NATSLETTER | “HALLOWEEN PUN”-TOBER

As the dying leaves begin to drop from the branches, the veil between this life and the next grows thinner. On the night when the veil is at its thinnest, the ghosts and goblins and other ghoulies from the beyond break through into the waking world to flit and frolic among the living. 

We call this night by many names - Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, or Samhain, or… Friday night, I guess. However you refer to it, the fact remains that it is a splendid, frightening time of year.

What’s that? You want to know what my traditional Halloween’s like? I’m so glad you asked! 

In the morning, I jog to the store and purchase a nice big bag of individually wrapped candies. I fetch my trusty plastic pumpkin bucket from the back of my garage, where it’s stored beneath my trusty Flag Day decorations. I evict any spiders who may have been living there and then stuff the bucket so full that it looks like it’s oozing Baby Ruths out of its gaping top hole.

Then I lock the doors, hop into bed, wrap the blanket over my head so nobody can witness my shame, and then I devour every piece of candy - wrapper and all - while screaming my head off and praying to God that the ghosts and demons leave me be for another year.

I do this until I pass out or until I hear the first warbles of bird songs on a crisp, new November morning. Eating and screaming and crying beneath the shame blanket - a most charming holiday indeed!

This also just so happens to be the time of year in which we inaugurate this little monthly newsletter! Bully and hooray! 

Won’t you please join me on the bed beneath the shame blanket, where we will unwrap some sugary little nuggets of satirical confection and then pop them into our screaming mouths? 

Let’s begin with some safety suggestions from your typical, all-American town.

“COMMUNITY BULLETIN FOR VILLA LAS MIASMAS, CALIFORNIA”

To our neighbors and friends in the VLM community: Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-Treating with family and friends can be one of life’s great joys. This year is just like any other, with the small exception of a few added challenges. To that end, the town council thought it best to issue some Halloween guidance for our residents.

The festivities begin at 5:00 PM and end by 8:00 PM (or when the candy runs out!) on October 31st. We used to mark the start and stop times by blowing our emergency sirens but lately with the rampant fire seasons we’ve decided it best to save our community some unneeded stress. It’s the honor system again for us.

Here are some suggestions for how to Trick-or-Treat safely this year:

• Wear comfortable, sensible shoes. Place reflective tape on your costume or on your candy bag to ensure that motorists and bicyclists can see you. Stay on the sidewalk whenever possible and avoid walking into traffic. Also, avoid any grown men dressed up in military gear who may or may not be kidnapping people off the streets. This is a thing that is happening in the real world now.
• Try to trick-or-treat only at houses with porch lights on, and stay away from any unmarked vans that may be populated by guys wearing knock-off fatigues and with balaclavas covering their faces. They’ll likely be drinking energy drinks in there, shouting at one another to hype themselves up so they can overcome any nagging consciences that might have reservations about stealing fathers, mothers and children from their families.
• Bring a jacket in case the temperatures drop, and try to dress in costumes that make you appear white or white-coded. This can prevent you from drawing undue attention from grown-ass men cosplaying as soldiers. Suggested costumes include the Punisher or a Blues Brother or Taylor Swift. Avoid KPop Demon Hunter costumes or anything else fun but “foreign.” These guys say they’re not kidnapping people based on race but rather on immigration and criminal status, however they’re only really lying to themselves because suspiciously it seems most of the people they kidnap are not white and a fair amount of the victims tend to be American citizens.
• Parents: be sure to check your kid’s candy before allowing them to eat it. Throw away any opened wrappers or anything that may have drugs or razor blades in them. Remember when we were worried about that? The razor blades? That was the worst thing we had to worry about this time of year? Not the possibility that you or a loved one could be arbitrarily picked up off the streets and ziptied by a bunch of social rejects decked out in glorified video game soldier costumes, and then shuttled off to an internment camp three states away before you can find a lawyer? Razor blades feels kind of quaint now, doesn’t it?

And for those of you staying home to hand out the candy, remember that you’re under no obligation to give candy to grown-ass men who put on body armor, strap tasers to themselves and cover their faces with masks to hide from their own embarrassment and the disappointment of their families and friends. You’re perfectly within your rights to slam the door, turn off the lights and deny them your fun-sized Snickers bars. 

If they come to your home and refuse to leave, ask them to complete a physical examination - that should drive them away.

Happy candy-hunting and Happy Halloween!

And now, this piece comes to us from a certain ghoul experiencing a frightening house guest of their own…

“BONED”

I’ve been haunting for a very long time. Hundreds of years. I’ve been at it so long that I can’t even remember when I started or why; that’s how long I’ve been at this. I say this not to brag but so you’ll understand that I’m not just some rube ghost.

