October has zipped right on by and here I am once
again, with just hours to spare
before the midnight toll. If you’ve been hanging around this
corner of the Whirled for the last twenty-plus years, you know
the drill: I have a sacred monthly commitment to publish at least
one post a month -- and I’m not about to let a little thing
like a lack of temporal luxury stop me. Especially not on
Halloween.
Welcome to Fright Night, Dear Ones. If only it just came once a
year...
Tonight is the evening when our neighborhoods are festooned in
the classic, seasonal shades of orange and black. It's the one
night a year when we’re supposed to voluntarily scare ourselves
silly with plastic skeletons, synthetic spiderwebs, and cheap
horror movie marathons.
In fact, in honor of this sacred holiday, last night I pulled out
a recently purchased DVD of the 1975 cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Yes, I know DVDs are old school, but they're easily
accessible and they sure beat having to search all over Roku and
beyond, and then use up a bunch of bandwidth.) This was the first time I’d
watched Rocky Horror in… well, let’s just say it’s
the first time this century. Back in the day, I enjoyed it
numerous times as a midnight movie in Houston, always viewing it
as just a silly, totally over-the-top campy flick with no deep
meaning.
But watching it last night, through the lens of our current
political and cultural madness, it hit me a little differently.
As charming and charismatic as Tim Curry’s iconic Dr.
Frank-N-Furter is, he was also completely awful. He was a
malignant narcissist if there ever was one—committing sexual
assault and murder, and turning anyone who dared to betray him or
even question him into nekkid Greek-style statues. Yet, in the
end, he paid dearly for his grotesque excesses. In a twisted sort
of way, the movie actually carried a moral message about the
inevitable collapse of absolute, ego-driven tyranny.
Rocky Horror is, of course, just fiction. But it’s
impossible to watch that particular brand of theatrical
megalomania without being violently reminded of our own
real-world horror show: #neverwasmypresident Donald J. Trump.
Like Frank-N-Furter, Trump is a master of campy, garish spectacle
who commands a cult-like following that happily ignores his
profound malice. He is the persistent orange stain on our
collective politics and culture, and his MAGA minions are the
ultimate submissive Transylvanians, blindly doing the Time Warp
week after week.
We aren't just dealing with regular political disagreements
anymore; we are staring down a fascist threat level that has been
hovering at an ominous Alert Level Orange, aggressively vibrating
toward pure Red. The architecture of our democracy is being
undermined by a pumpkin-hued demagogue who is actively
threatening to plunge this entire country into a bottomless black
abyss from which we may never emerge.
Talk about a horrific trick.
But here is the silver lining to this campfire horror story: we
aren't completely helpless characters waiting to get picked off
in the first act like Brad and Janet. We have a counter-strategy,
and it doesn't involve alien technology or silver bullets. It
involves hitting the ballot box.
This is your seasonal reminder that if you haven’t already done
your part to reverse this terrifying trend, the clock is ticking
louder than a tell-tale heart. We need to hand these political
ghouls the ultimate treat by turning out in droves and voting.
And no, this isn't the time to get cute or experimental with your
choices. If you want to keep the lights on and avoid the void,
you need to vote straight blue down the line. It's the only way
to wash out the orange stain, smash the fascist sandbox, and keep
the black abyss at bay. Dreaming about change isn't enough. As
Frank-N-Furter himself so wisely counseled, "Don't
Dream It, Be It."
So go ahead and enjoy the candy, hand out the treats, and indulge
in the festive spooks tonight. But tomorrow, make sure your civic
flashlight has fresh batteries. Check your registration, map out
your polling place, and let’s banish these monsters back into
the shadows where they belong.
See you in November—hopefully in a much brighter Whirled.
One more thing before you leave...
With my husband Ron's passing in
February 2025, I have experienced significant income loss. And
now that I am facing new personal challenges, donations are
urgently needed and profoundly appreciated. Here are some ways to
do it:
- Venmo -- username @Connie-Schmidt-42. Here is a direct link to the Venmo page.
- PayPal -- Here is a direct link to my PayPal page.
- Old but still good: You can click on the "Donate" icon that currently appears on the right-hand side of every page of this blog on the Web version. There's also a donation link at the end of many of my older blog posts. In the case of both the icon and the links on the older posts, as well as the link in this sentence, this is also a PayPal link, but it references the email account RevRon -- which is cool, because it all ultimately goes to the same place.
NOTE: If you are donating by PayPal, please
specify that your contribution is for "friends and
family," which will waive PayPal's substantial transaction
fee.
Whether you can donate or not, thank you for visiting this
Whirled.
