With Halloween coming up, I had to decide what I was going to do. The friends I live near have a big halloween/birthday party every year called Birthdayween, but I had so much fun last year in Saratoga Springs that I just couldn't imagine anything being more fun than that. It bummed (and still bums) me out that I can't do both, but Saratoga was a hilarious time again, so I don't think my Halloween plans are going to change.
I headed up with Kevin and Gina on Friday night. But let me backtrack to my costume first. I had to make one up. My Halloween costumes have been homemade for as long as I can remember, and they have slowly morphed from being a bum every year into finding an excuse to wear my giant purple pants. Last year's costume was funny, but let's face it, it was awful. I'm better than that.
So in me freaking out wondering what to do, I stumbled upon a rubber horse head mask at Bull Moose that I had seen on instagram (someone I follow randomly started posing with a horse head on). After seeing it on the way out, it took the 20 foot walk I had to my car for me to immediately turn around and go buy it. Maybe I'd be some sort of weird horse person.
After putting the head on, I immediately knew I didn't want this to be my costume. It was hard to get on, it was insanely hot, and I could barely see. I didn't want to be the guy who was in costume for 5 minutes and then just took everything off. So, I started to wonder if I could make some sort of hat out of the horse head. And thus, with a 20 second sketch, Horseman was born.
I wasn't sure what in my retarded brain made me want to have super long arms- why would a half man/half horse have long arms? But there it was, and knew it would be hilarious to have unusually long arms. I had to find a way to do it.
I bought a few black long sleeve shirts, pink duct tape, jammed stuff in the horse head and figured i'd be fine tying a bandanna tightly around it. I bought incredibly stupid fake hands (2 right hands because they didn't have any left ones left (ooo good phrase)), hot glued and duct taped them to the inside of pringles cans, hallowed out areas for my hands to hold on to the cans, and hot glued half sleeves to the pringles cans. Small holes were cut in the shirt for my real hands to go through when needed. I had just created arm-extenders. This was all done before I went to Saratoga of course.
The day of the Halloween partying, Kevin and Dustin did an all uphill bike race at like 8 in the morning followed up by a 50-60 mile ride. I played the part of Mysterio for the day, and hung out with my friends' girlfriends while they went shoe shopping. It was a thrilling time.
"ooooo they have them in pink!"
We went to AC Moore and I bought some pink felt and some brown hair to make H emblems and add a mullet onto my horsehead. I considered having a patch of hair ripping through my costume or maybe have a tail or hairy crotch, but in the end, it made the most sense to glue the ends of the neck of the horse head together to make it tighter on my head, and then add the hair on like a mullett mane. These were all Gina's ideas, and they worked perfectly. And soon enough, Horseman existed.
long arms of the law
This tended to be Horseman's favorite pose:
It looked better from the side. Longest arms ever.
Watching drunk Dustin create his alley cat costume pretty much right in front of us was pretty hilarious. The best parts were when he stuffed panty hose over his face and freaked out, and when he hot glued chunks of fur to his crotch and butt while wearing the clothes. I even helped at one point. It was awkward.
All of it was documented on my camera in some pretty hilarious videos that you'll never see. More on that later.
All the girls did Alice in Wonderland stuff, from Alice to the Mad Hatter. Kevin was a Hazmat dude who was going to hand people smarties in a bag marked "The Antidote" (which he forgot at Dustin's house). The other dudes were both the same costume without planning it- Mexican dudes. I was pretty impressed with Gina's costume. Do you know of this internet video/meme?
That's what Gina was. I don't think a lot of people knew it, but it was still a damn solid homemade costume.
We all looked pretty good in our pre-going out picture.
L-R: Kevin, Jon, Sheray, Me, Amanda, Dustin, Lyle, Gina, Morgan, Chick whose name I forgot
The best part about this picture is that Gina nearly broke her foot and Dustin's speakers and couch when she was taking it. She set her camera up on a timer and freaked out and ran as fast as possible to get in the picture, turning around and immediately running full speed into the couch and speakers. It was like drunk Peter Griffin falling through a table on Family Guy- she hit that couch as hard as humanly possible in pretty much 1 frame. I'm laughing now thinking about it.
The other best part of the picture is how fuzzy Dustin is. He's a mess, freaking out. The beauty of this is that this was the last picture really taken of Dustin.
