there comes a point in the evening when Carmen Miranda has a mustache
Halloween, Shmalloween.
That might be a little harsh, but Halloween in Chapel Hill can be a real pain in the ass. The town is invaded by thousands of dipshits in the lamest excuse for costumes, turning Franklin Street into a sea of, well, dipshits in lame costumes. I suppose my antipathy for this particular holiday stems from my days as a newspaper photographer, when I was forced to wade in neck deep and try to get a decent picture for the front page. “Whenever anything happened downtown, I had to be there. If it was a protest march, it meant I would basically be running backwards from Chapel Hill to Carrboro.” My search for one good photo became four hours of “hey, nice photographer costume,” interspersed with entreaties from drunken sorority girls in football jerseys to take their picture and mail it to them.
Okay, yeah, sure, it’s fun, but it doesn’t exactly bring out the best in the student population. On my way home tonight, in and around dodging costumed or shirtless inebriates lurching into the street, I saw a kid in a pink rabbit suit run out in front of a police car, apparently to alert the officer to the presence of an overturned shopping cart on the sidewalk. Thanks, Crimestopper Bunny! And it’s 3:30 a.m. and I can still hear the occasional “woohoo!” through my open window, not to mention revving engines and squealing tires. “Ah, that’s probably just Primo.” Oh, hey! I just heard an explosion! Terrific.
I suppose all this is making me sound even more curmudgeonly than usual, but I did have a good time tonight. I made the right decision, and spent the evening in Durham at a Halloween/birthday party for Mae West. I really do have a lot of very clever friends. Check out the costumes in the Halloween photo gallery, located over there. See? There. No, there.
I managed to sneak back into town without running down anybody in a cat suit, and dropped off the Tiki God and Goddess in Carrboro. On the way to my house I stopped at a light and noticed two women on the sidewalk, dressed as a naughty nurse and a naughty schoolgirl. “Okay, maybe Halloween isn’t so bad.” When I looked up again, they were walking toward my car with beseeching looks on their faces. I rolled down my window, with an exchange from “Detroit Rock City” running through my mind. “”This is how horror movies start.” “Yeah, but this is also how porno movies start!”” But since this is my public blog and not my private fantasy journal, they turned out to be two students from Charlotte who had gotten separated from their friends, and all they wanted was a ride to the house where they were staying.
Or was it?
“Gosh, it’s such a nice night,” the nubile nurse said in a husky voice, “and this uniform is awfully warm…”