East 74th Street Haunt!

Posted on October 22, 2012

There is a whole lot to be afraid of when it comes to the Upper East Side in New York City. For starters, the subway situation is a scary disaster that no haunted house could ever beat and the further east you go, the worse public transportation becomes. Now if you think that the 1% of this country who actually lives, dines and shops in the Upper East Side scares the living daylights out of your ramen-eating-budget-bus-pass life then be afraid, very afraid because there is a Halloween plastic extravaganza on East 74th Street that brings the skulls, ghouls and zombies out in full force to scare the shit out of you—you know, in case the obscene wealth walking around doesn’t send chills
up and down your spine!




For several years now, Marc Lasry, the co-founder of Avenue Capital, and his entire family has decorated their mansion on East 74th Street with bloodied bodies hanging from the balcony, skeleton heads spiked onto the cast iron fence surrounding the property, a giant inflatable ghost swelling over the door, swinging bats and a life-size, clothed skeleton affixed to a tree on the sidewalk. The moment I heard about this Halloween mess I just knew I had to get our butts over there to see it in person!





I don’t even know where to begin! We started our tour by posing with Mamma Biscuit wearing her Halloween pajamas next to a 4-foot pirate skeleton positioned at the front door that shook while the audio for Super Freak played in the background. Mamma Biscuit literally shook in Tommy’s arms from fright when the motion-activated device went off and the few tourists who actually showed up to see this house looked on with such amusement—some were actually taking photos of Mamma Biscuit rather than the Halloween display itself!



This over-the-top Halloween display has become a tradition for the Lasry family. Sophie Lasry, 18, one of the couple’s five children says, “It’s more of a family thing we do to stay together” regarding the seven-year family ritual of decking their house out for the season. Decorations go up every year on October 1rst and don’t come down until the day after Halloween! I hear that Trick or Treaters actually start ringing the doorbell on the morning of October 31rst!


Over the years, the only complaint they have received about the display has been to turn down the family’s favorite singing skeleton pirate that stands guard by the front door. They unplug him at night to respect their neighbors whom I suspect are incredibly uptight and extremely Republican!




So this is what an urban haunted house looks like folks. These scary, bloody, horrifying monsters and zombies attached to this exquisite Upper East Side mansion carries on a whole new meaning other than Halloween. It practically screams, “BEWARE OF CAPITALISM!”

Just one more week until Mamma’s Halloween costume is unveiled—how EXCITING!

Enjoy

Posted in Holiday, NYC Life | 5 Comments

The Big Apple in the Apple Orchard!

Posted on October 19, 2012

There’s nothing quite like a car load of city folk emptying out into an apple orchard in upstate New York—New Paltz to be exact! We’re a rowdy bunch to say the least with our inappropriate conversations, ironic sarcasm and bags upon bags of homemade vegan food—hey we love to eat, why not have a picnic before the actual apple picking begins? If that doesn’t draw enough attention from the locals, sporting a vintage communist soldier hat while carrying a pug with an unusually long tongue in my arms throughout the fields can definitely place us permanently in the out-of-towners category! But there’s a whole other side to our excursion that brings joy to all of the children as well as the adults walking from row after row of apple trees and that’s Mamma Biscuit trucking along—making her way through the tall grass and dodging half-eaten apples strewn on the ground from previous pickers throughout the season!




Now the day was super sunny yet perfectly cool, breezy and comfortable to be outdoors in the fields of Wilklow Orchards in Highland, New York. Before we got into the apple-picking shenanigans, we headed indoors to the greenhouse alongside the entrance to the orchards and combined a few picnic tables together to have ourselves a yummy vegan lunch! Just look at Mamma’s determination in the photo below—she really wanted to get her paws on some of that food sitting on Tommy’s plate in front of her! Silly girl, vegan sushi is not for pugs! So we have Tommy holding an unruly Mamma Biscuit in hand, Sydney, Tommy’s God Daughter and her parents, Dean and Nicole and Emily and Uncle Vadim, the whining, complaining yenta in the blue turtle neck on the far right!

