“I Mean…What?!?” – Abe Gurko

Halloween is fun, if you are a glutton for punishment. Dressing up like some schnook, or a scary person, or a sexy beast, or a president, ex-president, or Lindsay Lohan and Sam Ronson. I get it. Boozed up, wired up, dressed up and most times no where to go. Fierce, you make your entrance as a great party or two. Then you try hailing yet another cab, your big hair gets crunched, make up needs major retouching. It goes on for hours. And as the evening progresses, you get drunker, and less put together, till you look like a wreck. One year before I stopped doing all this hullabaloo, or the year I swore, “Never again”, I went in full drag, whatever, and we went as The Shangri Las, looking for a Leader of the Pack…as it were. We went from Susanne Bartsch‘s party, to someone else’s party, to a leather bar…no luck there. Need I say more. By the time the evening was over, I lost an earring, a shoe, my dignity and got sick, too boot. Another year, and only other time I did drag, I was living in Los Angeles, my friend lived in Bella Lugosi‘s old estate in the Hollywood Hills…BEYOND!  There was a group of 12, including Alexis Arquette (way before the transition). We were provided with stylists, fabulous wardrobe, hair and make-up artists, personal waiters, and lots of other accoutrements. Don’t think we weren’t limo-ed to a drag bar at like midnight. All a blur, but no I did not get up and lip sync.

Anyway, I have enjoyed plenty of butch costumes in my day as well. Like the year I went as Apollo in roller skates and not much else, to Studio 54. Or as the somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. But Halloween is exhausting. Tonight I’ll go see if everyone is dressed up like Princess Leia at Carrie Fisher’s Wishful Drinking, for the fun of it. Happy Halloween! What are you doing tonight?