I’d like to take some time out from travel blog to talk
about something that really chews on my ass and it gets worse and worse with
every passing year.
And that something is Halloween.
Or more accurately, what passes for Halloween in 2011…which,
not coincidentally, just happens to be today.
Let me first start off my saying that, I love Halloween. I’m
the biggest fan Halloween ever had. I love everything about it. I love the
autumn colors, the brisk weather, the crispness in the air. I love horror
movies and costumes…spooky organ music and the smell of a freshly cut pumpkin.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s the “total package” in terms of holidays. In
fact, the only thing I don’t like, is what’s happened to it.
I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old curmudgeon ( I am
grumpy old curmudgeon, I just don’t want to sound like one) but when I was
growing up Halloween was the kid equivalent of fucking a room full of strippers
on a bed made of pancakes. Think about
it. You’re young, in costume, with your friends, no supervision and you get to
basically terrorize the neighborhood in search of candy. It’s like being a
pirate, minus the rotgut and scurvy.
If Halloween fell on a weekday, which it always seemed to
do, my friends and I went to school in our costumes and would start trick or
treating the second the last school bell rang. We would hit every single house
in a 5 mile radius and wouldn’t come home till well past dark. Lugging a 15
pound sack of candy and covered in eggs and shaving cream from encounters with
other like-minded pre-teen maniacs caught in the throws of a Snickers induced
sugar frenzy. It was glorious.
Sure the costumes weren’t as sophisticated as they are
today. They were mostly homemade, but they did the job and more importantly,
the showed what kind of kid you were.
If you dressed up as the Wolfman, a Bank
Robber or Gene Simmons, everyone knew you were not someone to be taken lightly.
However, if you went out dressed as a Clown, Casper the Friendly Ghost or Paul Stanley,
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| Gay |
you might as well have just politely handed your bag of candy over to the first
kid you crossed paths with and asked him if he’d like a drink to wash it down
with. There was no way you were gonna make it home with your loot. But at least
you knew better for next year.
Today, everybody is the same store-bought piece of shit
costume they got last minute at Party City. You could walk into any costume
party in any city in any state and see at least 4 people dressed as Batman, 2
Jake Sully’s from Avatar and 4 dozen whores dressed as Sexy Witch or Sexy
Vampire or Sexy Magilla Gorilla.
It’s pathetic, it’s homogenized and what’s worse, it’s
uncreative. And that my friends goes against one of the fundamental principals
of Halloween.
But my biggest problem comes from the overall pussification
of Halloween.
The truth of the matter is, kids today have no idea what it
means to celebrate Halloween! None…zero…nada.
Today kids go trick or treating with parents in tow or
worse, to places like malls or indoor amusement areas like Chuck E. Cheese. And
they go from store to store or station to station to get a roll of Smarties.
Where’s the sense of adventure? The rush you got from being independent? Trick
or Treating at the mall? Are you fucking kidding me?? You ever try to throw a
rotten egg at the girl who works the register at Banana Republic? You get
arrested for that shit!
Most of the time, I don’t give a shit that kids don’t get to
be kids anymore.
I don’t have any children and I don’t plan on having any so
the fact that they have to wear helmets when riding a bicycle or that every kid
on every Little League team gets a trophy because “everyone’s a winner”. Most of the time, I say tough shit..sucks for
your generation.
Hey, in a perfect world, I would have been born early enough
to enjoy the first half of the 1960’s…and preferably died just before the
1970’s. But we don’t get to choose and you make the most of what you’ve
got. Unfortunately kids today are
holding a loosing hand in terms of creativity and fun. The combination of
hyper-protective precautions and faux PC sentiments have destroyed what
remained Halloween’s architecture and left us with a cheap façade covered in
foam pads and bubble wrap.
And as I mentioned at the start of this, every year it just
gets worse and worse.
Don’t believe me…then take a look at this shit…
It seems that students at Ohio State University have taken a
stand, admittedly a somewhat limp-wristed noodley stand, against costumes that
they consider to be racially insensitive. To which I reply, “Fuckery!”
I’m not saying that a costume of a brown mustachioed muchacho
riding a donkey while drinking from a Tequila bottle is not, in and of itself,
an overtly “stereotypical” image…it is…what I’m saying is simply this..Get the
fuck over it. Seriously. Get over it.
Is it a sterotype? Yes.
Is it inaccurate ? Maybe.
Does any of that matter? No.
This isn’t a civil war reenactment . We’re not teaching a
history class. It’s a fucking costume meant to be worn on Halloween. It’s not
like anybody is going to buy this and wear it to Acapulco in hopes of blending
in with the locals. It’s a joke…a fucking joke people! How is dressing up in a
feathered headdress and calling myself an Indian any more or less offensive
then somebody wearing a pointed hat and crooked nose and calling themselves a
witch? It’s a cartoon. A caricature. A parody.
If someone thinks that half of the roughly 127,076,183
people living in Japan look like Geisha’s all the time, then your little
campaign isn’t going to sway them.
Look, I will admit that certain images
can be considered insensitive. I won’t deny that. Dressing up as the Grand
Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan will probably render you a well deserved ass
kicking …but hey, you had to see that one coming. But I don’t believe in taking
a stand against it or worse, banning the sales of KKK Kostumes (see what I did there…with the extra K)...
Where is the line between acceptable
and unacceptable?
When is it no longer a parody and it
becomes an attack?
Should any of this really make a
difference on Halloween?
Is it even worth getting upset over?
Do I ask too many questions?
And don’t give me that shit about “well times are
different”.
I realize that.
But the fact is, times are ALWAYS different. Times are
always changing, shifting and adjusting and it’s up to us as a civilized and
theoretically intelligent society to keep up with those changes…not seek
shelter from them.
Yes, you should be cautious. Yes you should be protective of
your children. But you should also allow them to experience the world on their
own terms even if that includes learning some of life’s harder lessons.
I’m not saying it’s ok for you to let your kids out into the
street with a box of hand grenades, not unless you live in Roosevelt (In
NY…Google it)..but maybe once a year, pry them away from their Xbox and let
them go be a kid. Let them throw toilet paper through a tree…let them egg a
car…let them steal the slow fat kids candy…he doesn’t need it anyway.
And for God’s sake, don’t let them dress up as Justin Bieber.
Not even if you think it’s cute. Not even if it’s done as a joke. Bully’s don’t
understand irony. All they know is a mopy haircut equals free candy.
Alright, enough bitching.
The road is calling and it’s not good to keep her waiting.
See ya on the flip flop.
Oh, and one last thing…
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