this is halloween: from roadshow drama queens to salem witch hunts

let's start with the housekeeping...

birthday wishes are in order... first, my mother, the enigmatic special k, celebrated a birthday the other day. i tried to call her a few times the day of, but she was always on the phone chatting it up with someone else. special k has been somewhat of a mini-celebrity ever since she pulled off her most recent roadshow production with flying colors. i was in attendance opening night, and i must admit, it was rather smashing. i was prepared to write it off as a trite rip-off of the earlier version of the exact same roadshow she wrote and directed when i was in high school: the garden of eden, but to my pleasant surprise i was thoroughly and genuinely entertained.

as i have mentioned before, jeff, my brother from the same mother, had a starring role in the original version of the garden of eden as adam (he was a star) and faithful zombie, megan did as well... as did her brother, my sister, and mr. blogmaster himself. all of the formerly mentioned individuals had pretty big rolls (lettty lettuce, calvin corn, satan's mistress) but i was relegated to cornstalk boy 3. no biggie, i had good self-esteem so i wasn't put out by it. at any rate, we put on a pretty good show, not to mention there were some untouchable acts (chad k's role as serpentino is a classic), but i would have to say that this newer version of the same show was just as good if not better (including the serpentino rol,l believe it or not). one thing for certain is that the costumes were unbelievably good and the overall level of acting and singing talent was head and shoulders above that of my generation.

bottom line: kenna pulled it off and just in time for her birthday. so, cheers to you, dear mother, for yet again dawning the coveted crown of roadshow drama queen: you and your grip of grapes hairpiece deserve it. oh, and happy birthday.

next, my good friend johnny miller just got older, as well. he was the one who i wrote about last year when i recounted the story of the bee stinging his lip and it subsequently swelling up to roughly the size of a small baby whale. he used to frequent the blog, but i haven't heard from him in a while. i hope he's still alive. at any rate, i still felt i should wish him a happy b-day since he is one of my closest and oldest friends. if you ever meet him, ask him about the green tie.

moving along...


all hallow's eve is here and that means that a few witches may be coming out of the woodworks every now and again. aim dressed up as a witch the other night for a witch's tea event (a very cool one i might add) she attended and she just about had me ready to enroll at hogwarts she looked so enchanting. i couldn't resist grabbing a few photos of her and then messing around with them on photoshop before posting them here so you could see what i'm talking about.

here's the thing with witches... like i noted above, i'm somewhat of a sucker for the supernatural. i love the hollywood tower of terror at disneyland. it's essentially the big shot here in vegas but it has a way cooler twilight zone back story which separates it from all the other similar type rides. we used to fly into new orleans often and the airport there would have signs advertising haunted mansion tours and i'd be lying if i said they didn't intrigue me. x-files, the bermuda triangle, ghostbusters, these things all appeal to my basic interests. maybe that makes me a geek or maybe that just means the veil is thin with me. you decide.

regardless of my musings on my draw to the existential, the one thing i will never live down in the hallowed halls of cooperdom is the family excursio to salem.


many of you should know what salem, ma, was all about. for those who don't, it's where the term "witch hunt" came from (i'm pretty sure): some accused witches accused other people of being witches all in an attempt to save their own necks (no, i'm not making any political commentary here except for the fact that i kind of am just by saying this). anyway, it was a pretty big deal since some innocent people died and some of the witches didn't and witchcraft was apparently alive and well during good old puritanical america.

why do i bring this up? well, one because i had to tie in some humorous story to this post that had to do with witches and, two, because it just so happens that the greater cooper family made a daytrip to salem on the tail end of our massachusetts trip a few years back.

the fact that we went to salem in and of itself wasn't that big of deal; however, when you consider that we were faced with the option of going to cape cod or salem for the day and we chose salem over the former, a whole new perspective enters into the picture. and then when you factor in the fact that i lobbied heavily for salem and was pretty much the catalyst behind the trip, then you will understand why this particular event is so near and dear to my heart.

why all the hate for salem you ask? for starters, it's no cape cod... in fact, it's not even a poor man's cape cod. it's more like an unemployed goth high school drama geek's cape cod which makes sense seeing as how the town is completely populated by said individuals. seriously, it's like the place where all high school drama goth geeks go to die... or play dungeons and dragons or something similar.

in all fairness, it should be noted that salem is not completely devoid of value... for instance, if you are interested in low budget pirate museums and shock value (but missing the shock) salem witch trial reenactment theaters all run by the likes of tobias fundke wannabes (yes, i have mentioned tobias in two straight posts now. if you do not know who he is, google is your friend and will shed tremendous light on the reference... use it), then salem is the place for you. if you like to color your hair black, dark purple, dark blue or dark green, paint your face white, use way too much mascara, call yourself azriel or some crazy like-sounding name all while listening to joy division ad nauseam, then salem is your middle earth.

on the other hand, if you're a bunch of mormons with a bunch of little kids who get freaked out at the sight of people wandering around town who look like the predator creature from the movies, then salem is probably not the best spot for a little holiday (i don't think the amateur actors appreciated the kids not paying them their due respect when reciting the well-rehearsed lines during the tours)... then again, cape cod probably isn't either. oh well, salem was an experience.

and while my family still gives me a hard time over salem, it has provided for oodles of laughs over the years and was a bonding moment for the cooper clan (literally, we had to fix a fence post the kids broke outside some caldron gift shop while waiting for big j to get off the phone with his office). besides, cape cod would have just made us think we were the arrested development version of the kennedys which is really saying something considering the kennedy family's degree of disfunction... and where's the fun in that?

all i'm saying is why couldn't more of the witches in salem looked something like the pics below. then being a witch back in the day wouldn't have been such a bad or at least our recent trip there would have been much more enjoyable.

note to zombies: i made mrs. blogmaster pose for most of these... she's really not that into herself. in fact, she's not very comfortable with all these pics of her on the blog, but i making an executive decision and leaving them up.