t even imagine the impact it had on the women who were on the receiving end of that violence, or the children who had to suffer it by proxy day in and day out.

Domestic violence is a real life horror that is affects millions of women all over the world, perhaps even some that you know and love. Occasionally it spills out into the light of day as it did in the incidents described above, but more often than not it happens in the shadows or behind closed doors. Because it so often happens in secret, it can sometimes be easy to ignore.

Think about how comfortable and secure you feel when you’re home relaxing on the couch watching T.V. after a long day of work. Now imagine that comfort and security replaced with anxiety and the constant threat of violence.

We as a society must acknowledge that this problem exists, and take whatever steps we can to stop it. These women and their children deserve better, and they have the same right as you and I to feel safe and secure in the comfort of their own homes.

If you would like to make a donation to the Women's Center of Montgomery County you can do so here: http://www.wcmontco.org/donate.html

Follow Mozzarella Jamboree on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mozzarellajamboree

The legend goes that blues man Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at a lonely crossroads in Mississippi at midnight in exchange for great musical prowess.

It's well documented that The Stones were greatly influenced by Johnson's life and music. And perhaps it was this influence that led them to make their own deal with the devil in 1981 when their tour to support the album Tattoo You ushered in the age of corporate sponsored Rock & Roll.
​
This tour marked the first time that a major rock band allowed itself to be branded by corporation. In this case, the fragrance giant Jovan paid The Stones somewhere between "one million" and "several million" dollars to sponsor their 1981 North American tour.

The rest, as they say, is history. Corporate sponsorship is now commonplace in the live music industry and to this day The Stones continue to reap the benefits to the tune of $109.7 million.

You could argue that by selling out their own souls, The Stones. the self proclaimed "World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band", also sold the soul of Rock & Roll itself, robbing it of it's rebellious spirit and ultimately leading to it's demise at the hands of corporate greed.

But then again, if the Robert Johnson legend is true, then the entire history of Rock & Roll can be be traced back to a pact with The Devil. The Stones just did it the way they did everything else.

To excess...

Even if you do believe that corporate sponsorship helped kill Rock & Roll, you have to admit that these Mick and Keith Halloween masks are pretty cool.

Produced by Jovan for Chicago's Classic Rock station 95½ WMET to promote the Stones 1981 US Tour, they are perfect if you're looking for a last minute costume this year.


Follow Mozzarella Jamboree on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mozzarellajamboree

If you were a monster kid of the 1980’s like me, you probably spent a lot of your time and energy following the antics of Freddy Krueger. I can't tell you how many times I watched and re-watched those Nightmare on Elm Street  movies, either on the big screen at the movie theater, on the VCR at home, long after the rest of my family was sleeping safely in their beds.

Or so they thought...

If I wasn't watching the movies, I was talking about them. My friends and I would dissect all of the elaborate kill scenes and and laugh again at all of Freddy's awesomely bad jokes. It was a lot of fun.

To a pudgy, twelve year old nerd like me, Freddy Krueger was a rock star.

He transcended the horror genre to become a true pop culture phenomenon, and by the late 80’s he had ingrained himself into completely into the American consciousness.

Between 1984 and 1991 he appeared in six movies, hosted his own television show, had numerous merchandising deals, and even tried his hand at the music business. You could say he was the precursor to the multi-tasking pop stars of today.

Everyone knows about Freddy Krueger's groundbreaking effect on horror cinema, but I’d like to take some time to look back on his often overlooked impact on the world of popular music.

If you think about it, Freddy has been intrinsically linked to music from the very beginning.

Like many great horror villains of the 80’s his arrival on the scene was accompanied by theme music that was simultaneously chilling and memorable.

In this case it was the Main Title theme to the 1984 Wes Craven classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street. The piece was composed by Charles Bernstein who also scored the music for such 80s genre fare as The Entity and April’s Fools Day. Craven would also tap him again two years later to score his underrated sci-fi/horror flick, Deadly Friend.

Combine that theme music with a couple of creepy little girls repeating that eerily hypnotic jump rope rhyme, “One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you…” and you truly do have the stuff of nightmares.

Many of the great horror icons of the 80’s had memorable theme songs, but none of them were able to make the transition into mainstream musical success in the way that Freddy did.

Jason from the Friday the 13th franchise may have made more money at the box office, but he was no match for Freddy when it came to personality. Although he was an efficient killing machine, as a silent hulk his personality was lacking. And quite frankly, he really didn’t seem to take much joy in what he was doing. It was all business with him. As a result, he also racked up more total kills over the years than Freddy; but let’s face it, he was kind of a bore.

Freddy on the other hand was the life of the party.

A real cut-up…

He was just as likely to have you in stitches with one of his awful puns as he was with his razor blade fingers. His kills had a surrealistic flair and his methods were always inventive and imaginative. Most importantly, he always seemed to be having so much damn fun.

If you were a teen destined for slaughter, you could do worse than he dying by Freddy’s hand. At least you’d know you were going in style…

Freddy’s first foray in the popular music landscape came occurred in 1985 when he was subject of the song “Freddy Krueger” by Stormtroopers of Death (S.O.D), a crossover thrash metal side project featuring members of the band Anthrax. The song appeared on their album, Speak English or Die, commonly considered a classic of the genre.

​Although it was not a commercial hit, it did provide Freddy with some valuable street cred in the heavy metal music scene.

Freddy’s first taste of mainstream musical success came on the coat tails of the hair metal explosion that ruled the airwaves of MTV back when that sort of thing actually mattered.

​In 1987, he was featured prominently in Dokken’s video for the song "Dream Warriors", a metal song which appeared on the soundtrack to A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. 

