Creepy Creatures: A Halloween Party in Kentucky

As a journalist and amateur anthropologist, I have a tendency to get myself into really awkward situations pretty much all the time. I attribute this mostly to my innate morbid curiosity, even though I always tell myself that I am doing this for professional purposes ("This will be a great story for my blog.").
The last time I found myself surrounded by a bunch of strange creatures was a couple of days ago at a Halloween party in Kentucky. And it was definitely not the Halloween theme that led to the creepy atmosphere! First off, the party was at an VFW location (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and if you are surrounded by ex-soldiers who served in Vietnam or Korea (judging from the average age at the event), it is not surprising to encounter some ... well, some strange people. Second, it was a Karaoke party so you can already imagine the results of bringing together old war veterans in costumes and a microphone!
It all started with the lady with the missing tooth. She was probably my age, but looked like she had had a very rough life. Which she was very happy to tell me ALL about after sitting next to me and showing me her beer can holder. From this she somehow found an immediate connection to her boyfriend who had died a year ago. Five minutes into the conversation, I knew everything about the relationship (how they had met, how they were going to get married) and his sickness (she didn't leave out ANY details, even though I would have truly appreciated it, I'll tell you that much). I was only saved by her going up on stage to perform a song. Or so I thought ... until she started "singing" an ABBA song. At that point I wasn't sure what was worse: her morbid stories or her dreadful interpretation of Dancing Queen! 
The second creature of the night that caught my attention was the Bag Lady. Yes, she had really dressed up as a bag lady and I am not exactly sure what that meant besides wearing a giant garbage bag. It didn't matter where you were in the room, you could always hear the Bag Lady screaming something. "I am pregnant!" or "Look at my boobs!" Let's just say: She clearly had a lot of fun with the party balloons ...
In the meantime the Karaoke stage attracted another horrible interesting performer. I gave her the nickname Ms. Monotony because I am pretty sure that the song she picked was supposed to have a melody, but her version sounded more like a cross between a newscaster and Bob Dylan on Valium.
As strange as this little ensemble might seem already, the creepy award for the night definitely went to the Devil Man. When we sat down at our table, I noticed the immobile, creepy devil mask in the background, looking directly at us. Imagine my horror when, after one hour of standing still, the devil mask started moving - and I realized it was an actual person. Devil Man never once took of his mask, in about 3 hours, and if you have ever worn a stuffy Halloween mask, you know how impressive that is! After he lost the costume competition for the scariest costume (I am not sure why!), he stormed out and left. One of the regulars at the VFW told me that she had a pretty good idea of who must have been under the mask: An older man who comes every week, stands in a corner of the room, doesn't move and doesn't drink anything, stares at the people all night, and then leaves. Which is pretty much exactly what Devil Man did, just with a devil mask.
Boy, I knew that Halloween was a spooky holiday, but I never knew it could be THAT spooky!

The GWAR experience

It was a rainy afternoon in Santiago, about 2 years ago, when my boyfriend popped the question: "Have you ever heard of GWAR?" - War what??? That was all he needed to hear and before I knew it, I was watching GWAR videos on Youtube, one of them was of a giant spider/ant/space alien sitting on a chair and talking to Jerry Springer about rock concerts and blood. What had I gotten myself into??? Turns out that GWAR is a metal band from Virginia and they have been around since the mid 80s. Wikipedia calls them "a satirical" metal band, probably because their trade mark is to dress up in fantasy animal costumes and spray fake blood into the audience. I guess that's what the British might call a bloody show ...
Fast forward two years. It is the year 2013, I am in Columbus, Ohio. I am surrounded by metal aficionados (most of them male, and most of them have longer hair than me), and we are all waiting for one thing: GWAR. Admittedly, I am not the biggest fan of cookie monster music (although it has its moments), but I sure love a good show, and after all the YouTube videos I have seen, I REALLY want to see GWAR live and in concert! Since everybody knows that we are all going to be spray-painted, most people are wearing white (come to think of it, this is probably the only metal concert I have ever been to where I have seen more people wear white than black ... or any white at all).
And here they come, the one and only, the mighty ... GWAR. From a more objective perspective, I am seeing a bunch of people on stage dressed up as giant insects. They yell something about attack and aliens (I think...), and then the (g)war already begins: The giant insects play their instruments as if their life depends on it. In the course of the concert, they dissect and kill various other creatures, and spill their "blood" into the audience. I am trying to stay close enough to the stage to catch some "blood" and get a cool pattern on my shirt, and at the same time I want to keep my distance from the mosh pit. (My tip: If you want to get a piece of the action, but not be torn INTO pieces, the safest place at a heavy metal concert is the couple corner, where the boyfriends want to stay close to the pit, but still form a wall to protect their girlfriends.) While GWAR is screaming and shouting and rocking it out on stage, people are going wild in the audience. I am not sure which show is more entertaining: the giants in costumes on stage or the massive show the fans put on that involves screaming, jumping, pushing, shoving and spilling beer all over me. Everything is happening at once. It is loud, it is massive, it is metal, it is GWAR. It is awesome! The only thing I didn't like is that with everything going on on and off stage, it is hard sometimes to pay attention to the music, which is a shame because, dramatic show effects aside, GWAR knows how to make good metal music! Oh well, I guess, I just have to throw myself into the metal madness and the only thing I can tell you for sure after the concert is that I am one colorful, beer smelling, but somehow ecstatic and happy mess!

Apple Wonderland

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in Romania and just LOVED apples. She loved apple cider, she loved apple pie, but more than anything she loved to pick apples off the trees (preferably the neighbor's tree) and eat them until her stomach hurt. Her parents told her many, many times that it wasn't nice to steal the neighbor's apples and also that she shouldn't eat all the apples at once. But the little girl was very stubborn and didn't listen to her parents. She kept eating way too many apples from the neighbor's beautiful apple tree. Even when she grew older, the fall was one of her favorite seasons, because she could just pick apples and eat as many as she wanted. Her friends were very suspicious of her appletite, and laughed at her for eating so many apples all the time. "One day, you'll have an apple tree growing out of your belly," they said. The little girl, who was not so little any more, felt very sad and alone because nobody seemed to understand how delicious apples were that you just picked from a tree. Until one day, about 25 years later, in the city of Detroit, she discovered that she was not the only person in this world who loved apples. She went to an apple orchard, where literally EVERYBODY loved apples.

The girl had never seen anything like it before: Row after row after row after row of apple trees. All bursting with apples, ready to be picked.

And the best part: nobody would get angry at her for picking these apples or eating them. They even drove everybody around in a tractor so they could pick the apples!

The girl had found her magic apple wonderland. She picked as many apples as she could carry, and ate even more. She only stopped when her stomach hurt - just like she used to do when she was little. And the best part, at the very end, she even got to eat apple donuts!

It was probably the happiest apple day in the girl's life!