My Blog As A Mixtape: A Completely Stolen Idea

This used to be a blog where I would occasionally just talk about stuff I like from time to time. For a while I felt like I had to do that in a whole separate blog, and I even stopped writing this one for period of time because of how I felt I "had" to produce content for Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks.

BUT.

I would like this to get back to being a place where I talk about more than just the stuff I bought this week, or stuff someone sent me in the mail. I want to put more of the "Geek" back in "Goodwill Geek" and with that in mind... I've found an interesting topic that is arguably blog related (because it is) but also just stuff I like that I want to talk about.

And that topic is this:

Image courtesy of Joie Fatale

"What would your blog sound like if it was a Mix Tape? 

Five songs on side A, and Five on B."

So back in May of last year, Steph over at Nerdjoy posted something awesome (she does this a LOT actually, so be sure to check out the rest of her blog too... but this particular instance informs the post you are about to read, so I'm singling that one out). She answered the question above. It was a question originally posited by Joie Fatale over at the Confessions of a Book Pimp blog, but it was through Steph that I discovered the idea.

Mixtapes were a HUGE deal for me back in highschool. I made them for ALL of my friends. I would make myself twenty or so just to listen to in the car, and I would carefully select tracks based on the kind of mood I was trying to achieve. I put a ton of thought into them, and I would often use collectible art cards as "cover art" for my mix tapes, taping them to the front of the liner notes, inside the case.

Might be why THIS resonated so strongly with me...

Making a mixtape that would represent my blog seemed like an awesome challenge that I wanted to try. So I sat down and thought about it. One really obvious song popped into my mind immediately. The rest I really had to go looking for. I discovered one of my new favorite songs by searching for songs for this mixtape. I want to clarify of course that this mixtape is supposed to represent the mood, philosophy, aesthetic, etc. of the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks blog. It is only meant to represent my musical tastes filtered through this blog. If I were making a mixtape for a friend with all my favorite music on it... I might go with a completely different 10 songs for instance.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

Below I have listed the songs, posted a video to accompany each one, and given a few brief reasons for why each was selected. I hope you don't hate them.

- Side A -

1. "Thrift Shop" - Macklemore and Ryan Lewis

This one was the one... I mean ONE no-brainer for this list. I have sort of adopted this song as a theme for my blog anyway. Making thrift-shopping cool in a song? Yes please.

2. "Raspberry Beret" - Prince

They're not allowed to have this song on Youtube
so I found this picture that I think may have inspired Prince to write the song.

Now, I went with SEVERAL different Prince songs before settling on this one. I almost went with "Starfish and Coffee" just because it's so fun and upbeat. But ultimately I settled on Beret because it's one of my favorites from back in high school. I actually went so far as to name a role-playing character from Vampire: The Masquerade "Raspberry Beret". But ultimately (eye roll) it was the mention of a second-hand store in the lyrics that made me slap my forehead and add this one.

3."Birdhouse In Your Soul" - They Might Be Giants

Again, this is another band that had too many songs to count that I wanted to include. I could almost make an entire mixtape out of only TMBG songs to represent this blog... but I didn't want that. I VERY NEARLY went with "Seven Days of the Week (I Never Go To Work)" (and also the Mesopotamians, I'm Impressed, Dr. Worm, Man It's So Loud In Here, and ROY G. BIV) but I just love Birdhouse here so much more. It's been my favorite for longer and has such an upbeat message that I HAD to include it. Ignore the intentionally confusing video and just focus on the lyrics.

4. "Everything is Awesome" - Tegan and Sara

Because the LEGO movie was amazing, and this song is incredibly fun and everything IS awesome. That's why.

5. "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" - Annie Lennox and Al Green

So this one I picked because I wanted something that made me think of the holidays without being an overt Christmas song. This one comes from the movie Scrooged, and as 80's supernatural comedies starring Bill Murray go, this one's a winner. I'm justifying not having anything Halloween-y on here (Like say... "Ghostbusters") because of this song from one of my favorite Creepmas classics.

As the uplifting swell you got from "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" starts to die down... you hear the tape-player click as it automatically switches directions and begins to play:

- Side B -

6. "Lonely Little Thrift Store" - Jonathan Richman

I am literally only aware of this song thanks to this blog post. I was curious to see if there were any other songs about thrift shopping, or antique stores, or secondhand stores out there that were also in ANY way worth listening to. And I stumbled upon this song about a lonely little thrift store. 

