31 Reasons Why Autumn is My Favorite Season

1. New TV shows.

2. A new theater season.

3. Classes start over.

4. Halloween

5. Apples by the bushel.

6. You can wear nice jackets and sweaters outside.

7.  The air gets a brisk chill

8. The campus becomes a hunk-fest again.













9.  Hookup apps get dozens of fresh new faces (and biceps and bulges).

10. The leaves turn color.

11. You can go outside without getting drenched.

12. Cloudy days.

13. The first snowfall of the season.

14. Football.  I hate football, but I like football players.

15.  Sleeping under blankets.

16. You can cuddle again.

17. Pumpkin pie.

18. Thanksgiving.

19.  My birthday.  Don't let them tell you that as you get older, birthdays are less important.  I'll take cake and presents any day.

20. Fun runs.

21. You can work off the summer pounds.

22. Gay Pride (on the Plains, it's held in September).

23. The Rocky Horror Picture Show

24. The paranormal.  I suppose you could read about ghosts, time slips, and alien abductions at any time of the year, but aren't they more fun in the autumn?

25. Nobody is pressuring you to eat outside, play outside, or do anything outside. You can stay in the house all day without anyone complaining that you have "wasted" the day.

26. There's no pressure of any sort.  In the summer people are always after you do to things, drive cross-country, visit old friends, go to festivals and fairs, make sure that "the days are just packed."  In the autumn you can relax.

27. Pie.  Who ever heard of eating pie in the summertime?

28. Wrestling.

29. The sun goes down at a decent hour, non e of this "broad daylight at bedtime" business.

30. Lumberjack shirts and tight jeans.

31. It's not Christmas.

See also: 12 Things to Like About Autumn

"Boys in the Trees": My Favorite Movie of the Year

Boys in the Trees (2016) turned out to be my favorite movie of the year, but I would never have known from the trailer.  It's another one of those misleading trailers that makes a drama look like a comedy or a tearjerker look like a fantasy.

 In this case, it looks like supernatural horror will be released on Halloween and terrorize two boys on their walk home.  The movie is not about that at all.  It's about gay kids.

Halloween in Australia is in the spring, near the end of the school year, and Golden Boy Corey (Tobey Wallace) is going to be graduating.  He has been offered a scholarship to study photography at the University of New York, but he plans to stay home to be close to his friends, especially Janko (Justin Holborow).

On Halloween night, Corey and his pack go out, like they always do, to wear scary masks and brutalize the weaker kids.  During a break in the wilding, Corey walks through an abandoned skate park, and finds Jonah (Gulliver McGrath), a former friend who he abandoned for his clique of jerks.  Jonah is injured, bleeding, staring.

Does he need first aid?  Does he need an ambulance?  No, Jonah just wants one thing: "Walk me home," he demands, apparently a practice that they engaged in many times in the old days.  Corey agrees, for old time's sake, because he's worried about Jonah's injury, because he feels guilty.  Because he has no choice.

On the way home, Jonah forces Corey to act out ghost stories:
1. In a tunnel: A girl was murdered there, and doesn't realize that she's dead.

2. In an abandoned house: A boy abandoned his dreams, and years later they came back to haunt him.

3. In their school: Jonah himself discovered that most of the boys in class had turned into wolves.  "And for those who didn't change, those left behind,those that didn't develop the taste for blood, there was only one thing you could do...run."

Suddenly the years melt away, and Corey and Jonah are friends again. They visit the Wishing Tree, where all of their childhood dreams are hanging from branches, and wonder why they ever gave up so much.

For some reason, Corey insists on taking a break from their walk home to have sex with his girlfriend.  When he returns, Jonah is missing.  Corey goes to his house, but there's no one there but an old man who won't speak.  Finally he finds him at a strange Dia de los Muertos festival, and chases him into the woods. 

Then Jonah tells one last ghost story, about a man you meet twice in your life.  The first time, you don't remember.  The second, you never forget.

Eventually they will have to finish the walk home.  Corey resists, knowing what he will find there (we viewers know, too, of course.  It's been obvious since Story #1).  Maybe he could change the ending? No, it's too late.  They share a hug before Jonah shows him where he lives.

