Ghoul friends

I’m running out of cartoon characters.

Every year I pick a colorful creation from my comics-and-TV-obsessed adolescence, figure out a way to make a costume from scratch, and show up to my friend’s annual Halloween party dressed like an absolute buffoon. This strategy has gone over pretty well so far among my fellow masqueraders, although to be fair, some of them are half in the bag by the time I get there. That helps.

My choices are mostly unique, avoiding the popular trends of the day. The Halloween zeitgeist zigs, I zag. I was the Batman villain Two-Face years before he was ever depicted in the 2008 movie “The Dark Knight,” which clearly makes me a pioneer entitled to millions in back royalties. I’ve been Bowser from Super Mario Bros,, Dr. Zoidberg from the cartoon “Futurama,” heavy metal icon Dave Mustaine and at least two bad guys from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe, which officially makes me a man-child. Dressing up as Peter Pan would be a little too on-the-nose at this point.

Every year I do this. Every single year. And now, after 11 consecutive rip-roarin’ shindigs, I’m finally starting to wonder if the well is running dry.

This is what’s known as a First World problem, by the way. I’m totally OK with that.

It’s not that there aren’t a ton of available options left. Devouring media has been a lifelong hobby, and there’s no shortage of whimsical characters I could choose that reflect the offbeat and mentally ill mosaic that is me. The problem is that, since I’m an adult man with the proportions of a freak-show basketball prodigy, each costume is an arts-and-crafts endeavor -- and the animated ducks and cats left in my repertoire would entail engineering feats more intricate than the Panama Canal.

To get a sense of what I mean, it helps to consider some of the extremes I’ve gone to in order to nail down a good look for a costume. The Dave Mustaine getup is a good example. Mustaine is the frontman for Megadeth, and like most hard-rockin’ metal axemen, he plays ornate guitars with bizarre body designs that look cool but contribute nothing else of value. His signature guitar is of the Flying V aesthetic, where the bottom of the instrument splits into two shark fins. Again, this body style does nothing substantive except announce to the world, “Hey, I play heavy metal and nothing else!” Because c’mon, you’re not going to peck out an Air Supply song on a guitar that could slice the head off a hippopotamus.

Since Mustaine is known for playing this unique guitar model, I knew I had to incorporate it into my costume somehow; otherwise I’d just be some doofus wearing a strawberry-blond wig that went halfway down to my keester. Yet I couldn’t just run out to a store to buy a guitar. Not only are guitars expensive, but if I had one slung around my neck all night I’d likely turn to someone in a drunken wobble and smash them upside the face with the headstock. Might be good for a laugh, but then I’d have a broken guitar and a bill for some poor schmuck’s dental work.

So I rolled up my sleeves. To create a fake guitar fit for a Halloween party, it needs to be somewhat realistic-looking, yet simultaneously light and shock-absorbent. Knowing this, I consulted my favorite Halloween collaborator, the internet, and found a great top-down shot of Mustaine’s guitar, just the kind of flat image I needed. Using a ruler, I measured the guitar’s dimensions on a printout and simply scaled up, tracing an outline of the body, neck and headstock on a few giant pieces of posterboard. To give it thickness and dimension, I superglued the posterboard onto a few layers of styrofoam. A few colored markers for detail and finishing, and voila, you’ve got yourself a fake guitar with which you can whack someone upside the head without sending them to the emergency room.

Describing the process takes only a few of column inches, but the actual time involved was massive -- a couple of weekends dedicated solely to that pursuit. I could have done something worthwhile with that time: volunteered at an animal shelter, perhaps, or taught a child to read. Instead, I made a styrofoam guitar for a party involving stripper poles and at least three different brands of raspberry vodka. Clearly I need to reassess the priorities in my life.

My next priority is to figure out what the heck my costume for 2017 will be. If I’m left with no other choice but to make a styrofoam drum kit, I’ll have to quit my job and open up a workshop in my basement. I’ll also have to get a basement.

Who’s left from my childhood that I could feasibly re-create with a few pieces of construction paper and a roll of duct tape? Daffy Duck? I’d have to build a beak. He-Man, from Masters of the Universe? I’d have to get really buff. Spider-Man? I’m about the last person you’d want to see in a skin-tight leotard, except maybe Jonah Hill and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. And it’s not like I can realistically craft a costume based on my more recent heroes. Nobody’s going to guess who you are if you’re dressed as California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom.

You know what, though? That’s next year’s problem. And it’s a First World problem. If that’s the most I have to worry about at this time next year, I’m probably doing all right.

