After-Action Report: Ween 2011
While we're at it, let's cover last year too. And pretend like I never forgot to post about it.
Last Halloween I had the whole day off, so I decided to go out at different points in different costumes and experience the situation developing downtown. I live only a couple blocks away; right around the point where regular people drop off but kleptomaniacal, meth-addicted, paranoid schizophrenics stay constant, so being outside is an exciting adventure all on its own. Through my window wafts an intricate symphony of vocalizations and emergency response vehicles that one would normally associate with the early warnings of a zombie apocalypse, but around here is simply known as "nighttime."
Anyway, this proximity makes it easy to walk back and forth to holiday anarchy, at least on paper. However, dividing my apartment from downtown is this strip of card dens and bars nurturing the sole surviving Taco Bell and liquor store in all of Hippydom (with a sign hanging out front saying "NO LOITERING - WE WILL CALL THE POLICE") - this is where the primitive, isolated tribe of the Baseball Cap People cling to their ancestral lands, communicating in their native tongue derived from the ancient Akkadian cuneiform but which when pronounced consists of "FUCK" and "WOOOO". So, seeking passage through their territory is always a little bit awkward, especially when you're dressed like a demi-furfag.
On Devil's Night I tried scouting ahead in the red suit for the pre-ween downtown costume warmup. A Baseball Cappadoceon approached me to say "your getup would look a whole lot better without the mask." Thanks, you'd look better without your face, too. Ignoring that, I went out the next afternoon - while children were still out in the perceived safety of daylight hitting up downtown storefronts for their annual fix - in crow form because children need to know the world as a place of terror to properly develop - I mean, because of better visibility and wing-friendlier crowd. But just before escaping the Cap lands, however, I passed a drunk chick hanging out infront of one the bars, and as soon as my back was turned she ran up to shove me from behind. Haha, okay now, that's great... I ignored her and kept walking. Then she charged up and shoved me again, yelling "I HATE CROWS!" this time. Um... I'm sorry your parents were shot by crows in a Gotham alley or Brandon Lee burned down your village or whatever. If it helps, I bet living things in general don't like you either.
So, off to a shit start. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea... Undaunted though, I hunched up Pacific Ave and back down again, rattling my claws with Parkinsons and jerking my head towards observers like an insectile bird to the merriment of all. Curiously, this caused most people to want a photograph of their children with sickly old uncle murderbeak - so I had to try not to terrify them as they got close and pantomine some kind of... carrion-bird bashfullness? A couple were still too scared to go through with it anyway, though far more were (cautiously) excited. On the way back I ran into a much creepier character dressed as some lanky, stilt-legged, quadrupedal nightmare, its knifelike limbs webbed with black sheets of cloth and its elongated neck crowned by a white expressionless face. We did a mock-combat dance for onlookers' cameras - I wish I'd gotten a photo for myself but that was impractical, what with the not-hands. I feel there should be a kind of Anti-Disneyland where all the performers are like Tim Burton characters - Burtonland? It would be far more popular with parents and their children, apparently. Also their castle would rock.
Once it got darker and cooler it was time for my unventilated ecclesiastical dog head (I should really take a newer picture). By now Halloween was in full disarray; clashing band genres were clamoring on the street-corners while cysts of (Day-of-the-Dead-on-stilts themed) belly dancers and the dazed throngs encircled to leer at them blockaded the walkspace, while oppressive tides of people in freakish apparel pulled at me with their currents... actually that's an average day here, but there was a higher density of it and a larger proportion of costumers and naked un-costumers. As usual people stopped me to ask what I was and usual I muffled out something they couldn't understand until after many failed exchanges I waved them along with the benediction sign. A drunk woman also wanted my candle. What is it with drunks and candles? I held one of those quasi-religious ones that normally have saints pasted on them, or abnormally curses to destroy your sexual rivals. I searched for a good long time but couldn't find one with Saint Christopher on it... as I've probably mentioned, in now hushed-up Catholic lore Christopher (then "Reprebus") was born as one of the waring, human-eating race of dog-headed gnolls cynocephali before his conversion (due to a misreading of latin by scholars depicting him). I think next time I'll print a label myself and just point to it when people ask. This costume was, for some reason, popular with law enforcement.
