Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 2

1. JAME GUMB FROM SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

What you will need:

A dirty blond wig
Lipstick
Eye Shadow
Eye Liner
A pair of flesh-colored or beige/tan panties
A fake goatee
A red kimono
A nonpermanent marker
glue
Basket
Lotion
slippers

What you will NOT need:

A sense of shame

Directions:

Make your face up tramp-style and put on the wig. Glue the fake goatee to the front of the flesh-colored or beige/tan panties. When the glue is dry, put the panties on - now it looks like you're tucking without actually having to tuck. Remain shirtless and pantless. Draw a small tattoo on your side, if you wish. Put your slippers on. Talk like you have a hairlip, and ask everyone if they would fuck you, because you would fuck you. You would fuck you hard. Put the fucking lotion in the basket, and carry it around. Bonus points if you carry around a small audio player and dance to "Goodbye Horses."


2. LINDA BLAIR FROM THE EXORCIST

What you will need:

Nightgown with a distinct front
slippers
green makeup
grey makeup
white makeup
baby powder or colorless foundation
eyeliner
can of split pea soup
thermos or container for soup
cross
Bra
something to pad bra with
Hair gel


Directions:

If you're a woman, tape down your boobs or wear something which flattens them to your chest. Stuff the bra, and put it on with the boob cups on your back -backwards, in other words. Put the gown on backwards, as well. See, now it sort of looks like your head is spun around. I know, I know, but this is low-budget, remember? Take the green makeup and mix a bit of the grey and white with it, and apply to face and neck. Take some of the grey makeup and accentuate your eye sockets, making sure to feather the edges. Take a bit of the white makeup and line your lips with it, and then take the eyeliner and draw "cracks" on your lips. Dust it all down with a slight amount of the Baby powder or foundation powder. Put the hair gel in your hair and string it out. Put the soup in the container, and at random points during the evening when no one is looking take a mouthful and mock-projectile-vomit it out. Carry the cross - it's up to you whether you fake masturbating with it or say the lines. If you want to go to Hell, go for it.



3. Tobias Fünke FROM ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

What you will need:

Blue makeup (lots and lots of it)
Mustache (or something to draw a mustache with, like an eyeliner pencil)
Daisy Duke cut-off jeans with the pockets hanging out
thin-rimmed glasses
Boots
Colorless foundation powder

This works best if you are bald, but if you aren't just slick your hair down and back and apply the blue makeup over it. Cover yourself with the blue makeup, and dust it all down with the powder. If you have no mustache, draw one with the eyeliner. Put your jeans on, and make sure the pockets are hanging out. Put your glasses and your boots on. Tell everyone that you're afraid you just blue yourself.



Copy, paste, and print this picture out in multiples on cardstock, cut them out business-card-size, and pass them out to whomever you meet:





















Back tomorrow with more Halloween memories, and (hopefully) my second Halloween Special podcast. Don't forget to download my first Halloween Special Podcast!

Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas, Part 1

For all you procrastinating dudes.

This first batch of last-minute costume ideas is for the fellas, and revolves around having a dark suit, white dress shirt, and black tie.

1. LEX LUTHOR

Are you bald? Are you going bald? Are your follicles fleeing the scene of the crime? Well, Halloween is the perfect opportunity to kick that shit in gear and razor that hairy horsehoe off the back and sides of your head. You also get a cool, cheap Halloween costume out of it.

What you will need:

A black or dark dress suit
White dress shirt
Black tie
Black or dark dress shoes
Razor and shaving cream
Medium-sized rock
Flourescent or glow-in-the dark Green spray paint

Directions:

1. Spray rock with flourescent green spraypaint. Allow drying time. Recoat if necessary.
2. Shave head. Do it in a hot shower, and take your time.
3. Put some shaving lotion or skin conditioner on your head.
4. Put your suit on.
5. Walk around carrying the flourescent or glow-in-the-dark green rock.
6. Congratulations, you're Lex Luthor with a Kryptonite rock. If you can pair up with someone dressed as Superman, even better.

2. JOHNNY MO FROM KILL BILL

I went as this guy in 2004.

What you will need:

Black suit, white shirt, black tie, black dress shoes
Razor and shaving cream
Domino or Kato mask (you can find these just about anywhere for a buck)
Toy samurai or ninja sword

Directions:

Shave your head, dress, put mask on, walk around waving the sword and screaming random Japanese-sounding crap. When I did it in 2004, there was a girl at a nightclub dressed as The Bride, and we would scream shit at each other across the club.

3. THE INVISIBLE MAN

A classy costume for very little investment. You don't even have to shave your head for this one.

What you will need:

Dark suit, white shirt, dress shoes
White gloves
White scarf
Wide medical gauze
Dark sunglasses
Black greasepaint pen or black makeup

Directions:

Wrap your head and neck carefully with the gauze, making sure that you leave space for your eyes and nose. Attach the ends with some glue, or medical tape, and make sure they're secure so it won't start to unravel fifteen minutes after you get to the party. Take the makeup or greasepaint pen and dab the black on any exposed skin for a neat effect (from far away it will look like empty space). Dress in your suit, and wrap the scarf around your neck ascot-style. Put your white gloves and the glasses on. Looks pretty cool. Start talking like an invisible insane person.

