Happy Halloween! Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday, with Valentines Day coming in a close second. I've never been a Christmas guy because, like Charlie Brown, I'm turned off by the commercialism of it (even though I can't begin to fathom the amount of money Charles Schulz made from all of the Peanuts Christmas specials) and don't particularly get into other aspects of it. Easter used to be cool, but now they started moving it all around and I don't even get a day off for it. All of my childhood memories of 4th of July are of tremendous build-up and tremendous let down (not for lack of effort by my parents, but mostly because the types of fireworks available for purchase in the garage of a woman in Blunt, SD, don't quite live up to Disney World standards). Thanksgiving now represents a day of high calorie torture. Valentine's Day is great because I'm a sentimental fool and I used to love giving and receiving Valentines. My mom would always help me make the coolest boxes in the world, and I loves me some chocolate. However, I had one too many lonely days where cupid's bow missed me to move it to number 1. But Halloween spoke to my darker side. For one ass-kicking night, I could be anything and anyone I wanted to be, and I was rewarded for this boldness and deception with bags and bags of delicious candy. I hate being scared, but on Halloween nothing seems as scary because I got to be a part of the madness. Behind the plastic mask that I couldn't breathe in, I was every bit as ghoulish as the next guy. There have been very few Halloweens where I didn't put a lot of time and effort into having a great costume. Unfortunately, between class and life, this happened to be one of those years. That doesn't mean I'm not still in the Halloween spirit. For instance, my lunch today decided to take part in the festivities in my place. Pictured below, Bananaman and Applelantern, with Buddha and Wolverine taking care of business in the background.
So, without further ado, here is my list of my Top Ten Halloween Costumes (pictures provided when available:
10. Homer Simpson
This costume wasn't particularly clever since I used a store bought mask, but it took me for freaking ever to find yellow gloves and a long sleeved yellow shirt that match. I'm meticulous in my details. This was the only time in college that I decided to dress-up, so it makes the list if for no other reason than to represent that time in my life. Also, I needed an excuse to post this picture of Chippendale Jared. That guy is somehow my best man. Maybe I need to re-evaluate things.
9. Pirate
So, that's not actually me, but that is pretty close to what I remember the costume looking like. I don't know why a crappy generic costume has stuck with me all of these years, but the main thing I remember about it is that I wore it in first grade when we lived in a house in Tea, SD. Now, first grade was a long time ago and I barely remember my ATM Pin (I use my debit card almost daily, but about a week ago I just forgot it. Searched everywhere in my brain, but it was gone. I had to call the bank and have them reset it, yet I can remember my first grade Halloween costume). We lived across the street from some older kids who were always hanging out at our house, and I remember how excited they were. I also seem to remember that my dad's parents (and maybe my aunt) were visiting for some reason, so I got to go trick-or-treating in the back of grandpa's pickup truck, a dangerous treat that I often participated in at their house in Blunt but never in the suburban neighborhoods of Tea. I remember having to go out for a little bit as a pirate with my sister, who would have been only a couple of years old, and then getting to go back out by myself after it got dark (even though it was probably only about 6 pm). I also remember it being soooooo cold, so in between houses I would go back into the car/truck, bundle up, drive to the next house, hop out, run to the door, get my haul, and then head back to the warm blankets and hot apple cider. Anyway, I associate that costume with the start of my love of the holiday, so it makes the list.
8. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
I've actually been a TMNT twice in my life (both times Raphael), but I was particularly proud of this one because it was the resurrection of the group costume and I spent a helluva lot of time piecing it together. It was also the first time that my friends conned me into making entire costumes for everybody. Here's the breakdown: Green long johns for the under side, green gloves (I'm not wearing mine for some reason, colored cloth from fabric stores, garbage can lids as the back shell, hand decorated poster board connected with yarn for the front of the shell, broomstick bo for Donatello, and cheap toys for everyone else. The quality was iffy, but I was pretty happy with the outcome.