Jonah is gay -- we know because the bullies refer to him as a "fag" (the director cut scenes that show him actually dating boys).  Due to the sex-with-girlfriend interlude, we're expected to think of Corey as straight, their friendship as platonic.  But with the hugs and almost-kisses of Jonah and then Janko, I'm sure that Corey is gay, the possibility of same-sex desire abandoned on that Wishing Tree as the "adult" world of heteronormative responsibility encroached.

Besides, there's a coda with Corey living his dream in New York, having a video chat with girlfriend-turned-gal pal, talking about a freelance photography gig, then putting on a hot gladiator costume to head down to Halloween in the Village, the second gayest festival of the year.  His apartment features a gigantic photo of Jonah.

The movie is beautifully produced, with stunning imagery and stunningly evocative dialogue.  Of course, many of Jonah's lines would never be spoken by a real person, but then, Jonah isn't actually a person, is he?

"They won't let us go forward."
"Then let's go back, where the dreams are true."

My Surprising Post-Gay Halloween in Charleston, South Carolina

Remember my distant non-cousin Trevor from Monck's Corner, South Carolina, who my mother was pressuring me into visiting? Turns out that I didn't need to visit him.  He came to my Uncle George's funeral in October.

George was 7 years older than my father, 12 years old when the Davises adopted them.  He chose to keep the last name Jackson. He graduated from high school in 1943, served in World War II, and then moved to Walterboro, South Carolina, about 50 miles from Charleston.  I never learned why.  He and Aunt Suzie had four children, three girls and my Cousin George, who is gay.

I visited twice when I was a kid, and again in 2005.  Uncle George and Aunt Suzie and two of my cousins were still in town, the whole lot of them Bible-believing Nazarenes, Bush-believing Republican, un-selfconsciously racist and "we don't talk about that" homophobic.  I was so uncomfortable that I didn't even come out to them.

And I didn't see any point in going to the funeral of someone I had seen three times in my life, but my mother insisted.  She's too old to travel, my brother "had to work," and my younger sister never met him, so I had to go as a representative of the family.

I flew in to Charleston on Tuesday, October 30th, stayed in a hotel instead of with my Cousin Polly's daughter (who I have never met), and arrived at the Glass Onion for a family brunch at 9:00 am on the 31st.

Who holds a funeral on Halloween?

Then we went on to the Nazarene church for the funeral, and a burial at Live Oak Memorial Gardens.

Cousin George did not attend -- apparently he and his father never reconciled.  But I saw my three girl cousins, all in their 60s, and their husbands, their children and grandchildren, an assortment of Aunt Suzie's South Carolina relatives, and a scattering of Davises, like my Cousin Phil, his daughter, and her husband and kids.  And, of course, my non-cousin Trevor from Monck's Corner and his girlfriend.

Not a lot of cruising goes on at a funeral, but I didn't even see any particularly attractive physiques among my second and third cousins and their various hangers-on.   My twink magnet powers were not working.

Then, after the funeral, non-cousin Trevor and his girlfriend Tracy came up to me.

"Do you have plans for tonight?"  he asked.

"Back to my hotel room with take-out Chinese, and an early flight tomorrow, I suppose."

"We can do better than that," Tracy said.  "Are you a beer drinker?"

"Um...not really."

"Well, tonight you are.  We'll pick you up at 5:00."

The full story, with nude photos and sexual situations, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Tarzan Cosplay

Feel like dressing up like Tarzan for Halloween, or for the next sci-fi convention?

There are some problems with the idea.

1. Tarzan doesn't really have a recognizable costume.  He wears a loincloth, like many barbarian heroes.  Your audience might not know which you mean.

You might alleviate that problem by wearing a dreadlock wig, to resemble the Disney Tarzan.

If you already have long hair, problem solved.

2.  You'll be wearing that loincloth all night, in the cold.  Maybe a nice wool sash will help.


















3. You have to have a muscular physique.  There are fake muscles on sale, but they look sort of ridiculous on anyone older than 12.

More after the break.

