Went last night to a neighboring town's pumpkin-fest. Along with the typical array of autumnal family fun, they had a good old fashioned haunted hayride through the woods... complete with zombies that come lumbering out from the trees to attack you... and you fend them off with the paintball guns mounted on the gunwales.

It's not often that find myself muttering "now that's a great friggin idea." This was one of those times.

It was chilly, and the line was long, but we shot many zombies and had many laughs. On our way out we stopped at the Italian bakery to get some cannoli for Cookie. Behind the counter I could see a giant metal bowl of cannoli cream through the glass door of the refrigerator. I wanted to put my face in it.

"Do you ever sell the cream alone? I can't eat the shell."

Yep. That was one of the more decadent things I've ever done, sitting on the sofa last night eating cannoli cream by the spoonful. And I'd do it again.

As I started saying this morning, the electioneering is quite depressing. What with all the avoidance of dread reality. So thank goodness for Joe Biden! I believe it was Nikita Kruschev who first predicted that socialism would bury us. All Biden forgot to do was bang his shoe like a gavel to complete the circle!

Kruschev wasn't the only one foreseeing a long winter of discontent.

It's that time of the year. Baseball season is over -- nothing to watch on ESPN3. Nights are stacked with homework and school plans. And the mailboxes are filled with wacky political ads. My favorite one so far speculates on how awful the world would be today if GM had been allowed to go bankrupt.

Uh, Earth to prez: GM did go bankrupt.

I think what central-planning really meant to say is "thanks for all the cash, taxpaying suckas!"

Let's see, there are also non-stop ads from Sherrod "Big Lie" Brown, Ohio's unreconstructed bolshevik museum-piece. And there are looped ads set to play at the start of every Minecraft video on Youtube -- something that makes me laugh all the time because I'm pretty sure I already know how Da Chimpz plan to vote. (I wish they had interest in math the way they have interest in Minecraft.)

Anyway, I eagerly await Steve's expressions of disgust over Glorious People's Revolution experiment our country is now eyeball-deep in. We've heard from Pravda -- they say everything is swell! Now we need to hear from Steve. Or from Bazzukajoe -- he almost certainly saw something ridiculous on I-95 recently.

An article in today's WSJ made me laugh. The company that issues Discover Card plastic now has to refund a boatload of money for bullshit services it sold to cardholders. Yeah, I remember Discover. It was my first credit card -- got it in 1987 while I was still in college (which already tells you a lot about the company). Canceled it a few years ago.

I loved the quote from the head of Discover today. Explaining the $200 million ding to cash-flow, he simply said: “We have worked hard to earn the loyalty of our cardmembers, and we are committed to marketing our products responsibly."

It's like he had his secretary run down to the basement to fetch him one of the scripts their telemarketers use!

Not as humorous is how government bureaucrats will get to bathe themselves in some of what Discover will now disgorge. They are blood-suckers just as much as Discover. What should have happened to Discover is this: they offer bullshit services to the customers and their customers respond by saying... go to hell.

It's not hard. I did it.

Now, I actually saw Alane processing our backlog of laundry this weekend so I knew there was no reason for me to be out of mutandes this morning. But there I was, ready to shave and shower, staring into the strangely empty dresser drawer.

"Say, er, what's the chance you gave Cookie all my underwear when you sorted laundry?"

Yep, the boys are growing. Maybe I should move back up to XL just to keep distinctions keen for another few years. Or choose patterns no one could mistake for their own.

Cue up some of that New York Citizens ska: play me some Boxer Shorts!

What I really wanted to post, but couldn't find on Youtube, was a clip from the movie Fatso where Dom takes Lydia to the feast. You don't get to actually smell the feast but in a way you do.

"Get the honey, junior."

I too enjoy the scent of Mulberry Street during a feast. Of course, to get to those events one had to pass the the fish buckets and rotten vegetables being hawked on Mott Street -- something I remember as a kid being dragged along through crowds. The stink. And when we got there we never seemed to partake in any of the mobbed-up games of chance. Instead we'd go upstairs and listen to the festivities from above Hester Street. As a kid you wanted to be down in the middle of it. Then they'd say, "C'mon, let's go say hello to Aunt Anna." To get to her apartment in the building around the block we'd take the stairs up, to the roof, cross the urban rooftops like a young Vito Corleone fleeing the Don Fanucci assassination, then walk down another tenement stairwell to her place. In other words, still going nowhere near the zepolle, the cotton candy, the little wax-paper packets of dried garbanzo they sold off carts that for some reason I liked.

Anyway, today's stink is neither eel-bucket nor sausage-and-pepper. Being Sunday, today's enchanting scent is meatball. Got a big cauldron bubbling on the stove as we await the return of Mojo Jojo who spent the weekend traveling with his friend's family. Cookie is downstairs playing Halo.

Is it too early to open the wine?

I got a a text from Ree yesterday informing me next week she would be flying into NY for a few days, and that one night she would be attending the San Gennaro Feast.  It made me reflect upon the the San Gennaro and St. Anthony's Feasts (the latter of which thanks to the DePalos I had the amazing opportunity to participate in back in the 80s) and automatically I remember the amazing aroma. Its a combination of zeppoles, sausage and peppers, pizza and pastries. I wish my house smelled like that...no actually I wish I smelled like that. I should really call Christian Dior and pitch the idea. A new cologne called "FEAST" for men.  I think men would love wearing it and women would really respond to it. In the commercial the man walks by and the model actress whispers to her friend "Id like to smother him in sauce and mozzarella."

This of course, reminds me of BazzukaJoe offering Johnny Cat edible body powder to which he responded "Tonight I'm gonna bread Alane like a veal cutlet". Maybe one of the top ten greatest quotes of all time...up there with Yogi Berra and Vito Mastandrea.

I'm trying to ignore the news on the TV...apparently the Carter years were so great, this country has decided to relive them. I'm glad I missed them the first time...

By the way, loved the commercials. No Fruity Island Cereal ads?

Back when Alane and I used to watch TV with a bit more regularity (wha, about 20 years ago?) this was one of our favorite commercials:

It's right up there with "but Dad, it's Smokey!" on the list of Lines We Repeat Needlessly, even in situations that barely relate. Kind-a like Steve, who has been know to utter "hey, watch where you point that thing" to no one in particular.

"It ain't gonna fit, Charlie." Cracks me up every time.

I also got Da Chimpz familiar with the line "Ba-gel for your Temp Tee?" Because that was another ad classic ... and something they've heard me mutter just about every time we pass the bagel bins at the Giant Beagle bakery.

And speaking of Brooklyn (no one recently spoke of Brooklyn) here's a video clip that never gathered the attention it deserved. I suppose I should have posted it to that surprisingly active Boro Park group over on Facebook. But Facebook is such a circus these days. Not even a very lively circus. It feels like a carnival teetering on bankruptcy. And whatever they did to "design" peoples pages? Total house of mirrors; I should change my icon to some Picasso-esque fragmented image of myself. Or someone else -- who'd know?

Anyway, here's some footage we found on the old film reels from up in Vito's closet. That's 38th Street, facing down toward Dahill, then across the playground to the el over 37th Street. And yes, that's an old Culver Shuttle train silently clattering along. (At least I'm pretty sure it had already been relegated to a "shuttle" by the early 1960s.)

Gotta be some rail-fans out there jonesing for some rare footage of this bygone Brooklyn classic. Now if I only had video of those old guys who stood under the el playing bocce over by 14th Ave.