As tasteless as it is, I can't help but count: 

"Well the avocado green appliances/

with the smell of domestic violences/

and the dusty Farberware/

and the rusty dinette chair..." 

as one of my favorite and most surprising lyrics ever written. Awful... I know. But you have a pretty distinct image in your head now, don't you?

7. "Hooked on a Feeling" - Blue Swede

Yes I am obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy. But there's more to it than that. This song also screams "Reservoir Dogs" at me, and that memory is more deeply ingrained in my membrane than my fondness for Chris Elliot being brutalized in an alien prison is. The Reservoir Dogs ST was one of my MAIN draws for mixtape fodder in highschool. Soundtracks almost always were. (Great Expectations, The Crow, Pulp Fiction, Batman Forever, the list goes on and on for weird soundtracks with hidden gems amongst the track lists). Aaaaand... it also just happens to be in the Guardians of the Galaxy, which doesn't hurt. (But damned if there wasn't a bit of aural inspiration given to GotG's Awesome Mix, taken directly from Tarentino's own playlists).

8. "Frank Sinatra" - Cake

Cake is one of those weird bands that I played to DEATH. There's just not enough trumpet rock out there IMO. I had a hard time picking a song by them too... but finally settled on one that always evoked hauntingly clear pictures:

"We know of an ancient radiation

That haunts dismembered constellations,

A faintly glimmering radio station.

While Frank Sinatra sings Stormy Weather,

The flies and spiders get along together,

Cobwebs fall on an old skipping record. 

Beyond the suns that guard this roof,

Beyond your flowers of flaming truths,

Beyond your latest ad campaigns,

An old man sits collecting stamps

In a room all filled with Chinese lamps.

He saves what others throw away.

He says that he'll be rich some day."

Sounds like someone I'm growing old into.  

9. "On My Way" - Rusted Root

I desperately wanted to find a video clip of this song being played in the movie "Ice Age". I really liked this song back when it originally came out. It's a feel-good song. But it perfectly illustrates one of the things I loved the most about the very first Ice Age film: It was quirky and unexpected and ultimately it made you feel good without being too manic. This song appearing in a kid's movie exactly a DECADE after it was released as a popular song was bizarre and unexpected... but it fit the movie perfectly. I love this song for its carefree feeling but I kind of hate this video because it makes the band look like a bunch of douchey idiots dancing on rocks and hopping around like they're being spontaneous when they're really just not. And of course now they use it as a Rental Car company's theme... but I forgive it.

10. "The Rainbow Connection" - The Muppets (2011)

And I'm going to end the mixtape on the Muppets. I love this version of the song because of the way it builds and includes so many members of the cast. I almost went with "It's Not Easy Being Green" but I wanted something with a little more oomph, a little more pizzazz, a little more excitement to the lyrics. "Rainbow Connection" while still feeling a little wistful, is definitely the more upbeat of the two numbers.

So that's it! I thought this was a fantastic idea, and so I chose to grab it and run with it. I hope if you're a blogger, and you're reading this, that you'll do the same! I'll be back with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies another time... so until then Happy Hunting!

FINALLY... the Last 2 days of my 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes

So I completely boned that all up... But ah well. Let's finish up my 12 days of Christmas Cassettes, and then get things back to the regularly scheduled post-holiday programming. There's a lot to get caught up on. So here goes! 

Day 11: Some Rather Questionable Choices

One of the rules that I set for myself when collecting cassettes from Goodwill was this: Don't buy tapes ironically. Don't buy them for the sake of telling a joke or a visual punchline. I was only going to buy stuff that I genuinely LOVE. This Christmas countdown has been a pretty big exception to this rule in some cases, and no cassettes better demonstrate this breakdown of my personal code better than these two:

I mean, LOOK at these things!!! "Christmas Rap Music" by Crew X and "A Romantic Christmas" by John Tesh? Er. Mah. Gerd.

This thing goes so far back around from "good" that it travels completely through "bad" and almost back into "good" territory again. I'm pretty sure some of this music is going to be played in actual rotation with our Christmas playlists in the years to come. Every single track on this tape is a rap version of a classic Christmas song, with a few originals included as well. 