Halloween Horror: Cruising in the Scariest Place on Earth

Hell, October, 2017

We're only 30 miles from Hell.

I'm spending fall break with Jonathan Peng Lee, my hustler/engineer/paranormal enthusiast/gym rat friend who I met 12 years ago at Alan's funeral.  It's two days before Halloween, and he has promised to bring me to the scariest place on Earth.

I expected a haunted house, but no: we're spending two nights in Lynchburg, Virginia!

How did I let Jon talk me into this foolhardy trip?  Over an hour driving through the Shenandoah Valley that General Sherman burned, through Arkham...I mean Amherst...Stonewall -- no connection to the birthplace of gay rights -- Greif (grief misspelled by rednecks).

Now it's only 20 miles to Hell.

The site of Thomas Road Baptist Church, where Jerry Falwell, the biggest homophobe in the world, spewed his venom.  The site of Homophobia University, where the top homophobes in the country send 15,000 of their kids to be indoctrinated into how to hate us more.

We're going undercover as fundamentalists, but still, I doubt we'll make it out alive.

""Why would anyone name a city after the mob murders of thousands of African-Americans in the years after the Civil War?" I wonder.

"It was named before that, after its founder, who ran a ferry in the 1780s," Jon reads off wikipedia. "Hey, guess what?  He was an abolitionist.  Progressive, huh?"

"Oh, very.  I'll bet he was pro-gay, too."

We cross nameless suburbs, then the River Styx (I mean James).

My first view of Hell: Eerie yellow lights, a dark stormy sky, the dark tower like something out of Mordor.

We have a reservation at Craddock Terry Hotel on Commerce Street, "steeped in history."  There's a giant woman's shoe over the lobby.

"Fabulous, isn't it?"  Jon says sarcastically.

"Don't use that word.  Remember, undercover -- one room, two beds, and call me 'Brother.'"

"Whatever you say, darling."


We have dinner at a place called Bootleggers, a couple of blocks away.  You enter from the basement: "like you're entering a speakeasy."  There's a gigantic mural of old-time rednecks.  I order a turkey burger and truffle-laced french fries.

Rather elegant for Hell, I have to admit.

Afterwards we return to our hotel room and go on Grindr to look for a hookup.  I expect a lot of married closet-case-angst types, but we end up inviting over a student from one of the local colleges -- not Homophobia University.  He's a Humanities major, and on the swim team.

"You must be closeted among your teammates," I say.

"Oh, no, not at all.  Everyone on the team is completely supportive. The captain is majoring in Human Services with a concentration in LGBTQ Advocacy."

LGBTQ Advocacy?  WTF?

"Not everybody in town is as backwards as that other university," he says.  "Too bad you won't be here next spring.  They're doing The Laramie Project at the Renaissance Theater."

He spends the night, but doesn't go out for breakfast with us: waffles at the White Hart Cafe, which is also a used bookstore. No gay books per se, but I do find a biography of Truman Capote.

"What do you want to do today?" Jon asks.  He reads the possibilities from Trip Advisor: "A children's museum, the city museum, a historic mansion, the old cemetery with a Confederate Monument, the Pest House Medical Museum..."

"Have a lot of pestilence in Hell, do they?"

After breakfast we visit the old mansion, the Point of Honor, and go hiking at Blackwater Creek, where I could swear I am being cruised by a cute twink  AND I see what looks suspiciously like a couple of gay dads with their kid.  Lunch is Szechuan Shrimp (surprisingly not terrible) and Collector's Lair to look at new comics and graphics novels.

Then we hit Randolph College, a fine old brick college where the news magazine has an article about an alumnus who has returned to teach mathematics.  He's "involved with LGBTQ Advocacy Programs like the Change Project."

Change?  Uh-oh.  Sounds ex-gay.

We seek out his office hours.  Turns out the organization is meant to "elevate the voices of LGBTQ people throughout the Deep South."

"Most people in town are pretty progressive," he says.  "We try to distance ourselves from that university down the pike.  For instance..."  He closes his office door and points out the calendar.

Shirtless, muscular firemen!  WTF??

