Happy Halloween from your radical cheerleader friends!
October 31, 2006, 11:22 PM
First of all, here’s the costume:
As you can see, I had fun with this one. From the bottom up, I’m wearing my Chuck Taylors, black tights, black shorts (no cheerleader skirt for me!), a red shirt with the sleeves cut off, on which I wrote “RADICAL CHEER”, a black shirt underneath that, black arm things with netting and chains and zippers, a black bandanna around the neck, and a red hat.
I also wore four pins that I bought at the Infoshop last week, and painted my nails black in the morning. And all in all, everyone loved my costume. Some of the ladies even commented that I did better than they do in painting their nails themselves. And it was my first time ever painting my nails (though I doubt I’ll do it again any time soon). So that was a learning experience. And it definitely looked like I did it myself.
I also spent a good while when I got home getting all that polish back off, at which I was successful.
And I got photos of myself in the costume with Big Mavica, and you’ll see that on the front of the site once I finish prepping it. I’m cutting out the background so I can add some SFX to the remainder and then place the resulting image on top of an appropriate background.
Amusing is who showed up in the breakroom while I was on lunch, while I was very much in costume: Mom. My coworkers will always show Mom the way right to the breakroom when they know I’m in there. So that was a surprise. And Mom saw the costume. She said it was pretty good, but she didn’t like the fact that I painted my nails. And I can understand why she thought that was a little much. Mom wouldn’t expect her little boy to paint his nails like her little girl paints hers. Of course, the “carpet” didn’t match the “drapes” when I painted, as I didn’t paint my toenails. When Sis paints her nails, she does fingers and toes the same color.
And what’s most amusing about the whole costume is that while it’s in the proper area politically, it’s so not how I’d go to a demonstration. I still prefer black bloc over radical cheer, though at least now I have something to do radical cheer in if I am ever so inclined to go out in the field to do that.
The one thing that threw me off, though, was lack of vest. With the costume, I left my vest in my locker, and so all the stuff that went with the vest stayed there, too, minus the name badge. So I was like, “ummm, yeah”, on a few occasions, realizing that a couple of items were still in my locker and not on my person.
And then my coworkers had some interesting costumes, too, with some using face paint, some wearing wings, and some going as storybook characters. One was actually dressed as another associate, in a good-natured nod to them. So all in all, it was a fun day.
Song: Sweet Home Chicago
Quote: I wonder what the people will say about my costume at the Infoshops, both Rocktown and DC... hmmm...
Categories: Halloween