Happy Halloween!

After a good decade in retirement, I dug out the 'ol Silent Bob costume for the party at work today. Not in much of a mood to celebrate there, to be honest. Long story, but I'll save that for a locked down MySpace blog, maybe.

Anyway, expect plenty of pics on my Flickr page tomorrow of Silent Bob, Anakin Skywalker, my Little Princess, and (insert Sonya's costume here)!

Hope you all have a great time amongst the little ghouls and goblins. Remember, save those disgusting marshmallow peanuts for the teens that come around with no costume.

The Halloween Blog – FINALLY!

Okay, took me almost 3 weeks to get to it, but here's a quick rundown of Halloween.

This is mostly so I can post some pics of the kids' Halloween Costumes. Other than that, there's not much to report. I got home, we ran around like mad getting costumes on, Leigh brought over dinner ("ears and eyeballs" made with shell pasta for "ears" and veggie meatballs for "eyeballs" with LOTS of mozzarella – yum), and I headed out with the kids for a few blocks while Sonya and Leigh handed out goodies and had a chance to chat, sans kids. After about 3 blocks or so, we rounded the route back home so Sonya and Leigh could trade duties with me.

After they were done and dumped their haul on the floor for us to inspect (parental paranoia, but only a few rejects), Aunt Val stopped by drop her goodies for the kids, since we didn't have time to stop by her place. We had a good time chatting and munching, and the kids hit the hay.

Liam went as "Ghost Rider".

This was nice and simple. He had full skull mask, but it covered his hair, so I let him use my old 2-piece, glue-on skull mask from my "Grim Reaper" days. Sonya put some hair spray and red make-up in his blond hair to resemble flames. Add my skeleton gloves, a $10 leather coat from the Salvation Army (that will get a couple more years of standard use as well), and a length of chain from Home Depot, and voila! He looked GREAT!

Courtney went as a dragon.

This was Liam's costume that Sonya had made from about 4 years earlier. Sonya was digging through the closet a couple months ago and Courtney spotted it. It was a tad small, but not bad for a costume. The only addition she wanted was a set of wings, which Sonya was more than happy to oblige. She found a nice piece of iridescent fabric and simple safety-pinned it on. Courtney looked adorable – as always.

I, having a certain standard to maintain when it comes to clever costumes, went as Nintendo's Mario.

I had been growing this handlebar moustache for the Moustache Contest at this Fall's barbershop convention. Well, the contest got buggared up and didn't happen, but the moustache proved useful, nonetheless.

While getting some balloons for Courtney's birthday party several weeks ago, I found myself looking at the front page of the Detroit News/Free Press. They had a story about the new video games for the holiday season and featured a picture of Mario on the front page. I found myself looking at the picture and absent-mindedly twisting my moustache like Sindley Whiplash. I realize what I'm doing, look again at the picture, and smile, knowing what my costume will be for the year.

I bought a pair of overalls from Wal*Mart (I hate shopping there), a red mock-turtleneck from the thrift store, dye my cap red, cut out the "M" from an iron-on patch, grab some old marching band gloves and my brown boots. I color my eyebrows, moustache and sideburns with make-up and – boom – perfect Mario.

That night, I shaved off the moustache and started growing my standard goatee again. I hate having a long moustache.

I'm not about to post a picture of Sonya's WONDERFUL pirate costume without her okay first. I'd be drawn and quartered for sure.

All-in-all a fun Halloween. Nothing remarkable, but just plain old-fashioned fun.

I love having kids.

Halloween is a Geek's Christmas!

Ah, an opportunity to delve into the deepest depths of my quirky knowledge of pop-culture, as well as express my creativity and ingenuity!

I have never been a fan of store-bought costumes. The last one I remember having is a $6 million man costume (cellophane topped box, cheap plastic rubber sting, polyurethane pajamas, suffocating mask and all) in 1st grade. After suffering through the sweat, peripheral blindness, and near asphyxiation of that, I decided to make my own costumes from then on. I always used primarily materials lying in scrap piles in the house. Old clothes, beat-up cardboard boxes, tin cans, near dried-up paint - whatever I could find. I almost never bought materials that cost me more than $20, and usually kept the cash outlay to less than $5. That made my white-trash level income parents happy.

However, as I had no athletic talent, low popularity, and was quite fat, I knew I'd have to make a mark through other means. The best option was to come up with costumes not offered in stores and made impressively out of few materials, creative thinking, and little or no cost. My first idea in 4th grade was to by a pair of red long-johns and make a Greatest American Hero costume. That would require buying them, painting a reasonable insignia for the chest, and regardless, would look cheap and hokey, if it was even recognized. Besides which, since the show was canceled by then and I had no good pictures of the costume, it wouldn't be accurate. Okay, idea tabled pending future research.

In my early days, I did the low-budget standards, using clothes either in or on their way out of mine or my parents' wardrobes - Hobo, B-level Vampire, etc.. By 6th grade or so, I decided to make a real project out of it. After making my own costumes and props to perform comedy routines in grade school talent shows, I found I was really good at turning garbage into gold. I lip-synched "Like a Surgeon" and recruited a couple friends to play my assistant and patient. I made reasonable facsimiles of stethoscopes, surgical gowns and masks, handsaws, hammers, and other implements of destruction to open my 'patient', and withdrew from him every odd-looking thing I found in the house (that wasn't in my parents nightstand, anyway). I received quite a few compliments on my performance AND props.

