Halloween-04

I’m back! Yes, little ole Little Red Riding Hood is tonight’s reporter but don’t be frightened, I promised the publisher I wouldn’t bite off anyone’s fingers and you can surely trust me, can’t you?

You doubt me? How can you doubt a young woman in a skimpy red dress with a short dried-blood red hooded cloak covering her shoulders? Surely not because her dress is nearly sheer with built in cups emphasizing her fullness and a scallop hemmed wrap skirt allowing someone’s hand to slide under to the small portion of her thigh that was not visible. You can’t fear her strap Mary Jane shoes, her hair, a rich auburn that hangs curling along the tops of her shoulders and seems to glint blood red at the tips. In her hand she carries a pink basket woven of twigs with its contents covered by a blood red cloth. The smile on her face is friendly and inviting with just a hint of malice. How can you be afraid someone like that will bite your finger off? After all, I have so many other ways to make you suffer.

The party is in an old two story red brick building that once was a ball bearing warehouse just north and below Dodge street a mile from downtown Omaha. It had a huge parking lot in front with loading docks on the back near Dodge. I entered through the door and past the stairs to the second floor to see the longest bar I’ve ever seen. The counter where orders were taken for ball bearings was now the bar and it stretches across the middle half of the building. A new counter was added to the back to form a ring around the island of bottles they used. A sign over the bar said, "No hijabbi, large crosses or stars of David allowed."

Why Omaha? That was the question. And the answer is, drum roll please, it’s in the center of the country, a nice city and this is the hundredth anniversary of Omaha Benson HS! There are plenty of things to do; There was Joycelyn Art Museum, the Union Pacific Museum, three, count them, three Universities; University of Omaha, the University of Nebraska Medical School and Creighton University, the last two helping to give the most hospital beds per capita of any major city in the U.S. There were also many restaurants offering the best steaks money can buy but if beef isn’t your thing, you may try the Zoo!

The party is at the Blue Line on the first floor; a club that operates all year long and sometimes longer. There the bartenders wear white tees and shorts with the barmaids wearing the same except for skirts instead of shorts. The tees have a thin blue line around bottom of the rib cage, and skirts and shorts also have a thin blue line around the bottom of the waist band.

Spector provided smart card IDs in the shape of the State of Nebraska. The waitress read the bar code to bill you if you went over the four free drink or two drinks per hour limits.

I got my first drink from a bartender. I asked him about the name of the place. “The Blue line in ice hockey indicates the boundary between the offensive zone and the neutral zone. Attacking the blue line farther from the players net is used in determining offsides when both skates of an attacking player cross the opponent’s blue line before the puck is passed or carried into the attacking zone and it results in a face-off.”

I was confused enough about the drinking policy so I took mine and left for the dance floor.

The band was good and loud, loud enough it was hard to say if they were good. They were obviously a wedding band for they took requests and played all types of music. They got breaks every hour during which CDs of Bach’s Brandenberg Concertos were played and some people swing danced.

The crowd was still small though and I found myself in the family friendly area as I ordered my first drink and the waitress scanned my card. Nearby was a Straight Spade Flush with baby Ace, father King, mother Queen, teenaged son Jack and ten year old daughter Ten.

They were well behaved but I was here to mingle so I moved on to look at the costumes. This one was a real dog; a Bad Dog in striped hat and suit over his front legs and on top of his back. He was closely following Catwoman in black leather cat mask from nose to top of head, mid-bicep fingerless black leather gloves, halter top with cross strapping and black pants and boots. All leather was shiny except for boots. Where have we seen her before? She was soon arrested by one of the Swat Team wearing a black helmet with plastic face shield, handcuffs and clip on radio. He didn’t cuff her but he did order pizza on the clip on radio and they walked away munching.

That left me watching a man and a woman each dressed as the painting "Scream." As they approached he shouted, "Here! I am the real scream."

She shouted, "No, I am the real scream."

And that went on and on as they circled the dance floor.

I turned around and found my boss! It was either the staff of Spector or people dressed as the staff should they dress in costume. Reality is always so difficult at Spector parties.

The Publisher came as Johann Gutenberg, a reminder that he started Spector by hand printing the first edition and now there are over 500 editions and we use computers to misspell words. He wore a skull cap that looked like a Sultan Squash, had a black robe perhaps so ink stains wouldn't show and had a long beard and moustache.

The Publisher's Wife offset her husband's good press by coming as Gilda, her red hair falling to her shoulders, a blue strapless evening gown with a smoldering cigarette in one hand and dragging her light blue mouton jacket on the floor with the other. When is the next plane to Montevideo?

