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The Captain Beefheart Memorial Jack-o-lantern

The subject of this year’s Memorial Jack-o-lantern is Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart (January 15, 1941 – December 17, 2010). Songwriter, vocalist, instrumentalist, and true rock innovator. Beefheart’s wild and wide-ranging voice led The Magic Band through 12 studio albums, and inspired musicians ranging from Tom Waits to Beck to The Black Keys. To create the epic, iconoclastic double album Trout Mask Replica (produced by Frank Zappa), the band lived and rehearsed in a small house for eight months, often in dire conditions. Beefheart wore the head of a carp for the Cal Shenkel-designed album cover (it is a trout mask replica, after all), upon which this memorial jack-o-lantern is based.

You can see a time-lapse video of the carving on the Memorial Jack-o-lanterns page.

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Halloween at the White House

I was invited to carve pumpkins at the White House for Halloween this year. Headed by James Parker, a small team of carving experts from around the country created a haunted display for the White House lawn. My main contribution was a life-size skeleton emerging from the ground, carved from three white pumpkins. You can see more photos here.

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Halloween Wars Victory

We did it! Team Bling Bats, after winning six of the eight challenges, was chosen as the winner of Food Network’s Halloween Wars. Big thanks to my incredible teammates Karen Portaleo and Susan Notter. Everyone worked so hard on this show, it was an honor to be around such talent. I discuss the show and all things pumpkin in this San Francisco Bay Guardian interview.

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