Hello dear readers, for once I don’t feel that I have to begin a post with an apology for not writing sooner.  This is the third post this month.  This is the best I’ve done in over a year.  My topic tonight is a bit of a departure.  Instead of writing about my art, which I have to admit is endlessly fascinating, I’m going to discuss something that is very pertinent to us all at this time of year.  The perfect Halloween costume.

First, we have to consider how we wish to spend our Halloween.  In my case, it will be carousing.  Therefore we need a costume that can be worn to any number of social occasions.  Currently, zombies are very in vogue with the popular zeitgeist.  There are a number of zombie themed events happening in town.  I can think of two off the top of my head.  One at the Beauty Bar and one at the Seaholm Power Plant.  Therefore, if we choose a zombie costume, we have full access to events around town.  I don’t believe there are any events where zombie costumes will be prohibited.

Ok, so zombie then.  Great.  Boring.  We can’t just get some white grease paint and fake blood and go as a generic vanilla zombie.  The great thing about a zombie costume is the versatility.  Any costume can also be a zombie costume.  Slutty nurse?  How about zombie slutty nurse.  Sharktopus?  Zombie sharktopus.  So we have to do zombie / something.  Now, since the Beauty Bar is in our list of zombie events, we need something topical, pop cultural, and irreverent to impress the hipsters who will definitely be there.  We could go political, like Zombie Gulf Coast, or Zombie Public Health Care, but we’re not preachy assholes.

What is the defining characteristic of a zombie?  That it is dead.  So who died this year?  There’s been a few;  JD Salinger, Corey Haim, Dennis Hopper.  All valid choices.  If you have access to a nitrous tank, a zombie Frank Booth character may be the winner.  However, I’m not sure if they are legal, nor how expensive they are.  The clear winner to me this year, and therefore the best costume of 2010 is Ronnie James Dio.

RJD has got it all.  He has the most distinct look of anybody who died this year.  Bedazzled crosses, crushed velvet capes, fluffy pirate shirts, curly 80′s metal hair. I’m afraid that JD Salinger just can’t compete with the level of triumph that RJD wore on an every day basis.  Plus, RJD had the voice of a valkyrie, and the battle instincts of one as we can see in his video for Holy Diver.

So, how do we create a RJD outfit?  It looks like it can get pretty elaborate.  Crushed velvet, floppy pirate shirts, swords, a wig.  We need to distill this down to the basics.  I’ve decided that this can be done with tight long sleeved black t-shirt with a bedazzled cross, tight black jeans, a medallion, an 80′s metal wig, and of course zombie makeup.  Depending on how many of these items you already have, this can be a very cheap costume.  And we all have an 80′s metal wig and zombie makeup somewhere in our closets.  Of course, if you already have a pirate shirt, all the better.  Leather pants, you’re golden.

Don’t scrimp on the zombie makeup either.  Get some good stuff. No grease paint.  You’ll want spirit gum, some decent makeup, powder to seal it with, and fake blood.  The image on the right is my zombie makeup from last year.  As you can see, I got pretty good results from some basic supplies.  First you apply the spirit gum.  Wait for it to dry a bit and then pull at it to create the textury peeling skin effect.  Then you do the makeup.  A lot of people just seem to cover their face with a color, green or white, and then call it a day.  But since you’re reading my website, obviously you’re a person of great taste and class and this just wouldn’t do.  Pay attention to the creases of the face.  Accentuate folds in the skin and shadows under the eyes.  Just make yourself look real haggard.

Wounds are made with spirit gum, toilet paper, and fake blood.  Step 1, put down some spirit gum.  Step 2, put some torn and wadded up toilet paper in the spirit gum.  Step 3, Put some fake blood on the toilet paper.  Step 4, after everything is dry, put some more spirit gum over the top to seal it all.  This is how I made the wounds you see on my face.

So there you go.  Use my advise to have the greatest Halloween ever.  If you’re in Austin, I’ll be the Zombie James Dio belligerently insisting to any homeless person who will stop and listen that Revenge of the Nerds is a great allegory for the Civil Rights Movement.

Excelsior!

When I was in college a lot of students omitted the cock from their figure drawings.  Some even didn’t draw nipples on the female models, which is silly since it’s such a good indicator of the position of the ribcage.  I don’t know exactly why they wouldn’t draw the cock.  Insecurity of some sort perhaps?  Perhaps they thought people would think they were gay if they saw charcoal drawings of cock in their newsprint pads.  Or perceived as straight in the case of the females.

A cock is far more obvious in it’s absence.  Therefore kids, in your drawings from now on be sure to include a cock if it is appropriate.  Now, it doesn’t have to be fully rendered.  It’s not terribly important to the overall gesture of the figure.  It’s position is determined mostly by gravity, and occasionally bloodflow.  No need to make it the focal point.  Unless it is.

So don’t be afraid to draw those cocks.  Stick a thumb in the eye of your puritan parents and give them a framed drawing of a naked dude for Christmas.

This post is dedicated to one of the great cock drawers of our time, Leslie Pierce.

Some people think that softball is a game.  I think it’s a game for men.  And women apparently, since I’m playing on a coed league.  But both the men and women are made of steel, and eat lukewarm lava.  This means we’re incredibly tough. The women certainly are as tough as the men. They are distinguishable only be their gravitating towards the catcher’s mitt as opposed to the softball bats.

I was playing left field. It was a Texan night. Hot and dry with the scent of far-off death.  The manaical howling of coyotes in the wilderness outside the ballpark promised to make the ride home interesting.  But this was not my concern, I was in the midst of the game.

It was the first inning, there was one out.  Their first batter had grounded out to our third baseman.  He was flogged upon returning to the dugout.  Their second batter came to the plate.  He was a large mute.  6’4 and of a girth to suggest he had recently uprooted himself from a redwood forest.  He had once known speach, but after committing a field error he had removed his own tongue in a formal apology to his team.

On the first pitch he hit a line drive down the left field line. It streaked through the air like a tracer round from a 5o caliber weapon mounted to a Blackhawk helicopter into the hull of a Somali pirate ship. I was on it. I ran at full speed toward where my battle-honed intuition told me it would land. I had estimated correctly. I had to slide to catch it, as it was merely a foot from the ground. As my leg slid across the burning Texas earth, I felt the heated rock lacerating my flesh as my entire 240 pound weight worked to scrape my skin into the ground. I made the catch. It was glorious. The other team could tell from my valor that my team was made of something stronger than they were used to facing. Their moral was destroyed and we won handily. Their team captain committed ritual suicide after the game.