I’ve got a sweet set-up for myself here - I de facto “own” this beautiful, disheveled, homey, vaguely terrifying colonial-era mansion that’s been around since before Baltimore was even founded. I’ve worked very hard to make sure that the place is kept in the perfect state of disrepair. The dark, foreboding windows. The vine-choked pergola and the overgrown garden of tangled thorn bushes.  Every busted shutter, every cracked fieldstone, every creaky floorboard has been specifically chosen to maximize the creepiness of this perfectly curated atmosphere.

Here’s how things usually go. Someone either buys the place with the idea of fixing it up, or else some teenaged brats make a dare to see who can spend one whole night in the house, or some wandering vagrant breaks in to get out from the cold or the rain. It doesn’t matter why they come. I’m not picky. I’m an equal opportunity haunter.

Anyway, after a couple of hours of mild messing around with them - moving their luggage, making footsteps, wailing in a loud and incoherent way, etc. - eventually midnight rolls around and that’s when I make my big entrance. 

What I do is I drop down through the old stone chimney, one bone at a time. Once I’ve managed to reassemble myself, I raise up to my full height. And then? Well, it just sort of depends on what I’m feeling in the moment. 

Sometimes I yell at them in a Latin-like gibberish language that I created myself, like I’m some sort of minion of Satan. Sometimes I get all dramatic and demand that they dig their own graves. Honestly, sometimes I’m not in the mood and I just sort of wave my phalanges at them until they run away screaming.

And they always run. I mean, how could they not? I’m a freaking reanimated skeleton. If I was them and all I knew was the living realm, I’d be pissing myself too.

Over the years I’ve managed to scare hundreds and hundreds of people this way. Again, too many to count. I used to cut little notches on the doorframes to keep track of my conquests but I ran out of frame space sometime in the antebellum period. Point is, this is a routine that has worked very well for me over the years. I have one of the best hit rates of any haunt in the entire mid-Atlantic region. As you can tell, I take pride in my vocation.

~*~*~*~*~*~

About a week back I find out that someone new has bought the place. 

By the way, this realtor’s got a real racket going - they sell the property, buy it back for less than the selling price from the terrified customer, and keep turning it over and over. I’d ask for a cut of the action if I had any use for money, but there’s not much I really need and besides, going to stores is a bit of a hassle when you’re dead and skinless.

Anyway, not long after these kids show up at my door - I say kids, but they’re in their forties. The man has manicured scruff for a beard. He’s always wearing Japanese denim jeans and the same ratty black sweater that just has “A24” written on it, whatever the hell that means. The woman is stick thin - she gives even me a run for my money, and I’m completely fleshless. She’s always in stripes. Her hair is this curated mess of curls. Thick designer glasses on both of them.

I figure I know what to do: I’ll run the playbook. They put their luggage in the master bedroom so I open everything up and spill their clothes all over the floor. They load some boxes into the living room and I restack them while they’re gone. They sit down on the floor to eat some takeout Chinese food for dinner and I do my requisite stomping and wailing upstairs.

It feels like everything is going well - no different from any other haunt. They even fall asleep in the living room, right near the fireplace. I’m all set up for the coup de grace. 

My trusty old grandfather clock strikes midnight. I begin moaning the ‘moan of eternal torment.’ I shoot my patented ‘dust of the centuries’ down the flue. Finally, the time comes for ‘the descent’ and I drop my feet down off the smoke shelf into the hearth. Then I drop my leg bones, my pelvis - I don’t need to go through every osteological detail, I mean, you get it right?

Finally, my skull drops. I draw myself up to my full height, turn to look at my unwitting victims…

And they’re just staring at me with these slack jawed, jaded looks. Completely blank. I want to exude “terrifying apparition” as much as possible, but for a brief flicker of a moment I’m too concerned that they’ve both had aneurysms or something.

And then the man turns to the woman and says, “I don’t get it.”

Here I am, about to launch into my dark, demented soliloquy demanding that they dig their own graves, and I’m just so thrown off I can’t help myself. “What do you mean, ‘you don’t get it?’ What’s not to get? I’m a reanimated skeleton.”

“No, yeah, I can see that. Like, that’s pretty clear. It’s maybe even a bit on the nose. But, like, why? I don’t get any sense of, ya know, a unifying theme or message or anything.” 

“It does feel pretty surface level,” pipes up the woman.