7. Elliot from E.T.
This costume holds a special place in my heart because it was my first (and thus far, only) costume with Molly. Molly hates aliens and really hates E.T. because of it. I worked on her and worked on her until she finally relented and agreed to be the Gertie to my Elliot. The attention to detail in this costume was disgusting, even if it doesn't look like it. We spent five weeks trying to buy stuffed E.T. dolls that were big enough to fit in the basket but weren't so big that they would block my face. By the time we had the basket and the pillow and the doll strapped to the bike handlebars (a red metal broomstick that I hacksawed in half and stuck hand grips to), the whole contraption had to have weighed 30 pounds. Killed my neck all night. Molly's costume had Gertie's flowers and Reese's Pieces stuffed in there. You know you might be a bit too obsessed with detail when you've been standing in Walmart for an hour trying to decide which long stick might best turn into handle bars or which pot looked the most size appropriate.
6. Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan is on this list, not because I liked my work, but because of amount of work I put into making the guy standing next to mine. Brent (another groomsman) and I loved wrestling, so we decided we'd do a themed costume. This meant that Jeff would make themed costumes for Brent and Jeff. Brent does a pretty spot on Macho Man impressions, so he drew Savage and I took the icon Hogan. I spent so much time on these costumes. I ordered probably 20 pairs of women's spandex work out pants on eBay trying to find just the right match. I hot glued all the spangles and streamers on the arms of the jacket. I lettered and starred both the front and back of it, too. I found big sunglasses in a costume shop and glued green fabric to it. I bought a fake beard and a wig that I cut and trimmed into perfection. I spray painted black rubber boots, cut their fronts, and put colored laces in them. I spent entirely too much time in Scheel's trying to decide if I had the balls to walk into the women's volleyball area and buy tiny yellow spandex shorts for my costume (I ended up buying them but wussed out at the last minute and switched ot the yellow shorts). Needless to say, this one makes the list for the sheer scope of the costume work.
5. Zombie Payne Stewart
On October 25, 1999, golfer Payne Stewart was aboard a plane headed from Orlando to Dallas. Somewhere along the way, the plane depressurized and all aboard died from lack of oxygen. The plane eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in a field just outside of Aberdeen, SD. In 1999, I was a senior in high school and was starting to become a little too sarcastic and teenagery than I should have been. I decided that I wanted to make a relevant and timely costume that captured the pulse of the South Dakota newsline. I decided I would go as Zombie Payne Stewart. Payne was famous for wearing knickers and colorful socks with sweater vests, and I decided I could easily mirror that image. I also decided I would paint my face pale blue because it was reported that the folks on the plane had not only lost oxygen, but they had more than likely also frozen. Boy, I was clever. The pièce de résistance was a broken putter that I was going to bend and wrap around my neck. The costume was tasteless and inappropriate, and my mother, a lover of Halloween herself, tearfully begged me not to do it. She tried to pound it through my skull that this was a bad idea all around, but her reaction only strengthened my resolve that I was living on the edge. Eventually, but not without a fight, she was able to talk me down from wearing the make-up and only carrying a broken. The teachers and principal were less than impressed (I had started getting this anti-authority attitude, or at least as much as the president of the student council/editor of the school newspaper/guy wearing tights in Robin Hood could have). Thirteen years later, I look back at that costume as a learning opportunity and probably the primary reason I didn't wear a Steve Irwin stingray costume.
4. George H. Bush
Seeing as how I was a politically minded 4th grader student, I got a George H. Bush mask and started stretching my satirical muscle. My mask was way cooler than the one pictured because it was two pieces, so when I moved my jaw, the bottom half moved, too. The main reason I love this costume was that I talked my friend Jeff Peterson (groomsman again) into wearing a white curly wig and a dress and being my Barbara Bush. This was no small accomplishment considering I had only moved to town a year earlier and we were at the age where being a vampire was way cooler. Peterson, Ryan Kapperman, and I decided to go to Blunt to check out the goods and see what the Halloween of 1991 had to offer. Some of you might remember that Halloween as the Halloween Blizzard of '91. The weather was awful and we were freezing, but we still had the time of our lives. The highlights included getting the awesome little bags of goodies at my Grandma Pat's, playing poker with our candy as chips even though none of us knew how to play poker, and walking down a snow covered sidewalk and watching Ryan step onto what looked like a normal piece of concrete but turned out to be a 2-foot water filled hole and then bitching all night about being wet and freezing. I'm getting a little misty eyed just thinking about it.
