My scary adventures trying to get a Hallowe'en costume together...
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It's my second and last Hallowe'en party here in Singapore. Last year's German Porno Gandalf outfit seemed to go down quite well with the punters. This year, however, my costume has gone through several spooky revisions.
I had settled on something terrifying and topical. I ordered my Donald Trump mask and 'Make America Great Again' baseball cap on Lazada, Southeast Asia's answer to Amazon. I ordered early last week, safe in the knowledge that it couldn't possibly take that long. I was going to complement these items with my suit and the Donald's usual Republican Red tie. In the meantime, I had been perfecting my impression and coming up with some Trumpisms to wow the audience at tonight's party. However, my best-laid plans went agley once again. Yesterday, I was at home to take delivery of my items, but the postman put a delivery slip under the door, rang the bell and then was off like Fatima Whitbread. In the few seconds or so it took me to reach the door, there was no trace of him, only the delivery slip. Today is a public holiday for Diwali, so there was no prospect of collecting my items from the Singapore Post delivery office. I then discovered that the speed-of-light postman had just one of my items, and that the second had only been shipped on Thursday. I'll be able to collect them next week, but there will never be a chance to wear my Donald outfit again before he loses the election and slithers away back to his lair. So, to compound this horror story, I had the task of trying to salvage something from this wreckage; I had just one day to re-costume myself...
Fortunately, the suit premise is not so hard to adapt for other characters. For instance, one of the great horror film actors of the 20th Century was Vincent Price, and his distinctive look posed a manageable challenge to reproduce. But then I thought, who would have a hope of recognising me as a long-dead actor from such a niche genre?
And then I wondered if it was even worth the effort at all. Perhaps I could go with the suit and open-necked shirt combo, a la The Man In The Suit, John Reece, of 'Person of Interest' fame. Maybe he's not so scary unless you're a crooked cop, but he's also not challenging for these can't-be-bothered moments. I put him away as my back-up plan.
Gomez Addams wears a suit and poses just a manageable challenge by way of make-up. With a simple modification of the tie from red to black, I could make it work. But then it occurred to me, who is Gomez without a Morticia? I could just as easily pass for anyone without a lady to be my Morticia, so then I decided it was not worth the effort of having to correct people every time they mistook for me an undertaker. Lurch? Now, he also has a suit. And unless he marries Wednesday -- or Pugsley, I suppose, in these more enlightened times of ours -- he's unlikely to need another on his arm. The biggest problem with Lurch is that my haircut does not respond well to being flattened out. It's much too disobedient and looks too misshapen for a passable Lurch.
So here I am now, about to make my appearance upon the fifth revision of my costume, after a whirlwind shopping trip to cobble stuff together. I guess I look like a cross between Gomez, Lurch and Cousin Itt, but the logical extension of this is that, in the right, horrifying light, I figure I could still pass for Donald Trump...
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By:
The Imperial Orange,
29th October 2016
