Saturday night we attempted to record what was to be the "pilot episode" of the Freakstomp Novelties! Revival Tent Podcast. That didn't go so well.  We couldn't figure out some tech aspects, and eventually we just gave up for the night, telling ourselves we'd try again on Sunday night.

Sunday morning we went to Pea Island and visited the Charles Kuralt Trail.  When Rick told me the place was called Pea Island the ten-year-old inside me was secretly delighted, because I thought he said PEE Island, and hahahaha pee.  Actually, this area has some really tricked-up names for different places.   Manteo, Wanchese, Kitty Hawk, Nag's Head - and my favorite, Kill Devil Hills.  There are stories that go with every name, and I'm sure if you go on wikipedia you can read the history behind them, unless someone edited the entries to make it so that Hulk Hogan leg-dropped Roddy Piper across the face on top of Kitty Hawk back in 1905.  It's wikipedia.  People do that.

Then we went to the Bodie Island Lighthouse, and I got some nice shots there.

Anyway, some pictures, and some light commentary here and there to go along with them.  My tripod hinge clamps had cracked (you get what you pay for) so the extension legs were unsteady, and I ended up using the collapsed tripod as kind of a shoulder brace, taking most of these handheld-style.  The full set is on my Flickr page, and like last time, you should click through the pictures if you want to see them in larger sizes.  I'm only posting my favorites here.  I don't know any names of the birds or plants, so Rick can hop into the comments and clue everyone in if he wants.

The first shot I took on Pea Island.  That's an observation bridge on the Charles Kuralt Trail.

I don't know what this bird is called, but he was kicking back in the grass so I snapped it.

Sign at the entrance to the Kuralt Trail

Through the grass, bridge in the background

Pond area by the entrance to the trail

Turtles in the pond; there must have been twenty or so altogether

Natural arch over the trail

Don't know what this plant is called, but it looks cool

Widescreen cropped shot of a flock of birds lifting off

One of my favorite shots.  Those are Rick's two little girls walking the trail on the right.

Shot through the grass, observation deck on Charles Kuralt Trail

They have these benches along the Charles Kuralt Trail on Pea Island NC, where you can sit and watch the wildlife.  Every bench has a dedication plate to someone who was important to the area and has passed.  This one is dedicated to Richard Riddle.

A bird nestled down in a cluster of branches along the Charles Kuralt Trail

Kris, Rick, and Rick's girls leaving the trail

Goodbye, Pea Island.

Then we moved on to Bodie Island, and the lighthouse.

Kris flew a kite the whole time.  He could turn that thing on a dime, and swooped it all around my head.

We left for a late lunch at a place called Harbor Point Pizza and Grille.  They had a fried popcorn shrimp plate special with waffle fries and cole slaw for - get this - $5.99.  I couldn't believe it, there must have been more than a pound of shrimp on that plate, and they were excellent.  You can't even buy shrimp raw for that price around here.  They also make their own cocktail sauce, and serve a mean Bloody Mary.

Later that night we attempted to record the podcast again, but ended up just recording a bunch of dirty jokes and scandalous confessions (you will never hear these).  Oh, well, some other time.  It was vacation, anyway.

Here's one last picture of the stooges

As the Faux Cowboy contemplates and prays to the ghost of Hank Williams, The Tongmaster bemusedly observes the ritual Teleportation Dance.

Tomorrow I'll wrap this up with some crappy pics from my trip home.

Also, I will give away CD's as per Michele's specifications!

I'd be a shitty tour guide.  I don't remember the names of half the places/things I took pictures of, so Rick will probably have to jump into the comments a bunch of times and say "Hahaha, you're stupid, this is what it's called."  I just see things that look interesting to me and hit the button whenever.

I didn't take any pictures of the trip up to Manteo; I was focusing on not taking a wrong turn somewhere and ending up on Amity Island by mistake.  Amity, as you know, means "friendship," but I understand they have a shark problem.

Friday night we just spent relaxing and beers.  We got up at 6 AM Saturday to go canoeing, but it was raining in the morning so we had to stall until noon.

