Tombstone Radio

Its half past nightmare
On your radio dial
1930's ghost town jazz
Songs that make you smile

Hear the haunted archtop sound
And the steel guitar
Singer wails through carbon mic
You hear it in your car

As you drive across the land
Out in the desert night
Is it live or Memorex?
Chills run down your spine

Insulator

The crackle of the radio
The sound of distant thunder
The thing that separated us
Let no man put asunder

We never had a bond between
We never had a fight
Never had much of anything
That seemed even close to right

People make mistakes they say
And you were one of mine
And now that you've gone missing
Its you they'll never find

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Pumpkin

I find myself
Thinking of her
And those golden days
Many years ago

I heard her voice
On the radio
I imagined she was mine
It was never meant to be

She sung
"Some Enchanted Evening"
I knew her desire
For me

Some say she's not real
She's just a chanteuse
But I know better
She's my Pumpkin

My little squash
And hearts desire
Alas my love
T'was just a dream

Phantom of the Underground

She's the phantom of the Underground
Earls Court Station
Doesn't make a sound
In her teleportation

She flits and flitters
Between speeding trains
Flies down the tubes
It seems so strange

Some say she fell
Onto the tracks
Lost her life
Many years back

She's only seen
On special occasions
Then disappears
Without explanation

The Lewis Kids Cave Grave

Photo by Mad Hare Imagery
It seemed so real
The sad way
It made me feel
The death of a child
Buried alive

In the fair town
Of Newton
I felt like Rasputin
A big fish
In a small town

When I'd walk
Through the cemetery
At night to Scouts
Halstead Street School
Ghosts? I had my doubts

There in the rocks
I was scared,
I was shocked
I heard a dull moan
Of those not full grown

I pointed my flashlight
On the rocks in the night
Unto my squinted site
A headstone I spied
It didn't seem right

It wasn't a dream
But tragically real
The headstone I read
Of three children
Who lie here dead

This is a true story. I really did walk past this grave on my way to middle school. A fun website that mentions this is here:

https://weirdnj.com/weird-news/cave-grave-newton/

Greystone Alien Abduction

UFO Sighting Over Greystone Asylum
Its boarded up
And broken down
Insane asylum
In Morristown

There have been sightings
Of UFO's
The patients ghosts
Are in the know

Next time you walk
Past these hallowed gates
Whistle as you pass
They'll give you a break

Jimmy didn't whistle
He wasn't hip
He was abducted
By the alien ship

When we visited our friends in Livingston, NJ, we would always pass Greystone and it was very scary even in the middle of the day.

Supposedly, Woodie Guthrie spent time at Greystone.

Heavens Depot

Heavens Depot
Run down peep show
Now shut down
Owner skipped town

Nascent beauties
Naughty nudies
In the flesh
They want your cash

Nighttime creepers
Meth head tweakers
Small town dreams
Not in their scene

Politicians
On a mission
Useless buggers
Doing nothing

I visited Dayton Ohio in 2016 and liked a couple neighborhoods that people were fixing up. Like that one year I lived in Rochester, these towns had abandoned downtown neighborhoods and if you were willing to fix old buildings up, you could get a very nice old wooden house for next to nothing. Even if you had to put $200,000 into them, as the neighborhood gentrified, you’d easily recoup that. With remote working available (for IT people especially) you could make a lot and have very affordable housing in a hip neighborhood.

The catch? Once a town or city hits the skids its a very long road back, and I doubt things will return to “the good old days”. But the gamble will be worth it in some small US rust belt towns and cities. What shocked me the most was learning that Dayton was a sort of cross roads for opioids. So there was hope and despair. Apparently, the City has turned the problem around and is a model for other cities that have such a problem. You would be shocked to see where such problems exist in the US – these sorts of things are usually pegged to just big cities.

Now there’s a real life Halloween story.

Candy From Hell

If the devil gave out candy
It would surely be Brach's
That shit tastes real nasty
And it's harder than rocks

The same goes for Werthers
And Whitman's Sampler
This is the candy given out
By everyone's old grandparents

Give me a snickers
Mounds or a Kit Kat
Real yummy candy
None of that other crap

This song was written based on the feelings kids had in the 60’s and when after a night of Trick or Treating we’d compare what we got.

It was written after I listened to a bunch of Gene Shepherd WOR radio shows. Gene Shepherd wrote “A Christmas Story”.

Family Plot

Step inside
My newfound friend
Its the beginning
Not the end

There's a family plot
At the front of the house
Not a creature is stirring
Not even a mouse

The burial ground
Has been disturbed
Don't you worry
She's not perturbed

They say she wanders
Around at night
Giving the living
Quite a fright

Spectre

I swear I saw
A child inside
Holding a flower
They say he died

Typhoid took him
Winter time
They put dimes
On both his eyes

Now there's laughter
In this house
Had been deserted
Not even a mouse

This young lad
He comes and goes
The Town of Bodie
A childhood ghost