4. MR. BAKED POTATO HEAD

I just think this would be pretty funny.

What you will need:

Suit, tie, shirt, dress shoes
Aluminum Foil
White makeup
Yellow makeup
Red makeup
Green makeup
Baby powder or colorless foundation powder
White gloves (optional)

Directions:

Lay a base of white all over your face and neck. Dust lightly with the powder to prevent smearing on your clothes. Take the yellow makeup and color your nose (that's the pat of butter). Take the red makeup and, using a tiny brush or a cotton swab, draw bacon bit shapes sprinkled around your face. Take the green makeup and draw tiny curls here and there (those are the chives). Dust VERY lightly over the designs. Take the aluminum foil and make yourself a hat or hood, or just wrap it over your head and form an exposed pocket where your face is. Put your suit and gloves on.

If you want to get nuts with it, I suppose you could actually stick bacon bits and chives to your face with spirit gum, but they probably wouldn't last very long. You'd smell delicious, though.

Back later with more last-minute costume ideas.

Don't forget to download my Halloween Special Podcast!

Halloween 1978 - KISS Meets The Coward in the Car

On Saturday, October 28 1978, my Mom took me to a "Haunted" house here in Wilmington. We rode with her friend Dixie, and Dixie's daughter (I can't remember her name). Dixie's daughter was a couple of years older than me. I remember how poised and graceful she was, for such a young girl - my Mom said she was classy. Me? Ha, at nine years of age, I was perhaps best known for staring out the back window of the car and making faces at the drivers behind us on long family trips. One group even followed us into a gas station and asked my folks to make me stop, as I had been doing it for almost an hour while they were trapped behind us on some back roads leading to Greenville NC (and no, I'm not making that up - ask my Mom, she was mortified beyond words, and I wasn't allowed to even turn around the rest of the way there, or on the entire return trip).

So we pulled into this place, and they'd turned the front yard into a cemetery. It looked pretty real to me, although I suppose it was cobbled together from cardboard and styrofoam for the headstones (the undead don't give a crap about chloro-fluorocarbons), paint for the engravings and cracks, and pulled cotton for the black widow webs. There were barrels with fires inside, giving the wooded area a horror movie styled flicker. A gate with skulls (probably fake, but who knows, life was cheap in the Disco era) on each of the two post tops led the way to the front porch, which was illuminated by a single red light bulb. A cloaked figure stood by the door, taking the money (hey, even Charon demanded an obolus). All the windows were boarded up, but you could see snatches of light spilling through here and there.

There were unearthly sounds coming from those windows which made the hair on the back of my nine-year-old unwashed neck stand up. Dixie's daughter remained unaffected.

We started walking from the parking area up to the gate when I heard the screaming. From around the back corner of the house, getting louder and closer. A person ran from that corner, looking behind at something. His shirt was torn and splattered with the realest blood there ever was, no matter that real blood isn't ever that red, in my mind it was real and it was leaking from any number of wounds on that person's body.

Then, the killer. A hulking figure wearing overalls and a mask appeared, stalking the screamer. My memory is clouded, and each time I think back the weapon in his hands changes - an axe, a pitchfork, a sledgehammer, a chainsaw. Halloween the movie wasn't that well-known yet, and Jason Voorhees was still a ways off, so I hadn't been jaded into relating something like this to one of those movie monsters - maybe it was supposed to be a Leatherface. I can't remember the mask or the weapon. Doesn't really matter - what matters is that I really believed I was about to see a person being murdered.

He ran past us and warned "Run for your lives!!!!"

Which is exactly what I did. I didn't so much run as I did fly, my feet never disturbing the gravel on the path back to the car. The doors were unlocked, but before my little ass hit the vinyl on the seat they were all latched securely. The killer and the screamer ran off into the woods, presumably to circle back behind the house for their next performance a few minutes later.

My Mom, Dixie, and her daugher came back around and tried to convince me to go on inside the haunted house, but I'd decided I'd had quite enough Halloween. Dixie's daughter even offered to hold my hand so I wouldn't be so scared (I probably should've married her when I grew up), but I just shook my head and kept the doors locked.

You know, for someone who loves Halloween, I sure have been a pretty big pussy about it over the years.

***

So, once they'd all finished touring the haunted house (less than fifteen minutes, if I remember correctly, and they told me nothing inside was as scary as the screamer on the outside), I ended up at home in front of the TV just in time for KISS Meets That Guy Who Looks Like He Could Be Jack Nicholson's Brother. Which is where I'd wanted to be in the first place.

Words can't even begin to describe how terrible KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park is. And by "terrible," I mean "the greatest made-for-television movie ever made." It was the best Halloween I ever had up to that point, and by the time the opening credits were over I'd forgotten all about my pussyosity earlier in the evening.