We went to this boat ramp area down Kitty Hawk Lane (or Road, or..), back in a neighborhood that was very Perry.  By that I mean, the name Perry was everywhere.  On just about every single mailbox, or street sign.  We started making jokes about the neighborhood being like an Outer Banks version of The Sopranos or the movie Copland, and then we saw a handmade sign in front of someone's yard reading "Welcome to Perryland."  Really.

Anyway, we finally found the right road (I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it was Harold Perry Road), and unloaded all the equipment.  Rick, his two little daughters, and I rode in his canoe, while Rick's friends Dave and Chris took their kayaks.   We saw a snake as we were unloading the boat, and there was talk of water moccasins, and even though I didn't say anything I could feel every single hair on my body stand at attention.  If I had taken off my pants my genitals would have looked like a graying cactus plant because fuck snakes.

Then we were off.  I'll let the pictures do the talking for a little while, although I will say this - you should click through the picture links to go to my Flickr page and view the larger sizes, because they really won't do much for you at the smaller sizes I am posting here.

Wide shot of the creek mouth as we first launched.

Interesting cluster of gnarled wood as we turned left.  We saw a couple of older bird-watching ladies who told us we were going the wrong way if we wanted to see anything, so we turned around.

Now we were headed in the right direction.  Beautiful area. That's Dave on the left, and Chris on the right.

The bridge in the distance sits so low you can reach up and touch the underside as you pass beneath it.  I like the reflections off the creek in this shot.

Dave passing under the bridge.

Cars pass overhead as Dave and Chris paddle through.

A cool little marshy alcove we found during our trip.

An angled shot of the marshy alcove.

I like the way the bank reflects off the water in this one.

I also like the reflections in this one; looks like a Bob Ross painting.

A neat-looking fallen tree draping over the water.

As you may well know, I like Black and White pictures, and never waste an opportunity to inflict them on others.  I like the way the water breaks up the reflection in this one.

Chris paddles towards the bridge during our return trip.

I think the way trees root right at the edge of the bank and then wrap around is interesting.

Another Black and White shot of the bridge.

An underside shot of the bridge as Rick and I paddled through.  I was a little disappointed no cars drove over while we were under it.

This is an old creekside boathouse.  They do a lot of crabbing and stuff in this area, I guess.

Another shot of the old boathouse on the creek, this one taken with the Chrome Color setting.

The final shot I took on our Saturday canoeing trip in the Outer Banks of NC.

I took a lot more shots than the ones here, but these were my favorites of the bunch.   I didn't take any more pictures on Saturday.  After the trip we went out to eat at a Chinese joint called The New China Restaurant, and just goofed around the rest of the evening.  I think every town has a The New China Restaurant; we have one here in Wilmington.  In China they probably just call it The You Are Here Restaurant.

This last pic is a little out of order; I didn't take it until Sunday night.  Thought I'd go ahead and post it, though. 

The Stupid-Breasted Parrott is not an actual Cowboy.  It wears this costume, in fact, as a type of camouflage which serves a dual purpose - repelling females while simultaneously attracting Nascar fans.  Which, in nature, should never be attracted.  Note the awkward Secret Devil Sign being flashed.  The Stupid-Breasted Parrott gets along well with the Helmet-Crested Tardbirds, who enjoy grilling tongs and beers.

That's me, Chris, and Rick.  Chris kept telling me I looked like some dude named Kenny Chesney, but I didn't know who the hell that was until we looked it up on Wikipedia, so Rick and I just kept saying "Kenny Chestnuts" all night.

Tomorrow (well, later tonight - sorry, I fell asleep on the couch this afternoon) I'll post pics of day two.  Those are a lot better, I think.  I was getting used to my camera again while taking these; I hadn't touched it in months.

Just under the wire with the Halloween Special 2.

This one is a Halloween episode of Jack Benny from 1939, where he thinks his singer Dennis Day's mother is trying to kill him at a masquerade party he's throwing. Funny stuff, even today.

