Insight: Smooth criminal steals the show (Shamone)

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Halloween has always been a favorite for me as an adult because I could act silly while wearing creative costumes. Over the years, I’ve been an angry nun, an old woman on a walker, Kosmo Kramer, a pirate, a pregnant bride, Flava Flav, and even O.J. Simpson. But the costume that brought the house down, without question, was Michael Jackson.

Ed Pierce entered a Halloween costume
contest in 2004 while dressed as the late
singer Michael Jackson.
 COURTESY PHOTO

It was 2004 and the daily newspaper that I worked for in Florida would offer a Halloween costume contest for employees on Halloween each year. Staff members would take time to put on a costume and march in a parade around the newspaper building including visiting the newsroom, advertising, circulation, the pressroom and the publisher’s office. At the end of the parade, everyone would gather outside the cafeteria, and prizes would be awarded for the best costume by the Human Resources staff.

That year, I chose to create a costume of Michael Jackson, who spent most of that year appearing in court in California, charged with criminal behavior toward children. Televised coverage of his bizarre courthouse arrivals wearing pajamas or dancing on top of the limousine he rode in for pre-trial activities were borderline comedic in my opinion, so I thought that he would be a great celebrity to lampoon in the newspaper costume contest.

I leaned heavily on my soon-to-be wife Nancy for advice on how to put together the costume. She suggested that we start creating the costume by visiting a nearby thrift shop, and it yielded my first part of the MJ wardrobe, the black fedora hat for $4.

On our next trip to a local flea market, I purchased a pair of used black sunglasses for 50 cents. At a neighborhood garage sale, I found a pair of men’s black pants with my correct waist size, but the length came to about my ankles about two inches above my shoes for just $1.

With two weeks left before Halloween, I revisited the original thrift store and was able to buy a cheap pair of black loafers in my size for $2 and a used black wig for $3.  

My mother contributed to my costume by giving me a leftover painter’s mask from when she had the family room repainted by a contractor at her house earlier that fall following some hurricane damage at her home. I also had a pair of white socks to wear with the MJ apparel.

Nancy’s sister lived on the other side of the state from us and was attending chef school at the time. I had an idea that if she could get me a white chef coat, perhaps Nancy could die it deep red for me in the washing machine for the MJ costume. The weekend before Halloween, Nancy’s sister Diane visited us, and brought with her a white chef coat for me.

Two wash cycles using red RIT dye for the chef coat were a disaster though. The red dye somehow became diluted and left the chef coat a shade of pink. We tried washing it again with a different brand of red dye but no matter how many times we attempted it, the chef coat remained pink, and I had to accept that my MJ costume would include a pink coat. I also abandoned the idea of adding a white sequined glove because stores in Florida seemed to be out of those items that year.

About 10 minutes before the costume contest, I reached under my desk in the newsroom and retrieved the brown paper grocery bag I had stored my costume in. I walked to the men’s restroom in the newspaper lobby and changed into the MJ costume.

The receptionist in the lobby started laughing when I emerged as Michael Jackson and so did other newspaper employees when we lined up near the lobby for the costume parade. I was near the end of the parade line and walking past the offices of the newspaper’s top editors when I noticed that they found my costume to be humorous. Even the ultra-serious managing editor gave me a thumbs up, one of the few times I ever saw him smile in all the years I worked for the paper.

As the parade moved along, just to liven things up, I attempted to moonwalk and I would occasionally belt out a few “hee-hees” for those watching.

Reaching the judging area, parade participants walked up and down before the judges, and I had a hard time keeping a straight face when I had to reveal my identity by taking off the sunglasses, mask, wig and hat.

When the judging had been completed, I won “Best Costume” and received a restaurant gift certificate for my efforts. I changed back into my street clothes and endured a lot of good-natured Michael Jackson jokes from some of my co-workers for the rest of that afternoon.

Other newspapers that I have worked for during my career have had Halloween costume contests, but none have ever come close to the enthusiasm generated by that event. Each year dozens of employees would plan, create and participate in the contest and they’d have a blast doing it.

A decade ago, I dressed like the character Offred from The Handmaid’s Tale television show in yet another newspaper costume contest in Maine.

Nothing comes close to the MJ costume though. <