Look Behind You!

If you followed our headline and actually saw something scary, that's pretty cool. But you probably saw curtains, or the back of the couch ... maybe a coworker. Either way, we've made it to the end of the 2013 Halloween Frenzy. Whew!

We hope it was good for you. Have fun today and be safe tonight. Remember to check under the bed.

Here's a Silly Symphony from 1929 called Hells Bells. Based on slightly foggy memories of a couple biographies we read more than a decade ago, the whole 'toon was likely designed and plotted by Ub Iwerks, the nearly invisible hand that guided Disney's formative years as an animation studio.


[courtesy of Pat Hawkins]

And at no extra charge, have a laugh at Hark! A Vagrant's newest, a Halloween themed set of one-strip gags based on antique postcards. "Bewitching Halloween" is a riot.

Does a Ghost Dig the One Drop?

Way back in October 2009 we suggested you navigate over to the blog Distinctly Jamaican Sounds for the annual Halloween Spooktacular.

Kids, we're here to remind you that it's going on again. Blogger John, aka Reggaexx, pulls from his collection a couple dozen of the most choice reggae, dub, dancehall, ska, rocksteady, and even lovers rock singles that have even a gossamer connection to Halloween and horror.

Throughout the month, he puts the songs up for download. But it's not just the songs, he cuts in a some sound effects and bits of dialogue and trailer narration from horror movies to crank the Spooktacular aspect of his efforts as high as the can go.

Plus he makes killer artwork to accompany each tune. And if you're a lazy bum, he strings them all together into one massive download at the end of the month. Having a party? Press play on these cuts and you've got the music taken care of.

So Much to See

Sometimes we see blogs, Tumblrs and other stops on the web and wonder why we even bother. Then we remember, we bother because if we weren't here to pass the links on to you, who would?

At least that's what we tell ourselves at night before drinking enough cough syrup to fall asleep while listening to old radio dramas.

Imagine some sort of brass fanfare here. Now look!

Can you even stand it?! Yeah, exclamation points. Journalism-degree-be-damned. If ever there was a still from a Disney cartoon that merited a freak-out, this certainly makes the grade.

This is just a smoked pepper corn amongst the bounty of spicy offerings at the Graves and Ghouls Tumblr.

It's run by a woman named Cat who has another Tumblr worth your time, Vintage Gal.

There are GIFs on both, which tend to bug our wonky eyes, but that's one broken match in the factory full of joy. And please know there are ladies in various states of undress on both blogs, so don't get fired on our watch, okay?

Monsters All the Time

Need near-daily doses of hideous horrors, creeping corpses and fantastic phantasms? [Who wrote this, Stan Lee? -- ed]

Get thee to Monster Crazy and Monster Brains.

Yeah, we talk about both blogs a lot, and link to them in the Monkey Love section. But that's because they are excellent portals to art both high and low, and all of it geared toward monsters. What are you even still doing here reading this?

Oh fine, here's a sample of one of many great things you'll see at Monster Crazy:

Now get going.

Dip Your Bowl Into the Cosmic Cauldron

We don't know a whole lot about the blog The Ghost of the Weed Garden, and we like it that way.

The person or people behind it go by an owlish tag that looks like this: {{{{o\/o}}}}

As you might imagine, that anonymity delights us.

On the site are music mixes  you can stream or download, scanned artwork from the covers of horror, fantasy and science fiction paperbacks, as well as covers from cryptic, sometimes self-published looking books on magick, philosophy and other occult oddities.

Honestly, it's the sort of stuff that would have made a much younger Typing Monkey freak out and think about church.

The most recent music mix posted on Weed Garden is titled "Cosmic Cauldron." And as the site itself says, it's packed top to bottom with "Psychedelic, Acid Folk, Kosmische, Electronic, Occult, [and] Haunted VHS."

We spun it today and it fit the sunny autumn afternoon just right. As the evening brought chilling fog, "Cosmic Cauldron" swirled with creepy acid folk, devilish weirdness and a few good dabs of resin-smeared psych.

