Tag Archives: goofiness

March 10, 2017 · 12:05 pm

The Be-Bop Beat of Mickey’s Brain

Truthfully, when I look back at the string of posts in the picket fence of this daily blog, I fail to see the overall map of it in any semblance of pattern or order. Honestly, I did not set out to be purposefully wacky.

I did, however, set out to be purposefully surreal. I mean it, I consciously put bizarrely dissimilar things together in an attempt to find parallels and connections in unlike things because, not only is it funny and surprising, but is a comic act that serves to keep the mind nimble and never numb. I do think quite a lot. And I try to see connections between things where others wouldn’t. For instance, the Coppertone girl with her bare butt and Bullwinkle with his unicycle are both being threatened in a way that is both comic, and taking advantage of their inherent image of innocence. Neither will lose anything by it. The girl stands to brown her pale white behind in the sun, while Bullwinkle will probably land on his head and it will make a decent cushion to preserve him because of it’s empty and rubbery qualities.

gilligan — Pie makes everything better. MMMM! Pie!

I must also admit to a bit of the old telling of stretchers, the misrepresentation of the truth, the loquacious layer-onner of lies. Not Trumpian lies that land on you like elephants dropped like bombs out of B-52’s. Instead, fictions that entertain and elucidate. It is the most likely reason I keep saying connecting words and phrases like “truthfully” and “honestly” and “I mean it”. Those are words that liars love.

Yes fiction writers like me tell little white lies.

I have now published my novel Recipes for Gingerbread Children. It is a novel based on real people I have known and loved and listened to. It is about an old German woman, a survivor of WWII concentration camps, who loves to tell stories to children and bake gingerbread cookies, especially gingerbread men. It features a pair of teenage nudist girls who believe in going completely naked whenever you are indoors, even if you are in someone else’s house. It features Nazis, both in flashback and ghostly forms. It also features fairies from the Hidden Kingdom of Tellosia, a fairy kingdom filled with little three-inch tall magical people living under our very noses. And it has a werewolf in it, though admittedly a very young one. It is a comedy with its requisite sad parts, and it is definitely an example of surrealism. It is also full of lies… err, I mean fiction.

But the real purpose of this supposedly be-bop brain fart in blog-post form is not so much to explain my blog (because how do you explain a blog that goes from Flashbacks and Foobah to telling about Madman Trump to Another novel part… #37 to Centaurs to a book and movie review, to this eccentric and eclectic thing, which probably exists more to make alliteration jokes than anything else in the most musical beat I can bang out?) but to prove that I do often think about thinking and how things fit together and what it all means… and how to write a run-on sentence that adds to the effect rather than simply annoys. And, yeah, I’m doing that. And it feels like a good thing to do.

1 Comment

Filed under blog posting, commentary, foolishness, humor, imagination, metaphor, Paffooney, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life, surrealism

Tagged as goofiness, humor, justification for blogging, Metacognition

February 4, 2017 · 5:49 pm

The Boogendorfer

This is not actually a picture of Boogendorf, this is Toonerville where the clocks are wrong and a giant Mickey Mouse lurks in the foothills beyond.

Today I mean to justify my existence before God and everybody. Apparently in the modern world you have to be certain things in your basic foundation to justify getting travel visas, citizenship, and a basic right to continue to exist unmolested. We apparently elected a new leader, the Mad King of Boogendorf, to make sure all Boogendorfers are suitably qualified to live in Boogendorf. So this is a brief photo essay to justify my case for why Boogendorf should accept me as a citizen and not execute me outright.

c360_2017-01-09-08-51-00-299

First of all, I am not one hundred per cent crazy. You can tell from this photo, can’t you?

This kooky dorfleflop can’t be any more than 65% crazy because his pin head is not large enough to harbor more than 65 out of every 100 truly derfy and sanity-stealing notions. (What is a dorfleflop, you say? Well, dorf is a German word for town, and dorfleflops flop in a dorf and think they belong like everybody else who has flopped there before.)

But using the Mad King of Boogendorf as a measuring stick (an orange measuring stick with an extra-long tie), that is clearly not crazy enough by half.

What’s the deal with the clocks always being wrong in Boogendorf?