Track List (Not sure where side A ends and side B begins because this thing is still in its cellophane and I don't plan to open it any time soon)

1. The First Noel

2. Up on the Housetop

3. We Three Kings

4. Jingle Bells

5. O Little Town of Bethlehem

6. Deck the Halls

7. Joy to the World

8. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

9. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

10. Twelve Days of Christmas

11. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

12. The Christmas Rap

Even more questionable than a Christmas Rap album however is a collection of "Romantic Christmas" songs by John Tesh. Of course the question here is: how romantic can you make songs like "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" or "In a Child's Eyes" without going straight down to creepy town? Some of the songs are even accompanied by a boy's choir. This does not scream romance at my house. Disappointingly, these all seem to be instrumentals, so I guess John Tesh just wants to set a Christmas-y ambiance for sexy-time. There is no John Tesh lustily belting out double-entendre-laden lyrics for  "Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella," which just seems like a wasted opportunity.

-Side A-

1. O Little Town of Bethlehem

2. Gesu Bambino

3. It Came Upon a Midnight clear

4. The First Noel

5. Panis Angelicus

6. O Holy Night

7. Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

8. O Come All Ye Faithful

-Side B- 

9. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

10. The Coventry Carol

11. We Three Kings of Orient Are

12. Silent Night, Holy Night

13. Gloria In Excelsis Deo

14. The Homecoming

15. In a Child's Eyes

16. The Christmas Song

Day 12: A Couple of my Personal Classics

For my final day of the countdown I was going to feature two of my all-time favorite Christmas albums:

First up is "Twisted Christmas" from Bob Rivers Comedy Corp. This this has been on constant rotation for Christmas since I first heard it back in '87 or '88. My favorites are hands down "The 12 Pains of Christmas,""The Chimney Song," and "The Bathroom Door Said Gentlemen" but some other greats involve guest stints by Jack Nicholson and Elvis Presley.

-Side A- 

1. The Twelve Pains of Christmas

2. The Chimney Song

3. We Wish You Weren't Living With Us

4. Wreck the Malls

5. A Visit from St. Nicholson

-Side B- 

6. O Come All Ye Grateful Dead-Heads

7. I'm Dressin' Up Like Santa (When I Get Out on Parole)

8. The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen

9. Foreigners

10. Joy to the World

11. A Message From the King

And it just isn't Christmas until I've heard "The Chipmunk Song" at least once. It is a Christmas must-have as far as our playlist goes. 

-Side A- 

1. Here Comes Santa Claus

2. Up on the Housetop

3. Silver Bells

4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

5. Jingle Bells

-Side B-

6. Santa Claus is Coming to Town

7. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

8. Frosty the Snowman

9. White Christmas

10. The Chipmunk Song

So that was it! That was the end of the countdown that was supposed to end on Christmas. Instead, I was lucky to have it up before New Year's Eve. I'm sure you all count yourselves as very lucky indeed. What's that you say? More? You want more??? All right then. ONE LAST THING:

Here is an item that I have been meaning to post about for at least 2 Christmases now, and by GUM I am finally going to do it! This 7" record stars the 6 Million Dollar Man in "Elves Revolt" Here's the plot synopsis from Bionic.wikia.com:

• "Steve discovers that Santa's elves are in a labor dispute with their boss. Complaining of low wages and bad working condiions, they go an strike. Their "picket line" is literally formed by a terrorist elf named Ramat, whose scheme to bring Santa to the bargaining table involves melting the polar ice cap. Getting a report from the National Weather Service that the ice cap is melting at a rate of 1°/hour, Steve and Oscar rush to the North Pole to see if there's anything they can do to reverse the process. If not, the majority the northern hemisphere will be covered in water by Christmas. However, they are soon captured by Ramat and can do little more than talk to their fellow captive, Santa Claus, about his union problems. In the end, the foreman of the elves comes to his senses and orders his men to stop Ramat. When they do so, they are able to diffuse all the heating elements Ramat had emplaced, and the two sides of the labor dispute reconcile."

So there are union picket lines, terrorism, and global warming involved in this very special Six Million Dollar Man adventure. The copyright on this record is 1978, which is the same year I was born! I was pretty psyched to find this at Goodwill for only .99 cents, and still in the cellophane no less! Apparently there is a full sized record that contains 4 Christmas-themed Six Million Dollar Man adventures, and this is just one of them... But it's enough for me. Here. Give it a listen (It is bats**t INSANE.)

