The Cipher, with Halloween decorations and Homey the Clown

from Oct. 31, 2023: The first time I saw my neighbor Ed, he told me not to pay too much for my house. “It’s overpriced,” he said. He threw out a “fair price” that was several tens of thousands of dollars less than what we ended up paying for it. The second time I saw my neighbor Ed, I was taking photos of one of his cats. He pokes fun at me for how often I interact with his cats. Rightly so.

Ed and his wife live with their two kids in the house next door. My wife and I love sharing a porch with them. It’s been a joy to see their children grow up, and I am sure that influenced our decision to have a kid. So many people have horror stories about neighbors. We really lucked out. Their landlord is Marvin Harrison.

I single out Ed here because October is when Ed is at his best. Every year he goes all out with a Halloween display. What I like most about his decorations, which take up the whole front yard, is that they’re mostly Ed’s own creations. Last year he used a sewing machine motor to power a ghost that circled the wire around the front of the house. Before that the bushes on the front yard became a giant spider. This year he’s carved the bushes into a giant monster eating skeletal remains. Spooky! Because it’s orange, people keep asking if it’s Gritty. It’s not Gritty. At least Ed hasn’t told me it’s Gritty.

I suppose I should start decorating a little, even if I could never compete with my neighbors’ decorations. It does seem fun. But in the meantime, I did have to put something on display.

I did this last year, too. The spotlights are a new addition in 2023. I can only thank Ed for giving me a chance to make a stupid joke. It’s all I ever really want to do in life. Again, a consideration in wanting to become a father. My neighbors have taught me so much.

-Dan McQuade

from April 24, 2025: It was Thursday morning and the atmosphere on Walnut Street was already chaotic. A row of food trucks had parked outside my dorm room window overnight. Cars honked their horns in a traffic jam. Runners jogged by. And a man walked down the center of the street, hawking a bootleg t-shirt.

The atmosphere outside the Penn Relays, held this week at Franklin Field, remains delightful. But the scene outside is not as turbulent as I saw when I was a freshman in college. Twenty-five years later, things are more sanitized: Much of the chaos is organized within the gates surrounding the stadium. Everything inside, from food trucks to merch tables to the military recruitment station, is approved by organizers. The last time I saw a significant number of bootlegs for sale outside the stadium was 15 years ago, when Usain Bolt competed. 

One shirt spelled his name “Usian.” I have it somewhere. I actually have a rather large collection of Penn Relays shirts. Some I purchased at the event over the years; I usually attend Relays and actually competed twice in grade school. Others I’ve picked up online. These usually don’t cost much money, as there is a chance I am the only person on the planet who collects Penn Relays t-shirts.

I have a collection of official shirts and bootleg gear for a lot of Philadelphia sports. Many are unhinged; I have a shirt that accuses Ben Simmons of storming the Capitol on January 6. But no shirt is stranger than the one I have from the 1991 Penn Relays. It features Norman Schwarzkopf, Saddam Hussein, George H.W. Bush and Homey the Clown. They’re all on a track in a line like they’re doing line running in training. Saddam is on crutches. Schwarzkopf is kneeing him in the ass. Bush is just running. And Homey the Clown is turned around, whipping Saddam with a loaded sock. “Me lose?” the shirt reads. “Homie don’t play that.”

That was one of Homey the Clown’s catchphrases on In Living Color, a black sketch show created by Keenan Ivory Wayans that aired on Fox in the early 1990s. The show was quite funny, and was a launching pad for a number of actors: Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, David Alan Grier, Tommy Davidson, and a number of Wayans family members (Damon, Kim, Marlon, Shawn). Even the show’s dancers, the Fly Girls, featured Rosie Perez and Jennifer Lopez.

Homey the Clown was one of the show’s most memorable characters. Damon Wayans played a clown forced into the job as part of a prison work release program. He has no interest in the position and frequently berates kids and hits them with a sock. He had a catchphrase: “I don’t think so—homie don’t play that!” And, yes, you are correct: I feel very stupid trying to explain the Homey the Clown sketches. They are funnier than this paragraph makes them sound, I guess? I was like eight years old when I saw them.

The other people on the shirt are the U.S. president, the Iraqi president, and the general who led U.S. and coalition forces in the first Iraq war. Why they are all on this shirt is a mystery. There was no shortage of schlocky Operation Desert Storm merchandise in early 1991—shirts, trading cards, plates (commemorative and license), et cetera. Topps even put out a set of cards. But the merch usually made a lot more sense than this Penn Relays t-shirt. What event is this? Why is Saddam on crutches? Why does his bib say “IOU”? Does the U.S. have to cheat in order to defeat Saddam Hussein in a race? How did Homey the Clown possibly get involved in this situation? Is it hard to run in giant clown shoes?

I can guess at the answers to those questions and come up with a reasonable explanation. (Yes, it’s hard to run in clown shoes.) But there’s some I cannot. Penn Relays is the last weekend of April. The Gulf War ended on February 28. This shirt is two months out of date. Did the makers find this cartoon so incredible they needed to put it on a shirt anyway? Was it somehow already printed months in advance? How many did they sell? Why did I possibly buy this shirt 30 years later? Eh, I have a few answers for that last one.

-Dan McQuade