holidays - Lord Gonchar

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste.

Sensibilities

Halloween is an interesting time in that it gives you a chance to see how different people are. Halloween can range from the silly fun of a child trick-or-treating all the way to the most fucked up and vile shit you can imagine.

I, personally, don’t understand the concept of going ‘too far’ with most things and Halloween is certainly not the exception. Hell, it’s the rule. It’s the one time when it’s kind of okay to go a little too far. What can I say? I like things to be all or nothing.

We had heard a lot about a Haunt in Columbus called the Haunted Hoochie. The idea whas that it’s a bit more extreme than your standard Haunt fare (which is usually midly humorous at best). Here’s a quick video:

Honestly, the video show the best of it all. That’s not to say it wasn’t cool. It was. But I think I had myself expecting a little more. On a scale of 1-to-10 with 1 being family friendly and 10 being the extreme end of things, I’d put this in the 5 or 6 range. Crazy stuff. The actors touched you, which was neat. I think a few with the chainsaws were getting kind of ‘friendly’ when the girls came through too…and I think that’s all totally cool as long as you understand as a visitor what you’re getting into.

For comparison, the average theme park haunt stuff is probably a 2, maybe 3 for the better things on my scale.

Like, really. I don’t get the idea that this stuff is any more than silly, forgettable fun. We kep saying we’d like to see someone really push it and do an 18+ haunt and really fuck with you. Face it, as an intelligent adult, nothing they do can truly ‘scare’ me. It’s a show. I’m not a moron. But you can do things that will stick with me. Show me fucked up stuff. Or totally fuck with my head. A friend on Facebook recently posted a promo video for a Haunt in NYC that seems to be taking the latter approach and really trying to mind fuck people:

It’s cool because there’s a set of rules attached to visiting:

1. YOU MUST WALK THROUGH ALONE.
2. You must be over 18.
3. Stay on the marked path at all times.
4. You will be prompted to do certain actions. Please do exactly as you’re told. This is for your safety.
5. There is absolutely no speaking allowed inside. You can, however, scream as loud as you’d like.
6. Do not ever touch the actors.
7. Do not ever touch the walls.
8. You must wear a protective mask and carry a flashlight at all times.

That’s a pretty good start. Although I think my approach would be almost entirely the other direction. I’d want to leave you with imagery that would take a while to shake.

Interestingly, we’ve started a yearly tradition with a Halloween party for my daughter’s birthday and we hope to keep doing it for my son once she gets too old. I’ve been checking out different forums for ideas, inspiration and tips. One post caught my eye recently on one forum that was titled, “Over the Top? WARNING, graphic image”

I clicked eagerly thinking this was my kind of thing and it might be something I could incorporate for our party. So I click it and what do I see? This:

Whadda you think, is this over the top? I don’t mind pushing the comfort zone, but there are limits.

For real? On my scale this is a 1. Completely harmless, silly and forgettable.

The most interesting thing were the replies. Oddly enough (to me, at least), there were people who thought this was too extreme. No one seemed to find it uninteresting, boring and trite as I thought.

Then today on Facebook, Cedar Point posted something about their Halloweekends event and one of the replies to the photo posted (of a character getting makeup done) basically complained of the actors getting too close. I’m thinking, “My God. The experience at Cedar Point is as tame as it gets. It’s a fun, silly vibe that I’m totally ok with taking my kids through.” and here’s what I believe to be an adult saying they feel like it goes a little too far.

I have no point really – that’s the case with a lot of crap I post here. Just a random concept. An idea. A realization. It’s funny how different we all are and where we draw those lines.

…and, how fucked up am I really?

Or more correctly – how fucked up is everyone else?

Fireworks

Funny how different my kids lives are than mine was. When I was a kid fireworks were special, I pretty much saw them on the 4th of July at the local communiuty display. For my kids, it’s no big deal, seems like fireworks are everywhere and we travel and do so much (WAY more than my family did) that seeing fireworks isn’t that big of a deal. So much so that we’ve skipped the local fireworks for a few years now and just gotten smoke bombs and shit and fucked around at home making the cul-de-sac stink. So with the kids getting older (and still as jaded as ever) we knew there’s no chance we’re fighting the crowds and traffic to see the local fireworks on the 4th (I know a lot of communities are doing them the 3rd this year, but ours are on the 4th) and my son asked if we’d be getting smoke bombs again. I figured it’s time to turn them on to better goods. I found out we have a Phantom Fireworks store just down the road a little. I think we’ll swing by there and check it out. Maybe have a little more fun with it this year…and maybe end up with a few less fingers in the process.

On a side note, when I mentioned the idea to my son, he was concerned that we’d go to jail if we got fireworks. Which was really cute and made me realize that we’re doing something right. I’d be lying if I said a small smile and a bit of a tear didn’t come to my eye.

