All Hallowed Eve

Halloween


is the most holy of


ALL
​

American Holidays. 

Leeloo and Wednesday in this year's bloody tub
​

Inspiration

​
This year I did beards

​ of 

good and evil.
​
Because the force is,
of course,
a constant balance of the two,
and because Jafar is faaaaabulous! ​

​

     Jedi                        Disney villain 

On to Halloween!


To have one night where everyone is

​SCARY(Twinkly beautiful),

​WILD(Dragging with the finest in VIP),

​&
FREAKY!!!(Killing it effortlessly)

Halloween makes my heart sing!
​

​My inner child is very much alive and well.
Halloween has always been my jam.
I love attention,
I loooove candy
and!
I love seeing which types of ghosts
​choose what type of ensembles to parade, or in this case,

​dance around in. 

​

My ensembles:

I went as Jafar and Qui-Gon Jinn

I promised my brother that I would visit him in LA
for this year's halloween.
​
I missed his 21st Birthday when I lived in Thailand,
and I have never done my Hallow Thing in Socal, so! 
We made a plan.
I would be Star War's Qui-Gon Jinn
And he would be a young Obe Wan.
​
Representing my older Jedi wisdom and much longer hair and beard.

Here is a rendition of what it would look like.

He actually moved back to the Bay Area this summer so didn't join me for the festivities down south

(mainly because he was already set to perform his standup)
​
this Halloweekend.

It was a shame because I also wanted him to be sultan with me.

This is what I had in mind, #turbansOnFleek!

​My brother couldnt couple with me...

​So I brought the NEXT BEST THING!

Sir Frankel.
​​

Here Frankel and I are

​as wee
​
18 year olds

at UC Santa Barbera's infamous Isla Vista

​on Halloween 2009

They were the best of times, they were the derpiest of times.

I finally recovered 5 years of old photos! So Behold!
But that weekend went from struggles... to ART! 

My friend who invited us up, didn't bring her charger, so there was no way for us to reach her.

We had to pay for a hotel and pretty much attempt to

party crash

with 100's of thousands of other tourists

who swarm UCSB for their raging halloween.

The international fraternity was the only place that wasn't too disclusive/bro-y
to let us in.

THEN!

My good freshman friend, Greg.

Hooked it up fat with a wonderful crew to party with
and his grandma's
insane beach house
to sleep at. 

We literally swam on a private beach that has dolphins frolicking in the distance.

I remember gazing out, hungover as a gargoyle,

​and thinking,

"Life always turns out great"
​

Speaking of! Who remembers that old gargoyle cartoon?
​
NOW THAT would be an amazing and obscure group costume! 

​Get ready to be hit with a mighty dose of nostalgia!!!
 Or
feel nothing, if you never watched this show growing up.

​Back to the more recent past!

Where we traveled to... 

​
San Bernadini

We gathered with our beloved Burning Man Clan

in San Bernadino of all places,

Frankel and I camped at a horse ranch
where there were literally 20 puppies crawling around along with goats, horses, dogs, cats, kittens...

​
and a crew of chickens that loved to scream all night..

Speaking of,
​

What's Escape Halloween?
​

This amaaaazing
Insomniac Event/haunted carnival/circus/massive rave
was, of course, A DREAM!

Their haunted insane asylem had at least 200 insanely done up, diverse and incredibly talented actors. 
all at movie quality production value.

When a baby clown crawling on the floor asked "Why are you moving so fast?!" I got flustered, this lead to a wave of fear,
​ and I couldn't find the person who was walking in front of me.

Qui gon jinn bursting through the door!

​Insomniac's Escape "Hanuted House"
easily tops any Disneyland or universal studio ride/walk through.
​

Disney, wishing they were insomniac right now.

We were literally tied up into our own straight jackets,

given Hannibal masks as we passed through every nightmare imaginable.

From a demented clown's insane realities,
to the bathroom floors of Saw,
to a graveyard laden with lost souls,
and witches chanting in the forest.

There was a hedge maze, and a 12 Foot vagina that was quite hilarious to pass through.


​ I'm not ganna lie... I was truly scared for bits of this haunted circus.

I,

now in a pitch dark,

could barely know which was was straight,

as I navigated the twitchily lit hallway

filled with coats,

I pushed through,
 
practically hugging myself in my own

straight jacket,

for comfort,
  
until I was reunited with the

stranger/fellow tied up humans
​
in this escape.

​​The music was fantastic as well ^_^

We were escorted by a gaggle of

90's "raver bb" OG's 
​
SO we found our way through many a dance floor. 

The stages were incredible, 
with fabulous lights to behold 
and maaaaaassive speakers, my god. 

​I wore earplugs by the end of the weekend. 

My favorite DJ was

this creature with a cardboard cat head
​
in the Chinese speakeasy.   ​
​

The process
​

A hair artist by trade, DJ by passion,
Jennifer Taylor aka DJ Trouble.

