May 2009 Archives
In the premiere episode of Ghost Hunting and Milkshakes, Alex
Parrish, David J. Neff and Aaron Bramley explore a haunted location in
Leander, Texas. The trio search for ghosts with infrared cameras,
digital cameras and EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) recorders. At the
end of the episode they review a strawberry milkshake from P. Terry's
in Austin, Texas.
I recently wrote an article speculating on whether Zombies could be real now, or at some point in our future. And while the evidence might be a little shaky it does show that, given the right circumstances it is possible.
So that got me thinking of what other "mythological" creatures could be real.
I figured, since vampires seem to be all the rage today, I thought I'd look into that.
If you do some digging, you find that Vampires go back hundreds of years. Not only that, but there are legends speaking of blood sucking creatures spanning many continents and in many countries.
This makes me wonder, then, if there is or was some truth to the vampire legend. Did vampires actually exist at some point? And if so, do they still exist?
Now for some of the theory behind vampirism:
According to a few sources, there are ways which a person could contract something similar to vampirism. Whether it is from something as common as Rabies, or something more unique called Porphyria, a rare blood disorder.
According to a Spanish Neurologist, Dr Juan Gómez-Alonso, there is a link (however tenuous) showing that some of the side effects of rabies are remarkably similar to what we'd consider to be a vampire. From susceptibility to garlic and light, to a preference for a nocturnal lifestyle to hypersexuality. These are all traits known to be associated with vampires.
The link to Porphyria was something which was apparently proposed in 1985 by biochemist David Dolphin, however it was debunked by most of the scientific community.
That's not to say he couldn't be on to something, just that others don't agree. He surmised that vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem (a form of iron in the blood), and that's why they drank large amounts of blood.
That doesn't explain the other facts we know about vampires, however some of those are addressed by the Rabies hypothesis.
So, knowing that, if someone suffered from Porphyria AND rabies, wouldn't they then have most of the classic indicators of vampirism?
If these 2 conditions could co-exist wouldn't that then mean that someone could be considered a vampire?
So that got me thinking of what other "mythological" creatures could be real.
I figured, since vampires seem to be all the rage today, I thought I'd look into that.
If you do some digging, you find that Vampires go back hundreds of years. Not only that, but there are legends speaking of blood sucking creatures spanning many continents and in many countries.
This makes me wonder, then, if there is or was some truth to the vampire legend. Did vampires actually exist at some point? And if so, do they still exist?
Now for some of the theory behind vampirism:
According to a few sources, there are ways which a person could contract something similar to vampirism. Whether it is from something as common as Rabies, or something more unique called Porphyria, a rare blood disorder.
According to a Spanish Neurologist, Dr Juan Gómez-Alonso, there is a link (however tenuous) showing that some of the side effects of rabies are remarkably similar to what we'd consider to be a vampire. From susceptibility to garlic and light, to a preference for a nocturnal lifestyle to hypersexuality. These are all traits known to be associated with vampires.
The link to Porphyria was something which was apparently proposed in 1985 by biochemist David Dolphin, however it was debunked by most of the scientific community.
That's not to say he couldn't be on to something, just that others don't agree. He surmised that vampires were merely sufferers of porphyria seeking to replace haem (a form of iron in the blood), and that's why they drank large amounts of blood.
That doesn't explain the other facts we know about vampires, however some of those are addressed by the Rabies hypothesis.
So, knowing that, if someone suffered from Porphyria AND rabies, wouldn't they then have most of the classic indicators of vampirism?
If these 2 conditions could co-exist wouldn't that then mean that someone could be considered a vampire?
It seems I've been rewatching a lot of Zombie movies lately. Not really sure why - perhaps my subconscious is telling me to get prepared!
Get prepared, you scoff. Get prepared for what? An idea that some guy dreamed up for some book or movie years ago? But I'm serious. Is it possible that we could see a zombie outbreak at some point in our future?
Well I've done a little poking around, not a lot mind you. But enough to see that yes it could happen, given the right set of circumstances. And those circumstances aren't that far fetched.
Now I'm no scientist. I don't have a degree or really any formal education in biology or chemistry, but to my mind this is a possibility. Especially in light of things like "Mad Cow" disease, the avian flu and more recently H1N1, also known as swine flu.
You see, what makes me think this could happen are just these types of diseases. That generally start out infecting animals, but somehow manage to infect humans. Just look at how fast swine flu is spreading now. Sure it doesn't seem to affect a lot of people, and most recover, but the fact that it spread so quickly is what concerns me.
Why am I concerned?
Because, in my research, I came across an article talking about a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. This article talks about an interesting study where rats infected with this parasite have their brains altered, losing some, if not all, of their self control. The article goes on to say that human brains are very similar to rats brains in their makeup, and in fact some humans actually carry this parasite around, not even knowing it.
The article also talks about a few other parasites and virus which could cause similar symptoms in other animals.
