The Next Big Holiday!

As you probably are not aware, nor do most of you care, that Sunday July 11, 2010 is 7-11 Day here in the U.S. and that means only one thing... free Slurpees! Now you may be wondering, why would a 38 year old man give a shit about a free 7 ounce frozen drink when he could go into the store and buy a bucket full for a couple bucks... you're probably more than likely wondering why would he waste his time posting this on his blog.

I don't get it myself... I can't explain this odd compulsion I have to celebrate this contrived consumer marketing ploy. But, you know how you mention a holiday, say Christmas for example, and if you're like most people who celebrate the holiday you have fond feelings for the "yuletide" season. It's all based on traditions, rituals, fond memories and let's be honest, the anticipation and delight of receiving a sleigh-load of toys from Jolly Ol' St. Nick. All these combine to put together a complete picture of why Christmas is important and cherished and why we continue to honor that day throughout our lives. I kinda feel the same about 7/11... and I'll explain.

When I was a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's my family lived in a rural section of Maryland on a dead-end street surrounded on all sides by cornfields. The nearest "convenience store" if you could even call it that, was a run-down shop about a half mile away called Bob's Delly (Notice I spelled deli wrong? That's how they spelled it on the sign and it speaks volumes about the rural clientele the store attracted.) and it was one of those old-timey creaky wooden floored stores with all kinds of assorted goods crammed behind the counters. I distinctly remember the Ace unbreakable comb display and a wide plethora of chewing tobaccos the world has probably long-since forgotten. Trips to Bob's Delly usually entailed a visit to the refrigerated case where they had a good variety of sodas and that's where we kids got our sugar fix... they didn't have a spectacular candy selection, they didn't have a creaky circular rack of comic books and they didn't have Slurpees.

Slurpees were that unattainable summer nectar that you only got to experience when your parents or your older siblings were kind enough to pile you into the car and whisk you to the closest 7-11 which was about 3-4 miles from our home. I remember fondly the limited edition white plastic collectible monster cups and I even had the Zombie one but because I didn't have expendable income or live within a safe walking distance of the store I abandoned all hopes of ever completing the collection.

Opening the door to 7-11 was like the portly Augustus Gloomp waddling into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory... it was all there; the look of wonder, the awe and most importantly the underlying ravenous desire to consume. Wonka's joint probably smelled a lot better than the 7-11... remember back then you had that stale coffee and cigarette smell that would cling to your clothes and follow you around for the rest of the day? Regardless, they had an entire aisle of candy, they had hot dogs, they had sodas and Yoo Hoo, they had the noisy comic book rack and most importantly they had the coveted Slurpee! It was a treat to go to 7-11 and to this day I still feel a strongly muted but deep-down internalized giddiness when I step foot through their doors.

It's with that bit of nostalgia firmly implanted in me that I have become loyal to 7-11's my entire life and the fact that they're giving away that most fantastic of childhood summertime drink a kid could ever lust for that's endeared me even more. God bless 7-11 and long live the Slurpee! I've already guaranteed my kids that we'll hit-up 4 local stores on Sunday and have already warned their mother that they'll be arriving back home on Sunday night with a belly and bloodstream full of sugar!

Dustin' Off The Vinyl... A Rub-A-Dub Mix!

I bit the bullet and upgraded my Macintosh's operating system and didn't realize that Leopard would render my ancient edition of Garageband useless... so to make a long story short, I had to buy Apple's Ilife, which included the new Garageband, so that I could make mixes again. Here is the end result... enjoy, this one only cost me $300!

