Castle Dracula Was My Jam

Posted on by sexyarmpit
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eQG_J2yQ5s]

Growing up, a lot of my friends would brag about exotic vacations lasting several weeks that they went on every summer. I was never jealous of them because my family went to the Jersey Shore every summer, more specifically, Wildwood. If you remember the Santa Cruz scenes in The Lost Boys, the type of vibe happening on the Wildwood Boardwalk wasn’t too much different, and of course…all the damn vampires!

Although I enjoyed going to Wildwood immensely, I think I took many aspects of it for granted since the majority of my attention span was spent on daydreaming about Castle Dracula. Then, once I was actually on the boardwalk and in close proximity of the sinister fortress, I’d spend the next few minutes walking slowly toward the ornate Castle, spending every moment in awe of the dread it beamed up and down the boardwalk. For me, Castle Dracula was a mecca.

Aside from some funny stories at the local restaurant The Captain’s Table with my sister and my cousins, my main memories are of anticipating, and finally getting to go into Castle Dracula. When my sister was younger and more brave, she would come with me as we both had a blast getting the bejesus scared out of us. Of course there was boardwalk games, prizes, ice cream, and boogie boarding, but none of it was ever high on my priority list.

Once inside that Castle, my mind was in utter disbelief that I was actually about to experience my favorite haunted attraction again, and it was all located right in Jersey. Although I loved Disneyland and Disney World, I didn’t need to, nor did I get the opportunity to go to Disney every year like some of my friends. A lot of them seemed like they didn’t truly appreciate how grandiose their trips seemed to other kids who weren’t as lucky. Now, I’m so not implying that I was “less fortunate,” because that would be ri-f*cking-diculous. I was overjoyed to walk the boardwalk, fantasizing about one of the greatest dark rides the Jersey Shore has ever offered. It felt like it was there for me, and it was…for a long time.

Castle Dracula burned down in 2002.

Check out Matt’s amazing tribute from the X-E days:
And Dark in the Park’s got cool stuff about it as well:
www.SexyArmpit.com

It’s Coming: The Sexy Armpit Halloween Special 2013!

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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Watch the 2011 Halloween Special to prepare for The 2013 Special
which is coming this week! The 2013 special is a direct sequel to 2011.

Nothing excites me more during the year than Halloween. Many of you feel exactly the same way considering that we receive a record number hits every October. For this year’s Halloween Countdown we’ve been presenting horrific and halloweeny posts for you since September 1st, earlier than ever for us. If you read Dinosaur Dracula, you would know that Matt has marked 2013 as the best Halloween season ever, and it’s basically a 100% fact at this point for so many reasons. Not convinced? Keep reading. Even if you’re more than convinced, keep reading too. I’m building toward asking you for your help! And never fear, I am not asking you to finance a relatives cross country bike tour either.

This season so far, not only have we seen the Monster Cereal blitz in full force including the retro packaging and the return of Yummy Mummy and Fruit Brute, but there’s also been such a bevy of Halloween themed products lining store shelves that are pretty fantastic. Buying “stuff” to enhance the spookiest Holiday is always part of the fun. How can you live without pumpkin shaped cheese balls or a skull shaped bottle of margarita mix? C’mon, these are necessities!

Halloween isn’t only about dropping wads of hard earned cash on gimmick product variations though. The season wouldn’t be the same without heading out to haunted attractions, or going to masquerades. I hope you are all able to fit at least of a couple of these into your October calendar. If you aren’t invited to any, crash one.

What’s on TV is also an important aspect of October. Thankfully, AMC has been running a shit ton of horror movies nonstop, and speaking for those of us who get that channel, we appreciate it! There’s even a Toy Story Halloween Special airing tonight. With all this great programming, you still can’t just rely on TV alone to provide Halloween entertainment. October is the best time to whip out your DVDs and fashion your own horror movie marathon. Your marathon doesn’t even have to include horror films if you’re a scaredy cat. You might want to compile a list of movies set in the fall or a movies that feature fleeting shots of a pumpkin. That will be incredibly less fun, but to each his own.

