Making Halloween... la la la

Okay so I thought I'd post my pics of my costume up on this so that maybe curiosity would bring people to my blog... which is shameless and sad but that's the way it goes. But I did post it right at the top so you don't need to read this unless you want to see the detail that went into it (even if nobody likes this costume you can at least see the work I put into it). By the way, taking a picture of myself with all that shit on, pain in the ass, that's why it didn't turn out so great. So firstly the inspiration for my costume came from many different sources; mainly a horror movie that I rented at the video store in early October called Trick 'r Treat and in this movie was a pint-sized patron of Halloween called Sam, who oversees Halloween traditions or something. But I decided that the burlap mask with an exaggerated smile was the way to go. It's very strange I made many changes to the costume (he is on the cover of the movie so you can look at Amazon) but it actually ended up to be almost identical to the Sam from the director's (Michael Dogherty) short film that inspired the movie. It's just a coincidence, I didn't see the short film until the cowl was done, but it's funny to me that all the ways I reverse engineered it were the ways that they improved it for the movie.

But anyway, I call this costume "The Bad Man" and as I hope to spray paint it on the costume just as some sort of sacrilege to this character. I had a few people asking me what it was and I didn't know how to explain it, but then I thought of a back story for this creation. Thinking back to a T-Shirt Hell shirt that said, "I'm here to kill you, you should have kept that chain letter going" I decided to make this guy the guy who comes and kills you when you throw out chain letters. To me that's just a hilarious idea! But when I was making the concept sketches I was going for a combination of the Sam mentioned before and Scarecrow from Batman Begins but I wanted to make it my own creation. Now inevitably things change from when you have an idea and when it's finished; so if you think this looks like Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th: Part II I really can't disagree with you, but that's just sort of how it turned out.

Okay so above are the stockade style handcuffs, I didn't want real handcuffs because I wanted this to have the overall feel of vigilante justice, no trial just judge-jury-executioner. I also wanted to make sure their weren't any sort of racial connotations as some might attribute to someone being hung; this isn't supposed to be any sort of message, just a scary costume. I think that handcuffs would show that he did something wrong (or someone thought he did) and not just some random violent act. It also speaks to the idea of he's a perceived threat still even while being hung. Me and my Dad decided to use oak since we had some there. The table saw cuts were easy enough but then cutting the circles proved to be like cutting fucking diamonds, we first thought we could just eyeball it and trace circles but the first piece was disastrous. We then decided to measure it; my wrists have room to breathe with 2.5" in diameter; the board was 13" (creepy) so 2.5 x 2= 5 13-5=8 so 2" from each edge and 4" between the hands.

Here's the noose; it's like a faux-manila rope but it was a little thicker than manila and didn't look too shabby unless you were really close. We walk in the hardware store and the clerk asks us, "How much do you guys need... let me guess you're making a noose, right?" We were sort of surprised and the guy asks how big it needs to be and how much hanging off at the end. Now I've had practically auditions for people to tie the noose since I can't do it; and this guy whips a perfect noose faster than most people tie their shoes. He then undid it and went to write up the length and ticket and saw us with our jaws still hanging down and he asked, "Do you want me to tie it again?" "Sure," I said. I thought it was best not to ask how he was so good at tying nooses, but I did ask what he thought I should do to make sure I don't accidentally get hung and he put a finishing nail into the knot so it wouldn't slide. If it's up to me I'd like to not actually be lynched on Halloween.

Here is the cowl that my aunt sewed for me, as you can see there is a menacing smile and one of the eyes is cut out; it couldn't have turned out better. Note there is a lining too, so I don't have to have burlap on my face... which would suck! But we were considering dirtying it up by putting it in a bag with coffee grounds but it was good enough as it was so we left it. I also considered finding a hat but then it would be exactly like Scarecrow from the Batman comics. I also put my mind into The Bad Man and I realized he's so revenge crazed he hasn't completely gotten out of his hand cuffs or the mask; he wouldn't probably be looking for a hat, his priorities are revenge, revenge, and revenge!

So I put blood around the eye, so as to show he had to claw or cut out the eye hole and so putting blood around it was the way to go. There is nothing scarier than bloody eyeballs to me so it's a persistent theme in my costumes. I was trying to be conscious of not putting too much blood on his eye, I think people go overkill with the blood in their costumes. If you really think it needs more blood let me know but as it stands I'm pretty content with it. By the way that's a tube of $3.00 fake blood, worth every penny in my opinion. And the jacket I got at the thrift store and washed it... twice!