All right! Now I'm officially done for 2014! I will be back in the new year at some point with a semi-regular posting schedule, and LOTS of stuff to talk about that are literally MONTHS behind schedule. So look forward to that! 

I'll be back soon enough with some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! In the meantime, Happy Hunting! 

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 9 The King (Not that one)

(YES I KNOW TODAY IS LATE. Double posting today! Yeayah!)

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.)

So today I'm just focusing on an old classic in my family: The King himself... ELVIS. 

My family has been Elvis CRAZY as long as I can remember! My Aunt (the one who also loves Garfield) collects Elvis merchandise by the TON. She loves the man. So I grew up listening to Elvis in all his various different iterations and incarnations. This included Christmas Elvis to be sure.

And with Christmas comes an entire assortment of Christmas songs sung by the King himself. There is no such thing as a Christmas without Elvis. I honestly don't feel like sitting and listing off the tracks on these two tapes, but be assured, all of the classics are present and accounted for. "Blue Christmas" makes an appearance, "Here Comes Santa Claus" with its boppy, rockabilly beat... you name it, and its on one of these two cassettes.

Oops! Just tore off my panties and threw them at the screen. Guess I'll quit while I'm ahead. 

I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting!

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 7 ...and Now a Word From Our Sponsors

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.)

Today I'm featuring a couple of cassettes that jumped out at me for a couple of different reasons, not necessarily because of who performed them, or songs included... but mainly because of who was responsible for creating them. 

These are two Christmas music compilations that were sponsored by folks that I would not normally associate with Christmas... at least not initially. 

First up we have "Christmas with Courvoisier Cognac" performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. What we have here people, is a Christmas tape sponsored by a booze company.

The folks at Courvoisier keep it simple and instrumental here, because they know that once people get nice and boozed up they don't want a lot of confusing Christmas lyrics going on in the background to harsh their buzz.

-Side A- 

1. Deck the Halls

2. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

3. Angels We Have Heard on High

4. Adoramus Te, Christe

5. Silent Night

6. Adeste Fidelis

-Side B- 

7. The First Noel

8. Gesu Bambino 

9. What Child Is This? 

10. God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen

11. Coventry Carol

12. Joy to the World

And finally, we have a cassette created by the folks at True Value hardware stores. 

I don't know... I guess I just thought it was funny that a chain of hardware stores put together a collection of Christmas songs. AND... this thing has "The Night Before Christmas" performed by WILLARD SCOTT!!!

This guy. 

Oh whoops! I meant:

This guy. Merry Christmas.

-Side A-

1. Willard Scott - "The Night Before Christmas"

2. Julie Andrews - Hark! The Herald Angles Sing

3. Bing Crosby - O Holy Night

4. Garth Brooks - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

5. The Lettermen - What Child is This

6. Wayne Newton - Silent Night

7. Air Supply - Winter Wonderland

-Side B-

8. Nat "King" Cole - The Christmas Song

9. The Beach Boys - Frosty the Snowman

10. Glen Campbell - I'll Be Home For Christmas

11. Dean Martin - White Christmas

12. Anne Murray - O Come All Ye Faithful 

13. Andy Williams - Joy to the World

14. Ella Fitzgerald - It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

There's some genuinely great music in the mix here, with classics from the likes of Andy Williams, The Beach Boys, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Ella Fitzgerald, and Julie Andrews. Garth Brooks makes a sort of anachronistic appearance, and let's not kid anybody about it... I bought this thing for Willard Scott. And because a hardware chain put it together. 

I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting!

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 3 A Boy Band Christmas!

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.)

Today I will try to talk to you over the cacophony of thousands of  screaming teenaged girls (nevermind the fact that I am not speaking out loud, just play along) to bring you a pair of cassettes featuring a pair of boy band from two very different eras! 

First up we have the Beach Boys! Formed in 1961 in California, the Beach Boys are FAR from being the world's first boy band... but they came to the scene pretty early on. "Merry Christmas From the Beach Boys" is not an original Beach Boys Christmas album, and is instead an early 90's compilation of earlier Christmas songs released on different Christmas albums. But it still gets the Beach Boys Christmas vibe going. There's that haunting, almost hollow wall-of-wound thing they have going on and their classic sort of doo-wop sounding beach music that treats these songs pretty well. Here's the tracklist:

-Side A-
1. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
2. We Three Kings
3. Frosty the Snowman
4. Blue Christmas

-Side B-
5. I'll Be Home for Christmas
6. Little Saint Nick
7. White Christmas
8. Santa's Beard
9. Merry Christmas, Baby

The next cassette almost made me pee when I saw it at Goodwill. Finding a copy of "New Kids on the Block: Merry, Merry Christmas" was so exciting I'm sure Santa heard my squeal of glee all the way up at the North Pole. 

