My hair has needed cut(ted) for way too long now.

I was starting to look like a baglady.

Plus the pie party is tomorrow and god forbid I should get HAIR tangled in my PIE-forking.

Anyway, I’m going back to the salon in a few weeks so Lucia can start the Back to Blond process.

Enough’s enough.

This concludes a very boring post about nothing other than my hair.

As a sort of foreword to the opinion I’m about to drop, I’d like to start by saying that Craigery Owens is someone who has touched my heart over the years. So much that I paid someone to paint a small portrait of him, which hangs on my wall. So much that I drove to Cleveland to see his solo performance and also give him one of my own paintings, which he inspired. So much that I cried when I heard of his suicide attempt during the summer of 2008.

That being said, you can imagine that I, like so many of his staunch supporters, was really upset when he was let go from Chiodos last fall. Like, heart-droppingly upset. Like “this must be some sort of a mistake” upset. And like so many of you, I felt betrayed by Chiodos and I vowed to not give a shit about any future music they might happen to produce if they had the balls to carry on without their signature voice.

But then I thought back to the winter of 2008 when they met my son, who was not quite two-years-old yet, and took such a genuine liking to him (particularly ex-drummer Derrick Frost). And that memory started to dissipate my anger. That memory enabled me to remember that Chiodos was not ever just Craig Owens. It was also Bradley, Derrick, Pat, Jason and Matt. And each one of those guys is overloaded with talent in their own right.

There are always two sides.

When the Craigery-less Chiodos announced the addition of new singer Brandon Bolmer last year, my first thought was, “Poor dude. Poor, poor dude.” The shoes he was about to step into were not only huge, but sacred in this scene.

Live videos began popping up on YouTube. Videos of the new Chiodos, with Brandon singing “Letter From Janelle.”

“This is like sacrilege,” I thought. But then I saw a video of a new song, “Caves,” and I realized that this new singer kind of had a nice voice. And this new song was kind of better than nice.

And you know what else? Craig seemed to quickly bounce back and soon began piquing his fans’ interests with cryptic tweets about new music, a new band. Knowing that made me feel relieved, kind of like finding out your ex was dating again so you didn’t have to feel guilty anymore for moving on. I realized I could support Chiodos and Craig at the same time, that there was no real post-hardcore “bro code” telling me this was unacceptable.

I pre-ordered Chiodos’ “Illuminaudio” without so much as a twinge of guilt. And when it arrived the other day, I was no more than 30 seconds into the first track when the tears began to fall, goosebumps done sprung. It made me realize that all the times I described something as breath-taking? I was lying. It took Illuminaudio to literally make me momentarily stop breathing for me to learn that lesson. Chiodos succeeded in weaving 12 tracks together with more craftmanship than your grandma’s Amish-made quilt.

In a recent interview in Alternative Press, Brandon had expressed concern that he would not be well-received by the hardcore fans of Craigery-era Chiodos. Brandon, I am here to tell you to stop your worrying. Those big shoes? They spillith over, my friend.

Brandon doesn’t try to emulate Craig’s vocals. He sings with heart and conviction; he brings with him an urgency that’s perfectly synced with the tight music chugging out behind him. This album is twelve songs sung by a man who has something to prove, backed by the intense post-hardcore metallics of a band who have something to prove.

One listen was all it took to make me a believer in Chiodos v.2.

This is a brand new Chiodos. This is a finely aged Chiodos.

So there’s a new singer. Bummer city. But this is still your Chiodos, bare-footed Jason Hale, keyboard-lurching Bradley Bell and all, who practically bled out in a studio to make a record for you. Don’t turn your backs on them. I have a feeling they might even recruit some of those vitriolic, Absolute Punk-trolling bashers of Craig Owens’ love-it-or-hate-it falsetto. Change is hard, I know. But if we all stay strong and braid each others hair, I promise you we can survive a line-up change.

