Here comes Halloween

I wanted to take a break from all the politically infused blogging and write about something on a lighter note.
With Halloween coming up, and a street near my house where there are actually some deciduous trees that have been shedding their leaves, I am filled with memories of Halloweens past.
Oct. 31 has become one of my two favorite holidays, right up there with good ol' Christmas. I am truly a sucker for holidays and decorating, and this year is no exception; my boyfriend says it looks like Halloween threw up in our apartment right about now.
It's true, I go over the top and decorate with candles, garland, lights, window clings, props, and wall decorations. I've got spiders, ghosts, witches and bats all over the place. On the wall above our TV is my "black cat corner" with tons of cute kitties to be found.
My memories of childhood Halloweens are all very fond. Some general things I always remember are going trick-or-treat at my grandparents farm before we would go anywhere else; the smell of candles burning inside jack-o-lanterns, popcorn balls (oh how the old people loved to give those out!), chili, John Angel's birthday, soaping windows, and those yucky wax lips - what were those all about?!?!
Yes, my childhood was quite idyllic and at times even Rockwellian.
As I got older, making the transition from "treat" to "trick" was something I went hog wild with. Paradise may have been a small town, but you could always count on some type of mischief going on in the wee hours of the night on Halloween. It was usually wreaked by an unlikely combination of older kids, a handful of younger ones who had either snuck out or convinced their parents they were simply going out for candy, an old codger or two, and some of the housewives and moms who were bored after their children were in bed. It was always a really fun time and one tradition we always tried to uphold was blocking main street off by hauling so much junk into the middle of the street that people had to take a detour. One time the morning after, people driving down main street were surprised to see a camper that had been pushed out into the middle of the street surrounded by various "junk" items like tires, barrels, and big old pieces of wood.
There was always some point in the night when we either became convinced that a Russell County Sheriff was on his way to town, or we were calling them to try and get them to come out! And sometimes they even did.
One year, I had put together a whole bag of junk that I thought I could use for my trickery. Many of the items were unusable, but unfortunately I had brought some Elmer's glue and a lighter. For some reason, I - or perhaps one of my cohorts - decided it was a good idea to glue pieces of tissue to the windows at school, then light them on fire! It was thrilling at the time, but not so fun the next Monday at school when my friends and I had to clean all the windows with putty knives and ammonia, in front of every one's parents (it was a parent-teacher conference day).
Paradise was a really fun town to celebrate Halloween in. Sometimes just for fun, I try to go back and remember all the houses we would go to, and what we would usually receive from the residents of those houses. Halloween was the only time when you got to go around to every one's house and see inside. There were a lot of old people there, and they seemed to love seeing our costumes. They always knew who I was much more then I knew of them.
Sadly, living in an apartment in West Hollywood, we don't ever get any trick-or-treaters but we do live right off Santa Monica Blvd, which is home to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval - one of the largest outdoor Halloween street festivals which draws hundreds of thousands of people in costumes or the looky-loos that love them. It's a pain in the ass, really, and every year I vow not to bother the next year... but I always do. You can barely walk, less than half the people get dressed up, and by the time you make it from one end to the other, your costume is a mere shell of what it was when you left the house. Last year, I went as Ginger Spice and I thought that since it was the year of the big Spice Girls reunion I would encounter many other Spice Girls. However, all I found was one post-Spice Victoria Beckham, all skin, bones, huge black sunglasses and blond hair. The looky-loos seemed to miss the point of my costume, instead focusing on the large plastic breasts which unfortunately did not quite fit into the union jack flag dress I had sewn myself.
This year I'm thinking of going as the crazy McCain rally lady (more of the version that SNL did of her - oh and I should say I completely stole the idea from my sister who was planning on doing it herself!). But I'm going shopping on Saturday to see if anything else inspires me. I love using my sewing machine for costume making as I rarely dig it out of the closet.
To close, I'm going to post a few pics of something I recently did with my sewing machine. I modified some of my old clothes to have a rainbow them for my band's recent show at Bakersfield Gay Pride, and then I modeled the clothes in a photo shoot this past Monday. Above are some other "vampire" themed shots that we're using to promote our new song "I'm A Vampire". All photos taken by Luther Orrick. Enjoy!