I have always heard it said, “It takes a village to raise a child”. And I think that saying I heard is probably true. I was raised by the village of Rowan, Iowa in the 60’s and 70’s. I learned to draw there. And I can draw real cartoon human beings.

16750_102844486407850_100000468961606_71386_6774729_n

Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.

Of course, one must be careful to note that if you could actually draw real cartoon human beings they would be alive after that, and that would make you like God, able to create life from nothing more than pencil, pen, and paper. And in Boogendorf there is only room for one God. That, of course, is the Mad King of Boogendorf. So I guess that is a disqualifying quality too.

And that saying about a child raised by a village is a saying somehow connected to Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton was defeated (I have also heard disgraced, demoralized, and denounced) in the last election by getting more votes than the Mad King of Boogendorf. So I am judged lacking by my upbringing too.

c360_2016-10-05-10-40-09-695

I am also undeniably guilty of playing with dolls. I mean, I collect them, I comb their hair, dress them in different clothes, take them apart and repair them, and pose them for pictures. That can’t be normal. But is it abnormal enough to make me qualified to be a Boogendorfer from the village of Boogendorf? Maybe if I plated them in gold or something, or had enough money to go to “golden shower” extremes? I guess I don’t understand how to be Boogendorfy enough to live in Boogendorf. The “Boo” in Boogendorf proves that you have to be pathologically afraid of things more, just like other Boogendorfers are. I am sure the average Boogendorfer is afraid of people who play with dolls. Especially if those weird people don’t own any guns and don’t like to kill stuff. That just ain’t natural. You even need to give guns to little girls to make them safe against those evil anti-Boogendorfers.

So, I guess I am doomed to live a life outside of the walls of Boogendorf (and they are really great walls, too). I should be grateful that the citizens of Boogendorf have only rejected me and not used their sacred second-amendment rights to execute me. For now, I am simply not a Boogendorfer.

1 Comment

Filed under angry rant, cartoons, humor, mental health, politics, satire

Tagged as goofiness, politics, rant, sense of belonging, when you don't belong

January 23, 2017 · 4:08 pm

The Heart of Shakespeare

3a8307f6bb01311fc90478857d32e891

Despite my skepticism about the accepted wisdom in regard to the historical William Shakespeare, I do deeply love the body of work that is Shakespeare. My most favorite play is The Tempest, the final play in the canon. I also have read and loved As You Like It, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Richard III, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Othello, and King Lear. I know that is not all of the plays, but that is probably more than most people have read. And of course, as an English major in college, and later as a teacher, I have actually analyzed, compared, studied, and taught some of these plays. So, the Shakespeare I know is the Shakespeare of the writer’s own mind, his communicated wit and wisdom, imagination and intellect.

shakespeare

And I do not have any disdain or disrespect to give the Stratford guy. To say that, in the Elizabethan world, the actor son of a tradesman with only a grammar school education could not have been the mind behind the literary masterworks is foolish. The Stratford guy owned and operated the Globe theater at a time when “the play was the thing”. All of London society, rich and poor, gloried in the theater, and Shakespeare did for Elizabethan plays what Babe Ruth did for baseball. He was a good enough business man to make himself a decent fortune. Although, apparently, this world-shaking author didn’t spend any of his money on owning books, which in my experience is extremely rare among writers. His life, bound up in an urban existence that never traveled outside of the country also somehow produced great works that were set in places in Europe, especially Italy, that described those settings in accurate detail. As a working actor, he also apparently had the time to study law and somehow learn the inner workings of the royal courts of more than one country. And the plots were not original. He took existing stories that already were a part of European literature and lore and wove them into rich tapestries of human striving, laughable foibles, and a deep understanding of basic human character. But I do have doubts that the businessman and actor from Stratford was the real writer of the plays.

I have already told you that I don’t believe Sir Francis Bacon was secretly Shakespeare. Christopher Marlowe wasn’t either. And I have unsuccessfully made a case against Shakspere, the Stratford guy. So who could possibly be the real William Shakespeare? Well, I am not going to be able to make a decent case for him in the 100 words that I have left to end this essay with. So there has to be more to come. (And stop screaming obscenities at the computer screen. I am going to reveal the name before the end of this essay. And I promise not to make my case for him in coming days too boring and horrible.) I have to show why I believe that the true heart of Shakespeare could only have beaten within the body of Edward deVere, the Earl of Oxford.

