Demons Are Forever

 Left behind on Avenue B, the day after Halloween

Not to be a total Grumpalufagus, but I'm not that into Halloween anymore. I think it’s awesome for kids and (costume-loving) dogs, but even cats—who are naturally aligned to the magic and spirituality the day was originally about—find the manic, rusty lust let loose by those not enough in touch with their inner ghouls (i.e., the spoiled, rich white college students in my apartment complex who have to get totally sh*t-faced before they can put on their banana suits) scary in a really bad way.

(Or so Bing once said.)

What I’m actually saying is—I wish every day could be Halloween. It bums me out we deny our zombie selves, which could be, if you think about it, more pure and true than the non-zombie masks that people wear. I can still picture this woman I saw walking into the subway on Halloween just a few weeks ago, all in witchy black, her face and torso covered in glowy green paint. She was stunning and magical, like she was meant to have that color of skin and cast spells to make the 6 train faster.

So, maybe if it were Halloween a little more often, people wouldn't be so puritan and hypocritical (I still can't grok the outrage over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, when the worst thing they did to Prince Charles was make fun of him for saying he wanted to be Camilla Parker Bowles' tampon). And maybe we wouldn't obsess over celebrities so much as a culture because our own fantasy lives would be more indulged.

And maybe some people wouldn't need to rely on alcohol drop their inhibitions, like the guy standing next to me in the NYC Marathon cheerleading section at the corner of 92nd and 1st (next year I don't stand nearby a block of bars, hello!). He'd shout out in a moronic greasy voice when any particularly curvaceous female ran by, and as the afternoon wore on he started shouting at runners who were walking, "C'mon, get moving! You're not supposed to walk in a marathon!" Honestly, you have to feel bad for a jerk like that--a drunk narcissist disconnected from the world around him. I bet he had no idea how stupid, inappropriate and mean what he said was. Missing the point, missing the richness of life and missing the joy that everyone else around him was experiencing, his zombie self so starved it's probably a serial killer right now…  Most people ignored him and I did finally tell him to shut up, but really, he should have been b*itch-slapped with the tiger paw.


A song for your zombie self: