Halloween - 1966

I'm Batman

After the haul in Chapel Hill.  The old man was in Vietnam and I'm guessing his six months was up with the A Team in the Central Highlands.  That means a lot of heat was off while he cooled his heels with a C Team in Nha Trang.  This Polaroid was mailed to him by my mother.  I look at this picture and wonder what it was like for him to see something like this.  

Happy Halloween

Illustration by Arthur Frost for Lewis Carroll's 'Phantasmagoria.'

T.W.A.T. 1984

1984 Greenwich Village Halloween Parade Photo by Bob Leafe

Long before the Village parade became over crowded with cliched Bridge & Tunnel Zombies, the sidewalks were lined with mostly straights while the parade featured everything from elaborate floats to a single black man dressed as a Drum Majorette in white boots with pom-poms, throwing a spinning baton in the air with one hand while he balanced a huge ghetto blaster on his shoulder playing marching music.

His style and performance were bested only by four moustached men dressed in 1940s airline stewardess uniforms, stockings, heels and matching pill box hats. They flank marched in step and every 50 feet or so would turn over large round hat boxes one by one revealing, "T. W. A. T." More photos of the '84 parade can be seen here.

Even the many blue suited and Ronald Regan masked cliches of the time allowed one to stand out through the intelligent use of a chain to drag around a hunched over senior citizen while carrying a sign that read, "EAT THE POOR."

Halloween Soundtrack

A favorite for background music on Halloween night. Start at 14:00 to skip Redford's lovely narration. Guaranteed to scare the crap outta Trick or Treaters when you open the door. Also, mesmerizing and strangely addictive.

William Bezek's Halloween: Beauty In The Dark

Against the vulgar backdrop of temporary Halloween costume stores (the 1st Pop Ups?), orange and black chotchkies and a cretinism that suits my country to it's razor bladed apple core... William Bezek's intelligent and tasteful Halloween sculptures rise above it all in their beautiful death. They're snappily dressed as well. Check 'em out at Bezek's blog here. I'd rather have a bunch of these than those silly English Christmas Carolers.

Halloween Costume Idea # 1

I first head this in college. I wanted to be Frank on Halloween. Short sleeve shirt & tie. Gas can in one hand and a Mickey's Big Mouth in the other. Never got around to it. Maybe you will. Here's how I'd introduce myself.

Hi, name's Frank
(shake hands),
Just settled down in the Valley.
Yeah, I like to say I hung my wild years
on a nail I drove through my wife's forehead.

What do I do? Anything I want.
No, seriously...I sell used office furniture out
there on San Fernando Road. Yep.
Assumed a $30,000 loan at 15 1/4% and
put a down payment on a little two bedroom place.

The wife? Spent piece of used jet trash...
Makes a good Bloody Mary. Keeps her mouth shut most
of the time. We have a little Chiuaua named Carlos.
Has some sort'a skin disease and is totally blind.
I drive a Nissan. Yeah, I'd say we're pretty happy.

Was coming home from work one night when
I stopped off at the liquor store and picked up a couple
Mickey's Big Mouths. Drank 'em in the car on the way to the
Shell Station. Got a gallon of gas in a can and drove home.

Doused everything in the house and
torched it.
Parked across the street and watched it burn...
All Halloween orange and chimney red.

Then I put on a top 40 station,
got on the Hollywood Freeway
and headed north.
Yeah, I'll have another one.
Thanks.

(to myself)
Never could stand that dog.