So that got me thinking - if Swine flu is transferable to humans, and causes flu-like symptoms which can lead to death, wouldn't it make sense that at some point something like toxoplasma gondii could mutate and "jump" from it's animal host to humans, causing something akin to zombieism?
Granted a straight "jump" probably wouldn't result in a "classic" zombie - one who has died and come back to life, but what if such a parasite were to evolve, then jump to humans where it killed them, only to reanimate the body? Then you'd have a zombie!
What do you think? Are zombies a real possibility in our future? And if so, are you prepared?
Get prepared, you scoff. Get prepared for what? An idea that some guy dreamed up for some book or movie years ago? But I'm serious. Is it possible that we could see a zombie outbreak at some point in our future?
Well I've done a little poking around, not a lot mind you. But enough to see that yes it could happen, given the right set of circumstances. And those circumstances aren't that far fetched.
Now I'm no scientist. I don't have a degree or really any formal education in biology or chemistry, but to my mind this is a possibility. Especially in light of things like "Mad Cow" disease, the avian flu and more recently H1N1, also known as swine flu.
You see, what makes me think this could happen are just these types of diseases. That generally start out infecting animals, but somehow manage to infect humans. Just look at how fast swine flu is spreading now. Sure it doesn't seem to affect a lot of people, and most recover, but the fact that it spread so quickly is what concerns me.
Why am I concerned?
Because, in my research, I came across an article talking about a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. This article talks about an interesting study where rats infected with this parasite have their brains altered, losing some, if not all, of their self control. The article goes on to say that human brains are very similar to rats brains in their makeup, and in fact some humans actually carry this parasite around, not even knowing it.
The article also talks about a few other parasites and virus which could cause similar symptoms in other animals.
So that got me thinking - if Swine flu is transferable to humans, and causes flu-like symptoms which can lead to death, wouldn't it make sense that at some point something like toxoplasma gondii could mutate and "jump" from it's animal host to humans, causing something akin to zombieism?
Granted a straight "jump" probably wouldn't result in a "classic" zombie - one who has died and come back to life, but what if such a parasite were to evolve, then jump to humans where it killed them, only to reanimate the body? Then you'd have a zombie!
What do you think? Are zombies a real possibility in our future? And if so, are you prepared?
This is the DVD Review of the Lionsgate DVD Screener BTK. Brought
to you by your friends at Behindthebigscreen.com and HauntedReport.com.
"A Haunting in Connecticut" and "The Strangers" are 2 such movies where, while there may be some truth to the story, the movie is mostly fabricated.
That being said, there are horror movies which are based more on fact than fiction. King-mag.com does a great recap of these movies, highlighting what it believes to be the top 'stranger than fiction, but based on true stories' horror movies.
It's worth a read. Check it out - what do you think? My 2 personal favs are on the list - "The Exorcist" and "Amityville Horror".
Do you know more? Did they miss any? Let us know!
They figure it's a ghost because of the Victorian type clothing the apparition is wearing. Now, I went to that same spot in Google Street View and didn't see anything otherworldly so perhaps Google has already replaced the image, or maybe it was a ghost??
What do you think? Does the presence of Victorian clothing and a partial image indicate a ghost?
Check out these custom Jason V hairclips on Etsy. Very very cool stuff for a good price!
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24650618
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Patrick Konopelski, President of the IAHA sent us this, so we thought we'd pass it on:
Greetings,
To all our new friends we made at HauntCon, I say welcome. I'm sure everyone involved agrees it was a huge success. Leonard and Jeanie Pickle once again did an outstanding job at bringing people in this amazing industry together. I told Leonard personally he will go down in our industry's history as the person that made it possible for the haunt owner to see other haunts around the country.
Speaking of haunt owners, a huge IAHA thanks to past president Tim Gavinski and his wife Ann Marie for putting together one of the best haunt tours and party this industry has ever seen. It was a great tour, the food was excellent and the open bar...well what else do I have to say about an open bar! A special thanks to Wristband Resources for underwriting the party!
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the many vendors that donated products and certificates to our very successful auction held at the party. Please review the list of vendors and their contributions in this Screamzine. Together we raised almost $7,000 that will go toward our national marketing campaign the will benefit everyone in our industry. We also kicked off the IAHA Great Hearse Raffle. Tickets are $10.00 and will be available on our website and at all the conventions for the next year.
We also unveiled our IAHA hospitality suite at the hotel. It was enjoyed by attendees and vendors alike as a place to meet and greet or simply unwind. The next and final convention for the season is the Midwest Haunters Convention in June. Hope to see you there!
Greetings,
To all our new friends we made at HauntCon, I say welcome. I'm sure everyone involved agrees it was a huge success. Leonard and Jeanie Pickle once again did an outstanding job at bringing people in this amazing industry together. I told Leonard personally he will go down in our industry's history as the person that made it possible for the haunt owner to see other haunts around the country.