It didn't take nearly as long to do this one, although I didn't do nearly as much editing, so you'll notice the volume levels spiking here and there. Right click and select "save target as..." to download to your hard drive:

http://media.libsyn.com/media/kevinparrott/FULLOFWINPodcastEpisode2.mp3

Minimal show notes, and a pic of the cast, can be found here:

http://kevinparrott.libsyn.com/

You can also find the first podcast still up. Next week the podcast changes to a regular format, and it's going to be drastically different than what you're listening to now. I may even have some sort of crappy theme song, or maybe I'll just whistle a lot, or whatever.

I was going to keep the Halloween memories rolling, but I guess Halloween memories are just as good the day after when people will actually be around to read them. So, tomorrow for that. I think I'm gonna watch some spooky movies and go to bed, but the Barker is running some classic old Horror comics over at the Barker's Blog, in case you need some chill in your blood!

For all you procrastinating dudes and dudettes.

1. LEX LUTHOR

Are you bald? Are you going bald? Are your follicles fleeing the scene of the crime? Well, Halloween is the perfect opportunity to kick that shit in gear and razor that hairy horsehoe off the back and sides of your head. You also get a cool, cheap Halloween costume out of it.

What you will need:

A black or dark dress suit

White dress shirt

Black tie

Black or dark dress shoes

Razor and shaving cream

Medium-sized rock

Flourescent or glow-in-the dark Green spray paint

Directions: 1. Spray rock with flourescent green spraypaint. Allow drying time. Recoat if necessary. 2. Shave head. Do it in a hot shower, and take your time. 3. Put some shaving lotion or skin conditioner on your head. 4. Put your suit on. 5. Walk around carrying the flourescent or glow-in-the-dark green rock. 6. Congratulations, you're Lex Luthor with a Kryptonite rock. If you can pair up with someone dressed as Superman, even better.

2. JOHNNY MO FROM KILL BILL

I went as this guy in 2004.

What you will need:

Black suit, white shirt, black tie, black dress shoes

Razor and shaving cream

Domino or Kato mask (you can find these just about anywhere for a buck)

Toy samurai or ninja sword

Directions: Shave your head, dress, put mask on, walk around waving the sword and screaming random Japanese-sounding crap. When I did it in 2004, there was a girl at a nightclub dressed as The Bride, and we would scream shit at each other across the club.

3. THE INVISIBLE MAN

A classy costume for very little investment. You don't even have to shave your head for this one.

What you will need:

Dark suit, white shirt, dress shoes

White gloves

White scarf

Wide medical gauze

Dark sunglasses

Black greasepaint pen or black makeup

Directions: Wrap your head and neck carefully with the gauze, making sure that you leave space for your eyes and nose. Attach the ends with some glue, or medical tape, and make sure they're secure so it won't start to unravel fifteen minutes after you get to the party. Take the makeup or greasepaint pen and dab the black on any exposed skin for a neat effect (from far away it will look like empty space). Dress in your suit, and wrap the scarf around your neck ascot-style. Put your white gloves and the glasses on. Looks pretty cool. Start talking like an invisible insane person.

4. MR. BAKED POTATO HEAD

I just think this would be pretty funny.

What you will need:

Suit, tie, shirt, dress shoes

Aluminum Foil

White makeup

Yellow makeup

Red makeup

Green makeup

Baby powder or colorless foundation powder

White gloves (optional)

Directions: Lay a base of white all over your face and neck. Dust lightly with the powder to prevent smearing on your clothes. Take the yellow makeup and color your nose (that's the pat of butter). Take the red makeup and, using a tiny brush or a cotton swab, draw bacon bit shapes sprinkled around your face. Take the green makeup and draw tiny curls here and there (those are the chives). Dust VERY lightly over the designs. Take the aluminum foil and make yourself a hat or hood, or just wrap it over your head and form an exposed pocket where your face is. Put your suit and gloves on. If you want to get nuts with it, I suppose you could actually stick bacon bits and chives to your face with spirit gum, but they probably wouldn't last very long. You'd smell delicious, though.

