Via Natalie from the Dixie Chicks’ Myspace blog:

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

WM3 – CALL TO ACTION
Category: Life

I’m writing this letter today because three men have spent the past 13 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. On May 5th, 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas three 8 eight-year-old boys, Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore were murdered. Three teenage boys, Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley, and Jason Baldwin were convicted of the murders in 1994. Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley received life sentences without parole, and Damien Echols sits on death row. I encourage everyone to see the HBO documentaries, Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2 for the whole history of the case. I only discovered the films about 6 months ago, and when I finished Paradise Lost 2 I immediately got online to make sure that these three wrongly convicted boys had been set free since the films were released. My heart sank when I learned that the boys were now men and were still in prison. I couldn’t believe it. I searched for answers as to what had been done and what was being done to correct this injustice. I donated to the defense fund and received a letter from Damien Echols wife, Lorri. She is a lovely woman who has dedicated her time and heart to her husband. I was glad to hear that after so many years of fighting for justice it looked like things were finally happening. Below, I have written what the DNA and forensics evidence shows. I hope after reading it and looking at the WM3.org website, you will know that the wrong guys are sitting in jail right now, and feel compelled to help. Inspired and determined to see the justice system work, many people have worked on this case pro bono for the past 13 years. However, there are still costs that go along with the process of freeing these three men. There has been a wonderful resurgence of interest by the media for this case, but nobody mentions the need for funds. Donations to the defense fund are desperately needed. DNA and forensics tests are expensive. They are also what will finally set these men free. Due to so many people’s passion and generosity, what would normally be a case that costs millions is costing a fraction of that. I know around the holidays we all get inundated with deserving causes and charities that are in need of donations, but this can’t wait! With all of the new evidence things are finally moving, and fast! Any money that you can donate is desperately needed to pay for the experts and the federal court hearing that is just weeks away. There is also a letter campaign that has been started by a new and energized group of people in Arkansas. By clicking on this link, you can download the sample letter. Signing a sending this letter makes it very difficult for this case to be ignored. Please mail the letters to the following address:

Arkansas Take Action
Capi Peck, Coordinator
P.O. Box 17788
Little Rock, AR 72222-7788

After so many years it literally comes down to this hearing.
The evidence is so strong that at the very least the judge will grant a new trial, but hopefully he will overturn the verdict and these guys will finally be sent home to their lives and families. I know that this is a hard thing to just take my word on, so please look at the case and the evidence for yourself. I am confident that you will see the DNA evidence is irrefutable and that these three men did not get the kind of trial that is promised to us – as Americans. The system hasn’t only failed Damien, Jesse, and Jason, but it has failed the three little boys that were murdered. Their killer(s) is still out there, and just has yet to be served. Please know that your generosity will make a difference.

Sincerely,
Natalie Maines Pasdar

The following is just some of the DNA and forensic evidence that will be presented in the federal court hearing.

In late October, legal papers were filed in federal court in Arkansas showing that Damien Echols was wrongfully convicted. The 200-page court filing includes DNA evidence that fail to link any of the three boys to the crime scene. This is very important because the prosecution claimed that Echols had sodomized the victims.

-DNA tests also show that a hair belonging to Terry Hobbs, the step-father of one of the victims, was found in the ligature of one of the victims.

- DNA tests also match a hair at the crime scene to a friend of Hobbs that was with him that day.

-DNA test results show foreign DNA-from someone other than Echols, Misskelly, or Baldwin-on the penises of two of the victims.

-Scientific analysis from some of the nation’s leading forensics experts, stating that wounds on the victims’ bodies were caused by animals at the crime scene-not by knives used by the perpetrators, as the prosecution claimed. These wounds were the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case, and evidence was presented that a knife recovered from a lake near one defendant’s home caused the wounds.

-Sworn affidavits outlining new evidence uncovered by Pam Hobbs (the ex-wife of Terry Hobbs) who found a knife in Terry Hobbs’ drawer that her son (one of the victims) had carried with him at all times. After her son was killed, the knife was not among his personal effects that police gave to the Hobbs family, and Pam Hobbs always assumed that her son’s murderer had taken it during the crime.

-New information implicating Terry Hobbs-including his own statements made to police in recent interviews where he acknowledged that several of his relatives suspect him in the crime. The filing also includes a chronology of Hobbs’ activities on the night of the crimes, when he washed his clothes and sheets at odd hours for no reason other than to hide evidence from the crimes.

-A sworn affidavit that refutes hearsay evidence from Echols’ trial. The mother of one of two girls who testified that they overheard Echols admit to the crime at a softball game now says that Echols’ statement was not serious and that neither she nor her daughter believes he committed the crime.

