I am an avid collector whenever my wallet allows. My main area of collecting is vintage Halloween items. I concentrate on Beistle decorations, Gurley candles, Empire, Bayshore and Union blowmolds and anything else that happens to strike my liking.
Beyond the scope of Halloween collecting, I also collect vintage board games with emphasis on Monopoly and Clue (I own every Clue game ever made!).
I also collect the original Goosebumps book series. There's just something about the cover art.
MOVIES
Tim Curry
Johnny Depp
Julia Roberts
Kirsten Dunst
Alyson Hannigan
MUSIC
Music ranks at number two on my list of passions and is second only to Halloween. From an early age I identified with music like far too people do. It's so commonplace for people to merely listen to music, hardly realizing that it's something you must feel in order to appreciate it wholly.
Beethoven is my all-time favorite. His entire cycle of piano sonatas encase some of the best (and most widely known) pieces in existence. In particular, the third movement of his 23rd piano sonata, the Appassionata, is phenomenal. No other piece of music has such a profound effect on me.
Midnight Syndicate would have to pull in at slot two. I was lucky to stumble across them on another Halloween network, thus cementing them into a permanent playlist on my iPod. While their music is perfect for the Halloween season and is used in several professional-level haunt attractions, what I appreciate most about them is their benign talent for composing superior melodies, easily distinguishing them from Nox Arcana and other musicians housed in the same genre.
As far as television and film composers go, there are a few that possess immense skill:
Danny Elfman can work wonders with musical passages and I hold his scores for Edward Scissorhands, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and especially The Nightmare Before Christmas in high esteem.
John Williams' work encompasses a wide range of films with personal attention being paid towards his work on Jurassic Park, The Lost World and the first three Harry Potter films. His work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, although my least favorite novel/film in the series, is absolutely ingenious.
Christophe Beck's work on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series is wonderful. I only wish they released more of it to the general public.
Daniel Licht's work on the Showtime series, Dexter™ is worth mentioning.
Charlie Clouser's work on Saw and Dead Silence.
Steve Jablonsky's scores for the remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its relevant prequel are solid horrorscapes.
Philip Glass' work on Candyman is pleasant to the ears yet strikingly haunting.
I also thoroughly enjoy video game scores:
David Wise's Donkey Kong Country trilogy.
Grant Kirkhope's Donkey Kong 64, Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie.
Alistair Lindsay's RollerCoaster Tycoon 3.
Non-instrumental music that strikes a chord with me ranges anywhere from:
Classic Rock (Supertramp, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Journey, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Queen, Def Leppard and Creedence Clearwater Revival)
to Hard Rock (Seether, Hinder, Buckcherry, Chevelle, Evanescence, Three Days Grace, My Chemical Romance, Nickelback, Papa Roach, Daughtry and Theory of a Deadman)
to the more mainstream (Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy, Matchbox Twenty, Maroon 5, P!nk and Mariah Carey).
Since my fondess of music is blatantly apparent, it should come as no shock to you that I truly enjoy a good musical. The Phantom of the Opera, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and the Buffy mini-musical, Once More, With Feeling are my favorite musicals.
Bottom line: I can stomach almost any kind of music as long as it's not goat-ropin' (country), oldies or rap.
BOOKS
My favorite novels are Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera and Victor Hugo's Les Misèrables.
I'll read anything on Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia and Halloween collecting.
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Brace yourself. . .
Halloween!
The dark.
Graveyards; especially the old, derelict ones.
Thunderstorms/rain.
Foggy nights.
Anything supernatural or paranormal.
Unexplained phenomena.
Cryptozoology. I am fascinated by the Loch Ness Monster, the Legend of Dogman and Sasquatch/Bigfoot.
True crime; especially Jack the Ripper, the Black Dahlia murder and the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, among others.
Scary haunted houses/attractions.
Witchcraft/Occult.
The artwork of Joseph Vargo.
Vintage Halloween imagery/memorabilia. Artists and manufacturers could learn a thing or two from the classics.
Scaring people (and not necessarily around Halloween).
Scaring haunt actors instead of them scaring me. That's always fun.
Tormenting my nieces and my nephew by telling them that our house is haunted by a mischievous ghost. All in good fun, of course.
Handing out bucket-loads of goodies to the trick-or-treaters. We've sort of become the one-stop shop in town.
Decorating the house for Halloween and setting up for the party. When I think I've covered every square inch, I add just a little bit more.
Being scared. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it's quite the rush. There's nothing like tapping into your hard-wired instinctive fears and relishing that nervous tension resonating throughout your entire body.
People capable of saying, "No."
Games; especially Monopoly, Clue, Rummy, Flinch, Yahtzee and Split.
Video games: Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, the Donkey Kong Country series, the Banjo-Kazooie series, the Legend of Zelda series and the Castlevania series.
Computer games: Zuma, the RollerCoaster Tycoon series and especially the Mystery Case Files series.
