MY HALLOWEEN COSTUME

Aaargh! These are horrible, horrible pictures, but I don't have time to redo them.  Boy, this has been one busy week! I still haven't put up any decorations, but my daughter volunteered to help me tomorrow if I get stuck. I can't believe we're doing this so late!

 As you can see, my costume is the Muskrat lodge uniform, and if you're an especially good observer you'll note that I'm wearing the Grand Master hat. That's new...I just got it!  The epaulets are made of paper. I couldn't find the old braided ones. I kinda like the way paper looks.

In real life the hat looks great, but in photos it makes me look like a Bolshevik.

Aaaaaarghhh!!!!! This picture (above) genuinely scares me! It's me, but it's a different me.  It's a glimpse into a parallel universe where I own a small motel in Ohio, and play poker with the boys once a week.

That's it for the costume but hey, if you live in LA, stop by Boney Island in North Hollywood this Saturday or Sunday night. Milt Grey says a couple of Simpsons artists put together a huge, free Halloween display that rivals anything you can find at Knott's Berry Farm or Disneyland. Maybe I'll see you there! Here's a site with all the info:

http://boneyisland.com/main.html

IDEAS FOR HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS AND MASKS

A RIGHTEOUS MASK (above)!!!!!! But who sells these? Was this custom-made?

I see this Wolverton girl (above) as a sculpture made from a base consisting of a carved- out empty milk container (gallon size) and a ropey mop.

This Don Martin guy would look great 6' tall on the outside of a door. So would Clampett's indian, the one with a skinny neck and a big belly, but I can't find a good picture on the net.

Plastic or rubber skulls (above) always look good with a wig of flowing girls hair.

Redraw this (above) Tex Avery take picture very large and color it for your front porch. The kids'll love it!

Glue any old thing from your wastebasket onto a paper bag to make a mask. Add color.

Liberians considered this (above) to be a JUDGE'S mask!!!!????? Man, I'd like to see a Liberian trial!

Above, an interesting color scheme by Picasso. If you have something for the porch that needs to be painted.....

Believe it or not, these faces (above) were made from toilet paper tubes. First they were softened somehow, then painted. Then the artist used pliers and extra cardboard from other rolls to make faces. 

Holy Cow! A nifty monkey face sculpture, from somewhere in Melanesia, I think.

STEVE'S NEW CARTOON SHOW!

I did four posts about Steve Worth in the past three weeks, and just when I thought it was time to give some other topic a chance, Steve's internet TV show (above) debuted! Haw! Well, we'll just have to make room for a fifth post, because the event is historic. This is the first original YouTube cartoon show... ever!

Boy, Steve really got into the part (above) he's playing: that of a sorcerer who's trying to raise Walt Disney from the dead. Between attempts we get to watch three well chosen  cartoons, including one of my all-time favorites: "Swing You Sinners." Steve was a line producer for some pretty good people (Spumko, Bakshi, etc.) and is a long time cartoon fan, so he knows what the good stuff is.

All this is done in cahoots with Fred Seibert and his company, "Refrederator." Fred as you know, was the executive producer behind Cartoon Network shows like 'What a Cartoon," "Dexter's Lab" and "The Powerpuff Girls." Fred got together with YouTube to see if an internet cartoon show could be made to work, and this pilot is the result. If enough fans like it, expect to see a new show at regular intervals.

Let's see...did I leave anything out? Oh yes...the way it works is that you have to click inside the black box at the end of the video. The box appears only for an instant, so be ready. When you do that you'll be taken to the next video. The whole show requires several videos to play out, but they're all connected, like beads on a string.

Leave a comment on YouTube and let Steve know what you think!

IDEAS FOR HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

I'll get to the decorations in a minute. First, check out this (above) painting. It's huge, isn't it!? I shrunk my sidebar to make room for it, and it still won't fit! Click to enlarge to see the whole thing. Haw! I pity people who are viewing this on a cel phone!

BTW: Is this Dan Krall's work?

Awwww...that's (above) one cute kid, no doubt about it!

I stocked up on Halloween candy early this year, and I did what I always did and began nibbling as soon as I got it home. I hope there'll be some left for the kids. I could ask my family to hide it from me, but that probably wouldn't help. I know all their hiding places.

I'd be getting a late start, but I'm tempted to put big versions of masks like these on my front porch for Halloween. Aaaargh! I wonder if I have enough cardboard?

Is that (above) a mask? I mean a mask you can buy? If so, it's pretty well done. Of course I collect funny masks, not serious ones.

This artist (above) is terrific! It looks like he draws with a "6H" pencil, but he succeeds in creating a mood. 

  

Okay, about decorating....cheap rubber masks make great porch decorations. Even when they're old and falling apart, you can still find a use for them. The secret of making masks like these (above) come to life is to repaint them with acrylic paint. Reshape the ones that need it with staples, pins or duct tape, and replace the existing eyes with ping pong balls.  

  

Old kids book illustrators pulled no punches, as you can see above. Hideous deaths were the standard consequence of crimes like not doing chores. Framed color xeroxes of pictures like this look good around doors...something for Trick or Treaters to look at.

One day I'm going to attempt to make a giant mask like this (above), only more scary. I figure black, bendable foam for the major shapes, and paint for the rest.