When I was a little kid my dad told me a story. This was when we still lived in England, so I couldn’t have been older than six. My dad told me a story while playing me a song called Careful With That Axe, Eugene from the Ummagumma album by Pink Floyd. This was back when people actually listened to albums btw.

I don’t know where the hell he came up with this story, but I remember it pretty well. Obviously, in retelling it, I added a lot of my own to it. It wasn’t a first person narrative when he told it, and I added the parts about where the voices came from. But most of it is pretty much the same as the story he told me. There was a guy and a girl and Eugene, a fat bearded man who lived in the mountains and drove a dirty brown jeep and killed people with an axe.

Anyway, here’s the story. I recommend listening to the song at some point as well. Not only because story is about the song, but because it’s a fucking crazy song and you should know it if you haven’t heard it before.

The Star is Screaming

Once a month Eugene’s dirty brown jeep makes the twenty mile trek down the mountain. It’s the only time anyone in town sees him as far as I know. Always the first Saturday of the month.

My uncle Dan told me once that Eugene was a war vet, though I couldn’t tell you of which war. Honesty, I’d be hard pressed to guess how old he is. Could be Vietnam. Could be Korea. Hell, it could be WWI, I don’t know. All I know is he been coming down the mountain in that same jeep for as long as I’ve been alive and he always looked the same. And he always had that same gnarly looking half blind mutt in the back of his jeep.

It’s hard to guess his age because his face is buried under his beard. A big, ugly bush of twisted gray hair. What little you can see is scarred and beat down lookin’.  And he stank like nobodies business.. You could always tell when Eugene had been to town because Dottie’s General Store stank like shit the rest of the day.

He comes down the mountain to sell his meat at Dottie’s. He always got venison and elk. Occasionally bear or moose. Always something big and dead. He sells his meat and he buys three or four cartons of Marlboros and a case of Wild Turkey. He gasses up his jeep and picks up his mail. Then he’s gone, back up the mountain. He doesn’t talk to nobody and nobody tries to talk to him. They know better. There aint no point. Eugene don’t even look at anyone, much less strike up a conversation.

The only reason I know his name is cause I talked to Darla at the post office. Eugene Stanford. She said that till bout twelve years ago, he’d get letters and magazines. Hunting magazines mostly. The letters was from someone in the city named Emily Stanford. Could be a daughter or a sister or even a wife. She didn’t know and I couldn’t even begin to speculate. But then, like I said, ‘bout twelve years ago the letters stopped and now all he gets is hunting magazine and stroke books. And video tapes. Darla didn’t know what kind of tapes, because they didn’t have no return address. Just plain brown paper. She could tell they were videos by shaking the package though.

I’ve only been up to his place once before, and that was by accident. I took my girl, Clarice, with me on a call up in the mountains bout four or five years ago. I used to drive a tow-truck and I got a call to come pick up a car that’d driven off the side of the road and got itself stuck hanging off the side of the mountain. We’d get prolly three or four of those calls a month at least. Almost never that far up though. It was an old Chevy Caprice. One of them 80s models like they used to use for cop cars. Some dumb broad had slid off the side of the road and gotten hung up on a tree. She’s lucky she didn’t fall the fuck down the cliff.

Usually I didn’t take Clarice, but I knew it was gonna be a hell of a long drive and I didn’t want to go alone.

We got a little lost. Well, I got a little lost. It aint that I don’t know my way around up there, it’s just that it’s easy to get turned around on the wrong road and not have enough room to get turned back the way you need to be facing.

The half ounce of grass we were burning up didn’t help none either, to tell you the truth.

It started getting dark and we still hadn’t found that car yet. Usually you can find em pretty quick. But this time we were havin’ trouble. I found a couple places where it looked like it might have gone off. Where a fence had been busted down or a set of tire tracks in the mud, but when I stopped to look, there wasn’t no car. Eventually we turned up into this long driveway, hopin’ to find someone with a phone so I could call back down the mountain and see if the person had left another message.

We cruised down this drive way that seemed to go on for half a fuckin’ mile. We finally get to the house. There’s an old as shit barn that’s hardly standing and this ramshackle little shotgun shack. The one of the first things we noticed were the cars. There must have been twenty cars parks up here. Most of em was rotted and rusted and dead. But there was some halfway decent lookin’ rides there too. I remember a perfect lookin’ yellow Mach 1 that looked like it’d had more than a few grand dropped into it. I couldn’t make sense of it. But even the nice ones looked like they hadn’t been driven in years. They weren’t even parked in any sort of order either. Just kinda left wherever they stopped.