Still can’t justify giving your Chiodos boycott a reprieve? Then you’re depriving yourself of a fucking anthemic, brilliantly accomplished album that segues with flawless cohesion between the scourgingly heavy (“Modern Wolf Hair”) and the shimmering melodic (“Notes in Constellations”). You’re missing out on the earworm-breeding (“Caves” – have you heardthis song? I challenge you to listen and not get it lodged in your cochlea. It’s hypnotic.)And with Mr. T’s ferocity I pity the fool who passes up a guest spot that will make all the scene girls squeal* (Pierce the Veil’s Vic Fuentes in the tongue-in-cheek “Love Is a Cat From Hell”). Sucks to be you. If you need me, I’ll just be over here in the corner, blissed out on Illuminaudio. And soon I’ll add the product of Craig’s new band, D.R.U.G.S., to the rotation. I guess I’m just greedy like that.

*Fine. I’m one of those squealing scene girls.

I really do live for fucking with Marcy. Deep down, she loves it. Just like Henry does, too.

Neon ketchup bottles, the Warhol Museum, monuments for Mister Rogers, Mount Washington, inclines, and enough Steelers memorabilia to make any visiting eyeballs hemorrhage black and gold – all pretty standard tourism fare for Pittsburgh. Where’s a person to go if they have a penchant for human remains in jars, taxidermy mash-ups, and enough antique murder weapons to arm a small colony?

Trundle Manor, Pittsburgh’s own little Wunderkammer.

Thank god for Roadside America for alerting me to such a wondrous haven in my own town. My fingers had barely given my eyes a chance to  jog over the description of “House of Oddities” before they were impatiently clicking over to the website.

Four seconds later, I was already trying to figure out when I was going and with whom. I texted my brother Corey the link and he immediately replied with a confident “Ya I’ll go.” We planned for Sunday, September 26th, since he would be in town that day from college. The website says to call or text Mr. ARM for an appointment. I was glad for the texting option.

“Um, I’m gonna guess it’s that house,” Corey said as we stood cluelessly in the middle of Juniata Street in Swissvale; he pointed to a house with an eerie green spotlight on top of a small hill. There was a definite sense of apprehension. Trundle Manor is an actual residence, not a for-profit museum. And since it was relatively late on a Sunday night, something told me we wouldn’t be taking a tour of the place huddled safely in the center of a traveling group of fanny-packed septuagenarians.

A coffin leaning against the house was the first thing we saw after climbing the steps to the porch.

I rang the doorbell (or maybe I knocked; I know these details matter to you) and we waited. Not knowing what we were walking into gave me the same bladder-molesting apprehension that occurs while waiting in line for a haunted house; I half-expected something to spring forth from that coffin. But nothing ever did, because Trundle Manor isn’t some dime a dozen haunted attraction.

It’s much better than that.

Before we could change our minds and flee from the house like two school children attempting to corral their lost ball from the neighborhood witch’s back yard, the heavy wooden door pulled open and we were greeted by a pretty, corseted blond in heels. She introduced herself as Rachel and explained that Mr. ARM would be out momentarily. We stood nervously in the foyer, which Rachel said is also known as the game room.

“Because there’s a dart board on the back of the door,” she explained, closing the door behind us. And it was officially too late to back out.

Rachel led us into the dining room, where Mr. ARM emerged with a flourish from the back side of red velvet curtains. He passed off one of the two rock glasses in his hand to Rachel and apologized for not greeting us at the door. “You can’t stop in the middle of mixing a good drink,” he explained, and Corey and I laughed nervously. And the tour commenced.

The dining room had cabinets displaying old medical mementos – scalpels, syringes, barbaric relics of dentistry which Rachel joked could be impregnating us with cancer at that very moment. There was a mannequin fitted with a vintage mourning jacket, and Mr. ARM gave us a brief history lesson on professional mourners, which sounds like something my funeral will definitely need.

Mr. ARM, who has lived in Pittsburgh his whole life and has a lot to say to the haters, has been collecting these oddities since he was seven. In addition to residing in a veritable Arcadia of artifacts, Mr. ARM is a talented steampunk artist with a remarkable moustache. (He keeps his first moustache framed in the foyer.) And Rachel is no schlep -in addition to being Mr. ARM’s muse, she’s also a talented artist with a flair for costumery.