The WebFuerher evidently searched high and low for his costume. He wore an Alta Vista Gimme cap, giant Google glasses, a WebCrawler scarf, Opera gloves, a kini top with one cup labeled ‘Daily’ and the other ‘Bikini,’ both stuffed with Apples, Keyboard ‘Shorts,’ Mouse slippers and was sipping from a Yahoo! martini glass. I told him, "People have been searching all over for you!"

The WebFuerher’s Wife was in a sexy costume that combined the best parts of a chicken with a Playboy Bunny costume. "My husband tells people he’s henpecked," she explained.

The WebFuerher’s girlfriend (how does he do that)? came as fashion model Eva Herzigova wearing rust red and white plaid (or is it Czeched?) bra and panties. She told me, "Succeeding Claudia Schiffer in GUESS? ads in early 1992 certainly boosted me to international stardom until I was likened to the "Marilyn" of the '90s -- strong and uncomplicated!" What bothers me is that she might well be Eva or at least a fashion model. How does he do that?

The Editor came as Luther with his high cap, flowing robes and German boots. In his hand he held a hammer and nails with a copy of his 95 Theses. "Maybe moslem martyrs go to heaven and spend them with 76 Theses," he suggested. He showed me his copy and it did have theses but the runic of the first six lines spelled LUTHER. After Superman who's enemy was Luther it gets confusing but the real Luther did start the modern era.

The Editor's Wife was in Martha Stewart’s preppy prison outfit of a soft, pink cashmere sweater with the number 55170-054 across her chest, a blue pleated skirt, a pack of cigarettes stuffed in her tube sox, blue and white tennis shoes and carrying a cake funnel filled with Viagra paste.

The Receptionist came as a 1975 Stepford wife in a wide brimmed blue straw hat and a sundress of pink with blue flowers with a blue satin sash. The thought of the Receptionist being a placid suburban housewife under someone else's control staggers the mind.

The Copy Editor was dressed as tennis player Maria Sharapova wearing a red eyeshade, a gold cross around her neck and a silver-gray thin-strapped tennis dress while carrying a midnight blue tennis racket with a plastic insert instead of strings to hold her drink. The Copy Editor, who is Specto’s mixed doubles champion, commented, "She may be young but Sharapova's very mature for her age. She has an animated personality that makes her a joy to watch on the tennis court. Of course, the fact that she happens to look like she could moonlight as a runway model doesn't hurt."

The next things to blow in were several Hurricanes. First came Charlie, a man in a box in the shape of the State of Florida complete with map on the front. Next was Francis, a pretty girl in a blue dress with black whorls and carrying a spritzer. The next to arrive was Ivan, a man in a box that looked like a Silverstream house trailer. And finally (we hope) there was Jeanne, a pretty girl in a box in the shape of the state of Florida also having a map on the front but this one is all battered, tattered, flayed and frayed. I hope the four of them blew all the hanging chad away just before the election!

Francis was with a naked girl in a plastic Hurricane glass who was named Hurry Cane of course!

Ivan was dancing with four geriatric women in slut dresses

The first wore a see through white peasant blouse under which was a see through bra allowing one to seen ghosts of her aureoles. She also wore a red mini skirt, fishnet hose and do-me shoes.

The second wore a red blouse that was unbuttoned to her navel with a black mini skirt showing the welt of her sheer black hose.

The third wore a pink sweater over a pink and white polka dot mini skirt with white stockings and Mary Janes.

The fourth whore wore simply a white T-shirt saying, "For Sale by Owner" and very tight red shorts.

I asked why they were dressed as sluts for that had nothing to do with hurricanes (that I knew about). Ivan said, "Hurricanes? I thought they said to bring four whores with canes!"

“It’ll be alright if you call them the Hurry Cane Strippers.”

Even worse is Beach Trash! Beach Trash crashed the party with its own party of people dressed as cell phones, trash cans, Toxic sludge, cigarettes, cigarette butts, soda cans and food in general that all litter the beaches. They were revolting but some of them looked delectable under it all.

Speaking of trash, O'Swami bint Laudenum walked by with Sheik DeathRattle al Roll. The bint made this prediction, "At the way things are going in 2010, several European countries will change their names. Holland will become Hollandstan. France will become Firaq, Germany will become Germanstan, Belgium will become Belgiria, England will become Engstan, Italy will become Italiran, Norway will become Norwaq, Sweden will become Swedistan, and Europe will become Eurabia. The then president of the EU, O'Swami bint Laudenum, will explain that more countries will follow."

