Happy Little (Halloween) Trees

The Sunday before Halloween I went to a party and was one of two people there to show up without a costume. I was thoroughly chastised by my friends, but I hadn't planned on going to any parties and as such hadn't bother to come up with anything.

Thankfully, said party involved Halloween-themed games and I was quickly converted into mummy.



But while that kept me covered (har har) for the evening, it wasn't going to cut the mustard for Halloween proper.

The same group of friends decided to head to downtown Hollywood to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 4D and then go check out the annual Halloween Carnival in West Hollywood. By the morning of I still hadn't thought of a costume and the idea of just buy a generic "Where's Waldo" costume grated on my nerves. But then, INSPIRATION!

During my lunch break I raced home and changed into a pair of dark blue jeans and a light blue dress shirt, and then hit up the local Halloween costume shop for a small brown afro and a fake, glue-on beard. From there I drove to the nearest Michael's to find a painting palette and brushes to complete my outfit. And voila!



BOB ROSS (and friends)!

I have to say I was super pleased with my last minute costume idea. I had about two dozen people recognize me and ran into three other Bob Ross's over the course of the evening (see below). For those of you unfamiliar with Bob Ross, he was a painter/art instructor with his own series, The Joy of Painting, on PBS for 11 years from 1983 to 1994, which is still running in syndication all over the place. The post title refers to one of his more frequent sayings, "happy little trees."



Switching gears slightly, let me just say that the Halloween Carnival was not at all what I was expecting. It ended up being just me and my two friends in the above picture that went, and over the course of the evening I walked about twelve miles. I had heard of the Carnival before, but it had been referred to as a parade to me, and had never gone since I moved out here back in 2006. So there I was, expecting to be walking down to a parade route and watching a bunch of floats and what have you.

Instead WE were the parade, milling about Santa Monica Boulevard, which had been blocked off for two miles, with a couple hundred thousand other folks all dressed up in costumes and having a good time.



I'm not sure it's something I'd do again, but it was absolutely worth going to at least once.