Back in the old days, movie theaters showed cartoons, newsreels, and short serial adventures before the feature film. Now we’re bombarded with ads, Friends trivia, and more trailers than you will ever want to watch consecutively in your life.

What am I getting at? Well, if you’re new to The Sexy Armpit, I have this little Halloween Special from 2011 that I’m not sure if you saw. If you have seen it, I’m asking that you might watch it again to prepare you for our 2013 special that is on it’s way to YouTube! The 2013 Halloween Special is a direct sequel to 2011’s since Hurricane Sandy really brought the mood down last year. Since this year’s special is a little out in left field, it will certainly help if you’ve seen the first one.

Honestly, I don’t like asking people for things, but in this case, I feel it’s worth bothering you about. So, if I may, I’d like to be a part of your marathons and Halloween celebrations. I’m not just asking you to watch our upcoming 2013 Halloween Special, I’m hoping this ridiculous mish-mosh of pop culture will serve as an intro to your horror movie viewing in the same way that cartoons and serials were presented before feature films back in the day.

With all this modern equipment such as smart TVs, smart phones, X-Boxes and iPads, you might even have a way to watch it on your TV right before your annual viewing of Trick r Treat or Halloween! That would be optimum! We’re very anxious for you to see this year’s special and we’re hoping it will hit by Friday if nothing catastrophic happens. Please Mother Nature, no hurricanes this year.
 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOhL19V-TfM?rel=0]
www.SexyArmpit.com

NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 110: Great Adventure’s Fright Fest

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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This year’s edition of Six Flags Fright Fest T-Shirt and Hoodie offerings
Amusement Parks and Halloween always make a great combination. Thrill rides in the chilled night air, and goofing around with your friends usually leads me to feel like there’s a horror movie plot being created in there somewhere. Whether there’s a killer lurking in the park or some supernatural entity is haunting one of the attractions, the Halloween season is prime time to head to your nearest amusement park and experience the fun of the season. We’re spoiled in Jersey because every year Six Flags Great Adventure becomes infested with ghosts, zombies, crazy clowns, and vampires for their annual Fright Fest celebration. Just remember to get there early. We didn’t.

Fright Fest is an annual thing for us, but we usually wind up getting on one ride if we’re lucky. The lines are super insane during Fright Fest, and the park is probably even more packed than it would be in the middle of the summer. Difference is, that it’s nicer to wait in lines and get on rides when it’s not a sweltering 97 degrees in the shade and over one hundred percent humidity.

Weather-wise, Saturday night was perfect. I was with a bunch of great people and even though we only made it on one ride, we had a blast. I’m sure it would’ve been more fun if the lines for the actual Fright Fest attractions weren’t as long. Even the average wait time for a roller coaster was an hour. While waiting in excruciatingly long lines, it helps to cling to the hope that the ride actually doesn’t break down before you make it to the last section of the line queue.

Fortunately, the ride we did decide to wait for went smoothly. Skull Mountain didn’t take that long to get through the line, probably because it’s one of the tamer rides, so we were patient. It fit into the Fright Fest theme as well. For an older, less face melting type of ride, this one still holds up after all these years. Think of it as Six Flag’s answer to Space Mountain only with a theme on the exterior that brings to mind The Goonies, King Kong, or a pirate movie.

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We were required to buy separate tickets for the haunted attractions, so we did that online at home to save a couple of bucks. Next we had to wait on another long line just to show them our print-outs to get a wristband for the haunts. This was just becoming an abysmal LINE FEST. Then we would have to wait on more laughable lines for each individual haunt. Fed up by this point, I started asking the lady a few questions about the attractions.

I was disappointed to learn that all of the attractions were walk through trails featuring live actors. I wasn’t hoping for dead actors, I was just hoping for a good old fashioned haunted house or dark ride type situation. They should mix it up and offer half walk throughs and at least one or two haunted houses that remind you of an old dark ride. I can’t tell you how many times Six Flags has sent me e-mails asking for feedback regarding my last visit to Fright Fest and I wrote them a hundred times that Fright Fest needs a good old fashioned, boardwalk style haunted house. It shouldn’t only be for Fright Fest either, it should be open year round for all of us psychos to enjoy.