Have fun.

A Note To Our Reader

We have heard you. You'd like to get some sort of alert when new content is posted on The Typing Monkey. And while we don't and won't have a Facebook or Twitter presence, TMI is now offering an e-mail alert system.

Want us to send you a message to let you know there's fresh stuff to see here? Send an e-mail to typingmonkeyATlive.com with the subject line: Touched by a monkey.

After we laugh at you for actually doing that, we'll add you to the distribution list and you'll start receiving alerts for as long as you like. If the alerts bother you, simply reply to the alerts with the subject line "Unsubscribe."

And yes, "AT" in that e-mail address indicates the @ sign, but keeping TMI's e-mail address out of the text helps us avoid spam via bots and crawlers.

Now, for your troubles, please enjoy this fake album cover. If we could track down the original source of this, we'd give that person credit because it still makes us laugh.

It's the No. 1 Drink for Astronaut Draculas the World Over

Thanks Lost Wackys!

Naked Came the Sasquatch

Bigfoot's about as scary as Bela Lugosi's bunion cream, but as lasting bit of folklore and the poster beast of cryptozoology, the hairy bastard's charm is irresistible.

Therefore, it's entirely possible that the news of an "explanation" for the Yeti, aka the Abominable Snowman, has already made it's way to you.

The diet version of the tale is that a bit of fur, thought to be sloughed off from the Snowsquatch, is probably that of a rare polar bear that once wandered the Himalayas, the mountainous region of Asia that gave rise to the legend of the Yeti. Read all about that here.

But a far more interesting bit of Sasquatch news broke this past week as well, and didn't stir up nearly the attention that it should have.

A naked 20-year-old man attacked a 58-year-old man with a rock in the backwoods of Oregon and it took police 90 minutes to find the victim and his attacker. All the while, the victim held the dude in the nude at bay with his hunting rifle.

The cherry on this sundae? The clothing-optional assailant claimed he was descended from Sasquatch. Despite his self-proclaimed lineage, he was still arrested like any other human who strips and assaults people in the forest.

Sebastian's Voodoo

Joaquin Baldwin made this animated short in 2009, and it's presented here by the National Film Board of Canada. The Paraguay native now works for Disney. Let's hope the mouse doesn't squeeze the creativity from him.

Now, for our feature presentation:

Look Out, Kids! (Ohio Edition)

This sounds like the start of a solid neighborhood legend. Allegedly, a van full of people dressed as zombies are terrorizing teens Gahanna and Worthington, two communities in Ohio.

None of these "zombie attacks" have been corroborated by authorities, but we're guessing the retelling of any possible encounters are already attaining folklore status on playgrounds and in living rooms all over central Ohio.

Thing is, we can't decide if the zombie gag is mean or really fun(ny).

Ain't Got No Head

Two very different takes on the Headless Horseman of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

First, Frank Frazetta:

That man could draw horses like few others. For real. You know why Maurice Sendak decided to use monsters in Where the Wild Things Are instead of his original plan for horses? Because he realized how hard it is to draw horses.

Second is Kate Beaton's knee-slapping script-flip of Ichabod on the run:

Read the short strip here.



[A doff of the Jack O'Lantern to Weird Tales for the Frazetta art.]

A Challenge

First, we remind you of the annual Countdown to Halloween, an aggregation of blogs that go bug-nuts with Halloween-related content all October long. You could lose your job, grow a beard, and get fat with ramen and cheap beer all because you spent your days exploring what the Countdown has to offer. Crucial. Stuff.

Second, our search continues for Ghost Dots. Any size will do, but especially the bag of fun-size boxes. The past two years have resulted in zero Ghost Dots at TMI HQ. Zero.

Reader, that is unacceptable. So if you find a store that stocks them in the Seattle area, drop us a message: typingmonkey AT live.com and let us know where you found them. Perhaps we'll send you a CD or .zip file of fun Halloween music as a thank you.