NKOTB was HUGE in the late 80's and "Merry, Merry Christmas" was released in 1989, the same year as the album "Hangin' Tough". Every girl I knew around the time I was 11 years old had posters of these guys GALORE plastered all over their rooms. Here's the track list: 

-Side A- 

1. This One's for the Children

2. Last Night I Saw Santa Claus

3. I'll Be Missin' You Come Christmas (A Letter to Santa Claus)

4. I Still Believe in Santa Claus

-Side B- 

5. Merry, Merry Christmas

6. The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

7. Funky, Funky, Xmas

8. White Christmas

9. Little Drummer Boy

10. This One's for the Children (reprise)

This is a very serious message. So all of you please listen. 

I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting!

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 2 Old Hollywood Holidays

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.)

So today's post is going to focus on a couple of actor/singers who made a name for themselves performing on stage, on screen, and in song. 

Lena Horne does an amazing version of "Jingle Bells" titled "Jingle All the Way" among many other jazzy, brassy covers of Christmas standards. Horne was a famous performer of the stage and screen all the way back from the forties up until the 90's when she finally retired. She has performed with greats such as Tony Bennett Harry Belafonte, and yes, even Bing Crosby. Her voice is brash and yet feminine, big and yet not obnoxious. The tracklist here includes:

-Side A-
1. Jingle All the Way
2. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
3. Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
4. Winter Wonderland

-Side B-
5. White Christmas
6. The Little Drummer Boy
7. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
8. The Christmas Song

Since Bing Crosby does possibly my FAVORITE version of "Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" it is almost impossible to extricate him from Christmas now for me (the possible exception being the fact that he does the Headless Horseman song from Disney's Sleepy Hollow short) and this makes a good collection of Bing Crosby Christmas music a necessity around the holidays. With a career that began in the 20's and didn't stop until the 70's, Crosby is fondly remembered for Holiday classics like "Holiday Inn" and "White Christmas. The tracklist on his tape includes:

-Side A-
1. Silent Night
2. White Christmas
3. Faith of Our Fathers
4. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
5. Adeste Fideles
6. I'll Be Home for Christmas

-Side B-
7. Jingle Bells
8. Christmas in Killarney
9. Silver Bells
10. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
11. Santa Claus is Comin' to Town
12. Mele Kelikimaka

And who can forget his truly bizarre but FANTASTIC duet with David Bowie?

I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting!

12 Days of Christmas Cassettes: 1 Story Time Favorites

Welcome to the Goodwill Hunting 4 Geeks 12 Days of Christmas celebration extravaganza!!! (Don't send me messages telling me that the 12 days of Christmas actually BEGIN on Christmas and end on January 6th, with the Epiphany. I know. But I'm not celebrating that way... so let us quickly move along.) 

2014 has been the year of me falling back in love with cassette tapes. Upon watching the Guardians of the Galaxy this summer, my old love of creating mix-tapes in high school was rekindled. BAck in highschool I was JUST transitioning from buying cassette tapes to buying CDs. But I was still making mix tapes to listen to in my car, or to give to friends. I have fond memories of owning cassettes, handling cassettes, and constantly organizing and reorganizing them. Because of this, as careful readers will note, all through my Halloween countdown this past October a good-sized pile of cassettes had made its way home with me from Goodwill. What readers could NOT have known was that I was also stockpiling cassettes of a Christmas persuasion in preparation for this 12-Day event!!!

My 2014 12-Day Christmas Countdown will be dedicated to Christmas cassettes!!! And to kick things off, I will be highlighting a couple of cassettes that feature Christmas books adapted to audio form! 

The first cassette is an audiobook recording of It's Christmas which is a collection of poems by Jack Prelutsky. I am a HUGE Prelutsky fan, and this collection of poems is one that gets read every single Christmas at our house. But here, the poems are being performed by the author himself, and by Alice Playten. There is music and singing included in the recording as well, making this a nice one to put on and play.