The best part of Islam walked by. Aladdin, a street urchin, was wearing a purple vest over his bare chest and white baggy pants held by a burgundy sash. He was with Princess Jasmine who was in a revealing two piece green dress with a strapless bare midriff top and a long, tight skirt. Aladdin asked, "What's the difference between bint Laudenum and myself? I have 3 wishes and bint Laudenum only has 1 - a death wish."

Princess Jasmine said, "Knock, Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Aladdin!"
"Aladdin who?"
"Aladdin the street wants a word with you!"

I guess it helps if you're English.

Speaking of English, there were several former faculty members of Benson High there. Former Principle Mary McNamara who originated the saying, "Students don’t mind school, it’s just the principle of the thing!" told the story of the 1942 graduation when a class officer fell off the stage due to being drunk. "It was the war years plus prohibition had been over for only about five years so drinking was quite a novelty and movies made it seem very sophisticated thing to do. I have only fond memories and I really loved everybody who went through that school."

Earl Schroer, the principle of the thing right after Mary, nodded toward her and said, "The school's auditorium is named in her honor." I asked him, "What did you think about the first underground student publication being published right under your nose?"

Former Vice Principle Sorensen interrupted his former boss’s unprintable reply by saying, "So it was an ‘under your nose’ publication, not really an underground student publication."

Schroer then answered my question. "I didn’t know about it until the scandal a year after it started. It was wrong and violated decency as well as libel laws. That radical rag disrupted the school."

Next I asked Mary Weeth, the Spanish teacher. "It was in English so not part of my purview. When I did finally read one in the teacher’s room after the scandal hit I noticed a lot of spelling and punctuation errors, and there were pronunciation errors as well."

Doris Stevens, who brought drama to so many teen lives with her adult play productions such as Much Ado About Nothing, Lute Song, Yankee from Olympus, Twelfth Night in a scaled down Globe theater, and The Magnificent Ambersons rather than childish plays such as A Date With Judy, was also here tonight. She was dressed as Portia so as a lawyer she felt qualified to say, "Spector was a childish thing but was bold for the times and the conditions existing in schools then. It is not as childish as college newspapers today so I would adjudge it to be an adult attempt to do something new."

Roberta Kiewit, the Math teacher, told me, "The people involved were creative and didn’t break any law. That was done by those who followed and they just got carried away. It wasn’t distributed at school the first year so technically it wasn’t a ‘school’ newspaper."

Miss Dietrich, the Grand Dame of English, was not impressed. "It was disrespectful and I was disappointed but not surprised. The publishers wrote the same sort of silliness in Creative Writing Class and I often had to make them do papers over."

Basket Ball Coach and Biology teacher, Scotty Campbell, the only faculty member to subscribe to Spector said only, "It was creative, bold and sometimes even funny. It was better than what followed during the sixties."

The five Guantanaterror dancers came again this year but they changed from Arab clothes to western ones but still in orange and white stripes like the old time black and white prisoner stripes plus the orange of today’s prisoners. This year, due to the Supreme Court, they were accompanied by five beautiful women lawyers. The ten of them were doing the tango. Don’t ask why! The women were wearing a variety of dresses with all having in common that they were uncommonly enticing and all were so nimble in rather high heels.

• Cocoa colored lace, halter top, backless pantsuit with bell bottoms
  
• Gold tank top with spaghetti straps over gold satin slacks
  
• Stretch red halter top and backless pantsuit with bell bottoms
  
• Aqua dress with dark blue whorls, thin stripes that was cut with lotsa cleavage and hem above the knee that had a scallop slit in front and a slight flounce with a puckered hem.
  
• Sheer black spaghetti strapped pantsuit that was backless as if that mattered, and bell bottomed.

All ten had their hair knotted behind their neck.

Delphina, the tango Goddess, kept time by cracking a whip as she danced solo in a purple lace, backless halter-top pantsuit.

Understandably leery of her whip, I approached and asked Delphina, "What does the tango have to do with international terrorism?"

"Frustration! And more. The wail of the tango, it is said, speaks of more than frustrated love. It speaks of fatality, of destinies engulfed in pain. It is the dance of sorrow. Originally, the tango dance developed as an "acting out" of the relationship between the prostitute and her pimp."

A girl who certainly filled the Anita Ekberg costume asked Delphina, "How does that relate to the Guantanaterror Dancers or the tango?"

