What’s
that? Hear that? It’s the sounds of Halloween.
To
listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, click HERE.
For
Spotify users, clock HERE.
Friday, August 30, 2019
Star Sightings: Headless Horseman
The
Headless Horseman was spotted test-driving a Chevy Volt early this morning
through Sleepy Hollow. Sources said he still didn’t have the nerve to cross the bridge.
Star Sightings: Chucky and Annabelle
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Book Excerpt: Grintroduction
Below is an excerpt from Jack-o’-Lantern
Press’s book, “Transylveinya Traveler: A
Travel Guide for Monsters, Ghosts, Vampires, Aliens, Werewolves, Witches,
Zombies, Demons … And Mad Scientists, Too.”
To purchase the book, go to JackoLanternPress.com. Or click HERE.
We monsters appreciate all your support, and kindly ask that you rate and review the book. Enjoy!
To purchase the book, go to JackoLanternPress.com. Or click HERE.
We monsters appreciate all your support, and kindly ask that you rate and review the book. Enjoy!
GRINTRODUCTION
For those of you creatures
out there who are tired of magical sunsets on idyllic tropical beaches, clean,
fresh-air hikes through majestic mountains and the vibrant nightlife of cool,
cosmopolitan cities, it’s time to explore Transylveinya, a monster’s paradise
packed with dark and very alive graveyards, endless life-threatening jungles
and seedy metropolises with horrors around every corner.
There’s another monster
revolution upon us. Transylveinya travelers are popping up everywhere, coming through
various gateways (portals) from the human world, anxious to see the homes of
their great and not-so-great monster ancestors, eager to link up with long-lost
family members, rejoin the monster community, scare and be scared. Even humans
are finding their monster within and are using portals to try their luck in
this danger zone, seeking that sense of belonging. Even monsters living here
are doing more exploring of their own world.
From the pages of Jack-o’-Lantern
Press, your portal to the monster
community, this is your ultimate guide to Transylveinya. The top travel journalists of the
publication will take you on a tour of all 13 districts of our great land, and
they’ll help you to not only just survive to explore each district, but to
experience the ultimate finale in Jack-o’-Lantern Park.
They’ll first introduce you
to the leaders of each land (creatures and characters known as The
Transylveinya 13), so that you’ll know, based on who’s running things and where,
what to expect from the unexpected. You’ll find out what’s hot and what’s rot
in each district in the Rot Spots stories. Then you’ll learn about the more
charming places to visit and things to do in the Hidden Harms essays. To cap
off each adventure, you’ll discover the more serene locales in our Deceaseful
Settings stories. Throughout all these pages, Jack-o’-Lantern Press travel experts will offer up tips on what to
pack and how to dress, a list of must-have souvenirs to pick up, things to do
before passing on, informational tales about celebrated landmarks and places
for perfect photo ops, hometown recipes and historical highlights to help you
get unreasonably familiar with each area.
In the end, you won’t be
any more able to take on the horrors of Transylveinya, but by (not really) knowing
what to expect, you will be more terrified. And that makes all the difference.
Transylveinya was
discovered many centuries ago by The Founder. The Founder, who may or may not
still be around, is/was part vampire, part werewolf, created in what we would today
call a lab. He was hunted by angry villagers, caught, mummified and entombed
alive. Over 100 years later, tomb raiders unintentionally freed him. And he was
still not dead. So he destroyed them and then sought revenge on anyone who had
anything to do with his torture. Having accomplished that, he found himself
very alone.
In his search for a place
to spend his endless days and acquire an never-ending supply of blood for
sustenance, The Founder came upon a land in the middle of what was once known
as The Unknown. There he found a river of blood, what we know now to be the
Mighty Vein River (which at present stains all 13 districts of Transylveinya
before flowing out to the Blood Sea), and in the river he found enough blood
for three or maybe more abnormal lifetimes.