Mr. College

I got about a million-and-one “likes” from my Facebook buddies when I announced that I had started grad school. Not surprising, I suppose. The words “grad school” carry a certain weight to them. It’s a phrase that’s bound to impress people, even if you’re headed back to the classroom just to learn the finer points of sword swallowing for your career as a freak-show street performer. But here’s what they don’t tell you when you re-enter college after a prolonged absence: It feels really weird.

The mechanics of it are the same. There’s a classroom, and desks, a chalkboard and a projection screen. There’s you with a notepad and a $40 textbook. There’s an instructor, and the odd smell of fresh plastic as newly-laminated posters are tacked up in hallways, advertising student productions of “Springtime For Hitler.” Familiar stuff, all of it.

What’s disorienting is that everything outside of the classroom has changed drastically. Heck, I haven’t done this in about 12 years, and what a 12-year period it’s been. Back then I was an irresponsible kid living in a dorm room that smelled like popcorn and Heineken; now I’m an adult living in an apartment that smells like popcorn and Löwenbräu. Back then the most impressive thing I’d ever accomplished was stuffing about a dozen marshmallows into my mouth at one time; now I’m in the midst of a career, albeit one I’m looking to change. Pretty much the only thing that’s remained consistent is my obsession with heavy metal and old-school video games featuring cartoon hedgehogs and plumbers. There’s a limit to how much of your youth you can cling to when you’ve got more gray in your fur than a Siberian husky.

All of this converges on me when I’m sitting in that class. I’m working in the present, which is a throwback to the past, to achieve a better future. It’s like I’ve arrived at some pivotal fulcrum in the space-time continuum, one in which all epochs of life meet at a single point. At times it’s hard to pay attention to the lecture when I’m being crushed by the metaphysical weight of it all -- although to be fair, there’s a chance I’m way overthinking this. That’s another thing that hasn’t changed.

It all boils down to feeling out-of-place. The other students in class aren’t bald. They don’t have bad backs. They have low-pressure jobs in campus libraries and Hot Topics and receive care packages via post from mom and dad. My own post-adolescence wasn’t that long ago, but the wealth of experiences I’ve amassed since then has served to erect a brick wall between me and the other students; I should be able to relate, but I can’t. You can go home again, but the reflection you see in the mirror won’t be the same.

In 2003 I was enrolled in a video editing class at my old alma mater. Our final project was to shoot and edit a music video, which I knew even then would go down as my favorite class assignment of all time. Even as the details were passing my instructor’s lips I could see the project in my head: A mash-up of staged shots and candid shenanigans from my testosterone-fueled social life, set to the music of Metallica’s “Sad But True.” During a friends’ hangout the subsequent weekend, I explained the assignment to my buddies, held up an old analog camcorder, and said to the group, “Shoot whatever you see tonight. If something’s happening, pick up the camera and point it at the action. I’ll do the same. The best bits will make it into the video.”

Among a certain group of people, the results have become legendary. I’m not entirely sure how I did it -- latent genius would be my guess -- but the clip somehow encapsulates the heady free-for-all that characterized our early 20s. So much jostling and jockeying around. So much misguided energy. So many cigarettes.

Every time I watch it I’m transported back to a very specific time and place. Sweet memories, those. But see, that’s the trap: With a certain era of my life so pristinely fossilized, it’s easy to over-contextualize and over-compare. “Sad But True” was completed at a time when my primary responsibilities were homework and not letting my goldfish die. When I do homework now I have to balance that with bills, rent, car repairs, physical therapy, a career as a healthcare journalist and a penchant for message board debates about the new Megadeth lineup. It’s hard to tell from that old music video that I’d actually go on to carve out an adult life for myself, but here it is. Here I am.

My classmates are so fresh-faced they should be on a bottle of fabric softener. Part of me -- the “Sad But True” part -- wants to fist-bump them and ask if they’d like to meet up at 1 a.m. to grab some Taco Bell. The other part, the quasi-mature part, wants to zip up their coats and remind them to eat their vegetables. It’s an awkward position to be in. Past self and future self are staring each other down, each a little wary of the other.

Life is cyclical in ways you don’t always expect. Earth spins on its axis and brings us around to the same point again, only we’re a day older, a day wiser, with one more layer of foundation drying beneath our feet. That becomes ever clearer when I enter that time warp of a classroom and lick the tip of my pencil, steeling for one more go-’round.

But while the past and present live in uneasy harmony, the future has yet to be written. Of all the lessons I’ve learned this past month, that’s been the most important. Time is a boat. We’re the captains. And that’s all right with me.

