Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween y'all! I've been so busy it's been hard to really get into the spirit of things so far, but today looks like it will be a fun day anyhow. I've got cool skull sneakers, a skull-covered button up shirt, a skull-and-crossbones stud, and a dangly bat earring on in recognition of the holiday. Later this afternoon my company is having a little costume contest/party thing which should be a good time, too. Unfortunately I don't have a "real" costume -- too much to do with the party coming up on Saturday so costume shopping time has been non-existent. I'll be hitting the Halloween store clearance sale tomorrow to try to score something cool-yet-cheap for this year's edition of the Halloween Hootenanny, but for today I'll just be ...

... a martial arts guy. I know, what a freakin' cop-out. I'm wearing my dobakh, a "costume" I already wear for at least 4-5 hours a week, every week. So, not really a costume at all.

So Damn Lame. But at least I'll look good.

At first I felt a little funny about wearing my dobakh to a costume party -- I wondered for a bit if it was disrespectful. But, you know, I'm not misrepresenting myself by wearing rank I haven't attained, and I'm not going to mock or make fun of my art or the things I (or others) have accomplished. Basically, I'm wearing jammies with red trim and a belt. While the uniform is a traditional garment, ultimately it's the behavior of the person wearing it that determines whether proper respect for our art is being shown. I've seen people do some pretty shabby things while wearing uniforms, and I've seen high-ranking martial artists behave in a way that shames themselves or their art while out of their dobakhs, which I would think is just as bad, if not worse. I'm just wearing something that identifies me as a "type" for a party. Most folks would consider it a costume, even if I know it isn't really one in this case.

-=-

So, yeah, party planning continues. The music mix is essentially complete -- this year's mix is heavy on 80's and 90's tunes with a lot of Halloween-style songs thrown in. Here's the list of artists:

A Perfect Circle - Adam Ant - Amy Winehouse - Annie Lennox - The Avalanches - B-52s - Bauhaus - The Beatles - Bjork - Blue Oyster Cult - Bobby Pickett and the Crypt Keepers - Bow Wow Wow - Bruce Springsteen - Camper van Beethoven - The Clash - Concrete Blonde - The Cramps - The Cure - David Bowie with Queen - The Dead Milkmen - Death Cab for Cutie - Depeche Mode - Echo and the Bunnymen - Eddie Vedder - Elbow - The Flaming Lips - Foo Fighters - General Public - Gorillaz - Grand Master Flash and Melle Mel - Grant Lee Buffalo - Guadalcanal Diary - The Hold Steady - House of Pain - The Jesus and Mary Chain - Julian Cope - Kernkraft 400 - Kirsty MacColl - Linkin Park - Liz Phair with Material Issue - Lloyd Cole and the Commotions - Los Straitjackets - Maroon 5 - Matthew Sweet - The Mavericks - Muse - Nerf Herder - The New Pornographers - Oingo Boingo - Our Lady Peace - Peter Gabriel - The Police - The Pretenders - Queen - The Ramones - Raul Malo - Reel Big Fish - REM - Reverend Horton Heat - Rob Zombie - Robyn Hitchcok and the Egyptians - Santa Esmerelda - Screaming Blue Messiahs - Simple Minds - Siouxsie and the Banshees - Siouxsie Sioux - Sloan - Sponge - Stevie Nicks - Sublime - They Might Be Giants - The Shins - The Specials - Thomas Dolby - Timbaland - Tomoyasu Hotel - Tool - Tori Amos - Trio - VAST - The White Stripes

5 hours and 55 minutes of music, sound effects, and movie clips, mixed and crossfaded and all that happy crap into one monster MP3. Should be awesome. Now I just have to get the house decorated. We have a fairly decent display in the front yard -- nothing new this year aside from some lights, but our graveyard still looks better than any of the other yard displays in our neighborhood so yay us. I'll get home a bit early today and get sound effects, music and fog machines going before the trick or treaters come out, so all in all it'll be a good scene when it's ready.

The inside of the house, though, has a long way to go before Saturday night: we have lots of decor, but haven't put it out yet. I've done a bit of stuff with some cool dripping blood effects on various windows and mirrors, but otherwise the interior is unstarted. Lots of work to do. And with a minimum of 60-70 folks coming by for the party, it's gotta be tricked out and impressive or I'll feel like I blew it. Still, we have lots of creepy stuff, plus since the party is coming a few days after Halloween we get the benefit of the post-holiday clearance sales on all sorts of stuff and I can raid my brother's collection of stuff he puts out in his yard as well.

To top it off, I've volunteered to take down all the decorations at the dojang in exchange for getting to use them, and thsi iscludes a lot of that plastic "scene setter" stuff that goes up on the walls -- graveyards, wrought iron fences, spooky forests, and so forth. I think when I finish raiding everyone else's stuff we'll wind up with a pretty solid party scene.

Anyway, time to get some work done. Enjoy the day!

Mood: Upbeat
Now Playing: Halloween Hootenanny 2007 Mix