Then I told him, “Fuck the police!”

July 3rd, 2011 - holidays - life - the kids

Easter

Interesting Easter this year.

The wife had to work, so we decided to be a little unorthodox this year. We figured we’d give the kids Easter baskets (and the over-gifting gifts we’ve become guilty of) in the afternoon. This was interesting because my son is alarmingly late in figuring out the fantasy characters of our youth (Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus) are not real. I don’t want to have to physically say, “Look…” so between today’s weirdness and a few well placed comments I think the light bulb is starting to click…a little…maybe.

Speaking of being unorthodox and bucking tradition, this year we’ve made a semi-conscious effort to do untraditional meals on traditional meal days. Most people do pork on New Year’s. This year we did Sushi. Easter dinner usually means ham. Today we did rack of lamb. Turned out fucking terrific. We did garlic and rosemary frenched rack of lamb and I fucking crushed it. Seared them perfectly. We also tried two other new-to-us recipes and paired that lamb with French Onions (I’m becoming a worcestershire sauce fiend) and simple scalloped potatoes that may have been among the best potatoes we’ve ever made…hell, among the best we’ve ever had. Some simple green bean casserole and garlic/cheese rolls rounded out things. We also took the 20-some odd egges we colored and turned them into 4 different flavors of deviled eggs. Who knew you could get so creative with a simple deviled egg? Awesome fucking dinner.

We overgifted the kids again considering it was Easter. We always do. My son scored a basketball hoop and new ball and some lego shit. My daughter got a new phone and a bunch of jewelry and accessories.

On the plus side, we now look like every douchey house on every douchey cul-de-sac with a douchey hoop in the douchey driveway standing there all douchily.

Now that I talked about them, I think I want some of those deviled eggs…

April 25th, 2011 - awesome - food - holidays - home

Christmas Over

Christams was tore down around here on Monday. The big wreath in the entry window came down yesterday because it’s a bitch to get the ladder and get up on the ledge and get it down and I didn’t feel like it Monday night.

This year we didn’t go apeshit like last year. We still got great gifts, but did it with more laser-like precision as opposed to last years bulldozer-of-goodies mentality. My son got the laptop he’d been begging for since summer. (we’re now a three laptop/one desktop family) My daughter got the iPod upgrade she’d wanted. She now has a sweet new 16GB nano that she loves. And we finally moved totally into the present and replaced the last old-school CRT TV (in our bedroom) with a sweet 42″ LCD. Now every TV in the house is HD.

It was a very efficient Xmas. Stuff went up (admittedly half-heartedly) on the 11th and it came down the 27th. 16 days.

It always seems weird to me that people totally redecorate their house for 8 weeks out of the year. This year we cut it very short, but I’ve never been a “Thanksgiving to New Year’s” kind of guy.

We’ve done real trees since moving to Ohio (before that it was usually fake) and this year’s was the saddest of all. We waited so long that unless we were willing to pay a small fortune, we got stuck with an undersized, underloved piece of shit tree…and that’s what we got. I’ll maintain until the end of time that it was the worst tree ever. And I felt kinda bad because my son seemed so into it this year, but we’re finally getting to the point where we can drop the Santa pretense next year and I think that’s going to shift the focus and tone of the holidays for us. We’re becoming older as a family.

I already want to go back to the artificial tree, but I want a really nice one and I want at least a 12-footer and I want to put it in the entry and I want decorate the fuck out of it next year. And everyone can grab presents from the tree and bring them into the office/sitting room or the living room and open them. I’m creating a new level of Christmas in my mind. And upon sharing that thought with the wife (and kids to lesser degree) I can see the light bulb going off.

It feels like change is in the air. 2011 starts with my wife beginning her new job. (her last day at her current job is Friday the 31st) and she starts by flying to St. Louis for two weeks. This is the first year we have no plans to buy a season pass for any amusement park and no plans to travel in any meaningful way during the summer. We hopes to finally get a lot of stuff done around the house and spend more time outside. We’re going to get back on track with our weight (which we semi-abandoned in the fall). I haven’t had a haircut in months and am sporting a beard. My wife just went from her natural color with blonde highlights to a darker base with beautiful red streaks throughout and a modified style. My daughter continues to excel in school and is on the yearbook staff and joined a group that does competitive writing. She’ll find out if she made the actual team that travels to compete in mid-January. My son continues to enjoy artistic pursuits (he’s already gunning to get something in this year’s district art show again at school) and is evolving with his interest in football wanting to actively prepare for the 2011 season.

None of it was conscious either. It just seems like this is all happening and when I sit back and assess it, it’s all coming together organically. On all levels from big important things to little stupid things. I’m not sure what it means or that it matters. But there’s something there.

2011 motherfuckers.

December 29th, 2010 - holidays - home - insight - life - personal - perspective - the kids - weird

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