Then I seen that beat up brown jeep. It’s parked up next to the house. Sure as shit it’s Eugene’s jeep. Clarice started getting’ all worked up and telling me to turn around. She knew as well as I did whose house this was. It wasn’t that she was afraid of Eugene. Nobody was really. It was just that it felt kind of wrong to be up here, seein’ more than Eugene ever meant to show anyone. I have to say I kind of felt the same way.

But I also needed a phone and this was the first place we seen in a half hour of drivin’ around in the friggin mountains.

I pulled around to the front of the house, next to Eugene’s jeep. The sun was goin’ down by this point and I was startin’ to get a little pissed at myself for gettin’ turned around as I had. I’d told the dumb broad that I’d be about an hour and a half. We were getting onto three hours by this point. But fuck her anyway. What the hell was she doin’ way the fuck up in the mountains to begin with?

So yeah, I parked next to Eugene’s truck and I got out. Clarice grabs my arm and does her best scared puppy face. She asks me, practically begs me, to just stay in the truck and drive back down the mountain. I tell her not to be stupid. There’s a lady waiting for us and if we don’t find her by night, she could freeze up here.

I pull away from Clarice and tell her to wait in the truck. It was already starting to get cold, so I grabbed my coat from the back and walked up to the door. Nobody answered when I knocked, so I called out, asking if anyone was home. Still no answer. I look back at the truck and I see Clarice, pleading with her eyes. It kind of pisses me off to tell you the truth. Sometimes she just doesn’t understand ‘bout responsibility.

Around back, I hear the sound of somethin’ chewin’. Then I see that fuckin’ ugly dog. It’s layin’ on the back porch, gnawin’ away on a big ass hunk of bone. Must’ve been from a bear or something. Big ass shoulder chunk or something. The dog stops chewin’ when it sees me. For a minute I thought it was gonna come after me, but it just sat there, lookin’ at me with them beady little half blind eyes.

That’s when I seen Eugene.

He’s standin ‘bout a hundred feet from the house, bare ass naked. He’s just standin there, his back to me. His big ass hairy back. Then I realize that he’s holdin’ an axe. He’s not only holdin’ an axe, but he’s apparently in the middle of choppin’ wood. Naked.

He brings the axe over his head and brings it down, splittin’ a log. His rolls jiggling with the swing. I can see that he’s bleedin’ from a few different places on his legs, presumably from hunks of splintered wood.

That’s when I turn to go back to the truck. The cars in the yard was weird. This was just fuckin’ trippy. I turn around, hopin’ he didn’t hear me. Fuck the lady in the Caprice. This shit isn’t worth it.

Then I hear him talking. At first I think he’s talking to me. I turn around and he’s still standing there, his back to me. Sets up another log and splits it. More wood splinters off and cuts his calf. Then I hear him talkin’ again. I don’t hear what he’s sayin’ but it sounds like he’s havin’ a conversation with nobody.

Clarice calls my name and I know she’s coming around the house. Fucking dumb bitch was supposed to stay in the truck. If only she’d stayed in the fucking truck like she was supposed to.

Eugene turns around and looks right at me. But it feels like he’s looking through me. Like I aint even there. All I can see is those eyes peeking out from behind the scraggly gray beard. And they’re looking right through me, burning dark with some kind of animalistic hatred. I see his lips moving. He’s still talking, muttering either to himself or whatever invisible person he was talkin’ to.

Then he’s comin’ at me, his massive stomach swinging with each step. I hear Clarice say ‘oh my god!’ and I hear Eugene muttering to himself. He’s sayin’ somethin like ‘beneath the lies, the star is screaming.’

But I hear somethin’ else too. I hear somethin’ right before he hits me with that fuckin’ axe and Clarice starts screamin’ her head off. I hear another voice. It’s like a voice in my head but I heard it with my ears too. A woman’s voice. Almost like I heard it from the trees and the air. The voice said “Careful with that axe, Eugene.”

And then he hit me. Right in the side of my chest. I almost couldn’t feel it. It felt like when you get socked in the stomach and all the air runs out of you and you can’t pull any back in, except without the pain of gettin’ punched. I tried to yell but all that would come out was a wheeze. I’m pretty sure he popped one of my lungs or something. And then Clarice started screaming.

And she’s screaming. And screaming.