5. JAME GUMB FROM SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

What you will need:

A dirty blond wig

Lipstick

Eye Shadow

Eye Liner

A pair of flesh-colored or beige/tan panties

A fake goatee

A red kimono

A nonpermanent marker

glue

Basket

Lotion

slippers

What you will NOT need:

A sense of shame

Directions: Make your face up tramp-style and put on the wig. Glue the fake goatee to the front of the flesh-colored or beige/tan panties. When the glue is dry, put the panties on - now it looks like you're tucking without actually having to tuck. Remain shirtless and pantless. Draw a small tattoo on your side, if you wish. Put your slippers on. Talk like you have a hairlip, and ask everyone if they would fuck you, because you would fuck you. You would fuck you hard. Put the fucking lotion in the basket, and carry it around. Bonus points if you carry around a small audio player and dance to "Goodbye Horses."

6. LINDA BLAIR FROM THE EXORCIST

What you will need:

Nightgown with a distinct front

slippers

green makeup

grey makeup

white makeup

baby powder or colorless foundation

eyeliner

can of split pea soup

thermos or container for soup

cross

Bra

something to pad bra with

Hair gel

Directions: If you're a woman, tape down your boobs or wear something which flattens them to your chest. Stuff the bra, and put it on with the boob cups on your back -backwards, in other words. Put the gown on backwards, as well. See, now it sort of looks like your head is spun around. I know, I know, but this is low-budget, remember? Take the green makeup and mix a bit of the grey and white with it, and apply to face and neck. Take some of the grey makeup and accentuate your eye sockets, making sure to feather the edges. Take a bit of the white makeup and line your lips with it, and then take the eyeliner and draw "cracks" on your lips. Dust it all down with a slight amount of the Baby powder or foundation powder. Put the hair gel in your hair and string it out. Put the soup in the container, and at random points during the evening when no one is looking take a mouthful and mock-projectile-vomit it out. Carry the cross - it's up to you whether you fake masturbating with it or say the lines. If you want to go to Hell, go for it.

7. Tobias Fünke FROM ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

What you will need:

Blue makeup (lots and lots of it)

Mustache (or something to draw a mustache with, like an eyeliner pencil)

Daisy Duke cut-off jeans with the pockets hanging out

thin-rimmed glasses

Boots

Colorless foundation powder

This works best if you are bald, but if you aren't just slick your hair down and back and apply the blue makeup over it. Cover yourself with the blue makeup, and dust it all down with the powder. If you have no mustache, draw one with the eyeliner. Put your jeans on, and make sure the pockets are hanging out. Put your glasses and your boots on. Tell everyone that you're afraid you just blue yourself. Copy, paste, and print this picture out in multiples on cardstock, cut them out business-card-size, and pass them out to whomever you meet:

Well, I did it. I made a podcast, just in time for Halloween.

Right-click the link below and select "Save target as..." to download the first episode of the FULL OF WIN Podcast to your hard drive, where you can listen to it from your computer, or load it on your .mp3 player, or drag and drop it into your Recycle Bin after hearing the first ten seconds.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/kevinparrott/FOWep1.mp3

I can't tell you how long it took to record that six minute introduction. Actually, I can. It took almost two hours. I edited it on the fly - recorded a bit, then went back and cut out all (well, most of) the "uuhhhs" and dead space, and extraneous words. I'll get faster the more I do it, but it was like pulling teeth this first time.

 And I still screwed it up.

I accidentally recorded in left-channel mono, so I had to split it into two tracks and mix them both together to get stereo-mono. It sounds like I recorded it in the bathtub as a result (oh, if only). I tried to clean it up as best as I knew how, and did a bit of noise reduction, but all the opening and saving degraded the sound and I finally decided that a Halloween Special should probably go up before Christmas.

Anyway, if you want to read the show notes (there aren't many), go to http://kevinparrott.libsyn.com/ and drop me a comment or constructive criticism after you listen. I'm doing another Halloween Special (that one will probably go up sometime on Halloween Day), then the FULL OF WIN podcast proper will begin next week.

