One venue calls themselves and not just their endeavor the Halloween creepy crawl, and there are a proliferation of such prominent but prickly predicaments, in events or decorations, all over hill and dale. Sorry to say none include Creeping Death by Metallica, as this is not a recent political rally with growing star power.
A snapshot follows of the spooky and scary locally, and the imagery even delves into the realm as political as a truly scary Kamala Harris witch’s outfit.
The suddenly spooky flags that fly, or hug the ground, forever? They lie on a nearby lawn of a business, orange most all of them, by the hundreds. Also a few other odd colors, mixed with a bit of black, since what these really are bears a theme of massive construction, rather than destruction, in the form of utility markers the size of a black cat’s face. They just might be for digging for what (tricks or treats are found) underneath! About every foot of the small yard has at least one of them, as they spread like tiny craggily fingers.
— Another event you might enjoy is the World Series, which starts this weekend. But my cabbie friend will not make to road trip, this time, since it does not involve his beloved Oakland As — and he has been following them since they’ve known by this name and also others, so that’s a long time — who in a related matter have played their last game at the longtime stadium to which he’s gone cross-country. Maybe since Abacab. And now the driver baseball buff doesn’t even have the option of going to see that song played at a Phil Collins concert, since the artist is ailing.
The cabbie says he enjoys his occasional conversations with me, so I put the question to him: How would you fare if stuck with me sitting next to you all the way Going To California? Then maybe seated next to you, again, at the ballpark. He must not have minded the idea too much, since he didn’t really answer, just told me he lamented that his As days were done. —
They are not unlike those drapes of awnings seen at so many another place or patio, they music venues all, for the season now drooping down and bearing the image of ghosts as they cling to the poles heading north and southward, up to heaven and down to hell.
Green Mill simply masters the use of spiders, via one of its go-getter worker bees, who got up on a ladder early-on in this holiday season and would not let-up. She got going with one solid stretch of thick black string, or call it rope, then adding up to a third, then a fifth … They strung all around so much you could not get over to the bathroom without brushing them along your brow. (I don’t want to be an HR head haughtily hired to head off the possible worker’s comp claim. If you reach those last few inches up to the decked out ceiling by the entrance booth. A co-worker who was watching nodded in agreement, then smirked again.)
Back to Saturday and such
In an otherwise dearth of the fearless, dreaded but deadly drone of the Halloween costume dregs, Dick’s Bar stood out in the last (main) weekend before Halloween, with the headgear of green devil horns and lengthy and horny Scroogelike noses, sometimes in combination. Combine that was an Abba dress-up party, with even more members than the original group, and you have … a party.
In a zig and zag down the street, around 8 p.m. in the next night, right before Monday, remnants of roadies pulled speakers up and down the parking lot at Hop N Barrel, parallel to the street, while a starting-as soloist guitarist shredded it. Welcome sight and sound, and not necessarily creepy.
Can you party, before this new year and even Halloween begin — the millennium is still here — like it’s 1920? And not at Hudson and Wisconsin’s oldest bar, like one of those referenced above, but down a couple of blocks further in an event held under and in the bluffline caves next to the Casanova Historic Liquor’s. Just before their adjacent venue, the Nova bar, wraps up its live music for the year.
On the other side, it will be called their speakeasy, and again not the one in lower-level Mallory’s, so kick your heels up and knock your drinks down, on Sept. 25, another party on that evening.
The music is by a band that may have name(s) you will recognize, perfect for these holidays, Deb O’Keefe and the Funk Zombies. Be there from 7-11 p.m. Dying off before the witching hour of midnight.
The song, and the parties, remain the same, when you dress up for Halloween costume contest parties. The night of choice is Oct. 26th, for most all, because it is the Saturday night all right before Halloween, which is on a Thursday.
But here is a kinder, gentler choice. What, at the Wild Badger in New Richmond? On Halloween itself. With a movie, and not a one about Naria and it’s minions like promoted by churches this time of year at their makeshift events that pledge to battle “evil,” that is Nightmare Before Christmas, from 4-7 p.m. And there will be candy and popcorn, like any good Halloween movie. It will even be outside on the patio, so unless there beckons another holiday blizzard, Tim Burton will be present, sorta.