"Twelve local firefighters posed shirtless for this calendar, to raise money for cancer research." {Photo by Allison Creasy]

"Hmph!  For ladies only, I suppose. Heterosexist tripe!"

"Oh, no, it's for everyone.  'Everyone is welcome.'"

"So....I'll bet there are no gay organizations in town except for some closeted 'support groups.'"

"Well, there's the Diversity Center on Jefferson, sort of our gay community center. They have movie nights and First Friday art shows.  There's a gay community choir...."

"Yeah, sounds dismal...."

We just have time to check out the campus gym, to gawk at the muscular, bulge-worthy college students lifting weights and playing basketball before "Meditation Monday" at the Maier Museum of Art, led by a practitioner in Buddhist meditation.

Several of the regulars look like they could be Friends of Dorothy, including a tall, ripped guy in his 30s.  He introduces himself as Zeke, an IT director for a health care service in town.

"My...um...friend from the Midwest and I are visiting for the day," Jon says. "Maybe you could recommend someplace that's active on a Monday night?"

He grins.  "There aren't any bars in Virginia, really, but a lot of the restaurants draw an eclectic clientele.  Have you heard of the Kegney Brothers?  I'll be happy to show you..."

It's another brew pub in yet another historic building downtown (established 1879).  Practically deserted on a Monday night, and the few patrons are all male-female couples.  Our waiter is wearing a rainbow flag lapel, though.

I order the shepherd's pie.  Zeke, who is vegetarian, surprisingly, orders the curried vegetables.

"Sorry," Zeke says.  "I thought it would be more active.  Maybe later."

We decide that it's safe to out ourselves.  "Any gay activities in town?"

"They have a LGBT queer-e-oke at the Unitarian Church on Wednesday nights," Zeke says, "And I don't know if you're into it, but there's a sex party at a guy I know's house every other Saturday."

"We're leaving tomorrow, unfortunately," Jon says.  "But if you want to call the guy you know, we can have a mini-party."

So we visit the guy Zeke knows, an organist at the Holy Cross Catholic Church -- there are Catholics in Hell?  In his 40s, rather portly, collects spoons, of all things.  With a rather hot twink boyfriend.

After a five-person mini-sex party, we stumble back to our hotel room and go to bed.

In the morning, we have breakfast in the hotel and a brief workout at the downtown YMCA before it's time to head back to Charlottesville and a gay Halloween party.

"Boy, am I glad to be out of that place!" I say.  "I couldn't have stood it for another minute!"

"I know -- it was awful!"  Jon exclaims.  "Now I know what Hell feels like."

An explicit version of this story, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

See also:  Alan's Gift From Beyond the Grave.

Top 20 October Dates, Hookups, and Sausage Sightings

It's October, my favorite month of the year!  The days get longer, tv and theater seasons are in full swing, the air is brisk, running outside is a pleasure rather than a sweaty chore.  You get apple cider and pumpkin pie.  And the scary, paranormal events that are rare in July happen every day.

Ray Bradbury calls this The October Country: where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. 

In honor of our journey past the border into the October Country, here are my top October hookups, dates, and sausage sightings.

The linked stories are in blue.

1. October 1968: My first date.  In third grade, a cute boy invited me to a movie, which was a sin to Nazarenes.  I was certain that God was going to strike me dead with a thunderbolt. He didn't.  Instead, I got to hug a hippie.

2. October 1969: My first kiss.  From Greg, the boy vampire (also an astronomer, geologist, naturalist, and psychic), while we were watching the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows.  It was a compromise; he really wanted to bite me on the neck.

3. October 1972: Why corpses are called stiffs.  In seventh grade, my friend's brother who worked in a funeral home invited us to come in and look at the corpse of a teenage boy who died that day.  I didn't know that men become aroused after death....

4. October 1974: The preacher pops a boner.  At a pre-college weekend at Olivet Nazarene College, we sat on a lounge in the student union watching a ministerial student make out with his girlfriend. Gigantic boner, the stuff of fantasies.

