Cru Jones Society

 

Hope everyone has recovered from their Halloween weekend on this fine Monday morning. Dagger and Lady E dressed as red carpet ready couple Wednesday Addams and WWE Superstar Chris Jericho while Lee S. Hart spent the night dressed as “suit-wearing wedding guest” at a non-costumed wedding that inexplicably took place on Halloween. Who does that?

Whatever the reason, he didn’t get to dress up this year, but that didn’t stop him from responding to this week’s question: What was your best Halloween costume of all-time? So as you ease out of that diabetic coma from all of this weekend’s candy and gradually regain your equilibrium from all the ill-advised Jell-O shots you swallowed, let’s take one last look at Halloween and revel in the best sartorial choices of the CJS Staff and Regulars on the best night of the year.

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E Dagger: Halloween is my favorite holiday, and despite a temporary flight from caring about it during middle and high school (I don’t think I dressed up for any of those six years – it probably had something to do with not being able to trick-or-treat anymore and being too young to drink), it’s always been the time of year I’ve looked forward to most.

Since sophomore year of college, I’ve been on what I’d call a Halloween hot streak of fun costumes. WWE Superstar Christian, followed by seeing CJS Regular Keithage dress as me and imitate me all night, then Benji Madden from Good Charlotte, Fry from Futurama, a Baseball Fury from The Warriors, The Most Interesting Man in the World (a.k.a. The Dos Equis Guy), and now WWE Tag Team Champion Chris Jericho. Of those, I think Benji Madden was the most fun because I got to cover my forearms with temporary tattoos, dye my hair black, and wear stupid emo makeup. My mom hated every aspect of my appearance that year, which made it all the more fun.

Staying on her for a minute, I think if she were answering this for me, she’d answer “Tube of Toothpaste” from when I was five. Admittedly, it was a good costume as she fashioned the tube out of a cardboard box where she painted the Crest logo. It looked adorable, but from a mobility standpoint, I hated this costume with a passion. I couldn’t sit down, couldn’t walk properly, and felt like a complete dork all day. My favorite was in 2^nd grade when I went as a 1920s gangster. I wore an awesome suit, and most importantly, had the coolest Tommy Gun I’d ever seen. Even as an 8 year-old, I felt like a complete badass all day. Plus it was cold that year, so wearing the suit helped keep me warm while trick-or-treating. In essence, it was exact opposite of that toothpaste costume in every way.

Lee S. Hart: One of my favorite costumes comes from my childhood. Like most men my age, I was a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And during the height of their popularity I of course had to be one. And my cousin was one as well. I was Donatello and he was Michelangelo. There really isn’t anything special about this costume. Though it was before they started making those eye bands that had the turtle nose attached. So I just had a homemade purple band with eye holes cut out, and I had a the TMNT pajamas that looked like the turtles torso and legs. With the help of my mom I made a cardboard turtle shell. I wish i was cool enough to say it was a three dimensional shell, but a last it was merely just a flat piece of cardboard with a shell design drawn out. But the creme de la creme was the bo staff my parents actually let me get. We went to the local hardwood store and bought a 5 ft. 2 inch diameter wood pole thing. No real reason I needed the staff, but damn if it was cool to have it.

As an adult, or at least adult aged, I really got a kick out of the redneck guy I was a few years ago. I did the costume twice, but the second time was better. Someone had given me a hard rubber mullet wig as a gag gift and I finally had a  reason to use it. I had a red bandanna tied around it, I put a pair of blue blocker aviators and I grew an awful mustache. The first time I had a fake mustache and the real one made it more gross and more awful and more awesome. I topped it off with a sleeveless AC/DC shirt and some blue jeans were there just a bit too tight. I carried around a can of cheap beer all night and wore a big goofy eating grin. Best costume made from junk around my house I ever had.

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And we once again turn to our readers to round out the Confessional. We’ve certainly got an eclectic group of costumes here and it always does our hearts good to see pop culture represented in so many different forms here – classics, new classics, the world of sports, etc. Halloween is like looking at every episode of “Best Week Ever” from every year in the history of time, only it doesn’t suck. Let’s take a peek at the Regulars now, shall we?

