It’s close to midnight on Halloween night. I am supposed to meet a buddy downtown to have a few beers and soak in the beauty that is Halloween.
I had forgotten how long it had been since I had actually gone out and actually partied on the actual night of Halloween. Typically, people get caught up in going to a Halloween party on the weekend before Halloween, and they pass that off as celebrating the holiday.
The Hollywood of the East Coast does to Halloween what it does to most other holidays - it blows them out. Take any of the major holiday (St. Patrick’s Day, Cinco De Mayo, Mardi Gras, Halloween), put them in The Hollywood, and you’ve got a completely unique experience.
For some reason, though, this point was lost on me as I walked out of my apartment Tuesday night. My costume? I didn’t even have one. I didn’t even decide to go out until a few hours ago.
I figured that maybe 60 to 70 percent of the people out drinking would be in a costume. I would quickly learn that I need to have better foresight.
I walk out of my apartment around midnight to see downtown parking has spilled onto the street next to my complex. I turn the corner. Walking toward me are two women dressed as kinky catholic school girls. Both have pony tails, white button down shirts pulled up high to expose their entire stomach, tiny red skirts, knee high white socks and black shoes. Did I mention breasts? I probably should have.
I walked past them and head toward downtown. I am now walking behind three people. One is a woman. I don’t know what her costume was, but it included fish net leggings and boy shorts which struggled to cover, at most, 20 percent of her ass. I can’t remember what else she had on because all I could see was her bare ass.
I’m beginning to think going out on Halloween was a good idea.
The city has decided in order to properly celebrate Halloween, it will section off two blocks of downtown, charge people $20 to get in, then fill the area with booze and pipe in bad music.
I hear the block party before I see it. There are giant Domino’s Pizza streamers shooting up in the air and various radio stations are promoting their shitty networks with huge, obnoxious vans. None are playing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” which disappoints me.
The streets are crawling with Halloween revelers. I am the only one not in costume. Literally. It takes me five minutes to find another person in street clothes.
Not only am I in the minority, I am completely singled out. Why I am the only one who decided to go out 2 hours ago is beyond me. But I don’t care. Because in front of my eyes, The Hollywood is putting on the greatest show anyone could ask for.
There are thousands of people in the most intricate, most hilarious costumes imaginable. Look, there’s a guy dressed as a MySpace page. There’s Jay from Jay and Jay Silent Bob fare (sadly, he wasn’t with Silent Bob, which clearly lost him marks on my Costume-O-Meter). Here’s a grown man who’s not only dressed like a cave man, but he’s talking like one. Then there’s the people who truly understand the spirit of Halloween. They are dressed as the Grim Reaper, or are covered in blood, or are wearing scary masks. They are all not moving and generally looking very creepy.
There’s a dude dressed as a keg, another as a bottle of Cuervo and another is a big penis. A woman remarks aloud, “Beer, tequila and penis, my three favorite things”.
Behind them I see the Ambiguously Gay Duo, complete with the oversized package. The other thousand men were dressed as Borat from the upcoming film, “Borat”.
The scene was captivating. But amid this sea of insanity, there was something else going on. Something else equally as fascinating. Something that maybe tells us about ourselves and our society.
Everywhere I looked, I saw hundreds of naked young women. Well, not literally, of course. But they might have well as been.
There were the three women who were wearing nothing but bras and panties and wings on their backs. If you have a white sheet over your head, I know you‘re a ghost. I don‘t know what you‘re dressed as when you wear underwear and wings. Turns out, they were Victoria’s Secret Angels, although I’m still trying to figure out if this is an actual mascot of the clothing chain or one they made up.
Nonetheless, they are essentially naked. By this point I have met my buddy and we are standing on the packed streets of The Hollywood speechless for several minutes. If there is ever anything spoken between us it is either, “Look at that!”, “Hey, check this one out”, or “Holy shit, over there.”
There is another girl dressed up as a naughty nurse, complete with pumps and the white mini-skirt. Dozens of naughty, female cops saunter by. Then there is your run-of-the-mill hooker. Hey, look, another random girl just wearing her bra. There’s a girl wearing boy shorts, no pants, and what amounts to a bra. What is she?
Here are two female construction workers with ripped open wife beaters exposing their fake breasts, dazy dukes and hard hats. There costumes are made more sexual by the fact they are carrying around tape measurers. They are dancing together and grabbing each other. My buddy informs them their costume is not consistent with what actual construction workers wear. They do not appreciate the humor.
There are also dozens of Playboy Bunnies walking the streets wearing very liberating clothing. The slutty football referee is also popular with the jersey number “69” adding a subtle, sexual touch.
entire night, I scanned the landscape of The Hollywood’s downtown bar district. From every corner oozed sexuality. It wasn’t subtle. It was in your face. It was powerful.
But as this spectacle danced all around me, I began to wonder. Why is this? Why do women use Halloween as an excuse to let out their inner slut. Why are women so obsessed with dressing like complete whores on Halloween? If a woman wants to dress a construction worker, a cop or a nurse, why do their costumes have to be completely slutted out?
Then, through some interesting conversation, I figured it out. Halloween is the only time women can dress like a slut, without being categorized as one. At no point on Halloween will a women look at another and judge her based on how much cleavage she is showing, or the fact that her bare ass cheeks are exposed.
The You can’t rip a girl about dressing like a whore because it’s Halloween. She’s in a costume, and the inner slut she is displaying is essentially an “act”, a one-time deal.
This is crucial because women cannot afford to be labeled a slut. It is detrimental to their image and how people treat them.
Nonetheless, the Halloween Slut may be a bit exaggerated here in The Hollywood. The women here are in an intense competition amongst themselves as they fight for the attention of a very sub-par male gene pool.
What does it all mean? It means Halloween is by far my favorite holiday. It’s a night to go out and act as silly, as creepy or as bizarre as you want and not have people judge you. You can be half naked and appear normal. You can say weird things, talk to weird strangers and openly stare at people and it is all normal.
And of course, in The Hollywood, it is the night the Halloween Sluts come out.
I’m just pissed I didn’t have a costume.
