Ah candy corn. This delicious but deadly candy confection connotes images of the fall in the United States, of childhood and our beloved neo-pagan holiday, Halloween.
Thanks to a growing acceptance of weird things in our culture, Halloween has grown in a big way to rival Christmas as American’s favorite holiday. For many queer folks, it’s the first time they don a drag outfit and explore what it’s like to dress up as a man or a woman. For me, it’s a chance to do really weird things in the name of Holiday Spirit. You should see me at a Christmas party. “Is that mistletoe above your camel-toe?”
One of the best things about living in Chicago is our local, small and low-key Halloween parade centered in the heart of the gay part of town, Lakeview. Also known as Boystown, the modest parade attracts people from all walks of life, but a good percentage of the audience is Korean tourists. Don’t ask me why, it just is.
Here’s a picture of me with Saan Huan, a costume-less, Korean Christian minister who somehow made his way to Boystown last year and was acting all weird around us, but somehow wouldn’t stop following us with his camera.
We invited him to hang with us for the rest of the night. It all turned bad when he thought we were putting drugs in his beer.
I love to dress up as a combo of any costume and a vampire, because it’s sexy and weird all at the same time and because it’s an excuse to bite someone on the neck! Last year I was a knight in shining armor + vampire. This year I think I’ll get myself a cowboy gear and be a cowboy vampire.
Amanda’s Halloweens turn out to be like Charlie Brown’s Christmases. One costume idea Amanda had is to take a cardboard box and turn it into a Rubix cube. Another year she had nothing to wear and so she took her purple curtains and turned it into an awkward puple ghost costume that unintentionally offended a lot of people. Think the Teletubbies meets the Klu Klux Klan.
Here’s a bad costume idea: go as a “blind” date (a date wearing dark sunglasses). Be prepared for everyone to ask you if you are Ray Charles or Hellen Keller.
Marc suggests wearing underwear, wrapping yourself up in salami and saran wrap and going as leftovers. I think he just wants to wear a costume he can eat.
Another cheap, messy and dramatic costume idea is going as the classic Sissy Spacek character Carrie. Just put on a nightgown, a blonde wig and a tiara, then drop a bucket of fake blood on yourself at an inappropriate time.
But the best costume you can wear 365 days a year is as a Feast of Fools fan! Get your black t-shirt here now. Click here to see a fabulous photo gallery of people wearing the shirts. Send your photos in now!
Listen as Amanda Steinstein joins Marc Felion and me, Fausto Fernós to talk about Halloween news, cake-sitting, offending witches, sex parties in Canada. Are you invited?
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4 Comments
Comments
ligatures!
(æ, œ, fi, fl, etc.)
mmmmm……ligatures…aahhhh
they taste even better when written in frosting…
Marc your childhood stories are the cutest! My best Halloween memory from my childhood is when I was dressed as a Thundercat and my lil brother was a Mummy, and he fell on top of a cactus, and he was crying and whailing, and he was sO scary there was kids that actually ran away from him! I thought i was the shit cuz i was a freaking Thundercat and my brother with his bloody bandages and horrible crying took away all the attention!
Great show!
Fausto, I totally agree with you about making pumpkin pie from pumpkins! I make them every year from fresh sugar pumpkins, and they are so much better!
Idea costume for Amanda – Barney, but mutilated in some creative blood thirsty fashion. Just a thought.
I wonder if Heklinka hot more tasty cream from that Sid character? Too much!
OMG, my mom always used to make this God-awful Tuna Noodle Casserole with peas in it and these yucky crushed up dried onions that were supposed to be crunchy but never were. My sister and I to this day joke about how awful this thing was. That Tuna Surprise story reminded me of that. Ah memories.
Thx for the show
I had a friend who threw his own funeral. He said he didn’t want to miss it. The invites were in the form of an obituary that said he was cleaning his chainsaw when it went off. On his porch there was a chalk outline of the body with the top half being at the top of the stoop and the bottom half being halfway down the stairs. There were candles everywhere and he was in a wooden coffin that he built himself and used as a coffee table. Then we carried him outside where he had a gravestone planted in the middle of his front yard. The funny thing is that we all stood around him pretending to cry when the trolley went past. You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people, seeing this funeral (complete with body) going on in the middle of this neighborhood. It was priceless.
That reminds me. I had a social studies teacher in 7th grade who had us plan our own funerals (music selection, hors d’œuvres — hey, there goes a ligature! –, venue, etc.). Creepy.
Gotta love those free-thinking educators who stray from the school board curriculum.
Tony, try adding some silken tofu to your pumpkin pie. It will increase the protein and lower your blood sugar rush, and it’s very tasty! We’ll try to make it on a video podcast soon.