I came back 3 hours later for a photo run- all the original stilt dancers were still at it. Here's my haul, half of it from crappy video frames:
More happy-go-lucky hordes.
The center orc is the most terrifying.
Bubbles and Quiznos have something to do with Halloween, right?
Edward Scissorhands and... Snooki? WORST SEQUEL EVER.
I sort of expected the reverse gender dynamic.
Rita Repulsa is casting meteo with the black materia! This calls for the X-Men.
And that's when Duff Man arrived to raise awareness of Duff.
The Day of the Dead was especially popular this year... just like... it probably is every year, around the Day of the Dead. *cough*
Mistah J.
...the fuck?
Even on Halloween, the furries stick out. Looked it up; the suit is by Yumigami.
Centaur man (least popular superhero?). The rear legs are connected to the front by bars so that they move in sync. He met some challenges in the dancier zones.
Cyberman from Dr. Who.
I strongly suspect this of being the same guy who always goes up and down downtown in a wheelchair backwards by looking in a handmirror, holding up a mysterious sign that says "Real cat people only." Thick crowds in polyester + face-high flames = comedy waiting to happen.
I had a picture of this but the angle was crap, so here's a copy from the SC Sentinel's terrible gallery interface I refuse to link to.
The portable American Gothic booth, also from from said unintuitive gallery that makes me wonder why would you jam something inside a frame that can't be viewed all at once without a scrollbar and then hijack the scroll wheel so it doesn't perform that function anymore and you can't even link to individual pictures and why the hell does it have multiple pages if it's just going to download the entire gallery all at once FUCKING WEB TWO POINT OH BULLSHIT OH MY GOD.
Ahem.
Minutes later, a drunk Hellboy beat the shit out of all "monsters" in attendance before SWAT officers intervened.
The antique store's setup.
Pumpkin, the day after next. Mmm.
Notable things I also saw but FAILED to record visually:
-Fancy Victorian couple holding the sign: "We are the 1% (And you're not!)"
-Group of people dressed as various facets of internet Anonymous (green-face business suit, Guy Fawkes, pool's closed, etc.)
-Santa Claus, more than once (BOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOO!)
Last Halloween I had the whole day off, so I decided to go out at different points in different costumes and experience the situation developing downtown. I live only a couple blocks away; right around the point where regular people drop off but kleptomaniacal, meth-addicted, paranoid schizophrenics stay constant, so being outside is an exciting adventure all on its own. Through my window wafts an intricate symphony of vocalizations and emergency response vehicles that one would normally associate with the early warnings of a zombie apocalypse, but around here is simply known as "nighttime."
Anyway, this proximity makes it easy to walk back and forth to holiday anarchy, at least on paper. However, dividing my apartment from downtown is this strip of card dens and bars nurturing the sole surviving Taco Bell and liquor store in all of Hippydom (with a sign hanging out front saying "NO LOITERING - WE WILL CALL THE POLICE") - this is where the primitive, isolated tribe of the Baseball Cap People cling to their ancestral lands, communicating in their native tongue derived from the ancient Akkadian cuneiform but which when pronounced consists of "FUCK" and "WOOOO". So, seeking passage through their territory is always a little bit awkward, especially when you're dressed like a demi-furfag.
On Devil's Night I tried scouting ahead in the red suit for the pre-ween downtown costume warmup. A Baseball Cappadoceon approached me to say "your getup would look a whole lot better without the mask." Thanks, you'd look better without your face, too. Ignoring that, I went out the next afternoon - while children were still out in the perceived safety of daylight hitting up downtown storefronts for their annual fix - in crow form because children need to know the world as a place of terror to properly develop - I mean, because of better visibility and wing-friendlier crowd. But just before escaping the Cap lands, however, I passed a drunk chick hanging out infront of one the bars, and as soon as my back was turned she ran up to shove me from behind. Haha, okay now, that's great... I ignored her and kept walking. Then she charged up and shoved me again, yelling "I HATE CROWS!" this time. Um... I'm sorry your parents were shot by crows in a Gotham alley or Brandon Lee burned down your village or whatever. If it helps, I bet living things in general don't like you either.
