Multiple births are the new Mercedes.

The only married couple I know, Bob and Bruce, come over every so often to teach my boys how to be men, and then take them shopping for child-appropriate skincare and those awesome bio-degradable Chanel onesies I’ve seen on many fatherless celebrity babies.

When Bob and Bruce are busy, the guys I pick up at the bar the night before hang out with them for guy-time. This is handy because I learn these men’s names as they introduce themselves to my brood. Once they are acquainted I can get to work on my new fragrance line without worrying about the rugrats.

Had a real job back in 2008, but that stable, pre-proto-feminist lifestyle is so not important these days. Who needs jobs and money when you can be featured in a reality show and/or dance with the stars while pretending to not exploit your friends, family and children?

I’m in talks with MTV, VH1 and MSNBC (Keith Olbermann is not happy, I am vying for his time-slot to boost ratings). They are really psyched as I plan to release my sex tape (with John Edwards, because John Edward wasn’t available that night. He was communicating with my dead Grandma, who, as it turns out, is totally in favor of me releasing my X-rated shenanigans and likes the samples from my proposed clothing line).

Anyway, so glad I was enlightened — you don’t have to get married in order to have kids. Out of wedlock births used to be taboo. Morals are so 1985! Like the shoulder pads on Sarah Palin’s suits. My friends Alex and Robin are going through a divorce and little Beatrice is traumatized over how she will survive without both of her mommies, but at least they’ve worked out a custody agreement for the nannies.

Before I go on, I need to address a serious rumor that has nearly ruined my life. It’s absolutely false that Michaele Salahi was wearing the same Vera Wang dress as I was on the red carpet at Rahm Emanuel’s annual tutu auction. It wasn’t even the same color! Regardless, Michaele wasn’t invited to crash the event. It is often whispered she didn’t vote for God Jr. because the elections interfered with her regularly scheduled botox appointment. My friend in DC said Michaele once dropped the N-bomb in front of Arianna Huffington, and promptly checked herself into celebrity rehab and missed the Oscars. How gauche.

Anyway, I am participating in a unique green genetic program, implemented by those pro-life freaks, it’s basically embryo recycling and approved by Al Gore. I think I’ve finally found an embryo that is guaranteed African, Asian, American-Indian, Middle-Eastern and Canadian. Canadians are like synonyms for human beings, it’s exactly the same as buying something from a designer’s trunk sale. If you don’t say anything, no one will know the difference. And it’s so politically correct – my next child’s carbon footprint will be blacker than Al Gore’s. Please help me raise awareness for saving the earth, one embryo at a time.

Also, do let me know about your views on the post-modern feminist lifestyle in the comments. Oh, I will be out of town for the next few days, so I might not respond promptly, or my assistant will respond in my absence. I was so traumatized by the latest paparazzi photo of me stepping out of a limo, I briefly considered wearing panties. Instead, I’m headed to Cuba (where they have the world’s best free health care) to get things tightened up down there. Meanwhile, I’m going to hang out with my older children who are 7 and 19, watch some Happy Days reruns, and teach them about wine.

The word comes down to us from the Old Roman, horrere, which means literally “to stand on end” (as in hair) or “to shiver,” whether from fear or cold – Ovid refers to the “chill-bearing breath” of the North Wind (Metamorphosis, I.65).

Halloween is a unique holiday, marked for the celebration of the chill bearing, when demons and witches are allowed to come out to play and scare the bejezzus out of us – or at least, that’s how it used to be.

Over the last decade or so, Halloween has become less about creep and more about camp; Dracula and Frankenstein costumes replaced by Octomom and Obama masks (OK, those are more scary). What I want to do here is help those who would like go old school this year, and have a truly frightful All Hallows’ Eve.

(First suggestion – avoid bars. Like St. Patrick’s Day and New Year’s, Halloween brings out the amateur drinkers, a more loathsome species than any undead thing you may encounter. No, Halloween is best spent alone with someone special to snack on in the dark, with something scary to read, listen to, or watch.)

Film

For those in the movie mood (and who isn’t?), Halloween provides a dilemma – a horror-fest is definitely called for, but in no other genre is the crap/gold ration so heavily weighted towards the fecal. Rest easy – I have done the hard work for you, and watched hundreds of hours of horror, and can heartily recommend these selections:

The Ring, 2002 – Don’t let anyone tell you the Japanese original (Ringu) is better – Naomi Watts is perfect here in a classic ghost tale, an exquisite mixture of supernatural and technology – literally, ghost out of the machine. Gave me (me!) a nightmare.

Halloween, 1978 – Forget the atrocious recent Rob Zombie remakes and stick to the original low budget, John Carpenter-helmed masterpiece, about an escaped mental patient who comes back to torment his home town. Carpenter single-handedly invents the slasher genre; often imitated, never surpassed.

Salem’s Lot, 1979 – This adaptation of Stephen King’s novel, about a small New England town invaded by –  and then infested with – vampires, was directed by Tobe Hooper as a television mini-series. Constrained by network censors from going the blood and gore route, Hooper is forced to concentrate on atmosphere and character, with terrific, terrifying results. Among the best – and least appreciated – of modern horror films.