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We played the boardwalk and carnival games they have in the Psycho Circus area.
Miss Sexy Armpit won me a Slimer plush! Dinosaur Dracula and Freddy in Space also won
Slimers as well only Dino Drac’s is darker shade of green than this one. I opted for the brighter one since it seemed like it was glowing like the real Slimer. The vintage melted plastic pumpkin decoration has absolutely nothing to do with Six Flags Great Adventure. Slimer is petrified of him though, and he should be, since he’s creepy as hell.

In the late ’70s, Great Adventure’s Haunted Castle was the type of attraction we needed until arsonists supposedly burned it down in ’84, killing eight teenagers trapped inside. Maybe they feel like it’s a curse if they build another one? I can’t say for sure, but maybe they fell that they aren’t experts at subtly, they prefer spending millions to create the fastest, most cheek rippling coasters the world has ever seen. Nothing wrong with that. The thing is, Great Adventure is already fully stocked with thrill rides and there’s a new one on the way for next season. Another thrill ride is superfluous, again, we need a damn haunted DARK RIDE. Attention to detail is preferred.

Keeping with the resoundingly positive note I am on, the graphic on this year’s Six Flags Great Adventure Fright Fest shirts and hoodies are AWESOME. They did get this part of the celebration correct. Apparel graphics are always a big part of the experience. You must be able to properly commemorate your visit and this year Six Flags came up with a couple of really cool looking designs. I couldn’t exit the park without snapping a few shots. America loves zombies…and paying lots of money to wait on never-ending lines apparently.

www.SexyArmpit.com

The Night He Came Home…to South Jersey

Posted on by sexyarmpit

It would be preposterous for me to go around posting sensational claims like “every state has an Empire State Building,” or “every state has a St. Louis Arch,” but it’s totally NOT out of the question to say that “Every town has an Elm Street,” because so many towns actually do. Freddy Krueger made that claim in his sixth film, but I can’t seem to recall Michael Myers ever boasting that “All states have a Haddonfield,” and even if he did, it would be completely unfounded.

Haddonfield is a well known town amongst the horror community for being the serene suburb of Illinois where Michael Myers went on a murderous rampage. Although the movie was filmed in California and set in Illinois, the real Haddonfield is in New Jersey, and it served as the inspiration for the town’s name.

Haddonfield would probably be relatively unknown town to the rest of the nation if it weren’t for the film’s co-writer and co-producer, the late Debra Hill, who was born there. Hill and John Carpenter worked on several films together including the first 3 Halloween movies. Hill, who at one time was romantically linked to Carpenter, grew up a mere 10 minutes away in Philadelphia, PA.

If you’ve been to the Monster Mania Convention in Cherry Hill, you’ve probably seen the signs in that area for the real Haddonfield. If you were second guessing yourself by saying “Nah, Halloween was in Illinois…” then technically you are correct, but just keep in mind that Illinois is about 700 some odd miles away from the real Haddonfield! That said, New Jersey doesn’t have sour grapes about the film being set in another state because Haddonfield is already known for another monster, the Hadrosaurus Foulkii. Haddy was the first in-tact dinosaur skeleton ever found and put on display, which is friggin’ cool. What town wouldn’t want their own dinosaur?

Dinosaurs aside, off the top of my head, New Jersey can lay claim to Jason Voorhees, The Toxic Avenger, Vera Farmiga (Norma Bates FTW!) and the inspiration for the setting of Halloween. Knowing that so much of the basis of many classic horror films are rooted in New Jersey is pretty incredible. I think trivia like this is awesome because of how obscure it is. If you’re not a big fan of the Halloween franchise, you might have been unaware of the fact that Debra Hill infused a little bit of South Jersey into Halloween.

