Halloween

Halloween is, by far, my favorite holiday in the entire year. Honestly, any occasion where I get to dress up like a freak and walk around in public is awesome, and Halloween is really the only socially acceptable excuse to do that. This year, I did it on multiple occasions, which was really awesome.

I've had a few people request pictures of my costumes this year. Technically, I had three, although one was a very simplified and gore-ified variation. Here, in reverse chronological order, they are:

October 31: "The Messy Eater"

Halloween night I hung out with Chris & Kate in their front yard, handing out candy and operating one of the fog machines. Nobody asked me what I was, but if they had I would've told them I was a messy eater. Prep was simple: I took my "costume" from the night before and gargled with some fake blood, refreshing it on occasion throughout the evening. I even acted like a fountain with it, tilting my head back and sputtering up so it splashed back on my face, which led to this interesting detail:

I'm not sure how easy it is to make out but, if you look closely, you can see that I managed to get streaks of fake blood on my glasses. I thought that was pretty cool.

October 30: "T.D. Gressl"

Most of my Halloween costumes are a little bit obscure, because I frequently don't go as a general concept-character (pirate, ninja, doctor, wrestler, etc.) but as hyper-specific characters (one year I went as Andy Warhol, which was absurdly easy). Unfortunately, most of the hyper-specific characters exist only between my ears: one year I was Buford Bodette, a farmer who'd been caught in a combine, for instance. Tuesday night, for trivia at Pat's, I decided to go as T.D. Gressl, the anthropomorphic incarnation of a particularly nasty and corrupt demon (you get two guesses what "T.D." stands for). Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the finished costume yet, but I will post them when I do.

That said, here's me in the process of being made-up by Chris:

Whenever people asked me what I was supposed to be, I would give them a look…

…then a big smile and say "Full." A lot of people just assumed I was dead, so when they'd say "Look! There's a dead guy!" I'd say "I'm not dead. Someone who's never even been born can't possibly die." At one point, I rambled on a bit about how ironic it was that I thought humans tasted "divine," and how just a little bit of fear and pain brought their delicious souls slipping out of their bodies like oysters from a shell.

I'm not sure anyone got that I was a demon, but I think I might've creeped some folks out. At the very least, I confused them.

October 27: Father Eaghan Morgenstern—Hunter of the Undead

Father Eaghan was the character I'd been carrying around in my head for nearly a year and the one I worked the hardest on. I mean, hell, I went so far as to grow a beard, which drove me batshit insane.

My initial concept was to base Father Eaghan entirely off of Max Brooks, hence the katana. However, the more excited I got about the character, the more I decided to go with more super-natural undead besides just zombies.

Now, I know that you can't see too much in that shot up top. Basically, I wore a clerical collar, blue jeans, black stomp boots and a large belt rigged up gunslinger style with a replica pistol and a sword.

I got pretty detailed, too:

That's a rosary that I picked up in an antique store and attached to the katana's scabbard using picture-wire and needle-nose pliers.

And there's my trusty, single-shot revolver (no need to hurry when you're shooting zombies) along with my vampire-frightening cross. The cross I picked up in the wind-chime section of Hobby Lobby for $2.99. You don't want to know what I paid for the replica pistol.

There was one more ingredient for all these costumes that really made them wild:

If you ever want to have a dusty, or even downright dirty appearance, get thyself to Home Depot and pick up a 60 lb. bag of Sankrete for $5. Nothing says "I am serious about this costume" like simulated road-dust or grave-dirt!

Anyway, hope you all had happy, individual Halloweens. I'll post more pictures of the T.D. Gressl costume when they arrive in my in-box.

And, believe it or not, I'll be writing something tomorrow, too.