Does anybody else's town hold a Halloween festival like mine?

[drbuzzo]

Every year my town holds a Halloween festival. This year, I decided
not to go, because to be honest…I find it very strange and kinda
creepy. I was wondering if anybody else's town holds any kind of unusual or unorthadox Halloween festival, as mine does. Does this sound like your town?


Before the festival, holes are dug around the festival ground and
covered with a cloth. When the festival begins the town snake
charmers emerge from these hiding places. What a sight they are!
Their bodies have been completely plucked clean of all trace of hairs
and all exposed skin is painted gold. They wear elaborate costumes,
decorated with semi-precious stones. Each costume is meant to
appease a different corporate executive. Jack Welsh, Michael Eisner,
Bill Gates, Warren Buffet are all represented.

The snake charmers will go to each little boy in the town. They will
check him to see if he is circumcised. If he is circumcised they
will clap their hands and reach into their basket. The basket would
normally contain a snake, but not for the Halloween festival!
Instead the snake charmer's hand emerges with a potato, which he gives
the boy. The boy, by tradition, will bring the potato home and carve
it into the shape of his favorite golden-era ocean liner. One of my
brothers did the Aquatania. The other one is too old to get a potato
this year, but in years past he has done the Normandy, the Olympic and
the Andrea Dorea.

If the boy is not circumcised the snake charmer will stamp his feet
and blow his whistle to alert the village elders. The elders come
out from their gazebo, where they had been sitting drinking Irish
coffee and waiting for the sound of a whistle. They wear ceremonial
masks of former secretary of state Warren Christopher. He is believed
to bring fertility and a bountiful harvest. The confirm that the boy
is not circumcised and lead him away to the platform. They walk him
up the 81 steps to the top of the platform, which towers above the
festival.

On the platform, the high priests strip the young boy and lay him out
on the alter. One of the priests takes out a sharpening stone and
uses it to sharpen a fresh flint knife. When the knife is sharp
enough to split a human hair, the priest approaches the boy and
anoints him with the holy oils. Then the boy is thrown from the
platform onto the top of the festival bonfire.

The bonfire burns through out the festival and what a sight it is!
It does not burn wood, but rather magnesium metal. Everyone is
encouraged to start at the bonfire as much as possible. Many people
regain a good portion of their sight within a couple months. But for
those who have damaged their eyes sufficiently to be classified as
"legally blind" by the DMV, there will be special honors at the next
years festival!

People sing and dance. There is wild pheasant, leaks, water
chestnuts, mangos, pork fat and mustard powder for everyone to enjoy.
People tell stories about the Korean War to the sound of the audio
from old news reels, played over the loud speakers.

As the festival winds down, the snake charmers take to the stage and
begin their dance to the sound of the blues band. When the dance is
finished they wave goodbye and march single file to their waiting
canoes, they paddle out into the middle of the lake and there they
ingest their cyanide tablets. They stand up in their canoes an face
the crowed. Everybody holds their breath as they wait to see which
one falls over first as the poison begins to take its effect. We
make friendly wagers on this.

At the end of the festival, 12 doves are released from their cages
under the platform. They are released one by one and fly into the
night sky. Then, one by one, the town's marksmen shoot them down.
The children all run to try to be the one to catch the falling bird's
body. If they catch it, they are rewarded by not having to endure
any electrical shocks, as all the others do!

In the past, at the festival they handed out "bomb candy" which people would take home. It looked like candy, and anybody who didn't know (such as newcomers) was told it was just large pieces of candy. They were told to take it home and eat it. When the wrapper was unwrapped, the squeels of glee from children as well as the bang of the bomb candy. Because, the bomb candy was not really candy at all, but rather was a military demolition ordiance with a fuse that ignited it when exposed to the air.

No! Of course, the bomb candy didn't kill anyone! (most of the time) My town is not sick. The bomb candy was rarely powerful enough to be fatal. But many an arm or hand was blown off. Some were able to be reconstructed. Most were not. If you lost your arm, then it meant you had to give something back to the community. Your lawn mower and barbeque grill were quickly swept away by the town's seceret police, and taken to the North Atlantic to be dropped into the water, thus creating an artificial reef for our beloved marine life.

The tradition of bomb candy stopped because it was discovered that coral does not grow in the North Atlantic and also as our way of honoring the sacrafice of Apollo 1, Columbia, Challanger, Soyuze-10 and any other missions in which life was lost in the peruite of space exploration. For their sacrafice, we sacrafice the joy that the bomb candy brought us.

This might sound odd to you, but it is our tradition. It reminds us
of who we are and allows us to keep in touch with our ancestors.


-Steve

[igofast]

The formating of this post stinks of plagurism.....

[Bo]

Wow, you do that in your town too?! I thought we were the only ones.

[igofast]

Originally Posted by Betty

Wow, you do that in your town too?! I thought we were the only ones.

Ha. I didn't even read it until your post prompted me to see what it was he said they did.

[Bear Stories]

What gave it away, Betty, was it the circumcision by the snake charmer?

[drbuzzo]

Alright wise ass.. First, if it was plagerized, why the typographical errors (I am sure it has them). And secondly. If you can find it on the internet, I will personally paypal you $1000. And find it with some kind of date associated with the page that is older than half an hour ago.

Do I have $1000 to give you? Does it matter? No, becasue you're not gona find it on the internet.

I'm serious. Take any unique passage from it and put it in quotes. Look on your favorite search engine! Or try a title for it! Try newsgroups too. Try FTP. Try file sharing.