Here's a poem from the book that always makes my kids laugh:

Auntie Flo

Every year on Christmas

there's a gift from Aunti Flo,

she's sent me pairs of underwear

for three years in a row.

The box is always beautiful,

the bow is neatly tied,

but I'm always disappointed

when I see those shorts inside.

I wish she'd send a model plane,

or even a big stuffed bear,

I'd take a box of stones and rocks,

but please! no underwear. 

My wife says that when she gets a gift from her Auntie Flo is depresses her too. I didn't even know she HAD an Auntie Flo. 

Hm. 

Oh well. 

Finally we have the audiobook of Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas which is an amazing story from an amazingly talented poet/author as well. The cassette has the entire story narrated by Boris Karloff on Side A, and all of the songs from the TV special isolated on Side B. So this thing is basically the audio track from the TV special. And... I am completely fine with that. I own this audiobook/soundtrack/whatever-you-want-to-call-it on CD as well. 

Not a shabby set of cassettes to have to kick things off with, if I do say so myself! I'll be going right up through Christmas day itself posting, so be sure to join me back here tomorrow for more of the 12 Days of Christmas Cassettes celebration!!! Merry Christmas and Happy Hunting! 

Creepmas Day 8: Kandy Coated Kackles Vol. 14 Creepmas Music!!!

So this year I'm celebrating Creepmas! 

From the 13 Days of Creepmas website: 

"A reaction to the continuing incursion of Christmas into Autumn and Halloween, CREEPMAS is a good-natured chance for Halloween lovers to exact revenge by bringing some spooky good cheer into the holidays or, more appropriately, the Hallowdays..." Read more about the inspirations behind this 13 day celebration HERE. 

So today's post is going to focus on Christmas tunes with a Creepmas theme! Since 2012 Artist Zach Bellissimo has made an annual project of putting together a series of Halloween mixes he calls "Kandy Coated Kackles". That same year he put out a KCK mix for Christmas called "The Creeps of Christmas: Halloween Music for Christmas". (Here's a link to his TUMBLR page with download links and cover art for the first 17 vols. of Kandy Coated Kackles be sure to check out vol. 18 that he put out for Halloween this year as well!)

All of the artwork on the album covers is Bellissimo's own work. He does an amazing job on these.

The tracks in "The Creeps of Christmas" include:

1. Scariest Damn Night- Excerpt from "Silent Night, Deadly Night"
2. It's A Monster's Holiday- Buck Owens
3. What's This?- Danny Elfman
4. You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch- Thurl Ravenscroft
5. Santa & The Purple People Eater- Sheb Wooley
6. Chainsaw for Christmas- Zombina & The Skeletones
7. Gremlins Attack Santa- Excerpt from "Gremlins"
8. Halloween on Xmas- Coffin Caddies
9. Here Comes Krampus- Huizenga
10. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians Trailer
11. Christmas Rap- The Crypt Keeper
12. I Found the Brains of Santa Claus- Jason & The Strap- Tones
13. Dead as A Door Nail- Vincent Price
14. Shot My Baby For Christmas- The Vaudvilles
15. I Killed Santa Claus- The Creeping Cruds
16. Merry Monster Christmas- Len Maxwell
17. The Bumble- Excerpt from "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer"
18. Abominable Snowman in the Market- Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers
19. Making Christmas- Danny Elfman
20. Christmas with Krampus- Les Barons
21. Glory Amen- Those Poor Bastards
22. You Must Defeat Santa- Excerpt from "Santa Claus" 1959
23. Silent Night, Deadly Night- The White Coffin Terror
24. New Years Eve in a Haunted House- Raymond Scott
25. The Bite Before Christmas- The Cool Ghoul
26. Santa Claus is Coming to Town- Alice Cooper
27. If You See Santa Claus...- Excerpt from "Silent Night, Deadly Night"
28. Monster's Holiday- Bobby (Boris) Pickett & The Crypt Kickers
29. We Wish You A Scary Christmas- Disney's Haunted Mansion Holiday

Of course, in your hunt to find suitably creepy music for the Creepmas/Christmas season, you could do much worse than looking on the Creepmas site itself (though it may be a bit of a cheat to reference the site that invented the celebration...) for their recommendations of "Hallowday Music"! 

Happy 13 days of Creepmas! I'll be back tomorrow with another entry in the countdown, which may or may not involve a Goodwill Goody! Until then, Happy Hunting!