Rub-A-Dub Mix A

1. Sammy Dread & Saddle Dread - Follow Fashion - Greensleeves 12"
2. Linval Thompson - Curfew - Jah Guidance 12"
3. Ranking Dread - Love A Dub - Greensleeves 12"
4. David Isaacs - Just Like A Sea - Steppers 7"
5. Jah Thomas - Pauline - Steppers 7"
6. Barrington Levy - In This Time - Jah Guidance 7"
7. Yellowman & Fathead - No Mention - Just Cool - Jah Guidance LP
8. Don Carlos - Just A Dread (AKA Rub A Dub Queen) - Roots & Culture - Jah Guidance LP
9. Wailing Souls - Diamond & Pearl - Greensleeves 12"
10. Gregory Isaacs - Can't Give You My Love Alone - African Museum 7"
11. Welton Irie - Come Nurse - Black & White 7"
12. Purpleman - In Heaven There Is No Beer - Hit Bound 10"

Rub-A-Dub Mix B

1. Dennis Walks - Fisherman - Music Masters 12"
2. Cornell Campbell & Raymond Napthali - Love Trap - Shuttle 12"
3. Michigan & Smiley - One Love Jamdown - Tuff Gong 7"
4. Toyan - Yard Stylee - Wittys 12"
5. Yellowman - Belly Move - Wittys 12"
6. Michael Prophet - Give I A Try - Certify - Burning Sounds LP
7. Leroy Smart - Sugar In My Coffee - Let Everyman Survive - Jamaican Gold CD
8. Jah Thomas - Working Hard For A Dollar - Vibes & Vibes 12"
9. Ranking Fish Eye - Love In The Arena - Reggae Connection 7"
10. Roland Burrell - Johnny Dollar - Tanka 12"

The Yuletide Spooktacular

Yuletide Spooktacular

The Halloween Spooktacular 2009!

Here's my 2009 Halloween Mix! Enjoy!

1. The Creepniks - Zombie Stomp
2. Frankie Stein & His Ghouls - A Hearse Is Not A Home
3. Misfits - Bloodfeast
4. Southern Culture On The Skids - Swamp Thing
5. King Horror - Dracula Prince Of Darkness
6. The Upperclassmen - Cha Cha With The Zombies
7. Don Hinson & The Rigamorticians - Riboflavin Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsaturated Blood
8. Hasil Adkins - Haunted House
9. Satan's Pilgrims - Creature Feature
10. Gene Moss & The Monsters - I Want To Bite Your Hand
11. Contrails - Mummy Walk (Walking Death)
12. The Meteors - Graveyard Stomp
13. Vin Gordon - Red Blood
14. Moontrekkers - Night Of The Vampire
15. Captain Clegg & The Night Creatures - Transylvania Terror Train
16. The Mellowmen - Trick Or Treat
17. Messer Chups - Little Blood Sucker
18. Screaming Lord Sutch - Big Black Coffin
19. The Ghastly Ones - Fuzzy & Wild
20. The Memphis Morticians - Devil's Rain
21. The Ghouls - Shake Rattle & Rot
22. Nightmares - Headless Ghost

The Complete Halloween Spooktacular 2009

Attack Of The Grotesque Candy Corn!

I figured I'd take this space and make a confession. Something has been weighing heavy on my heart and I need to come clean once and for all... I hate candy corn!! There, I've written it... and since don't feel like its necessary to pull my punches... I don't just dislike candy corn I absolutely DETEST candy corn! The only candy just as foul are those absolutely horrid pale orange "circus peanuts."

I know this proclamation may hurt my "street cred" amongst the other Halloween fans out there but I've kept this secret long enough and I can't live a lie any longer!

Candy corn was originally created in the 1880's by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company and is supposed to mimic a whole kernel of dried corn in both its color and size. I know it's completely ridiculous to go into detail about such pointless information but I've made the commitment and I'm sticking to it! Now quoting from Wikipedia...

"The candy is usually tri-colored with a yellow base, orange center and white tip, although the color combinations may vary. The yellow, broader part is the top, while the white point is the bottom. The most common alternate color scheme, called "Indian corn", is white, orange and brown, and is sometimes associated with the Thanksgiving holiday.

The National Confectioners Association estimate 20 million pounds of candy corn are sold each year. October 30 is National Candy Corn Day. Although regular candy corn is most popular at Halloween, it is available year-round.

According to Brach's Confections, Inc., the top branded maker of candy corn, each year Americans eat enough Brach's candy corn that if the kernels were laid end to end, they would circle the Earth 4.5 times.