On Saturday, October 28 1978, my Mom took me to a "Haunted" house here in Wilmington. We rode with her friend Dixie, and Dixie's daughter (I can't remember her name). Dixie's daughter was a couple of years older than me. I remember how poised and graceful she was, for such a young girl - my Mom said she was classy. Me? Ha, at nine years of age, I was perhaps best known for staring out the back window of the car and making faces at the drivers behind us on long family trips. One group even followed us into a gas station and asked my folks to make me stop, as I had been doing it for almost an hour while they were trapped behind us on some back roads leading to Greenville NC (and no, I'm not making that up - ask my Mom, she was mortified beyond words, and I wasn't allowed to even turn around the rest of the way there, or on the entire return trip).

So we pulled into this place, and they'd turned the front yard into a cemetery. It looked pretty real to me, although I suppose it was cobbled together from cardboard and styrofoam for the headstones (the undead don't give a crap about chloro-fluorocarbons), paint for the engravings and cracks, and pulled cotton for the black widow webs. There were barrels with fires inside, giving the wooded area a horror movie styled flicker. A gate with skulls (probably fake, but who knows, life was cheap in the Disco era) on each of the two post tops led the way to the front porch, which was illuminated by a single red light bulb. A cloaked figure stood by the door, taking the money (hey, even Charon demanded an obolus). All the windows were boarded up, but you could see snatches of light spilling through here and there.

There were unearthly sounds coming from those windows which made the hair on the back of my nine-year-old unwashed neck stand up. Dixie's daughter remained unaffected. We started walking from the parking area up to the gate when I heard the screaming. From around the back corner of the house, getting louder and closer. A person ran from that corner, looking behind at something. His shirt was torn and splattered with the realest blood there ever was, no matter that real blood isn't ever that red, in my mind it was real and it was leaking from any number of wounds on that person's body.

Then, the killer. A hulking figure wearing overalls and a mask appeared, stalking the screamer. My memory is clouded, and each time I think back the weapon in his hands changes - an axe, a pitchfork, a sledgehammer, a chainsaw. Halloween the movie wasn't that well-known yet, and Jason Voorhees was still a ways off, so I hadn't been jaded into relating something like this to one of those movie monsters - maybe it was supposed to be a Leatherface. I can't remember the mask or the weapon. Doesn't really matter - what matters is that I really believed I was about to see a person being murdered.

He ran past us and warned "Run for your lives!!!!"

Which is exactly what I did. I didn't so much run as I did fly, my feet never disturbing the gravel on the path back to the car. The doors were unlocked, but before my little ass hit the vinyl on the seat they were all latched securely. The killer and the screamer ran off into the woods, presumably to circle back behind the house for their next performance a few minutes later.

My Mom, Dixie, and her daughter came back around and tried to convince me to go on inside the haunted house, but I'd decided I'd had quite enough Halloween. Dixie's daughter even offered to hold my hand so I wouldn't be so scared (I probably should've married her when I grew up), but I just shook my head and kept the doors locked.

You know, for someone who loves Halloween, I sure have been a pretty big pussy about it over the years.

***

So, once they'd all finished touring the haunted house (less than fifteen minutes, if I remember correctly, and they told me nothing inside was as scary as the screamer on the outside), I ended up at home in front of the TV just in time for KISS Meets That Guy Who Looks Like He Could Be Jack Nicholson's Brother. Which is where I'd wanted to be in the first place.

Words can't even begin to describe how terrible KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park is. And by "terrible," I mean "the greatest made-for-television movie ever made." It was the best Halloween I ever had up to that point, and by the time the opening credits were over I'd forgotten all about my pussyosity earlier in the evening.

I was going to do a long recap and poke a lot of fun at it, but I'd really just be poking fun at myself, because I was all about KISS when I was between the ages of 7 and 9. I was in their Army, at least in spirit. I had a Paul Stanley action figure. I had all the comics. I had most of their albums, which always came with cool shit like posters or booklets or temporary tattoos. I had a T-shirt with their logo in gold glitter, which my Mom accidentally ironed on the shirt upside-down but I wore anyway. I can't poke fun at that. Well, I could, but my jokes will never be as intentionally funny as the movie was unintentionally hilarious.

 Besides, thanks to the godliness of Youtube, I'll just let you see for yourself (this isn't a complete version, but it's pretty close, and it's all in order).