I tried to get up but Eugene put his foot on my chest and pulled the axe out. Immediately I felt blood spewing up my throat and I still couldn’t breath. It started to pour out of my mouth and nose. I turned and watched as Eugene went after Clarice. It didn’t take much. She turned to run but he grabbed her by the hair and threw her to the ground. I knew it was done then. I blacked out as he put the axe into her head.

When I woke up things was different. Clarice was with me. Her face was a little messed up from the axe and I had a hard time talkin’ because of the wound in my chest. But we know our place now. It’s kind of funny, because before I came up here, I used to think that Eugene must be the loneliest guy in the world. Livin’ up in the mountains all by himself, never talkin’ to no one.

But now I know better. He’s got plenty of people to talk to. He’s got us and a bunch more too. We all keep him company up here in the mountains. Even that dumb broad with the Caprice is here. I didn’t even notice her car when I pulled the truck up. We still don’t know much about Eugene and we don’t care. All we know is what he’s done. Done to us and done to others before us. And we remind him. All night we remind him and eventually, hopefully, he’s gonna realize what’s waitin’ for him when he finally does what’s right. Until then, we scream and we whisper and we never let him forget.

When someone else finds their way up here we do our best warn them off, but they never hear us until it’s too late. They always end up here behind the light with us. Behind the light of the star, screaming at Eugene with us, reminding him of what he done.
Currently Listening: Pink Floyd – Careful With That Axe, Eugene

I posted a little bit ago that I watched the 2004 TV movie Helter Skelter, starring Jeremy Davies as Charles Manson.

Around the time that movie came out on DVD I went looking for it. I couldn’t find it anywhere, but what I did find was this film, The Manson Family. Given that there was a string of horrible serial killer movies going straight to DVD at the time, covering everyone from John Wayne Gacey to Ed Gein to Jeffery Dahmer and everyone in between. Most of these movies were complete crap. There were a couple of stand outs (most notably is, in my opinion, Matthew Bright’s surprisingly entertaining film Ted Bundy) but generally the majority of them weren’t worth watching. Given that current climate in low budget, straight to video “true crime” serial killer movies, I didn’t get any farther than the box of The Manson Family. The images on the back looked so low budget and cheesy that any potential interest I might have had in it was gone. I eventually gave up my quest to find the Helter Skelter DVD and pretty much forgot about it. Every now and then (generally whenever I saw Jeremy Davies in anything else) I’d find myself wondering if the new Helter Skelter was as bad as people said it was.

As you probably know, I finally watched the 2004 Helter Skelter, and yeah, it was pretty bad. It had moments that were interesting, and it’s focus was more on what led up to the murders rather than the trial itself (which was what the book was mostly about, naturally, since it was written by prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi) and the way Charlie interacted with the family.

I read a review of the DVD of The Manson Family (which I’d since forgotten about) that was singing it’s praises. I still anticipated a pretty hefty load of crap, but my curiosity was raised and I set about trying to procure a copy. I ended up downloading it and I just finished watching it.

Holy shit! That movie was fucking AWESOME!

Yes, it’s extremely low budget… but it’s intentionally extremely low budget. It’s filmed as though it’s a no-budget independent movie from the 70s. It’s like a mix of Last House on the Left, Behind the Green Door and like… an early Troma film.

It’s a fake documentary, mixing “interview” footage with actors playing the people involved, both in the interviews and the reenactments. If it wasn’t for a few production errors (and the fairly obnoxious modern storyline following a group of new Manson family members that didn’t need to be there) I would have believed that it WAS a low budget 70s exploitation film. The film is purposely cheap and degraded. The sets are cheap and feel like 70s porn sets. The acting is the same kind of stiff and awkward acting you get when you hire a bunch of local theater kids to act in your movie. The same kind of acting you find in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Toxic Avenger. Whether that was intentional or not, or just a fortunate accident, doesn’t really matter, because it works perfectly. The editing is cheap and completely inline with 70s horror. It’s loaded with cheesy horror gore and about as much sex and nudity you can pack into a movie without getting an X rating. It’s an exploitation film in all it’s glory and completely unapologetic and proud of what it is.

All of that aside, the film also manages to portray probably the most accurate and honest rendition of the Manson Family story I’ve seen yet. Yet, at the same time, is ridiculously over the top and silly.

The way it works is somewhat similar to the movie Wonderland that came out a few years ago, about John Holmes and the Wonderland murders. Like Wonderland (though not nearly as cohesively) it presents the events from a few different perspectives. It shows what the Family members said about what happened, what the myths about the events were and then what the film makers believes actually happened. It does this chaotically and without real definition, so at times, it’s hard to really tell which story you’re actually watching. But in the end, you get a definite feel for both the sympathetic view of the events as well as the demonic, more commonly accepted view, and finally, the simply sad and entirely unimpressive “reality” of the situation.

