It’s Halloween, readers, and that’s about as much attention as I want to give this holiday. For kids it is a fine occasion to celebrate, and it was always one I enjoyed in my youth, but those days are long gone for me, and the joy of hunting down premium grade candy has been replaced by embracing cynicism and loathing, hiding in the house with all the lights off, too paranoid to stand the knocking on my door.

I told Rum Brain Moe to get here and provide some much needed company, but he hasn’t shown yet, hasn’t answered my calls. He’s become rather unbearable these last few months, but if I were him, I would probably be thinking the same about myself, so I guess that makes us even.

The world’s becoming far too ugly of a place to even think of enjoying a holiday like Halloween. Charlie Manson might be dead, but we still live in a dangerous time. I suppose we always have though, we just have gotten hit by the truth of it more often in this age of nonstop news burning through the dead hours of the morning, catastrophe and mayhem always available on your nearest smartphone.

Good lord, folks. I’m certainly in a mood today, but with everything that is wrong in this world, can you blame me?

Seeing as how I can’t actually see you answer, I’m just going to assume that no one is out there, no one is reading this insanity except myself, a writer holding back the urge to pull the Jack Nicholson routine – all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

That’s right, we’re pulling out The Shining references before the snow has fallen, but then again, stores are already pimping out Christmas, so I don’t feel so bad about this. At least my routine isn’t coming off like a used-up Hallmark cliché.

So, I guess that’s two holidays down, and someone should stop me before I get to Easter because I have some words about that whole Easter Bunny thing….

And we’re back, readers. I had to step away for a moment to collect my thoughts and pour myself a stiff drink. It’s been a rough year on the Old Con, and from the looks of things, it won’t get any easier. If I were smart I’d take a long vacation, bury my head in the sand or something, but that’s a luxury I just can’t afford, and let’s face it, I’m a junkie for this stuff. I should try and call Moe again, tell him that I haven’t even mentioned politics, that I’m just riding the high of this insanity on its own. Maybe he’ll return one of my calls if he hears that, but who knows with that guy. After all, he’s a witch doctor from Connecticut, and a species such as that makes no sense at all, but that’s what drew me to him in the early days of my journalistic run.

Ah, now he decides to call, right as I’m getting nostalgic. I guess that’s all for me, readers. Just remember to play it safe out there in the dark.