Halloweens throughout the years
As I was lamenting the passing of another Halloween last night, I played a little game where I tried to remember each Halloween since I've been in LA, what I wore, and where I went. It was actually so much easier than I thought it would be.
Here, for your pleasure (and so the next time I want to remember this, I'll just look it up), is a list of the 9 Halloweens I've had in LA.
2000 - This was my first Halloween in the big city and was one of the most fun. In the middle of October, I threw my first LA Party which was for my friend Ben's birthday. I rented the rec room in the condo and decorated for Halloween. Unfortunately, before the stripper arrived, the security guard informed us that the rec room closed at whatever time it was, 10 or 11pm, which I hadn't been made aware of before. So, we had to move the entire party to the studio unit my brother and I shared! Also that month, I had just really gotten into dressing in drag so I did it several times around Halloween with my friend Dudley. My main costume for Halloween was Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara (from "Valley of the Dolls") and I wore it first to a party in the Valley and then to work where my friend Heather helped me with my makeup. It was my first time going to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival and to be prepared, I asked my friend Liz if I could park at her place since she lived in West Hollywood. I ended up with really sore feet from walking in high heels and took them off on my way back to the car at the end of the night. Somewhere near Crescent Heights, a photographer with Transformations Magazine took my picture, but I don't think I ever found out if they used it in the magazine or not.
2001 - By this time, Dudley and I had moved in together (as roommates) and we decided to have our own Halloween party, and we dressed up together as the Julie Browns - he of course got to be the fun, red-headed comedian Julie Brown, and I was Downtown Julie Brown from MTV. The party was the weekend before Halloween and I do remember it being pretty fun. On Halloween night, I went out with Amy, Yvonne, Jen, Christopher and others and I just wore a freaky outfit (I think it involved a wetsuit and red eyeshadow). I think I might have taken some pill(s) that night.
2002 - This was a weird Halloween because it was right after I started dating Dylan but I still lived with Denny in Studio City. I know that Dylan and I went to the Gold 9 Halloween party and he dressed as "Ginny" and I dressed as Malibu Beach Barbie. On Halloween, I think Denny and I just stayed in because I don't remember really doing anything. Maybe we went to Gold 9. This is notable for being the only year I didn't go to West Hollywood for Halloween. Dylan had gone out with Bernie and Leah to some straight bar and he dressed as a "Girl Gone Wild".
2003 - This was Dylan and I's first real Halloween together and we had amazing costumes planned. We had recently seen the movie "Party Monster" and I was pretty obsessed with it. So we both picked out a look from the movie; I was the Michael Alig with the fluffy yellow fur top and the curly purple hair and long feather eyelashes from the fast food joint party scene, and he was James St. James green-haired troll from the tv talk show. We put a lot of effort into getting the costumes just right but unfortunately that night it rained cats and dogs! We went to a party at our friends, Mandy and Wes's house and then everyone attempted going down to the Blvd. despite the rain. Well, me and Dylan's costumes weren't really waterproof and before long we just looked dreadful. We didn't want to spend money to go into some bar with our sad costumes on, we just wanted to go back to the party, but when we got there all our stuff, I think including our wallets, was inside Wes and Mandy's apartment, it was locked and it was still raining. So I found that I could open Wes's window and so I went in and let the rest of us in so we could wait in the apartment for them. This didn't really make them happy when they came back. Anyway it was not the best Halloween although it was kind of funny looking back.
2004 - After last year's debacle with the rain I decided I didn't want to put too much effort into my costume, and I also couldn't decide what I wanted to be. For some reason I kept coming back to the idea of being a tree, so finally that day I decided to put together a tree costume. I wore a green shirt, green eye shadow, brown pants that I had borrowed, and on my way to West Hollywood I clipped some branches and foliage from random people's yards to add to my costume. It turned out pretty well and at least people knew what I was, and I actually ran into a couple of other trees, although one was a Christmas Tree. I also had a pirate costume that year that I wore to DJ Raw-Burt's party, which Dylan than borrowed and wore on Halloween.
2005 - I was pretty lazy this year so I just decided to do a reprise of a costume I had done years before - my favorite singer, Tiffany. She had just released a dance album that year, so I updated my look from the 80's teen Tiffany which I had done before, to a more mature, sexy Tiffany with long red hair and big boobs. Nobody really recognized who I was unless I told them but it was fine.