Speaking of haunt owners, a huge IAHA thanks to past president Tim Gavinski and his wife Ann Marie for putting together one of the best haunt tours and party this industry has ever seen. It was a great tour, the food was excellent and the open bar...well what else do I have to say about an open bar! A special thanks to Wristband Resources for underwriting the party!
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the many vendors that donated products and certificates to our very successful auction held at the party. Please review the list of vendors and their contributions in this Screamzine. Together we raised almost $7,000 that will go toward our national marketing campaign the will benefit everyone in our industry. We also kicked off the IAHA Great Hearse Raffle. Tickets are $10.00 and will be available on our website and at all the conventions for the next year.
We also unveiled our IAHA hospitality suite at the hotel. It was enjoyed by attendees and vendors alike as a place to meet and greet or simply unwind. The next and final convention for the season is the Midwest Haunters Convention in June. Hope to see you there!
Hi everyone
I just wanted to let you know that if you are a person or business that is hosting an event or otherwise has news to share with everyone else, we will share that information here. You just gotta give us a few days heads up so we can post it.
In other words, don't send us a press release for your event that is happening today because it probably won't get posted. While we do try to respond to everyone's request, we do get overwhelmed from time to time and it may be a few days before we can get back to you.
Rest assured that we do try to get as much posted as we can, but we just can't share everyone's news all the time.
That being said, if YOU can write what YOU want posted, and like I said it's a few days before the event, or even if it's just of a general nature, then we can probably get it posted for you the way you have it written.
Keep in mind though that it will be rejected if spelling and punctuation aren't correct. We want to keep at least the semblance that we are intelligent after all ;)
Thanks for all your support, and be sure to check back often as we have tons of stuff in the pipeline for you!
I just wanted to let you know that if you are a person or business that is hosting an event or otherwise has news to share with everyone else, we will share that information here. You just gotta give us a few days heads up so we can post it.
In other words, don't send us a press release for your event that is happening today because it probably won't get posted. While we do try to respond to everyone's request, we do get overwhelmed from time to time and it may be a few days before we can get back to you.
Rest assured that we do try to get as much posted as we can, but we just can't share everyone's news all the time.
That being said, if YOU can write what YOU want posted, and like I said it's a few days before the event, or even if it's just of a general nature, then we can probably get it posted for you the way you have it written.
Keep in mind though that it will be rejected if spelling and punctuation aren't correct. We want to keep at least the semblance that we are intelligent after all ;)
Thanks for all your support, and be sure to check back often as we have tons of stuff in the pipeline for you!
It's the end of the world as we know it, but you will be feeling fine,
and oh so chic, in your customized, hand-painted flu mask. Don't let
H1N1 (a.k.a Swine Flu or the Hamdemic) get the best of you This cool
mask is good for costumes, raves, or actually keeping that nasty virus
out of your system! Pick up yours today.
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Enjoy the madness below from our friend and reporter Rex:
The TransWorld show in St. Louis last weekend was my first visit to the Gateway City in darn close to 40 years. It was a fun show with lots to see and do. For me personally, it was a time to feel proud and as well as a time to feel exonerated. I'll talk about these further down the page.
More than a hundred years ago St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the country, something we attendees noticed in the many old, large, warehouse-type buildings that lie about the city. Prop-making companies and haunted attractions have plenty of places to set up shop.
The drive from Cleveland to St. Looie was a 10-hour journey through the flatlands of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It was mile after mile of gazing upon manicured farmland, gathering strength in the warm sunshine to produce another bounty of corn and soybeans this summer.
My traveling companion, Jeff "Scared Stiff" Glatzer and I shared a room on the 16th floor of the Renaissance Grand and Suites Hotel. When we looked out our window, we could plainly see the entrance to the America's Center. It is a nice-looking convention facility that had plenty of room for the haunt industry along with a large convention of energetic teenagers who are associated with the D.A.R.E. program.
-------
As soon as we unpacked the car late on Thursday afternoon the 26th, we headed across the street to one of the meeting rooms in the convention center. TransWorld threw a cocktail reception for those who had already registered for the convention. TW big shots Joe Thayer and Jennifer Braverman stood just inside the door, quietly greeting their guests. The party featured a free bar, a few hors d'oeuvres, and plenty of space for attendees to mingle.
Around 7:30 PM Jeff and I jumped into the car and headed off to a restaurant called Jake's Steaks in the nearby "Landings" district. There we met Shane of Greystone Manor in Alabama, the haunter who had first proposed the event earlier this year via the Internet. The multiple dining rooms at Jake's had plenty of haunters seated in them. Even though it was a Thursday and a "work night" parking lots were full and the sidewalks were dotted with groups of friends out for an evening.
-------
Friday the 27th was the first day of the convention itself. Dutifully, I was at the entrance door at the 9:30 opening bell. We all rushed in, gawking at everything that came across our path. I slowly voyaged around the convention floor until the clock turned 11 AM.