Mr. ARM’s talking Lilliputian.

Back in the foyer (and next to the framed moustache), Mr. ARM revealed what I considered to be the pièce de résistance of the house: Olivia’s Tumor. It’s a real tumor gifted to Mr. ARM by his bellydancer friend Olivia, straight from her uterus. (I mean, it may have been fondled by some doctors first, but that’s besides the point.) Olivia said he could have it only if he gave it a proper display case. At this point in the story, Mr. ARM whipped the cover off the dome to reveal the tumor, and music began playing from the two little horns. It was sensational.

(The tumor was benign and Olivia is OK, which made me feel less of an asshole for enjoying the sight of a singing neoplasm.)

The final leg of the tour was held in the parlor, which had low, ambient lighting, an antique organ and a cornucopia of suspended death in jars. Antlers jutted from the walls and a zebra-striped rug covered the center of the floor.

And there was a jackalope.

“That’s everyone’s favorite piece,” Mr. ARM noted, referring to a taxidermied duckling perched atop a turtle; placed on a tall table in the middle of the room, they served as the parlor’s focal point. “The tagline is ‘All I did was drill a hole in a turtle?'” Mr. ARM said with a shrug. For some reason I didn’t get the punchline until later that night, at which point I laughed out loud.

The atmosphere of Trundle Manor was full of minutia which pandered perfectly to each one of the senses: the music of Henry Hall wafting from the rafters was accentuated by the clinking of ice swirling in properly mixed drinks; a musky aroma filled the room each time Mr. ARM puffed on his cigar, the smoke of which undulated around his impeccably coiffed hair. It was easy to forget that the year was 2010 not 1920.

Corey and I sat on a couch while Rachel and Mr. ARM wowed us with stories of their collections and future projects they’re planning.

“He asked me if I wanted to cut up squirrels,” Rachel said, recalling how she won the title of Mr. ARM’s muse. “So that’s what we did for our first date.” All I can say is thank god she said yes, because they’re a creative force to be reckoned with and, on top of curating a house of oddities, they’re also afficionadoes of the art of villainy.

Rachel dug out a photo of them from last year’s Zombie Fest in which Mr. ARM was the villain and she was the girl tied to the railroad tracks. I think that might have been the point where I blurted out, “You guys are my heroes.”

Hanging along the bottom of a cabinet was a row of old, rusty, and quite well-used cleavers. “This one is  my favorite,” Mr. ARM said, taking one off  and passing it over to us. It was heavy and misshapen; I had immediate red-tinged visions of using it.

“I always say, anything that can fit down my pants is free to take,” Mr. ARM said, after admitting to stealing some of the cleavers.

“What’s in that up there?” Corey asked, pointing to a large jug half-full of murky, sanguine fluid.

“Squirrels,” Rachel answered. “We had so many squirrels in the freezer that I couldn’t fit in any groceries, so I made him move them,” she explained with nonchalance. (It should be noted that Rachel and Mr. ARM do not harm living animals.)

Despite the sensory overload on the eyeballs, my favorite part of the night was – honestly – just sitting around with the ingenious Trundle Manor residents, talking about Pittsburgh and listening to their ideas and philosophies. They seemed genuinely interested in learning about Corey and me, as well, so we felt less lame about ourselves. (“Jesus Christ, I walked in there wearing a DC hoodie and Nikes,” Corey laughed on the way home, after I commented on how plain and boring we look on the outside.) There is not a single drop of pretentiousness in their blood; they’re down to Earth eccentrics with a willingness to share their work with the public and I left their abode feeling intellectually fulfilled. They even invited us back for their Victorian Sideshow Circus Halloween party, which I tried to tell Henry about when I came home that night, but I’m not sure he was able to decipher that from all my high-pitched squealing.

Visiting Trundle Manor was perhaps one of the best ideas I’ve had in awhile. If you’re ever passing through Pittsburgh and want to spend an hour or so examining creepy artifacts and perhaps even stepping outside of your comfort zone, I urge you to check it out. Just don’t forget to bring a dime if you want to see the 10 Cent Attraction.