Rip, rip, rip and destroy, break it down and seal your fate:

"Hello, I'm Kevin. I'm a human being with the poorly-proportioned head of a shark, and a picture of myself about to eat a naked girl on my shirt. Although I have eyes on the sides of my face, I actually see through two holes in my mouth. I can survive out of water, but not without candy, so make with the trick or treat bucket and let's rock."

Yeah, I was Jaws. If you haven't guessed by now, I am sort of fixated on that movie. Regardless of the fact that the movie f*cked my shit up all Summer long, and freaked me right the hell out in front of a bunch of elderly black fishermen, I wanted that costume. I think I may have been disappointed that there was no little Quint hanging out of the mouth of the mask when I got it.

The ebay listing I found one of the above pictures on (I bid on it, by the way, but I wasn't going to pay more than $20 for it and it's already at $21) states that it was produced in 1975, so I would have been six. A six year old shark cruising for candy in the neighborhood ocean of Myrtle Grove Road.

I remember two things about that mask. See those eyeholes? Well, they were sharp around the edges. In fact, the whole mask was nothing but sharp edges. I think the Collegeville Costume people were a bunch of sadists who secretly wanted to disfigure the children of America, because I cut myself a couple of times on that mask. Basically, the shark kept biting my face. My Mom wanted me to stop wearing it, but I pitched a fit over how stupid the costume would look without the mask, so she took some tape or something and softened up the edges around the eyeholes.

The second thing that I remember is that it was hot. No breathing holes that I can recall, and if there were they weren't providing adequate ventilation, so five minutes with that thing over your mug and you were a sweaty mess with a muffled out-of-breath voice.

I wore it two places. Trick or treating, of course, where just about everyone made variations on the following comment to my Mom:

"Children shouldn't wear things like that. That's too adult for a child. Why didn't you dress him up as a ghost or Frankenstein or something nice?"

There were a bunch of busybody old people in the neighborhood back then. I didn't care, because I still got the candy, and I don't think my Mom cared much either because it was none of their f*cking business what she dressed me up as. Did I ever tell you how much I love my Mom? Well, a lot.

The other place I wore it led to my second public freak-out of 1975.

There was a "Haunted House" at the elementary school that year, and my Mom took me there. That's something going the way of the Dodo at schools, right along with Christmas celebrations. Nice job raising your kids to all be as bland and generic and inoffensive as possible, America. The "Haunted House" was the auditorium stage area dressed up with curtains and cobwebs and blacklights and fake smoke and spaghetti guts and peeled grape eyeballs in bowls and older kids dressed up as monsters. We were waiting in line, me with the Jaws mask resting on top of my head (I had given up on never taking it off after smelling my own hot breath reflected back at me all evening), and I noticed a kid wearing a Flash (DC comic book superhero whose power is running at the speed of light, for those normal human beings out there) costume, homemade. It was awesome, a head-to-toe outfit his Mom had sewn for him. I was still debating whether or not Jaws could eat the Flash when we went inside.

I was okay through most of it, put my mask back on, imaginary shark fin on my back breaking through the water, hunting swimmers, and then some kid dressed as a vampire folded his cape over me and scratched the back of my neck with a pin or something, and I nearly sh!t myself.

I couldn't stop screaming. I don't know why, I guess the combination of my imagination and the shark mask and not paying attention to what was going on all combined to catch me at the right moment and I let rip. A shrieking shark. After a few seconds my Mom lifted up my mask and clamped a hand over my mouth, then led me quickly through the rest of the tour, and the second I got outside I was fine. The kid playing the vampire came out and apologized to my Mom, but she told him not to worry about it. She asked me what made me carry on like that, but I had no explanation. I wasn't even really that scared during the whole thing - I just couldn't stop screaming once I'd started.

Yeah, Jaws and me flipping out seem to go together like Peanut Butter and Jelly. Or Pam Beesly and Jim.

This being the internet and all, I'm sure everyone's already seen this 100 times, but in case you hadn't, here's Electric Six with their version of Radio Ga Ga by Queen:

Thanks to Rick for inflicting this on me.

*He does sort of look like a poodle in silhouette...