It would be easy to make this (above)with boxes and an old, falling-apart mask. I'd put it under the bench by the front door.

An interesting robot design, and it looks easy to reproduce, too. Well, easy if you have enough X%&$@ cardboard! You really need to start collecting boxes for weeks before the holiday. Come to think of it, the design of the guy is pretty good, too. Who drew this?

RAMBLING THOUGHTS ABOUT "NAKED GIRLS READING"

Here's an interesting idea: "Naked Girls Reading." Books and girls...a nice combination, if it can be made to work...but can it?

I wish the girls would read something a little meatier than the books shown on the posters.



When I said "meatier" I was thinking of something like Tennyson but, come to think of it, I'd really like to hear a poem like the one above read naked...wouldn't you? The poem starts 22 seconds into the video.



Nudity would add so much to a reading like the one Edie Adams gives to the lyrics of this song (above).

I'm a big fan of public readings, and I'm always trying to think of a way to make them commercially feasible. In the past actors and writers used to go on the road with shows that consisted entirely of them doing dramatic readings from their favorite books. The public loved them! I'm grasping at straws, I know, but...is there a chance that Naked Girls Reading could help to make that popular again, at least on a very small scale? 

Aaargh! Probably not. 

The problem here is that these girls are all burlesque dancers, and probably aren't very good readers. Even so, with the right director....

Can you sustain a whole show with possibly bad readings? I wonder. Do the readers ever dance while they read? Would more variety in the program help? Even classical burlesque didn't consist of wall to wall girls. They punctuated the girl acts with comedy. 

Apparently Naked Girls Reading is a franchise. The local organizer is a guy named Vlad the Retailer. He has a terrific sign outside his office (above), so you get the feeling that he must know what he's doing.  Vlad's been doing Girls Reading for at least two years now, more if you include possible promotions for similar ideas, like the one below. 

All over the country promoters are trying to bring back burlesque in one form or another. Sometimes they even combine burlesque with professional men's wrestling. I wish them luck, but I don't think it'll happen on a large scale. Burlesque's time has passed. Now, naked literature on the other hand.....

THE BEST HALLOWEEN COSTUME EVER?

It may also be the ugliest. Where on Earth did that guy get a suit like that? And what's it made of? Rubber? Vinyl? It doesn't look very comfortable. It reminds me of the tar ball Moe was trapped in when he floated up to the top of a barn in one of The Three Stooges films.



Thanks to a much appreciated comment from Teki, I now know where these suits come from: a company called Squeak Latex. Check out squeaklatex.com and the YouTube video above.



Here's (above) the Squeak Latex "Blueberry Suit." Amazing!



Probably everybody here has seen this already, but in case you haven't...this is one of the new line of realistic masks put out by Rusty Slussen's SPFX company. The cost? $810, and worth every penny. A bank robber recently robbed five banks with an afroamerican variant of this! Thanks to Patrick Micheal for telling me about it!

There are much better views of the mask on other YouTube videos, but this one shows how quickly the mask comes off, and it's only 20 seconds long.

Man, every year plastic masks look more appealing to me. They're more imaginative than most rubber masks, and they're a heck of a lot cheaper. The problem is that the Golden Age of this sort of thing may already have passed.

I'll have to pay a visit to my local Goth supply store and see what's on the walls this year. I don't think "The Spirit" stores sell these. I wonder why?

Wow! A nifty disguise (above) that you can put into a brief case or a back pack!

A cool wooden mask (above)...from Japan, according to a commenter!

The best thing about kid costumes in a box was always the plastic mask. Nowadays you can buy masks like that without buying the costume. At last! Reason has prevailed!

First dog costumes, now baby costumes like the one above. What next? 

So THAT'S how you make a spider costume (above)! Okay, I get it now!

Anime-style robots (above) look great, if you don't mind walking on stilts.

I don't know about you, but I like to be read to by naked girls. It's this Sunday!

STEVE MAKES SHISH KEBAB (PART III) (FINAL)

JOJO: "Well, here it is, all 367 pounds of it!"

HUNGRY GUESTS: "ME FIRST! NO, ME! GIVE IT HERE!!"

STEVE: "WAIT!!!!! Protocol demands that one who is virtuous and trustworthy sample the meal first so the gods of the dinner table will be satisfied that we gave it our best shot. I nominate Auralynn!"

HUNGRY GUEST: "Er...okay! (Gulp!)"

Auralynn takes a bite. The room goes silent as she carefully chews and swallows. She pauses...almost speaks...then pauses again........then, after the deepest reflection...

AURALYNN: "Yes, Stephen has produced a fine meal."

RELIEVED GUEST: "Thank Heaven! LET'S EAT!"

That did it! Everybody lays into the food.

CHOMP! EAT! RIP! TEAR! CRUNCH! 

CHOMP! BITE! CHEW! CHOMP! GRAGGLE!

RIP! TEAR! CRUNCH! BITE! CHEW! MANGLE!

 CHEW! SNARSH! BITE!!!

CRUNCH! TEAR! RIP!

MUNCH! BITE! RIP!

SHRUMP! BITE! CRUNCH!

SLASH! BITE! MUNCH!!!

LATER....

ALL: (COLLECTIVE GROAN!)

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.
- - - Edward Lear


BTW: That great picture of Steve holding the kebabs close to his face in Part I was taken by Auralynn.