I decided to extend this foray to Halloween. In 6th grade (or thereabouts), after spelunking the nether regions of our basement, I found a remnant of aging carpet padding. Being the chubby, couch-potato, junk food junkie I was, inspiration came quickly. French Fries! I embarked upon a journey that led to cries of frustration, cuts, scrapes, tears, late night trips to the store, and several adjustments to my ultimate plan. I fashioned the frame from 1"x1" strips of wood, the exterior of cardboard covered in tacky print contact paper, and wrote "French Fries" in permanent marker on the front to dissuade the inevitable question (no mater how obvious the costume), "And what are YOU suppose to be?" In the end, I had made a replica of a typical fast-food fry box with strips of carpet padding for fries.

I was elated, despite how hokey the costume was, at the compliments I got for ingenuity and creativity. I won 2nd prize at the church costume contest, being beaten by a parent assisted (or more likely store-bought) pizza slice costume worn by the girl I had a major crush on. Romantically emasculated and creatively crushed, I walked the 2 miles home with my "major award", determined not to be outdone again.

In 8th grade I undertook a similar project with a Heinz Ketchup bottle costume. Using my standard materials of small strips of wood, cardboard, duct tape, and paint, I made an impressive costume. There were problems, however. I could only take tiny steps as the wood frame went past my knees. It also weighed in excess of 30 lbs and measured an unyielding 5'x3', making it incredibly difficult to transport. This awkward transport of the costume led to me being late for school and the judging for the contest. I was disappointed, but reveled in the continued compliments, and took solace in the fact that I had 2 pics of it in the yearbook. Trick-or-treating was a mess, however. Given my constricted strides, I averaged about 2 blocks ever 30 minutes. I finally gave up and took of the costume, plopping the bottle cap on my head and loot-filled pillowcase over my shoulder. Trudging for the last hour in my red flannel shirt, red-painted face and odd-looking cap, I was mistaken for a sailor on leave and only occasionally took the time to explain my true costume. After all, I had a lot of ground to make up!

From there, I went more mainstream. I went as Freddy Krueger a time or 2, using my near trademark fedora, a cheap sweater from Kmart, and spending most of my time fashioning a jointed, working slasher glove from paper rivets, a worn-out band uniform glove, cardboard and tin foil. It looked great!

Since then, I have only occasionally gotten costume pieces from a store. When I worked at Gags 'N Gifts for a brief period, I grabbed a few things with my generous store discount after the Halloween rush: an ill-fitting peasant shirt, cheap moccasin style boots, theater-quality custom fit fangs, a 2-piece, glue-on, paint-it-yourself skull mask, and a helmet-like cap suitable for a wizard. I still have and use those on occasion for quickly thrown-together costumes. I also made a fantastic black crushed-velvet cloak from a store-bought pattern, all tolled, costing me about $25. I finished it at 12:30am on November 1st '97. Determined not to let it go to waste that year, I headed to my fraternity's Halloween party, letting the sorority girls admire it and making sure to let them know how domestic I was by saying I made it myself. That cloak has gotten a LOT of use as a wizard (with the helmet and staff fashioned our of a tree limb and quartz crystals), Grim Reaper (with the skull mask), Vampire (with the fangs), and I drag it out for the Renaissance festival (with the peasant shirt), marveling at how much heavier and better it is than the $200+ cloaks offered there.

With my kids taking a priority now, I have often resorted to those standard costumes. I have also, however, learned to use my (currently decreasing) girth to my advantage, pairing up with my friend Leigh as Mimi Bobeck to go as Drew Carey (using only a suit and black glasses frames) and Silent Bob (using only my trench coat, standard clothing, dark makeup for my beard and long hair brunette wig).

As you can guess by my profile pic, the original idea for the Greatest American Hero costume was finally, after 20+ years, resurrected. Last year, after hearing about the release of the series on DVD and with the help of the previously non-existent internet, I was able to get some good pics of the costume. With the added assets of my own means of transportation, materials acquisition (i.e. budget), inkjet iron-on t-shirt transfers, a decent sewing machine (thanks Val!), and a bit more experience, I was able to fashion a very convincing (if increasingly obscure) costume I had waited almost a quarter century to make!

Now, unfortunately, I have discovered that the costume is available online for about $40. It's nowhere near as nice as mine and certainly not as ingenious, but somehow detracts a bit from the novelty of my costume, being available to the general public. Plus, the new deluxe edition of the series comes with a replica cape and iron-on transfer. Oh well, I DID IT FIRST! I'll likely break down and buy the new set sometime, however, as it comes with (get this) a full, working replica of the instruction book, complete with working lights!

I've re-made the costume almost entirely this year, giving it a bit of a better fit, a few more minor details, and replacing the over-worn shirt I continued to use after last Halloween.

Red Long-sleeve t-shirt - $5
pack of iron-on Inkjet transfers - $10
roll of duct tape (trim) - $.99
Red workout pants - $10 (clearance)
black satin fabric & red ribbon - $8
2" strip of gray pleather (belt) - $.89
Jelly Jar Lid (buckle) - $0

fulfilling a lifelong Halloween dream - priceless

How about some of your Halloween memories!?