Gutter: I don’t really remember any great Halloween costumes from my youth, think most of them were some kind of random monster, I was more concerned with getting candy than what I looked like. Throughout high school I am pretty sure I thought I was too cool to dress up and if I did it was some half ass attempt at something stupid. In college I tried a couple of times to think of a cool costume, but as I was dating my now wife we could never think of a clever couples costume and always waited until the last minute and again either did something half ass or spent way too much money on a costume from a costume shop that was not at all unique. That’s why I have chosen this year’s as my best costume and it isn’t even Halloween yet! (Ed note: This was submitted on 10/28) It is a couples costume and I am going as Bill Lumbergh and the wife is going as Joanna (Jennifer Aniston’s character) from Office Space. We started looking for items for our costumes at the beginning at October and we all all but done collecting our items from Goodwill, department stores, co-workers and family. I am excited to show off this costume and I don’t think I have said that about a Halloween costume in a long long time, just hope my Initech coffee mug makes it before Friday. Um yeah… did you get the memo?

F-U-Natalie: Growing up I was blessed to have mom and grandma that made my Halloween costume each year. Over the years I have been a number of things. The nicest costume I ever wore was the Scarlett O’Hara costume my grandma made for me when I was in fifth grade. That’s right, a fifth grader wanted to be Scarlett O’Hara. It was a copy of the dress Scarlett makes out of the Green Velvet curtains. It was velvet but it was green and gold with a real hoop skirt. It rocked! But my favorite Halloween costume was when I was Pippi Longstocking. I always had long red hair (until my Junior year of high school) so it was perfect. My mom put together this hodge podgy costume and then put my hair in braids with wire hangers in them. It is definitely the most memorable costume.

Jitterrawks: I’ve had tons of costumes…because I just love dressing up and partying.  I was also spoiled since my mom was all good at sewing and stuff and made me costumes at home through college.  It was tough to pick the best one…is it when I had the Rainbow Brite costume as a child (complete with a yarn wig, while my brother was the white puffball friend), the several years as a pirate…no.  My favorite costume was two years ago…it was a different world then.  In the month of Rocktober, I had jumped onto the Rockies’ bandwagon, and talked a lot of trash to those around me in Boston.  Taunts of sweeping the Red Sox in the World Series were plentiful…and then that didn’t happen.  I was lucky no one called me out on it, but I figure they viewed it as the little kid who doesn’t know any better talking trash.  So, that year for Halloween, I was a broken and battered Rockies fan.  I had my Tulo jersey, combined with a broom and my Rockies white towel, and a ton of zombie makeup with black eyes and scars/blood.  It was good enough to win the costume contest at work…and my most innovative costume to date.

CassieB: It wasn’t my favorite costume, but looking back, it was definitely the most interesting.  It was my sophomore year of college at CU – go Buffs! (Ed. note: Feel free to ignore that) and my best friend and I were notorious for partying hard and dressing up in over the top outfits…Halloween or not.  So this year, we were talking about how ridiculous Halloween had gotten and every costume for females were: “Slutty <insert character here>.”  For example:  “Slutty Nurse,” “Slutty Schoolgirl,” “Slutty Police Officer” etc.    So we decided to take it to the top and be something truly slutty.  We decided to be Dominatrices.  So we dressed in black leather, fishnets and gloves and donned chains and whips.  Our costumes backfired on us, and not only did we NOT go home with guys that evening, we weren’t even spoken to at the parties we went to.  Each party we walked into it was like a record had scratched and people just looked at us and lowered their eyes in submission.  My now-husband later tells me that “You scared the hell out of us…I mean who goes into Halloween night expecting to end it being shackled and whipped?”

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As we all know, November is the month of love.

OK, so that isn’t even remotely true, but since we didn’t have an actual segue there, let’s just pretend for the moment that it is. With that in mind, we want to know: What was your childhood crush? Did you have it bad for curvaceous vixen Jessica Rabbit? Did you find the irascible charm of Zack Morris irresistible? Maybe you were overcome by the incomparable manliness of William Shatner playing tough cop TJ Hooker. Whomever was the object of your adolescent infatuation, send it in to staff@crujonessociety.com.

We want to know more about all our readers. So don’t hold back. If you haven’t confessed, or it’s been awhile, or even if you did it last week, we want to hear from you. Don’t be shy and send us your response, along with your posting name to staff@crujonessociety.com and we’ll put them up next week.

Dagger & Hart