Month: October 2014

I Knew a Priest Who Could See the Dead http://t.co/FGO4dMYfds #dead #halloween pic.twitter.com/8c3K74D7ho

— ChurchPOP (@Church_POP) October 31, 2014

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BYCU

Man, BYCU blogging is almost too easy this week: Halloween is now a big drinking night, as evidenced by this infographic.

There are many sites dedicated to boozy Halloween costumes, Halloween parties, and Halloween drinks.

But it’s not for me. Halloween is for kids, always has been and always should be. Even as a boy I remember thinking it mildly inappropriate to see adults put on costumes (whereas, I never remember finding it inappropriate to see them drinking to the point that they were dancing raucously or telling loud, inappropriate jokes). There’s nothing wrong with costumes, of course. It’s all in good fun and each person has his own idea of what’s fun and what’s not. Costumes have just never struck me as the kind of fun adults have.

I think I last wore a costume to a party when a junior at the University of Michigan, and it consisted solely of a ripped garbage bag that I put around my neck. When people asked me what I was, I merely replied “Your worst nightmare.” The humor behind it is too indelicate for TDE to explain further, but a group of guys at one party liked it so much that they nominated me for best costume. Alas, when the judges saw how lame it was, they wouldn’t put me into the competition.

Anyway, my Halloween drinking these days is pretty much limited to a tumbler of vodka and tonic that I sip from while walking my remaining little kids around town. This will be my twentieth year of taking kids trick-or-treating. I oughtta celebrate in grand fashion with a huge tumbler of vodka-tonic, … Read the rest

Halloween is tomorrow. Are you thinking about not handing out candy? If so, please consider this piece that I wrote in 2011.

If you want to see the difference between adults and children, look no further than Halloween. For little kids, Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year after Christmas.

When kids get older, Halloween fades in importance. My first child was old enough to enjoy Halloween when I was 29. During the preceding 15+ years, I had pretty much completely ignored Halloween and had forgotten how much the holiday meant to little kids. During the early years of our marriage, before we had kids old enough to enjoy the holiday, Marie and I religiously handed out candy, but other than that, I didn’t pay any attention to it. I had simply forgotten that, for the little kids, the holiday season starts on October 31st.

I am now entering my 17th year of taking the kids trick-or-treating. Unfortunately, our cultural bankruptcy goes on full display tonight. A lot of houses won’t hand out candy. There are families in which both parents want to take the kids trick-or-treating, so they turn off their lights and don’t reciprocate. There are people who simply don’t want to spend $5 on cheap candy and perhaps even some who can’t afford it (though they can, of course, afford cigarettes and booze). There are people who forget, and there are people who don’t want their TV program interrupted. When I was a kid, very few houses failed to hand out candy on this evening. Today, the majority of houses go dark.

It’s the disease of Wall Street and California government … Read the rest

Dominating the family jack-o-lantern competition w Long Island Cheese pumpkin pic.twitter.com/K2cclPBKQa

— The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 28, 2014

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Joseph Epstein once wrote a great essay about being “out of it.” It’s basically about his tendency not to know what’s going on in pop culture and how, even though he didn’t intentionally set out to become ignorant of such things, he’s happy he has. It’s a great essay and resonates with me, though, when applied to my life, it’s not just the pop culture, it’s the culture at large: I find myself increasingly happy not to know what’s going on in our entire warped culture, finding a certain solace in Tolstoy’s “family narcissism” and not sure, in this bedlam called “America,” there’s any other other non-religious solace to be found. … Read the rest

Miscellaneous Rambling

So, has everyone noticed that I finally launched the TDE Twitter account full bore? I set it up a year ago but rarely used it. I decided to start using it once I learned how to embed Tweets and my son Jack showed me how to alternate Twitter accounts between my law firm Twitter account (which feeds directly into my firm’s blawg) and the TDE account on my phone. That made TDE Tweeting easy, and I must say: it’s an enjoyable past-time. * * * * * * * I really like the way embedded Tweets look on the TDE blog. If you disagree, let me know, but I like the extra “flare” it adds. Based on my visitor counts, the Tweets are neither driving people to the site or driving people away from the site. Daily visitors continue to hover around 400. * * * * * * * A cardinal Cardinal Halloween costume. * * * * * * * Top Ten: Excuses for not going to work. My favorite: “I got stuck in the blood pressure machine at the grocery store and couldn’t get out.” * * * * * * * Wow, what has happened to my Michigan Wolverines? Perhaps I’m not a good fan, but I’ve found this meltdown so fascinating that my mental stimulation from it might exceed the pleasure I would get from a successful season. Now, the pleasure doesn’t exceed the pleasure I would get from a season so successful that it resulted in a berth in the NCAA playoffs, but that hypothetical is so far off the radar screen, I needn’t consider … Read the rest