I decided to paint the clothes because if you go to a costume contest and you have a "unique" costume you are just a free joke for the douche M.C., "And then we have... whatever the fuck this guy is. Ha ha ha ha." I was also thinking it would be creepy if someone spray painted a guy presumably hanging. But my policy is no freebies from me! Now it's very hard to read but this is the best I can get it. Never again in my life will I try to paint fabric with spray paint, this is a one time deal. So I'd like to thank Catie for sewing the cowl, my Dad for the hard cuts and many other things, and the hardware store guy for helping me put this together!

Things to do in Denver when You're Undead

I don't get it, I love Halloween but I'm not looking forward to this one as much as I should. My aunt is making me an awesome costume, and finally I decided to have a scary costume so all the elements are there. But I got invited to 3 parties that I'd like to go to and they are all on Saturday. Now, usually I would go to the one I'm most likely to score at. But of course my definition of "scoring" has become very PG lately so I'm not even expecting much anyways. But all 3 of the parties are a total wash anyways since the L.O.S. (likelihood of scoring) percentage is less than 5% at each of the three parties. I guess it doesn't matter too much, because like my dick is actually afraid of girls now due to some horror stories I've observed over the week. But how many girls are "fake Facebook marriage" weird? Now is as good of a time as any to get over my fears I guess.

So I could go to my cousin's house, but I'm going to know every girl that will be there and if any of the past parties are any gauge most of the girls have in mind who they want to hook up with when they walk in the door. I don't think in my life has a girl ever shown up at a party to get a piece of ol' JKon, at least not since when I went to ASU. Now-a-days my L.O.S. goes up when a girl's B.A.C. goes up. Judge me all you want, I have glaring personality and physical defects; I get a fucking handicap, okay? But anyways, I'm "homies" with everyone (to a point) that would probably be at my cousin's house. But man, Halloween, New Years, Weddings and my birthday are about hooking up with chicks. It's like God said, "Here is a break, you can on one day of the year wear a mask until girls are drunk enough not to realize you are the obvious 'bad catch' of the night." NOT capitalizing on that would be like slapping God in the face. So my cousin's house would be very fun but it's more friend fun; but this is one of the 3-5 days a year when I have a leg up.

So party number two, the popular kids from my high school. Well I ended up catching back up with them through mutual friends and became a lot better friends than I ever was in high school, with the select few. You see I was like the biggest nerd in junior high and probably like the 3rd or 4th biggest in high school. In fact I went 4 full years saying only what was absolutely necessary because I was so sick of being the kid getting his ass kicked (as I was in junior high). One of the girls that went there thought I was mute and started signing to me, it was ridiculous, but a lot better than getting sucker punched when I walked out of shop class like I was used to. While I really like seeing the ones I was friends with, but most of the other people just remember I was a nerd and not the person you want to talk to. So I will have the whole night of talking to like 5 or 6 people who are very uninterested in what I have to say anyway. My popularity with the ladies will be the same level as when I went to high school, non-existent (which is a little better than it has been the past 3 years).

So the third party was with an old work friend, I was kind of surprised because she never seemed to like me very much. Well actually it was more like she didn't have any friends at her new job which she started like a couple months before me. So then I started talking to her and taking her to lunch. Well then all of a sudden when she was hanging out with me, other people started realizing she was fun. So then she kicked me to the motherfucking curb when she got more popular than me. But putting that behind me, I was like, "Damn, she really extended the olive branch there." So you know, burying the hatchet was a high priority to me. Even though there wouldn't be hardly any girls there, I would have just wanted to say hi and have a beer or 2. Well I see that lady on chat and I said, "hey I was thinking of stopping by if your party is early enough." She says to me, "cool" without any punctuations lower case. The only time you say that, is when it is NOT COOL. Why would this party be in contention? Because it's been almost a decade since I crashed the fuck out of a party. You don't want me there so bad, you're going to get me there, RUINING YOUR TIME! But that sounds like a lot of work, and I have to have a bunch of people with my back so I can be a dick... More trouble than it's worth to crash parties, especially when I actually got invited and have other parties to go to.

So what is the other idea, since these all fall on Saturday I need to find something to do on Friday and whenever, I mean it's the least I could do because I have 2 people besides myself helping me with this costume. So go to bars with costume contests? Ehhh... maybe, you know what sucks about them, is that they take forever and you have to be there with your costume on and fixing it as it falls apart all night... so you can lose to some douche bag regular who bought his costume at the store. I swear I've had three costumes where all night I heard, "you're going to win, that costume is awesome." And then I get whatever place you don't get shit (for instance if there is 1st, 2nd, and 3rd I'd get 4th; and if it was only a 1st prize I'd get 2nd). I remember one time I wanted to call shenanigans, this fucking lady was a "corpse bride" but she didn't have any teeth and looked like a meth-head before so the only part that was an actual costume was the wedding dress. Who knows though, maybe the Great Pumpkin, Jack Skellington, or God will throw me a bone this year (both with scoring and costume contests) but I really doubt it.