We all pre-gamed while hanging out at his house. Much beer was drank. I took a few trips to the garage. When we left, I was functional, but nice and messy and ready to act even weirder than I normally would (although when I'm in a costume, that tends to happen naturally). Dustin though... Dustin didn't pre-game very well. He drank A LOT and pretty much right when we got in Amanda's car, he was super serious guy, sadly talking like a little kid: "Amanda... I messed up. Oh no. I'm sorry... I'm too drunk... oh no."
When we got to the parking lot and everyone started heading down to the bars, he stayed behind. I videotaped him peeing in the parking lot, pretty much on Amanda's car. Jon and Amanda stayed behind with him. He was sure he just needed some food, some water, and a little time to get with it. Kevin and I got sick of waiting for him and headed down to try and find Druther's Brewing Company, where there was some band playing. We assumed Dustin would show up eventually. It was time to party.
I was pretty much instantly on the dance floor. I noticed a lot of people pointing at me and laughing, so I decided to just go for it and give them a show. Within a few minutes, everyone was dancing like idiots to some band that I don't think any of us really paid any attention to. It was hilarious. We got the party started.
I didn't think ahead when making this costume and didn't even realize that I'd be a horseman in a town obsessed with horses. Saratoga is known solely for its racetrack and there are horses everywhere. I was VERY popular. In fact, this picture was found on facebook, taken by a friend of the band playing:
The band announced that they'd be doing a costume competition (funniest, sexiest, scariest, etc), but not until later. Other than one long phish-esque song where I became somewhat hypnotized by a never ending solo, none of us really cared that much about the band, and everyone decided to leave to head somewhere else.
We went to Caroline street which is basically like the Bourbon Street of Saratoga- a billion drunk people dancing and drinking, with cops always watching.
Friends wanted to say hi to people on one of 4 floors of a 4 story bar. Somehow with every floor we went up, we lost more people. By the time I got to the 4th floor, it was just Morgan and me. She wandered for a minute then said she was going to another floor. I couldn't resist what was happening up there. It was a full on dance club- the kinds you see in movies. It was hundreds of people jammed into way too small of a space, crazy lights everywhere, hot chicks and dudeguys everywhere- even a FOG MACHINE. I think at one point confetti exploded out of a corner. The DJ was only playing the most ridiculous club/radio hits, from Rihanna to Gangnam Style. I immediately started dancing like an asshole, and admittedly fist pumped up a storm, hopping on one foot like I was a cowboy from Jersey. At one point, a girl (who I was told to dance with because it was her birthday) that I grinded on ripped my horse head off and threw it, but other than that, everyone loved me.
Sadly, it was here where I lost my camera. It was packed enough in there that someone could have easily stolen it out of my pocket, but most likely, it just flew out as I was hopping around like a moron. Someone either picked it up and kept it, or it was stepped on and kicked into a corner where it met it's untimely demise. Most likely though, someone got it. And they got pictures and videos of Dustin saying horrible things while hot gluing fur to his crotch, and drunkstin peeing on his car in a parking lot, also while saying horrible things. Someone got quite the show, and I'm still heartbroken about it. Losing the money (it was 200 bucks) sucks- sure, but I'm more upset about losing those pictures. There were a lot of incredible ones, and some ones with me posing with a bunch of hot chicks at the first place. Live and learn I guess. I will keep my camera on a necklace next time. No more pockets.
BTW, I'm still waiting for someone to find the footage of Dustin on youtube. Fingers crossed...
I didn't realize the camera was gone until I left the bar in an attempt to reconnect with my friends I had lost. I went back in and did 2 laps around the dance party, but it had gotten 10 times more crowded and it was hopeless. After having a conversation with a random dude outside the bar who turned out to be from Portsmouth, I texted Kevin asking where he was. This is the conversation:
Me: Where?
Kevin: No clue sorry.
Kevin: Were at baileys
Kevin: I'll be on the street screaming
Me: How do I get to baileys
------10 minutes pass------
Me: I'll be there in a bit, I lost my camera
Kevin: I don't know shit about this town
------20 minutes pass------
Me: Dude so pussed camera gone
Kevin: U blew it
I decided that if I lost my camera, maybe I could save the night by winning money in a costume contest I was sure to win. So, I headed back to Druthers on a solo mission to win everything.
When I got there, everyone was happy to see me, and I went to work dancing again. Here's another picture that random person put on facebook. At this point, my sweat had killed my duct tape H.