Rosemary’s Baby, 1968 – Featuring more than one Oscar-calibre performance, this claustrophobic tale of a diabolical plot has lost none of its paranoid power forty years later. (Note: For those who refuse to watch any of Polanski’s work out of principle, feel free to substitute The Exorcist for equally successful Satanic fun).

Let The Right One In, 2008 – Based on a 2004 Swedish novel of the same name, this award winning film of “romantic horror,” about a young boy who befriends an undead girl next door, has rightfully been described as one of the best vampire movies of all time. Touching, unnerving and gruesome, it is unlike anything you have ever seen.

Night of The Living Dead, 1968 – Best. Zombies. Ever. Period.

Music

So that should be more than enough to watch. But what to listen to, on Halloween?  Here a couple of spine-tingling tunes:

Katch 22 by Alien Sex Fiend – Mr. and Mrs Fiend usually serve up their unique blend of electronic horror-rock with a generous helping of winks and chuckles, but not this time; Katch 22 is a lumbering beast arisen form the sea, a booming prophesy of doom.

Cervix Couch by Christian Death – Cervix Couch comes in two versions; the original, from the album “Catastrophe Ballet,” is a sparse dirge evoking stone staircases and empty white beds. The second, an electronic remix titled the Spahn Ranch Mix, is completely different – but even more unsettling.

Double Dare by Bauhaus – This magisterial masterpiece lurches to life in fits and sputters, like some sulfurous submarine coming to life before plunging into the icy depths – with your soul. Peter Murphy rages against – well, everything, and for once, he seems dead serious. I dare you to listen.

Wolf Moon, by Type O Negative – The Brooklyn-based quartet delivers a beautiful, haunting paean to Werewolves, autumn, and the female reproductive cycle (yep) from their fantastically under-rated album “October Rust.”  Beware…the woods….at night.

(For those in a dancing mood, try Everyday Is Halloween by Ministry, and Now I’m Feeling Zombified by Alien Sex Fiend.)

Books

For those with the quaint passion for papyrus, since we have recently celebrated the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, and this October marks the 160th anniversary of his death, selections from the master are more than fitting.

Poe’s famous tales, Masque of the Red Death, The Tell Tale Heart, etc. are all grand.  But I suggest Ligeia, his masterpiece and one of the more exquisitely wrought short stories in all the world – and strangely little known for all that.

For verse, you of course can’t go wrong with The Raven, but check out the lesser known but still beautiful Gothic chimes Ulalume, The Haunted Palace, and The Valley of Unrest – you will be well rewarded.

H.P. Lovecraft was Poe’s disciple – and not quite his equal – but  who nevertheless wrote some very effective horror/sci-fi fiction. For me, the much-vaunted Cthulhu mythos is far less effective than his shorter, stand alone tales. My favorites include the ekphrastic duo The Music of Erich Zann and Pickman’s Model, both of which can be devoured in a single sitting.

And of course, it doesn’t get any scarier than the Great Bard’s Macbeth. It is amazing how feverish and focused this allegedly cursed play reads – the cackle of the witches can still be heard long after the book is shut and the lights go out.

There you have it, kiddies, some chill-bearing fun to put the fright back into your All Hallows’ night. Now go forth, and reclaim Halloween for all the goblins and ghouls – remember, on this night, even the devil deserves his due.

Happy Halloween!

It’s not sick to want to have 14 children. It is sick to wish them aborted, wish harm on the mother or assume she has done some great evil. I don’t know that having 14 children is a mistake, and neither do you. I’ve known plenty of people who were raised in abject poverty and came out just fine.

I don’t understand the argument that doctors should be able to abort as many embryos as they want but they’re only supposed to implant two at the max. Efforts are made to make two embryo implantation a new medical rule, complete with warnings of witch hunts to any doctors who might not obey the know-it-all culture.

Notice that Pro-choicers are fine with having the government come into our wombs when it comes to the number of embryos that can be implanted. That’s because the “government in wombs” bumper sticker was always a smokescreen.

Pro-choice men have no problem excoriating Suleman; they forgot their mantra about remaining neutral when it comes to “women’s issues” Another smokescreen.

What about not judging decisions made “between a woman, her doctor and God” as Nancy Pelosi puts it. Smokescreen.

If medicine can limit the number of implanted embryos, can we also limit the number of abortions a woman can have? Let’s start with a two abortion limit. See, this is why I call bullshit on Choicers. I’ll entertain criticism from Pro-lifers on Suleman, but the Pro-choicers don’t have an argument to stand on.

Some argue that they hate the idea of the state having to pay for Suleman’s children. But it’s these same Democrats who roll out the cause of poor children to raise our taxes for cradle to grave healthcare. They don’t have a problem paying for 14 million children, so I guess they just hate when 14 of them are at the same address. We can’t afford to pay for Suleman’s 14 children but we can fund Obama’s abortions-around-the-world program.

For three decades we’ve heard about woman power from liberal feminists. Women need men like a fish needs a bicycle, YES WE CAN! Then a lady on welfare has octuplets and it’s, “You can’t do it without a man!” “Women are too weak to take care of 14 children!” Then come the death threats.

Suleman serves as a cultural warning to what happens when we use technology to manipulate life. I don’t understand why we don’t show the same caution when dealing with birth control and abortion given their use is far more commonplace than Suleman’s “problem.”