In honor of its 35th anniversary, you can catch the original Halloween as it returns to theaters for special screenings around the country. In addition, both Halloween 4 and 5 will also be screened. Check ScreenVision.com for a full list of screenings in your area.

Other sites of interest:
Fictional Entry for Haddonfield on Horror Movies Wiki: http://horror-movies.wikia.com/wiki/Haddonfield,_Illinois
Coldwell Banker mentions the Halloween connection to NJ from a real estate perspective:
Official Site of the Hadrosaurus Foulkii: http://hadrosaurus.com
Official Haddonfield Website: http://www.haddonfieldnj.org/
www.SexyArmpit.com

“Hey Fun-Ghoul, I’m Sexy Armpit!”

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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In my last post I recapped the NJ KISS Expo, but that wasn’t the extent of our adventure that day, nope, not by a long shot! It was a gorgeous Saturday and there was much more to do. Next on the agenda was a place that falls right in line with the Halloween Countdown!

Not often will one of my posts feature a title inspired by one of Rizzo’s lines in the movie Grease. If there are any Pink Ladies out there, savor it while you can. I’m always a sucker for a cheap double entendre, but I’m also a sucker for a good old fashioned, brilliantly named costume shop, and for 26 years the Fun-Ghoul Costume Shop in Rutherford, NJ has been all that. Checking this place out has been on my agenda for a very long time, but over the weekend we finally took a trip there.

I had no idea what to expect from this place before going in. As I mentioned, I’ve heard of the place, but it wasn’t like anyone ever recommended it to me. I’ve seen ads a long time ago in Weird NJ (at least I think I did!), but other than that I was going in blind. All I knew is that they sell costumes. Judging by my Apple maps, I didn’t even think the place existed anymore since it kept bringing us to the same address in the next town over. For a good 10 minutes I was absolutely convinced that this place had become a chiropractor’s office. The Fun-Ghoul Shop is located at 155 Park Ave in Rutherford, but we kept getting directed to 155 Park Ave in Lyndhurst which is exactly a mile away. It was frustrating, but by the time I became officially fed up, we’d finally found it!

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While walking up to storefront, My friend L.C and I agreed that it felt like we might have been headed into the Magic Shop in Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. Upon entering we were greeted by an employee who offered his help if we needed anything. Things weren’t incredibly organized, but the place definitely had personality. I saw a few animated Dracula statues, mannequins, and some random masks and wigs around the store, and it was pretty cool, but I had this feeling that there had to be more. The shop had a healthy stock of costumes, but it wasn’t anywhere near as vast as a Spirit Halloween store. It’s unfortunate, but the Spirit stores are like the Wal-Mart and Targets of costume shops and they don’t give local businesses much of a shot. In Fun-Ghoul’s case, they’ve survived because they diversified and they’re open all year long.

See, it’s not just a costume shop, the Fun-Ghoul footprint spans 3 connecting storefronts on Park Avenue. I knew there was more to this place! The tall gentleman who greeted us began chatting with us about what kind of costumes we were looking for and I explained that for a long time I’ve wanted to stop in to see what their place was all about. Then I asked him what was in the other adjacent shops.

I didn’t think it would be anything too offbeat like a taxidermist or shrunken head supply store, but I admit the possibility of that was there. Once I probed a little bit, the guy told me that he was asked to work the 3 shops all day. I sympathized with him and said “So that means you have to walk back and forth to the stores and lock up after you leave each one?” He verified that was precisely what he had to do. Knowing that info, you’d think I would leave the guy alone and not make him go crazy, but I was so curious to see what was in the other shops. “Can you take us into the other stores?” Yes, I was that annoying guy who’s bothering this dude on a beautiful Saturday.

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It was early afternoon and neither the town, nor its stores seemed to have many people around. Fun-Ghoul was empty when we got there, so it gave us ample time to walk around and snap photos, something I may or may not have been allowed to do. Thanks to our Times Scare fiasco, I now have an irrational fear of using a camera. Plus, I didn’t feel as bad basically asking for a store tour.