I was going to do a long recap and poke a lot of fun at it, but I'd really just be poking fun at myself, because I was all about KISS when I was between the ages of 7 and 9. I was in their Army, at least in spirit. I had a Paul Stanley action figure. I had all the comics. I had most of their albums, which always came with cool shit like posters or booklets or temporary tattoos. I had a T-shirt with their logo in gold glitter, which my Mom accidentally ironed on the shirt upside-down but I wore anyway. I can't poke fun at that. Well, I could, but my jokes will never be as intentionally funny as the movie was unintentionally hilarious.

Besides, thanks to the godliness of Youtube, I'll just let you see for yourself (this isn't a complete version, but it's pretty close, and it's all in order).

Rip, rip, rip and destroy, break it down and seal your fate:

So very, very wrong

From Talkshow with Spike Feresten.

Two great tastes, together at last!

Do you love lolcats? Do you love Lovecraft? If you answered yes to both (and I know you did), I give you...LOLTHULHU!


(H/T: maggie.)

Traveled down the road and back again...

Before you click this link, ask yourself: "How brave am I, really? Are there sights which cannot be unseen? Can I live with night terrors for the rest of my life? If I go blind in one eye, will the other eye grow stronger to compensate? How will I ever be able to face my children again? Those veins, so many, are they a cryptic roadmap of the highways leading to Hell? If I do not click this link, am I a pussy?"

The answer to that last question is: Yes, yes you are.

Click it. Don't be a pussy. Thank you for being a friend.

Random WTF Ads From Olden Times

click to enlarge

Tote-Em-In Zoo (Tregembo Animal Park)

One of my favorite childhood memories is watching the roadside elephant in front of the zoo as my parents drove past.

The elephant's name was Matteau, but everyone called him Jumbo (after the more famous elephant from Barnum's Circus named Jumbo). He'd wave his trunk side-to-side, up and down, take peanuts from you, and sometimes pat you on the head with that trunk.

We lived two miles from the Zoo, and Carolina Beach Road was (and is) the main highway leading towards Wilmington proper, so I saw him a lot. A couple of years before he died, in 1991, he started to get a little mean and withdrawn. He knew he wasn't supposed to be there anymore, that it had been a nice visit, that he'd enjoyed meeting and playing with all the kids over the years, but he had to be somewhere else when he died. He was drawn home, but he couldn't ever go back, and I think it finally dawned on him just how trapped he was.

I don't know how I feel about zoos when I think about stuff like that.

It's called Tregembo Animal Park nowadays. It's been around for over 50 years. If you're ever in the Wilmington area and you feel the urge to watch a bunch of monkeys jerk off, it's eight bucks for adults, six bucks for kids. Click the photos to go to flickr and see them larger, or to view the whole set.



Wide shot of Tregembo Animal Park (formerly Tote-Em-In Zoo). Taken from across the highway while standing in the bed of my truck.



Black and White shot of the front



This is the spot where Matteau the Elephant used to draw in customers from the roadside. Matteau died in 1991. He used to wave at you as you passed, and he'd take peanuts from you if you stopped to say hello. Seems so empty now.



Black and White close shot of the Lion's Head entrance

Sometimes the kids in my neighborhood would walk all the way down there as a group and pay for tickets. Sometimes we got in for free, because the fellow running the reptile part of it (a guy named Jerry Brewer) lived in the neighborhood. My Dad was friends (drinking buddies) with his brother. He'd always bring home some crazy animal and let it loose in his yard. I remember he brought one of those lizards that run on two legs and display the frill around their heads home one weekend, and we had a blast chasing that thing all over his fenced-in backyard. That thing moved like liquid lightning, none of us could catch it.

I don't know if they still have it, but they had a snake pit at one time, this large mass of writhing animals in a concrete building, and Jerry would give lectures while standing in the middle of it, picking up snakes to show off while he was talking. He'd milk a venomous snake, taking questions and dispelling snake myths. He dressed sort of like Jim from Wild Kingdom.

Once, when I was a little kid, a wild boar somehow got away from the zoo for few days, and managed to make its way through the woods (there were a lot of woods back then, not so much now) all the way down to where we lived. My Dad noticed him in the woods behind our home, and threw out a bunch of scraps to keep him occupied. Then he lured him into a temporary rope trap he'd made and called the Tote-Em-In people to come get it. As the two knuckleheads they sent were trying to load the boar into their truck, they took the rope off the animal prematurely, and he got away again. It was another week before they caught him and took him back.



Lady cleaning out the front of the Lion's Head entrance to Tregembo Animal Park. It looks like she's brushing that tooth.



Two ladies eyeing me suspiciously from the Lion's Head entrance. I don't blame them - after all, I was a dude standing in my truck bed across the highway taking pictures.

I might spring for the eight bucks and take some pictures of the animals inside someday. I dunno. Like I said, I sometimes don't know how I feel about zoos.