League Post: It's Just Not Summer Until...

I'm finally getting my butt in gear and doing another League of Extraordinary Bloggers post! So what is the topic this week you may ask?

What is it that defines "Summer" for this Goodwill Geek? Hmmm... let's think. I have a few I can think of right off the bat. Like... 

The constant hum of fans around the house! Maine in the summer time is actually pretty hot. Not as hot as the southern states, sure, but we're not the frozen tundra that people seem to think we are. Day or night at our house, we keep these things going as long as we're home and in the room we're trying to cool off for any period of time. We sleep with them going all night long, which makes it so that when Fall comes, and we pack the fans away, I actually have trouble falling asleep without the white noise going in the background.

The doors of our house stay open pretty much ALL the time, except when we're either not there or sleeping. What's weird is how much like a sauna the house gets when it is several degrees cooler outside some days.

Tiger lillies! These things are ALL around our house, and exploding this time of year. And they're one of my favorite flowers. There are also a handful of songs that just never fail to make me feel like Summer is HERE. I don't have as many of these as I do Halloween or Christmas songs... but here's a few. I realize some of these feel a bit "On the nose" when it comes to Summer listening... but that's the kind of unsubtle guy I am.

They Might Be Giants are an all-year sort of band for me, to be sure... but this song is LITERALLY about the Sun. Doesn't really get much more summer-y than that. And I love jumping around with my kids to this song!

Yes, it's SUPER cheesy and cliche... but I can't hear anyone even SAY the word "Summer" without bursting into this song. I mean this almost as near-literal as I can, too. I'm one of those weirdos who finds lyrics that match almost everything people around me say and then just... sort of... belt them out. 

I am a HUGE Louis Armstrong fan. And this version of "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess is slow and sleek and sexy. Ella Fitzgerald's vocals are like nothing else on this planet. This whole song makes you feel the slow, sweaty, tired pressure of a Summer heat. 

Sandals. I pretty much wear nothing but sandals until Fall comes. Same for my wife. My daughter is all about the flip-flops, and my two boys are pretty much barefoot unless we make them put shoes on.

The pets spend a lot more time outdoors this time of year, especially since Pumpkin the bunny lives in a pen upstairs in our daughter's room, and would probably bake if we left him up there all day long.

Pumpkin and the AT-AT I've brought into the family have been getting to know each other pretty well actually.

In the Summer we also pretty much relinquish our backyard to the ants. They get REALLY bad and REALLY aggressive. These two pictures are from the kids' SLIDE in the backyard.

Mowing the lawn is a test of fortitude in the sweltering heat and wave upon wave of fire ant attacks. It's for real a total Empire of the Ants back there:

I posted this for both of you. You know who you are.  

The sweet, delicious taste of freezer pops. Whether you call them Fla-Vor-Ice or Otter Pops... these things are a STAPLE of Summer. As is...

I am always sad to see these tubular freezer pops (seemingly filled with various types of automotive fluid when you pick them up unfrozen) disappear from the grocery stores every year. I should really stock up. The sweet golden one pictured above is pineapple flavored. 

And speaking of pineapple flavored... here is my new favorite Summer beverage. ACE Pineapple Cider. Adults only. This is hard cider of which I have become a fan. I'm all about the Fox Barrel, the Angry Orchard, the Original Sin, the Johnny Appleseed, and now the ACE. Please drink responsibly.

Or don't. 

I'm not your mother.

You will be hard pressed to find a day when the Goodwill Geek's family doesn't go swimming. We have a pond called Webb's which is just a seven minute drive from the house. So we spend quite a bit of time there. The boys got new floaty rings this year, and they LOVE them.

And finally, it's not really Summer until we've made one of our trips out to Sand Beach. Sand Beach is out on Mount Desert Island, and takes us about an hour drive to reach. We don't go every weekend, but we go fairly often. It is deliciously cold, and salty, and sandy, and refreshing. Here's a poem I wrote for my daughter about 4 years ago about our trips to Sand Beach:

Sand Beach

Sandy beach and sandy butts.

Sandy feet and sandy guts.

Sandy eyes, and sandy hair...

We are sandy everywhere.

Sandy beach with water cold.

Only swim if you feel bold.

Better off in warm lagoons,

to splash and laugh like crazy loons. 

Sandy beach and sandy fun

seems to fly... and then its done.