A life well lived

You want to feel disoriented and uncomfortable in your own skin? Try laughing at a funeral.

It’s a very specific brand of emotional relief, one that can’t divest itself fully from feelings of guilt. You immediately start second-guessing yourself in those moments. The laughter is cathartic, but it feels wrong. It’s healthy, but feels disrespectful. Housing instincts that are so diametrically opposed, it’s a wonder we don’t explode in those moments. It’s a good thing that doesn’t happen, though, or else life would be unnecessarily difficult for the clean-up guy.

“Another funny funeral, Bob?”

“Yup. We’re gonna need another mop.”

Very specific conditions have to exist in order for us to laugh in such moments. First, the death can’t have been tragic in any way. Even cracking a mere smile of remembrance is only justified when the deceased has led a full, long life. If the recently departed was a World War II combat pilot who later became a Major League Baseball pitcher and the inventor of the DustBuster, then by all means, chuckle with fond reflection. Do it at anyone else’s funeral and you run the risk of a mourner socking you in the eye with the blunt end of a votive candle.

Second, the death should have put an end to suffering. It’s no fun when a loved one is mired in pain. When the pain ends, it allows us to sigh in relief, and even find our humor again as we relive the memories we’ve shared with that person. We can finally laugh at the time they woke us at 3 a.m. with a tuba blast to the ear and played “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” in their nightcap and stockings. Not that it was funny in the moment.

My grandfather never woke me up with a tuba. He never played Major League Baseball. But his life was long, and he never stopped filling it. Indulge me, if you will, while I remember him.

When I think of him, I think of the skies. He was never a combat pilot, but he was a mechanic for the Air Force when the U.S. was giving Hitler the third degree. Despite never taking to the air, it undoubtedly gave him great pleasure to contribute to the American cause. He was the first member of the family born in this country, and always had a great love for it. Even when bellbottoms and caterpillar sideburns were all the rage, which is saying something.

His affinity for aircraft never waned, even as he entered his so-called “golden years.” In his seventies, he learned how to use a computer so he could start playing flight simulations. On a trip to Florida when I was a boy, I spent hours with him in his computer room as he taught me the finer points of takeoff and landing. He never got impatient or frustrated when I landed the planes crookedly or smashed nose-first into the side of a mountain; he was just happy to be spending time with me, sharing with his grandson a hobby that he loved.

But to me, what exemplifies his character most is a VHS tape that was sent to my family some 18 years ago. My grandfather, you see, decided that his 75th birthday was the ideal occasion in which to jump out of a plane for the first time. A staff videographer at his local skydiving outfit captured the highlights. What intrigued me, as I watched the clip for the first time, was the total lack of fear on my grandfather’s face. At a moment when most people would be soiling their respective undies, Joe Theriault peered through the open door to the vast expanse of Earth below him, and smiled as if he were a child engaged with a new toy. He exhibited no trepidation as he jumped. He simply took a breath, and with a trained professional strapped to his back, leaned forward, letting wind and gravity take him on the ultimate tour of the clouds.

He didn’t just sit around and exist until the end. He lived. Right up to his last moment, he lived. There’s a lesson there for all of us.

There are certain things you do when you lose someone. You cry. You reflect. You bring the person up in your mind and try to hold onto the intangibles, the sound of their voice or the way they walked, because a part of you knows you’ll never experience those things again -- whether your conscious mind is ready to admit it or not. No two situations are the same, of course, but these are all normal responses. It’s what we do as human beings. It’s how we cope.

To think of his death in tragic terms, though, would be a disservice to how he lived his life. This is a man who survived the Great Depression, fought a war, raised a family, retired early and spent his latter half on the decks of ocean liners cruising the world. There’s nothing tragic about that. His heroism is largely unsung, but he’s perhaps one of the few true American success stories, and without gloating about it to anyone, he knew it. If life is a wet rag, he wrung it dry. He was happy, and thinking about that makes me happy, too.

When we reach that stage in our mourning, we once more allow ourselves certain comforts. We start smiling again. We go back to work and find ourselves whistling along to the car radio, enjoying the tiny moments in spite of ourselves. For me, the turning point came when I thought of my grandfather leaping from the plane, his arms splayed, cheeks rippling with the  sheer velocity. The abandon of it. The memory made me laugh, and it felt strange at first, a taboo. Then I realized it was okay. It only meant that his memory would be a positive one, which is all he ever wanted.

We should all strive to leave such impressions behind. And if we live our lives the way he did, we will.

Bun to death

Silly humans with their full heads of hair. I feel sorry for them in a way.