6 Comments

Filed under conspiracy theory, goofy thoughts, humor, strange and wonderful ideas about life, William Shakespeare

Tagged as conspiracy theory, goofiness, humor, Oxfordian theory, William Shakespeare

December 18, 2016 · 5:14 pm

The Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge

c360_2016-12-18-09-40-07-285

The Ixcanixian Cultural Ambassador from the Squeelix Sector of the Planet Ixcanix sent me an e-mail about his planet’s newest idea for a cultural exchange. He calls it the “Ixcanixian Spleegle Gorn Vorpaloop” which translates to the “Ixcanixian Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge”. At least, it does if I am conjugating the verb “Vorpaloop” correctly. It is difficult because you have to drop the silent “y” before adding the “aloop” without causing it to explode. I know it is probably a very bad idea to present it here on this planet, but he talked me into it by promising to promote my novel Catch a Falling Star on his homeworld and at least two other planets in the Bugeye Federation.

Here are the rules for the alien poetry contest;

Entries can only come from planets in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. (So, for you non-astronomers out there, we on Earth do qualify.)
All poets must be less intelligent than the Mud-Eaters of Paralaxos IV as they will be employed as judges of what poetry is truly bad. (Again, Earth qualifies as we have recently elected Trump and also allow Nigel Farage of Great Britain to continue to exist.)
Entries must not be so long that the total weight of letters exceed critical mass and form black holes in the intergalactic servers when uploaded.
Vogons need not apply. Their poetry is so bad, they would automatically win, causing the death of trillions of bad poetry readers in the galaxy.
Entries must not cause thermonuclear reactions with cesium.
Please refrain from confusing good poetry with bad poetry. The Vornloos of Talos XII are looking for poetry they can weaponize, and no one wants a poetry contest winner to suddenly create World Peace on Talos XII. That would be bad for the galaxy as a whole in ways that are very difficult to explain.

A sample of interstellar bad poetry is included here to inspire the kind of poetry we seek.

Ratzen Bargle’s Bisketoon (a love poem by Touperary Kloob, Poet Laureate of Antares VI)

Ratzen Bargle was a Doofus,

From the planet Rufus-Ploofiss,

And he had a lovely bride,

With a head not tall, but twice as wide.

She had three eyes and two were green.

She had the loveliest fleen you’ve ever seen.

And as they sat ‘neath a wayward moon,

He kissed his lovely bisketoon.

Immediately before naught was said,

She bit off his tiny three-eyed head.

And then she ate him bones and all

With sauce that really becomes the fall.

And so it is on Rufus-Ploofiss,

That males all die with one last roof-kiss.

Because they sit under wayward moons

With their lovely, hungry bisketoons.

Should you have the unfortunate urge to participate in this senseless and probably suicidal poetry contest, you are welcome to offer four-line poems in the comment section, or email longer poems to Mickey at mbeyer51@gmail.com. I will attempt to transmit the worst offers to the Ixcanixians as soon as I get my interstellar flooglebeeder transmitting again. I will also post winners in a future alien poetry blog.

I have been warned that prizes range from instant execution by the Lizard Lords of Galtorr Prime to a beat up copy of Mickey’s 2012 novel Catch a Falling Star. So, good luck with the bad poetry.

3 Comments

Filed under aliens, goofiness, humor, Paffooney, pen and ink, poem, poetry, satire, science fiction

Tagged as alien poetry, goofiness, humor, poetry

December 15, 2016 · 4:24 pm

Crazy Head-Bashing List-Making

20161015_104341

Sometimes I have to stop and think where ideas for posts come from. Yes, and that is usually the point at which my head is empty and I am out of ideas. I spent years teaching the writing process and I advocated many different pre-writing idea-generating strategies. I should be able to come up with something to write about without resorting to bashing my right temple with a hand-held blunt object. After all, those ideas come out kinda wobbly and full of strangely-colored stars. So, let me find a broom in the upstairs broom closet in the empty hallways of my mind and sweep together all the possible ideas I have in one pile to look at, grimace, and compare.

