Halloween + dodgeball = awesome
Call us cheap, but we miss the old days of cutting arm holes in a garbage bag, calling yourself an asteroid and walking up to strangers begging for candy.
As a companion to our uber-helpful fancy parties piece (fancy meaning: may cost money) here's the word on where to go if you're hella cheap. Or you spent all your money on craft supplies and miniature Snickers bars. Like us.
Friday, October 26
Halloween is awkward this year, and has no business falling on a Wednesday. No one with any self-respect wants to go into work Thursday with a face stained with Smurf paint, smelling like tequila. The solution is to get ridiculous on the weekend, when you have plenty of recovery/shower time.
Friday night, we recommend that you gather $5 and "dare to enter the haunted ghetto" by heading to The Cog (a.k.a White Slave Trade), an art/music space located in a dark alleyway behind a puppet theater in Historic Filipinotown. (Swanky!) Promising "creepy costumes and fashion victims," plus "disco nightmares to make your body rock," you'll have access to cheap drinks and a midnight show of Eastside underground bands Hard Place, Work, and Fingered Dancers. Warning: members of these art-rock bands wear skintight leopard unitards year-round, so we're a little anxious to see the Halloween duds. Doors at 11 p.m., body rockin' to commence at midnight.
Saturday, October 27
Westsiders, hit the Hideout on Saturday—sure, this little nook of a neighborhood bar has a celebrity clientele and they serve mainly top-shelf liquor, but Saturday's Halloween party cover charge (friggity-free) is one for the common man. Head there in some semblance of a costume for a free vodka cocktail, you freeloader, and maybe snatch some prizes in the costume contest, meaning you benefited financially from the evening. High five.
Eastsiders: we have a treat for you. And by treat, we mean a free party staged in the back parking lot of Zankou Chicken. We don't know who the eff Tyler is, but if his "Big Ass Halloween Parties" rule as much as the ones he threw over the summer, you'll be treated to a sea of foxy artsy types and free beer until the kegs run out—or your bladder explodes. Our comrades The Front share the bill with Nightmare, an Alice Cooper tribute band, which means we can finally cross "See Alice Cooper tribute band" off our list of New Year's resolutions. Along with "Get drunk at someone else's expense."
Fresh out of rehab? Head over to Drkrm Gallery for a slightly more mellow affair, save for the spine-tingling realization that ghosts exist. Maybe. The exhibit "Seeing Things" opens on Saturday night, and is a collection of real-life photographs taken in a real-life haunted house. What's that? A cloudy apparition in a photo? Words in Latin spelling out murderous confessions? Yeah, we're pretty freaked out too.
Not enough death for the day? Nothing says spooky more than thousands of corpses beneath your feet, some sacred altar construction, a funereal procession—and burritos?— at Diá de los Muertos at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Death creeps us out, but make-up and dancing and sugar skulls make us happy.
Sunday, October 28
If you like ninjas, clowns, bicycles, and ninjas and clowns fighting on bicycles, you may want to set your alarm on Sunday morning. Head up into the Valley to Atomic Cycles at noon for their 7th annual Choppercabras madness. All you need is a costume (mandatory) and bicycle (mandatory). Not mandatory? Cash. You'll meet up at noon and take a leisurely, redonkulously costumed ride though the Val, then back to base to eat free hot dogs and witness a demolition throwdown between people who have opted to dress as clowns and ninjas. Note: do not take acid before attending this, however tempting.
If you do not have a bike, and your attitude about sports is more
Monday, October 29
This is where you take a breather. You should be hungover, bruised and suffering some hearing loss. Chill out for the night or, if you're really in the mood to be terrified, go sit in the same room as Emo Philips.
Tuesday, October 30
No, seriously, you should be resting. But if you must get out of the house, hit Comedy Death Ray's 6th Annual Halloween Spooktacular at the Upright Citizen's Brigade where for five tiny dollars you can catch Andy Killed-Her (Andy Kindler) and Splat Besser (um, Matt Besser) performing stand-up with a host of other freaky comedians. Actually, you never know who might show up as a "special ghost", so it's always worth it to go and stand in the block-long line like a zombie.
Wednesday, i.e. Halloween, i.e. October 31
Are you sick of seeing people in bald caps dressed as Britney? Not yet? Awesome. Delivering the most bang for no bucks is the Halloween West Hollywood Costume Carnaval that clogs Santa Monica Blvd. every year. It's no secret that our homosexual comrades have mastered the art of sequins and cosmetics, so your mere presence guarantees a view of some of the best costumes in existence. Plus, if you spent your rent money—and the last five weeks of your life—making that elaborate levitating Exorcist rig, you could be bestowed with a wristband by a secret Carnaval spy, inviting you to compete for hundreds of bucks in the costume contest. You may just be able to pay rent after all, champ!
For those of you living within stumbling distance of Hollywood Blvd., check out the swarm of people who wander around in wigs and fake teeth at the Hollywood Street Fair. It's not really organized, or official, so it's kind of just like hanging out in Hollywood on any given night, when someone in an Elmo costume could be standing at the bus stop. Only there are thousands of them.
If you're looking for live music and recently disinfected shoes, we strongly urge you to check out the Eagle Rock Drinking and Bowling Club's Halloween show, presented by bloggers-with-actual-taste, Rock Insider and Radio Free Silverlake. The really bitchin' line up includes next year's indie heart-throbs The Henry Clay People, Radars to the Sky, The Monolators and more goodness on two stages. The $15 admission may seem like a lot to you impoverished artist-types, but consider that it gets you free shoe rental, all that lovely indie rock, and two glorious games of bowling. (Tip: For $6, we like the 20-ouncers of Fat Tire, the bar's best bargain.)
If you're not into Eagle rock, go no farther than Alvarado (okay, one block farther) to Taix for the Tulsa Skull Swingers' free Halloween show. Yes, you'll have to buy two drinks, but you'll get scare-a-billy rumbling country rock from musicians (including The Idiots' Craig Anton) dressed in monkeysuit heads and hockey masks, flanked onstage by go-go dancers Fifi and Bibi Pubelle, of Lucha Va Voom fame, wearing skintight skeleton-bodysuits. Why, hello.
Downtownophiles (yes, we made that term up) should most definitely hop over the The Standard for the joyously free All Hallow's Eve Masquerade Ball on the rooftop. J*Davey and The Grey Kid will be performing, Sean Patrick, Future Paris and DJ Rockwell on are the decks, and there's a photobooth, live screen printing, and plenty of hotties in costumes that would be otherwise humiliating. The party is sponsored in part by Metromix, and I don't know what your work parties are like, but ours kind of rule. Shoot an email to metromix@danceright.com for a spot on the list.
Lastly, if you just want a drink and some monster mash-ups to groove to, head to the woodsy Bigfoot Lodge Halloween soirèe and hang among the rocker types in rockabilly costumes. Oh, wait. That's every night. Well, perhaps the rockabilly types will cover their tattoos, and dress as preppies for a change. Or Britney in a bald cap.
Have fun, keep your purse strings tightly fastened, and show Halloween who is boss. You are boss.
Alie Ward is events editor for Metromix Los Angeles—and really into Halloween.