“Before we ask you to lock up and take us in to the other shop, what do the other stores sell anyway?” He explained to me that they have the costume shop, the costume rental shop, and…a PROP shop. My ears must’ve perked up as if I was a dog because the idea of a prop store piqued my interest.

“Oooh can you take us into the prop store?” I was like a little kid. He locked up and brought us over into the other store. Upon entering I thought to myself “this is exactly what we came for.” Picturing this place in your mind isn’t difficult. Think of your neighbors half finished basement filled to the brim with the most random and elaborate Halloween decorations ever. That is this store, and it was glorious.

The first thing I noticed were the two humongous Oscar statues. Not everything was Halloweeny, but the majority of it was pretty macabre as you can gather from the photos. Everything was for sale. I didn’t ask for pricing on anything because I just unloaded a wad of cash earlier at the KISS Expo and I knew the day wasn’t over. As I stood in awe snapping 650,000 photos, I noticed our store employee was nowhere to be found. Our friend L.C said “Hm, what’s back here?” and I looked toward the back of the shop where I saw an open doorway that let a dim light peek out. L.C started to walk toward it.

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Still unaware of where our shop employee vanished to, I cautiously shouted “Is it alright if we go back there?” And I heard him say “Yes, come back here.” It was time for a Shaggy and Scooby-style GULP. His voice sounded like it was coming from the back room which indicated to me that he was just waiting for our curiosity to lead us there.

Fearlessly, I walked toward the doorway. Once inside, it all made sense. I knew a place like this must have had a secret room or something. It was right out of a movie. The room was like a dark ride without the boat ride. It’s like a mini-haunted walk through that must be seen to be believed! I don’t know if I’m just not hanging out with the right circle of friends or what, but I’ve lived in Jersey my whole life and never once heard about this. I guess it’s just something you need to stumble on yourself, but if I hadn’t asked the nice guy at the store if we could check out the other shops, we would’ve left having seen only a costume shop.

I didn’t even ask to go into the costume rental part of their store because I felt I reached the pinnacle of what they had to offer. Besides, there were Smurf heads, Easter Bunny, and Frosty the Snowman heads with their respective full body costumes neatly organized for people to rent. It’s kind of creepy when you walk by the storefront and see the heads staring back at you through the window. Totally different experience when someone is wearing one and taking pictures with children.

I didn’t make a purchase at Fun-Ghoul, but it was well worth the confusion of getting there. If I ever need a sarcophagus or a squishy, life-size alien body for a staged autopsy, I know where to go. More stores need employees that lure you into secret rooms that spontaneously transform into haunted attractions after switching on a black light.

The Fun-Ghoul Costume Co.
155 Park Avenue
Rutherford, NJ 07070 

www.SexyArmpit.com

Pete and Pete, Pumpkin Eaters, and Pictures

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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Captures from the The Adventures of Pete and Pete Season 2 episode “Halloweenie”
A good way to measure how much older you are than someone you meet is to calculate how many years ago the debut of Nickelodeon is from the year they were born. I grew up with the golden age of Nick and so many of my younger friends have a difficult time relating to that era because they weren’t born until later. They started watching Nick in the mid to late ’90s. Nowadays you can just dial up any show old or new on the Internet, but looking back at some ancient Pinwheel episode doesn’t do it justice. Comparing it to shows today is unfair. I’m not exaggerating when I say this, but when shows like Pinwheel and You Can’t Do That On Television were popular they were mind blowing to kids, and especially to stoned adults. I would never say Nick’s lineup throughout the ’90s was any less great, but it’s in a different way because times were a-changin’.

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One of the many beloved shows that aired on Nick in the ’90s was The Adventures of Pete and Pete which premiered on Nick in November of 1993. I’d say by 1992 I was pretty much phased out of Nickelodeon for the sole reason that I stopped watching TV so often and getting more into activities that required actual movement rather than vegetating on the couch. Although the ’90s were definitely not my Nick time, I really wish I hadn’t missed out on The Adventures of Pete and Pete, a show that was set in Wellsville, NY, but predominantly filmed in New Jersey.

