HillBuzz

Here’s the recap of all the costumes we saw out last night for Halloween here in Boystown, as detailed as we can remember it so you could have not only a taste of Halloween in Chicago, but get ideas of your own for future years too.

Last night, for Halloween, the lot of us went out in a mythological theme, which was a fun set of costumes for us allowing great degrees of creativity (if not expert seamsmanship), but one that more or less fell flat on its face in Boystown.  We had a unicorn (done centaur-style), a griffin (like the Lewis Caroll one, also keeping with the Wonderland theme of this year’s Halloween in Boystown), a Mandusa (taking a classic female character and modernizing it as a “Medusa Cement” construction worker from Cleveland), and Kid Icarus (equal parts Nintendo game and Greek myth, with wings painstakingly made from individual feathers crafted to Martha Stewart perfection).

People knew what the unicorn was.

About half got the griffin, though most thought it was a parrot.

The Mandusa got called “Cleopatra”, “Snakes on a Plane”, and, most oddly, “medulla oblongata” (which, we’ve been told, is a line from a song people know…since we thought it was odd people would remember a region of the brain from their high school bio classes but not know who Medusa was).

The crowd largely thought Icarus was either a bird or an angel, or a “bird angel”, whatever that is.

But, this is the same crowd that largely thinks Don and Larry King are the same person, and believes Dr. Utopia really has any intention whatsoever of keeping his promises re: DADT and DOMA.

Fools.

Halloween this year as surreal for all of us because last year we were on the verge of the election so we didn’t get to enjoy the night.  All of us just used our standby, emergency costumes last year because we were so caught up in the campaign that we didn’t have time to make anything.  And, yes, we do have emergency costumes, just like we have emergency champagne in the fridge at all times (either to celebrate something unexpected or to distract from something hideous that pops up) and an emergency twenty taped into the bottom of our shoes (just in case we end up somewhere bizarre and need enough cab money to get to a train station…or, in Panda’s case, “in case he wakes up in a dark room, has no idea where he is, and can’t find his pants”). Everyone should have at least one fallback emergency costume in the closet:  Superman, Batman, George Washington, Cleopatra, whatever.  Nothing exceptionally creative or elaborate, but something that fits in case you have to go to a random costume party (and it’s great to buy emergency costumes when they are on sale, like right after Halloween…and then you can stock up for next year’s crazy events…and emergency costumes are great for work, because they are typically Borax and non-offensive in any way, so you can always use them for that, or for volunteering at senior centers or something around Halloween or Mardi Gras or whatever).

Last year, we saw a lot of Sarah Palins and John McCains out as costumes, but this year we didn’t spot any here at the parade in Boystown.  We didn’t see any Dr. Utopias, but we DID see three people dressed up as Mrs. Utopia, MEchelle our Belle…and none of them were flattering to her.  The first was a black woman dressed up in a brown pantsuit with her hair done badly who acted pushy and was loud and demanded things (no joke).  At first, we just thought she was a nasty person out being rude for the night, but then we noticed her “O” campaign button and asked her who she was and she said, “I’m the First Lady, but I gotta learn how to be a lady first”.

We were stunned…because that’s the sort of thing we would say, and undoubtedly there will be people who read this and not believe us, but honestly that’s what the woman said.  She is now, of course, an instafriend of ours. “I knew her from when she worked at the City, and she’s the same now as she was then…a heffer”.  Her words, not ours.  We repeate again for emphasis: HER WORDS, not ours…from someone who says she used to work with her.

We saw two more Michelles, both of whom wore really, really ugly dresses.  Those were two white drag queens dressed up as her, and they two were pushing and shoving through the crowd, one of them saying, “Don’t you know who I am?  I’m the First Lady!”.  That’s the one who had two guys with “her” dressed in black suits like the SS. “She” bellied up to the bar and shouted, “MINE!” whenever a drink passed near her.

That, too, was mighty funny. Another instafriend.