Just look at all of the goofy hairstyles that have evolved over the centuries. Revolutionary War-era colonials used to powder their locks the ashy white color of decade-old chalk. Women in the 1960s were fond of those giant beehive hairdos, the kind that could cast shadows across the length of a football field in a crisp autumn dusk. Don’t even get me started on the mullet. This short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back look favored by teenage males in the 1980s was so horrendously ugly it should have been legally banned to spare people the humiliation of publically losing their lunch.

Now we’ve got the man-bun. While not as off-putting as the mullet, it’s still a curious fashion choice, inspiring the simple question: Why?

This look is becoming increasingly prevalent among long-haired dudes, and considering who’s sporting ’em these days, “dude” is definitely the right word. You achieve a man-bun by taking said long hair and tying it into a bun in the back -- not a ponytail, as has been customary now for decades, but a flippin’ bun, like they’re Mrs. Butterworth or something.

To be clear, my objection isn’t about the gender of the wearer. I’m of the firm belief that nobody should be shackled by conventional gender expectations, and that includes fashion choices. At issue here is the fact that, by definition, anyone sporting a man-bun has to be a man, and men -- let’s face it -- are gross.

Obviously that’s a generalization which doesn’t hold true in all cases. Surely there are some non-gross men out there. Somewhere. On an island, maybe, or cavorting around a jungle, bathing in streams with leopards and flossing their teeth with birch bark. The law of averages suggests they exist, and they’ll make for fascinating scientific observation when they’re finally discovered.

The rest of us are gross. We use the bathroom and forget to wash our hands. We skip showers on days when we handle mangy animals. And we don’t tend to our hair with any great aplomb. Buns work on women because women -- again, a generalization -- are neater. They know the right shampoos and conditioners, they tend to their split ends. A woman-bun is an exercise in order and competence. A man-bun is an exercise in ignoring the fact that the bun would probably hold its shape without the pin.

Which is why people scrunch their face if they even hear the word “man-bun.” It just has an icky connotation, like “moist,” or “Pauly Shore.”

The style has a longer history than you might expect. Samurais used to wear their hair in buns, and the bun look was even sported by Buddha himself, which I guess goes well with the whole robe-and-sandals vibe. The Beatles’ own George Harrison rocked one when he was going through his spirituality phase, and that goes a long way toward lending the style some credibility; ever low-key (for a Beatle), Harrison always projected this vibe of silent wisdom, so perhaps he knew something about the bun I don’t. Maybe he discovered that arranging one’s hair like that could turn the locks into an antenna of sorts, allowing us to receive otherworldly transmissions from various muses and spectral something-or-others. Or maybe he just did a boatload of acid one day and decided it’d be a good idea. Seems more likely.

On the opposite end of the spectrum from Buddha and George Harrison is Patriots quarterback Tom Brady. He often gets cited as being a good-lookin’ fella, and I can sort of see it -- I mean, if you’re into dimpled chins and high cheekbones and eyes you could practically swim in. (Sorry, I just had a moment there.) But not too long ago he was photographed walking down the street with his hair bunned in the back, and it made him look outright sketchy. The long-ish hair below the bun draped thinly over the nape of his neck, and atop his head, frayed strands corkscrewed outward in wiry discord, making him look more like a frazzled cafeteria worker than a millionaire athlete. All he needed were clear plastic gloves and a blue tray filled with chicken nuggets.

To be fair, almost all hairstyles and fashion choices age poorly. Like mullets and beehives, they make sense at the time, only to be regarded with horrified embarrassment as the years pass. I’ve been shaving my head bare for 10 or 11 years now, and I keep telling myself that I’m never going back; when grown, my hair is limper than a fistful of spaghetti strands in a steady rain, and so here, finally, is a socially acceptable style that I can adopt. But it may not always be that way. In 30 years the shaved look may be as scorned as the man-bun, with naturally bald men such as myself sporting a new style -- growing out just the temples and braiding them like Pippi Longstocking, perhaps. Seems crazy now, but in 2046 it could be all the rage.

In considering all that, I briefly entertained the possibility that I’m coming down too hard on the man-bun. I’m a fuddy-duddy, I reckoned. Not hip to the zeitgeist, or whatever.

But no. Like the pompadour before it, the man-bun will slowly come to be regarded as an exercise in poor judgement. Long hair? Fine. A ponytail? All right. Just promise me one thing: Unless you’re slicing at a dragon with a giant sword, let the bun die a slow, quiet death. It’ll be better for all of us, and besides, there are plenty of other things you can do with your hair.

In fact, step a little closer. I’ve got a razor and some shaving cream with your name on it.