I returned to the hotel, grabbed my camera and headed out on a road trip with no road map and no GPS. My first year of college (1968-1969) was spent at Parks College of Aeronautical Technology of St. Louis University in the small village of Cahokia, Illinois - just south of East St. Louis, IL. It was an all-male, Jesuit college that attracted geeks who wanted to become aeronautical or aerospace engineers. From the little bit of research I'd done earlier this year, it appeared that the college was closed and abandoned some years ago.
Having no maps of the area, I worked on feel. There are three bridges that connect Illinois to St. Louis and I drove back and forth over two of them in my efforts to find landmarks that I remembered from so long ago. It took about an hour and a half and lots of U-turns to find the college. Much of this haphazard driving was in East St. Louis, probably the worst-looking city I've ever seen. Forty years ago it was a horrible, crowded slum with lousy government and a school system that had collapsed. Today it's mostly an abandoned wasteland that is difficult to describe. There isn't a single stretch of road in reasonably good shape. Most of the buildings have been torn down. You don't just see vacant lots - you see vacant _blocks_ and plenty of them. Trees - what trees? The rest is a weed-infested, trash-strewn, wrecked-building Beirut. It's only about 4 miles away from downtown St. Louis.
I've worked at a few haunts that have had large, artistic scenes that depicted a major urban disaster. Maybe caused by war, disease, radiation poisoning, attack of the zombies, etc. At one haunt, this scene of urban apocalypse was three stories tall and featured wrecked automobiles and light trucks as set dressing. If you ever need inspiration for an urban disaster scene, go drive around East St. Louis, Illinois for a few hours. It makes the ghettoes here in Cleveland look downright pretty by comparison.
I actually drove right by the campus without recognizing it. What was the landmark that made a light bulb go off inside my head and memories come rushing back into focus? Thumping over a particular railroad crossing at the edge of a nearby abandoned airfield. It was like somebody flipped a switch inside me. It just goes to show you what 40 years can do to your memory.
For nearly an hour I wandered around the small, still campus. I snapped a few photos. Mostly I gawked at how small the buildings actually are. Most are one story high. The whole place only had about 500 on-campus students.
It was a luscious Spring day. The daffodils were blooming like crazy, the tulips had a good week to go and flowering trees were just coming into their annual glory. And through it all, I was a visitor in the land of the dead. I was the only human in sight. Around me was a dead college, mourning for her geeky students and oddball professors. (I could tell you many tales.) There was peeling paint like crazy, rotten tree limbs that had fallen onto roofs, holes in walls and signs that had blown completely away. But not a speck of graffiti or vandalism. The entire place is frozen in time like the fictional town of Willoughby. After all these decades, I finally met a part of my past and was exonerated by it. A true Twilight Zone moment.
-------
The rest of Friday had more surprises in store for me. I spent as much of the late afternoon as I could touring the convention floor. At 5 PM I zipped back to the hotel to get ready for the IAHA Banquet. Jeff and I met a soft-spoken redhead named Maggie Courtis from Fresno, California as we left the hotel for the historic Lemp Grand Hall, site of the banquet. She asked for a ride to the party and we happily complied. We shared a table just to the right of the speaker's podium. Later that evening we were surprised to learn that Maggie was a candidate for the IAHA Board of Directors election that was held during the banquet. She won a term of office. Face it: it's hard to know everyone in the haunt industry, and in the long run it pays handsomely to be friendly to all.
The Lemp Grand Hall is on the top floor of an elderly commercial building the size of a city block. As banquet halls go, this one wasn't very big but it had a nice rooftop patio attached to it so that you could take your cocktail outside and gaze over the St. Louis skyline. For the second year in a row, the association provided a nice buffet dinner to the attendees. There was but a single bartender, but this guy was definitely on the ball.
I was proud to receive The President's Award that evening for my three decades of work in the haunt industry. The plaque itself is made of clear acrylic, shaped in the form of a church window with purple, metal-flake edges to it. The etched inscription reads: "In grateful recognition of your support for the International Association of Haunted Attractions and your outstanding dedication and contributions to the haunted attraction industry."
Bobbie Wiener, Leonard Pickel, Rodney Nightscream, Froggy's Fog and other vendors and haunt luminaries also received awards that evening. It would have been a better party if there was a sound system so that attendees could hear what we speakers were saying. Instead, we relied on voice power alone.
Right around 9 PM the banquet shut down and we happy haunters clomped down the steep wooden stairs to street level and walked around to the building's opposite side. There we entered the large, raucous Creative Visions party. When I visited Mark McDonough, the president of the company, at his convention booth early that morning he told me that more than 500 people had signed up to attend his shindig.
There were plenty of party trays sitting out for consumption. The bar, as far as I could tell, was free. The firm has a lot of space to create its creations and entertain gobs of guests. Their most recent piece was a replica of the Moon which in the last few days was hoisted atop a new hotel in town.
As the evening wound down, Jeff and I drove back to our hotel to find it packed with people. We couldn't help but join in the festivities for a while longer. Probably longer than I should have.