And for those of you from around the country, these are people in Chicago who know Michelle, have worked with Michelle, and don’t buy into the PR efforts of the MSM and White House to rehabilitate her.  She is who she is.  None of us here know her well enough to say whether she’s a good or a bad person, but she is rude and ill-mannered, which we have personally witnessed.  And, it seems, we’re not the only ones.

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The Chicago Olympics made an interesting appearance last night, in the form of a group of young women dressed in mini-dresses in all the Olympics colors, with big hula hoops matching around their wastes, and their hair all ratty and dirty with bruises all over their faces.  On their chests, they had the Chicago 2016 logo…so they were our battered, disastrous Olympics bid.

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One of our favorite costumes of the night had a Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell theme:  six guys dressed up in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple Army uniforms, with their faces painted PERFECTLY to match their clothes, all looking like they were molded from plastic like those little Army guys that come in big bags for kids.  Their feet even had little plastic platform swirls on them, like the real plastic toy guys…and when they moved, they were all herky, jerky like plastic guys come to life.  Very, very well done.

And it was by no means the only reference to DADT last night.  Other appearances were guys dressed up as military men, in dress uniforms, with the American flag replaced with the rainbow American flag (the stripes are rainbow colored instead of red and white).

There were a lot of sailors everywhere…lots of peacoats and white sailor hats, as well as full Army/Navy surplus sailors.  Maybe it was the economy and this was a cheap and easy “emergency” costume…and not so much a DADT thing, but we saw way more military costumes than usual.

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There were plenty of Lady GaGa’s out, with one guy dressed up as the yellow Mickey Mouse dress GaGa, accompanied by the guy in his tux from her Papparazzi video…which we didn’t get at all and thought he was supposed to be Tom Cruise from Risky Business at first.

Other GaGas had the Kermit the Frog dress (which Dr. Utopia minion Helen Jones-Kelley covets so desperately), and the generic blond GaGa with fishnets and bubble wrap dress.

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We didn’t see any Thriller Michael Jacksons like we thought….but did spot two Bad era Jacksons, with one being a white bouncer at Spin dressed like that, and the other a young black man who looked so good in his costume he should pickup extra work as an impersonator.  He could even do the little high pitched “huh—–uuuuuuh” thing Jackson did at the end of his sentences.

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Scully & Mulder from the X-Files, with a few extra people out as just “FBI agents’ in tow with them

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Not as many people seemed to be at bars this year, with the lines to get into Sidetracks, Cocktail, MiniBar, and Roscoe’s much, much shorter than we remember them from 2008.  It seems like a lot of people were having house parties instead, where the costumes got much, much more risque.  In Boystown, where people try to wear as little clothing as possible on any given Saturday, this led to some interesting cab-dashes we spotted…where people scantily clad ran from the warm comforts of idling cabs and into apartment buildings.  We spotted a guy with a blonde wig wearing only a little gold lame pair of Speedos, from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  With him was a girl in an orange wig dressed up with white strategically placed bandages like Lilu from The Fifth Element.  Tarzan or generic “Cavemen” is also a good scantily clad costume for guys…as well as “the water polo team”.  Any excuse to wear Speedos now that Hollywood Beach is closed for the season is popular with this crowd, to be sure.

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We saw a very tall guy with a long face and big hair dressed like an old French aristocrat, with a woman with red hair dressed up as a baroque countess.  In our imaginations, they were John Kerry and Theresa Heinz, but they were just “noble people” who didn’t bother to do makeup or get period wigs…so they looked like normal people wearing obscenely intricate clothes pretentiously.  Like John Kerry and Theresa Heinz, though normal is definitely a relative term with those two.

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We’ve decided that officially the next emergency costumes we put together will be cowboys.

Last night, we saw many Brokeback Mountain pairs of guys, with the cutest of the bunch being a couple that had one guy in black cowboy hat, red kercheif, a black shirt with a black vest that had a pirate skull on its back, blue jeans and black leather chaps and black boots.  His partner wore brown leather, had a plaid shirt, blue jeans, and a straw cowboy hat. So cute, so simple, and made from things you could, mostly, wear on normal days too.

