'Bred Crumbs

06:34 PM My post-Halloween report was delayed by a number of other distractions, among them a supposed mortal threat to my commute. But a far better development was the birth of a big, healthy, cute baby to Jennie and Sam. I am not known for being a fan of children, but the pull of Gwen is strong; even I could not resist stroking her chipmunk cheeks. All together now: awwwwwww.

As for Halloween: properly festive. Knowing I couldn't top my get-up last year, I barely tried. I didn't get anything together until last weekend, when I combined some Castro store-bought things into what I can only describe as a Generic Gay Warrior: cool helmety mask, cheesy vinyl chest guard, black boots, fabulous purple cape, and a bubble sword. There'll be pictures in, yes, a few weeks. My companion was Dr. Naughty, resplendent in scrubs, phony whip, and a batch highly enhanced for comedic effect.

In retrospect, my outfit was weaker than I would have liked, but when that made me feel inadequate, I just thought about the young woman I saw whose "costume" was the word ANTHRAX written on a sheet of paper taped across the back of her jeans jacket, managing to be both very lame and borderline offensive. (Along those lines, we spotted not one but two people dressed as anthrax letters. And there was the strange ambiguous statement of the woman dressed as Lady Liberty with a bullet wound in her forehead.) Lameness runner-up was the woman with single-serve cereal boxes banded around her waist.

Besides, I had a cape, dammit. What more does one need?

Once we set into the crowd, I was disconcerted by a high proportion of looky-loos. What's the point of a half million of us squeezing into the Castro if 300,000 of you aren't going to bother to wear costumes? But as the night went on and the crowd grew, so did the number and imagination of the costumes. There was a creepily effective, non-bullet-riddled Statue of Liberty; a lifeguard and overly buxom drag bathing beauties who set up a giant lifeguard chair for a while at the corner of Castro and Market, defending it against a giant foam shark when not giving each other "resuscitation"; and, maybe my favorite, the guy dressed as a yolk with horns on his forehead. Wait for it ... a deviled egg!

Maybe I should have gone as Green Lantern again this year after all; there was a shortage of superheroes, although we did spot two sets of Ambiguously Gay Duo. There were also several fetching young men in athletic gear (by which I mean football and baseball uniforms, not jockstraps). My companion and I were taken with a buff boy standing shirtless outside the bar Moby Dick painted and panted in camo. He was an incentive to chance the crowd and go inside and grab a beer, which was very refreshing. We stood and drank our beverages outside in the street as if we were in New Orleans or something, until we realized that we were doing so only a few feet away from about five safety officers, and we resumed when we realized they didn't care.

Lastly, there was another round of the seasonal sporting sensation Real Cop Or Play Cop. And to my surprise, there were enough Play Cops to make the game challenging, given that there were about three hundred billion Real Cops. About which I am not complaining one bit.

·  ·  ·

I don't really care much about the World Series this year, but if I'm pulling for anyone it's the Yankees. Three reasons:

-- The sake of New York, which could use the boost.

-- The undeniable truth that no team with sleeveless uniforms should be allowed to win the Series.

--The long, lean, limber majesty of Orlando Hernandez's legs (depicted herein).

Send e-mail

01:43 PM I finally saw The Sixth Sense this weekend. I thought it was quite good, though I wonder if it would have held my interest as much if I hadn't already known the twist ending or if I hadn't already been entranced by Unbreakable, which I still prefer. My lack of interest in Sense's occult themes is a lot of what kept me away from the movie in the first place; I had to become a believer in M. Night Shalayan's use of pacing and fine visual sense before I could clear that obstacle.

But forget the ending; the really big surprise of The Sixth Sense is that it hasn't spun off a syndicated TV drama. Each week, our gifted young Cole would encounter a new ghost or two whom he aids in finishing off that big last to-do item that's keeping the corpse(s) from finally kicking back at Club Ded. And to make sure people would watch, the series would happen several years after the movie, letting Cole grow into a hunky (perhaps even brooding) teen with a thin, pouty love interest.

Did I say syndicated? This is sounding more like the WB! Hell, let's jack up the price a few mill and sell it to UPN!

Now it's just a matter of figuring out how to work in John Edward as a sweeps-month archvillain.

Send e-mail