Roller coasters. My favorite roller coaster is Batman.
Bill Engvall. He's hilarious.
Music (see Music section).
Pizza Hut pizza.
Mountain Dew.
People with a sense of humor; the more offbeat, the better. I'm a walking spoof.
Animals/pets. I believe they are superior to humans in many ways.
I appreciate creative people with an eye for detail. If you're passionate about something it clearly shows. Remember my personal motto:
DISLIKES
Liars.
Nice people. They're always the ones you have to watch out for. Mean people have a tendency to surprise you; nice people usually end up disappointing you.
People who cut corners to make their jobs easier even though it makes someone else's job more difficult.
People who limit themselves based on religion. I don't believe in God or the devil, right or wrong, good or evil; that's conditional. We have choices, and every action has an equal or greater reaction. In the end, we all get what we give.
People who steal stuff from my profile. Be original, it's much more rewarding.
People who give me a judgmental look when I tell them that my cat's name is Satan. (Trust me, you don't want to make him mad!)
Cell phones. I just do not like them.
Taking down my Halloween stuff.
I absolutely despise Christmas. Unfortunately, I come from a family that obsesses over Christmas more than I do Halloween. I still attest that I'm adopted.
It irks me that Christmas merchandise fills the stores in the middle of summer yet Halloween merchandise barely makes it up before the end of September.
Bible-bangers who insist on condemning Halloween as the Devil's holiday or that it is celebrated for purely evil reasons. These people need to touch up on their Halloween History.
Cliché horror movies; especially the ones that claim to be original.
The cutesy, crafty Halloween junk that plagues the shopping aisles during peak season.
Haunted attractions that think they're scary when they're anything but.
Dial-up internet and the fact that they don't offer high-speed where I live.
People who can text on a cell phone faster than they can type on a computer keyboard.
People who drive with their blinker on for thirteen miles and never turn.
The fact that Lucky Charms doesn't come with just the marshmallows.
Animal cruelty. Nothing makes me more angry than people who neglect or torture animals for their own perverse pleasure.
In spite of embracing fear whenever I can, I am forced to admit that there are a few horrors too intense for me to face.
I am absolutely petrified of sharks, so much so that I refuse to go near any body of water larger than a puddle and will not swim in a pool alone. Showers are the only option for me because it's too unnerving to consider taking a bath in more than an inch of standing water (yes, it's that bad!).
Spiders also creep me out. I don't mind the small house spiders, but the ones that could take home gold in the Olympic High Jump or the ones that are bombastic, hairy and possess a three-foot legspan tend to generate some negative attention.
ABOUT ME OR MY HAUNTING PASSIONS
When I was young, my sister and I painted the inside of our father's garage jet black with a bucket of tar. We then proceeded to spray paint threatening messages over it in white. It was an ample backdrop for our first haunted house.
To perfect the scene, we threw in some branches to pose as trees in a dark woods, built a monster cage solely out of shipping palettes and tossed wooden planks over a kiddie pool filled with "swamp" water that had been dyed green with Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid. It goes without question that our father wasn't too impressed with our interior decorating skills. It was safe to say - from that point on, at least - that people realized I was anything but normal.
If you siphoned through the collective adjectives courtesy of my acquaintances and of my own personal opinion, there are a few choice words that could adequately describe me. Of them, I'd have to choose: crazy, creative, campy, sarcastic, moody, funny, intellectual, magnetic and possibly, freak. I'm terribly offbeat and too unique to resort to one specific label. My passion for Halloween doesn't bode well for an image of supposed sanity. I live and breathe Halloween.
I loved Halloween from a very early age. I remember the days when my mother decided that it was time to drag the cardboard boxes filled with Halloween paraphernalia out of storage to embellish the house with icons of the season. This tradition jumpstarted a chain of subsequent traditions: transforming pumpkins into classic jack-o-lanterns on the front stoop (not with the fancy pumpkin patterns used nowadays, either); building a scarecrow to adorn the front yard; and, of course, trick-or-treating.
My interest in Halloween turned into an obsession over the years. As an adult, the crisp smell of autumn brings with it a plethora of Halloween memories that I happily welcome back and continue to build upon.
Halloween isn't just another holiday to me. It's a rite of passage; a way of living that is present in my life year-round. My every whim is polished with Halloween and the macabre. I truly believe that Halloween is the single reason for my humble existence.
Throughout the year I'm busy planning for the upcoming Halloween party thrown exclusively for my nieces and nephew. I enjoy coming up with unique games or putting my own twisted spin on the classics. It has become a tradition in its own class.
I enjoy spoiling the trick-or-treaters, training in my Halloween protegé, Carly, and instilling the spirit of Halloween into everyone that I meet (whether they like it or not!).
I enjoy (attempting) to play the piano, listening to music, composing music, editing music for the Halloween party soundtracks, designing my Halloween party website and writing.
I live in a small hicktown in Minnesota with my femme fatale and our seven cats.