You know what? You're not going to find it

The chances of you finding it only exist if somebody created it word per word the same. The chance of that does exist, I suppose. But is roughly the same chance as all the particles in my body realigning themselves into one of the Olsen twins' bedrooms. As much as I would like that, I have to be honest withmyself and know that it just ain't in the cards.

So there ya go. Find it, smartass

[Bo]

Temper temper...
That kind of attitude gets people booted.

[Bear Stories]

Originally Posted by drbuzzo

Alright wise ass.. First, if it was plagerized, why the typographical errors (I am sure it has them). And secondly. If you can find it on the internet, I will personally paypal you $1000. And find it with some kind of date associated with the page that is older than half an hour ago.

Do I have $1000 to give you? Does it matter? No, becasue you're not gona find it on the internet.

I'm serious. Take any unique passage from it and put it in quotes. Look on your favorite search engine! Or try a title for it! Try newsgroups too. Try FTP. Try file sharing.

You know what? You're not going to find it

The chances of you finding it only exist if somebody created it word per word the same. The chance of that does exist, I suppose. But is roughly the same chance as all the particles in my body realigning themselves into one of the Olsen twins' bedrooms. As much as I would like that, I have to be honest withmyself and know that it just ain't in the cards.

So there ya go. Find it, smartass

You have to admit, I'm going to be a little bit curious about someone who will essay about snake charmers and then call me a wise ass.

What a juxtaposition that is; tribal ritual and the Olsen twins.

Apparently he's a bushman who watches the E! channel?

[drbuzzo]

Okay. Explaination for the formatting. I typed part of it in a work processor and then cut and pasted it to the post box. Then I decided to add some stuff to it. The stuff I added to it, for some reason, goes all the way to the end of the forum, but the part I typed in the word processor has a carrage-return before that.

[No_Brakes]

I've heard it's tough for fiction writers to find an agent these days, but I would never have thought this was the sort of thing one had to resort to.

Oh well, if it works for you, more power to you, I guess.

[Bo]

What was the inspiration for the piece?

...besides halloween

[Bo]

Originally Posted by Bear Stories

What gave it away, Betty, was it the circumcision by the snake charmer?

I thought the bomb candy was the funniest part, in a sick kinda way.

[Bear Stories]

Originally Posted by Betty

I thought the bomb candy was the funniest part, in a sick kinda way.

Well, honey, there's just something not quite right about you in the head.

It's all good, man, we still love you........



(and sending you the info on some support groups your way)

[drbuzzo]

Well...I initally wrote it to try to impress a girl. I sent it to her by e-mail. I haven't heard back from her yet.

Some dude named Marshall dropped off a letter reguarding her recently, which I had to sign, but I haven't bothered reading it yet.

He said something about her wanting to see me again though. Apparently she wants to meet me at the court, which is cool with me, because we both like tennis!

-Steve

[Bear Stories]

Originally Posted by drbuzzo

Well...I initally wrote it to try to impress a girl. I sent it to her by e-mail. I haven't heard back from her yet.

Some dude named Marshall dropped off a letter reguarding her recently, which I had to sign, but I haven't bothered reading it yet.

He said something about her wanting to see me again though. Apparently she wants to meet me at the court, which is cool with me, because we both like tennis!

-Steve

And this is a curiosity for you?

[No_Brakes]

Originally Posted by drbuzzo

Well...I initally wrote it to try to impress a girl. I sent it to her by e-mail. I haven't heard back from her yet.

Some dude named Marshall dropped off a letter reguarding her recently, which I had to sign, but I haven't bothered reading it yet.

He said something about her wanting to see me again though. Apparently she wants to meet me at the court, which is cool with me, because we both like tennis!

-Steve

[drbuzzo]

Eh. I don't know.

Marshall must be a friend of hers. He told me some kinda kinky stuff about her though.

He said she wants to "restrain" me. I guess she's a bit of a wild woman and obviously she must really have it for me! I don't know about restraints though. I mean, I'm willing to try new things and be experimental, but bondage has really never apealed to me.

I told Marshall that I was't into the whole restraint thing. He said we're gona talk about that on our next date, the one where we're gona play tennis!

[Katalina]

On the platform, the high priests strip the young boy and lay him out
on the alter. One of the priests takes out a sharpening stone and
uses it to sharpen a fresh flint knife. When the knife is sharp
enough to split a human hair, the priest approaches the boy and
anoints him with the holy oils. Then the boy is thrown from the
platform onto the top of the festival bonfire.

Is the tennis court near the altar?

[drbuzzo]

uh not sure where the Tennis court is though.

Apparently though things are starting to go well with her. Probably because of what I wrote. I called her house but she didn't answer. I called again and again. Still no answer. FINALLY, I got through. She wasn't home though, but her brother was over.

He got all threatening with me. He's kinda a tough guy. So I told him "look, your sister is obviously really interested in me and I know you're a protective big brother, but you gotta give her some freedom."

Well, he calmed down. I guess he's a pretty generous guy, because he said if I came over he "had some Led for me." I told him that's really cool, I love them. I mean they really rock. And it's super generous to offer it to me when he doesn't know me. But I already have all the Zeppelin albums as CD's and I even have a bunch of them on vynal, but I don't listen to them anymore.

I told him that if he wants to get to know me better we could get togeather some time and hang, because obviously he has good taste in music. I really like old rock like that.

He said he'd be waiting for me. Nice guy, it turns out.

The moral of this story: Even people who you start off on the wrong foot with can turn out to be really cool if you just try to make peace!

-Steve

[igofast]

Ah, we have a new comedian.