Ween 06
Halloween went well, despite not being able to put together plans until the last minute. When asked, everyone suggested the same thing: Isla Vista, UCSB's surfing mini-city. Yet, despite my indescribable yearning to be crushed in a vomiting swarm of drunken college kids whose vocabularies consist entirely of "YEAH!" and "WOOO!" and sometimes "WOOO YEAH!", I decided instead to stay home, where I watched Vincent Price movies and passed out cyanide to the 4 groups of sugar-thirsty vampires who climbed all the way up to the third floor. Afterwards I walked up and down bum State Street in costume upsetting the hobos.
But first, pumpkins.
Pumpkin the first. It's a "ghost pumpkin", and a repeat of one I did a couple years ago but never got a picture of, which was full of maggots and earwigs. Smoke wafted out of the sockets when the candle blew out. I think I'll try putting incense in them next year.
Pumpkin the second, inspired by my horrible jumping spider. It clearly didn't want to be carved, and the skin was so dense I had to use a power drill. The candle took up a lot of room, eventually burning up the lid. Its steamy breath fogged up the window.
Costume the first. You may recognize it from last year in a less spotty-mirrored photo, but now it has a candle (which went out repeatedly). I drifted around new-New Mexico town as groups of passing children huddled close to their mothers, groups of females shrieked, and groups of males in wifebeaters did their 'YOU CANNOT FRIGHTEN US-WE ARE MALE! MALE!!!!' thing. Then I crossed the freeway bridge toward State and staggered through another neighborhood. Low branches and uneven pavement are the bane of my existence. Once on State I passed a myriad of hard-to-see costumes, including a very good Davey Jones. Girls dashed up behind me and did… something I couldn't see, while others stopped me for pictures. Notable reactions included:
"What culture are you from?"
"Do you worship Satan?"
(Pointing sharply) "Now there's a man!" (from a middle-aged man)
A pair of bums also freaked out, which is never a good thing. Two hours later I was home, tired, and extremely hot (the mask has no ventilation). So when prophoria announced plans to return to State to visit the bar scene, I switched to…
Costume the second. It's a something. We went to an extremely crowded bar where a local band played their mother-rape song. An interesting Zoidberg costume made from an orange baklava was there. On a previous visit to this bar a girl in a pimp costume walked by in a red fur-lined pimp coat, a wide-brimmed pimp hat, a pimp cane, and nothing else but lingerie, which was a rather effective visual. Also previously a large mafia-looking guy got in an argument with his girlfriend in which he grabbed her by her hair and threw her (practically onto me), then she tossed her drink on him, and she cursed at him in Spanish and stormed out while he gave that "women, am I right?" smirk to his crime buddies. But none of that was tonight. There was some more walking, and we adventurously went home.
In other news, I've begun playing Amon Tobin in the background when I sleep, under the theory that I can produce a kind of Pavlovian reaction to combat my insomnia.
But first, pumpkins.
Pumpkin the first. It's a "ghost pumpkin", and a repeat of one I did a couple years ago but never got a picture of, which was full of maggots and earwigs. Smoke wafted out of the sockets when the candle blew out. I think I'll try putting incense in them next year.
Pumpkin the second, inspired by my horrible jumping spider. It clearly didn't want to be carved, and the skin was so dense I had to use a power drill. The candle took up a lot of room, eventually burning up the lid. Its steamy breath fogged up the window.
Costume the first. You may recognize it from last year in a less spotty-mirrored photo, but now it has a candle (which went out repeatedly). I drifted around new-New Mexico town as groups of passing children huddled close to their mothers, groups of females shrieked, and groups of males in wifebeaters did their 'YOU CANNOT FRIGHTEN US-WE ARE MALE! MALE!!!!' thing. Then I crossed the freeway bridge toward State and staggered through another neighborhood. Low branches and uneven pavement are the bane of my existence. Once on State I passed a myriad of hard-to-see costumes, including a very good Davey Jones. Girls dashed up behind me and did… something I couldn't see, while others stopped me for pictures. Notable reactions included:
"What culture are you from?"
"Do you worship Satan?"
(Pointing sharply) "Now there's a man!" (from a middle-aged man)
A pair of bums also freaked out, which is never a good thing. Two hours later I was home, tired, and extremely hot (the mask has no ventilation). So when prophoria announced plans to return to State to visit the bar scene, I switched to…
Costume the second. It's a something. We went to an extremely crowded bar where a local band played their mother-rape song. An interesting Zoidberg costume made from an orange baklava was there. On a previous visit to this bar a girl in a pimp costume walked by in a red fur-lined pimp coat, a wide-brimmed pimp hat, a pimp cane, and nothing else but lingerie, which was a rather effective visual. Also previously a large mafia-looking guy got in an argument with his girlfriend in which he grabbed her by her hair and threw her (practically onto me), then she tossed her drink on him, and she cursed at him in Spanish and stormed out while he gave that "women, am I right?" smirk to his crime buddies. But none of that was tonight. There was some more walking, and we adventurously went home.
In other news, I've begun playing Amon Tobin in the background when I sleep, under the theory that I can produce a kind of Pavlovian reaction to combat my insomnia.