-------
My main task on Saturday the 28th was to pull my annual shift at the IAHA booth from Noon until 2 PM which I did with pleasure. My mates in the booth were longtime board member Randy Young, his daughter Marie Young and the handsome Kevin O'Dea.
Booth traffic has been way, way down since the IAHA changed their fiscal year to coincide with the calendar year. It used to be that we were re-signing members like crazy at the booth. Now that you renew your membership at the end of the year, this year's booth was the quietest it's ever been.
On Saturday evening, I was a surprised guest at a private party at Digital Sound and Lighting. My fellow Scab Jeff Glatzer wrangled our invitations. There were about eight of us at this gathering on the 7th floor of a large warehouse building on Cherokee Street. We entered through the cargo dock doors and were taken up in a big, rickety freight elevator. The company has 19,000 square feet of space which was filled with large shelves and tables full of all kinds of stuff - electronic, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, painting, molding and so forth. Owner Stan Jung was giving a couple from North Carolina, Travis and Chris, a hands-on demonstration of the .50 caliber prop machine gun that they were taking delivery from him.
I've seen other .50 caliber M2 replicas in past years that were entirely driven by compressed air. Stan's design is different. It relies on these three power sources: a tank of compressed oxygen, a gas grill tank of propane gas and a 12 volt automobile battery. You must wear ear plugs because this gun is too loud. Stay away from the muzzle blast, too. The barrel spat out orange flames three or four feet long with every report. We also got a demonstration of Stan's twin .30 caliber machine gun replica which he will mount on the custom dune buggy he's nearly finished building. Indeed, Stan has a lot of talents.
Around 10 PM, we made our way to the Darkness haunted house for a tour with actors and effects in operation. My ticket was stamped for a 9 PM admittance. Jeff's ticket was for the 10 PM group. We hung out for a time with other haunters outside the entrance door and yakked it up before entering. Ultimately, we found ourselves in the second-to-last tour group of the evening.
The Darkness is a large haunt. According to co-producer Jim Kelly the total size is 27,000 square feet. But what truly sets it apart from all others is the staggering amount of stuff screwed in to the walls in each scene. Walking through the scenes in the Darkness is like going from one Fridays/Applebee's restaurant on steroids to the next. The rooms are large and there is so much to be seen that one can't ingest it all in a single gulp. Some of the themes in various sections of the building are difficult to recognize because of their high level of "visual busyness."
The actors and actresses at the Darkness have it tough. For the most part, their scenes are designed for them to do little more than pop-out scares. (We call it "cuckoo-clock acting".) Scenery is king at the Darkness. There isn't enough free space to do a more elaborate act for the customers. The scenes are constructed so that the high walls and mounds of stuff on the floors guide the customers through them without the need for railings, fencing or other barriers.
As Jeff and I drove back to our hotel, the weather steadily deteriorated. It had rained hard all evening, accompanied by a stiff, cold wind out of the West. By the time we arrived, the rain had changed to snow. As we looked out the windows of the packed bar in the Renaissance Grand, the snow was coming down hard and nearly horizontally.
-------
The rooftops of the buildings we could see out our hotel window were covered with snow on Sunday morning. The streets and sidewalks were completely clear because the temperature never got cold enough for the white stuff to stick.
Sunday's convention floor traffic was much lighter than on Friday or Saturday. By lunchtime most of the remaining attendees had left and vendors were starting to tear down their booths. As mid-afternoon approached, the show was effectively finished.
TransWorld set up a couple of bars near the inflatable haunt at the rear of the show floor and, from 4 to 5 PM, offered free drinks to the vendors and few attendees still present. It was the last official function of the convention.
I had decided to stay in St. Louis until Monday since it is a long drive home to Cleveland. The two of us had thought that we would spend Sunday evening in the hotel bar whooping it up with the hard-core vendors and show attendees. But those folks never materialized. The bar and lounge in the hotel were nearly vacant. We spent the evening in our room watching mediocre movies on the TV and began the drive home early Monday morning.
-------
Overall, the 2009 TransWorld haunt show probably had more vendors than we ever saw on the 2nd floor of the Rosemont convention center in years gone by. The attendee count also was quite healthy. Hopefully, someone who has proven data on these counts will quickly chime in here. For a new city, one that had never seen a haunt convention before, St. Louis seems to have been warmly embraced by the haunt community.
Some of the events that you normally see at TransWorld, such as the IAHA auction and the IAHA Casket Basket Raffle will take place at other haunt conventions later this Spring. Special events such as the Haunter's Pavilion, make-up and scenery contests and poster, photograph and ticket judgings will have to wait for another day.
-------
I will attend the Great Lakes Fright Fest and Midwest Haunters Convention in early June. My spies tell me that 2009 will be the final year for the Ironstock convention in southern Indiana and if that is indeed the case, I will be there. I am told that the original plan for Ironstock was to produce it for ten years and then call it quits. If this story is true, then the weekend of June 27 and 28 will witness the end of a beautiful era.