​The song was also released as a single which charted at #22 on Billboard’s Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and solidified, once and for all, Freddy’s rock star status.

This taste of mainstream musical success in combined with what I can only assume was a desire to grow as an artist, eventually resulted in Freddy releasing his own album.

Surprisingly, he turned his back on the metal scene where he got his start by putting out a straight up pop record, Freddy’s Greatest Hits featuring The Elm Street Group which was released on RIC records in 1987.

The album is long out of print but you can find it on You Tube.

It's mostly a collection of oldies covers with a few originals thrown in for good measure. Wisely, Freddy does very little actual singing, instead opting to deliver one- liners and cackle in the background while The Elm Street Group handles most of the vocal duties.

Sales were not great, as the attempt to appeal to the lowest common denominator resulted in little more than a novelty record.

Undaunted Freddy reinvented himself again. This time turning his attention to the other up and coming musical genre that was taking American by storm.

​Hip Hop.

And it was there that he would find his greatest success.

The first notable reference to Freddy in the world of Hip Hop came in 1987 via the track"Nightmare on ADE Street" by Miami Bass pioneer MC ADE.

The song is essentially a battle rap aimed at Freddy with ADE describing in detail how he would defeat him if their paths crossed. Later that year Freddy responded with a battle rap of his own, by way of rival Miami MC, “Stevie B” called "Nightmare on Freddy Krueger Street". 

 Much like his introduction to Heavy Metal, while neither of these tracks garnered much mainstream success, they illustrated that Freddy could be a viable commodity in the world of Hip Hop.

The following year he was featured prominently on not one, but two, mainstream Hip Hop tracks.
“Are You Ready for Freddy?” by the Fat Boys and “Nightmare on My Street” By DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, which were both in consideration for inclusion on the soundtrack to A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master.

Ultimately the Fat Boys were given the honor, but it was it the funktastic beats of Jazzy Jeff and the undeniable charisma of a young Will Smith that landed their spin on the Freddy mythos at #15 Billboard’s Hot 100 charts.

​New Line Cinema later sued Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince’s record label for copyright infringement, forcing them to destroy the official music video for the song and clearly label all vinyl pressings of the record with the following disclaimer:

"NIGHTMARE ON MY STREET” IS NOT PART OF AND HAS NOT BEEN EMBODIED IN THE SOUNDTRACK OF ANY “NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET” MOTION PICTURE. THIS RECORD IS NOT AUTHORIZED, LICENSED OR AFFILIATED WITH THE “NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET” FILMS, NEW LINE CINEMA CORP., THE ELM STREET VENTURE OF THE FOURTH NEW LINE/HERON VENTURE."

 Despite the controversy, it was Freddy’s best selling record to date. And as it turns out, it was also the peak of his musical career.

In the years following, Freddy’s appeared in music videos by Romeo’s Daughter and The Goo Goo Dolls, both of whom contributed music to the soundtracks for Nightmare on Elm Streets Parts 5 and 6, respectively. But neither song got much traction, and eventually Freddy’s music career dwindled alongside of his box office returns
.
And although it’s been close to 30 years since he’s been involved in a new project, it seems Freddy isn’t quite ready to give up on his musical dreams (nightmares?) just yet.

In the last few months he quietly posted two videos on You Tube featuring a hardcore Gangster Rap persona with music produced by a mysterious duo known as The Merkins.

The rhymes here are more focused and mature than anything Freddy’s ever attempted in the past. This is the work of a man who has been burned, not only by a vigilante mob of angry parents seeking revenge, but also by the blazing furnace of the pop music industry. It will be interesting to see where he goes from here.

​Freddy will always be remembered first and foremost as horror villain royalty, but it is clear that he also left behind a musical legacy that is as eclectic and surprising as his methods of murder.

Follow Mozzarella Jamboree on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/mozzarellajamboree

Wednesday night's Banned Books Week Bedtime Selection was And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole.

It tells the true story of 2 male penguins, Roy and Silo, who displayed homosexual behavior and were given an egg to care for by their zookeepers at the Central Park Zoo. It’s not hard to guess why this book topped this list of most challenged books every year from 2006 – 2010, except 2009 when it came in second.

The dreaded homosexual agenda…

As expected, a number of concerned parents rushed to have access to this book restricted for fear that it would instill a sense of tolerance and empathy in their still impressionable youths.

Most libraries did not concede and kept the book in regular circulation, but it of course became a lightning rod debate topic for both sides of gay rights debate.

Here’s the thing. In case you haven’t noticed, gay people are everywhere.

And they are to stay. How’s that old saying go?

Get used to it.

Accept the fact that your kids are going to see gay people everywhere.

They are at restaurants. They are at the movies. They are at school. They are walking their dog past your house. And some of them are going to even have families whether you like it or not.

There are opportunities everywhere for you kids to ask you what you may perceive as an awkward question. So why not tackle the issue head on?

While we were reading it, my daughter Olivia did ask "But, where's the mommy?"

Rather than sidestep the issue, my wife and and I explained to her that even though she has a mommy and daddy, some people have 2 daddies, or 2 mommies. And that others only have a mommy, or a daddy and every combination in between. She took a minute to think about it and then said "Just like Kelly's mommy and daddy don't live together?" referring to her older cousin who's parents are not together. We didn't stress the point that some people are gay, but rather that everyone's family is different.

Even if acceptance isn't your thing, you could always use this book to help your kids spot homosexuals so they can avoid them if you want. Because, that's your right whether I like it or not.

Everyone should look at this book as a teaching tool, even if what you’re teaching is in intolerance.

Banned Books Week
Celebrating the Freedom to Read: 09/27-10/03/15
http://www.bannedbooksweek.org