Due to this artery of red
liquid coursing right through the land, The Founder named the whole place
Transylveinya. Note the syllable “vein” in the name. We’re told The Founder is/was
a punster. He built his home — a large, crumbling, dusty, web-infested castle
(even when it was brand new) — high on a hilltop. The palace can still be
viewed in the far corner of the Transylveinya Pines gated community.
Over the years, The Founder
traveled the world, discovering other dimensions through the portals we still
use today, democratically terrorizing all forms of life, sucking up more blood,
and attracting other like-minded creatures on his way back home.
The monsters, ghouls, goblins
and witches who followed him back would stake out their own corners of
Transylveinya, gradually forming the 13 Districts of Transylveinya:
1)
Witches Meadow
2)
Downtown Transylveinya
3)
The Mad Science District
4)
Transylveinya Hills
5)
Werewolftown
6)
Bigfoot National Park
7)
The Carpathian Mountains
8)
Shadow City
9)
The Monster Islands (in the Blood Sea)
10)
The Black Lagoon
11)
Valley of Doom
12)
UFO Springs
13)
Jack-o’-Lantern Park
This
book should
shed a little darkness on each of those gloomy districts. We won’t cover all the things to do — the rare and
unusual shopping, the places not to eat or the pitiful lodging — but we’ll
highlight what we think is worth checking out on your own way to checking out.
(All other information, when in the monster universe only, can be found on the
Monster World Wide Web, mwww.InsertNameHere.mon. That’s “mon” for “monster,”
silly.)
Upon your transition from
one district to the next, you’ll receive a District Coin. Each coin is unique
to the district you just barely survived (if
you survive), imprinted with the bust of the leader of that district. Save
those woody wafer-like coins. You’ll need them for the aforementioned grand
finale of your journey in Jack-o’-Lantern Park, where, with those coins, you’ll
be allowed to climb up Jack-o’-Lantern Tree Hill and see the great
Jack-o’-Lantern Tree, the hill’s namesake and the source of all authentic Halloween
magic. You’ll not only view an amazing landmark there, but you might also be
able (mad scientists and evil villains pay close attention here) to harness the
fickle magic of the tree and take over the entire world.
Transylveinya
is a great big monstrously terrible land. But we still look forward to you
visiting. And to those of you who already reside in these parts, we look
forward to you getting to know where you “live” a little better.
Book Excerpt: Fearword
To purchase the book, go to JackoLanternPress.com. Or click HERE.
We monsters appreciate all your support, and kindly ask that you rate and review the book. Enjoy!
FEARWORD
By Dracula
As reigning President of Transylveinya, I highly recommend travel to this great land. Therefore, since this is (probably) the only existing guide to the monster universe, I suppose I have to recommend this volume as well, even if it is a little shoddy and lacking in the good kind of bad taste we monsters crave.
If
you’re a monster, a mere monstrosity, a Halloweeniac or just a weirdo and utter
sick puppy with a need to learn more about the inhuman condition, this book is
for you, and you’ll be in bad company. Sure, we of the monster community can be
horrifying individually, preying upon weak humans and whatnot, as you’ve no
doubt seen in old movies like “Frankenstein” (1931), “The Wolf Man (1941) and,
of course, everyone’s favorite, “Dracula” (1931) — what a masterpiece. But it’s
monster togetherness that is of so AH!mazing!
It’s that monster bond you feel on Halloween night, roaming the streets with your
fellow spooks. It’s that monster family feeling you see in those paper decorations
of haunted houses with creatures of different regions creeping from each window
and each door. And it’s the joy you encounter in monster mash-up movies like “Goosebumps”
(2015), “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948) or “Goosebumps 2:
Haunted Halloween” (2018).
This
book, then, packed with stories big and small, hairy and scary with warts and all,
pieced together like Frankenstein’s Monster, is a tribute to Halloween and a
celebration of popular monster arts and culture. Consider this travel guide a
tool to recognize and promote our rich heritage and customs (monster holidays, bad
recipes and any of the traditional ethnic cuisine from Transylveinya’s 13
districts), and we hope to inspire camp followers to keep our values and
culture alive. “It’s ALIVE!”
