Yes, we're still talking about Halloween. We love it. It's our second favorite holiday of the year. We'll talk about it until we have something better to talk about. And we also love guest blogs- this one is by our friend Jana, a Rocky Horror bus tour virgin this year.
I listened to the stories, I saw pictures from the 2009 bus tour, but was I really ready to take this tour myself? I hesitated to commit, wavered on costumes ideas, and finally the day came to just get on the bus and ride. For my first Rocky Horror trip with the Sandbar I went a little more conservative. I went as Janet, before arriving at the castle.
I started the trip by meeting Bettina, Hayley and David at Chad’s house. I arrive at Chad’s in a white dress with a cardigan. Chad is getting all done up as a French maid. Hayley rushes in dressed in a black corset and needing help to get the corset tied and garter on her fishnet hose. As we are preparing to leave David arrives dressed as Frank-N-Furter. We all burst out clapping and hollering as he struts towards us in black high heels, glittering corset, wig, and fishnets.
Downtown Lawrence on Friday night became a Nightmare on Mass St. Chad dropped us off and then attempted to find a parking spot amid the chaos. (He ended up parking blocks away and getting picked up by the bus on Connecticut St.) We loaded on the bus with many dressed in corsets, as French maids, and more fishnet than the Gulf of Mexico has seen recently. Thus our tour began with singing, dancing and drinking on a school bus headed first to Baldwin then on to the show in Ottawa.
The show began with Scotty Mac and David explaining the rules of Rocky Horror. We are encouraged to sing, dance and shout out during the movie. We have props like water guns, flashlights, bubbles, and glow sticks. A hush descends in the theater as Scotty and David announce “Now show the lips.†People start singing and yelling as the opening credits begin. Throughout the movie Scotty and David shout out questions and everyone participates in the experience by shouting and cheering the action on the screen. Hayley and I jump up to the front of the theater to join in the “Time Warp.†Scotty and Jen run up front to dance during the stage show. Then Michelle and Justin interrupt, dressed as Magenta and Riff Raff in their gold and black uniforms, to capture Frank and return to Transylvania.
Everyone spills back out into the lobby of the movie theater to prepare to load onto the bus for the long trip home. The excitement and energy is palatable as the bus starts heading back to Lawrence. We are singing and dancing in the aisle. And my Rocky Horror bus trip ends back at the Sandbar, but clearly not back to reality just yet.
National Blog Posting Month takes place in November each year. It's supposed to encourage bloggers to post something new, every single day, for a month. You can find frequently asked questions about it here.
The last time I did this was in 2007, back in the earlier years of this blog. It was exhausting, especially since November has a pretty major holiday in it that hinders my ability to consistently post on here. But I completed it that year and promptly ignored all references to NaBloPoMo for the next two years.
But I'm doing it again this year, which means you get 30 straight days of Sandbar stories.
Hoping that if I publicly name them, it will shame them into staying committed, which in turn will help keep me on track.
Help me out! If there's something about the Sandbar you're dying to know, leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer your question, or at the very least I'll make something up.
We're mostly recovered from the long Halloween weekend- our party bus extravaganza, the pre-party on Saturday and the actual holiday Sunday.
We recapped our Rocky Horror festivities already, and you can find pictures on our Facebook page and Flickr. Unfortunately, your reporter on all things Sandbar was tired on Saturday, so I didn't take very many pictures of the Halloween party.
Dave, as usual, came up with a fantastic and unique idea: a rodeo clown. Complete with a cut-off pair of size 62 jeans, rainbow suspenders and face paint. Andrew was a nerd; John was a Top Gun character. Almost everyone in the bar was in costume, too. We had cheerleaders, baseball players, Lucille Ball, Dora the Explorer, Fred Flintstone and a viking woman. Princess Leia and Obi-Wan-Kenobi even made an appearance. As usual, we forgot to do any sort of costume contest. As usual, no one noticed.
Halloween night, sadly, was slow. We had some repeat customers from the night before, and even some folks who wore three different costumes, three nights in a row. Bartender Fyler was a shark! Apparently his mom made a shark costume for him long before he ever worked at the Sandbar; it must be fate.
Best costume of the weekend, from my perspective: Tom and Kara as Angry Birds, even though they didn't actually stop by the Sandbar. But they made the costumes themselves, and at the last minute on Saturday.
For those of you unfamiliar with Angry Birds, it's an apparently highly-addictive game you can play on a smartphone.
We'd love to see your Halloween pictures. E-mail them to us at sandbar@thesandbar.com, or upload them to our Facebook page.
Our first hurricane video ran for awhile, and then we moved up in the world and hired the local TV station to create our next one back in 2002.
Our stars moseyed down the street to Channel 6 studios and tried to be professional. We probably failed miserably, but we had fun doing it. At least we didn't get kicked out of the studio.
Hurricane video #2 starred a whole host of local celebrities:
Sandbar Dave and his wife Debbi as the anchors
Tom Conroy, owner of Kaspar's Pub (now Conroy's Pub) and Peach's brother
Patrick Conroy, Peach's other brother
Patty Kennedy, posing as a local real estate agent
Pat Mushrush as our "man on the street"
Gary Bartz, owner of Don's Steakhouse
Al Hack, local insurance agent
Marty Kennedy, former mayor of Lawrence
Sue Hack, former mayor of Lawrence
Warning: this video is LONG. It featured our original hurricane song at the end- a revised version of Copa Cabana, sung by Scott "Showtime" Schoenberger, Peach, and Larry Hofmeier. While loading this video, we discovered a hidden track-our revised version of Love Shack that rolls during the credits, along with a few bloopers. This song didn't stick around very long, so many of you might not remember it, or maybe you never even heard it. Frankly, we forgot about it and were pleasantly surprised we still had a recording of it.
Get ready, Lawrence- this is going to be a BIGGER one!
(Note: the original video, in all its glory and including the full length of the storm, was over 15 minutes long. Yes, 15 minutes! I cut out the storm portion for your viewing pleasure and it saved about a minute of boring storm footage. You're welcome.)
It's no secret that we love to create big and entertaining things- like our annual St. Patrick's Day float, which gets bigger and better every year. Our friends at Pet World are the same way when it comes to Halloween.
The crew at Pet World, along with volunteers from the neighborhood and all around town, have been creating haunted houses for a number of years now. Like our floats, every year their haunted house gets bigger and better, and they spend countless hours and lots of money putting together a labor of love, all for just a few hours' worth of entertainment. And like us, they have as much fun putting everything together.
This year's theme is a haunted castle- and the dragon from our castle float this year makes an appearance!
Dave and I got a sneak peek at this year's haunted castle, and it is truly amazing. They've created a whole maze of rooms in their yard, complete with all the spooky Halloween props, decorations and costumed actors you can dream of. Even in the daylight the castle was creepy, and the amount of time and energy that goes into putting this together is something we can definitely appreciate.
Details for this year's haunted castle:
Sunday, October 31, from 7-9 p.m.
29th Court and Missouri Street in Lawrence, 2 blocks south of 27th & Missouri
Free line to the north for costumed trick-or-treaters age 12 and under
For everyone else, the line forms to the south. There's a $1 charge which goes to the Lawrence Humane Society.
The first 300 people will get free, reusable Pet World shopping bags.
If you love fun, interactive, family events- and Halloween- we encourage you to take the family over to the Pet World haunted house. You won't regret it!
