The Horror of Halloween Costumes Past – Pt 1.

Happy Samhain to everyone! That’s Happy Halloween to any of you muggles or non-Celtic folk out in cyberspace. The Celtic New Year is here, the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is thin. As evidence of this, I bring you the horrors of bad kid costumes past. Not only today but for every Monday through the month of November.

You see dear readers, each November I am entombed in writing solitude, banging out another first draft of a new novel. I know I have been remiss in the writing department this past month due to moving, work and acting commitments. So I am writing all of my November blogs in the last week of October and putting them on auto-post (yay for technology) so I don’t let you all down again.

So today for your Monday Morning funny – Halloween kid costumes. Personally I was tired of haranguing everyone again about “sexy” costumes for females that have become standard fare nowadays for anyone 12 years of age and up.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was Ben Cooper. No, not the western actor from Bonanza, but the company that made those plastic jumpsuit costumes for kids. You probably wore one of these if (a) you grew up in the 50’s, 60’s or 70’s, (b) your parents had some cash to spend but no creativity or (c) they shoplifted from K-Mart. These costumes usually consisted of a plastic mask that had two eyes holes and a hole in the mouth that always made the mask look like some demented sex doll and a plastic “coverall-style” costume.

The costume itself was a jumpsuit that tied in the back. Nine times out of ten it didn’t reflect the physical outfit of the character. Instead it usually featured a picture of the character with their name written in large letters for good measure. Case in point – the She-Hulk:

Hey, I had no idea Bruce Banner aka “The Hulk” had a girl friend, let alone that she was a green gal with bad Howard Stern hair. However you can see where the front of this costume just has a slightly better looking picture of the character on it and lists the character name. I suppose just painting yourself green and wearing ripped clothes was just too hard.

In this Spock (from Star Trek) costume, I see trends even more horrifying.

Not only do you have a picture of Captain Kirk and a couple other cast members in the upper shoulder of the costume (neither of which is Spock by the way) but the colors are garish. To add insult to injury, they are from the first Star Trek movie. The one we never speak of – Star Trek The Motion Picture. It was so awful I try to erase it from my memory just like Godfather 3 or American Pie: Band Camp 5. To me, The Wrath of Khan was the first Star Trek movie. I really don’t want to be reminded of the original movie with its shallow and lame Veeger plot. If you have no idea what I am talking about, read the Wikipedia cliff notes.

This suit not only has the Starship Enterprise smack dab on Spocks chest but there is some kind of eclipse/corona effect coming from his crotchal area. This really creeps me out especially since this costume is designed to be worn on a little kid.

Shudder. Next Monday – Ben Cooper takes on the world of comic books and loses.

Petey the Pervert: Coming Soon To A Park Near You

So the other day I was at Civic Park in Walnut Creek.  You know, the nice one with the matching playground equipment, the friendly people with their tiny pocket dogs and sporatic potluck parties.  I was there with some friends participating in some group activities that involved tossing sticks at blocks of wood, singing songs in Latin & Greek – you know, a normal Saturday afternoon.

Well, at one point I looked down and saw a strange little girl.  She wasn’t strange as in odd, just strange as in she was a stranger, she didn’t belong to anyone in our group.  We were looking around to see where she came from and discovered she was with her Grandfather.  Now let me paint this picture a little clearer for you.  This girl was about 4 years old, wearing only underpants, a shirt and no shoes.  It wasn’t scrotching hot and since we weren’t dirt poor coal miners in Apalachia, her attire was a mite disturbing.  However the most disturbing thing was her Grandfathers behaviour.

This guy refused to keep an eye on her.  He would tell her to stay by him, then proceed to ignore her while she wandered off to join other groups.  She was a quiet child.  I never heard a peep out of her and she was willing to go without protest with any adult willing to hold their hand out.  This was unsettling to say the least.  Petey the Pervert could come along, ask her if she wants to see his puppy and have some candy, lead her to his van, drive off and her Grandfather would be clueless.

A few of our ladies took her back for the third time and told Granddad he should really keep an eye on her since we are concerned for her safety and don’t want her to get hurt.  Their concern was rewarded with him getting all bitchy and saying that “he didn’t need a lecture.”  Well you know what dude, you do.  You really do!

I don’t understand adults who refuse to watch their kids, monitor their activity, who they are talking to and what they are doing.  They are your RESPOSIBILITY!  To tell people that their very small child can go wherever she wants since this is a public park is INSANE.  This man didn’t have any mental issues, aside from being an asshat, so I couldn’t blame Alzheimers.  I could not believe that someone who has been on this planet for at least 70 years could be so ignorant.  If you aren’t interested in perverts picking up on your kid, how about injury from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I know one of our party was hit in the head by a football that some whanker threw to his kid like this was a football statium and not a small park.  Our guy was an adult and has a thick head but that could have hit a small kid and done a lot more damage.

I don’t understand this mind set.  Do you?