I have several haunts who are interested in my spooky services this coming fall. The year 2009 will be my 35th season of screams. I have every reason to believe it will be one to remember.
The TransWorld show in St. Louis last weekend was my first visit to the Gateway City in darn close to 40 years. It was a fun show with lots to see and do. For me personally, it was a time to feel proud and as well as a time to feel exonerated. I'll talk about these further down the page.
More than a hundred years ago St. Louis was the fourth-largest city in the country, something we attendees noticed in the many old, large, warehouse-type buildings that lie about the city. Prop-making companies and haunted attractions have plenty of places to set up shop.
The drive from Cleveland to St. Looie was a 10-hour journey through the flatlands of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. It was mile after mile of gazing upon manicured farmland, gathering strength in the warm sunshine to produce another bounty of corn and soybeans this summer.
My traveling companion, Jeff "Scared Stiff" Glatzer and I shared a room on the 16th floor of the Renaissance Grand and Suites Hotel. When we looked out our window, we could plainly see the entrance to the America's Center. It is a nice-looking convention facility that had plenty of room for the haunt industry along with a large convention of energetic teenagers who are associated with the D.A.R.E. program.
-------
As soon as we unpacked the car late on Thursday afternoon the 26th, we headed across the street to one of the meeting rooms in the convention center. TransWorld threw a cocktail reception for those who had already registered for the convention. TW big shots Joe Thayer and Jennifer Braverman stood just inside the door, quietly greeting their guests. The party featured a free bar, a few hors d'oeuvres, and plenty of space for attendees to mingle.
Around 7:30 PM Jeff and I jumped into the car and headed off to a restaurant called Jake's Steaks in the nearby "Landings" district. There we met Shane of Greystone Manor in Alabama, the haunter who had first proposed the event earlier this year via the Internet. The multiple dining rooms at Jake's had plenty of haunters seated in them. Even though it was a Thursday and a "work night" parking lots were full and the sidewalks were dotted with groups of friends out for an evening.
-------
Friday the 27th was the first day of the convention itself. Dutifully, I was at the entrance door at the 9:30 opening bell. We all rushed in, gawking at everything that came across our path. I slowly voyaged around the convention floor until the clock turned 11 AM.
I returned to the hotel, grabbed my camera and headed out on a road trip with no road map and no GPS. My first year of college (1968-1969) was spent at Parks College of Aeronautical Technology of St. Louis University in the small village of Cahokia, Illinois - just south of East St. Louis, IL. It was an all-male, Jesuit college that attracted geeks who wanted to become aeronautical or aerospace engineers. From the little bit of research I'd done earlier this year, it appeared that the college was closed and abandoned some years ago.
Having no maps of the area, I worked on feel. There are three bridges that connect Illinois to St. Louis and I drove back and forth over two of them in my efforts to find landmarks that I remembered from so long ago. It took about an hour and a half and lots of U-turns to find the college. Much of this haphazard driving was in East St. Louis, probably the worst-looking city I've ever seen. Forty years ago it was a horrible, crowded slum with lousy government and a school system that had collapsed. Today it's mostly an abandoned wasteland that is difficult to describe. There isn't a single stretch of road in reasonably good shape. Most of the buildings have been torn down. You don't just see vacant lots - you see vacant _blocks_ and plenty of them. Trees - what trees? The rest is a weed-infested, trash-strewn, wrecked-building Beirut. It's only about 4 miles away from downtown St. Louis.
I've worked at a few haunts that have had large, artistic scenes that depicted a major urban disaster. Maybe caused by war, disease, radiation poisoning, attack of the zombies, etc. At one haunt, this scene of urban apocalypse was three stories tall and featured wrecked automobiles and light trucks as set dressing. If you ever need inspiration for an urban disaster scene, go drive around East St. Louis, Illinois for a few hours. It makes the ghettoes here in Cleveland look downright pretty by comparison.
I actually drove right by the campus without recognizing it. What was the landmark that made a light bulb go off inside my head and memories come rushing back into focus? Thumping over a particular railroad crossing at the edge of a nearby abandoned airfield. It was like somebody flipped a switch inside me. It just goes to show you what 40 years can do to your memory.
For nearly an hour I wandered around the small, still campus. I snapped a few photos. Mostly I gawked at how small the buildings actually are. Most are one story high. The whole place only had about 500 on-campus students.
It was a luscious Spring day. The daffodils were blooming like crazy, the tulips had a good week to go and flowering trees were just coming into their annual glory. And through it all, I was a visitor in the land of the dead. I was the only human in sight. Around me was a dead college, mourning for her geeky students and oddball professors. (I could tell you many tales.) There was peeling paint like crazy, rotten tree limbs that had fallen onto roofs, holes in walls and signs that had blown completely away. But not a speck of graffiti or vandalism. The entire place is frozen in time like the fictional town of Willoughby. After all these decades, I finally met a part of my past and was exonerated by it. A true Twilight Zone moment.
