D.B.Tarpley's Amazing Ass Blog #10

Greetings people and peoplettes. My favorite time of the year is here. And no, I’m not talking about the anniversary of Paul Rubens’ infamous popcorn incident. I am talking about Halloween. It is a singularly unique holiday in that it is not born of religious intent, commercialism, or civic creation. Halloween is simply a time for children of all ages to play pretend and indulge in hedonistic consumption of candy. It’s roots stem of course from paganism and superstitious times when it was thought that dressing up as the dead on the one night a year they claimed as their own, ‘All Hallows Eve,’ might confuse and or honor them and keep everyone safe. Of course people today do not believe in such necromancy. And if they do, they are mostly harmless – running for public office and what not. But I think the holiday has taken an even more important role in our modern day society. It is the one day a year where we openly acknowledge and even celebrate evil. Every year we gather with friends and loved ones on the couch and watch movies where horrible creatures wreak havoc on innocent and or not so innocent teenagers; and we all, each and every one of us, root for the monsters… the higher the body count the better. Our favorites are zombie and or end of days films. We all secretly feel we would be in the survivor category while all the stupid people of the world would expire as society decays around us. If we are lucky enough we might even get the chance to shoot a few of them in the head. It is this primal underlying need for animalistic carnage that the holiday creates an outlet for. It is an almost social subconscious acknowledgement of the fact that without evil there is no good. There can be no Utopia without the Third Reich. There can be no God without Satan. There can be no Burt without Ernie. And while the general populace cannot openly understand and process this information, beyond the simple parties and bright costumes and candy corn is this underlying message which is digested without thought like medicine in a hunk of cheese: Evil exists, and sometimes that is not an altogether bad thing. In a world full of so much day to day puritanical nonsense, it is nice to just cut loose and dress up as Osama Bin Laden in a French maid’s uniform. (I certainly hope no one else steals my costume idea this year.) Thank you and have an amazing ass Halloween. P.S. – There was a haunted house across the street from me when I lived in Washington as a 9 year old child and one day after a lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup I saw a ghost in that house’s upstairs window. I do not believe in most ghost stories but I know this to be true.