Creepy Peeps
Getting Freaky on Halloween
Text and photos by Shannon Kelley
Gould
Take the still-surprising autumn chill in the air and the
novelty of nightfall’s early descent, add a full day of blood sugar
spikes and drops and one fantastically ridiculous costume, and what
do you get? You get Halloween, or, more specifically, you get a
night that is tinged with a distinctive aura of non-reality, a
night that begins with the Tooth Fairy — a Tooth Fairy that bears
an uncanny resemblance to one John Belushi — coming at you with an
especially sinister looking pair of pliers, and ends with you
dancing, onstage, to “Thriller” with a dude dressed up like one of
the Feisty Bikini Girls. Or was that just me? To quote the Talking
Heads, “Self, how did I get here?”
It all began innocently enough. I donned my costume — a two-foot
tall, marching-band type hat discovered at a consignment shop, a
pair of years-old white go-go boots, and a tennis dress purchased
at Goodwill — that morning, and made my way to the office, ready to
get some serious work done. It was just like this one time, at band
camp. … Fourteen fun-size (fun-size surely means zero calories,
right?) Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups later, I was bouncing off the
walls, just in time for The Indy’s costume contest. My get-up
scored me third place (for the record, I was robbed), which, at The
Indy, translates to $15 in SOhO bucks, which was serendipitous, as
I’d purchased my tickets for SOhO’s Halloween ALO show weeks ago.
Beers were meant to be.
The passage of a couple of hours found me and my pal, a Freudian
slut — I mean slip, at SOhO, chatting with Hunter S. Thompson and
the Karate Kid, while digging the sounds of the ever-amazing Tin
Man. My hard-earned SOhO bucks disappeared faster than you can say
trick-or-treat, and before we knew it, the dance floor was packed
and the werewolves of ALO were warming up. I worked my way toward
the stage, passing an enormous, fin-wiggling trout and a well-lit
Christmas tree, who was getting a festive groove on en route. After
some serious jamming, ALO was ready for a break, and the slut — I
mean slip — and I were ready to soldier on. (Little did we know,
Zorro would make a surprise appearance during the second set.)
We marched down State Street, heading for the
Feisty/Shorty’s/GBMI Heaven and Hell party at El Paseo. A little
fast talking earned us entrée, at which point a federale nabbed us
and directed us to the bar. We took a detour at the dance floor,
which we proceeded to rip to shreds alongside Wyatt Earp and Paris
Hilton. While taking a breather, I was accosted by a manic,
shockingly hairy-chested Bikini Girl, who clearly had no intentions
of getting his groove off. And so it went.
Another Halloween is in the books. Same as it ever was.