In the car, we wave "adieu"

Sleepy. Happy.

Sandy, too.

--Derek Ash, 2010

There's actually so much more than all this that just screams "summer" at me... but I'm just glad that Summer actually IS HERE. It was such a long and painful winter for me that the Summer is such a relief. And of course another Fall and another Halloween is just around the corner... but for now I am content to sit on the beach in my sandals with my ice-pop running down my arm. 

Let's see what says "Summer" to the rest of the League, shall we? 

- Go Play Listen shares some Summery tunes. 

- The Nerd Nook takes us on an entire tour of Summer!

- Jathniel talks about Summertime in Sin City. 

- Our fearless leader over at Cool & Collected talks about the Summer necessity of the Big Budget Summer Blockbusters!

- The Geeky Vixen has her own (kick-ass) list of Summer essentials, including movies, roadtrips, and to hunting! 

That's all I have tonight kids! I'll be back soon to show off some Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting! 

Halloween Countdown Day 21: Cool Stuff Around the Web

So I'm going to kind of hurry through this one tonight kids.

I just want to show-case some Awesome Halloween-y stuff I've discovered around the web recently.

First up:

I noticed over at the Strange Kids Club site that Kandy Coated Kackles is back! Zach Bellissimo is up to the 17th volume of his Halloween Mixtapes with his own original cover artwork. This one is called TOKYO ATTACK!!! As you can see there is a slight (but not annoyingly pervasive) Kaiju theme to this year's mix. You can also go to Bellissimo's own Tumblr to download all the other 16 volumes of KCK. I think even more than the music itself, I love Bellissimo's album art. 

Next we have the short film "Larson's Field" which is a spooky little Halloween tale that I feel like I can't really talk too much about without giving too much away. Let's just say that the gnarled-looking hand you see above is something that will come back to haunt these kids on Halloween. The kids' acting is in turns prett good and not-so-good, but this short film still manages to be spooky, funny, and reminiscent of more than one movie that has come before it. 

Tintod, over at Junk Fed shares a post this week that was quite frankly one of the best Halloween blog posts I've ever read. It his own Halloween history, and it details some really fun, really personal, and really just plain nostalgic stuff. The personal connections he makes between Halloween and his family relationships stirred up all kinds of emotions in me, not the least of which was just a wistful longing to be a kid at Halloween again.  

Finally, I wanted to end with a little local lore and legend... The story of Catherine's Hill is a story that everyone in my area is aware of. Many people I know swear up and down that they've had encounters with the ghostly Catherine. I live about 3 miles from this part of the Blacks Woods and Fox pond, and I know the area is both eerie and beautiful. About 4 years ago, local news station WABI did a little news piece about Catherine's Hill, and it was a fun, shivery little piece of reporting. Marcus LiBrizzi, who is interviewed in the piece, is one of my wife's professor's at UMaine Machias. Any time she has to make a trip out to the campus she drives down the Blacks Woods road and up Catherine's Hill. My favorite part of the whole piece is when he mentions that he thinks something far OLDER resides in those woods than an of the local legends would suggest... Enjoy! 

Well, that's it for me tonight kids! I'll be back tomorrow with some Groovy-Ghoulie Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Haunting!

Be sure to check out all of the great blogs participating in this year's Halloween Countdown! You can do so by clicking this link, or clicking on the Cryptkeeper 2013 banner on the sidebar to the right! Also, check out the "Blog-O-Ween" Halloween Blog collective, again by following this link, or through the badge on the sidebar! Thanks!

2 Things I Learned Thanks to Daylight Savings TV

So thanks to Daylight Savings time this morning I was up abnormally early for a Sunday morning. Actually both my almost-2-year-old and I were the first 2 up and my wife followed along shortly thanks to the clock change.

So we camped out on the couch and explored the myriad options of early morning cable viewing.

It changed my life.

See how after the jump!

Day 9: This is Halloween! (LoEB Style!)

I'm postponing the rest of my Top 10 Kid's Books for Halloween for a couple of days, because it's League of Extraordinary Bloggers time again!

This week we're fitting the Countdown with a topic that is near and dear to my heart: Halloween traditions!

This is Halloween! This is Halloween! What are your Halloween traditions?

Let me take you on a tour of the Halloween traditions going on at the Goodwill Geek's house on and around Halloween!

See more after the jump!