The tango Goddess, answered, "Both. It is true of the tango plus of the terrorists. Moslem terrorists are really angry because they can’t get laid. They are pimps and they use pimps to find whores. Remember, bint is daughter in Arabic but it means ‘prostitute’ in English. Moslem men have always pimped their women in one way or another. Today’s terrorists can’t get laid so they are stuck with prostitutes for satisfaction and phantasize about 76 virgins after they are martyred."

Anita Ekberg chuckled, making her breasts shake like a bowl full of jelly, added, "Or 76 Trombones for that is where they get it in the end!" The Guantanamo dancers broke into 76 Virgins led the big parade to the tango rhythm.

Anita Ekberg was dressed as Sylvia, her role in La Dolce Vita. The dress was a knock out then and still is now. It was strapless deep blue and ankle length but had a slit up the center of the skirt. There was a silver- train with purple overtones attached to the back at her waist so when she danced there were flashes of silver, her leg and her chest overflowing everything.

One man dancing nearby shouted to her, "I sigh for your thigh!" She smiled and pulled her skirt back to show more and the man fainted. Well, maybe it was a good fake faint for he was up quickly, so quickly she was still laughing as he popped up and kissed her. Then he danced off with her.

One man standing and watching Anita was dressed as the President of France and was with a woman wearing full monte hijabbi with a large cross around her neck, a yellow star of David sewn on one sleeve and a swastika on the other. They were pushing a handcart carrying a coffin draped in the flag. The man told the woman with a sigh, "La Dolce Vita was a shocking movie for its time as movies went then but after all the hype when you actually saw it I was disappointed. There was not the naughtiness you would expect and the plot was not very exciting. Many of the high points were of bad taste to some extent. No one will ever forget Anita though."

The woman took her hand off the handcart and said to the man, "The movie as an event was its most important feature and you are right that the plot in itself was pointless but even so, it had a message. It was a chronicle of a decadent society where there is no more values except alcohol and sex, and no solutions but suicide. It sounds pretty much like the '90s!'"

A woman dressed as Hilliary Clinton turned and shouted, "Don’t talk to me about the 90s!" Then, seeing the flag covered coffin she softened her voice. "I see you’re protesting the loss of American lives."

"Of course. My brother lost a leg in the battle for Father of Sacks, Baghdad. He asked us to call the parents of two of his buddies who were killed." She turned to look around then continued, "Two of those parents are here somewhere. What we are protesting is the loss of American lives only and not also French or Russian. France was afraid of illegal immigrants from Bosnia and Kosovo but they talked the Americans to get entangled in those wars that had nothing to do with us. Now that we are attacked the French are sitting it out."

Hilliary left in a huff! I think it was a ‘38 Huff and as I recall it didn’t get many miles per gallon.

Bush came as his father wearing a mask of his father's face then when he peeled that off he was W! Talk about identity theft? Laura was sweetly there as well as the twins.

Bush's daughter, Jenna, told me, "GOP stands for 'Great Ole Party!'"

I asked her about their personality change from college to their speech at the convention. "Is it just a coincidence that change occurred just after the movie Stepford Wives?

"One more crack like that and I’ll hit you with my hip flask," threatened Jenna.

"That was Barbara," said Barbara "I’m Jenna."

"Are not," said Jenna.

"Am too," said Barbara

Are not."

"Am too."

They agreed to disagree by sticking their tongues out at each other and moved on.

Laura told us, "President Bush says John Kerry is on both sides of every issue. Kerry replied, 'No, I'm not . . . but there is some truth to that.' "

Terry Kerry Heinz told us this story, "Asked by his teacher to compare three presidents Johnny thought for a moment and said: "Well, George Washington couldn't tell a lie. Richard Nixon couldn't tell the truth. And George W. Bush can't tell the difference. (Hint: Washington was the one in a wig)."

Kerry himself was a war hero as commander of a swift boat. I asked, "What’s a swift boat? Was it named for Tom Swift? Does it have armor?"

" Who’s Tom Swift anyway?" he asked, "And there is no armor, it’s just plastic."

" Like a PT boat?"

" Yes, but it does have checker-plate around the gun mounts. The plate is angled so it deflects bullets instead of going through it."

There is so much bragging about 'war records' with most of it missing the point that it was refreshing to find three characters who seemed to have escaped from the Alamo! Jim Bowie was there coughing consumptively into hankerchief. He wore a hat, black coat, blue vest and drooping gunslinger's black tie. He was too sick to talk. William Travis arrived wearing a black hat, a sword hanging on his left hip, rifle on strap over shoulder, black coat, white vest and a foulard tie. Travis shouted "Remember the Alamo," and followed Bowie.

