It's held the first-ish weekend in Oktober by Mr and Mrs Randommeats, and attended mainly by their closest friends from college, and family. It's silly, it's fun, and there's beer. Contests for best traditional and non-traditional costume, trad and non-trad stein, food and guest beer keep it a very lively night.
There wasn't always a non-traditional costume category. Oh no. The non-traditional costume contest came about because of The Great Robbery of Oktoberfest II, in which mrguy and I, dressed as Ralf and Florian, half of the German band Kraftwerk, were disqualified from competing with the others. An outrage, I know. Now there's a place at the table for all costumed revelers.
After attending as Ralf and Florian, we have a reputation to uphold. The traditional costume we've been trying to pull off for three years hasn't come about, so by spring we were feeling a little pressure. Then one day this summer mrguy came home with a Heino record. Out of the cut-out bin, Triumph. The Kraftwerk turtlenecks came out of retirement, we bought 80's blazers, wore dark shades and attended as Beloved German Singer Heino (Now Retired) and Manager of Heino.
Thanks to the youtubeses I found a Heino song I could sing, and during the ride to Santa Rosa I managed to craft a story that tied my bizarre stein (Freud-looking guy using snuff, with caption "Gesundheit!!") somehow to Heino. Needless to say, my story of poor little Heino Gesundheit who inherited nothing from Papa's tobacco factory except the stein to use as a tip jar while singing "Edelweiss" in the street helped me win the non-traditional stein competition. The non-traditional costume contest was won by a woman dressed brilliantly as a keg, who then did a self-stand. Whew. Mrguy took the best guest beer prize.
I leave you with this lovely image of faux Germanic suspender decorations lovingly crafted out of a six pack of Lowenbrau (caps, box) by youngest nephew.
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