​Our Fairy Godmother stayed at the Hilton
just down the road

(45 mins walking, which we discovered Friday Night)

 San Bernadino doesn't have enough

​Lyft/Uber drivers to accomodate

​80 thousand goblin ravers.  

The'll fix this, but anyways!
​

Our Fairy.
We all completed our costumes at her hotel room during the day, sipped on Mucheladas
and watched C Horror films on the telly.

A charmping pregame and a much needed prep time as I had barely finished one of my 2 elaborate and movie-acurate ensembles. 
​

​Speaking of!
​

My outfits!
​

2017, the Year of Hallow Beards
​

Beard #1

​Qui Gon-Jinn

I don't know how to explain my love and awe of

Star wars
Episode 1,

The film where young Darth Vader


is introduced as a child


 and found on a desert planet

in the middle of nowhere. 

There's Pod Racing!
Royalty!
Gunguns (Sea monkey Rasta's)!
Glowing purple forcefield and robot battles!

Where young Skywalker(Vader)
flies 
as the youngest space pilot in history with 

the rebel alliance. 

Any of you who have not seen the light,

imagine liam Neison as a Jedi.

Pretty much, there is no white Jedi who is cooler. 
​
(Oviously Maice Windu(Samuel L. Jackson) 

and Yoda(Green) 

are my all time faves 

Along with, of course, 

the blue skinded, 

Aayala Secura)

Who looks like she could be the daughter
of the Diva from 5th Element, a character my burning family wanted me to dress as.

But Qui-Gon Jinn is the best. He could persuade other Jedis, he was suave, he has gorgeous flowing locks, he was fit, he was gentle to Anakin's mom. 

​He fought one of the most beautiful Darths in all Starwars,

It was an amazing duel

and when Qui ultimately died,
​
he still looked majestic as could be! 

So I aimed to embody that.

Here I am sewing more layers onto my beard.

​This is the day I first learned the wonders of latex glue. I had tried to use "titty tape" to adhere this
old
piece
of a painted wig
to my face,

and Jennifer said

"just use this"
​ 
It lasted a long time, but eventually I ripped my dangling beard off, and through it up in the air. 
Freedom!

Seriously, those things are itchy and they make drinking
very very difficult.

I pulled a bunch on images into my pinterest, got various
tarp/muslin fabrics
from the second hand scrap fabric warehouse.

And made a sultry Qui-Gon tunic.

A low V neck,
side boob,
lots of thigh,
a cardboard Darth Maul killing me

and a cardboard lightsaber to swish around,
​
completed this look.

A true feat,
especially when we got professional makeup artists
to retouch my beard
​periodically through the night.

Also, there isn't any full length documentation of my Jedi cloak, but its amazing. It's the rough brown fabric from the movie, then the whole back panel is a twinkly fabric,

representing the twinkle of dead Jedi's
​
when they appear as ghoasts.

I pay attention to detail!!!
​

I for one, felt very handsome.
​

Beard #2

Jafar
​

Annmarie as Jafar in San Francisco on Halloween

Jafar, your typical,
hyper-feminized,
flamingly gay,
Disney Super-Villians.

He is almost the human verson of Scar epitomized.

And the reason I picked him,
was because of his grandiose ensemble,
his epic snake staff
​and his hilarious twirly beard.

Alas,
I ordered a snake staff on amazon,
but my card info wasn't correct,
so the order self canceled with out me knowing
(I'm a slow email checker)
I could order another one,
but it wasn't going to make it in time.

So we went to the year round halloween store
in San Bernadino.
I bought a broken sythe,
a plastic lizard,
(from the dollar store(I'm not spending costume store prices on a toy)), 
cut off its head,
painted it with gold sparkly nail polish,
taped everything together,
​and called it a day.

Jafar and Alladin, making amends in Sunny San Fancisco!
​

For the Beard,
I just bought black present ribbon from Target
and latexed it to my chin.
​
The rest of the beard is liquid eyeliner.

I especially love his beard from the scene where he has Jazmine

all chained up

as a sort of trophey/princess slave

(despite him obviously being gay)

He calls her over to make her grovel,

to embarrass the sultan, 

and shame everyone.

She uses this moment to distract him from Alladin in the background, gearin and getting ready to save the day.

She seductively spurs, "Jafar, your beard is soo Twisted"

It made me laugh every time.  

A few snaps from that night.
​
Jago and I,
​
going dumb.

I didn't take too many full length photos of the event,

but when I wore this ensemble to work on Halloween

(way more school appropriate than my Qui-Gon outfit)

I stole the show. 

As a costuming teacher should.

Next year my theme is Bald!
I'm pretty sure I'll go in drag both nights again,
and Starwars will most likely be the theme

for at least one of the nights,

​but i've already said too much!