5. October 1979: The German Choirboy.  During my sophomore year at Augustana College, I spent a quarter abroad in Regensburg, Germany, and got my first real boyfriend, Wolfgang the Choir Boy at St. Peter's Cathedral.  We went out about a dozen times, but never actually spent the night together, since we both had roommates.

6. October 1983: The Halloween Homophobe.  Aka the night I drank 1 1/2 beers.  In grad school at Indiana University in Bloomington, my roommate Viju and I invited some guys over for a Halloween party.  Jimmy the Bodybuilder on Crutches invited his homophobic friend, who didn't know that the rest of us were all gay.  He had a meltdown!

7. October 1987: Heinz and His Crazy Obsession.  In West Hollywood, my sort-of-boyfriend Raul was living with a crazy old guy named Heinz.  I still can't eat Jimmy Dean's sausage biscuits or listen to the song "Come away wiz me to Malibu...."  I agreed to sharing, just to be polite, until I discovered Heinz's obsession.  Hint: Nasssty!

8. October 1990: The Rocky Horror Picture Show Virgin.  I had seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show in theaters twice and memorized the soundtrack, and the moment it came out on VHS, I bought a copy.  So I didn't consider myself a RHPS "Virgin,"  Nor did I think that the audience would demand a "virgin sacrifice."

9. October 1992: The Boy Next Door.  What's scary about the boy next door?  When he lies about his age, and you don't find out until after you've made the date.  Fortunately, I managed to call it off before the jail-bait scalawag arrived.

10. October 1996: My Date with the Vampire.   I may have exaggerated the oddities of Kevin the Vampire, but he definitely had a paranormal aura.  If he stared at you the right way, you would lose your free will.  That's how he got most of his dates.  He got the others with cool Bohemian looks and enormous penis.

11. October 1997: The Fireman Fantasy.   I've dated two firemen, and they've both been rather small in the penis department. Maybe that's one of the reasons they want to work with those big long hoses.  This guy came to our apartment after my crazy straight roommate put some water on the stove to boil and then left for six hours.

12. October 1999: The Boy Who Refused to Leave.  Not only did Ozzie tell an unsettling story about hooking up with John Kennedy Jr. after his death, the next day, after a hookup with me and Yuri, he refused to leave Yuri's room.  Unsettling.




13. November 2000: The Football Player Who Got Stuck in Time.  I really believe (sort of) that the University of Alabama football player I hooked up with that cold Novmber day was on a field trip from 1941.

14. October 2002: The Gay Psychic Angel.  Raphael showed up unexpectedly at my house in Florida, did a past-life regression, told me not to move to Europe, and gave me his phone number.  He was ungodly cute, an angel, but his arms didn't work, and I wimped out on calling him.  I've been kicking myself for it ever since.  I tried looking him up again recently, but I don't remember his last name, and he doesn't appear in the directory of professional psychics in Florida.

15. October 2005: The Jerk.  I've had dates with Creepy Old Guys, Sleazoids, elitists, idiots, and jerks of all kinds, but this guy was a complete, utter *hole, so nasty that it was scary.  It's a good thing we had our date on Halloween.


16. October 2008: The Satyr.    A massive guy, massively fat, with the biggest Kovbasa++++ I've ever seen, before or since.  I'm pretty sure he was a mystical being, Priapus the God of Virility, just manifesting in our reality as a super-hung chub.  His houseboy was cute, too.

17. October 2012: Assaulted in the Locker Room.  I've been yelled at and called names, but the only time I've actually been attacked was in the locker room of a gym in the gay neighborhood of Philadelphia, where a guy accused me of "looking at him" and rushed in to attack.

The full list, with nude photos, is on Tales of West Hollywood.

7 Halloween Movies for Gay Kids

When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday -- no gifts of football equipment, no hanging out with boring relatives,  no Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  Instead, you got to do things that were usually forbidden: dress up, roam around the neighborhood late at night, and accept candy from strangers.

Halloween movies are as likely as Christmas movies to have heterosexist plotlines.  But here are 7 where the gay subtexts outweigh the boy meeting the girl:

1. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966).  Linus waits for the Great Pumpkin to rise from the pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown goes trick-or-treating and gets rocks instead of candy, and there's disappointment and heartbreak all around.