2006 - This year, Tiffany actually performed at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, but I didn't want to dress as her 2 years in a row. I was really lazy this year and just went to the 99 cent store and got a bunch of weird stuff to incorporate into a drag outfit. I seemed to confuse people, and even angered someone who yelled at me "WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!" so I guess that was a success.
2007 - This time, I decided I was going to make my decision far enough in advance that I would really have time to perfect my outfit. The Spice Girls had just announced their reunion this year so the time was ripe for a look I had been wanting to do for a long time - Ginger Spice, aka Geri Halliwell from the Spice Girls. I ordered a British flag on e-bay and had plenty of time to sew my union jack dress. I got a great red wig and hand-sewed in some locks of blond hair at the front. However, I waited til the last minute for some of the more important components: Shoes and Boobs. I looked EVERYWHERE for platform shoes like the ones Geri wore, but had to settle on borrowing some white go-go boots from Dylan. And I had planned to use Dylan's boobs from when he was a girl gone wild, but they had been lost so I went to buy new ones - unfortunately, they were out of the soft ones and I had to get a pair of hard plastic ones, like the kinds little kids cheap masks are made of, and it came with a "corset" that you tied on with a shoestring. It was really lame and started hurting me after a few minutes. Then it started breaking, and the pieces would stick into my own real breast and hurt. Of course when you get to the Blvd., you also have to deal with idiotic straight people so my costume devolved from being "Ginger Spice" to being a "British hooker" and finally, for the lowest common denominator, "BOOBS" which were apparently free for anyone to grab. Oh, and I only saw one other Spice Girl all night which was a post-Spice, Fashion Queen Victoria Beckham. And some bitch told me my shoes were all wrong.
2008 - This was the year of the election and so I wanted to do a political costume. The whole election was like a three ring circus anyway, so I knew that the characters on the Blvd. were going to be outrageous. I wasn't sure what to be until I saw the SNL Weekend Update skit where the "crazy McCain lady" wanders on to the set and proceeds to spew her hilariously misinformed views on Barack Obama. I had seen the original lady that the skit was based on before on the news, and I thought Kristin Whig did a hilarious job skewering her. Plus, it was a really easy costume. I just got a really bad blond bed-head wig, a microphone which I made from a flashlight and a sock, an old lady bag, and a red shirt which I wrote "McCain/Palin" on with a sharpie. Shitting Glitter played a 4 song set at the Palms that night, and as soon as we were done, I donned my Crazy McCain Lady costume and set out with my friend Tiger to get as many pictures as I could with other political figures. I found a few Palins (none of which were drag queens - very disappointing!), some McCains, another Crazy McCain Lady, that Ashley girl that pretended to have been beaten by Obamathugs when really she just did it to herself and carved a backwards B in her face, and I even found a Barack and Michelle that looked really realistic! It was a fun night and the most photos I've ever gotten on the Blvd.
2009 - This year I wanted to do something classic but put my own spin on it. Somehow I came up with the idea of a fashionista Mummy, like Karl Lagerfeld as a mummy. I found that I had a bunch of this white, shiny fabric in the closet so I was going to sew a pant and shirt combo using the fabric. I used an old white t-shirt for the base of the top but I made quite a few mistakes putting it together. The sleeves turned out better than the rest of the shirt, and by the time I got to the pants, I had it down. I bought a big pair of white pants at the Goodwill store and layered strips of the white fabric on the pants, securing them with tape and pins. Then I sewed each leg with a stitch down the middle and each side of the pant legs before sewing them all together. I started running out of fabric by the time I got to the headpiece, though, for which I used a white winter cap as the base. I wish I would have done the headpiece differently, but it worked out OK. I also got some jewelry to bling it out (to emphasize the fashionista part) and big black sunglasses, and my friend Tiger loaned me a Karl Lagerfeld button. We went to the Blvd. early to see our friends Crush perform on the mainstage and then went to Jason and Ismael's party before going back to the Blvd. I kind of ran out of steam by the time the Carnival was ending at 11pm so we were going to meet friends at the Palms but when we got there, they were leaving again. We ended up just going home at that point and I wanted to watch a scary movie but I was too tired and ended up just watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents which turned out to not really be scary at all. Oh well, it was a good night.