525618_101512273421galtorr84841_1986651460_n

There is a letter with a Martian stamp on it. Inside it proposes I hold an aliens-only poetry writing contest and put the worst possible results into a post. That could be worth a few chuckles, and possible a gazorpingwallow or two. At least, that’s what the letter suggests. It is from some Ixcanixian from the spinward edge of the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way. 20160508_113700

I have several ongoing cartoon projects. I could be adding another page to the Hidden Kingdom graphic novel I have been working on for thirty years. I could also do more action-figure comics to rationalize all the time I spend playing with dolls. And I like to do novel illustrations to go along with the many bizarre and mentally warped novels I have created.

realkinglouie

Of course we have recently received the kind of political Christmas gift that most of us would like to track Santa down to his lair for and return back inside the reindeer butt that it came out of. Insulting the new orangutan king is an easy source of insult-based humor that I don’t have to work too hard at or feel too guilty about. But too much of that is like getting drunk on cough syrup. You intended to cure the problem, but you have only managed to add new problems and a hangover headache to top it all off. blue-and-mike-in-color

I still have to fix the cracked and leaky swimming pool before next spring, so that should yield some cementing-your-feet-into-the-pool-wall stories later on. And there are the numerous frustrations of living life with six incurable diseases to write about. I can probably make the flaking off of all the skin on the back of my neck from psoriasis sound pretty funny if I try hard enough. The family dog is still producing dog poop at Guiness-Book-of-World-Records rates… and, oh, yeah, I am still a long way from being done telling you about the bad jokes from more than a quarter of a century of classroom cut-ups.

You know, I think the way to deal with the problem is to simply make a list of ideas. I can throw darts at the list if I still can’s decide.

4 Comments

Filed under artwork, blog posting, humor, Paffooney, writing, writing humor, writing teacher

Tagged as goofiness, humor, Paffoonies, Pre-Writing, writing process

December 5, 2016 · 4:12 pm

The Use of Magic Words

Eli Tragedy

Okay, Mickey, you have said you have confidence in science to the point of not believing in God… at least not the Christian imaginary sky-friend with the white beard and bad temper. But your use of magic words then makes you a hypocrite.

What? Magic words, you say?

You heard me. You use words that give you special powers. And you believe in them like some kind of anti-science religious zealot.

15356601_10211194020155749_2716277710019226432_n

Thank you, Bruce Rydberg, for giving me this useful meme.

Okay, you caught me. There are certain words that do have super powers. I know because I have used them. (And Science is not the opposite of faith. Just ask Heisenberg.)

I first suspected that magic words really existed back in college. I read the book Dune by Frank Herbert. (Followed by every other book he wrote. I became a Dune-dream believer.) Remember the part where Paul uses the Bene Gesserit fear chant to get through the psychological test given to him by the Bene Gesserit witch? You don’t? You haven’t read it? I sometimes forget other people aren’t hopeless Trekkies and Sci-fi nerds too. I do know, at least in my head, that most people have real lives outside of their own heads. But I did develop a magic word to deal with times of stress and fear.

untitled

Really, Mickey? You chant this out loud when you’re nervous?

I say it in my head over and over to focus my spirit on what is truly important. Never out loud. I used this word to get through my wedding day in 1995 when a blizzard in Iowa prevented all of my non-Texas family at the time from attending. I used it the day my first son was born when the delivery had to be accomplished by c-section due to heartbeat irregularities. I used it the day an irate student came down the hallway towards me with metal ninja throwing stars, saying he was going to kill a specific student that was hiding in the History teacher’s classroom. Yes, it helped me think and act appropriately during some rather intense times. Sometimes a bit of nonsense injected into the middle of a tense situation makes all the difference in the world.

But that isn’t the only magic word that you made up, is it?

No, there’s the word “Paffooney” which you may have seen before in this blog. It stands for a picture of my own design put together with words I have actually written myself. Remember this?

goopafootootoo

It still works. I tested it myself this morning. It gives you a look at my artwork posted on this blog without risking the danger of going back through all my old posts and accidentally reading something that makes your head melt.

But, really, are your magic words only words you made up yourself?

No. I think the word “Truth” is a magic word. It can be used or misused for both good and evil.

will-rogers-actor-if-you-ever-injected-truth-into-politics-you-have-no

This is very likely the magic word we need to defeat the orange-faced monkey we elected president. There are lots of words that have immense power. And all you have to do is believe in it a little bit… and use it intelligently.

