Happy New Weird 2: The 2015 State of the OTIS

December 31, 2015 — So I’m a little bit embarrassed. A year ago to the day, I was sitting in a cabin on the water in Maine, kicking dirt all over OTIS. And it made me write this post. Now, everything I wrote in it was true and still is. But let me tell you what has happened to me in the 12 months since then that makes me feel like a short-sighted jackass.

• I won a major literary award. Like Stephen King walked up to the podium mere minutes after me to accept his own.

• I got an agent. So far, our relationship has been me apologizing a lot for what she has to peddle, but she’s already opened up some interesting opportunities. 

• Before I got the agent, I sold my fourth book project, this one about Salem, Massachusetts. Same publisher as my previous three books, sure, but a completely different staff after a shake-up at the publisher got the company pulled from Vermont back into its parent company’s digs in New York City.

• I lived in Salem for all 31 days of October (see above).

• I saw the Grand Canyon for the first time, and it was full of clouds.

• That visit was on an ~1,800-mile road trip through Nevada, California, Arizona, and Utah. It included my first time in Las Vegas and fulfilling a long-held dream of testing the Area 51 border.

• I visited Costa Rica, the farthest point south I’ve ever been in my life. The wild iguanas were my favorite.

• Even though it’s been 14 months since Poe-Land debuted, I’m still allowed in the Poe Club. I got to speak at the University of Virginia to the very society that Poe himself was a part of when he attended there.

• I was a featured author at the unveiling of a new square named after Poe in Baltimore.

• And, probably most important, 2015 was the year of a New Star Wars movie and a Halloween Whopper.

That’s…a pretty good year. But notice the one thing not in those highlights: OTIS itself.

The site is still what it is. Not growing in readership. Just growing in content. I did make the site black-on-white, though. I’m told it’s easier to read but I think I liked the dark OTIS better. Dark websites always seem to have more of a destination feel to them, like they’re in a physical space. Anyway, this is how much work went into OTIS this year, not counting anything on the socials:

• Number of OTIS articles: 84

• Number of photos posted: ~700

• Number of words mutilated: ~80,000

• Number of oddity news stories stolen from other sites for Facebook likes: ~450

• Number of new states visited: 3 

• Number of new countries visited: 1

So the output stayed the same despite the past two months being a drought of original content (although I just about doubled the number of outside news stories I posted). That’s because I’m heads-down on the Salem book right now. Heads-down, meaning watching all ten hours of Making a Murderer, beating my Bejeweled record, and playing with the remote-controlled BB-8 that my brother got me for Christmas

So what do I know about 2016?

OTIS is still going to be kind of a dead zone for the first few months as far as original content goes. I’ll continue posting oddity news and random photos and making late-night drunken professions on the socials, though. I’ll also be visiting New Orleans and Barcelona in February. And The X-Files will debut in January. Lots of reasons for me to miss my deadline. But if I do hit that deadline, it’ll mean a new book out come Fall. So, all told, already an interesting year. Hopefully, though, not the kind that ends with me staring at a cold harbor in existential terror again.

But OTIS still lives. We’re at 8.5 years now. And I’m still not quite sure how many birthdays it has coming. I can tell you that once I’m done with my Salem deadline, I foresee an avalanche of original content. After all, I have more than 100 oddity adventures that I’ve not yet documented. And it’ll feel good to do some short-form, instant-gratification writing after the book project. If you happen to catch one and like it, pass it around for me.

So that’s it from me. I’ve gotta get back to making witch puns over and over again. I hope you guys have a Happy New Year and that we’ll all hang out in 2016.

Main Street Merry: The Nashua Holiday Stroll

November 28, 2015 — I haven’t been out oddity hunting at all since returning from Salem, Massachusetts, nor have I posted any original content on OTIS. The Salem book is just taking over all my free time…or at least all that’s left after my TV binges. I’m in that panicked stage of my book writing process where I’m worried that I’m not going to make the deadline or that it’s not going to come together the way I want to. But, in between sleeping fetally on the floor of my study and getting too sloshed to find my entire keyboard, much less the home keys, I am taking breaks for Christmas. I want to stay on Santa’s nice list.

So tonight we went to the Nashua Holiday Stroll. Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the town where I’ve lived for the past seven years shuts down Main Street—which is like four lanes wide plus street parking for some reason, you could herd elephants on this street—and throws a party. Santa comes, lights the tree, bands play, carnival food venders scent the air, the restaurants and shops spill out onto the streets, people with chainsaws make ice sculptures, and every average Joe within a fifty-mile radius sporting a white beard and a belly walks around with candy canes in their pockets and a “This is my time,” gleam in their eyes. I’m going to be that guy one day.

Anyway, to show you guys that I’ve only died in spirit, I’m posting a few photos of the Holiday Stroll. This is what I did tonight. Sorry about the blur.

Turns out, my town can throw a party when it wants to.

Wait. You guys don't know about the Christmas Dragon?

What about the Giant Severed Head of Christmas?

How about...right, I don't even know what this is.

Of course, Star Wars was the ice sculpture theme.

These guys are fantastic. Robot animals you can ride.
They say these beasts can hold up to 600 pounds.

Happy Halloween 2015…Three Days Late

I was supposed to be Vincent Price from The Tomb of Ligeia.
But then my wife went as a ghost bride, coopting me into her groom
in the process. Sneaky way to get a couple's costume.

