Running With The Devil

One of the most endearing things about headset phones is their ability to transform the average passerby into a gibbering, post-schizoid comedy act. Take for example the jogger I passed on my way to the car wash yesterday... At first, I mistook her for just another athletically-clad, wandering psychopath, the type we usually find wandering near the campus of a major state university. Then I spied the telltale cords dangling from her ears and the awful truth was revealed... This was no mere battle with personal demons; it was nothing more than a typical phone conversation gone horribly wrong. How yawn-worthy. How pedestrian.

Still, having just spent the better part of three days reformatting my hard drive, I like to think she was screaming at some smug Microsoft tech-support geek. Go get 'em, tigress!!!

Anyhoo-- music for your midweek enjoyment:

ON WITH THE SHOW!

Allow Me to Ruin Your Weekend

Thank you, CHRISTIAN NIGHTMARES, for alerting the world to this video. Thans to you, Joe Horn will never fingertap in vain!

PS: If the video isn't pants-pissingly funny enough, the attached comments are a comedy GOLDMINE. Please tell me this is all some kind of brilliant joke on the world- because if these people are REAL, and sharing the same OXYGEN as me, then I'm ready to check out at any time.

One Flew East, One Flew West

So... The GLORE PSYCHIATRIC MUSEUM. Located in sunny St. Joseph, MO. Curvacia and I made a pilgrimage three or four years back to investigate. Here are the pictures to prove it.

(BACKGROUND: The Glore is housed in a former state mental hospital. Half of the grounds have been converted for museum space, the other half is now a minimum security prison. There used to be a thrift store in the basement, but unfortunately it was no longer in business at the time of this visit. And I think the use of old department store mannequins in the shock therapy displays seems positively Lynchian, don't you?)










This collection of nails, buttons, and safety pins was removed from an inmates stomach, post-mortem:

The Secret Histories

I'm working on a post about our trip to the GLORE PSYCHIATRIC MUSEUM a few years back, but it's taking me a while to get all of the pictures together. To tide you over until then, here are some scans of various crazy ramblings I've found posted around town.

(NOTE: I tried and tried to dig up my favorite flier, LAWRENCE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL HARVESTS ORGANS FROM REST HOME PATIENTS, but it seems to be lost. Maybe I was finally so disturbed by it that I threw it away. Or maybe it's just piled under a mountain of my obsessively-collected crap. Either way, until that flier surfaces, this post has a definite TO BE CONTINUED attached to the end...)

I found this gem folded into the pages of our local weekly, THE PITCH, one foggy autumn morn. I actually kind of relate to the author's point of view-- I hate the typical "Music Showcase" format, and the idea of Masonic Conspiracies has always held a certain appeal. This person took those threads and knotted them together quite nicely, I think:

(click to enlarge)




This next one was the first in a series of home-made newsletters that appeared at the Replay on a weekly basis for several months last summer. The phantom author was never identified, but I kept several of these missives as research material in my ongoing quest for a Higher Truth.

(I particularly enjoy the stamp in the upper right hand corner-- they actually took this to City Hall and paid to have some clerk authorize it before distributing it around town! Some people have all the luck...)




And this final piece is but a small section of a much larger handbill. The opening paragraph here sums up the entire rest of the page, so I cut it short-- the real delight isn't the stream-of-consciousness rant about HOMELESSNESS VERSUS THE SYSTEM (another point of view which I totally agree with)-- it's the handwritten addition the author made near the top of the page: WHAT WAS PAST AROUND YOUR BAR? HIS NAME WAS DOUG. Considering the bar in question was the Replay Lounge, I hope you went to the clinic and got yourself checked out the next day, Doug.



TO BE CONTINUED...