Somehow, they did sexiest costume first, and I was nominated. It was me against some chick in a viking costume, and the band told us we had to have a dance-off to determine the winner. Now, not only was I not psyched about this, but at this point, I was absolutely exhausted and in a lot of pain. I'd been dancing for hours. I had only had 1 beer since leaving Dustin's, but plenty before we left and zero water or food. Every part of me hurt. The last thing I wanted to do was have a dance-off with some random chick, surrounded by strangers in a bar I was at without any of my friends.
But I wanted to win, dammit. So I got down.
While it wasn't too bad rubbing up on this random chick, I was near collapse the entire time, and the stupid band was in full on hippy mode, playing probably a 6 minute song. Are you kidding me? And after nearly dying and doing WAY better dance moves (she even said to me that I won), I still somehow lost. I guess because nobody there knew me and she got more cheers. Weird- the busty chick in a short skirt beat a completely soaked fat guy in sweatpants with a horse head as a hat and pringles cans for arms in a sexiest costume contest. What a shocker.
She won a gift certificate and a shirt, while I won the same shirt (I think a small) and an empty growler to fill up the next time I came to this brewery restaurant I'll probably never go to again.
I said goodbye to the hot chicks and left a tired, broken man. I left the growler with a manager there who said he'd try to get me a shirt that wasn't a small.
I headed down to the bar where everyone was supposed to be and found it with the help of some strangers. I probably posed for 3 pictures on the way down. Oh yea, that happened a lot. I probably took 20-30 pictures with complete strangers that night. I told every single one of them to hashtag it "horseman" on instagram, and to this day, not a single picture of me has surfaced. Asses.
The High Peaks band were at Baileys. They play Grateful Dead and Phish covers and I've seen them before. They're good, but I was the deadest I've been in quite some time when I found Kevin sitting at the end of the bar looking at least twice as dead as me.
"I WANT TO GO HOME" he said. I switched from sitting in pain and agreeing with him and wanting to watch the band. Eventually I got a water from the bartender and everything suddenly felt way better. It's incredible how much water helps. I found the others in the crowd and danced a little since they were playing Phish songs I liked a lot. They were solid, but we were happy when they called it a night. We were toast.
As we left, I got to watch a bunch of dudes beat the shit out of each other in the street and sidewalk. Who fights after a phish show?
"THEY SHOULD HAVE ENDED WITH TWEEZER!"
As I got closer to take pictures, some broad trying to be in the middle of everything grabbed my phone out of my hand and screamed at me to stop fucking taking pictures get the fuck out of here, etc. I calmly said "ok great, can I have my phone back please?" I wasn't about to lose that too. She gave it back, as long as I promised I'd get the fuck out of here and stop taking fucking pictures, and I proceeded to make fun of her and the guys fighting while leaving. We then headed in the direction of the only thing that could make me feel even more alive, D'Andrea's Pizza.
We killed some 'za there, and I sat outside listening to some girl we hung out with whose name I don't remember talk about god knows what while random drunk people argued on the street in front of us. I was in the weird mood where I think everyone is my friend and I just kept saying random stuff to people as they walked by, complementing people on costumes, telling chicks they were babes, etc. I don't know how I don't get in a hundred fights when I go out. Maybe because people don't want to fight dudes in purple sweatpants.
Lyle had only drank a little, and we were waiting on him to get his car forEVER. After freaking out for what seemed like forever waiting, he finally was ready to go, and we headed up. Of course Morgan didn't think he should drive, and that turned into a huge explosion. Eventually we all were just standing in the street waiting for a cab. Finally one came and fit like 7 of us into it.
As he drove us home, he informed us that it would be like 20 bucks to go to Dustin's, but then another 60 or something to take Lyle and Morgan home. Listening to drunk people tell a cab driver that he's wrong is pretty funny and incredibly awkward.
"No, that's not right. There's no way it's that much."
"Look, I don't make the fares, that's what my boss is telling me."
"It's like 25 bucks max, you don't know what you're talking about. Why are you trying to screw me?""I'm not... that's the fare. If you don't like it, you can get out of the car."
"This is ridiculous. It doesn't cost 60 bucks to go there. Bullshit."
This went on for way too long, and everyone just decided to go back to Dustin's, where he had been throwing up for hours. Oh yea, Dustin. Apparently he didn't quite bounce back like he thought he would hours before in the parking lot. Instead, Amanda and somehow Jon took him back and watched him puke every 20-30 minutes since we had seen him last.
