Its hard to pick out what is “normal”  Hollywood Blvd weirdness vs regular stuff on Halloween.  A few more in costumes and begging to be photographed videoed for free is probably the only difference. Its sort of Halloween Light compared to the insanity that is WeHo but it is subway easy and still festive enough.  His original blog post HERE.

Every October, my inner Linus gets the urge to find the most sincere pumpkin patch. Not so much to wait for The Great Pumpkin, but to see, photograph, and perhaps even select a fabulous pumpkin to display.

In the past I’ve visited Lombardi Ranch in Saugus, Pierce College’s Halloween Harvest Festival, the Calabasas Pumpkin Festival, and even a lovely farm in Ventura County. All of these places had marvelous pumpkin patches, but the most sincere? Hard to say.

This year, I stuck closer to home and checked out Forneris Farms in Mission Hills. The pumpkins there were okay, but what they really have going for them is their fantastic corn maze. You can see an aerial view of it on their website and it’s pretty impressive. It’s large, family friendly and has an optional scavenger hunt. If I didn’t have a navigator, I’d still be wandering around the stalks of corn. While most of the pumpkin patches and farms that are still open close tomorrow, the corn maze at Forneris Farms is open through November 7th.

What are your favorite local pumpkin patches to visit? It doesn’t hurt to start planning for next year!

Halloween is serious business in this town. It seems to be a sort of sub-industry: when I first moved to LA, I was completely taken aback by the sheer number of one stop Halloween shops that seem pop up around the city at this time of year. Who knew that there was such a huge market for plastic pumpkins, animatronic talking skeletons, and Sexy Donut costumes? Who knew indeed. And LA has its fair share of scary stories – from the Black Dahlia to Lizard People and everything in between – making it a particularly evocative place to be for the spookiest holiday of the year.

As the end of October approaches, we’re hotly anticipating that time when the heady aroma of smashed jackolanterns will once more waft through the air. So check in with us over the next week and a half as we bring you a variety of perspectives on navigating Halloween in Los Angeles – from LA’s spookiest places, to ghostly events, to more Lizard People coverage than you ever thought you’d need (and believe me, you do actually need it). Bookmark this post, because I’ll be keeping an archive of all our Halloween posts. And please comment below and let us know about your favorite scary sights, haunted houses and local Halloween festivities!

The Creepy Beneath Our Feet:  Kevin’s ongoing expose on the Secret Lives of Lizard People (and possibly the greatest run of posts this site has ever known)

LA’s Lizard People

The Patron Saint of the Lizard People

The City with Scaly Shoulders

Lizard People and the Bigger Picture

Passages to the Underworld

Lizards in Disguise

The Real (and Not Actually Creepy Thing

And because all good things must, sadly, end, the Wrap-Up.

Other, less lizard-oriented Halloween posts:

Navigating street closures at the West Hollywood Costume Carnival

Seriously Corny

Hide Your Silly String Tonight

Halloween Wardrobe Mal-Function

Sunshine Gothic

I’ve got Tickets to Give Away again, Kids!
Not just One Night but TWO!!

Spend Halloween Weekend with Nick 13 and TIGER ARMY!

Tiger Army shows are always awesome, and their Halloween shows are Legendary.
They’ll be at The Grove in Anaheim, on October 30th with Jack Grisham & The West Coast Dukes and Throw Rag
and on Halloween October 31st with Mad Sin and Hillbilly Casino.

Not to be Missed!

I have Four Pairs of Tickets to each show to Give Away! And a surprise Extra Pair for one of the nights! Ooooo…Bonus! Which night? Well, you don’t know, do you? Is it a Trick, or is it a Treat?

To enter the contest leave a comment on this post, and make sure to let me know what night you want to go. If either night is fine, let me know that. (That’s a good way to get an edge in the contest, I’m not gonna lie.) Winners will be selected randomly, or perhaps capriciously. It amounts to the same thing.

Oh, and no one will be getting tickets to both nights,  so don’t ask. Seriously.

Have Fun and Good Luck.

Tiger Army Never Die!

Halloween. Celebrated with free carnivals for kids at all Los Angeles City Recreations and Parks Department Playgrounds.

The year was 1961.

Photo from the USC Digital Library

Just in time for Halloween, the Los Angeles Opera distributed a press release today announcing their first ever costume sale. Over 2500 costume pieces will go sale this Saturday, October 10 from 10:00AM to 6:00PM.

Fantasma De La Opera

Pieces for sale will include everything ranging from complete “merry peasant” and “medieval courtier” costumes to individual pieces such as capes, hats, shoes and fans. Highlights of the collection include a number of “diva dresses,” stunning hand-crafted gowns worn by LA Opera’s leading ladies including Carol Vaness (La Traviata, Don Giovanni, The Merry Widow and La Rondine), Jennifer Larmore (L’Italiana in Algeri), Maria Ewing (Fedora), Verónica Villarroel (Idomeneo) and Karita Mattila (Jenufa), as well as costumes worn by superstar tenor Plácido Domingo (Un Ballo in Maschera and Idomeneo). From what I hear, there is only one latex Fly costume so get in line early if you want to nab that one!

Prices will range from $10 for accessories to $20 for hats and masks, complete costumes from $150 all the way up to $5,000 for couture pieces. Cash, check and credit cards are all accepted.

LA Opera is the fourth largest opera company in the United States. The Company’s Costume Shop is staffed by dozens Read the rest of this entry →

Some fellow West Siders and I invaded Long Beach last night for a really fun Halloween party at a friend’s house.  At most Halloween parties I have ever been to, usually, a few people are dressed as someone or something that is topical at the time in the popular culture.  This can include the political culture, especially in an election year.  Therefore, I cannot believe that no one showed up to the party last night dressed as Sarah Palin.