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The rest of Friday had more surprises in store for me. I spent as much of the late afternoon as I could touring the convention floor. At 5 PM I zipped back to the hotel to get ready for the IAHA Banquet. Jeff and I met a soft-spoken redhead named Maggie Courtis from Fresno, California as we left the hotel for the historic Lemp Grand Hall, site of the banquet. She asked for a ride to the party and we happily complied. We shared a table just to the right of the speaker's podium. Later that evening we were surprised to learn that Maggie was a candidate for the IAHA Board of Directors election that was held during the banquet. She won a term of office. Face it: it's hard to know everyone in the haunt industry, and in the long run it pays handsomely to be friendly to all.
The Lemp Grand Hall is on the top floor of an elderly commercial building the size of a city block. As banquet halls go, this one wasn't very big but it had a nice rooftop patio attached to it so that you could take your cocktail outside and gaze over the St. Louis skyline. For the second year in a row, the association provided a nice buffet dinner to the attendees. There was but a single bartender, but this guy was definitely on the ball.
I was proud to receive The President's Award that evening for my three decades of work in the haunt industry. The plaque itself is made of clear acrylic, shaped in the form of a church window with purple, metal-flake edges to it. The etched inscription reads: "In grateful recognition of your support for the International Association of Haunted Attractions and your outstanding dedication and contributions to the haunted attraction industry."
Bobbie Wiener, Leonard Pickel, Rodney Nightscream, Froggy's Fog and other vendors and haunt luminaries also received awards that evening. It would have been a better party if there was a sound system so that attendees could hear what we speakers were saying. Instead, we relied on voice power alone.
Right around 9 PM the banquet shut down and we happy haunters clomped down the steep wooden stairs to street level and walked around to the building's opposite side. There we entered the large, raucous Creative Visions party. When I visited Mark McDonough, the president of the company, at his convention booth early that morning he told me that more than 500 people had signed up to attend his shindig.
There were plenty of party trays sitting out for consumption. The bar, as far as I could tell, was free. The firm has a lot of space to create its creations and entertain gobs of guests. Their most recent piece was a replica of the Moon which in the last few days was hoisted atop a new hotel in town.
As the evening wound down, Jeff and I drove back to our hotel to find it packed with people. We couldn't help but join in the festivities for a while longer. Probably longer than I should have.
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My main task on Saturday the 28th was to pull my annual shift at the IAHA booth from Noon until 2 PM which I did with pleasure. My mates in the booth were longtime board member Randy Young, his daughter Marie Young and the handsome Kevin O'Dea.
Booth traffic has been way, way down since the IAHA changed their fiscal year to coincide with the calendar year. It used to be that we were re-signing members like crazy at the booth. Now that you renew your membership at the end of the year, this year's booth was the quietest it's ever been.
On Saturday evening, I was a surprised guest at a private party at Digital Sound and Lighting. My fellow Scab Jeff Glatzer wrangled our invitations. There were about eight of us at this gathering on the 7th floor of a large warehouse building on Cherokee Street. We entered through the cargo dock doors and were taken up in a big, rickety freight elevator. The company has 19,000 square feet of space which was filled with large shelves and tables full of all kinds of stuff - electronic, electrical, plumbing, carpentry, painting, molding and so forth. Owner Stan Jung was giving a couple from North Carolina, Travis and Chris, a hands-on demonstration of the .50 caliber prop machine gun that they were taking delivery from him.
I've seen other .50 caliber M2 replicas in past years that were entirely driven by compressed air. Stan's design is different. It relies on these three power sources: a tank of compressed oxygen, a gas grill tank of propane gas and a 12 volt automobile battery. You must wear ear plugs because this gun is too loud. Stay away from the muzzle blast, too. The barrel spat out orange flames three or four feet long with every report. We also got a demonstration of Stan's twin .30 caliber machine gun replica which he will mount on the custom dune buggy he's nearly finished building. Indeed, Stan has a lot of talents.
Around 10 PM, we made our way to the Darkness haunted house for a tour with actors and effects in operation. My ticket was stamped for a 9 PM admittance. Jeff's ticket was for the 10 PM group. We hung out for a time with other haunters outside the entrance door and yakked it up before entering. Ultimately, we found ourselves in the second-to-last tour group of the evening.
The Darkness is a large haunt. According to co-producer Jim Kelly the total size is 27,000 square feet. But what truly sets it apart from all others is the staggering amount of stuff screwed in to the walls in each scene. Walking through the scenes in the Darkness is like going from one Fridays/Applebee's restaurant on steroids to the next. The rooms are large and there is so much to be seen that one can't ingest it all in a single gulp. Some of the themes in various sections of the building are difficult to recognize because of their high level of "visual busyness."
The actors and actresses at the Darkness have it tough. For the most part, their scenes are designed for them to do little more than pop-out scares. (We call it "cuckoo-clock acting".) Scenery is king at the Darkness. There isn't enough free space to do a more elaborate act for the customers. The scenes are constructed so that the high walls and mounds of stuff on the floors guide the customers through them without the need for railings, fencing or other barriers.