About a year and a half ago, I drew a heart for Alisha.

Yesterday, she had it tattooed on her arm. Might just be the greatest compliment ever.

Hoo boy, it’s that time of year again.  Henry the Work Horse has set up his station at the dining room table and has already been churning out Christmas cards. So before he has a chance to take a breather, I figured I’d remind the rest of the Internet that serial killer holiday cards do in fact exist.

In addition to the ones pictured above, I’m working on some new cards for the 2010 season. Be on the look out for some jolly H.H. Holmes action and a mistletoe-thrusting Aileen Wuornos.

And for a limited time, just for you Oh Honestly, Erin readers, I’m offering a BOGO promotion. Just leave me a “message to seller” on Etsy upon check out and include the code THREE PIEROGIES, then let me know which card you’ve selected as the freebie.

Don’t see your favorite murderer pictured above? Leave a comment and tell me who should be on the next card!

Drove all the way to Wayne, Michigan today to hang up my bathroom plaque at Warriors 3.

OK fine – and to hang out with the shop’s proprietors!

Be back later. Peace out, girl scout!

(PS Bill just said Pink Floyd sucks and my left eyeball shot out from the sheer idiocy of that statement.)

There was a bakery box on my desk when I got to work last night. A small yellow post-it was labeled “Chooch-cakes” – Kaitlin had baked get well cupcakes for Chooch.

I seriously almost cried, it was so thoughtful!

“I tried to make some of them as much like zombies as possible,” Kaitlin pointed out.

“But since I’m scared to death of them, I don’t keep a lot of zombie provisions on hand.”

Co-workers kept stopping in their tracks, noticing the bakery box on my desk. Once they learned why it was given to me, you could almost see their brains churning out self-injury ideas so they could get their own sympathy treats from Kaitlin.

After work, I got in the car and showed Chooch. He honestly lit up; bloody, bruised lip and all.

He immediately tore into one of the zombie cakes, which left a blood-like smear all over his mouth.

Memories!

But at least THIS blood was edible.

He was so happy. It meant so much to me that Kaitlin would do something so thoughtful for my son, whom she hasn’t even met.

Of course, Henry ate 95% of the contents of the box which I think is bullshit, considering he wouldn’t let me bash him in the mouth with a slab of concrete first.

Goddamn Henry.

If you’re a zombie fanatic, you might know that Pittsburgh is pretty much a Babylon for enthusiasts of the staggering undead. Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were both filmed nearby, considering George Romero (and Tom Savini) is from the area. Monroeville Mall (the mall from Dawn of the Dead) even has a small (but growing!) zombie museum inside a collectible toy store. The proprietor of the museum sent out a Facebook invitation to a zombie car wash which was going to be held in the mall parking lot.

Chooch is really into zombies; this isn’t a newsflash to anyone. He expressed interest in attending the car wash, but I kept having flashbacks to his zombie birthday party when seeing Bill all made-up into a walking corpse freaked Chooch out so bad that he scrambled into the car and cowered on the floor under the steering wheel. The whole way to the mall, Henry and I prepped him.

“You know it’s not real, right?”

“They’re just people with make-up on.”

“It’s for charity so don’t fuck this up!”

The proceeds of the car wash went to the Animal Rescue League, so it was even more incentive to go out and support the zombie laborers.

Chooch was a little taken aback for the first few seconds, but then found true love in the form of a Bettie Page-esque zombie-girl in a bloodied white dress. She kept staggering over to his window while we sat in the line of cars awaiting our team. He was completely smitten.

This dude was sincerely freaking me out. He was wearing coveralls that said “Jake.” If you’re ever in the market for an intimidating tune-up, you should hire him.

I kept saying, “Look, he’s one of Blake’s friends” and I bet Blake would have pissed if he was there. “WHY BECAUSE HE LOOKS SCENE AND I’M SUPPOSED TO KNOW ALL SCENE KIDS?” is what I can hear Blake yelling. He gets so angry at my stereotyping!