And, you could wear the getup to Charlie’s in Boystown on country dancing night, or up to Cattle Call in Andersonville, or for an Academy Awards party too (as Brokeback, or any Western, really).

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Edward Scissorhands won the costume contest at Spin last night, with a giant lit-up penis coming in second.  ES was very elaborate and well-crafted, and very expensive looking but clearly homemade and not store-bought.

It’s funny, but for you Republicans who read us, we hope you know how much your friendship has impacted us.

The little wheels in our head see costumes like this and think, “Wow, there is a business opportunity here”, and wonder if we could make some money on the side designing and crafting Halloween costumes that look as good as this Scissorhands thing.

That’s a difference between Republicans and Democrats that we’ve noticed consistently over the last two years:  never in our lives did we, when we had only Dem friends, think about starting our own businesses and making money doing all sorts of odd things that we think are fun and do for ourselves for free.  That entrepreneurial spirit was never taught to us growing up Dem, where it was always “get a good job at a big company or work for the government so you can never get fired…just show up every day, work your way up, and eventually get an office where you can punch in and do little all day and get paid a lot with big benefits”.

It takes a lot more guts to be self-made and an entrepreneur.  With unemployment going to remain high for the next decade or so, in our estimation, more and more people are going to need to strike out on their own like this.  When we watch Project Runway and see great homemade costumes better than what is sold in stores, we wonder if there could be a little side business in there for one of us.  We need to up our skill level, but we have the creativity, and bet with some work and research we could make better costumes than what we saw out last night…and maybe even try to win some costume contest for prize money next year.

We note all this because, honestly, before DeMcCrats for McCain and our dealings with our new Republican friends, we never would have been thinking of business idea out on Halloween.

Just like we hope those of you out there who never thought you would be reading the adventures of gay Hillary guys in Boystown learn a thing or two from us as well.

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Speaking of Project Runway, we really liked a group costume that had Tim Gunn (with Mood Fabrics bag), Heidi Klum (pregnant yet again, and holding a seal pup stuffed animal in a baby blanket), Nina Garcia, and Anna Wintour (“Nuclear Wintour” from Vogue, the one who Devil Wears Prada was allegedly about) walking down the street.

There were also a few group costumes based on NeNe and Kim and the rest of the Real Housewives Atlanta.

A few Double Dare and American Gladiator competitors.

Too many Octomoms to count, though none with tentacles like an octopuss, which would have been fun, in a Lovecraftian way.  Mostly, they just had 8 cupie dolls tied to a string….which is what the Jon & Kate Plus Eight people did too.  We honestly have not been following these people and have only a vague idea of who they are, but evidently they were very popular.

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There was only one Colorado Balloon Boy that we could see.

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Surprisingly, we spotted no David Lettermans with interns.  Halloween shops had Letterman masks out, and the store owners told us people bought them, but we didn’t see anyone wearing them.

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All through the night we wondered how guys could walk around in speedos, bare chested, or with just wrestling singlets or little football shorts on.  We had coats on and were cold.  So, there must be some secret we’re missing.  Maybe it’s a healthy dose of rum.

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Anytime someone wears a V for Vendetta mask, we think of the Ron Paul supporters who wore them with vengeance in the weeks leading up to the Iowa Caucus in 2007-2008.

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Several tall, built guys squeezed into multi-colored body suits and were My Little Pony unicorns.  Definitely not riffing on Dr. Utopia, but when we saw them we thought they would make great Tea Party costumes to lampoon this administration.

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A group of actual women was dressed up as the Golden Girls, but ineffectively so…we honestly thought they were Former First Ladies, because one had a white Barbara Bush wig on, another looked like Nancy Reagan and wore red, and the other two were passable as Rosalyn Carter and Betty Ford (designated driver). They claimed they were the Golden Girls, though, but they could have been great Former First Ladies.

