Rejected: Hallow can you go?
Rejected: All Hallow’s, No Goodbyes
Rejected: Bodycrates and Hardscape (That one’s for Crook)

No biggie, right? Just halloween…only the stupidest, most not-getting-it-off-from-work un-holiday known to grown men and women everywhere, right? Just a brainless cash-in by the world’s evil candy conglomerate. Just a covert, clandestine, Illuminati-sponsored project of the world’s Apple Syndicate to simultaneously push their wares and thin the herd of gullible, OMG-I-swallowed-this-whole-razorblade-before-I realized-it-was-in-my-mouth children. Muahaha. Them. They are the ones saying muahaha. I am just telling it like it is.

No. Fuck you if you think any of that. It’s a biggie. Not even a small biggie…it’s like, a huge biggie. You know that awesome banger of a Sheryl Crow track ‘Every Day is a Winding Road’? No. She is wrong. Categorically wrong. Every day is Halloween. Halloween for Life. Well, Rough Draft AND Halloween for Life. There. I said it.

Chattering, glow-in-the-dark, black-gummed fangs. Check!

My position should be becoming relatively clear to you by now. You take the good, you take the bad, you take the rest and there you have Halloween. Everything about life can be categorized into stuff that’s LIKE halloween and stuff that is NOT LIKE Halloween. This second category can be ignored. Wholesale.

In attempting to gather photo subjects from inside my habitat for this, the All Hallow’s themed entry in Niche Fetish, I have realized that I am completely surrounded—every day of the year—by death, dismemberment, zombies, freaks, monsters, mayhem, and lovely greeting cards from my wife.

But hey. This is nothing new to you, O constant reader, who has ascertained through careful scrutiny of my personal style and massive wealth of amazing treasure that I, indeed, am the living breathing spirit of a sort of middle-aged, very calm, very sit at your desk and talk about it Halloween. I am not telling you anything new. You knew this already. So I am here today to reinforce that notion with some photos. Some sharing. SOME expression of my awesomely at once domineering yet welcoming Halloween-ness.

So here you go. My offering at the altar of this fantastically witchy wondertime. Probably mostly toys and shit like that, but maybe some other stuff too. Check after the jump for a ton of pics:

Note: Obviously, Ghost Dots are a given, but I’ve already written extensively about them before. Do yourself a favor and click the link.)

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No sooner do I whine about us not getting our usual “hey I made a Мишка inspired Jack-O-Lantern” this time of year that I get hit off with one of the best Мишк-O-Lanterns we’ve ever gotten!

Sam Wells AKA DJ Chup sent this along yesterday and we just wanted to share it with all of y’all and hopefully inspire some more of you to carve out some Мишк-O-Lanterns. You’ve still got ’til Sunday, so grab a pumpkin and a knife and get to carvin’!

Gucci Mane – All About The Money

Gucci Mane – Wasted

Triple C’s – Trickn Off

Gucci Mane – Excuse Me (Diplo Remix)

Gucci Mane – Pillz (remix)

I know there’s at least a couple bike people on the Bloglin so I thought I would share my most recent build. I treated myself to a new frame and fork a couple weeks ago that’s finally ready for the road and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome.

I had my eye on the Ridley Oval since last fall but I gave up on the idea when I found out that the Canadian distributor wasn’t going to stock them this year. Much to my luck a few random Oval frames found their way to Canadian warehouse just in time for a new Spring build.

By no means were the last couple frames I was riding loose but they were nothing in comparison to the Oval’s geometry. No turning required with this bike, but rather a lot of lean. A whole lot of lean in this cup. The toe overlap is definitely providing a learning curve.

Anyone else out there with any Spring builds they want to share in the comments? Anything! Fly whips, scrapers, hooptys, whatever!

So. More crazy travels to SF. To be honest, I wouldn’t normally bore you with the specifics and details of my tedious, overly-adult life, but the past few weeks have found me bumping into great- and interesting-ness so I figured what the hell. Or what the hello, as I seem to want to type over and over again.