Davy Crocket brought up the rear bare headed with a rifle, no coat and a brown vest. He shouted "'Remember Goliad!'" Then he went on to explain, "That became a Texas Revolution battle cry honoring Col. James W. Fannin Jr. and his men who were massacred at Goliad while under a white flag by Santa Ana and his troops. The Alamo fell March 6, 1836 and the Goliad Massacre was three weeks later on March 27 of the same year."

You may think war is tough but here are the Mean Girls; Cady Heron dressed as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle while her three crude, beautiful and popular best friends; Regina, the unofficial leader, Gretchen, Regina's full-time follower, and Karen, "one of the dumbest people you will ever meet," were dressed as typical High School girls. If you don't know what that looks like, search Yahoo for pictures of hookers on Sunset Boulevard at Midnight and you’ll come close although you can just think about the 3 Whoricanes in their slut dresses. But the big problem was their behavior toward each other; stealing each other's boyfriends, planning plots to destroy another and telling secrets all lead to being just as crummy as each other. "Was it like that at Benson High," I asked Mary McNamara. "Not on my watch," she replied.

For her part, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle came to the party dressed as an MBA (it is a jungle out there after all) with Donald Trump as a great white hunter. First let me tell you about Sheena’s costume. It was a black with red pinstripe bustier and tight matching slacks from which poked out black high-heeled shoes to kill for or to kill with. Sheena carried a black crocodile briefcase that contained her PDA, her cell phone and printouts of excel spreadsheets with calculations on the dose needed to turn her competitor into a Zombi. Donald trump attended her wearing khaki shirt, jacket with cartridges in loops, a pith helmet and an elephant gun that when the trigger was pulled displayed a black flag imprinted with "You’re Fired!" in white letters. Donald did not have a PDA but the gunstock did hold a cell phone.

Could we get a flu shot with the horse needle carried by this nurse in a white vinyl nurse outfit with matching headpiece? The two red crosses were at first reassuring but the double cross was in when I saw the Back Seamed, Black Fishnet Pantyhose. She was with a slender man dressed as the Influenza Virus. His white jump suit had coils of purple with green balls along the helix with an occasional group of green balls in a twisted mass and some that were a broken ball of green lines. He told me, “Influenza viruses are shaped like spheres or filaments so we have both on this strain. The flue shots are designed to take care of different strains.”

A man walked past in full Arab regalia, a red and white checked head covering, a white gown and sandals; apparently a Bedouin. "I am here to tell you how peaceful Islam is."

All of us nearby got a good laugh at that.

Sheena, Queen of the Jungle said, "I am from the Jungle and certainly know Islam is violent. Just look at the New Testament where Jesus forbade murder, Matthew 26:52 said, 'Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.'

"Compare this to how Muhammad approved of murder in Sura 8, Aya 65. 'O Prophet! urge the believers to war; if there are twenty patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a hundred of you they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who do not understand.'"

Cady Heron dressed as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, this gets so confusing, spoke further. "Don't forget Sura 9, Aya 5, the one used by in his Fatwa of Death against all Americans. 'So, when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the poor-rate, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.'"

I asked the Bedouin, "Does the word ‘mosquito’ derive from the Arab word ‘mosque?’"

No!" he answered and walked away in disgust (I think it was a 1902 Gust).

All of us who were nearby got a good laugh.

Two Luau Lovers came dancing by. She was in a grass skirt of real grass and a coconut bra while he wore a Hawaiian shirt and beachcomber pants; both wearing floral leis, tropical hats and brightly patterned headbands. I wonder what will happen when they meet the Beach Trash.

Last year we lost a mermaid but this year we found one but she was not the same. This one wore a two piece Mermaid costume with beaded shell Top and a purple and silver sequined Skirt. She couldn’t dance too well but she certainly looked hot!

Two Britney Spears came by in two wedding dresses and two guys arguing over which they had married. One said, "PETA is angry at me because I perform with several wild animals in my act. A spokesanimal for PETA said, 'it's cruel to subject wild animals to lip-synching.'"

Her first husband for this year said, "Britney wrecked her $200,000 Ferrari after she downshifted into second gear going 85 miles an hour but there was never any danger of her gettin' hurt. She wasn't hurt because both her and the car have the dual air bags."

The second husband for this year said, "Britney got her Pepsi deal because they're both "sweet, bubbly, and have an instantly recognizable can."

With that the four of them swapped wives and left. After all that excitement I have to go pee and no, you can't come to watch! I'll see you in part II.

Spector Halloween Links!