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One guy had on a suit, an then a yellow round Lego man head.  It was really simple, probably inexpensive to make, and very cute.

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Just like our Mandusa concept, we spotted a guy dressed as a male Cruella de Vil…spotted dalmatian suit, with black and white hair.

It’s definitely not as popular as women taking male characters and making them “sexy” and female, but it’s fun to see guys take some female charactes and give them a twist too.

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We spotted two zombies out together.  One was a ComEd electrician who was fried by downed wires, which he had wrapped around him.  The other was wearing a suit and looked, truly like absolute death: pale, gaunt, sunken cheeks, salt and pepper hair, spouting expletives.  No joke, that second guy was “zombie Rahm Emanuel”.

Which, sadly, didn’t look much different than “White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel”

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Several women dressed as green Absinthe fairies…..really cool homemade costumes with green glitter and lots of frills.

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Several Drag Kings dressed up as Timberlake and his “dicks in a box”, which has quickly evolved into a perennial favorite.

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One girl was Drew Barrymore in her roller derby movie.

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Several sets of Star Trek people, in tight-fitting federation uniforms.  Some trying to look like the new cast, but most just being generic Star Fleet officers.  Surprisingly, they made something that was relegated to much-maligned “conventions” and geekdom look sexy and cool.

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During the night out, Panda started complaining his stomach hurt and he needed Tumms…only he forgot the word for that and kept calling them Tucks, which are different.  Very different. He actually asked  a bartender at Roscoe’s for some Tucks and just got a stare back.  One of us had some Smarties candies, which are chalky, and we gave Panda those and surprisingly they made him feel better.

So, that’s a Halloween tip right there, if you have no Tumms, use Smarties.  If you have no Tucks, you are just out of luck, friend, because we don’t know how to MacGyver that one.

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This must be from a horror movie we don’t know about, but two different guys were dressed as generic cops with feet attached to a chain that was then attached to them…was that from Saw, maybe?  We did see some people dressed like the Jigsaw puppet, but none of them were with the cops.

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One guy dressed like Waldo and people kept having their pictures taken with him, excited to find him.  That’s a great costume if you want positive attention.  People know who it is and are excited to “find” you.

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Like we said before, lots of sexy cops, guys dressed as marines, people dressed like nerds (but sexy, this being Boystown), generic sports team stuff (football, baseball, soccer, swim team)

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A lot of Mexians participated in Halloween, which was VERY cool, seeing lots of Day of the Dead costumes and Axtec-inspired stuff.  The Day of the Dead costumes were beautiful and creepy at the same time…something to keep in the back of your head if you want to do something a little exotic that’s pretty simple to make and looks GREAT, especially if you get a group going.  Could be another emergency costume idea to have around.

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We still don’t get this, but we saw some “cave men” walking around with giant light-up penises poking from their loincloths. Must be some pop culture thing we don’t get.

Also saw a few guys dressed in flesh colored bodysuits with black boxes hiding their backside and genitals.

Didn’t spot a single Dr. Manhattan giant blue naked guy, which was disappointing.

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Noticed a Halloween photo scavenger hunt taking place, with teams running around taking photos of people from lists.  THAT is a great idea for future Halloweens that we will use from here on out.  Instead of just hitting bars and the parades and seeing what happpens, how fun is it to turn the night into a scavenger adventure like that….and then meet up at a set place and time to go over the pictures and have breakfast, like at IHOP on Halsted at 5am or something?

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Too many nuns, Popes, bishops, church choirs, etc. for our taste.  We have said this repeatedly and will say it again:  religious costumes make us uncomfortable and we wish people would get away from wearing them.  That’s someone’s life’s work and vocation, and it’s just weird to us that people feel a need to mock it.  And that’s what they are doing, mocking it.  It’s not like the firemen and nurses and cops and soldiers who are dressed up because fetishists think that’s sexy…the nuns and priests are being mocked.  Especially the catholic religious figures. No one mocks the Muslims or the Jews or the Hindus or the Scientologists….and that just feels wrong to us to single out the Christians and especially the Catholics.  Just our rant on that.