This weekend saw the wife and I hauling our bones back down to San Francisco for a few concurrent special occasions. As the toy- and/or comics-minded of you may already know, the geniuses at Wondercon decided to schedule, um, Wondercon, for the same weekend as Easter. Which made for an at-once crazy busy and crazy empty SF. It was weird. To add to the madness—a daisy-chain of insanity, really—the fine folks at Super7 organized a big show with Gargamel—the Japanese vinyl toymakers, NOT the gravelly-voiced smurf foil—and they sort of brought the heat. In addition to releasing a couple of new head sculpts for S7′s Monster Family line of toys, they brought a staggering 120-ish customs to sell.

We also had a chance to check out the fabled and mysterious Alameda Flea Market/Swap Meet on Sunday which was…a disaster. It’s raining, it’s cold, and all I got was this (awesome) lawn gnome. One of those types of affairs. Anyway, the whole set is here, but I figured I’d pull a few highlights to make you all jealous at my awesome, glamour-filled, yes-sir-mr.-west, lifestyle. To wit.

PS: Wouldn’t the above photo qualify as Bear Porn? Whatever happened to Bear Porn?

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St. Patrick’s Day used to be a very real, much anticipated excuse for me and my friends to go out and drink. Drink more than usual. It used to actually be on my calendar.

Now that I am a thirtysomething unhipster, it is an excuse for my wife to send me (even more) clips of singing muppets.

Ideally, I would like both things all at once…I could be a drunken, hard-partying, holiday-longing-for responsible, hard-working adult, but I guess if I have to choose one over the other, Animal chases the snakes.

I hate all holidays except for Halloween and the Fourth of July.  Every other holiday mostly serves to make lonely people miserable and aggravate family stresses to the point where people are screaming at each other and throwing shit. I think that Christmas, Valentines Day and New Years Eve are all evil and wrong. Thanksgiving is a little bit of a fence sitter but it still makes people feel like shit.

Despite hating the holidays I do like the week after the holidays when all the candy is half off.  I was in a Rite Aid where I picked up a Snoopy Valentine that contained really bad peanut butter cups, a Hello Kitty valentine with chalky candy bracelets inside and a Barbie valentine with conversation hearts in it.  I actually like these godawful candies even though I know it is wrong.  These were weirder than the ones I was used to.  Half of the candies just said “OH BOY” but the others ranged from confusing to threatening.

I am supposing that these hearts were made by people in another country who got some old conversation hearts and English words which they then programmed into the machine that prints words onto candy hearts in a very computer-like font. I like to imagine little girls faxing each other or Barbie being so in love with someone that she is moved to fax him a very passionate letter.

I am not sure if the candy is saying that things are hopeless or encouraging you to hope less. Either way, grim.

I got dewy eye from putting my head in a litter box one time. That suckkkked.

These seem to be written by and for depressed people who sit around all day by themselves.

I will get you next time.

When?

Don’t leave.

Is timing romantic? So many of these seem to be about the past and the future. “What now?”, “Yes now”, “When?”, “Next time.” It’s like whoever was writing these just passed the portion of the English for Malaysians class where they taught how to refer to things existing in time.

De La Soul – Stakes is High

Pete Rock / J. Dilla – Niggaz Know

A Tribe called quest – Find a Way

Jaylib – Starz

Keith Murray – The Rhyme (Jay Dee Remix)

Puff Daddy ft RUN DMC, Mase, Salt & Pepa, Onyx and Keith Murray – Santa Baby Remix

Snoop Dogg – Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto

Kurtis Blow – Christmas Rapping (live on TOTP jan’80)

Eazy-E – Merry Muthafuckin’ Christmas

Run DMC – Christmas In Hollis

We’re pretty big fans of Andrew W.K. round these parts so we were thrilled to here his recent trip to Viva Radio to perform live on the 67th installment of their Me+You sessions. Andrew wastes no time in celebrating this “High Holiday” weaving behind the piano in a very (to quote Viva Radio’s blog) Harry Nilsson singer-songwriter fashion.

This is a side most people aren’t probably used to hearing from the “Party Hard” rocker, but AWK is truly a consummate musician who rip anthemic rockers or just keep you entertained with his words and piano playing.

Hear the entire Andrew W.K. Me +You session here!