 2. Mad Monster Party? (1967).  Dr. Frankenstein invites all of the Universal monsters, plus his human nephew Felix, to a party to celebrate his discovery of "the secret of ultimate destruction": a nuclear bomb! Felix falls in love with the creature Francesca, and triggers the bomb, killing all the monsters and probably everybody else!  Oh, and he turns out to be mechanical too. But in spite of his strange hetero-romance and genocidal tendencies, Felix is "queer," an oddball outsider among both monsters and humans.

3. Hocus Pocus (1993). Teenage Max (Omri Katz, who would grow up to star in at least one gay-themed movie), fights three lesbian witches played by gay icons: Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Max gets a girlfriend, but the climax involves saving his little sister and two of his male classmates, a gay bully couple.  Plus "pocket gay" Jason Marsden as Binx, a boy transformed into a black cat.

4. Halloweentown (1999). Grand dame of campy movies Debbie Reynolds is the gay-vague grandmother of a teen witch who embraces her heritage in Halloweentown.  Plus Luke (Philip Van Dyke, top photo), a cute guy who was once a goblin, and the gay-vague brother Dylan (Joey Zimmerman, left).   The sequels are no good.

5. Underfist: Halloween Bash (2008).  The minor characters of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, including Fred Fredburger, General Skarr, Boomer the Giant Spider, Hoss Delgado, and Irwin, team up to fight giant candy monsters who eat trick-or-treaters.  Like the series itself, lots of gay subtexts: Boomer and Skarr are gay-coded, Hoss and Irwin have a thing going on, and there's a surprising amount of beefcake.  It's never been released on DVD, but you can see it on youtube.

6. Paranorman (2012).  It's not set on Halloween, but you've got zombies, ghosts, a witch, and a gay teenager.

7. Hotel Transylvania (2012).  Single Dad Dracula (Adam Sandler) and his teenage daughter Mavis run a hotel for monsters.  Lots of gay symbolism in the "we are a persecuted minority!" and "we can't reveal who we really are!" rhetoric.  The human Jonathan (gay-positive Andy Samberg, left) accidentally arrives and woos Mavis, but also shares a big gay subtext with the Dad. Check out the scene where he plops into Dracula's lap in the sauna.  And the PG-13 jokes about the Invisible Man's nudity.

Halloween Tales of Beefcake

Tales of Halloween (2015) is an anthology of 10 Halloween-themed stories.  It made the rounds of film festivals and was released on video-on-demand, and now is streaming on Netflix.

The stories all have different writers and directors, so they vary tremendously in tone, some grotesquely violent, some humorous. And in quality: clever, even intriguing plotlines juxtaposed with boring cliches.

But they have one thing in common: they cast some of the most attractive beefcake stars who ever sat on a casting couch.

1. "Sweet Tooth": A candy-seeking serial killer, with  Austin Falk as Kyle.

2. And Hunter Smit as the Killer.

3. "The Night Billy Raised Hell": a young boy eggs the house of a reclusive man who turns out to be the Devil.  With Adam Pascal as The Dentist.

4. "Ding Dong": A man learns that his wife eats children.  With Marc Senter as Jack.

5. "Trick": Vigilante trick-or-treaters.  With John F. Beach as James.

More after the break.

12 Things to Like About Autumn

It's only the 30th of August, still summer according to the sidereal calendar, but in the real world calendar, classes have started, so it's autumn.  My favorite season of the year.

1. Everything is new.  New jobs, new classes, new students, new books, new clothes, new shows on tv, new theater and symphony seasons.  New muscular physiques and bulges to gawk at.

2. Everything is busy. The mind-numbing boredom of summer is replaced by days packed with activity.  Every moment  is vibrant and alive.














3. It gets crowded.  The mind-numbing loneliness of summer is replaced by crowds of people, returning from their conferences, vacations, visits to relatives, and various excursions, ready to hang out with you again.

4. It gets cool, so you can jog a few miles without getting soaked.

5. You can stay inside.  People stop longer pressuring you to spend every waking moment outside.  No more hot, fly-infested, uncomfortable picnics, no more sitting on lawn chairs and swatting mosquitos. It's cold out --- go ahead, stay inside and watch tv.

