#4: You live! You die!

So this blog is going to be about something you may not know about me. In 1997 I was in my senior year of High School. I was in the marching band and every year if there was a home football game on Halloween or the weekend of, we would wear our costumes to perform during halftime and throughout the game. I had an old suit of my brothers that was this gray tweed sort of thing that wasn't anything I'd ever wear. I got the idea to dye half of it and go as my favorite comic book villain, Two-Face.


I always have liked Two-Face since the 90's animated series days. He was the district attorney of Gotham City who from an early age had always kept his anger inside, never letting it out. When he grew up, it caused him to develop a second personality that would come out whenever he got pushed to far. Finally one day when trying to get his psychiatric file from a mob boss, he was caught in a chemical explosion which ended up scarring the left side of his face and his left hand. In the original comics and Batman Forever, he had acid thrown in his face in a courtroom. In The Dark Knight, he had half of his face set on fire. This ended up twisting his mind completely, and caused him to start making decisions in a new way. He decided to go with chance. He had carried a lucky two headed silver dollar with him throughout his career. In the comics when he got the acid thrown at him, it scarred one half of the coin. In the cartoon, the explosion did. In the Dark Knight, his fiance had it with her when she died in an explosion, causing half of it to get charred. So he would make all decisions by flipping this coin. The clean side would be the good choice, the scarred side would be the evil choice. He's just such a fascinating character to me because I too tend to bottle up my anger. I haven't developed a separate personality because of it though. I also like the number 2, which is often a theme of the crimes he commits.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right, Halloween. So I went to Michaels craft store to get some fabric dye with my grandmother to dye half the suit. She asked how I planned to do that, and when I said I really wasn't sure, she offered up a better idea. She bought some black fabric and sewed it over half of the suit, which really was no easy task. She almost gave up 10 times while doing it, but knowing how much I wanted it, she did it anyway, thus proving why she was the greatest grandmother ever. I ended up wearing a normal dress shirt and tie, and painted half my face and hair. As the final cap on the costume, I got a silver dollar, and tried to scar the back of it, which is actually very hard to do.

Now here is where we reach the point of the blog. Ever since that night in 1997, I have carried that silver dollar with me every day. I always have it in my pocket when I leave the house. And yes, on multiple occasions I have made decisions with it. It has never been something as drastic as say in The Dark Knight when he's at the bar and he decides rather the guy will live or die. Usually it's in stores when deciding what to purchase if I'm torn between 2 things.

However there was actually about a 2 month period where I didn't carry it. I had gone to Texas to visit my brother and dad. When I got back home I couldn't find it anywhere. I eventually started to carry another one, but one day my brother told me he found it under the couch and sent it back to me. So yes, other then that time, I have carried it for 13 years today.

You may be wondering why I never tried to find an actual double headed silver dollar. Well it's very simple, I have. I went to the only two magic shops I knew of in Colorado (one of which interestingly enough was next door to Casa Bonita for you South Park fans) and they both said they had never seen one before. They had double sided quarters, nickels, dimes and half dollars though. Since then I have checked online multiple times. The only thing I could ever find was a replica set from the Dark Knight. I did end up buying it but it was very disappointing because the coin is obviously fake as it's thicker then a silver dollar, and the "bad" side is just painted black.


By the way, a little side story to my costume thing. In 2002, (which was the worst year of my life, but that's for a blog in February) I was working at a Blockbuster with this girl who was around my age that I had become really friendly with. I would go to this bar with her and her roommate every now and then to help me get my mind off things. As Halloween was getting closer she was telling me that her and her roommate wanted to dress up in a joint costume that was comic or movie related. About a week later she told me they were going to dress like whores. I was all like, "What?!" and she said they decided to go as sugar and spice from Batman Forever, but since they didn't have anyone to be Two-Face, they were just going to be whores. Holy crap, are you kidding me. I explained that I had a Two-Face costume and I'd gladly be their Two-Face. I wanted to beef it up though. So once again, having the greatest grandmother in the world, she sewed together 2 old collard shirts, and covered half of a red clip on tie that I got with black cloth. I then went to the Wizards chest which is the place to go for Halloween in Colorado and got some face makeup and a burned face mask. I really did it up right. So for that Halloween, which I still consider the best one I've had yet, I was a much better Two-Face, with Sugar and Spice by my side.





P.S. (Or again, whatever you call it in a blog) I ended up working a ton of overtime this past month which is why I ended up slacking off on my goal of writing a blog every week. I'm going to make a major effort to get back into a grove and doing it every week now. I've got some good ideas lined up for the next few ones, but as always, I'm taking suggestions for topics if you have any.