Then came digital music. When I got my first iPod, the first thing I had to figure was how to use it for Halloween. I gather up all the songs I knew from the older recordings and hunted the internet for more. Then sound effects! There were sound effect records at the library! I recorded that and added it in. Every year I would find another song or five to add. Real old songs (the Boogie Man) and recent songs as they appeared (Ghostbusters, Nightmare before Christmas). The songs go from Bing Crosby to Frank Zappa. I got a iPod speaker, I load it up and it plays for hours without me touching it! It's great. No one really hears it all but me. And I let it play as I slowly dismantle the man every Halloween evening. It's the last thing I disconnect. And only then is Halloween over.
I have been decorating my front door for Halloween for a couple of decades. I talked about it previously here. This year, however I won't be doing it up much. The reason? The premiere party for the movie noted below. I co-wrote a horror/comedy short a couple of years ago a the request of an actress. And, dang, if she didn't get it made! Anyway, the screening is Halloween night, so I won't be home for the trick-or-treaters. A big part of the decorations was my Halloween mix-tape. Since the mechanical man was build over a step ladder, that meant that I had a couple of shelves to store things under the gown that made up the figure. It was originally a mix-tape, as I recorded the classic Halloween music I had available; Monster Mash, Thriller, Purple People eater. The trick was recording some on the music off the radio. Each year, one of the local radio stations would pull Zacherly the Cool Ghoul out of mothballs and let him host a Halloween party on air. He pulled out all the more obscure creepy-themed pop-songs, A Night in a Haunted House, Frankenstein and other wacky novelty songs. Come Halloween, I would pop the cassette into the player insded the mechanical man and let it blast. I had to run out every 1/2 hour to flip it over to play the other side. Then came digital music. When I got my first iPod, the first thing I had to figure was how to use it for Halloween. I gather up all the songs I knew from the older recordings and hunted the internet for more. Then sound effects! There were sound effect records at the library! I recorded that and added it in. Every year I would find another song or five to add. Real old songs (the Boogie Man) and recent songs as they appeared (Ghostbusters, Nightmare before Christmas). The songs go from Bing Crosby to Frank Zappa. I got a iPod speaker, I load it up and it plays for hours without me touching it! It's great. No one really hears it all but me. And I let it play as I slowly dismantle the man every Halloween evening. It's the last thing I disconnect. And only then is Halloween over.
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I have been decorating my front door for Halloween for a couple of decades. I talked about it previously here. This year, however I won't be doing it up much. The reason? The premiere party for the movie noted below. I co-wrote a horror/comedy short a couple of years ago a the request of an actress. And, dang, if she didn't get it made! Anyway, the screening is Halloween night, so I won't be home for the trick-or-treaters. This was our third year in our house, but only the second Halloween I decorated for (2010 was the year my mother-in-law passed away. We bought the house and didn't do Halloween big out of respect). Twenty-Twelve was the year of Hurricane Sandy, which knocked Staten Island on it's butt. We had no electricity for a couple of days. The best I could do was hook up my battery powered items. I had pulled in a lot of decorations because of the high winds predicted. A lot of stuff would have blown away. Just to be clear, I put up some decorations, window stuff, lights, maybe some outdoor spiderwebs, but I would save the big stuff (and the battery-powered motion-activated things) for Halloween day. I took off Halloween and would set about setting up my set-up. Everything focused around the mechanical man, but I was always on the out-look for a good decoration. I had a floor mat that screamed when you stepped on it. The "Beware" sign was an early find. My favorite thing is the raven (Beware, the end it near! Ha-ha-ha-ha). I found that in a store in Manhattan. This was back before you had entire stores devoted to Halloween. Or the internet. Different department stores would make a Halloween department and it was it and miss. One card store by me could be counted on to have unique and unusual Halloween decorations-my favorite was a boxed display, a face stared out and seemed to follow you. Also, a suction cup creature and you would stick to the bottom of a window and it looked like it was peering out at you. But Hurricane Sandy made it a quiet