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Ah candy corn. This delicious but deadly candy confection connotes images of the fall in the United States, of childhood and our beloved neo-pagan holiday, Halloween.

Thanks to a growing acceptance of weird things in our culture, Halloween has grown in a big way to rival Christmas as American’s favorite holiday. For many queer folks, it’s the first time they don a drag outfit and explore what it’s like to dress up as a man or a woman. For me, it’s a chance to do really weird things in the name of Holiday Spirit. You should see me at a Christmas party. “Is that mistletoe above your camel-toe?”

One of the best things about living in Chicago is our local, small and low-key Halloween parade centered in the heart of the gay part of town, Lakeview. Also known as Boystown, the modest parade attracts people from all walks of life, but a good percentage of the audience is Korean tourists. Don’t ask me why, it just is.

Here’s a picture of me with Saan Huan, a costume-less, Korean Christian minister who somehow made his way to Boystown last year and was acting all weird around us, but somehow wouldn’t stop following us with his camera.

We invited him to hang with us for the rest of the night. It all turned bad when he thought we were putting drugs in his beer.

I love to dress up as a combo of any costume and a vampire, because it’s sexy and weird all at the same time and because it’s an excuse to bite someone on the neck! Last year I was a knight in shining armor + vampire. This year I think I’ll get myself a cowboy gear and be a cowboy vampire.

Amanda’s Halloweens turn out to be like Charlie Brown’s Christmases. One costume idea Amanda had is to take a cardboard box and turn it into a Rubix cube. Another year she had nothing to wear and so she took her purple curtains and turned it into an awkward puple ghost costume that unintentionally offended a lot of people. Think the Teletubbies meets the Klu Klux Klan.

Here’s a bad costume idea: go as a “blind” date (a date wearing dark sunglasses). Be prepared for everyone to ask you if you are Ray Charles or Hellen Keller.

Marc suggests wearing underwear, wrapping yourself up in salami and saran wrap and going as leftovers. I think he just wants to wear a costume he can eat.

Another cheap, messy and dramatic costume idea is going as the classic Sissy Spacek character Carrie. Just put on a nightgown, a blond wig and a tiara, then drop a bucket of fake blood on yourself at an inappropriate time.

But the best costume you can wear 365 days a year is as a Feast of Fools fan! Get your black t-shirt here now. Click here to see a fabulous photo gallery of people wearing the shirts. Send your photos in now!

Listen as Amanda Steinstein joins Marc Felion and me, Fausto Fernós to talk about Halloween news, cake-sitting, offending witches, sex parties in Canada. Are you invited?

[Originally posted on 10.18.07]

Putting the JACK in jack-o-lantern, Feast of Fools!

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