Halloween on the Boulevard

Living in L.A. means the opportunity to take part in the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval, which takes place on Santa Monica Boulevard between Doheny Drive and La Cienega Boulevard. It's a good opportunity to see what's big in pop culture.

As expected there were many Sarah Palin costumes as well as Jokers (more than half, of course, in the nurses uniform). I only saw one McCain (with a Palin) and no Obamas (but I heard there was one couple as Mr. & Mrs.)

One of the best costumes I saw was a dead ringer for Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder. I'd forgotten about this possibility. I also had forgotten (although I had thought about it in August) that there might be a Michael Phelps-- saw a couple.

There were at least two Indiana Jones's and I was happy to see that they were older guys-- which made it acceptable. Thankfully, there were no Captain Jack Sparrows!!! Although, unfortunately, some dude thought Austin Powers would be a nifty Halloween '08 costume choice-- I'd rather have seen a Love Guru.

There was a lot of "blast from the past" costumes-- particularly '80s ones: Ghostbusters, Donkey Kong, a girl in a big Rubik's Cube... even a Richard Simmons!

The choice for sexy-girl costumes was spread evenly among the usual ones, with sexy cop maybe just slightly in the lead this year.

Naturally there was a bunch of "No on 8" related costumes (re: a proposition on this year's ballot in the state of California to repeal gay marriage).

The most elaborate and clever costume I saw were two guys dressed as Russians on raised shoes (representing a shoreline) and big chunks representing Alaska around them-- the costume was the Sarah Palin Neighborhood watch. Really wild.