November 3, 2015 — I know, I know. You’re on to watching Hallmark Channel Christmas movie marathons and imagining novel ways to prepare turkeys to impress your family. You’re done with Halloween. With zombie makeup and rubber spiders. With chemical fogs and Dracula impressions. I’m right there with you…-ish. But I still need to throw the last spadeful of dirt onto the 2015 OTIS Halloween Season.

These past few days of dragging my feet are partly for decompression reasons. Unpacking. Remembering routines. Organizing all my photos and notes. But it’s also because I don’t want to cap off this year’s strange, strange Halloween Season. It’s rough calling it over. I’ve never had a Halloween Season like this one. Never had an October like this one. Never had any month like this past one.

But we did it. My family and I lived for all of October—31 days—in Halloween City itself—Salem, Massachusetts, all culminating in a record-breaking Halloween where 100,000 people flocked to the Witch City.

It was glorious.

And I can’t tell you too much about it. Because it has to go in the book.

It was a season of seasons, though.

Ah, Salem

But what about the rest of the 2015 OTIS Halloween Season blog? That wasn’t too shabby, right? After all, only eight articles of about 40 on the blog centered on Salem (not counting the machine-gun fire of photos from my socials, which is where most of my Salem reports resided this year). Like the mystery of The Good Son well. Talking to Paul Clemens. Hating Halloween III. The Burger King Halloween Whopper, which I still believe in, dammit.

We also got a little personal with how I became a horror fan and offering you a peek into my private Ray Bradbury collection. We learned about Halloween dog food, met Jerry the hearse driver, reinvented Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure as a Halloween movie, discovered where Jack Skellington is buried, introduced one of my favorite graves in all New England, and celebrated five years of the Halloween Season blog. And despite the Salem focus, we even got some Sleepy Hollow love in there.

But so many things that I experienced and observed in October I need to save for the Salem book or for next year’s OTIS Halloween Season when I’m marketing the Salem book. Like Halloween night. Winter Island. Listening to ghost stories at Thackery Binx’s cabin. The New England Pirate Museum. Costume parties. The epic quest to find carving pumpkins on October 30 when everything was stocked for Christmas.

Man, do I need to tell you about this day.

But as amazing as our Salem Halloween Season was, I’ve gotta be honest. I missed my regular Halloween Season. My cozy-on-my-own-couch, surrounded-by-glowing-orange-things, horror-movie-watching Halloween Season. My road trips and trips to the seasonal aisles of my local stores Halloween Season. See, I didn’t do much of that once October 1 rolled around, because every second I was on point. I was afraid of taking a break for fear I’d miss the ultimate costume on the Essex Pedestrian Mall or forget to jot down my notes every night. I had to be out there on the streets and in the attractions of Salem as often as I could be. I had to be checking off things from my list, from my spreadsheets, from my maps. I had to talk to people. It was a working holiday for me. More than usual, anyway. But so, so, so worth it.

I reserve the right to use this photo again and again and again and again.

But the camaraderie you guys gave me and mine along the way was great. Thanks everybody who followed along on the socials or hit up the website. Those who shared the posts with friends and strangers. Those who came to visit me in Salem or who accidentally ran into me randomly in the street.

I don’t know how writing this book will go over the next four months. I’ll need to kindle some small flame of Halloween even while celebrating dead turkeys and dead trees and burials of snow. I’ll figure that out.

But I do know this: I have never been this ready for Christmas in my entire life.

Happy Halloween to all of you, late as it is. We’ll do it again come 2016. After all, we don’t want to waste these few precious years that rhyme with the name of the holiday.

Salem's October Crowds

October 29, 2015 — On Saturday, October 24, I braved the October Salem crowds with a camera and a high level of embarrassment over it. Come with me as I escort you through the two most popular areas of the city in October: The Derby Street Haunted Neighborhood and the Essex Street Pedestrian Mall.

Salem at Random II

October 25, 2015 — In Salem in October, every spot is spooky, every detail deathly, eery corner is creepy, every window weird. And the people, well the people are the scariest of it all. Leaving your camera behind just once is a mistake you’ll regret forever. Trust me on that.

Below is a selection of photos that we’ve taken over the past few weeks. If you want to see more photos of Salem’s Haunted Happenings celebration, check out the posts Salem at Random, Salem at Night, Which Way to Witch City, or any of my socials (OTIS Facebook Page, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram).

I wrote earlier that I’m posting photos like I’m bailing water. And, it’s true, my ship is kind of sinking. I have only six days left living in this city, and I’m going to miss the place.

Salem's Haunted Neighborhood

Hundreds of people watched Hocus Pocus on the Salem Common,
yards away from where one of the scenes filmed.

The guys behind From Art to Zombies do great work.
They also haunt at Fright Kingdom, which we got a personal tour of last year.
It's my neighborhood haunt when I'm not in Salem.

"You wanna picture, I'll give you a picture."

"We're actually locals. We just like doing this."

This Five Nights at Freddy's getup is the best costume I've seen so far,
and it's in a children's costume parade no less.

Talking shop.

Ran directly into a "Boo Bar Hop" one night.
About 20 drunks ghosts waving their arms around the streets of Salem

Apparently the toy store on Essex Street used to be a bank. And now it has a monster inside it.

Which Way to Witch City?

October 24, 2015—They call Salem "Witch City." After 24 days here, I still haven't figure out why.

'