COSTUMESGALLERY

Remembering Halloweens Past

The pair of stiletto high heels was so fun, it's a story on it's own and warranted a separate PAGE.

Three blind dice

For the three blind dice, Tandy, Gary and I all wore the costumes, including sunglasses, white canes for the blind, black knitted caps, and tin cups full of pencils and spare change. On the way to the Emporium, a reporter from the SF Examiner took photos which got published in the Northern California edition, distributed in Ashland. The following year we saw someone in Ashland's Halloween parade in a dice constume. One lonely die -- kind of lost the whole punch though -- you might say "unclear on the concept." Oh, one more fun item: when we were walking around the Castro as three blind dice, someone came up and said we had to follow them... and they brought us to another trio dressed as the three blind mice!!! 

 

Tandy also won prizes several years before we met. One year he was a walking hand. Two of the fingers were his legs, and the other fingers were appendages adorned with giant bejeweled rings. His could see out through a bracelet on the wrist. He reported that he fell off the stage because he couldn't see out well enough through the strategicly placed bracelet.. It's really too bad the picture isn't better -- or at least larger. It's a bit difficult to see the leg/fingers he's standing on. In this photo he was "coming up for air."

One year Tandy and I dressed as Roul Alenska look-alikes (since we shaved our mustaches, (and kept our mouths shut most of the time (that was the hard part, of course), even our closest friends couldn't figure out who we were.)

Another year Tandy was Wanda Wonderful --- a naive flirty country gal (in a frilly dress and too much make up) from the Ozarks who hit the big city big time and was up for anything, while I was her "Aunt Erma" (in frumpy old maid clothes and haggard make-up) --- keeping wide-eyed Wanda in check, warning her about men. We had such fun actually exploring the roles, but more about "what's appropriate" than about being female.

Drag parties

Of course we occasionally joined with friends in the drag closet, trying on anything we could fit into.

The Miss America Party

Our friend Jim hosted Miss America parties for several years. One year, Tandy went as Miss Mississippi and won the crown. The parties were on the night of the actual Miss America Pageant, which we watch on TV using the time during the ads for our contestants to perform their talent, and appear in evening gowns and swimwear. We had lots of fun. Tandy was a natural comedian within his adopted innocent role. Gary went with us, but I didn't get any photos.

Breaking Hearts

I don't have any photos, but being two halves of a heart was a fun way to waltz around San Francisco's Castro Street area. Another time we were two halves of a heart. I wish I had a photo. Imagine a valentine candy heart -- the kind with slogans impressed into them. When we stood together, the costume was in that shape, with our heads atop each curve. Our legs extended through the side while both parts came to a point. The jagged split between the pieces was such that when we were walking separately, I heard someone say, "oh look, two apostrophes." As we walked around in the throngs on Castro Street at Market Street, which were closed to traffic, people would encourage us to break the heart, or to mend the heart.

In 1988, Tandy showed me how to put realistic looking photos onto a pumpkin by not cutting all the way through, using the thickness of the rind for shading. This is a photo of the one he made to look like Jon Sims, our friend and founder of the Gay Band. We then projected the image onto a wall across the street from our apartment just off Market Street.

In my opinion, the pair of pumps was the best. At a sidewalk sale when we moved out of our Waller Street apartment, we sold the shoes, the heart and dice costumes to some members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, so maybe they'll show up here and there in years to come.

YOUR TURN!

Tandy had plenty of ideas he never got to make real. See some of his sketches.

For feedback and contributions of art, ideas and energy, contact Rick Eckel.

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