We all went in and tried to be quiet. This didn't work out so well with Morgan losing her phone and Morgan and Lyle fighting over him being too drunk to drive (for the record, he wasn't) and other girl whose name I forget being super loud. At one point, Lyle exploded and left and started walking back into town. I'm proud to say that during all of this havoc, I sat in the corner with Kevin and helped the situation as best as I could by dancing obnoxiously to Nicki Minaj and Gnarls Barkley. Always the DJ.
Eventually it was just Kevin and me, and he managed to sneak away from me to go to bed even with me watching him as much as I could to catch him when he did it. I think I went into another room for 1 second and he was gone when I came back. What a pro. I went upstairs, showered and collapsed. Gina was still outside talking to the loud chick forever while I attempted to fall asleep. I think I literally was in so much pain from dancing all night with no water that as exhausted as I was, I still could barely go to sleep. And D'Andrea's and chugged water wasn't helping like I thought it would.
I woke up at 5 in the morning after being asleep for an hour and a half or so. My stomach wasn't happy, and I had to take care of business. Once I was done and heading back to bed, my heart stopped from what I heard. Out of nowhere, I heard the horrific sounds of someone dying a few rooms over. It was Dustin, barfing his brains out and practically screaming while he did it. I've never been good with puking- the smell of it makes me almost puke, seeing people puke makes me almost puke, and hearing it stops my heart like I saw a ghost. And he just kept going. I went back to my room and lay in bed trying to fall asleep again, all with him, several rooms over, continuously dying. Every time I started to fall asleep, there it was again: "aoowwwwWHOOAAARRFFFFFAHHHHHH... uhhh... uhhhh...... awwwooouuuuuUUUURRRFFFF" It was awful. I laughed it off the night before, saying "guy can't handle his shit!" but now I was officially worried about him and wondered if he somehow had gotten food poisoning. I thought of when Hilton was hospitalized for 3 days after eating a chicken parm and getting Salmonella poisoning. I decided that if he was still in that shape when I got up, we absolutely had to take him to the hospital.
When I finally got up the next day, I was happy to see Dustin sitting at the kitchen table eating a sandwich, smiling. He held up his hand to show a hospital bracelet. I thought I had heard someone driving away super early that morning, and sure enough, it was Amanda taking him to the hospital. They had to pull over several times for him to barf more. I guess while he was there, he went through 2 IVs in record time. Maybe 3? Turns out D Bone was just a tad dehydrated. Lesson learned kids: Don't go for a 60 mile bike ride after a 10 mile bike race, drink zero water, take Benedryl, then drink like 8 beers and half a bottle of whiskey and think you're going to have a good night. You won't. Here's how he looked that morning:
barf bursts
We watched stuff about Hurricane Sandy coming for us, then went into town to go to a ski expo and get some air. The expo was pretty unexciting, but at least they had a huge chunk of floor dedicated to kids playing in packing peanuts:
We hit up D'Andrea's again for a delicious lunch, then went to Druther's to get my growler and shirt. That was a great moment.
"Hey, I was here last night, I won a prize for sexiest costume. I gave the growler to some dude who worked here. He said he'd find me a bigger shirt."
"Um ok... what are you talking about?"
"I was horseman. I had a dance off with some viking chick and didn't want to carry the growler all night so I gave it to some dude.""Ok, who did you talk to?"
"Um... The Joker."
Somehow this got resolved and I got the growler, which I gave to Dustin since I knew he liked drinking. They said they'd call me when a bigger shirt came in. We then went to the 4 story bar to see if my camera had turned up, which it of course had not. We saw Keith eating at a restaurant on the way out, which was a pretty funny surprise. Then Kevin, Gina and I hit the road for a sweet 4 hour drive of fighting sleep while listening to Bush and Cake.
Dustin almost died and essentially never left his house, and I lost a camera and lots of amazing pictures. Parts of the night weren't the best, but I still had quite the amazing time and the night was really one for the record books. That makes 2 Halloweens in a row that were better than maybe any other Halloween I've had. I can't wait for next year- Horseman is most likely going to make another appearance, this time with an even better costume. I'll leave you with this picture. Look closely and follow the path from the car on the bottom right to Kevin's foot. That's all a stain from things that came out of Dustin.
Good Halloween.
currently listening to: If These Trees Could Talk- "Red Forest"
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