year. I have been decorating my front door for Halloween for a couple of decades. I talked about it previously here. This year, however I won't be doing it up much. The reason? The premiere party for the movie noted to the left. I co-wrote a horror/comedy short a couple of years ago a the request of an actress. And, dang, if she didn't get it made! Anyway, the screening is Halloween night, so I won't be home for the trick-or-treaters. I'm excited by all this, but I'm a little melancholy about it, too. It's been over 10 years since I missed a Halloween, and that was because my co-worker went on vacation that week and I had to cover the desk. Now, Halloween decorations aren't only decorations, they're an invitation to the kids that I am open for Halloween and I have candy. Frankly, if I'm not home, I really can't extend that invitation, so I went light on the decorations this year. But to mark the time, I've pulled out the videos I have that were digital (starting in 2011) and decided to post them here over the next few days. You'll know a lot of similarities from year to year, but I trying to mix it up, too. From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... As stated, the election of 2000 was nuts. There were a lot of dirty tricks and rumors and inunedo that was being batted about. And we started to see "push polling" where the supposedly unbiased pollster was pushing some agenda with the questions. I thought I would take it to its logical conclusion. Was I influenced by the Tina Fey sketch of the Census taker in April of that year? Maybe. I can't remember if I wrote this at the time or pulled it out from something earlier. I think it was a fresh idea for PHC. The sketch seems shorter than I remember it but back then I wasn't pushing for length; I was jumping on an idea and presenting it quickly--get in, get out. Anyway, it wasn't used. It got passed around elsewhere, but didn't see much action. So, here it is... PollsterWe are celebrating the debut screening of Beverly Bonner's short Horror/Comedy film "STEAMED!" Which I co-wrote. It's a Halloween night fundraiser! Broadway Comedy Club 318 West 53rd (8th & 9th) NYC Downstairs Theater October 31, 2019, 6:30pm - 8:00pm $35 donation/2 Drink Minimum Along with the film screening there with be variety entertainment, and Q&A with Cast and Crew! So, I'm assuming I will be there. Leading the entertainment is our star, Beverly "Basket Case" Bonner! She'll be joined by Mark Loughney, Constance Cooper, Rocco George, and more. There's no better way to celebrate Halloween without candy! Look, there are production costs to pay off and festival fees to pay, so Donation Tickets can be bought at: https://beverly-bonner.ticketleap.com/debut-screening-of-horrorcomedy-short-film-steamed/ Also, you can just donate. But, I hope to see you there!
From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... The year 2000 was a crazy political year and everyone was getting their licks in. There weren't too many political surprises on a show headed by Garrison "Tax & Spend Liberal" Keillor broadcast on NPR, but still, you just didn't want to hit the low-hanging fruit. You wanted to find a new, unique take on the issues of the day. I don't remember how I came to juxtaposition the idea of office politics with real politics--the debates, the ads, the negative campaigning--but here's how it came out. I broke it into a series of bits leading up to a main sketch. I'm not sure that PHC had ever played around with running gags through a show before and now was not the time for them to start. My journal doesn't say much about the Fall of '00, just mentioning that I submitted items and they didn't get used. Anyway, here's... Office PoliticsFrom 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things... CI always had to pay attention to the PHC website to see when the show would resume production (not like anyone was going to call me to update me). As the 2000-2001 season approached, I was feeling good about it. They had done a couple of my bits. The checks had cleared. Sure, they passed on most of my submissions, but it was a legitimate credit. And it was good to have a focus again, an actual writing target to hit. I was forever attempting to work within their templates. The summer's big story had been the Olympics. Lord knows I've written enough Olympic parodies over the years (actually, I would keep re-writing the same old idea and re-submit it every four years) but never for radio. So, naturally, it came out as one of PHC's SFX sketches. I pulled out my journals from this time and found an entry for this: "Christina @ PHC loved Radio Olympics...now we see if Keillor goes for it." He didn't. So, we present here, on my blog, audio humor: Radio Olympics |
Dan FiorellaFreelance writer, still hacking away. Archives
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