Category Archives: Weirdness

Let Horror Clense Your Soul

While traversing my masters in English, I stumbled onto a fact that clicked with me: The Greeks believed that Tragedy was cathartic for the soul. In other words, seeing other folks going through hell, releases the viewer’s personal demons.

This could explain our collective yearning to view horror films. Ghoulies and nasties abound. Even though my daughter is going through the typical fear of things going bump in the night, she still clings to her stuffed werewolf and Lego monsters.

The same cathartic release appears in bullrings. I witnessed a bullfight in south Spain twenty years ago (I was going through my Hemingway phase). Although it was brutal (and plenty bloody) there was this strange sense of unity with the crowd. Just before the killing blow, they all chanted and stomped to a rhythm. It seemed to hypnotize the bull.

Could the same thing have happened in Roman gladiatorial competitions? It’s well known that patricians like Julius Caesar put on many events to amuse plebeians (presumably so they wouldn’t riot). Yet, maybe it also sucked out their fears, letting the gladiators act them out.

One horrific sight I recently stumbled upon was a zombie-like behavior from the audience. Eating fresh liver was believed (by the Romans at least) to cure epilepsy. The liver had to come from a healthy specimen. What better than a gladiator? Consequently, when a gladiator fell, there was a mad dash to tear open his gut and gulp down the liver. Can you picture this? It’s like Romero movie, but for real.

Feeling a little stressed and weighted down? Maybe some adrenaline and screaming will help. Either hop on a roller coaster to slip in a horror disc. Either way, screaming may lead to peace of mind.

Tim Kane

Death: The Ultimate State of Self Sufficiency

This has been a joke of mine since high school. When you’re alive, such as I am now, many things can happen. Mostly injury and death. Yet being dead means you  can’t change any farther. You’re already at the dead end of existence. This brings in ideas of undead, such as zombies and vampires. Yet even those folk can be destroyed.

This gets me thinking about burial. What options are out there other than your typical RIP gravestone and green plot? Cremation is there, but it actually pollutes so badly, you’d make BP look like a green company. I’ve always wanted to have a tree planted above my grave so that it’s roots would grow through my body. Then I would fertilize the tree and ultimately live through it again (a sort of rein-tree-nation).

It turns out I’m not too far off from current trends. Green graveyards are springing up. The green here refers to environmentally sound rather than green grass. Deceased are buried in natural environments. No grave marker. Instead, they get a GPS marker that loved ones can seek out.

Another trend that fits the body-as-fertilizer trend is being worked out by the Swedes. A company called Promessa Organic freeze dries bodies and then turns this into fertilizer. The body weighs significantly less when freeze dried (the process removes the water—and we’re mostly water). It also allows for a cleaner decomposition. It turns out that rotting underground, though it may seem wonderful that the body remains intact for so long, actually produces some nasty chemicals that can sully local drinking water. A freeze dried body is interned in a biodegradable coffin. With a tree or bush planted above ground, the body and coffin become a high nutrient loam in about sixth months. That’s full circle baby.

Gift Wrap the Wrapping?

I recently bought a Nook for my mom on Mother’s Day. I was pleased with the product, so I thought, why not. Mom’s an avid reader. This could bring her into the 21st century. As an impulse, I opted to also purchase the gift bag. It was a whopping one cent.

The green bag on the left was the one I ordered. It was gift wrapped, not the actual Nook.

You should know that Mom loves gift bags. It’s her wrapping of choice. Every Xmas as a kid, I was tasked with wrapping all the gifts (except my own) because I was mathematically minded about the wrapping paper. I could literally wrap anything. Mom isn’t as spatially inclined. When she wraps, it’s in a bag with tissue paper.

Now, back to the Nook. As I was checking out, I clicked the “gift wrapping” option. It cost only $3.50 and I figured it might look nice and save some time.

So get the Nook in the mail a few days later. No wrapping, but honestly I was too excited about setting it up, I hardly noticed. Then the gift bag arrived later and, you guessed it, it was gift wrapped. Really Barnes and Noble? That’s what you thought I meant by gift wrapping?

It bugged me enough that I emailed the complaint department, asking for a refund on the price of the gift wrapping. Here is their standard response.