Candy corn is made primarily from sugar, corn syrup and honey. Originally, candy corn was made by hand. Manufacturers first combined sugar, corn syrup, and water and cooked them into a slurry. Fondant was added for texture and marshmallows provided a soft bite. The final mixture was then heated and poured into shaped molds. Three passes were required during the pouring process, one for each colored section. Few changes have been made to the process or recipes, with machines now performing the tasks formerly done by people. Candy corn can be found at most popular grocery stores in the USA."

Or why not just stop the reading and do some watching...



I made the mistake last October of showing my kids the vampire fang trick with two pieces of candy corn but when the performance was through I accidentally flipped them in my mouth and starting chewing them. I probably would have more receptive to squirming insect larvae because there was no way I could force myself to swallow two horrid pieces of candy corn! I eventually had to spit it out.

So last weekend I'm cruising down the temporary Halloween aisle at the grocery store and happen across this...



In all actuality I should probably keep a couple cans on hand in case I ever needed to induce vomiting after accidentally eating a candy corn... who needs ipecac?

Trimper's Haunted House

I was inspired a couple years back when Kirk Demarais introduced his Phantasmagoria blog and went on to provide an astounding amount of information about the revered dark ride that operated at Bell’s Amusement Park in Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1971 until 2006. Kirk had gone and went on to provide an astounding amout of information about the revered into detail documenting “play-by-play” what the inside of the Phantasmagoria entailed, talked about its designer and builder Bill Tracy and most importantly, he concisely explained what the ride meant to him and why he loved it so much. It made for enjoyable reading and it in turn got me interested in the Bill Tracy designed dark ride that meant so much to me as a kid and even now today. The ride in which I speak is the Trimper’s Haunted House on the boardwalk at Ocean City Maryland.


I grew up in a rural area about 45 minutes north of Baltimore and the highlight of my family’s summer was our weekly vacation to Ocean City, which is about 3 hours away from home. One of the things that I liked best about Ocean City was the fact that while we were there, we got to spend real quality time with my extended family, which usually entailed my 2 aunts and uncles and my cousins. For as long as I can remember my cousins Christy and Matt had been a part of my summers and they were who my sister and I enjoyed spending the most time.


I distinctly remember one summer staying at the Rideau Motor Inn, which was right on the boardwalk and had underneath the actual rooms a grouping of shops. One was a bookstore that carried a lot of paperback books suitable for light reading on the beach and a section of Charlton horror comics. I had not been a reader of comic books… I never really understood the whole superhero genre and I wasn’t aware they even made horror comics until then. They had 4 packs of Charlton horror comics with titles like Ghostly Haunts, Ghost Manor and Haunted and my cousin Christy and I snatched them up! We spent the majority of the vacation perched in chairs on the balcony absorbing these comics while the masses of humanity moved to and fro beneath us on the boardwalk in search of French fries, cotton candy and corndogs… the teenagers of course were more interested in members of the opposite sex but we were kids and concerns of those matters had yet to enter our young heads.


One night we got out of Marty’s Playland (the huge video arcade crammed to the rafters with the latest video games and skeeball machines and got up the nerve to ride the Haunted House… we had known the Haunted House and its wacky skewed, day-glo appearance since we were old enough to travel on two feet but now we were ready to venture inside.


I think the first time we rode the Haunted House we crammed Christy, Matt, my sister Angela and I all into one of the coffin cars and prepared to be terrified. As soon as those chewed bubble gum covered, black plywood doors slammed behind us we knew we were in for a treat. I don’t remember actually being scared, I think it was more of the fear of the unknown that had us on edge but that one ride cemented my love for the place, which continues until this day. That summer also began my love affair with horror and all the creepy things that go bump in the night which also remains strong.


A couple years ago it was rumored that Trimper’s was going to shut down and take away the lifetime of memories we had all built there… the carousel, the Fairy Whip, those retro 1960’s metal flake dune buggies, those boats that forever sailed in circles in that murky green water and the beloved Haunted House were all going to disappear. I went in armed with my digital camera and documented every ride inside Trimper’s main building and paid my $4.00 to climb back into the coffin car one last time on what I thought was going to be final trip into Bill Tracy’s vision of dark ride bliss. Later in the fall it was announced that Trimper’s had found a way to pay the state property taxes that were owed and which threatened their existence and that they would reopen again the following summer. It was a great relief to me and thousands of others like me who had memories of sunburned summers at Trimper’s riding those rides and who now had children and grandchildren of their own who they wanted to experience them as well… minus the sunburn of course, sunscreen works a lot better than it did when I was a kid.