We then headed out into the fields with the rest of our good friends, Matt, Julie, James and Isabel all in search of apples. Unfortunately, the people who run the orchard warned us of a freeze they endured in August and in early September that ruined the majority of their crops. The only apples left to pick were Golden Delicious and they were far up on the hill from the picnic grounds! I would be lying if I didn’t say that I was shocked at how empty the trees were as well as the grounds but somehow, we found that patch of Golden Delicious trees and that’s where we were able to fill up our bags!





We also had the pleasure of meeting Daina and her husband and daughter from New York State of Mind between photographing Mamma Biscuit in the pumpkin patch! It turns out that Daina is friends with Vanessa over at Voyage of V who I have been following for quite some time and she has done the same with Mamma Biscuit! What a small blogging community it is out there! Only apple picking in upstate, New York and Mamma Biscuit could bring us together. We’ve already touched base with each other and hopefully, we plan to meet up in Central Park at some point with Mamma Biscuit—we can’t wait!

The day was just perfect! Mamma Biscuit had her fill of running loose without a leash throughout a giant, grassy field of apple trees and that’s quite an opportunity for a pug who’s used to cold concrete, chicken bones and empty soda cans under her paws during her daily walks back in Washington Heights.




Two weeks left before the big day and we’re having an official countdown until Mamma’s costume is revealed—until then, sit tight!

Enjoy

Posted in Holiday, Outdoor Life | 14 Comments

Our Pumpkin in the Pumpkin Patch!

Posted on October 16, 2012

Autumn and Halloween are in full swing here and once again, Mamma Biscuit has planted her cute little pug butt in the pumpkin patch to wait patiently for the Great Pumpkin to appear! Now I’ve warned Mamma Biscuit over and over again not to follow in the tragic footsteps of that damn blockhead Linus but she just won’t listen to me! Every year, Linus sits in a pumpkin patch on Halloween night waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear and every year, the Great Pumpkin fails to turn up! Humiliated but undefeated, Linus vows to wait for him again the following Halloween—and unfortunately, our Biscuit Lady gets swept up in this very same Halloween pipe dream! The good news is, we entertain our little gremlin’s unwavering belief in the Great Pumpkin by planting her in a pumpkin patch two weeks before Halloween—this way she won’t miss out on the festivities of Halloween night when the Great Pumpkin invariably fails to make an appearance!

So this past weekend, we dressed Mamma Biscuit up in one of her spooky Halloween skull sweaters and headed out to the pumpkin patch to wait foolishly for the Great Pumpkin to appear.


She waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. . . .

She endured pug kisses and a squeeze here and there from admiring passersbys and as the sun began to set, there was no sign of the Great Pumpkin anywhere!

Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, she saw a vision of a giant figure with two big pumpkin heads side-by-side! Excitingly, she began to run around in circles, knocking down small, painted pumpkins in her path, thinking that finally, the Great Pumpkin has arrived—but unfortunately, once her vision was cleared, she realized it wasn’t the Great Pumpkin after all but rather her Daddy carrying two giant pumpkins on his shoulders! Hey, it’s not like we played a trick on her, we just thought that we could select and purchase a pumpkin while entertaining Mamma Biscuit and this damn fable!

The sun finally settled down into the horizon and our Biscuit Lady licked my hand to let me know that she was totally done waiting for the Great Pumpkin to appear! I’ve learned not to mock Mamma like Lucy would have mocked Linus about his stubborn efforts to wait for the Great Pumpkin, so instead, I decided to snap a few adorable photos of our girl perched upon the haystacks of this pumpkin patch and call it a day!



We also put Mamma Biscuit’s disappointments at ease by reminded her that Halloween is only two weeks away and she’s gonna be prancing around in her costume, enjoying the festivities of the dead! The Great Pumpkin may not be real but he can sure live on in Mamma Biscuit’s little puggie head as a source of inspiration!


After all, we all need to believe in something!

Enjoy

Posted in Holiday, Outdoor Life | 12 Comments

Mamma’s Halloween Jungle!