Thanks for contacting us. You should receive a response within 12 to 24 
hours, and we appreciate your patience.

A week went by. I sent an email back asking, facetiously, if they meant 12-24 hours or days. This got an email back:

Thank you for contacting Barnes & Noble regarding the order #XXXXXXXXX. 

The order was shipped on 05/07/2012. The carrier's tracking detail shows
that it was delivered as follows: 

Delivered On:
Wednesday,  05/09/2012 at 5:36 P.M. 
Left At:
Front Door

Of course it was delivered. How else would I know that you gift wrapped the bag? Seriously. If not for the meagerness of the cost in question, I’d pursue this farther. Though being a big corporation, I doubt I’d make any traction. This is where I have to give Amazon props. A few years ago, I was given two of the same gift. I was able to successfully return one to Amazon and get a credit.

I’m still waiting for my $3.50 back on the botched gift wrap.

Tim Kane

I Do Not Bite The Heads Off Chickens

I am an unbridled geek. Total admission. Yet, every time I think of the word, strange images come to mind. I should associate computers, action figures, and badly dubbed Toho movies with “geek”. Instead, I think about biting the heads off chickens.

I was first introduced to this concept by a former boss of mine. He loaned me the book Geek Love. Though I never was able to finish that book, I know it started with a performer at a sideshow circus who called himself a geek. He worked in a pit and bit the heads off live chickens.

Checking the definition in my doorstop of a dictionary, I find that “geek” means carnival performer who performs morbid acts as well as “any strange or eccentric person.” It traces back geck meaning fool.

I recently picked up the Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits. Researching the band, I found that front man Alice Cooper was accused of biting the head off a chicken at a rock and roll festival in 1969. The sources I read say he probably didn’t actually do it (no true geek there), but he was fine with the publicity.

I’m not entirely sure how geek (the chicken killer) became geek (the guy with the Alice Cooper action figures, yes there are plenty). My hunch is it started with computers. After all, geeks are nerds with some social skills.

I have no future intentions to harm chickens. I only relish my pop culture fanaticism and all that it compels me to ogle.

Tim Kane

Lucha Libre and Monsters

One of my favorite restaurants I frequent is Lucha Libre near the airport in San Diego. They make a mean chocolate mole sauce and astounding salsa. The theme of this tiny taco shop is lucha libre (thus the name). If you’re not familiar with this odd Spanish term it means “free fighting” or basically Mexican wresting.

The wrestlers of Mexico often don masks when they fight. Remember Nacho Libre, that movie with Jack Black? Same deal. However, the history of this “sport” involves secret agents, musicals, aliens, and monsters.

The first famous masked wrestler was El Santo (The Saint). Way back in 1942, El Santo changed wresting by wearing his trademark silver mask. Yet he was not constrained by the limitations of the ring. By 1958, El Santo branched out to make movies. He rode the wave of Hammer horror films as well as the James Bond films.

You can view many of El Santo’s movie posters at El Año de El Santo (The Year of El Santo). I’ve included some favorites here.

Santo against the Bad Brain was Santo’s first film.

Santo is only referred to as El Enmascarado (the masked man) and has nearly no lines in this film.

Santo and Dracula’s Treasure

This 1968 “classic” features El Santo inventing a time machine. (He was a man of many talents). They travel back in time to face of with Dracula. This movie is most famous for the version you can’t find: Santo en El vampiro y el sexo. That was the same film but with an overabundance of nude scenes.

El Santo is teamed up with Blue Demon. They fight all the monsters (from left to right): Vampire Woman, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, and Cyclops.

Here’s the complicated plot to “Los Montruos” (1969), see if you can follow it. A mad scientist takes control of the monsters and sics them on the wrestlers. That’s pretty much it.

I sense some copyright infringement here with Marvel. Too bad the movie was made almost 40 years ago in Turkey.

El Santo teamed up with Captain America (which I could totally see, by the way) to take on Spider-man (who is apparently a villain). This gem came out in 1973 in Turkey. Completely unlicensed, the Turks felt they could lift any character to use in their films.

For a full list of Santo’s exploits and reviews of his films, check out The Films of El Santo.

Tim Kane