October 29, 2004

Brett visits for Halloween in San Francisco

As my brother Brett was unemployed in Washington DC, sitting listless and bored and waiting to hear back about various job opportunities (he's since taken a job as a consultant for Accenture), I decided to fly his Playstation-addicted, destitue ass out to SF for a little bro-down.

brett — The Bertmaster General upon his arrival in Oakland.

brett, me — On the way back to my place, we stopped at Whiz Burgers on South Van Ness. Despite being in a sketchy-ass gah-gah-ghetto section of the Mission (that I almost lived a block from), this old skool 60s drivethru burger place puts In N' Out Burger (which I love) to fucking shame. Hot Damn.

After excessively patting each other's back to help shake loose any potentially embarrassing "burger burps," we headed over to Rickshaw Stop to check out their Halloween party. Eh.

brett, leela — Leela the Happy 50s Housewife ("MAKE ME MEATLOAF!") and my brother.

brett, mary — Sherlock Mary and my brother being enveloped by a ghost. No, seriously.

mike doyle — Mike Doyle wrassling with the cobwebs.

DJ Dead-Superman on the decks. Wait, can I get a close up of Superman's weird, bulgy mooseknuckle nuts?

Yeah, there we go. Thanks.

mary, me — I dressed up as a zombie that only eats boobies.

After some time on the dancefloor (where I repeated demonstrated my hungry boobie-zombie act on girls I didn't know) we bid farewell to Superbulge *shudder* and called it a night.

Saturday, October 30th

brett, sid — On Saturday afternoon we met up with Sid, my brother's friend from college who now lives in SF. I took them for sandwiches at Love and Haight and my brother ate his first meal without meat ever. True story. Afterwards we fucked around the city all day and waiting until the last minute possible to do our...

brett — ...Halloween costume shopping! The best way to select a costume is wait until like 45 minutes before the Halloween parties all start and then go to the Halloween store...you go through the ravaged shelves and try to put a costume together with what little supplies they have left. (This is the genius method that led to such classic past-Halloween outfits like Magnum P.I. and Sort-of one of The Misfits!). Since my brother, Sid and myself were all going to be going out together, we agreed to try to find costumes that matched.

brett, sid — The only thing that the Halloween Store had left in triplicate were these stoopids hats and grass skirts. Check out my brother's facial response to me saying "Well, I guess that settles it. Looks like we're going to be Hawaiian Hula girls!" Hahaha.

me, sid — Here's Sid and I with our smoking coconut-bikini tops. After we got our outfits on, we realized that in San Francisco dressing up as a hulagirl isn't just for Halloween and worried that some people might not ever realize that we'd even dressed up.

brett — So we enlisted the make-up expertise of hot black Amber and decided we'd go out dressed as...

brett, me, sid — ...dead zombie hula girls.

"Braaaaaains! I want brains........and a pina colada!"

With our costumes all finished, we walked out of my apartment door and were immediately met by this insane crowd of people. My apartment was on Market and 15th like two blocks from the heart of the Castro. Which means that Halloween in my neighborhood looks alot like...

...this. Hahaha.

brett, michael s, mike doyle — We met up with Michael "PLO Member" Schickenberg and Mike "The Mailman" Doyle and decided to hit up some parties.

michael s — "Mommy why is Santa dressed up like a nun? I'm scared mommy!"

A few of Mike's friends had put together a Halloween-inspired Ramones cover band called "The Raclones" (Ha! Get it?) and they were going to be performing on Market a few blocks south of my place. When we got there, the instruments were all set up and a crowd waited. After a few restless minutes, some dude hopped on the drums and all these people...

...hopped on the mic and started freestyling over the drumbeat!

This guy was rappying about how he looks like a overgrown Samoan baby throwing a tantrum.

Then the stage was cleared and The Raclones got ready to make their big entrance. But not before I managed to snap this awesome picture of Timmy Fifteen here smoking a doober on the street. Hahaha. I'm so telling your mom.

They were pretty good and the singer had an uncanny resemblance to the real deal Holyfield Joey Ramone. Check him out.

This guy threw himself on the pavement and just started going apeshit.

"Backstage." Hahah.

Clockwork Orange Guy here was a real crowd pleaser...

...at least he was until Crazy Octopus man cut-in and totally schooled his ass.

Is there anything better than a cute, underage girl in a wig fisting a Bud pounder on the street?

george bush — Dick and George were on hand.

In the middle of the mayhem, this group of 8 or 9 kids, all in matching orange and black "80s outfits," run into the middle of the dance area, throw down this piece of cardboard and take turns pretending to breakdance. It was some of the funniest shit I've ever seen.