1 Comment

Filed under autobiography, foolishness, goofiness, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, self portrait, strange and wonderful ideas about life, word games, wordplay

Tagged as goofiness, magic words, Paffoonies, using magic

December 2, 2016 · 12:48 pm

Lizard Politicians

article-0-01d41d5a00000578-930_224x423

This scary-faced man is the nutball known as David Icke. My essay today is not about him, but about his amazing conspiracy theory that puts to rest once and for all the notion that intelligent life exists on the planet Earth. His theory clearly shows that the correct answer to the notion is, “No, there is absolutely no intelligent life on the planet Earth.”

Seriously… this man believes there is a race of reptilian aliens living in the center of the planet Earth which is apparently hollow. But not content to live in the center of the Earth and kidnap people to eat, they morph into human form and replace world leaders and important humans with cold-blooded reptilian aliens. Queen Elizabeth of England is one. Both Presidents Bush are also aliens. He offers as proof that sometimes they begin to let their disguises drop and photos have been taken that reveal the true nature of these disguised individuals. Particularly if they are photographed or videoed poorly.

Or, you know, maybe the photos were altered slightly to bring out the change.

And you know that this theory must be true. David Icke has all those years as a soccer commentator to back up the validity of his analysis.

Anyway… I believe he is right. At least, metaphorically speaking. Many of the bad guys that keep winning against the odds and the interests of the American people are obviously cold-blooded lizards underneath. Especially Republicans.

ted-cruz-sorry-575x383

Notice the simpering lizard grin. The self-satisfied smile of a blood-drinker who has recently slaked his thirst on the blood of other immigrants. He is elected by a State that is is largely made up of Hispanic immigrants, yet his idea of immigration reform centers around deportation and cruelty to people who nominally share the same cultural background as he does. He loves to eat machine-gun bacon, cooked on the hot barrel of an assault weapon that it is his sacred second-amendment right to own and to open carry. He is ever ready to stand his ground and shoot down anyone whom he might perceive as a threat, including, no doubt food-stamp-fed grandmothers and their children… or rather “Abuelas y nietos”. It is not hard to believe in his cold-bloodedness. And since he is obviously the darling of the Koch Brothers and other scions of the greedy right, it is easy to believe that he eats little children for breakfast. Or at least wants to take public assistance monies away from them to give it out in tax breaks to the wealthy corporate elites. tea-party-idiots-ryan

Senator Tedhkruzh, the lizard-man from the doomed planet Galtorr Prime.

These lizard politicians have sympathy for no one but the wealthy and the powerful, most of which are also presumably lizard people. And now that the Trumpasaurus Rex has taken over the White House, the lizard people are going to feast, stripping the bones of the poor and the helpless, along with the ground meat from the withering middle class.

trumpasaurus

Does all of this nonsense about lizards scare you? If it doesn’t, it probably should. But none of it is my fault. If you have to blame someone… it’s David Icke’s conspiracy theory.

11 Comments

Filed under aliens, angry rant, horror writing, humor, monsters, Paffooney, politics, satire

Tagged as conspiracy theories, David Icke, Donald Trump, goofiness, politics, reptilian aliens, Ted Cruz

November 14, 2016 · 12:37 pm

Art Projects That Mickey Doo

20161112_205317

Mickey is suffering from too much politixity and angriefied argumentery to sleep well and eat well . He has been eating , sleeping , and breathing polytix to the point that he can’t even spell properly any more . Besides , pollertix doesn’t taste so good when you have to eat it after an election that went wrong . c360_2016-11-13-14-44-44-313

So Mickey started doing what Mickey always doo . He started to draw. First with pencil , then with black ink . And then he started to color it in with colored pencil. The spelling started to get better . And not just because Mickey stopped having fist fights with the spell check . 20161113_202548

Other art projects helped too. Like photographing Trolls in the Cardboard Castle . 20161113_202051

So, if the things that Mickey do help to save the brain , then he better doo before it all becomes doo doo.

Healing From A Fatal Wound

14b096b694c57929afd308fa2d189768-1

The Trumpkins and Trolls won the battle and are now busy eating their prisoners… along with the puppies and kittens for desert. And as far as I can see, the war is over. We had a chance with the Paris Climate Accords to repair the damage to the life of this planet, even though it was a very eleventh-hour plan to avert the end of life on Earth. The Trolls and Trumpkins are peeing on that fence too, shorting it out and preventing it from saving us from being eaten by the heat-wolves of corporate polluters.