3. Whoopi Goldberg
Following my turn taking down the political establishment, I decided that I would turn my sights on the entertainment industry in 1992. What better way for a chubby white Midwestern child to lampoon the world than to dress as Whoopi Goldberg. This costume was genuinely hilarious when I think back about it. My dad got an old black choir robe from his school for me and my mom cut a hole in the middle of a doily as the nun collar. We even toed racial lines by painting my hands brown. This Halloween was also the one and only time between moving to Hartford and my high school graduation party that our garage was clean enough to hold a Halloween party. This party's invitation list and attendees included both males and females, so you might also say I went as a pimp that year.
2. Cowardly Lion
My first trip into the world of group costumes. We had a junior high costume ball, so my friends Amanda, Sarah, Dan, and I decided we would go as the cast of the Wizard of Oz. This costume is so special to me because my mom did so much work on it. She handmade a lion costume from scratch that fit an 80 lb overweight pre-teen and did so with such gusto that we were repeatedly accused of having purchased or rented it. She also did a heck of a job on some of the other costumes in the group, too, which is probably why I can't say no to being the point person for group costumes. We went to our dance where we managed to upset the much more popular kids who had dressed up as the Flintstones. After our dance ended, we decided to go to the American Legion where they were having an adult costume contest/dance in the bar. We were probably 12 or 13. Unfortunately, the scarecrow's parents decided he probably shouldn't be in a bar at 11 pm and the Tin Woman's sister needed babysitting, so the Cowardly Lion and Dorothy Gale bravely walked through the crowded bar to present ourselves as contestants. Ironically, the leading competition was another set of Flintstones, but the adult stone aged family had gone so far as to build a foot powered car. Looking back, it was an AMAZING costume. Unfortunately for the Flintstones, the winner was determined by level of applause and there ain't nobody gonna out drunken yell my parents' friends. Dorothy and I got to split $100 which we promptly used to buy drinks and play video lottery.
1. Captain 11
Anyone who lived in or near South Dakota and could pick up KELO from the years betwen 1955 and 1996 are quite familiar with Captain 11. The Captain hosted a sometimes daily afternoon, sometimes Saturday morning cartoon show where local kids had an opportunity to appear on camera and become completely mute. Some even chose to use their 15 minutes of fame to cry. The cartoons were all old Warner Brothers properties, but since we were 30 years removed from the original airing, they all seemed pretty fresh. When it was your birthday (which it magically always seemed to be everyone there's birthday), you got to flip a switch that started the cartoons up. The man (or at least the character) was an icon. Here's a picture of Shelbi and me on one of our trips to visit the good Captain.
The Captain was friends with my grandpa and would make trips out to shoot geese, so I had the unique opportunity to visit with his Clark Kent-like identity, too. Still, he was always the Captain to me. Anyway, I decided a couple of years back that I would pay homage to one of my childhood institutions and don the blue jump suit myself. I spent weeks going through hardware and uniform stores looking for just the right shade of blue. I signed up for hundreds of catalogs (some which still find their way to me) hoping to match his signature look. I finally found one that I could make work, and it arrived just a day or two before Halloween. I had badges embroidered with the number 11 on them and sewed them on a captains hat and a white turtle neck. I sewed gold piping on the collars, just like the Captain. I even memorized the entire intro to his show:
One man in each century is given the power to control time. The man chosen to receive this power is carefully selected. He must be kind. He must be fair. He must be brave. You have fulfilled these requirements; and, we of the Outer Galaxies designate to you the wisdom of Solomon and the strength of Atlas. You are Captain 11!
The costume was a huge hit in the bars because forty years worth of kids tuned in to be part of the Captain's crew. The costume contest ended up being based on applause again, and after I delivered the iconic, "How's my crew today?", the roof nearly came down. I won a $200 bar tab that I promptly demolished and a huge Budweiser mirror with girls in bikinis on it that may or may not still be in existence (I couldn't do anything with it so I left it with my groomsman John, but at a certain point my statute of limitations probably ran out on it). I love this costume because it was a great idea, I put a ton of work into it, and it touched a generation of drunken 20 and 30 somethings (I took so many pictures that night). I know I've still got some great ideas in me, but it will take a lot to knock the Captain off of his pedestal.
Well, that's my trip down memory lane for the day. I wish you all a safe and happy Halloween! Don't forget to lay off the sugar.
Jeff "I Believe In The Great Pumpkin" Pool