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Recently I asked my friend Steve, resident Pete and Pete expert, if there was ever a Pete and Pete Halloween episode, and he rapidly replied “YES.” I was pretty excited to hear this because I was looking forward to checking out the old Nick show that I never got a chance to watch when I was younger. I recently got a hold of it and my first reaction to the episode “Halloweenie,” which aired in October 1994, was jackpot. Here’s the synopsis taken from Nickipedia:

“Younger Pete decides to enter the annals of history by breaking the record for most houses visited on Halloween and tries to enlist the help of Older Pete. Older Pete is torn between his loyalty to his brother and the coming of age and abandonment of the childhood ritual of Trick-Or-Treating. He must decide whether to face the ridicule of his peers and go Trick-Or-Treating or to join the notorious “Pumpkin Eaters”, a group of vandals who terrorize neighborhood “Halloweenies.”

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I’m a kid at heart so little Pete’s love for Halloween and desire to break the trick or treating record appeals to me, but I can totally relate to big Pete’s fear of becoming a Halloweenie. As a fellow suburban kid, there was a definitive point where I stopped trick or treating because I felt that the ritual needed to be reserved exclusively for the kids and I never went back, but I remain a mega-fan of Halloween.

The amount of nostalgic Halloween images contained in this episode was an unexpected surprise. The story was fun, albeit not as horrific as I was hoping for, but it was on Nickelodeon after all. The Pumpkin Eaters looked cool, but they weren’t very formidable, they just made a mess of everything. The episode evokes an awesome Halloween vibe and as the credits rolled I sat wishing it lasted another half hour.

“Halloweenie” Facts:

*Production of the show was moved to Cranford after the show made such a mess of the town during the filming of “Halloweenie.” They did make quite a mess. There’s hundreds of smashed pumpkins and streamers, etc. It looked like a thousand kids who mainlined Ghoul-Aid were let loose on mischief night.

*Iggy Pop appears as, Mr. Mecklenberg, a recurring character who is little Pete’s best friend Nona’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) father. In this episode Iggy Pop calls someone a “Stooge.”

www.SexyArmpit.com

Jason Voorhees Is In My Window…

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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http://thehbt.com
While your Friday the 13th celebration might be winding down, mine is just beginning. Tonight at 8pm, the original Friday the 13th is playing in Blairstown, where part of the movie was originally filmed. Before heading to the theater, let me bring you back in time for a minute.

The best memories of my youth don’t include football games with kids in the neighborhood, hanging out with friends trying to get girls phone numbers at the mall, or rattling off sports statistics in a heated debate on fantasy football. My youth consisted of horror movies, comic books, and cartoons.

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I don’t care if it makes me sound like a couch potato, but I grew up basically studying movies and TV shows. Heck, I still remember the dialogue to half the commercials that played on WPIX from 1985 through 1993. The moments that stick in my head the most are from WPIX’s Shocktober. When that Halloween tradition rolled around I couldn’t wait to watch whichever Friday the 13th films that were scheduled to air.

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Since Jason and his legend took up such a major part of my imagination as a kid, it’s no wonder why I’m still obsessed with the franchise today. Since the real Camp Blood is in Northern New Jersey, the story of Friday the 13th always held a prominent place with kids at school. Every kid seemed to have their Jason stories. Personally, I never made up an anecdote of a run-in I had with him in the woods, but most of my friends considered me the go-to Jason Voorhees nut. On Halloween and otherwise, I used to dress up as the man behind the mask, sometimes just to scare people. Being that my name is Jay, it enhanced the gimmick a bit, since a ton of people have always taken the liberty of calling me Jason, even though that’s not my actual name.

