It's a Nightmare

Here's a charming little sonnet I wrote one Friday the 13th:

Nightmare

 by Mark Alfred

Enveloping, it chafes and smothers you;

You have no warning; then it is too late

To keep from seeing what no others do.

This is your private torment; yours the gate

That leads into the hidden, dim recess

Of every misbegotten lust and dream.

For nothing here forbids: no foul excess

Can be denied in this dark-litten gleam.

Your self is yourself’s  pris’ner, and no cell

Could grip with clammy clutch to such intent.

Awakened, you must sleep, and who could tell

What horrors lurked in sleep, or what they meant?

It seems the grandest terrors still remain;  

Your pleasant, daylight heart must bear the stain.

Come back on Monday for more trips down Halloween Lane.  Now, head on over to Spock’s Record Round-Up for musical fun during Spooky Spock-Tober!
  

Munsters at the Ball

A few more images from the Munsters' visit to a Halloween party ...

 Marilyn is so funny!  As if anybody could lose an eight-foot-lug like Herman Munster!

 The hostess may not appreciate what she sees ...

So, does Herman look like a knight, or a welder, in that helmet?

See you here on Friday, for more spooky silliness.  Head on over to Spock’s Record Round-Up for musical fun during Spooky Spock-Tober!
  

Macabre Public Images

 We-e-elll, they were SORT of public.   If you were riffling through the mags in a newsstand.

 From the depths of the October, 1980 National Lampoon, we see a demonstration of why it's so important to watch out for trick-or-treaters.

Granted, this panel by comics great Joe Orlando is illustrating a youngster in the middle of his first purple drug haze, but it's still pretty darn creepy.  It's from the September, 1979 National Lampoon.



Head on over to Spock’s Record Round-Up for musical fun during Spooky Spock-Tober!  we'll see you back here on Wednesday for more detritus from the Autumn Country.

 

Poe-try Friday

Today's instalment of Blog-o-Ween is simply a little fragment of verse, from an eleventh-grader who has OD'd on Edgar A.

It's an in medias res situation: You're waking up from a nightmare, no doubt caused by uneasy grief after your loved one's death.

I know not on what ground my feet are resting;
   I recognize not the air my nostrils embrace:
All is, and shall be, darkness, divesting
   My soul from all affiliation with the human race.
And so, with cautious movement, my hands begin questing
And, after interminable time, find a resting-
   Place ---
Upon my lover's inert, lifeless face.

You tell me.  Did the narrator kill her in a sleepwalking daze?  Did she die of Scarlet Fever after he failed to bring the doctor in time?  Did she fall into a booby-trap which he had set to catch somebody trying to harm her?

Your guess is as good as mine.

See you on Monday! 
Head on over to Spock’s Record Round-Up for musical fun during its Spooky Spock-Tober!
  
 

More Topps Monster Laughs

ABOVE:  This is how I feel, most of the spring / summer / fall months

See you on Friday with a brief Halloween ditty.  Tomorrow, Thursday, head on over to Spock’s Record Round-Up for musical fun during its Spooky Spock-Tober!

From a 1976 National Lampoon: The Genius of Gahan Wilson

In the  National Lampoon of the mid-1970s, Gahan Wilson had a wonderful strip called "Nuts," in which a little boy with social anxiety is just trying to figure things out.  In other words, he was a lot like me!

These pages are from the September, 1976 issue:

Such indeed in tone were my childhood Halloween memories ...

See you on Wednesday!  Now hurry over the the Record Round-Up to see what's on tap for today's instalment of Spooky Spock-Tober!
 

The Black Church -- An Attempt at Lovecraftian Horror

As a 15-tear-old, I was pleased as peaches with the discovery of HP Lovecraft and his wordy world of weirdness.

Fortunately, a downtown bookstore carried the various Ballantine anthologies then being released, including the two-part Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Being an easily influenced teen raised on Poe, I immediately set off to imitate.