Here, for your pleasure (and so the next time I want to remember this, I'll just look it up), is a list of the 9 Halloweens I've had in LA.
2000 - This was my first Halloween in the big city and was one of the most fun. In the middle of October, I threw my first LA Party which was for my friend Ben's birthday. I rented the rec room in the condo and decorated for Halloween. Unfortunately, before the stripper arrived, the security guard informed us that the rec room closed at whatever time it was, 10 or 11pm, which I hadn't been made aware of before. So, we had to move the entire party to the studio unit my brother and I shared! Also that month, I had just really gotten into dressing in drag so I did it several times around Halloween with my friend Dudley. My main costume for Halloween was Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara (from "Valley of the Dolls") and I wore it first to a party in the Valley and then to work where my friend Heather helped me with my makeup. It was my first time going to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival and to be prepared, I asked my friend Liz if I could park at her place since she lived in West Hollywood. I ended up with really sore feet from walking in high heels and took them off on my way back to the car at the end of the night. Somewhere near Crescent Heights, a photographer with Transformations Magazine took my picture, but I don't think I ever found out if they used it in the magazine or not.
2001 - By this time, Dudley and I had moved in together (as roommates) and we decided to have our own Halloween party, and we dressed up together as the Julie Browns - he of course got to be the fun, red-headed comedian Julie Brown, and I was Downtown Julie Brown from MTV. The party was the weekend before Halloween and I do remember it being pretty fun. On Halloween night, I went out with Amy, Yvonne, Jen, Christopher and others and I just wore a freaky outfit (I think it involved a wetsuit and red eyeshadow). I think I might have taken some pill(s) that night.
2002 - This was a weird Halloween because it was right after I started dating Dylan but I still lived with Denny in Studio City. I know that Dylan and I went to the Gold 9 Halloween party and he dressed as "Ginny" and I dressed as Malibu Beach Barbie. On Halloween, I think Denny and I just stayed in because I don't remember really doing anything. Maybe we went to Gold 9. This is notable for being the only year I didn't go to West Hollywood for Halloween. Dylan had gone out with Bernie and Leah to some straight bar and he dressed as a "Girl Gone Wild".
2003 - This was Dylan and I's first real Halloween together and we had amazing costumes planned. We had recently seen the movie "Party Monster" and I was pretty obsessed with it. So we both picked out a look from the movie; I was the Michael Alig with the fluffy yellow fur top and the curly purple hair and long feather eyelashes from the fast food joint party scene, and he was James St. James green-haired troll from the tv talk show. We put a lot of effort into getting the costumes just right but unfortunately that night it rained cats and dogs! We went to a party at our friends, Mandy and Wes's house and then everyone attempted going down to the Blvd. despite the rain. Well, me and Dylan's costumes weren't really waterproof and before long we just looked dreadful. We didn't want to spend money to go into some bar with our sad costumes on, we just wanted to go back to the party, but when we got there all our stuff, I think including our wallets, was inside Wes and Mandy's apartment, it was locked and it was still raining. So I found that I could open Wes's window and so I went in and let the rest of us in so we could wait in the apartment for them. This didn't really make them happy when they came back. Anyway it was not the best Halloween although it was kind of funny looking back.
2004 - After last year's debacle with the rain I decided I didn't want to put too much effort into my costume, and I also couldn't decide what I wanted to be. For some reason I kept coming back to the idea of being a tree, so finally that day I decided to put together a tree costume. I wore a green shirt, green eye shadow, brown pants that I had borrowed, and on my way to West Hollywood I clipped some branches and foliage from random people's yards to add to my costume. It turned out pretty well and at least people knew what I was, and I actually ran into a couple of other trees, although one was a Christmas Tree. I also had a pirate costume that year that I wore to DJ Raw-Burt's party, which Dylan than borrowed and wore on Halloween.
2005 - I was pretty lazy this year so I just decided to do a reprise of a costume I had done years before - my favorite singer, Tiffany. She had just released a dance album that year, so I updated my look from the 80's teen Tiffany which I had done before, to a more mature, sexy Tiffany with long red hair and big boobs. Nobody really recognized who I was unless I told them but it was fine.
