The Eve of the Month

Halloween in my neighborhood is a freak show. Maybe even bumped up to freakadelic as of this year.

Tonight I met Kath & Alex and stood around someone's house while they gave out candy and marveled at the costumes. A precocious teen in attendance was dressed as a pirate, but not just any pirate, a software pirate. Alex had vamped up, and in case you didn't know it's the vest that makes the vampire costume.

Kath and I took off and wandered the 'hood. 313 Clinton was in full swing with a sequel to the Pirates of the Scaribbean they did a few years ago. This is the place where they decorate the whole structure of the house, include gravestones with pithy rhymes and then get all liquored up and do a show every 20 minutes for the whole night. This year? Sword fighting. It was fabulous. But the crowd was spilling out into the street and causing a traffic snarl so we moved on around the corner.

We went down past the house where some enterprising individual was taking (selling?) photos of trick or treaters in their costumes and past the house with the two and a half story spider web and spider with the red blinking eyes.

We must have spent about 45 minutes in front of the house with the band. It's right next to where Chris Rock used to live. When we arrived the band consisted of an undead housewife in fuzzy slippers on the tenor sax, some sort of skeletal Mexican Day of the Dead woman on trumpet and lead vocals, a dancing high heeled pirate on keyboards and two Hanson-gone-to-pot teenagers on guitar and drums.

I fell a tiny bit in love with those teenagers. Total pothead looking kids, totally jamming out with what must have been their mom and 2 of her friends. It's not often that you find a teenager who has the rock steady center to anchor the rhythm section. Here were 2 of them. Trick or treaters were crushing up against them, trying to bang on the drums, talking to them, waving stuff and these kids were unmoved from the beat. It was awesome.

Turns out they were just filling in for the adult band which was all guys except for the same undead tenor saxophonist. They were good too and they all worked the crowd like nobody's business. The house was all done up with ghosts in the trees and signs and mannequins. The candy was being distributed by an undead fortune teller. She had a "No costume No candy" sign which I think we should ALL have.

I think that next year we should have Halloween once a month all summer long. Just an excuse to sit out on the stoop and hand out candy to crafty kids and listen to music and dance in the street. I'm not exactly sure what my first costume will be but it's going to involve a crown.