So, off to a shit start. Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea... Undaunted though, I hunched up Pacific Ave and back down again, rattling my claws with Parkinsons and jerking my head towards observers like an insectile bird to the merriment of all. Curiously, this caused most people to want a photograph of their children with sickly old uncle murderbeak - so I had to try not to terrify them as they got close and pantomine some kind of... carrion-bird bashfullness? A couple were still too scared to go through with it anyway, though far more were (cautiously) excited. On the way back I ran into a much creepier character dressed as some lanky, stilt-legged, quadrupedal nightmare, its knifelike limbs webbed with black sheets of cloth and its elongated neck crowned by a white expressionless face. We did a mock-combat dance for onlookers' cameras - I wish I'd gotten a photo for myself but that was impractical, what with the not-hands. I feel there should be a kind of Anti-Disneyland where all the performers are like Tim Burton characters - Burtonland? It would be far more popular with parents and their children, apparently. Also their castle would rock.
Once it got darker and cooler it was time for my unventilated ecclesiastical dog head (I should really take a newer picture). By now Halloween was in full disarray; clashing band genres were clamoring on the street-corners while cysts of (Day-of-the-Dead-on-stilts themed) belly dancers and the dazed throngs encircled to leer at them blockaded the walkspace, while oppressive tides of people in freakish apparel pulled at me with their currents... actually that's an average day here, but there was a higher density of it and a larger proportion of costumers and naked un-costumers. As usual people stopped me to ask what I was and usual I muffled out something they couldn't understand until after many failed exchanges I waved them along with the benediction sign. A drunk woman also wanted my candle. What is it with drunks and candles? I held one of those quasi-religious ones that normally have saints pasted on them, or abnormally curses to destroy your sexual rivals. I searched for a good long time but couldn't find one with Saint Christopher on it... as I've probably mentioned, in now hushed-up Catholic lore Christopher (then "Reprebus") was born as one of the waring, human-eating race of dog-headed gnolls cynocephali before his conversion (due to a misreading of latin by scholars depicting him). I think next time I'll print a label myself and just point to it when people ask. This costume was, for some reason, popular with law enforcement.
I came back 3 hours later for a photo run- all the original stilt dancers were still at it. Here's my haul, half of it from crappy video frames:
More happy-go-lucky hordes.
The center orc is the most terrifying.
Bubbles and Quiznos have something to do with Halloween, right?
Edward Scissorhands and... Snooki? WORST SEQUEL EVER.
I sort of expected the reverse gender dynamic.
Rita Repulsa is casting meteo with the black materia! This calls for the X-Men.
And that's when Duff Man arrived to raise awareness of Duff.
The Day of the Dead was especially popular this year... just like... it probably is every year, around the Day of the Dead. *cough*
Mistah J.
...the fuck?
Even on Halloween, the furries stick out. Looked it up; the suit is by Yumigami.
Centaur man (least popular superhero?). The rear legs are connected to the front by bars so that they move in sync. He met some challenges in the dancier zones.
Cyberman from Dr. Who.
I strongly suspect this of being the same guy who always goes up and down downtown in a wheelchair backwards by looking in a handmirror, holding up a mysterious sign that says "Real cat people only." Thick crowds in polyester + face-high flames = comedy waiting to happen.
I had a picture of this but the angle was crap, so here's a copy from the SC Sentinel's terrible gallery interface I refuse to link to.
The portable American Gothic booth, also from from said unintuitive gallery that makes me wonder why would you jam something inside a frame that can't be viewed all at once without a scrollbar and then hijack the scroll wheel so it doesn't perform that function anymore and you can't even link to individual pictures and why the hell does it have multiple pages if it's just going to download the entire gallery all at once FUCKING WEB TWO POINT OH BULLSHIT OH MY GOD.
Ahem.
Minutes later, a drunk Hellboy beat the shit out of all "monsters" in attendance before SWAT officers intervened.
The antique store's setup.
Pumpkin, the day after next. Mmm.
Notable things I also saw but FAILED to record visually:
-Fancy Victorian couple holding the sign: "We are the 1% (And you're not!)"
-Group of people dressed as various facets of internet Anonymous (green-face business suit, Guy Fawkes, pool's closed, etc.)
-Santa Claus, more than once (BOOOOO! BOOOOOOOOOOOO!)