So in the spirit of Halloween and due to the fact that I’m upholding my promise to post something for each and every day of the Halloween Countdown this year I’m sharing a few of the photos I took of Trimper’s Haunted House on what I thought would be my final voyage. Enjoy!












There are some excellent websites that document this Haunted House and a lot of the other dark attractions throughout the United States... check out these links!

The Haunted House... Trimper's Haunted House Online

Laff In The Dark's Write-Up About Trimper's

Laff In The Dark

Why not take a ride!

A Greener Pasture?

My name is John and I'm a recovering music blogger.

Until I figure out how to change my alias I'm still stuck with the reminder of that time when I spent hours of my time creating Jamaican music mixes for my soon to be defunct blog Distinctly Jamaican Sounds. I had gotten to a point where I spent a ridiculous amount of time researching and compiling these mixes and the minimal response from these efforts made it seem like I was DJing for an empty bar room.

I don't know if it's the fact that there is only a select audience that gives a shit about reggae or if my efforts actually allowed people to explore musical genres outside the ones they were currently listening to but nonetheless I have given it up. Yeah I'll still make my mixes and maybe share one on occasion but me sharing and multitudes anonymously taking music is not what this new blog is about.

I am going through an odd stage in my life. I recently divorced from my wife of 11 years and am knee deep in dealing with its aftermath. The divorce has been final for over a month now but it just seems like there is a lot more minutia that I didn't have to deal with before; dropping kids off to school, what kid needs to go where at what time, what we're going to do about sharing custody of the kids over the holidays, etc. I never entered marriage with the intention of getting divorced but shit happens.

I have moved on with that aspect of my life and have found a woman who treats me like I've always wanted to be treated and if I hadn't been soured on marriage already I'd seriously have thoughts about marrying her. Luckily we've both had our stomach turning bought of marital bliss and we don't have intentions of getting into it again. We're happy as we are and that's the important thing. Marriage is basically a legal agreement that complicates things when the times comes to separate. So to all you married people out there who are happy with your married life I say, god bless you!

The other aspect of my life which isn't taking a positive direction is my job. I've been at the same job for 13 years and now it appears as if I will be indefinitely laid-off on November 10th. With the state of the economy and the state of my child support my financial future is starting to look very grim. I have every intention of finding another job and hopefully finding something I like doing enough where I don't mind going to work on a daily basis. The ultimate goal is to win the megamillions and spend the rest of my life enjoying life but the more I play it seems the farther I get away from winning!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not afraid to do work but prospects for my industry don't look viable and I have no intention of dragging myself across the country to find work just to make a paycheck. In all honesty, if I could make what I make now delivery Tastycakes, bread or beer or even digging a ditch I'd take it in a heartbeat. I just want to find a sense of security, if that's even possible in this day and age, and have the ability to live a normal life and look forward to holidays like normal person without having to worry how I'm going to finagle my way into finding someone who'd be willing to work for me.

But enough about that, let's get to the music. Oops... old habits die hard.

Let's not get to the music but let me explain what the purpose of this blog is... I'm going to use this space to vent, rant or just wax poetic about things that make me tick. If I feel like going off about some idiot's bad driving skills or feel like reviewing a cheesy horror film or discussing something music related or soon to be moaning about what it feels like to devote 13 years to a company and get left with nothing, I will.

I know there are probably 2 million blogs that do the same thing, so don't expect me to be breaking new ground here, but I feel like it's something I need to do. I have always enjoyed the therapeutic quality of blogging even though my theoretics had to do only with Jamaican music in the past. But now it is time to be therapeutic for therapeutics sake.

I have got to stop concerning myself about readers feedback and do this for me and to prove that I don't need feedback I'm going to disable that function ASAP. So if you're out there reading this, please enjoy the nonsensical ravings of my lunatic mind and if you're looking for free music downloads you're shit out of luck, that ship has already sailed.

John