Category: halloween

Catching up with the Jones!

Up and Coming: Halloween! I love Halloween. It’s like Christmas to me. Our costumes are ready. We are Lene Lovich and Nina Hagen!)


Eugene! I am excited about the all-girl laugh-fest coming up, and looking forward to meeting more funny ladies!

Chariots of Rubber! I have recently been cast in Jeffrey Wonderful’s musical about Demolition Derby, love, and Cindy, the Erotic Pleaser as a Backup Dancer, so I can add that distinction to my resume! I have NO idea when or where it will premiere, but it is going to be FANTASTIC. They told me I could tap dance in it. Equal parts Hedwig, Rocky Horror, Grease, and giant, talking nipples.

I leave you with a Fact-of-The Day quote from John Hodgman’s very funny new book, More Information Than You Require:


HALLOWE’EN: Originally called Samhain, this is the traditional Pagan-American holiday when we ask our children to consider the fragility of life by dressing them in darkly colored costumes and vision-impairing masks and encouraging them to walk around in the road.

Monster Letters!


You can get your name in monster letters here! I love I-mockery at this time of year.

How Children Ruin Halloween!

I Love Halloween

I have always loved Halloween. I think it’s tailor-made for girls- who doesn’t like dressing up and being rewarded with candy? Maybe I love it because I snared my first boyfriend in 8th grade at a Halloween party while dressed like Cleopatra and kicking serious asp.
In college, I rocked an Egyptian Cat Goddess (Bastet for the nerds) look with face fulla paint and a head fulla acid and met a different guy. We made a date for a couple days after, but I didn’t keep it when I realized he did not actually know what I looked like. Of course, being a suburban gothgirl meant that the day after Halloween was the optimal time to head to Michael’s MJDesigns and stock up on cheap-azz clown white and fishnets. Day of the dead, indeed!


Historical Document from 1987.

Modern Adult Costumes

I like that in America, adults still get to dress up, although women’s costumes are limited to some combination of Goth girl and whore.

Maybe you’re right. Maybe there’s not a giant difference between the two. But really- I’m a sexy witch, I’m a sexy maid, I’m a sexy corpse- and then the guys are all sumo wrestlers and ketchup dispensers? How is a sexy witch supposed to hang out with a sumo wrestler? All the guys are so into pirates, but they’re not into dressing as hobos, the disabled, cross-dressing transient muggers of today.
It’s not fair.

But my point- and yes, I have one.

Children Ruin Halloween

1. There is a new horrifying phenomenon when sometimes lazy, whorish Mom’s outfits are handed down, so you see an eight year old dressed as Spooky Nurse Fuckalot. Here’s some candy, honey. No, I don’t want an enema.
2. Halloween is about fantasy, and children don’t need any more fantasy. I’m tired of hearing their bullshit stories about what supposedly happened at Grandma’s.
3. Kids refuse to keep their costumes on. Last year, I met a ninja who had lost his sword and taken his hood off, so what we were dealing with was: a little person in black pajamas. I ask you. Pirates have their eyepatches upside down on foreheads.  What kind of commitment is that to a “look”? No commitment at all.

Trick or treat is a farce, and as far as I can tell, it’s our fault.

The little ghosts and goblins are home having their stashes rifled through by their paranoid, chocolate-starved parents by the time the street lights come on.  Let me say- most of the time that candy is, god forbid, poisoned, it’s the kid’s own parents who do it, and I’m sure they have their reasons.

Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear

Judging by the referrals on my site meter, a lot of people are getting to my page because they are looking for pictures or information about Gloomy, The Naughty Adult Bear. Since I sometimes pretend to myself that I am providing a service, here is a good page from Wikipedia about Gloomy, a toy series and his creator, Mori Chack.
From his press release: Gloomy, an abandoned little bear, is rescued by Pitty (the little boy). At first, he is cute and cuddly, but becomes more wild as he grows up. Since bears do not become attached to people like dogs by nature, Gloomy attacks Pitty even though he is the owner. So Gloomy has blood on him from biting and/or scratching Pitty.

The moral: wild animals are dangerous, even when they are cute and/or pink. I’ll bet you didn’t know that a hippo will take your arm off if it gets a chance. I met a guy who was pulled out of a boat in Africa and badly maimed by the cutest, fattest hippo ever. Hippopotamus means “river horse” in Greek, but you absolutely should not ride him.

Many celebrities exhibit the same behaivor, appearing cute and harmless but lashing out when cornered, like Mel Gibson, Peter Buck, and that guy from Seinfeld.

Youtubed!

This will be the last time I will mention our dang Leigh Bowery costumes. Probably.