6. Football.  I don't like watching football, but I like watching football fans.

7. A regular gym schedule. The disruptions of summer are over, so you can get back into a regular gym schedule.  And so can dozens of other gym rats for you to sneak peaks at in the locker room.

8. The trees change.  After two decades in Los Angeles and Florida, where they didn't, it's quite a spectacle.


















9. The days get shorter. The sun sets at a normal time, instead of that ungodly 8:00 or 9:00 pm.

10. The best holidays, Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Not to mention my birthday.

11. You can eat again without worry.  Have an apple cider donut or piece of pumpkin pie.  Your cute sweaters and lumberjack shirts will cover it up, anyway.

12. Snow is coming soon.

See also: 10 Things I Hated About Summer and Playing Outside.

The Naked Pumpkin Runs

Naked festivals are held in many cities around the world, but in most parts of the United States, public nudity is a criminal offense.

Back during the freewheeling 1970s, it was merely a violation, or at most a misdemeanor -- lots of high school and college kids participated in the fad of streaking.  But now we've become even more puritanical, and it's often a felony.

So what do you do if you want to participate in a nude run?

You put a pumpkin on your head.

At Halloween 1999, over 100 University of Colorado students ran through the streets of Boulder wearing only shoes and pumpkins, or sometimes other masks.

They carried on the tradition for a decade, but in 2008, the police threatened to arrest participants, charge them with indecent exposure, and have them registered as sex offenders, along with the rapists and child molesters.

15 runners were arrested.

In 2009, Boulder passed a new anti-nudity ordinance, mandating fines rather than jail time, but people were scared off, and the runs have not resumed.

However, runners are taking up the tradition in cities which permit  public nudity as part of a "festival or performance, such as Portland, Oregon and Arcata, California.

 In Seattle, Washington, there's a full week of activities, including day and night runs and skinny-dipping.

Skinny dipping?  The temperature is usually in the 40s!

See also: My junior high streaking adventure.

Making Your Own Bulgeworthy Halloween Costume

In gay neighborhoods, Halloween is all about the beefcake.  Your costume should be clever and creative, but it should also display your biceps or bulge to good advantage: the stressful Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year season is coming, and you need a full social calendar.

But what can you do if you don't have the money for a fancy store-bought costume, and can't sew?

It's easy to improvise with clothing you already have around the house, or a few props from the hardware store.

1. What could be easier than boxer underwear, with a twin-sized unfitted sheet tied around your neck for a cape?  It's good for being Conan the Barbarian, an ancient Greek philosopher, or a Roman centurion (make a helmet out of a paper bag reinforced with tape).

2. Draw a big letter Z on the cape to become Zorro (sword optional).

3. For Disney's Aladdin, you need white pants, tied with a rope instead of a belt, house slippers, and a leather vest.  Toy monkey can be taped to your shoulder.

4. To be a cowboy, you'll need jeans, a belt with a large buckle, boots (snow boots are fine), and a cowboy hat.

5. Add a plaid shirt, and substitute a baseball cap, and you're a farmboy (don't try it in the Midwest).

6. You can easily stencil a Superman logo onto a plain blue t-shirt, but you might have to do something with your hair.

7. Another easy superhero is Aquaman, who wears red shorts and green boots.

8. Tarzan's loincloth can be improvised with an old pair of brown pants ragged-cut in front and back.  Be sure to wear regular underwear, too.

9. Most people doing the Rocky Horror think of Rocky, who wears only gold lame shorts.

10.  But if you don't have a Rocky physique, you can do an easy Brad with white briefs (extremely well packed) and horn-rimmed glasses.

11. A white handkerchief, a black bow tie, black dress slacks, and you're a Chippendale Dancer.  For added effect, wear a white shirt pre-cut and sewn up so it can easily be ripped off.

12. It's never too early to get into the spirit of Christmas, and you can evoke Santa Claus without wearing the whole ensemble.  Black boots, red shorts,  and a Santa Claus hat are more than enough.