From a decorations standpoint, Halloween is not at all like Christmas. The latter’s lights and such might not come down for at least a week after that big day, but when Halloween is over, it’s done. Stick a pitchfork in it. By 8:30 p.m. after the stream of trick-or-treaters finally runs dry, the spooky soundtrack gets shut off and the pair of ghostly figures chasing each other around in the dim library (thanks to the ceiling fan) are relieved of duty.

By the following sunrise there’s just no logic to leaving the jacked lanterns out in the sun and Santa-Ana’d warmth to begin the nasty decomp slump into their own gooey-ghastliness. And that giant spider that looked so at home hanging off the side of the house last night is in need of immediate eviction this first morning of November. Thus there I was out around dawn before my morning coffee pulling down the skeletons and pulling up the tombstones and restoring the yard to its un-hallowy state.

Though I put the decorations away without looking back, it is not without mourning Halloween’s passing, and thankfully for anyone dead-icated like me still jonesing for some spooky stuff, there is Day of the Dead action to be found on Olvera Street beginning at 6:30 p.m. through November 2. Also from November 2 -5 from 6 a.m. – 8 p.m. at the Not A Cornfield Project there will be a Day of the Dead Ofrenda (offering) available for the general public to actively participate in and view.

If you didn’t get enough spookiness last night, the Museum of Jurassic Technology is hosting an evening salon of 3D Ghost Stories by Claudia Kunin tonight from 7-10 pm. I am a huge fan of MJT and have been visiting it for years. I still enjoy the Kircher dioramas, decaying die and x-rays of flowers. If you prefer to walk the fine line between reality and imagination this is one stop you will not want to miss. The MJT is in Culver City at 9341 Venice Blvd.

Here’s some fun Tuesday morning info about those Red Light Cameras all over the city – They haven’t been working since June. Of course that info wasn’t made public because the people who put these things up in the first place wanted people to think they were still working. You know, a “visual deterrent” because the make the intersections safer, right? Wrong. Not only do they NOT prevent accidents, but they seem to encourage them. That’s right, accidents go UP at intersections after Red Light Cameras are installed. But the city makes more money from tickets, so that’s OK right? I mean, unless the cameras haven’t been working in months, they we get all of the accidents without any of the ticket revenue. But all will be better soon since the Council Public Safety Committee just voted 3-2 to go ahead and spend $3.12 million to double the number of red light cameras here in LA. Way to go.

Bonus – Bernard Parks, Ed Reyes and Jack Weiss voted in favor, Dennis Zine and Greig Smith (both former LAPD officers) voted against.

Of the 12,642,345,218 12,642,345,281 intersections in Los Angeles, a whopping 16 have those red-light cameras, purportedly responsible for a reduction in traffic collisions and the issusance of some 63,000 citations in their first four years of service.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the L.A. Times today is reporting that Councilman Dennis Zine is outing himself from the bureaucracy closet to let city citizens know that well, uh… the cameras have been off for the past four months because the contract with the company that operates the cameras was allowed to expire last June. And since our esteemed cty councilpersons are being extra-special cautious and duly diligent (read that as “taking their sweet old time because there’s other more important stuff to do like tally up last night’s arrest count brought on by the Halloween silly string ban”) in selecting a new company, Zine’s saying the cams might not be back up stopping crime and crashes until sometime in 2006.

Why the glacial drag in copping to the shut down? Zine’s all: why the hell not… what the people don’t know can’t hurt ‘em.

“There’s an advantage until the public finds out they’re not doing anything,” he said.

Is he talking about the council or the cameras?

Zine continues: “It’s like parking a police car in front of a building and not having a police officer nearby. What good does that do? It’s good until people realize there’s a police car parked there and there’s on one connected to the car.”

Thanks for that analogy, Denny. Bureaucracy rocks don’t it? And in a related story the council yesterday admitted to finally abandoning its three-month-old official support for the Dodgers staging a spectacular comeback and winning the World Series last month.

I didn’t have anything planned for tonight, but then I talked to my friend Dan on the phone and heard trick-or-treaters in the background. I went over to his apartment for a while to see if any other costumed kids might come by, and it turned out he had an extra pumpkin, so I got to help carve it! I came up with the big-mouthed design on the left in the photo — the sad/angry one was Dan’s creation from earlier in the week.

After pumpkin carving, we ended up watching a PBS Nature special about creatures that suck blood. I’ll probably have nightmares forever about the tiny fish that swam up someone’s urethra, but I have to say, vampire bats are way cuter than they looked in last night’s TV movie.

The weirdest part of the night was when we decided to head over to Re$iduals (no link, because somebody let the domain name expire), where a zombie cowboy served our drinks. Just after we got there, the Saloonatics took the stage. Some of the band members were dressed like Kiss, so I half-expected they’d be a Kiss cover band, but instead they played songs by Matchbox 20, Stone Temple Pilots, and the Goo Goo Dolls. I was disturbed that in most cases I couldn’t name the original bands, but I still remember every bad ’90s lyric. I wish something more important was taking up that space in my brain.

