HALLOWEEN!

Everybody plays a character. Since the first day of kindergarten, each person has been fine-tuning the skills with which he or she executes their given role. Some play the clown, others the commanding asshole, and still others play the devilishly handsome mind-ninja who fucking rules at everything (me). The silliest part of the farce of identity is that most people refuse to acknowledge that they are wearing a grotesque costume. That is, of course, except for during a little holiday called Halloween (derived from the phrase "Heych Lowayhn", which is Gaelic for "Candy Grabathon").



During Halloween people traditionally wear a "scary" costume. The reason I put quotation marks around "scary" was to imply indignant sarcasm. And the cause for this sarcasm is the fact that, despite Halloween's apparent tradition of scariness, truly terrifying costumes are frowned upon. Dress up as a retarded ghost and people will love you. But dress up as, say, the airplane that crashed into the World Trade Center, or as infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, and people call you insensitive.


"Trick or treat! Haha, what fun! I am evil Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. May I please have some fun-sized Snickers now? Wait, you're giving out APPLES?!? Fuck this shit."
-Dr. Josef Mengele

I am personally of the belief that dressing up as your own worst fears, and thus symbolically becoming the thing that is terrifying due in no small part to its foreignness, is an excellent way to mollify the dread that constantly haunts you (me). But most people think that it's way more fun to dress as a slutty vampire or as a slutty zombie or as Britney Spears, who is slutty.


People tend to read fear into things that strike them as foreign or different. If you are scared of the man in this photo, you are a racist. Unless you are black, in which case you're just a pussy.

AssociatedContent.com lists the most popular Halloween costumes of 2007 as 1) Pirate, 2) Cowboy, 3) Grim Reaper, and so on. These are all stupid choices that aren't even scary at all. I would like to take this opportunity to look at some of my past costume choices and analyze the "Stimulus -> Fearful Response -> Brief Period of Weeping -> Reclaiming of my Own Fears" psychological mechanism that they betray.

Halloween 2004: The Cheshire Cat


Now, most people do not consider this "benevolent" cartoon jester to be a threat. These people are living in denial. Remember how Alice was trapped in a horrible psychedelic nightmare full of gruesome creatures who wanted to kill and/or grope her? And remember how the Cheshire Cat pretended to be her friend but actually played mind games with her, driving her ever closer to the brink of total insanity? Yeah, he was a motherfucker, and was clearly scarier than a pirate. I'm not going to go so far as to claim that the Cheshire Cat was the second coming of Dr. Josef Mengele (especially because Mengele was sipping mojitos and banging cabana boys in South America when Alice in Wonderland came out), but he was certainly more terrifying than a Power Ranger or whatever the hell else people dress up as.

Halloween 2005: A Biker


OK, I admit it. I threw this costume together at the last minute. But still, it's pretty scary, no? Remember in "The Hell's Angels" when Hunter S. Thompson talks about that one biker who grabbed a waitress in the middle of a diner and pulled out her teeth with a pair of pliers right in front of everyone, and then he pulled out his own teeth while cackling? That shit was hecka crazy. Bikers are scary.

Halloween 2006: Edward Scissorhands


May I draw your attention to the tight black leather outfit, the pallid cheeks, and the pursed lips? Edward Scissorhands is clearly a stand-in for AIDS-infected German operatic misfit Klaus Nomi. And what could be scarier than a disease that makes you vulnerable to all other diseases? This is why Edward Scissorhands is truly my scariest costume. It represents the horrifying possibility of unconscious self-destruction and, as Werner Herzog would say, "The overwhelming indifference of nature". It is the black, empty void that stands just behind every illusory experience of "reality". If you don't believe me, observe this video of Klaus Nomi's song "Lightning Strikes".

The wretched emptiness of the uncaring nature of reality is right there inside each one of us.

JUST KIDDING!
Halloween is actually nothing more than an excuse to get wasted and dress like a ho. Knock 'em dead!