My internet claim-to-fame is running the blog Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture, which is a site where I celebrate a deep love and appreciation for pop culture oddities; everything from B-movies to comic books to outdated party-supplies. You can also find me as occasional co-host on the Geek Fallout podcast and its "sister" podcast, Geek Fallout: The Comic Book Episodes.


Probably my favorite Halloween was the last one spent going out "trick-or-treating" with a group of friends. We deemed ourselves too cool and too old to take it all seriously, so threw on whatever we could find and hit the streets. Random hockey-masks, plastic vampire teeth, someone was wearing a black cape, I think. Five kids with shitty mash-up "costumes", still enticed by the idea of free candy, who wanted nothing more than to hang out and have a good time. We stayed out late, walked from one end of town to the other, and just enjoyed being care-free kids on the verge of adolescence.


I grew up on the South Shore of Massachusetts, in a suburban town with a population of about 12,000. It really was almost a stereotypical small-town back in the '80s, all tightly-knit neighborhoods and friendly faces. The kind of place you could safely spend all night going from house to house, greeted with smiles and Snickers bars at nearly every door you knocked on. The weather always seemed perfect for the time of year, too. Brisk winds kicking up fallen leaves, cool but not too cold.

I have a notorious history full of awful costumes; lots of cheap, store-bought junk that reflected whatever pop-cult icon I was obsessed with at the time. Based entirely on nostalgia, and a love for both G.I.Joe and professional wrestling, let's say it was the Ben Cooper-produced Sgt. Slaughter mask and smock I wore when I was five. (It was.)


I try to spend the night with friends, a ton of junk food and a stack of VHS/DVDs. There are years where I roll solo, but guarantee that while I'm waiting for neighborhood kids trick-or-treating to knock on the door, I'm gonna be filling myself with candy and watching Ghoulies II (1988). Or, well, something as equally as trashy.

The entire month of October is usually spent surrounding myself with anything remotely Halloween-y. If there's orange and black, witches, skeletons, wolfmen or pumpkins involved, well, I'm a total sucker. From watching horror flicks, eating bowls of Count Chocula, or haunting my local thrift shops in search of ghoulish goods, I love it all.



The worst thing to get while trick or treating was Sun-Maid Raisins.

My favorite thing to get was Fun-Sized Baby Ruths and Butterfingers.