Halloween


Halloween 2000 on Castro Street in San Francisco

Diverse, crazy, simply marvellous, brilliant, and inspired costumes. Great atmosphere. At times so crowded that everyone was packed as tightly as sardines against each other and the whole crowd moved together as one (very cool). I wanted to go as some combination of Darth Maul, pirate, and a drag queen (aka "Darth pirate queen" though the drag queen part didn't come off as planned, but people did guess the "Darth pirate" part surprisingly well). Dark force light sabre being shattered by Charis aka Little Bo Beep. People being scared by Jason (aka the Red Queen) waving his red umbrella and I with my light sabre (these people didn't belong there). Competing break dancing dancing upstaged by random people from the crowd who could really breakdance. Losing friends and finding them again. I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking (photos courtesy of Jason).


Halloween 2001 at the Broadway Bar and Grill in Seattle

There's nothing like a Castro Street Halloween party in Seattle in terms of size but there are events that are local and have the same atmosphere and energy. This year, we went to the Broadway Bar and Grill which claims to hold the biggest costume contest in Seattle (with a grand prize of a trip for two to Hawaii). While we waited (for a few hours) to be seated, we got to witness some diverse, creative, and funny costumes (a classic was a pregnant nun). The winners for the contest included a costume that mimicked the game "Operation" and a Queen Bee costume (pictured below).

This Halloween, I dressed up in a combination of a Tibetan Monk jacket, Thailand sarong-like traditional pants, and an Indian traditional shirt that I had acquired from my trip to South Asia. Mali went as a clown. We also had some fun carving pumpkins.

The weather in Seattle isn't conducive to randomly wandering around in the streets and so we topped off a fun night by watching Poltergeist.


Halloween 2002 at the Contour in Seattle

Unlike in San Francisco where it's barely warm enough to be outside in costume, Seattle doesn't lend itself to being outdoors for long periods on October 31. We therefore spent Halloween at the Contour Club in Seattle catching a host of DJs and a cool costume contest.

This show deserved a thumbs up! The DJs we saw included Eric Allen, Paulina, and Ryle and they were all extremely good, each one bumping up the energy level a notch higher. Eric Allen was fun and since I'm partial to trance, Paulina's records were one of the highlights. But Ryle completely shook up the dance floor. This is the second time I've seen Ryle and his choice of music is really incredible.

This Halloween, like always, I modified my previous year's costume (the Tibetan Monk one) and wore the Scream outfit with a mask that could drip blood ("killer monk"). Mali went as a classy clown.

There were a lot of other cool costumesat the club andthe costume contest was a lot fun. One of the better nights at the Contour.


Pseudointellectual ramblings || Ram Samudrala || me@ram.org || October 31, 2000; October 31, 2001; October 31, 2002