Posted on October 10, 2012

Calling on all of you ghosts, goblins, witches, vampires, wizards and jungle creatures worldwide: Halloween is now upon us and Mamma Biscuit is ready to open the door to her crib and unleash her Halloween jungle to you all! Now it may be a concrete jungle out there in New York City but in the Pug Palace, Mamma’s got something lined up this year that is far more daunting and spooky yet incredibly inspirational for anyone lookin’ to get into the spirit of celebrating the dead! Our little gremlin may be sporting the black and orange stripes of an exotic tigress but I can assure you that she makes for a very safe and easy-going tour guide through her haunted space—so have no fear! The eye of our tiger can most definitely be tamed with a soft-chew treat and a pug hug if she gets out of hand–the tricks and treats that keep her in check, not just during Halloween but all year long!

First stop on our tour through this ghoulish Halloween jungle is Mamma Biscuit’s annual Halloween tree that is constructed by some of the finest branches we could find scouring through the wooded areas of Fort Tryon Park!


As we described last year, Krampus, the Austrian and Bavarian Christmas icon is a dark and twisted highlight to the typical Halloween characters hanging on these branches! These demon-like devils and half-horses with horns and long, forked tongues dole out some serious discipline to naughty children who have not made the cut on Santa’s list. Oh who cares about being nice, Halloween is about being naughty, so these children get thrown into a basket/backpack and are swiftly taken on a one-way-ticket to our Halloween tree—where they belong—where Mamma wants them!

Hanging in between Krampus is an array of black crows, ghouls, witches, vampires, glass balls, bats, body limbs and various wacky characters made from wrapped twine.





One of our newest ornaments is this rare glass ball highlighting a vignette of Michael Jackson in all of his Thriller glory. In our opinion, the Thriller music video encapsulates Halloween and the dead better than anything ever has in popular culture—and Mamma Biscuit is a huge fan!


The perfect finishing touch to this massive tree display is the eerie glow emanating from the spooky, vintage blow-mold of a haunted house sitting at the base of the tree. Tommy has acquired quite a collection of vintage blow mold and when the lights go down at the Pug Palace, there’s a soft glow of green, orange and purple throughout the home that makes everything seem warm and cozy!

Now onto Mamma Biscuit’s Halloween friends. Here to greet you all is this set of five Day-of-the-Dead skeletons playing their guitars and dancing to the sweet music of Halloween. I’m not gonna lie, I picked this set up from the Lemax Collection during a visit at Michael’s Crafts Store on the Upper West Side. I innocently stumbled into that money pit in search of some raw materials to construct Mamma’s Halloween costume when I came across a giant display of a haunted village similar to my Christmas village and I just had to keep a narrow eye in its presence. One wrong view of a display like that could have me embarking on a new and expensive journey into collecting Halloween houses—a reoccurring thought that comes up every year when decorating the Pug Palace!



Alongside our skeleton friends we have a whole host of vintage Annalee figurines from the late 60’s to the late 90’s–a witch, a devil, a scare crow, ghosts and various other Halloween characters that keep the Pug Palace creative and festive.



Tommy has a tendency to have a permanent search for Halloween goods on Ebay all year long (I know, it’s very dangerous) and several months back, he came across these adorable, handcrafted, honey-comb paper figurines of a skull and cross bones, a pumpkin wearing a witch hat, an owl and two, Autumnal bushels of hay from the 60’s.



School teachers back in the day had the best stuff, like this paper garland adorning both entry ways into our living room!

New to our display is the giant ceramic pine tree in black with green, orange and purple peg lights. Traditionally used as a Christmas ceramic counter top decoration, these ceramic pines have been reinterpreted for Halloween. Ours was handcrafted by a woman who goes by the name of “Mommy” and who lives and works out of Germantown, Tennessee. This woman is extremely talented with creating ceramic trees and we worked closely with her to design a black pine tree that fits in perfectly with Mamma’s spooky environment, what do you all think?

So that’s it folks! Mamma Biscuit’s Halloween jungle at the Pug Palace is up and running! If you find yourself up in the Heights, stop on by! Just look for the giant paper skeleton hangin’ on the apartment door, there’s a whole Halloween wildlife waiting behind it—and Mamma Biscuit is at the top of the food chain!

Enjoy

Posted in Holiday | 6 Comments

Halloween Becomes Her!