The
contents within come from those friendly weirdos at Jack-o’-Lantern Press (or JLP
at JackoLanternPress.com), your online news and entertainment source for
monsters, by monsters. As ambassadors of the monster universe, those from JLP hope to share this world from waaaaay back, all the way through the
ages, from those early Universal movies of the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s (did I
already mention the 1931 “Dracula”?) to the Hammer Horror films of the ‘50s,
‘60s and ‘70s (like 1958’s “Horror of Dracula,” 1960’s “The Brides of Dracula,”
1972’s “Dracula A.D.” and, yeah, some other movies that aren’t about me but are
pretty good like 1957’s “The Curse of Frankenstein,” 1959’s “The Mummy” and
1964’s “The Gorgon”).
This
book also draws upon the popular art and creative endeavors that came about
during the “monster craze” in America (roughly between 1957 and 1972), the “monster
resurgence” of the ‘80s and ‘90s with the creation of Cracked Monster Party magazine, and the latest “monster revolution”
that began in the 2000s with author R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps universe, the “Hotel Transylvania” movie franchise and the monster
and horror pictures of the day. The films, books, etc. referenced here by no
means make up a definitive list, but they are among JLP’s favorites as they relate to your upcoming journey to
Transyleveinya.
And
if you’re into endless endeavors (and you probably are if you have any
intentions of finishing this intimidating MONSTER of a book), check out the
following items as companion pieces: Forrest J. Ackerman’s tribute to all
things monster, Famous Monsters of Filmland
magazine, John Landis’s fantastic book, “Monster in the Movies,” and Mark
Voger’s book on the Monster Craze in America, “Monster Mash.” It wouldn’t hurt
(even if you want it to) to also check out the Gaines family’s EC Comics’
“Tales from the Crypt,” “The Vault of Horror” and “The Haunt of Fear.” And, of
course, R.L. Stine is an author all monster lovers must know.
There’s
much ground to cover here, from creeks to seas, forests to jungles and haunted homes
to the pinnacle of any Transylveinya traveler’s list, my castle, which you’ve
no doubt seen in any given episode of my hit!!! reality series, “Real Drac’s
Castlewives of The Carpathian
Mountains.” So go hesitantly in the direction of your nightmares. And live the
afterlife you’ve always dreaded.
By
the way, you can catch “Real Drac’s Castlewives” Mondays at midnight on The
Bride of Frankenstein’s BOF Network to see six of my real wives as they live,
die, return from the dead and scare the lurkers in The Carpathian Mountains.
Friday, August 23, 2019
Scream Queen 1955-2019
Known
for her iconic scream heard in numerous Halloween sound effects albums and CDs,
including “Halloween Horror Sounds of Evil,” “Evil Sounds of Halloween Night”
and “Night Sounds of Horror Evil,” Scream Queen, who recorded her first scream
in 1973, died last night in one terrific lightning storm. She’s survived by
Boom, her husband of 20 years and a thunder sheet shaker. Boom told reporters that
his wife did, in fact, go out with a scream. That’s the way she would’ve
preferred to go, he added. Listen to her final wail below:
Black Lagoon toxicity on council agenda tonight
BLACK
LAGOON -- Members of the community are asked to participate tonight at the
Black Lagoon District Council meeting as it relates to the toxicity of the
lagoon. It seems, according to reports, that the body of water is not as toxic
as it once was. Those who want to keep the swamp moving in this “clean” direction
will be lynched right there at the meeting. Those who want their elected
officials to actually do something about this tragic state of affairs and get
the toxicity levels back up to where they’re expected to be should show up no
later than midnight this evening, fill out a speaker card, and wait in line for an opportunity to voice your opinions. Once you’ve had a turn at the podium,
supporters of the Toxic Lagoon Initiative Act ask that you stick around until
everyone from the community has had a chance to speak, in the
event a lynching is in order.
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