These Asburian dead-heads came to town with the Zombie mob in 2014, but each year it’s deja vu all over again.      Paul Goldfinger photo ©

By Paul Goldfinger, Editor@ Blogfinger.net

This is a re-post from October 7, 2018. It questions repetitious and boring  OG autumn lifestyles and thus is relevant in October, 2020 as well, putting aside the hopefully temporary COVID-19 pandemic which has made most everything grind to a stultifying halt this year.

In 2018  the City of Asbury Park once again hosted an October Zombie walk.  We don’t know how many drooling, bleeding visitors came, because we didn’t go.  They always look the same—-“deja vu all over again.”   The City does it  because they are desperate to keep the tourist flame alive long after Labor Day. They have events going on each weekend.

Zombie-time is predictably mostly an attempt to get people to show up in grotesque costumes where no one seems happy.  In fact it’s hard to find anyone at the Zombie walk who is smiling or laughing.  The mantra is to look evil and disgusting.  What a marvelous theme for a place that some see as a future center for NJ art, music, and cuisine.  It was cancelled for 2020 after a near death experience a few years ago when it almost vanished forever.

Someone complained yesterday (2018) that Blogfinger  should not have posted Jean’s photo of the Harvest Festival in OG because it is the same boring thing over and over again. It will be held again on Oct. 10, 2020 in beautiful historic downtown Ocean Grove, turning our town into a culture-free, brain frozen, and highly saturated fat zone.

OG Harvest Festival in 2016. Should we close down our downtown to sell trinkets, T shirts and hot dogs?    Paul Goldfinger photo ©

But this criticism misses the point which is that  a town’s event schedule should primarily take into consideration those who actually live in the community.

Having events that are designed to create commercial goals rather than to further the cultural and community spirits of the towns themselves is to fail those who make their homes here , raise their families, pay taxes and seek loftier ideals.  The goal should be events that enrich the townspeople and then become traditions worth looking forward to.

For example, a town farmers’ market is satisfying because local growers share their goods with the local citizens.  Helping to feed ones’ neighbors and to meet the growers is  a rich experience to share.

Will A. Park be considered an amazing place in the future or will it be known as a monied playground for hipsters?

And will the Grove be known as a historic village where music, culture, family, religion and community take center stage?  Or will it be seen as a grid-locked mish-mash lacking focus, as is seen in so many shore towns.  At least in Seaside Heights you can experience a world-class sausage, peppers and onion sandwich.

And Bradley Beach offers an October cultural first: a scarecrow building contest.  It may not seem like much, but it will delight the locals there and be something unique rather than zombie Octobers in A. Park and the re-birth of the blues on Main Avenue in the Grove with the same two dancing couples.

Autumn is the season of changes—how about some of those in this town?

PHIL OCHS   “Changes”

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