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Jeez, I almost forgot, there was a point to this post! On our recent trip to the Halloween Mart in Las Vegas, I picked up the Jason Voorhees “light up” poster by WOWindow. It’s a poster that hangs in the window giving the impression to people who drive by that Jason Voorhees is staring at them from my living room. They actually come in a ton of different options such as Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wicked Witch of the West, Casper the Friendly Ghost, skulls, zombies, a mummy, and a badass looking vampire, but I opted for my pal J.V. WOWindows makes these posters for other holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah as well. Check out their site to see their entire selection. The WOWindow company is based out of Cranford, New Jersey and depending on your age, you may know this town as one of the filming locations from Nickelodeon’s The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

You can also follow their blog: http://wowindowposters.blogspot.com

www.SexyArmpit.com

The Sexy Armpit’s Vegas Vacation: Drunken Santa, The Goretorium, and a Bogus Blade

Posted on by sexyarmpit
ENERGIZED is not a word that usually describes someone who just landed in Newark Airport. Or Newark Liberty International if you like verbose airport euphemisms, and yes that IS a euphemism. For The Sexy Armpit though, once I landed back in my angry, traffic-jammed state, I breathed the toxin-filled air in deeply and the gross atmosphere immediately began powering me up as if I was Mario after getting a fire flower. You’d think it would be the opposite, but no, while in Vegas, I didn’t feel like I had that extra kick. The city might be sinful, but it’s missing that special mutagenic compound found in New Jersey’s air, water, and judging by their extreme attitudes, our people. That’s not to say it wasn’t fun, so here’s a run down of our Vegas trip.

Miss Sexy Armpit and I have been to Vegas more times than you’ve been to your Great Aunt Esther’s house. And that’s just not right – you need to visit her more often you ungrateful prick. Who else will eat her 8 year old Lorna Doone cookies?

Since we’ve had many Vegas vacations in the past, and we’ve taken part in so much of what Vegas has to offer, we’re always looking for some shlocky and offbeat stuff to do. One of the first orders of business was finding the costume and decoration store, Halloween Mart, which I first read about in Dinosaur Dracula’s column Deadsites. It bills itself as the first online Halloween store. I felt it was too much of a coincidence that Matt wrote about this store recently and I was heading to Vegas, so I couldn’t be in Vegas and not drop in. The potential for this to be a wasted trip to a store was huge because Halloween shops often range from average, to exactly the same as every other Halloween store you’ve ever walked into. I’m happy to report this place does indeed rank in the top tier of Halloween stores, if not the best I’ve personally shopped at.

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Why was it such a good place? First, it’s huge. Their selection of costumes and masks is as extensive as they tout on their site. They had a pretty typical selection of interior decorations in the back aisle, but when it comes to giant, over sized Halloween decorations and animatronics, they have it all locked up. Hung high up on the walls are several giant crazy looking ghouls and witches, but the real magic happens as you make your way to the back room. The back room is a showplace, but in effect it becomes its own little walk though dark ride. The space is dimly lit and filled with every moving skeleton, reanimating corpse, conjuring witch, and regurgitating demon child that you can imagine. It was so much fun walking through there. They even had a life size Captain Spaulding from House of 1,000 Corpses, as well as the most monstrous Freddy Krueger mask and glove that exists on earth, unless King Kong likes to do Freddy cosplay, then these would look like cute little fashionable earrings that he picked up at Claire’s in the mall.

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Last year’s trip to Vegas didn’t afford me time to walk through Eli Roth’s Goretorium, so I made it a point to go there this year. I really wasn’t expecting this to be an overly impressive attraction and I was right. There’s two options: walk through with a “tour guide” during the day, or go through at night with actors. I was there during the day so I only had one choice, and I was fine with that because I was just curious to see how it compared to Times Scare in New York City. Even with Eli Roth’s name on the establishment, it was still just OK for me. The gory special effects in the scenery of each area you walk through were all intricate and well done, but the storyline was a bit lacking. This is definitely an attraction for the fans of torture porn rather than for someone seeking a good old fashioned haunted walk through and that’s exactly what I thought it would be. It was $10 bucks to get in because the girl at the entrance handed me a $5 dollar coupon, which was reasonable either way, but I would’ve went in regardless just to experience it. There’s not much to do for horror genre fans in the area so if you’re into haunted attractions and you’re planning on going to Vegas, give it a shot.

