Friday was the Halloween Critical Mass ride, and I worked all week to get Count Chopula ready for it. I never thought it would work, but it did... I just wish I could find some photos of it. I forgot to take any of my own. I dressed in a tux, nearest thing I had to a burial suit, and rode it for the first time in its finished form on the ride.

Al the Pal came as "Road Rage", a traditional CM costume. The bike, "Car", had a huge muffler on the back (in which smoke bombs were set off), an actual car grill on the front, hubcaps on the wheel, and a working car horn. Then he dressed in a fat suit with a Bears sweatshirt, crazy grey hair, and a red face... and screamed into a cell phone while honking at other riders.

My favorite costume was a dog dressed as a carrot. There's a picture of it and Road Rage here.

I also liked the folks who got radiation suits from American Science & Surplus and drew "Springfield Nuclear Plant" on the back. Other notable costumes included several riders dressed as the CTA, a headless rider, a wheelman, Svengoolie, a traffic cone, a computer, and rock-paper-scissors. At one point some guy in an SUV tried to plow through a crowd of us, NYC publicist's daughter style. Where's Winshield Wallace when you need him? (A guy who once stomped through the windshield of a driver who ran over his bike trailer).

Headed to the after-party, where Bob had soaked the labels off some beer and made up "18th Precinct Beer", the notorious police district where they arrested bicyclists on an early CM ride. "Ride a bike, go to jail" they said.

From there headed to yet another party, this one of a guy I hadn't seen in five years, Gricus. On the way a cop called me a "fuckin moron" for "taking up the entire road" (riding in the right lane of a four-lane road). It was good to see Gricus again and all the art he was into, he'd been getting into video lately and was (supposedly) doing something for the member of Poi Dog Pondering who lived upstairs (always take with a grain of salt anything said by a guy with a scratched mirrored coffee table, hehe). But he seemed to be doing well.

One of the attendees had a great costume. He rigged something like a backpack frame under his trench coat so that it was constantly holding a boombox above his head. He was Dobler from Say Anything! Another guy was dressed in a dog-suit, only his face showing, and he had a "red rocket". Absolutely disgusting.

There was a DJ, and he drew the attention of the cops, but they were reasonable guys. "If we come back, the party's over" they said. They came back.

Saturday, KC was in town so we went over to Monkey Boy's to fire up for this huge party they wanted to go to. First we went shopping for a costume. MB and Ruggs got bandito costumes, which went well with my cowboy outfit. KC was Forrest Gump, right down to the haircut. Now that's commitment! 3-Kidney Spahr bought three costumes- Tomb Raider, sexy vampire, and milk-carton-head. Singular was Wednesday Addams which made me drool. We played shot roulette (spin the spinner, and do the shot- all of which are smooth flavored vodka except for one "bullet", usually tequila) and 3-Kidney got too drunk to make it to the party! Jeez, you'd think that extra kidney would let you drink like a fratboy. MB actually had to carry her home from the quickly-departed El.

So we went to another party, as 3-K was our connection to the big'un. Your basic drunken revelry. What can I write? You know how it goes. The next day I didn't feel too bad, just enough to justify hitting the make-your-own Bloody Mary bar at Ranali's. We found it hilarious that KC cut his hair like Forrest Gump and didn't even make it to the party he did it for. Plus, 3-K had spent probably a good $100 on the three costumes, hehe. Oh well. The season is not yet over.