Posted on October 1, 2012

October first has finally arrived and today marks the beginning of a month-long journey of intensive (and sometimes exhaustive) Halloween planning for the Biscuit Family. Our obsession with and love for Halloween should come as no surprise as the holiday itself is considered to be the Gay Christmas (or Gay Pride, Part 2) of our calendar year! So every year, on this very day, Mamma Biscuit gets swept off her little paws by the spirit of Halloween! Last year, it was Frankenstein (wearing a fantastic, vintage, leather motorcycle jacket) who jolted her little puggie heart to get into the spirit, and this year, it’s . . . um . . . a gay Vasco da Gama? I’m not sure what the hell I have on or who the hell I’m supposed to be (although Tommy thinks I look like a male version of Chantal Chadwick from Bravo’s new hit series, Gallery Girls) however, my intentions were to simply throw on everything I own in black in the name of darkness to spook the Biscuit Lady to get into the Halloween spirit—do you think it worked? I can’t tell by Mamma’s bored and confused look on her face but what I can tell from these photos is just how cozy and cute she looks wearing those adorable black Halloween pajamas with mini jack-o’-lanterns printed over the entire garment! God I love Homegoods, their pet department carries some really cute things if you’re just willing to sift through a giant pile of crap!



At any rate, Mamma was so cute during this photoshoot in Fort Tryon Park that I just had to grab the camera out of Tommy’s hands and photograph a few precious moments with the two of them together! I simply cannot get over how tiny and adorable our little gremlin looks in Tommy’s arms! She looks like a stuffed animal—the expensive kind that are sold at Hallmark during the holidays!



Now about all of that exhaustive Halloween planning I keep talking about—I am currently spending my days toiling away at constructing Mamma Biscuit’s Halloween Costume and boy do we have something really grand planned for the big day! Now if you thought Mamma Biscuit channeling her best Anna Wintour for Dogue Magazine or Mamma Biscuit getting in touch with her inner Blond Ambition (or in her case, Fawn Ambition) as Madonna was amazing and totally over-the-top then I suggest you buckle-up for this year’s costume! The inspirational Icons in Mamma’s pantheon are endless and our Biscuit is quite the queen of reinvention! Our bitch can make Lady Gaga seem like one giant yawn in comparison when she puts on a fashionable costume of sorts so you can expect her to make a big Halloween splash—and it will be here sooner than you think! Sigh, if only the average day had 26 hours instead of 24. . . . the things I could accomplish!


In the meantime, Mamma Biscuit will be exhausting all of her efforts to erect her great Halloween tree and generally decorating the entire Pug Palace with spooky, ghoulish accents, vintage plastic blow-mold and many tricks and treats along the way! But don’t get it twisted people, it’s not all work and no play in our household. Mamma Biscuit will definitely take a moment to sit down with her two daddies to watch the ever classic The Worst Witch, starring Diana Rigg, Charlotte Rae, Tim Curry, Fairuza Balk and a cauldron! It’s become a hardcore tradition in our household to watch this movie every year as it just wouldn’t seem like a proper Halloween season if we didn’t! I mean, seeing Tim Curry as the Grand Wizard singing Anything Can Happen on Halloween is about the best Halloween moment ever in cinema—how could you not watch this at least 10 or 15 times throughout the year like we do?!

I think this year we might add Teen Witch to our annual Halloween movie viewing tradition. Teen Witch is a 1989 fantasy teen comedy film starring Robyn Lively and Zelda Rubenstein of Poltergeist. It was originally pitched as a female version of the 1985 Teen Wolf, however, it was later reworked and turned into a film of its own. Thankfully so because I think this film is so perfect in it’s late 80’s depiction of High School popularity woes coupled with a sexier version of Sabrina the Witch paranormal! The short plot is as follows: Louise is not very popular at her highschool. Then she learns that she’s descended from the witches of Salem and has inherited their powers. At first she uses them to get back at the girls and teachers who teased her and to win the heart of the handsome footballer’s captain (he’s so HOT by the way). But soon she has doubts if it’s right to ‘cheat’ her way to popularity and ultimately, she tames her witchcraft to become the good and honest person she is supposed to be!

Check out the trailer below:

So put your paws up all you little monsters, Hallowe’en is upon us!

Enjoy

Posted in Fashion, Holiday | 9 Comments