Friday, October 23, 2009

Bust out your costumes, it is Halloween season.

In the Keys, Halloween events are now spread out over a series of three weeks, making it the holiday with the most staying power.

The City of Key West actually had the stones to move Halloween into the next month. Citing potential concerns over conflicts with Fantasy Fest, Halloween in Key West will now be celebrated on Nov. 1. Aside from doubts about a city's authority to physically move a holiday -- Key West's plans to move Christmas to April in hopes of lengthening the tourist season are still up in the air -- who is to say little kids wouldn't prefer trick-or-treating alongside some drunk tourist from Del Ray Beach wearing nothing but strategically placed body paint?

Fantasy Fest is also pushing a lot of other adult-oriented Halloween parties to the weekend before, because nobody wants to have to make a choice as to what social event they will need to take a taxi home from.

The only reason adults throw Halloween parties is for an excuse to get dressed up without seeming creepy in front of family and friends. Who wants to be the weird uncle who wears a batman costume to a Fourth of July barbecue?

Due to what my shrink calls an "overblown social neurosis," I always get super nervous when it comes to picking out Halloween costumes. Sure, in regular social situations people may be hesitant to poke fun at my normal self. There are no such qualms about ripping on someone who wears a goofy costume.

This year I will be dressed up as a hipster DJ. The costume will serve a second purpose, since I will be in fact working as a DJ for the Marathon Jaycees Scarathon Party on Saturday night. That's what we call killing two birds with one stone where I come from. My only previous DJ experience has been children's dances, so come see if I can make the jump to the big leagues.

There are some rules that need to be followed when getting dressed up for Halloween:

• Don't try too hard

I made this mistake my senior year of college when I put together what was simply the best Oscar the Grouch costume ever assembled by a poor person. I had a green sweatshirt and sweatpants that I turned inside out to create a fuzzy exterior. I painted my face green, cut the bottom out of a huge garbage can and strapped it to myself.

Surprisingly I was able to pull it off, and was the talk of the party. Problem was, there was another party I was slated to attend that was being held inside a small apartment. My giant costume wouldn't do, and I wasn't even sure if people were going to be all that dressed up at the second soiree.

Since I was already running late, I ditched the garbage can, and preceded to jog two miles across the Bronx wearing an inside-out sweat suit and a green painted face. Since the party wasn't held on the actual day of Halloween, I figured I would have looked pretty creepy just causally walking around outside in my getup. By jogging, at least onlookers may have thought I was an exercise enthusiast with a bad skin problem. Upon arriving at home, I changed into regular clothes and headed to the second party, which leads me to the next bullet point.

• It's OK to not wear a costume

Although you would feel super awkward if you were the only person wearing a costume at a party, the converse is not true. By not wearing a costume at a Halloween party, you automatically make yourself the calmest most sane-seeming person in the building.

Sure, you may not be adhering to the theme of the party, but you are probably one of the few people who have full use of all their limbs and are not holding some weird prop. And god forbid something awful happens, it would perhaps be for the best that somebody not holding a giant plastic axe covered in fake blood talk to the police.

• Simple and clever costumes work the best

Last year for Halloween I dressed as business casual Jason Voorhees. All the costume entailed was a Jason mask, fake knife, a polo shirt and jeans. The year before that I was a guy in a Mets cap wearing devil horns holding a pitchfork.

I may not have won any costume contests, but I got a fair share of chuckles and did not have to wear some huge getup that would leave me sweating all night.