As Jeff and I drove back to our hotel, the weather steadily deteriorated. It had rained hard all evening, accompanied by a stiff, cold wind out of the West. By the time we arrived, the rain had changed to snow. As we looked out the windows of the packed bar in the Renaissance Grand, the snow was coming down hard and nearly horizontally.
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The rooftops of the buildings we could see out our hotel window were covered with snow on Sunday morning. The streets and sidewalks were completely clear because the temperature never got cold enough for the white stuff to stick.
Sunday's convention floor traffic was much lighter than on Friday or Saturday. By lunchtime most of the remaining attendees had left and vendors were starting to tear down their booths. As mid-afternoon approached, the show was effectively finished.
TransWorld set up a couple of bars near the inflatable haunt at the rear of the show floor and, from 4 to 5 PM, offered free drinks to the vendors and few attendees still present. It was the last official function of the convention.
I had decided to stay in St. Louis until Monday since it is a long drive home to Cleveland. The two of us had thought that we would spend Sunday evening in the hotel bar whooping it up with the hard-core vendors and show attendees. But those folks never materialized. The bar and lounge in the hotel were nearly vacant. We spent the evening in our room watching mediocre movies on the TV and began the drive home early Monday morning.
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Overall, the 2009 TransWorld haunt show probably had more vendors than we ever saw on the 2nd floor of the Rosemont convention center in years gone by. The attendee count also was quite healthy. Hopefully, someone who has proven data on these counts will quickly chime in here. For a new city, one that had never seen a haunt convention before, St. Louis seems to have been warmly embraced by the haunt community.
Some of the events that you normally see at TransWorld, such as the IAHA auction and the IAHA Casket Basket Raffle will take place at other haunt conventions later this Spring. Special events such as the Haunter's Pavilion, make-up and scenery contests and poster, photograph and ticket judgings will have to wait for another day.
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I will attend the Great Lakes Fright Fest and Midwest Haunters Convention in early June. My spies tell me that 2009 will be the final year for the Ironstock convention in southern Indiana and if that is indeed the case, I will be there. I am told that the original plan for Ironstock was to produce it for ten years and then call it quits. If this story is true, then the weekend of June 27 and 28 will witness the end of a beautiful era.
I have several haunts who are interested in my spooky services this coming fall. The year 2009 will be my 35th season of screams. I have every reason to believe it will be one to remember.
My first Blu-Ray movie. What an experience. Not only did it have amazing graphics and killer surround sound. It also froze everytime I tried to play the first chapter. Talk about a FAIL moment. However using the scene selection I was able to get started on this good little horror movie. But still not a good impression. Was it the disk or my player? Anyone else have this issue?
Anyway the producers of THE RING and DISTURBIA bring you a Korean Knock Off called THE UNINVITED. Okay to be fair I did like this film and it did have some cool parts. Heck their was even some wirework thrown in for a sweet effect. The plot goes like this following the suspicious death of their mother, sisters Anna and Alex become entangled in a deadly battle of wills when their father becomes engaged to Rachel,their mothers former caretaker/nurse. As the two sisters investigate Rachel's strange past, they areconfronted with ghostly visions, terrifying nightmares and deadly situations. All to an ending so it shockingit will make you shiver. All in all I like this film. Although it's one of those that sells itself as one thing and ends upbeing another. I thought "horror/slasher flick" and it ended up being more of a well done psychologicaldrama which was a good thing. The acting was okay although there was a lot of pouty teen in this film. Theone part that excelled was the locations and lighting. The lighting in this film was amazing.
The Blu Ray Disc extra features were not really there. Just your standard Deleted Scenes
and your standard Alternate Ending (which was lame). I did enjoy the Behind The Scenes
but it was more talking heads that anything else.
All in all I would say wait and rent this one. B-
Anyway the producers of THE RING and DISTURBIA bring you a Korean Knock Off called THE UNINVITED. Okay to be fair I did like this film and it did have some cool parts. Heck their was even some wirework thrown in for a sweet effect. The plot goes like this following the suspicious death of their mother, sisters Anna and Alex become entangled in a deadly battle of wills when their father becomes engaged to Rachel,their mothers former caretaker/nurse. As the two sisters investigate Rachel's strange past, they areconfronted with ghostly visions, terrifying nightmares and deadly situations. All to an ending so it shockingit will make you shiver. All in all I like this film. Although it's one of those that sells itself as one thing and ends upbeing another. I thought "horror/slasher flick" and it ended up being more of a well done psychologicaldrama which was a good thing. The acting was okay although there was a lot of pouty teen in this film. Theone part that excelled was the locations and lighting. The lighting in this film was amazing.
The Blu Ray Disc extra features were not really there. Just your standard Deleted Scenes
and your standard Alternate Ending (which was lame). I did enjoy the Behind The Scenes
but it was more talking heads that anything else.
All in all I would say wait and rent this one. B-
Friends of HR