11691-will-rogers

I myself wasn’t expecting to live through another decade in any case, but now, I fear the lives of my children and grandchildren will be cut short as well. You can’t poop where you eat on a regular basis and expect not to get sick and die. I predicted that the Cubs would win the World Series because they stole key talent from the Cardinals and had a young, rising club to add them to. I got that one right. I predicted that Trump would win the presidency because I know a lot of the Trump-voter kind of former middle-class white people who are seriously in financial and existential pain, and I knew who they were going to blame it on. If I am right about this last thing too, then we are all doomed. 3f96a6e4e030fa8fa38c97da9d206240

“Jeez, Mickey! You don’t call that humor, do you?”

Well, I guess I do, because humor comes from being able to laugh at the darkness and make fun of the dumpy-lumpy lumbering bears of bad fortune that are about to eat you. We are going to have a laugh or two before the end at the expense of Trumpkins and Trolls because they make world-shaking decisions based on faith in false facts. The irony and stupidity of it all is a very laughable absurdity that will build BS mountains taller than Everest. And those mountains will collapse upon them, burying them in poop. Never mind that we will also be buried. They brought it on themselves by the choices they made. Seeing them get their comeuppance has to be worth a laugh or two.

I have pretty much let Will Rogers speak to this current election result through the memes I have chosen to accompany this gloomy-doomy essay. I think it is significant that wisdom from a hundred years ago still applies so completely to the politics of today. With democracy and elections we get what we deserve… not what we want. We need to change to face the future, if we even get to have one. But the past clearly shows that we haven’t learned our lessons very well. I guess there’s nothing left to do but laugh about it… and try to love each other a little better before the bitter end.

Thanks for sharing, Cousin Will.

3 Comments

Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, irony, Liberal ideas, politics, self pity

Tagged as Donald Trump, doom and gloom, election reaction, goofiness, politics, Will Rogers

October 23, 2016 · 4:31 pm

FrightFest in the West

One of the results of the loss of the patriarch of my wife’s family is that all the sisters in this country got together to mourn, and all bought season passes for their families to Six Flags Over Texas, the poor man’s Disney World. I, being of sound mind and decrepit body, didn’t get a vote, as I wasn’t there when they bought tickets on this extended-family plan. In fact, marching around a theme park on my arthritic legs and cane trying to breathe Texas air full of all the pollen and pollutants that have been killing me, didn’t seem like such a good thing. Yesterday I finally got talked into going and activating my already-purchased season pass.

My wife and daughter at the burger restaurant

“We will just go to use our food pass,” my wife said. “We can have dinner there at the park and get some use out of all that money I paid.”

That seemed almost reasonable.

“And if we can’t help but get on a ride or two, you can sit on a bench and watch all the weird and stupid people go by.”

Well, that sold it. So we went. We did notice, however, that the line for food was long and getting longer. Some of the people waiting seemed to have been waiting a very long time.

20161022_172549

We finally got to the front of the line and got to pick gourmet cheeseburgers and chili fries because I don’t already have enough heart-clogging cholesterol in my system and needed a lot of greasy saturated fat for a high price. Ah, the joys of eating at a theme park. Long lines, rude people, bad food, and everybody’s patient and happy for the most part because they paid big bucks to get there.

And then, after we had our meal, we soon discovered why the theme park was full of skeletons and being pumped full of noxious chemical artificial fog.

Yes, the Snickers Bars were bigger and scarier than ever.

Now, FrightFest and other celebrations of Halloween probably aren’t the best thing for people who have been associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses for twenty years, but it definitely provided a ton of stuff to see as we fled through the Old West section of the park to avoid zombie jump scares and other holiday nonsense.

20161022_183826

Giant spiders were everywhere, just like skeletons.

The toxic artificial smog with spooky lighting made it difficult to get a picture of the giant spiders who seemed to be hanging from every tree and possibly explaining the multitude of skeletons. I didn’t get any pictures of zombies who were actually very young-looking employees in red and gray greasepaint. We were too busy avoiding getting a “gotcha!” which seemed to be the sole purpose of the zombies.

c360_2016-10-22-18-45-12-026