Suddenly I’m in uncharted territory. At this point in the routine, I’m used to witnessing the gnashing of teeth and the defiling of garments by erupting bodily fluids. If I had facial muscles, I’d be conveying a look of supreme annoyance and confusion, but since I’ve only got the skull I’m probably just giving back their same slack-jawed, jaded look.

“Like, what is this about?” continues the man. “What are we supposed to make of a skeleton man? Is this about grief? Or disrespect of the environment? Some commentary on religion? Or abortion?”

The woman chimes in, “Could be something related to the cosmetic industry? Like, their skin melted off?”

The man scratches the stupid stubble on his chin. “Maybe. But if that’s true, there hasn’t been a lot of set-up. Honestly, the story components you’ve presented us are nonsensical.”

“Oh yeah. Like, what was up with the noises while we were eating Chinese food? Is this supposed to be about intolerance of other cultures?”

“What? No!” I exclaim. I may be undead but even I know that I don’t want to come off as a bigot. “That was a complete and total coincidence. I always do the stomping and the moaning.”

The woman shrugs. “We’re just going off what you’ve given us.” 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll give you! I could kill you! I could skin you alive and... and…. I’ll make you dig your own graves!” I shout - honestly, I’m pushing now. I know I’m way off script, but I’m really trying to get this disaster back under control. “I’m threatening your mortal soul!”

“Sorry, Bone-Bro. You’re going to have to try harder than that. Nothing is scarier right now than existence.”

The woman gives me this awful, pitying look. “Maybe you’re just a little stale. If you want, we could probably put together a list of films to watch just so you have a better idea what you’re doing.”

What I’m doing! Never mind that I’ve been doing this for generations! Once on a misfortunate campaign stop through town, I made Chester A. Arthur ruin two sets of his own trousers!

“Dude,” says the man, “there are some real visionary auteurs out there that I think could really help you out. Gotta get you thinking on a more thematic level. We’ll make a list.”

The woman nods her head. “We’ll make a list!”

~*~*~*~*~*~

So that’s what it’s come to. I have these two film nerds living in my house, destroying my set-up. They’ve already torn up my thorn bushes, and they’re working on replacing the cracked field stones. Apparently they’re even planning on converting the chimney into a gas fireplace, which means my regular routine is out the freaking window.

I’m still trying my best to run them off, but everything I do to frighten these guys is either “too cute” or “too derivative.” I’m embarrassed to admit it but I’ve started avoiding certain rooms when I know they’re in there, because when they see me now sometimes they’ll shout “friggin’ boneys” and then they laugh and laugh and I do. Not. Get. The joke.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. The most frightened they ever seem to be is when they’re looking at their phones. That’s all they do - they sit there, huddled in their corners of an IKEA couch, muttering and scrolling through their phones.

Oh, and they did make me that auteur list. Turns out I need something called the Criterion Channel to see half of whatever it is these chodes are talking about.

I have this friend - she’s a sheet ghost - she’s been out of work for decades. Nobody’s been scared of sheet ghosts since the 1950’s. She’s got a buddy who’s a mummy - anytime he makes an appearance now he gets blasted for cultural appropriation, and that dude is Egyptian! Like, from Lower Kingdom Egypt!

I guess what I’m saying is that we’re in trouble. It used to be that you could unleash a pack of Draculas and the whole village would empty their bowels. Now-a-days, if you don’t have some deeper symbolism behind everything you do, you’re wasting your time. What are the job prospects for an animated skeleton these days? They’re awful, that’s what!

What’s worse is I have this whole side quest, in the event that my victim is too brave to be frightened, in which if they answer the right riddles it leads them to a trove of Spanish gold, the finding of which sends my soul to its eternal rest. These fools are so disinterested by the whole idea of a “childish treasure hunt” that I’m functionally trapped here until…. I don’t know, I guess until they move or die.

Every once in a while, I’ll get a flash of inspiration and try something else to drive away these terminally unimpressed lumps. Every time I do, the man asks me to read a draft of his doctoral thesis about “generational trauma” for his film criticism PhD. 

If I weren’t already deceased, I’d be praying for death. 

 And now, as part of our commitment to the ‘fairness doctrine,’ please enjoy this advice listicle courtesy of Uncle Mick. I’m sure we’ll all find his suggestions to be incredibly instructive.

MAGANN’S MUSINGS: COSTUME CREATIONS

Hey folks! It’s me: Mick MaGann, coming at you with some last minute advice on costumes for your Halloween parties and trick-or-treatings and so forth. 