As you can tell from this unfinished bit of business hailing from 1973, I was giving sincere flattery to Robert Bloch and Lovecraft with "The Black Church."

This quest for a story was inspired by the tryptic formed by Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars," HPL's "The Haunter of the Dark," and Bloch's answering "The Shadow from the Steeple."

Typically, there's an idea but no conflict-resolution.

 Still ... as you can tell, my heart's in the right place ... probably a jar on Robert Bloch's desk!

See you on Monday for more spooky nonsense.

The Munsters of October

 Yes, we still have not exhausted the dusty glory of Whitman's 1965 Munsters coloring book.

In this storyline, Marilyn has attracted another suitor who doesn't know about her creepy family.
Herman, Lily, and Grandpa are attending in costume.

Wait until the guests see what's under the masks!

Come back Friday to witness a pathetic attempt by a teenager to emulate Lovecraft and Bloch.

MA-88 - Spooks on the Loose

Welcome …

To the cebratin’-est Halloween season!

Our first offering for this fall, shared across Mark’s Super Blog and Spock’s Record Round-Up, is the new Halloween-music compilation for 2017…

On the line-up for tonight ….

01 - Count Floyd Intro - SCTV   1978  (0:35)

02 - Escape from Castle Wolfenstein - Monsters from Mars   2006  (3:03)

03 - Haunted House - Hasil Adkins   1986  (2:22)

04 - Seance - The Ebb-Tides   1967  (2:04)

05 - The Incredible Crawling Eye - Nervus Rex   1980  (3:39)

06 - Am I Dead Yet - The Gorehounds   1987  (2:46)

07 - Haunted After Midnight - Slim Martin   1961  (2:52)

08 - The Munsters (Metal Version) - Sylvain Cloux   2008  (0:44)

09 - Halloween Song - Neil Blunt and Jack Miffleton   1971  (1:58)

10 - The Bell Witch - Merle Kilgore   1964  (2:28)

11 - Vincent Price - Deep Purple   2013  (4:46)

12 - Trick or Treat - Ruth Roberts   1974  (1:39)

13 - Night of the Phantom - Larry & the Blue Notes   1965  (2:09)

14 - Graveyard Cha Cha - The Three D's   1960  (2:39)

15 - Midnight - The Rolling Headstones   1970  (2:48)

16 - Dracula's Wedding - OutKast Featuring Kelis   2003  (2:33)

17 - The Night Stalker - Teddy Durant   1965  (2:11)

18 - Tarantula - The Tarantulas   1960  (2:06)

19 - Space Devil - The Phantom Creepers   1992  (4:12)

20 - Spider Walk - The Sabres   1965  (2:33)

21 - I'm a Monster - Rock & Roll Frankenstein (soundtrack)   1999  (1:39)

22 - Re: Your Brains - Jonathan Coulton   2005  (4:29)

23 - Vampire's Ball - Mann Drake   1962  (2:30)

24 - Vampire Husband - Shelley Stuart & The Five Stars   1972  (2:57)

25 - Lady Vampire - Smokey Jam   1967  (1:51)

26 - Toxic Avenger - The Dickies   1990  (3:05)

27 - Doctor Frankenstein's Disco Party - Johnny Wakelin   1977  (3:46)

28 - Marble Orchard - The Graveyard Five   1968  (3:17)

29 - Is It a Dream? - Fatal Charm   1986  (3:38)

30 - Count Floyd Outro - SCTV   1978  (0:22)

Our (uninvited) host for tonight is Count Floyd …

Pretty scary, Kiddies?  I hope you think so.

https://www.filefactory.com/file/70m285g3n6uu/MA-88.rar

Come back on Wednesday for more fun on the Super Blog, with BLOG-O-WEEN! -- and on Thursday for more Halloween madness, with SPOOKY SPOCK-TOBER, on the Record Round-Up! 

By the way, here is the original Spook Show poster, changed to become our CD cover.