2006 - This year, Tiffany actually performed at the West Hollywood Halloween Carnival, but I didn't want to dress as her 2 years in a row. I was really lazy this year and just went to the 99 cent store and got a bunch of weird stuff to incorporate into a drag outfit. I seemed to confuse people, and even angered someone who yelled at me "WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO BE?!?!" so I guess that was a success.
2007 - This time, I decided I was going to make my decision far enough in advance that I would really have time to perfect my outfit. The Spice Girls had just announced their reunion this year so the time was ripe for a look I had been wanting to do for a long time - Ginger Spice, aka Geri Halliwell from the Spice Girls. I ordered a British flag on e-bay and had plenty of time to sew my union jack dress. I got a great red wig and hand-sewed in some locks of blond hair at the front. However, I waited til the last minute for some of the more important components: Shoes and Boobs. I looked EVERYWHERE for platform shoes like the ones Geri wore, but had to settle on borrowing some white go-go boots from Dylan. And I had planned to use Dylan's boobs from when he was a girl gone wild, but they had been lost so I went to buy new ones - unfortunately, they were out of the soft ones and I had to get a pair of hard plastic ones, like the kinds little kids cheap masks are made of, and it came with a "corset" that you tied on with a shoestring. It was really lame and started hurting me after a few minutes. Then it started breaking, and the pieces would stick into my own real breast and hurt. Of course when you get to the Blvd., you also have to deal with idiotic straight people so my costume devolved from being "Ginger Spice" to being a "British hooker" and finally, for the lowest common denominator, "BOOBS" which were apparently free for anyone to grab. Oh, and I only saw one other Spice Girl all night which was a post-Spice, Fashion Queen Victoria Beckham. And some bitch told me my shoes were all wrong.
2008 - This was the year of the election and so I wanted to do a political costume. The whole election was like a three ring circus anyway, so I knew that the characters on the Blvd. were going to be outrageous. I wasn't sure what to be until I saw the SNL Weekend Update skit where the "crazy McCain lady" wanders on to the set and proceeds to spew her hilariously misinformed views on Barack Obama. I had seen the original lady that the skit was based on before on the news, and I thought Kristin Whig did a hilarious job skewering her. Plus, it was a really easy costume. I just got a really bad blond bed-head wig, a microphone which I made from a flashlight and a sock, an old lady bag, and a red shirt which I wrote "McCain/Palin" on with a sharpie. Shitting Glitter played a 4 song set at the Palms that night, and as soon as we were done, I donned my Crazy McCain Lady costume and set out with my friend Tiger to get as many pictures as I could with other political figures. I found a few Palins (none of which were drag queens - very disappointing!), some McCains, another Crazy McCain Lady, that Ashley girl that pretended to have been beaten by Obamathugs when really she just did it to herself and carved a backwards B in her face, and I even found a Barack and Michelle that looked really realistic! It was a fun night and the most photos I've ever gotten on the Blvd.
2009 - This year I wanted to do something classic but put my own spin on it. Somehow I came up with the idea of a fashionista Mummy, like Karl Lagerfeld as a mummy. I found that I had a bunch of this white, shiny fabric in the closet so I was going to sew a pant and shirt combo using the fabric. I used an old white t-shirt for the base of the top but I made quite a few mistakes putting it together. The sleeves turned out better than the rest of the shirt, and by the time I got to the pants, I had it down. I bought a big pair of white pants at the Goodwill store and layered strips of the white fabric on the pants, securing them with tape and pins. Then I sewed each leg with a stitch down the middle and each side of the pant legs before sewing them all together. I started running out of fabric by the time I got to the headpiece, though, for which I used a white winter cap as the base. I wish I would have done the headpiece differently, but it worked out OK. I also got some jewelry to bling it out (to emphasize the fashionista part) and big black sunglasses, and my friend Tiger loaned me a Karl Lagerfeld button. We went to the Blvd. early to see our friends Crush perform on the mainstage and then went to Jason and Ismael's party before going back to the Blvd. I kind of ran out of steam by the time the Carnival was ending at 11pm so we were going to meet friends at the Palms but when we got there, they were leaving again. We ended up just going home at that point and I wanted to watch a scary movie but I was too tired and ended up just watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents which turned out to not really be scary at all. Oh well, it was a good night.
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