Can you imagine if zombies were real? Chooch would be like the Holy Grail of victims. They’d take one look at his melon-head and get boinging appetite hard-ons at the thought of the mother-whompin’ brain inside there.

Later that night, I was sitting inside Pixie’s car waiting for Jessy. I was telling her about the zombie car wash and then glanced over at my car which was parked next to hers.

“They didn’t do a very good job,” I murmured, noticing streaks of baked bird shit.

“Fuckin’ zombies,” Pixie spat.

Last Wednesday, I received my official offer letter from The Law Firm. As of August 30th, I’ll be a permanent employee, and with the temp status eradicated, I will no longer make myself feel like the red-headed step child! I was sitting at the playground with Chooch when the email from the HR department came to my phone. Sitting there at the picnic table, surrounded by wavering odor-rays of boiling piss (playgrounds are disgusting with that spongy shit they put down over the asphalt), I read the offer letter and promptly cried. I don’t often cry out of happiness. That’s not really my style. So you know that what I read in this letter was a pretty big deal for some uneducated asshole like myself.

I look back to last April, when an employment agency completely cold-called me while I was already placed at another assignment by another temp agency, and I can’t help but feel like the whole situation was handed to me on silver platter; that all the shit I had to go through over the last few years with unemployment, false-positive drug test results (I still stew over that, but if that hadn’t been the case, I might be working for pennies right now at FedEx), and jobs that had me working with the likes of Eleanore and Tina was worth it. No, I don’t like every single person with whom I work. Does anyone, really? But the great thing about my job is that I only work five hours a night and with four different people every night. Plus G (as in, Granny Cleavage). And most of that time, I’m by myself.

Which is what I prefer.

And there’s cake, and not the shitty kind that’s born in supermarket “bakeries,” either. And Kaitlin’s macarons, among other disgustingly perfect baked goods she whips up like it ain’t no thing.

And there’s Barb, who reads my blog and doesn’t think I’m a psycho and who makes the first 90 minutes of my shift entertaining. And there’s hockey fans, HUGE hockey fans.

And I finally work in a place where wearing Beer Tees, Crocs, and flip flops isn’t acceptable. Where people speak properly and use smart words and I love smart words.

When I went into work Friday afternoon, people were huddled around the table by the kitchen. And I mean, literally huddled, all hunched over, examining whatever was on the table which I couldn’t see. Someone, I think it was Barb but it was all a blur, noticed me walking by and said, “Oh Erin! There’s cake here. And it’s for you!”

I thought she was kidding. But apparently my boss had sent out an email to the department earlier, informing everyone of the news of my employment. There were about thirty replies in my inbox, all “Re: Erin Kelly” yet 90% of them were about cake.

Cake!

“So…does that mean we get to have cake?”

“Seriously, will there be cake? Because if not, I’ll have to find something else to eat.”

I replied all, something about “I’m always happy to provide a reason for cake,” which started a new string of emails asking, “So, does that mean we can have cake every time Erin comes in?” which somehow ended in me being reborn as Night Cake.

There were a few actual emails congratulating me, if you had the patience to sift through all the cake-centric replies.

Solipsism runs rampant there, so really, I kind of fit right in.

However, the downside to that is that I had to cut my own cake.

Currently, we’re on our way to the Shaker Festival in Columbiana, Ohio. We’re following Tommy and Jessy, but Henry is too stubborn to stop referring to the map on his phone and he’s making me anxious.

I’ve never been to the Shaker Festival before but I hear there are Amish people there, and that’s good enough for me.

Aside from Henry, me and Chooch, we have a fourth passenger. Chooch has taken a liking to my old Alf doll and refused to leave this morning until Alf was securely seat-belted in. This started randomly last night, when Chooch grabbed him almost as an after thought on the way out the door to Taco Bell and made a big to-do about making sure Alf got food too.

To be honest, I had Chooch pegged as an imaginary friend kind of kid.

Two years ago, I wrote this:

My daughter lives above a BAIT SHOP??