If I were a Dodgers fan, I’d be holding my breath, praying to the Baseball Jesus for some kind of good fortune. That might be the most borked organization in Major League Baseball.

Since I am NOT a Dodgers fan, but instead a Red Sox fan, I am cursing the Baseball Jesus for the resignation of moneyball master, Theo Epstein.

Is’t possible that Theo has designs on the West Coast? Hard to say. One thing is certain:

Without Theo, we of the Red Sox Nation would still be crying in our beer over Buckner. If there is a Baseball Jesus, maybe he will grant you Dodgers fans a Theo Epstein for Christmas.

I’d say you deserve it.

Best news of the day: Pluto may have three moons, instead of one. Appropriately enough for Halloween.

A close runnerup, this post on Treehugger: Marmol Radziner: stunning new prefabs Los Angeles architects and builders Marmol Radziner have just launched a new line of modular prefabs built in their own factory (these guys do everything!) with this shot that will be heard round the world- possibly the most beautiful prefabricated building this side of the Pacific. Absolutely gorgeous.

I’m temporarily over posting about the Getty f-ups (unless of course it involves a stoned woman crashing through the gates – then I’m all for it)…continue reading

That picture you’re looking at was taken yesterday at Rite Aid in Echo Park. Can you guess what’s gratingly irritating about it? How about that it’s not (or wasn’t anyway) even Halloween yet and the Halloween stuff is on clearance to make room for Christmas decorations! I know I’ve written about this in the past, so maybe it’s beating a dead horse. But I just wanted to say fuck you to everybody involved in the process of moving Christmas earlier every year at the expense of other holidays.

Santa Monica Blvd is gearing up for the annual Halloween street party tonight under today’s perfect Los Angeles rays. As I drove down it at 10am this morning, I saw stages and booths being set up and cones already in place for the street closing. So it shouldn’t have surprised me to spy a purple-fuzzied tinky-winky in full costume with headpiece. What really caught my eye though, were his purple ass-less chaps. I can only imagine what tonight will be on the street. I’ll see you there.

On his blog, CD13 rep Eric “The Hammer” Garcetti provides some insight into what Mayor Villaraigosa’s proposed $1 billion bond to finance solutions to the housing crisis would get us. MAV’s proposal is the first discussion I’ve seen about what to do vs. just what’s going on. Hopefully some of it will come to fruition.

Wow! It’s hard to believe with this sultry summer weather, that today is the eve of the tides turning to fall and winter. It’s always such a shock that at the end of October, we’re still lolling around in this warm sunshine. To take advantage of it, yesterday my love and I drove out to Malibu in search of a hike overlooking the ocean. I used to live in Malibu and remembered a sweet trek I once took up in Coral Canyon, but couldn’t remember the exact location. So off we went on an adventure to explore. We drove to the top of Coral Canyon, where it dead ended, but that wasn’t the exact spot. I remembered a gate about a block below, so we ended up there. Walkiing down the fire road, we turned a corner to the greatest vista, views that stretched out to the Pacific on one side and warm hills of the Santa Monica Mountains on the other. There were huge rock formations, some with caves in them that we explored. It was wild to think that at one time these huge boulders were in the sea…but there it was, evidence of shells and sea fossils melded into the rocks. A terrific spot and what a place to see the sunset. Just go up PCH past old Malibu Road about two miles and take a right on Coral Canyon….go all the way up and you’re there.

USA Today (well, last week) had a feature on the Los Angeles house of horror-lover Rob Zombie and his wife Sheri Moon. Let’s just say on that bit, I’m jealous and will be making a point of scoping out the outside tomorrow night when he hangs severed limbs from trees. (!!!) But, Zombie listed his five must see movies for Halloween and I wanted to list them before I gave you my other five recommendations to make your Monday Halloween spooktacular.

Rob Zombie picks:

1. Frankenstein (1931). “The one that started it all.”
2. Freaks (1932). “As disturbing now as it was over 70 years ago.”
3. Halloween (1978). “Simple, scary and brilliant.”
4. Dawn of the Dead (1978). “Seen this 200 times and I love it more each time.”
5. The Devil’s Rejects (2005). “Whoever made this film is insane.”

Caryn’s picks:
1. Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things – conjuring up the dead isn’t always the best idea. I just found out that they’re re-making this movie right now. Color me more shocked than if I saw a real zombie! (Image)
2. Monster Club – Vincent Price (vampire) takes John Carradine (writer) to the monster club where he tells three horrifying tales. Monsters rule, OK?
3. The Sentinel – I am one of the Leeee-gion!!!
4. Zombie 2 – a zombie attacks a shark – folks, it just doesn’t get any better than this.

For previous picks click here and here.

abLA contributor Heather writes about Stereomongrel at the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum…continue reading

Tonight was pumpkin carving night on our street. With ghastly results:

Guess which one I carved. Guess which one Will carved.