Go banana! Go banana! So in the midst of all this craziness, I told my brother that I kept seeing some kind of weird movement coming from this rounded, second-story room that was overlooking the street. He was like "No way, stop bullshitting. You're just trying to freak me out." So I was like, "Watch this, I bet I can get a picture of whatever it is." So I took the picture and sure enough...

...I managed to capture this! When I showed my brother the photo on my tiny camera preview screen he almost dooked his drawers. But upon closer examination what we thought might be some evil spectre just turned out to be...

...some really old (possibly Asian?) man sitting in the dark in a rocking chair watching all the people carry on outside his window. HALLOWEEN!

mike doyle — Mailman Mike poses with some super-sexy flamingo girl that walked by. (Just look at her fuzzy pink leg-warmers!)

Mike's roommate Jaimie and her friend.

mike doyle — Caaaaandygram! It's a landshark!

Hey, it's Gizmo! This is totally one of those costumes where you buy the pattern and the fabric and your mom would sew it for you. When I was seven years old my mom hooked me up with an "ET the Extraterrestrial" jammie that turned out looking a lot like this one. (She even put a little pen light in the finger so I could make that shit light up. I love you mom!)

After The Raclones show we headed into the Mission and met up with Tracie and her friend Heidi to hit a few house parties.

brett, sid — On the way over, we stopped in a liquor store where my brother and Sid, despite my repeated warnings, decided to try Night Train Express (the very finest of fortified bum wines) for the very first time. I was like "Yo, Guns N' Roses even wrote a song about how that shit's even too hardcore for them...do you know how hardcore that is?" At first they laughed at me, but then they started to understand that I wasn't joking around when the toothless 60-year old man at the register who had tattoos on his face looked at them increduously and said "Night Train? Are you sure you want to do that, guys? Wow." For a minute I thought they were going to back out - I mean shrugging off Axl Rose's warning is one thing, but to ignore the tattooed-face check-out guy? That's crazy. But in the end, they put their money on the counter. The checkout guy just kept shaking his head as he bagged them up and as we left the he called out "Good luck!" Hahaha.

The first house party we went to kinda sucked. But they at least had...

...a lady in a giant, scary Cabbage Patch Kid type costume...

brett, sid — ...and a puppy. Awwwwww! Puppy!

brett, sid — We left the party and by the time we got back out on the street both my brother and Sid had finished their bottles of Night Train. (The next day while we were looking at all these photos my brother got to this one and said "Yep, finishing that bottle of Night Train and posing for this photo is pretty much the last thing I remember." Hahaha. At the next party we met...

...Diane Keaton! Hahahah. And...

mr t — ...Mr. T! "I pity the fool who...who...shot me in the face with silly string!"

brett — The only thing funnier than the back or Mr. T's head is my brother's totally butt-ass wasted shit-eating grin. Just one bottle of Night Train and he was chortling like a wheezy hobo! Hahaha.

sid — Here's us on our way to the next party. Check out Sid half-walking, half-falling down the street.

Tracie and her friend Forehead Cut. (I think she was one of the few people we saw that night who put less effort into her costume than we did).

Disco Belly and Grover and HEY! LOOK! Another Hula Zombie! Yay!

sid — On the way to the next party, Sid had to stop and pee like three times.

mike doyle — We met back up with Mailman Mike and his crew at some houseparty that had a rad backyard garden on a hill.

brett, sid — Sid and my brother, crunked out of their tiny minds, kifed a giant, two-litre bottle of Malibu (fucking Malibu!) from the house and sat on the ground passing it back and forth taking swings and cackling. See what happens when you get the Night Train in your blood?

brett, sid — On the way back towards my place I made them stop and get some slices, hoping it'd help soak up some of the alcohol (and anti-freeze) that was in their systems.

brett, sid — And they made friends with strangers.

sid — And Sid peed a buncha more times.

We ended up on my rooftop...

...watching the lingering crowd.

brett, sid — Well, Brett and I watched. Sid drunkenly slurred obscenities and gibberish at them.

brett, me, sid — Self-portrait: Drunk Zombie-Hula-Boys, 4am.

Sunday, October 31st

brett — The next morning we got up and my brother needed a serious breakfast to help him recover from having been hit by THE NIGHT TRAIN! When you're super-hungover you do things like order pancakes...

...with peanut butter on them.

brett — Afterwards, we hit the giant arcade downtown and played video bowling.

(Because regular bowling would've totally been too strenuous. Hahah).

brett — And then we rounded out the day with a nice, easy game of golf. Hahah. Thanks for coming to visit, Brett!