One of my favorite movie quotes is from a 1980′s b-movie called Back to the Beach. I’m not sure if that was the start of it, but I’ve long been infatuated with bait shops. I’ve never been in one, I’ve never even gone fishing. But I’m obsessed with the gritty imagery that my mind conjures when I think of a bait shop.

Sometimes, I accompany Henry to his place of employment. On the way there, we pass this dingy shanty-like bait shop marked by a hand-written sign that boasts “Live bait. Worms. Fishing Suply.” I’ve been staring dreamily at this bait shop for four years now, and not once in those four years has anyone corrected the spelling of “suply.” It’s endearing.

My new job is a block away from Henry’s, and the fact that I drive past it every day on my way there might just be a coincidence to some; but to me, it’s kind of like a stripper swirling down a pole, her pasties flashing IT’S A SIGN in bright pink LED.

Bait shop, you’re calling my name. I do not know why. Maybe I was a fisherman in a past life, or bait, or maybe I was killed and buried behind a bait shop. But what I do know is that I want to go there, talk to its proprietors. (I believe it’s a husband-wife force; I saw the husband weed wacking yesterday and I’m unsure of which hurt the weeds more: the brutal annihilation served up by the weed wacker, or the vicious verbal rampage the husband appeared to be hatefully funneling at them.)

I had this great idea that I should go there and ask to shadow them for an hour or two, get up to my elbows in bait shop grease. Find out what makes a person go into the baiting biz – carrying the family torch? Addicted to the slithery squishiness of worms? Easy to snag a job after bait school?

I’d probably lie and say it’s for school (my classic excuse) so that I can take pictures of them, too. And maybe I’ll get lucky and snag a sound byte from this seven foot homeless man who loiters in the vicinity. You all know how much I love the homeless, maggots in their beards and all.

But Henry thinks this is a horrible idea. Like, they’ll be so aghast and threatened by my request that they’ll fillet me on the spot and sell my toes as bait. Of course, that’s the kind of diarrhea-inducing anxiety that makes me want to do it all the more.  I have this sick desire to do things that make me uncomfortable, and then complain and whine about it to Henry.

Plus, the bait shop sits haphazardly right above a river bank, so it’d give me an opportunity to be within feet of the sickening river, maybe conquer a fear or two.  Or see a dead body washed ashore, who knows.

Oh, and there’s a pier in their backyard, and I’m kind of obsessed with that shit, too. I don’t know, all these things add up to a big cream-filled YES to me.

EDIT: I just found out why Henry doesn’t want me going there. It seems that the husband-owner stepped in front of Henry’s car one day and yelled at him for going too fast (I asked Henry how he would be able to stand in front of our car if Henry was driving that fast, and Henry said “Exactly.”) so now Henry’s dickie shrivels in fear at the thought of the bait shop.

The point of reposting this is to inform the Internet that a MOVIE has recently been filmed in that exact location! It’s apparently some John Singleton flick with JACOB FROM TWILIGHT OMG YOU GUYS. No seriously, it’s called “Abduction” or something and it’s supposed to be a thriller, and last time I checked no vampires or werewolves had parts in it.

Henry said that they fashioned a new sign over top of the old sign. It says Pachenko’s Bait Shop or something now, but he thought it might just be there for filming.

So, when this movie comes out and you see this extremely lush and bountiful setting, that’s not bleak or run-down at all, think of me, my friends. Think of me.

If anyone wants to take me to a bait shop, let me know.

(P.S. I did go back there to do my fake interview, with Bill and Jessi two winters ago. We were practically chased off the property with shotgun blasts sounding in the sky behind us. Not really, but the dude very disgustedly assured us that “this ain’t no business.” It was scary. I can only imagine how agitated an entire film crew must have made him.)

poopycake, originally uploaded by appledale.

I still think this is my greatest creation ever. MAYBE EVEN BETTER THAN CHOOCH. Or at least, tied.

That was also probably the best birthday party I ever threw for someone. Too bad she completely didn’t appreciate it.

P.S. This was going to be my first attempt at the Wordless Wednesday I see all the cool bloggers doing.

Too bad I had to go and rape it with words.