boo york

This past Friday night Crissy and I decided to check out the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, which I guess is the largest Halloween parade in the world. Fifty thousand people march in the parade, which stretches for about a mile, and draws around two million spectators. This year, we were proud to make it two million and two.

Now, usually Crissy and I are huge Halloween fans. Anyone who knows my wife knows that she isn’t shy about fully committing to shockingly unattractive costumes, as evidenced by her unsettlingly pube-heavy Borat from '06. But for whatever reason (sheer laziness), we just couldn’t bring ourselves to get out of the house and forage for costumes this year.

Which we figured wouldn’t be a problem, since people weren’t exactly stuffing our pockets with party invites. But see, the problem is, if someone does invite you to a party at the last second, you’re simply not allowed to go. That’s the rule. You cannot go to a Halloween party without a Halloween costume.

Otherwise you stand in the corner, chest-protecting with tepid keg beer, looking like the lazy, uncreative Grinch who stole Halloween. Before you know it, people start asking who you’re supposed to be, and you resort to the lamest of all lame non-costume jokes; “I’m a 32 year old dude drinking a beer,” or “I’m a jaded advertising copywriter and his wife,” or “I’m a dick, f*#% you.”

So, instead, we grabbed the camera and headed up to the parade, which was being broadcast live on NY1, the local news channel.

Though we were a little hesitant to head out into the streets thanks to a fast-spreading report that the Bloods were holding an all night gang initiation, during which as many as 20 single women were to be murdered on the streets of Manhattan. I suspected that this was some kind of Halloween hoax, but just in case, we tried to steer clear of people dressed in red, avoiding sexy red devil costumes and sexy little red riding hood costumes and sexy Hellboy costumes. Which lasted about a half a block.

On our way to the parade, Crissy and I stopped into two bars and took a couple shots of “annoying crowd serum,” sometimes referred to as tequila. By the time we got to the actual parade, we were ready for as many “in character” zany seventies guys as New York City could throw at us.

The parade itself was really cool, I have to admit. Millions of people show up to this thing, and everybody’s in a good mood, looking to have a good time. All except for a fat southern dude and his wife, creatively dressed as a cowboy and cowgirl, alerting the police that they smelled marijuana in the air. You’ve never heard pure, uncut sarcasm until you’ve heard a New York cop on Halloween say the words, “Yeah, we’ll have to do something about that.”

After the parade, we stumbled around a bit, took pictures of drunk people eating Mexican food in their costumes, and strolled back home. Officially capping off our first New York Halloween, which, by my estimation, was a huge success.

And next year? Our costumes are gonna be totally kick-ass. You’ll see.

P.S. Please enjoy this drunk dude eating Mexican food in his costume