An office without Ghost Dots is no office at all.

What're We Having?

Everybody's in a lather about pumpkin-spice/pumpkin-flavored things. We like actual pumpkin quite a lot, both savory and sweet. And we'll even entertain a pumpkin-infused coffee beverage now and then because, why not? We got nothing to prove.

However, there's more than one "flavor of autumn" and tasty fresh apples are part of that array. Fall is also a time for bourbon. So if pumpkin can be attached to all manner of food and drink in the name of seasonal spirit, why not apple?

Thus, we created a new cocktail that everyone at The Typing Monkey office has been enjoying. We're calling it Betty's Little Helper, in reference to and reverence for both Ms. Crocker and apple brown betty. Here's the recipe so you can mix one up for yourself:

Betty's Little Helper
1.5 oz bourbon
1.5 oz spiced apple cider, chilled
Club soda, chilled

In a 6 to 8 ounce tumbler, pour the bourbon and cider in together, then top it off with club soda. Don't bother with a top-shelf whisky. Buffalo Trace was what we had, and it's good for blending. Any mid-level sipper does the trick.

You'll want to go nuts with the cider though and get something quality. R.W. Knudsen Cider & Spice* is our favorite, as it's 100 percent juice and isn't overly sweet. The spice levels in Knudsen's brew are well balanced too -- a glass of the juice on its own tastes like a slice of homemade apple pie.

We put the bourbon in the freezer for an hour to make sure it was corpse-cold, but that's a personal preference. The club soda dials down the bourbon's bite and relaxes the cider's sweetness. Plus, the bubbles tickle our nose.

If fancy is your goal, add a cinnamon stick for garnish. And though we haven't tried it, a splash of Tuaca would make a Betty's Little Helper a la Mode. Scumps!



*Knudsen's label says their cider is "Prepared in the New England Tradition." We don't know what that entails so we'll just imagine it involves barrel presses and John Forsythe standing around in a sweater-vest, flirting with Shirley MacLaine.

French-Goth-Surf-Pop

The French band La Femme has a decidedly surf- and noir-influenced sound, with just the right shades of psychedelia, ye-ye, and first-generation goth (Banshees, Bauhaus, Specimen).

And lucky for us, they made a long-form video for their song "Hypsoline." A long form video. That's so ... Duran Duran.

The film creeps around as if a loose adaptation of an M.R. James or J. Sheridan Le Fanu story, finally wrapping around to a nightmare party that we'd still happily attend. (French girls!)

It's lightly spooky and a great exercise in matching song to visuals. Here, drink this ...

Halloween on the Street: Learning Shapes

We'll start with something light and kid friendly:

Nice, eh? It was done by Jack Davis for Sesame Street Magazine. Davis did cartoon art and illustrations for many print advertisements as well as magazine illustrations, most notably for EC and Mad. He also did a fair amount of movie posters and contributed character design work for the Rankin and Bass animation team.

Thank Mr. Davis for the excellent look of the creeps and heroes in the forever excellent Mad Monster Party.

And if you like fun, and really, who doesn't? Visit Sam Henderson's Magic Whistle Tumblr for more great finds and absurd humor.

O is for October

O is also for "oh."

As in: "Mom, do you think the United States will crumble under the weight of its own stupidity?"
"Oh, probably."

Things are getting scary. Also, Halloween will soon be upon us and as our regular reader knows, that means the arrival of this, our 6th annual Typing Monkey Halloween Frenzy.

We'll do our best during the next four weeks to show you cool pictures, videos, links to good reads and other fun stuff. ("Uh, how is different from what you normally do?") Because it will all be Halloween themed stuff, that's how. Geez!

Get yourself a cup of something, grab a donut, and enjoy this mash-up from Go Home Productions, still the best mash-up DJ around. He made a video for this one, and it's gone from his YouTube channel, but some enterprising young person called kliz9 posted it again.


Hurry! You'll miss your bus!