If you’re like me, you’ve been too distracted by how great everything is going and by how much winning we’re doing as a country right now to think of a good costume. Lord knows I got super into following the East Wing demolition too, which we can all agree was very cool to watch. So believe me when I say I get it. Not all of us have time to be creative while we’re out there on X owning the libs. 

But don’t worry, babies - Papa MaGann’s got your back. So without further ado, here we go.

Idea #1: a Troll - folks think of these in the ‘under the bridge’ variety and the ‘long pointy hair, singing a lame pop song’ variety, but did you know there’s a whole other type of troll? These ones hang out on the internet, conducting holy war against the Lunatic Left by using ironic, semi-intelligible memes and straw-man arguments (hey! scarecrows!) to derail the conversation. You don’t need much to get yourself a kick-butt Troll costume - a laptop or mobile device of choice; a nice, comfy pair of lounge pants; a big-ol’ can of Monster Energy Zero Ultra (the white can, baby). If you want to get some funky costume ears, you can wear those too but I can tell you from experience they’re not necessary.

Idea #2: a Tren de Aragua Gangbanger Guy - this international drug cartel, which has been behind every terrible thing that’s ever happened in this country despite only surfacing about a year and a half ago, is like the ultimate bad guy. You want to be scary? You dress up as the country’s greatest enemies, like ISIS or the Commies or… what was the one during WW2? Not the Nazis, the other ones? Anyway, the best thing about this costume is that apparently these guys are everywhere. They’re selling drugs; they’re selling tamales; they’re working at car washes; they’re fishermen; they’re doing laundry in the basement of your Chicago apartment building. This means you can basically dress up as anyone and you’ve got your costume done!

Idea #3: a Libtard - you know this spooky creature really well, because they’re the sibling or cousin who refuses to talk to you at family get-togethers. Basically, they’re just like the rest of us except that their minds have been warped by Trump Derangement Syndrome, an affliction that only attacks leftists and has absolutely no effect on conservatives what-so-ever. The best thing about this one is, just like the last costume, anyone could be a liberal, so you don’t even really have to dress up. All you gotta do is steal some of your progressive family member’s clothes, put them on, and then make the stupidest face you can think of, because they’re the stupid ones. In your face, Cousin Ronnie!

Idea #4: A Skeleton or Something - my girlfriend told me I should do one that’s not political, so I dedicate this one to “milady.” How about a skeleton? Those are supposed to be scary, right? For your costume you can… I dunno, strap some chicken bones to your shirt or something. Walk around like you don’t have any leg muscles. Hey, look at you! You’re a bone guy now.

Idea #5: a Trans Person - these people are just like anyone else in that they want to live their lives and be left alone to try and find some shred of love and happiness before they leave this cruel and indifferent world. They’re also, I’m told, the single most terrifying group of people and the biggest threat to the American Way. I can’t exactly remember why they’re such an affront to the rest of us, other than it involves women’s sports and pronouns or something, but I keep hearing how bad they are, so. The Administration would never lie to us, right? Anyway, since they look exactly like us you can just wear your own clothes and use different pronouns.

Bonus Idea: King Donald spewing diarrhea on everyone - OMG did you see that video?! It was friggin’ hilarious. I guess it was AI or something, but man did it make me chuckle. Get yourself a crown from Burger King and then, you know, you’ll have to make some diarrhea. Trust me - you’ll be the hit of your girlfriend’s daughter’s seventh grade costume parade. 

Man. Sure am glad our country is run by people with such a great sense of humor. It makes the potential loss of SNAP benefits and the price hike on my health care that much easier to stomach knowing they’re out there, creating good content!

Shameless Plugs

Hey! Thanks for reading all of the way to the end! If you liked this newsletter and know someone who might enjoy reading all or part of this, please forward it to them! I put this stuff out there in the hopes that people will enjoy it.

If you would like to be informed when more slop like this hits the old website and have hot done so already, please consider subscribing! It’s free (unless you’d like to pay, you absolute hero you). I promise not to abuse you by sending a bunch of campaign fundraising emails.

The next newsletter should be out in time for my favorite holiday of them all - Thanksgiving!

Finally, I should tell you that I’ve written a gospel. 

Wait! Hang on, don’t leave! I haven’t lost my mind! It’s a fake gospel. 

It’s called The Gospel of Travis and it’s a satirical take on prosperity gospel and Christian nationalism. I’ll be posting it in chapters on the website starting soon. Best way to be informed of when new chapters drop will be, of course, to become a subscriber or to follow me on the socials - BlueSky, the ‘Gram, etc.

That’s it! Newsletter complete! Thank you so much for reading, and Happy Halloween!