Where Have They Gone, All the Scary Costumes of Our Grandparents?

Oh, man, an epic one! This was one of the last years Andrew and I went to Halloween at the Castro. Not long after this, it started getting overrun with gangs and fratboys, and then there was a shooting and the city shut the whole thing down for a while. It’s too bad; it was an amazing thing to see.

The title comes from the R. Crumb comic “Where Has It Gone, All the Beautiful Music of Our Grandparents?”, wherein Crumb laments that things used to be one way, and now they’re a different way. You know, like he does.

Jason Thompson’s meat-mask period is a subject to involved to go into here. The flank steak mask wasn’t as bad as the cheese mask, actually.

Andrew and I never have gotten around to doing Wayne and Garth costumes. I’m not really a big Halloween person, to be honest. I prefer holidays where you mostly eat and nap.

12 thoughts on “Where Have They Gone, All the Scary Costumes of Our Grandparents?

  1. Ah, Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’ Be.  Well, except Narbonic and Skin Horse.  They remain as awesome as ever.

     

     

    • I wanna see pics of the pirate costume! (You can even post pics of the slutty pirate, but since you’re happily married, I can’t flirt and offer to rub against your shins affectionately in return, nyao… But I would if I could! >-_^<)

  2. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that the girls scaring the beheezus out of the guys would be funner. It’d certainly be funnier.

  3. I always rail about the slutty costumes, too, but “Dorothy with her tits hanging out” had me on the floor.
    tune: “Little boxes,” Malvina Reynolds

    Slutty costumes, slutty costumes
    Their sex politics so icky-tacky
    Slutty costumes, slutty costumes
    And they all look just the same
    There’s a nurse and there’s a cop and
    There’s a nun and an oceanographer
    They’re not scary, they’re just slutty
    And they all look just the same

  4. I admit I was a slutty baseball player this past year. But that was after I spent two hours unsuccessfully trying to create Medusa hair.

  5. I mostly do scary/menacing costumes (zombie, vampire, mad scientist with a death ray) but someday I wanna dress up as the Sexy [female] Jack Harkness, in the grand tradition of Sexy Snow White et al.  I could go on about how this highlights gender double standards, etc., but I have to admit that mostly I want that awesome coat.

  6. I’ve had two exceptional costumes over the year.  One was the year Ross Perot ran for Prez, and Halloween was like the week before election day.  All through the night I went around saying things like “Now that’s just sad, what the problem is…” and I’d go on to pontificate.  I almost won Scariest Costume.

    But my favorite costume came from SNL: a Dan Aykroyd sketch, “Fred Garvin, Male Prostitute”.  He was like the top male prostitute in Des Moineor some place like it in the sketch.  Bought a truly hideous green herringbone-ish jacket from Goodwill and some white dress shoes and a white belt.  Went in to my computer and printed business cards that had the name, a fake 800 phone number, and two lines something like Your pleasure is our business” and “we cater”.  Had a blast!  I still get comments from people at that party, and that was probably 20 years ago.

    http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/fred-garvin-male-prostitute/278766/

     

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