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So your alien had a room at the Bellagio in Las Vegas? 
Oh, just a typical day in Vegas walking down the strip.

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Speaking of Bellagio, we decided to take a look at their plants. No I haven’t become a horticulturist or anything like that, it’s just that the Bellagio always has an elaborate setup in their conservatory and botanical gardens to reflect the flavor of each season. Unfortunately their Fall scene wasn’t setup yet, but they did have teaser art displayed on easels which looked really cool.

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In between all this, we enjoyed a lot of good food, stopped into KISS Monster Mini Golf (again), and relaxed for a drink in Frankie’s Tiki Room. We also decided to head down to Freemont street late one night. A cover band, Arena, was playing hair band tunes and you guessed it, arena rock! We walked by just as they were playing “Rock and Roll All Night,” from KISS and Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me.” It was here that I truly noticed that downtown Vegas is crawling with umm…unique people. These characters included a drunken Santa who meandered into the crowd to watch Arena. He and his drunken buddies created their own mosh pit of sorts. One guy was just way too into dancing around to Poison that there was no way possible that he wasn’t insanely super high on very strong, illegal narcotics.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyySAYWlp-0?rel=0]

The centerpiece of our trip was, Pinup, a show at the Stratosphere starring Playboy Playmate Claire Sinclar. We had to waste some time before the show so Miss Sexy Armpit played a few slots. From far away I noticed a game that reminded me of one of the thousands of versions of Wheel of Fortune that every casino seems to have, but as we walked closer I realized it was a cool looking Twilight Zone video slot machine that I had never seen before. The machine was pretty damn flashy and although it’s usually forbidden to take photos on the casino floor, I snapped a couple nonchalantly because I thought it was too cool to pass up.

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I asked Miss Armpit if she would mind playing it so I could see how the bonuses looked and what episodes they referenced. As she sat down I noticed that the guy sitting to the left of her on the 2-person machine reminded me of someone. It came to me rather quickly too, which convinced me that it had to be him. It was Richard Blade. Right now, you’re probably saying to yourself internally “Who the f*ck is Richard Blade?” He was only the charismatic HOST OF DANCE TV in Girls Just Want to Have Fun. Blade was also a popular radio DJ in L.A in the ’80s as well as a host of a couple of music themed TV shows. Shame on you if you don’t know him or teach a Learning Annex class on the study of his career like I do.

I hadn’t drank any liquor since lunch that day which was a dessert version of a White Russian at Max Brenner’s, so I knew I wasn’t having some sort of alcohol infused ’80s delusion. Blade wore a blue blazer and Ugg boots with his jeans tucked into them. He was chain smoking and had fairly more voluminous hair than I remembered him having. Bastard kept getting bonuses too. Then I started to wonder why the real Richard Blade, a classy man of refined taste, would even be playing a Twilight Zone slot machine so intensely at 9:45 PM on Monday night. Maybe I DID enter the Twilight Zone? My brain was split on this, forget gray matter, it was all patches of red and blue as if my mind was voting on if this was really Richard Blade or not.

Finally, I began to lean toward the fact that this guy was either really the best Richard Blade cosplayer of all time or a total impostor. I was tipped off by one major component that Richard Blade assuredly has: an accent. As much as I sooo wanted to believe that it was the real Richard Blade, this dude was just a regular schmo with a terrible fashion sense. Damn you, Richard Blade impostor, you would’ve been the highlight of our trip.
www.SexyArmpit.com

AD JERSEUM 16: Girls Costume Warehouse!

Posted on by sexyarmpit
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This video was featured on College Humor several years back, but it’s definitely worth a watch if you are A) a girl in the market for a Halloween costume or B) a person who has never seen this video. I never said I couldn’t feature a commercial parody for the Ad Jerseum column! This one is hysterical and extra points for creating the little nuances to make the video look as if it was ripped from an old VHS recording. Look at all these f*cking costumes!!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4rUiV_Hh74?rel=0]
www.SexyArmpit.com