This is not a mask.

I was twelve. I was Bullitt. None of my friends understood why my Halloween costume was a turtleneck and why I wasn't carrying a lightsaber like they all were. Even Mark had one, and he was Chewbacca. But I loved cars and I wanted to be Steve McQueen, so I was Bullitt, and Bullitt was so fucking cool he didn't need a lightsaber. His Mustang was his lightsaber.

But so they screwed off for the cemetery to duel and to smoke the Camels Dustin had found in his mom's purse, and I was left alone with my shoulder-holstered capgun and my grinning pumpkin, half-full of candy. It was all right. We knew this was our last time around the neighborhood together, the last time candy would be our main concern. There was no point in making a big deal out of it.

And I had my own agenda anyway. I wanted an apple with a razor blade in it. Miss Watkins had spent the better part of the week leading up to Halloween lecturing us on the dangers inherent in the combination of candy and strangers; her shrillest tone and most lurid images were reserved for the dreaded Razor-Blade Apple. None of her students had ever had the misfortune of biting into one of these horrors, thank the lord, but a teacher friend of hers in Danville had a cousin whose son didn't let her check his Halloween haul before digging in, and now he has to be fed through tubes. Tubes!

I had to find one. This became my mission. Before I outgrew Halloween, I had to save it. I had to find either A) a childless old crone, B) a quiet loner with a large cellar, or C) the person you'd least suspect; then, having identified the most likely suspect, march up to his/her door (I envisioned a creaking porch and boarded-up windows, unless I landed on choice C, in which case it would be a ranch house just like mine), ring the doorbell, shout "Trick or treat!" while still looking cool in my turtleneck, and receive the doctored apple; and then, finally, gather a crowd to witness as I slice the apple in two and carefully yet triumphantly remove the deadly razor blade. Sirens blare, two uniforms lead the crone/loner/suburban housewife away in cuffs, and Charlie Winter is the savior of Halloween. This is what Bullitt would do. This is what I was going to do.

(Check back tomorrow for Part Two of this Thrilling Halloween Adventure!)
posted by Gardner at 11:39 PM

Photos of the Great California Fires of 2003 by Eric Wright




posted by Gardner at 9:39 AM

As promised, more futurephone nonsense. The Gardner Linn Phone Club is my brand-spankin'-new phonecam moblog, to be updated from now till eternity with fascinating pictures from Los Angeles County. Visit early and often.
posted by Gardner at 3:23 AM

GARDNER SMASH!



I now have a futurephone to play with. Expect much more of this nonsense in the near future.

posted by Gardner at 7:30 PM

Texas Chainsaw Massacre took my baby away from me

I haven't seen the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so I've got nothing for comparison, but the new one's not bad. Plenty of gore, nice scenery-chewing from R. Lee Ermey and a collection of grotesques, a few genuinely terrifying moments, and both the Hewitt House of Horror and Jessica Biel's stomach are photographed beautifully--the movie hardly ever goes thirty seconds without a nice shot of one of the two.

But the real highlight of Gardner's Night at the Movies (aside from the Return of the King trailer, which in all seriousness appears to be the best movie ever made) was a trailer for some movie called The Butterfly Effect, in which Ashton Kutcher can go back in time and change things, or something, and blah blah blah it's your standard Time Machine bullshit. But Good News Part A is that one of Ashton's pals in the movie is played by my very own doppelganger, Ethan Suplee, and Good News Part B is that Ethan's character is a 300-something-pound Goth, complete with Robert Smith kabuki makeup and foot-long spiked hair. It's like some weird parallel universe where I got really into Marilyn Manson and Taco Bell and started hanging out with some jackass who could travel back in time. I have an overwhelming need to see this movie now.
posted by Gardner at 1:59 AM

Thanks to Warren Ellis for posting the Robot Jesus logo at Die Puny Humans. Visit his sites and read his books, for he is, as we say here in Tha Dale, the sheezy fo reezy. And stuff.

And if you clicked through to here from DPH, welcome.
posted by Gardner at 1:52 AM

The Letters page is updated with stuff from the past few weeks' worth of Flagpole, including my interview with comedian Patton Oswalt.
posted by Gardner at 10:31 PM