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Random Raggedy Annes are always out and about.

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One large group of Where the Wild Things Are monsters and Max.  None of us here have a connection to that book and didn’t see the movie, but those costumes were very well done and the crowd loved them and their wild rumpus.

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Spotted one Patrick Swazye…a guy with natural Patrick Swayze hair, with tight black pants, a tight black shirt with muscle padding underneathe, like in Road House. The guy looked good.

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Always an easy one:  Cereal Killer.  White shirt with blood on it and bits of cereal boxes, featuring a shredded Cap’n Crunch face, a butchered Twix rabbit, etc.  That gets a good response too, because everyone knows who advertising characters are.

Unlike mythology, people get excited to see Burger King, Wendy, Ronald McDonald, Cap’n Crunh, the Planters Mr. Peanut, etc.

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A mime was walking something on a stick that looked like Donald Trump’s toupee.

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A Rubick’s cube was passing out candy outside the Equality Illinois office with The Joker.  It was a woman in a square cardboard box painted like an unsolved cube.

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There were a lot of Seasame Street characters out and about:  with Bert and Ernie being the favorite by far.  Some people wore masks, while other painted their faces and added felt wigs.  One set went as an S&M Bert and Ernie couple, which was interesting.  Another set did Bert and Ernie in a bathtub.

There were also Swedish chefs and random muppets too.

Somewhere, Helen Jones-Kelley salivated, sniffing her next meal and latest bougie pantsuit ensemble.

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A few Dexters and cop Debbie….some more successful than others.  One had a guy in a brown Henley, tan pants, and a garbage bag who we thought was just a City worker cleaning up post-parade. He needed a lab coat and viser or something that said Dexter Morgan on it.

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There were lots of swine flu doctors with pig faces, etc.  Some of them were sexy, like a guy in a little pink Speedo with curly tail and pig nose, bare chested.  Other guys were in pink bodysuits with tails and pig noses and angel wings.

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Angels seem perpetually popular at Halloween…just a nice body, loin cloth, and wings in any color you want.

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Several Junos and Michael Cera in his running shorts/sweat band combo

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Since it was a Wonderland themed parade, there were scores of variations on the Alice theme…yet no one did the Linda Lavin “Alice” gang which would have been funny.

Many did really elaborate Victorian costumes which were stunning, really. One group did all white outfits with red hearts on them…and looked great walking alongside Miss Foozie herself as The Queen of Hearts.

Miss Foozie is the heart and sould of Boystown every day — a drag performer who calls everyone “Pineapple” and gives you puffy stickers if she thinks you are cute or need a smile.  You might think it’s ridiculous, but all of us are always thrilled to see her out and about…like running into Mickey at Disney World.  We deliberately make it a point not to get to know the man behind the Foozie because we like having this bit of random magic in our lives…honestly, there have been many bad days that Foozie rescued us from just by turning up at Sidetracks or Roscoe or Cocktail when we were there and giving everyone big hugs.

We hope your town has its own Miss Foozie to spread such daily cheer.  And if not, then you need to get off your butt and become one. It takes a village, people, and that village needs a Foozie.

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Several very well done penguin costumes…the animal penguin.  Also spotted a Victorian Batman Returns “The Penguin” that was a spot-on ghoulish Danny DeVito.

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This being Chicago, there are always plenty of “Blues Brothers”

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Also being Chicago, plenty of Al Capones/flappers/Chicago the Musical costumes. Zoot suits, Cubs players, Bears players, etc.

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Too many Halle Berry Catwomen walking around…when there are such superior Catwomen to be admired in Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julie Newmar, and Lee Merriwether.

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Too many pirates too….time to get a new schtick

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Pokemon guy and his little Pikachu

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