"Thanks, Chad. I'll Take It From Here."

For whatever reason, everyone I talked to was not pumped about Halloween weekend this year. No one knew what costume they were going to wear, what party/bar they were going to, or even what kind of candy they were going to give the kids (cyanide or razor blade based). Unlike these ill-prepared and underwhelmed dead-beats, not only did I have plans for Friday and Saturday, but I had a separate costume for each night. As it turns out, the weekend proved to be everything I hoped it would be and more, and I'd like to share with you some of the details.

Friday
The Costume: On this night I was Brett Michaels from Poison. I had on a black wife beater, dark jeans, black eye liner, a tacky, rock star belt, a blond, rather convincing, wig, a do-rag, and I even researched his tattoos, and had my talented roommate draw them on me.
Venue: My Heterosexual Life Partner (HLP), who was dressed as Jim Morrison from the bloated era, and I went to Subterranean to see a bunch of bands dressing and playing like other bands, but really good bands like The Misfits, Neutral Milk Hotel, Guided By Voices, Flaming Lips, Blondie, and Badfinger.

It's kind of fun to get your rock on when you are dressed as rock stars, but what an unlikely pair of rockers to be hanging out, right? I don't see Brett and Jim having much in common, but on this night they got along famously.

We then went to The Liar's Club where we danced with a big group of girls who looked to be way too hot to be coming from a book club, all of which were married, which we didn't bother looking into until it was last call. Jim was tired, so was Brett, but Brett still wanted to meet up with some friends doing late-night karaoke at The Hidden Cove, a shit-hole so far up north it might as well be in Wisconsin. Brett was blind drunk, but still managed to perform a rousing rendition of Photograph by one of his competeters, Def Leppard, even with the teleprompter out! That is the stuff karaoke legends are made of. Look what you've done to this rock n' roll crown, Brett. Look what you've done . . .

Saturday
Costume: Ghostbuster costumes that HLP and I ordered online. The jumpsuits were a little more yellow than they should have been, and the proton pack and gun were inflatable.
Venue: A party in a remote suburb TWO HOURS west of Chicago.

We were committed to go to this thing, because we feel bad for our friend who moved so far away, but as the day approached, the evite only had like 10 confirmed guests. This was frustrating, because the Saturday before Halloween is the best bar night in the city. Period. Every girl is dressed like a slut, and it's so easy to talk to people, because it's just a matter of saying, "Hey there, Slutty Girlscout. I'll take two boxes of thin mints, if you know what I mean." I actually don't know what that means, and neither did she, but who gives a shit. You get the point.

We made the two hour drive, it took about that long to blow up our proton packs, and I think I got a hernia from the strain of the process. The hernia didn't improve when I slipped on the one-size-fits all, Ghostbusters jumpsuit, that didn't have a 6'2" guy in mind when they made the thing, because it pushed my ball-bag up into my naval. Anyway, the party was small, but the thing about The Host (the same guy from this post) is that any time he's drinking he's partying like it's his last, and he has a maniacle, and yes that's the word for it, laugh that bumps everyone around him up to a party-level of defcom 5. He had a smoke machine and a mix of music that reportedly took him "weeks" to complete with maniacle, once again, the right word, interludes of recordings of his own voice.

However, The Host's wife didn't share her spouse's ability to look past the piss-poor turn-out, and she decided that we needed go to a bar to salvage the evening. Now, my expectations were pretty low for a bar in a city so far from Chicago that it really can't even be considered a suburb, but I will say that this bar was bumping! Not only that, but you could get a round of vodka redbulls for like twelve bucks. To a broke, booze-hound Chicagoan, that's like looting.

There were two gay dudes with us dressed as Roman soldiers, so we had a pair of centurions and a pair of Ghostbusters getting busy on the dance floor, which must have looked hilarious in a bar where only one third of the people were dressed up. I kept having a girl, dressed as Marilyn Monroe whom I hadn't said a word to, come up to me, grind on me for a brief while, and leave. I said to one of the Centurions, much to his amusement, that she was a contingency plan in case all else failed.

So, all else failed, and I found myself having a drunken discussion with Marilyn at the end of the night. She said that I was going home with her, and who am I to argue with her? I think I may have agreed to get rid of some ghosts in her apartment, but I'm not sure, as I was pretty drunk at the time (see the aforementioned vodka-redbull prices). So, we're back at her place, we do our thing, in most every room of her place, and I awake the next day to the sound of sea gulls. I wandered into the living room to investigate this sound, naked, because I was in no hurry to wear my only clothing item available to me, the ball-squishing jumpsuit. On my way to her back door, behind which was the source of the seagull noises, I saw a note that read as follows: "Gancer, went to pick up my son. Be right back."

Dumbfounded, flabbergasted, and discombobulated, I walked to go look at the water and sea gulls and process the recent events. As I was scratching my head and naked ass, I was thinking to myself:

Did she mention a son last night?
What body of water is this?
I suppose it could be the Mississippi as far west as we are.
Hell, it could be the Pacific Ocean. Hahahha. That wasn't bad . . .

Just then the door opened, and I thought, "Oh, shit! I can't have this poor kid come home to see a naked man looking out the back door!" So, I covered my junk, and ran to the bedroom to get my jumpsuit. She and Chad, her son, who looked to be around 1, were nice enough to drive me home, and here is the whole reason I was excited about writing this blog. I know, it's been a long one, and I've come a long way for this one detail, but I think it's worth it. When we pulled up to my buddy's house, as I'm saying my goodbyes to a woman who looked far better as Marilyn Monroe and through eyes operating by means of a brain addled by way too many cheap energy drink-based cocktails, I reached to the back seat of the car to fetch my gear, which is when I saw young Chad chewing on my inflatable, proton pack. There is something that is simoultaneously funny and pathetic about that moment, and it will probably be an image that will always stay with me. I said, "Thanks, Chad. I'll take it from here."