Who are the Brotherhood? Where did they come from? Why do they put on such lavish events?
I guess if you’re going to tell a story, you should start at the beginning. Each of you knew one of us at one time or another. You may not have known it at the time, but I am sure that everyone knew one of us at some point in their childhood./P
We were the kids that lived down the street that at the age of 8 were putting on haunted houses for our friends. We were the ones that started setting up stuff in our yards in August for Halloween, and the ones that spent more time thinking up how to make realistic eyeballs in the candy bowl than doing our home work (by the way, peeled grapes work really well). We were also the ones who were so sad we could almost cry when November 1st rolled around and all of the pumpkins came down, and we had to put everything away until next year./P
Well, it’s 20 years later, and we are still doing the same thing. On just a slightly different scale.
The original name of the group was “The Brotherhood of the Forbidden Grape.†That was before we were of legal age, and the single largest goals we had were acquiring booze and meeting girls. Usually the beer was much easier to find than the girls, thus we pursued the attainable goal instead of what we figured was a quest that would bear no fruit.
Sometime around 1990, the first ever Brotherhood party took place. We decided that costume parties were where it’s at, and our likelihood of getting girls to show up was much greater if we did something really cool. So we built Dante’s Inferno Room, the whorehouse from Beetlejuice. Much to our surprise we really did get some girls to show up, and we even have some photographic proof somewhere.
It took about 4 weeks of arguing, 5 cases of beer, and one long-ass night to put it all up. We messed with it for another week or so, but the bulk of it went up in someone’s backyard in one night. It was by far the biggest pain the ass thing I have ever built. Its a miracle that it didn't fall down on top of everyone, and kill them all in a single blow.
However it was bad-ass looking and managed to stay up for the 7 hours of the event. Plus, it was the coolest thing we had ever done. From there, every year, it has gotten bigger, harder, more fun, and much more cool. As we got older, our disposable income grew, and our imagination grew with it. Every year since 1990 we have started the planning earlier and thrown a larger shindig. Sometimes in the past we would take a year off and do something mellow since we were burned out from all the work of the year before, but for the post part we would do some type of large shindig every year. Recently we started moving to more than one event a year even though it drastically cuts into our drinking time on the weekends.
Usually, about one week after the Halloween party, we start to argue about what we will do next year. About 9 months later we finally settle on something that is totally different than want we wanted to do in the beginning. Then the planning starts, and sometimes the construction actually follows not too far behind. It takes anywhere from 30 to 120 days of pre-production to plan and build whatever it is that we are doing for that event, and somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 to $15,000 dollars. It also usually means that people have to work on the event almost every weekend for 2 straight months. That is a lot of work for most people, so by the night of the party everyone who is on the crew is usually pretty burned out and wants to crawl under a rock and die. But, if you ask any of them if they regret it, they'll tell you without hesitation "no." And then they'll usually grin an evil grin and start telling you about how much they can't wait for the next one.
These events are done "at cost"; that is to say, we make no money off of them and almost always show a pretty decent loss. Our members have to pick this loss up at the end of the event. In short, we do this for the fun of it, and in no way because we think it's a money maker. So, one way of ensuring that you get invited is to offer to donate to the cause. Alternatively, bring this girl as your date.
Everyone else needs to be proactive about keeping in touch with us, and following this web site (www.freaksnightout.com), which will become the central location to keep up to date on everything that we are doing as a group, and also a great place to see photos of past parties and get ideas for costumes and such.
Over the years, we have had people come and people go, but for the most part it’s the same group of people year after year. We usually grow a little every year just like a real family. If you’re interested in helping out, let one of us know; we are always looking for nice people that are still kids at heart. Our group is about having fun, not making money, or swelling egos. We are all nerds or at least aspire to be, so if you're not doing it for the fun of it, you probably won't fit in too well.
And if you’re ever passing some little kid’s haunted house, tell him or her that they are a BAD ASS and will one day rule supreme.