I put a short film of a dance routine I did on Halloween on Youtube, but I hesitated to post about it, because it’s not really the film I wanted (due to the shaky-cam, tight-zoom effect) but in retrospect, it *is* the best one-minute tap routine in a Leigh Bowery costume ever done to a mashup of “Baby Got Back.”

Or else, certainly it’s in the top ten.

Yesterday, I got a Youtube comment asking if that was really Leigh Bowery. I told my new friend no, it was just little me, and my friend complimented my costume, and I felt all warm inside. However, shortly after that, I got a Youtube comment from an alert viewer pointing out that he didn’t really believe that it was Leigh, and believes the film to be: A HOAX. He noted astutely that:
A. The costume is not as fancy/decorated as it should have been. Shitty, shitty costume.
B. The dancing is graceless, like a drunken elephant in toe shoes. Nothing like Leigh.
C. It could be Leigh at 5 AM in an afterhours bar, snockered out of his mind- but in general, he’s calling a Bravo Sierra on this!
I wrote my esteemed viewer to thank him for his interest and to note that I never intended to pass the movie off as the genuine article, and had re-titled the movie Tribute to Leigh Bowery to avoid this kind of confusion in the future, and did not point out clues that he missed:
A. In both the notes and in the comments I say “This is me, dressed as Leigh Bowery.”
Also, I put the record date on the submit, which is 12 years and 9 months after Leigh took off for parts unknown.
B. Although “Baby Got Back” was released in 1992, 2 years before we lost Leigh, the Benny Benassi mash-up by DJ Tripp was just released in April 2005, and the one minute remix of that version was done over Labor Day weekend of this year. (Thank you, Kid Whatever!)
C. Although Leigh was gifted in many different artforms, I don’t believe that tap dance was ever on his list of interests. He overlooked the fact that I am between 125 and 150 pounds lighter than Leigh. And that’s the unkindest cut of all.

OnLeigh You

Well, if you recall, I threatened that we were dressing as deceased lifestyle artist Leigh Bowery for Halloween, and here are how the outfits turned out. They are a simple combination of 15 yards of fabric, four gloves, 500 pink paillettes, including those that have dropped off in my glittery wake, and a replica WWI helmet.

They are great to drink and dance in, but terrible to eat, negotiate cramped parties, and do rifle practice in. After 6 clubs and parties, a total of 6 people identified our artist, which was 5 more than we expected. I was somewhat surprised that when I ran into friends and acquaintances, I was recognized as myself with 100% accuracy.

Apparently, my voice is distinctive, as is my propensity for yelling. However, two of my friends said that talking to me in the mask for extended periods of time was “creepy.”

I found that answering the question “What are you?” with the actual answer, “Leigh Bowery“, was tedious after awhile, because if we were not recognized immediately, giving the answer did not help the observer.

Our final count for Halloween was THREE costume contests won, one of which Ryan had to pull off solo, and one of which we won despite having already left the bar.

Hooray!

*Please note: I have replaced my former spouse’s name with Ryan Gosling’s in all posts, because someone searched for him and wound up here and screw that.  Yes, I am extremely mature.

The History Of Gothic Lolita

Lolita Background

I have an unreasonable interest in the Japanese Lolita cosplay subculture.

Whether the Japanese girls are dressed as little maids, little vampires, Victorian baby dolls, or a maid who is for some reason dead, it makes me smile. I had to stop buying the Gothic Lolita bibles after the fifteenth, because I ran out of bookshelf space. I like watching trends run through Lolita-land in Harajuku. One Summer, inexplicably, everyone had a bloody eyepatch, like the dolls had a fight.

I made a Lolita dress for myself two years ago, and I am still waiting for an event where a six-foot tall Western lolita might be appropriate.

Strawberry Switchblade

Last year, I wanted to do Strawberry Switchblade with my extremely easy-going spouse. I don’t think there’s another hetero male in the world that would agree to dressing as half of a defunct Scottish girl-group. Here’s my initial sketch and a reference picture-

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Strawberry Switchblade

Strawberry Switchblade were an adorable Scottish pop duo who had a hit with “Since Yesterday”, and later a minor ripple with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.”

They were best friends who later split up messily. Rose McDowall went on to work with Death in June, Coil, Current 93, Nurse with Wound and Psychic TV. I think that Jill is driving a cab in Glasgow.

Here’s how our costumes turned out:

During my research, I noticed that there were a lot of photos of Strawberry Switchblade touring Japan in the early 1980’s. I also found a pic of an early Visual Kei group, Velvet Eden, that used to dress as Strawberry Switchblade, and covered their songs. Half the group, a drag artist named Dada, is also involved with/models for Lolita clothes label Arachnophobia. Which brings us to the question: was anyone dressing like a doll who was not first into Strawberry Switchblade?

What does it all mean? Did Strawberry Switchblade invent Gothic Lolita?