More tricks and treats, after the jump

The leftover goodies that went unclaimed at my house.

Is it just me or were the Trick or Treaters way down this year?  My street has always been a hit or miss so it is hard to tell by our traffic.  I took my youngest out for his last year of trick or treating and we ventured off the street as legend has it one of the streets above us does “only big candy bars”.  Even off the street for the most part it was lighter traffic than usual.

It was scary seeing the other neighborhoods around me.  Barely 1 in 4 homes were handing anything out.  Even fewer homes were decorated for the day with mazes, haunted houses or just great yard art.  Both a big departure from years past.

While I was pondering what happened I noticed on my facebook feed that a metblog writer in New Orleans, Daneeta Loretta had run a post with a similar observation there titled “Silent Night, Hallow Night”.  I guess the economy freak out is much bigger than I thought, certainly much deeper than the signs I see around my little corner of LA.

I heard from my friend Jeff  who turns his house into a “haunted house” and he had over 600 kids visit this year.  My daughter spent hours in line in Old Pas for a Haunted House there.  Old Town Monrovia was packed with kids for their afterschool party that included trick-or-treating.  Did everyone shift from door-to-door in favor of those activities?

How was your  Trick or Treater traffic?  What was your take on the shift in traffic?

(The pic is by me, trusty phone cam, and this year we gave pretzels and I am so glad as I wouldn’t want it to be that much candy left in the house to tempt me).

Halloween was serious business. There was no time for slutty pirates or hooker librarians. And jack-o-lanterns were carved without Presidential candidates or slogans.

It was Halloween at USC. The year was 1890.

Photo from USC Digital Archives

A favorite the last few years in my ‘hood has been the Halloween Maze put up by the folks on Foothill Blvd.  With the invitation being plastered all over town I guess the secret is out and will let all of LA in on the not so secret maze.  It is open for viewing most every night this week, but to actually see it in person you need to be there Halloween night from dark until it closes at 9:30PM.  Have fun and watch for my kidlets there-again!  (Google Map Link provided for your ease of locating)

Pic of the invite done by me with the trust phone cam.

Oh, I just realized my headline looks like “hallow weenie.”  None of the people mentioned have hollow weenies. (I don’t think.)

Anyway, a short set of bullets, all from blogs written by people I’ve actually met in person…

• From Adam Chester, who I met years ago at a J Keith van Straaten show. From his blog “Please Don’t Eat Sushi! Love, Mom!”, Adam’s Mom warns him of the dangers of not checking to see if the trick-or-treaters at your door are actually children: Children at the Door

• From cyn3matic, a wonderful lady I met last week whose kid is going out for Halloween as Yoda: Everything I Needed to Know About This Election I Learned From My Kid and Star Wars

• From the17thman, who I met this past weekend at BarCampLA6,  predicts a potentially popular Halloween costume to be seen on the streets of WeHo this year: Got Speedo, Then You Have Your Halloween Costume

• From the lovely Siel (greenlagirl), who I met at a Nintendo DS party for girls, with her last minute tips for a less-orangey holiday: The Procrastinator’s guide to a green Halloween

• From the wonderful noirbettie, who I met through blogging.la (that’s what it was called back then, dammit!). Her sister asks for suggestions for a costume: Conversation with my sister

Photo from I don’t know where, but dang!!!

I think most of us never grow up enough to not appreciate a good haunted house. I’ve dabbled in it over the years but never to an extreme.  A long time friend who didn’t escape the cube puts his abundant creative energy into a haunted house each year for the neighborhood kids. Not being in the biz he does some pretty nifty special effects (the fog can be seen from a block away).   The mechanical know how from his job as an auto appraiser certainly comes in handy for the complex monsters he puts together.  Who said excess is a bad thing?

His haunted house is set up in Castaic and open only Halloween night. I promised not to put up the exact address but if you follow the lines from Del Valle County Park you won’t be too far off base.

Enjoy the video. It is his…ample self promotional credits at the end. Hat’s off to Jeff for his annual haunted house, where in LA is your favorite homemade haunted house…done by a regular guy and free?

The first of the haunting decorations went up yesterday in my 'hood!

Its started.  The great push towards the All Hallows Eve party on 10/31.  30 days away and people are beginning to start their decorating to celebrate the big event.  I *think* this year I’m taking a few of my oldest kids and a few friends to weho to enjoy the parade – I still think they have the most jubilant celebration of the day in LA.  Agree?

I’m working on a few more of the ” LA boo-stories” that I started last year.  Am researching the Brand Library and Clifton Middle School to name a few.  If there are others in your corner of LA that need attention let me know.

Of course if you want up the minute, almost daily haunting stuff in LA visit our own David Markland’s Creepy LA.

Pic by me grabbed on my morning rounds getting the kidlets to school.

• Whoops. L.A. forgot its own birthday again. Franklin Avenue calls the city out for being absent minded. And for being unable to spell. Fat kids everywhere are crying for cake.

• CreepyLA is back as L.A.’s Halloween Blog. Interviews, event listings, haunted maps, and all that is creepy about Los Angeles. Do creepy celebs that are sill living count?

• The diner is making a comeback in Downtown L.A., as Angelenic finds new restaurants opening up every day, and remnants of a bygone era revealed.

• Militant Angeleno wonders how many films are named after L.A. neighborhoods. View From A Loft provides that list. Blogs answering blogs. See that the humans remain entertained until the end.

• And the next hip artist spot is in…… Alhambra? UnHip LA wonders. Can Alhambra handle the influx of ironic T-shirts and skinny pants? Discuss.

Photo of The Nickel Diner in Downtown Los Angeles from angelenic