The film itself isn’t sympathetic to Charlie or the Family at all, but it does a fantastic job of showing how things could snowball into the horror of the killing spree. We get the impression that things started out innocently enough and that the excessive drug use and attempts to distance themselves from the capitalist American culture, combined with Charlie’s frustration with inability to get a record deal and a drug deal that ended in violence eventually pushed the family well over the edge, and they simply weren’t able to crawl back to sanity. The whole situation was really much more pathetic and sad than evil and menacing. Charlie wasn’t/isn’t a puppet master. He was exactly as he says he is… a dirty kid that was raised in the gutter, destined for jail and was never meant to function in our society. He was charismatic and he understood people and what people want to hear, and he used that to build a family for himself. And I mean an actual family. He, like anyone else, wanted to be loved and accepted, and the way he facilitated that was by providing a place for lost children to “find themselves” and do what lost children want to do… sit around smoking weed and fucking. It was destined to fall apart, and it’s a shame it crashed and burned as violently and horrifically as it did.

Vincent Bugliosi wants you to believe that Charles Manson is a monster. That he controls people and brainwashes people and that he can stop clocks with his mind and that he has networks of hundreds of people everywhere, waiting to spring Helter Skelter on the world. He’d have you believe that Charlie Manson convinces people to kill for him because he’s a sadistic devil. I simply don’t believe that.

I believe that Charles Manson and the Manson Family were collectively in that place where you can’t really tell what’s up and what’s down. Where reality and chaos are so intertwined that it’s impossible to get any sort of grip on what’s real and right and decent and what’s just a bloody hunk of your Id pouring out of your brain. You do enough acid and spend enough of your time stoned out of your head and I think it gets fairly easy to lose track of where your feet are and why you’re doing what you’re doing. I don’t think there was a whole lot of rational thought involved in the killings that happened. I believe there was intent to murder and I believe that these people who committed those crimes are guilty of murder, but I also don’t really believe anyone involved was thinking with a clear head, Charlie included.

Yeah, they had their Helter Skelter theory, and yeah, I believe they were pretty heavily invested in it. If you get worked up enough about something, and you get stoned enough, some crazy shit can start to make sense. And really, at the time these kids were formulating this theory about an impending race war, it’s hard to deny that the idea wasn’t really that crazy. Obviously the Beatles weren’t instructing anyone to do anything, but things DID look pretty grim at the time. Race relations were completely fucked in the 60s and 70s. The concept of a race war wasn’t that far off from a potential reality. So was it crazy? Yeah… but not nearly as crazy as it seems looking back.

The Manson Family, like the Waco Branch Davidians and the Jones Town nutjobs, were really little more than a bunch of sad people pushed into a corner. They tip toed too far into the deep end of the pool before they realized they couldn’t swim. They were led by someone who started out well intentioned enough, but didn’t know how to handle the unquestioning love and devotion and worship laid at his feet, and it went to his head. These leaders got greedy and started to believe their own bullshit. When sane people didn’t accept them the way their followers did, the results were ugly.

Is Charles Manson a bad guy? Yeah, I think he is. I think he’s as bad as anyone who can’t function in our society without creating chaos and violence. He’s as bad as anyone who takes their need for love and validation to an inappropriate level. He’s a bad guy… but I also think he’s just a guy. He preached love and the destruction of the egos society gives us… and eventually it ended in horrible, unfortunate violence. He’s a charismatic, intelligent guy who has a fucked up set of values and a completely whacked view of the world. Whacked in the sense that it doesn’t jive with our society as it stands right now. But then again, the same thing was said about Jesus Christ.

So there was a special on the Discovery Channel last night about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians. It was a very straight forward, just the facts kind of special which was a little frustrating. No speculation about anything. No questioning of how the fire started or who fired first. But it was interesting nonetheless.

It got me thinking about the whole situation and how it would make a kickass movie. They did a TV movie at the time with Tim Daly from Wings as Koresh, but I never watched it.

It’s a movie that could never get made though. At least not by me.
The main reason is because I would have to approach it from an perspective that people wouldn’t like.

Watching it, I kept wondering to myself “What if this guy really WAS the second coming of Christ?” and that’s the direction I would take my movie.
Not that I believe he was, but just “what if?” you know?

I mean, what would happen if Jesus came back all ready for the apocalypse and trying to get people prepared for the end of the world? Would he stockpile guns like that? Would he train people with AK47s?
I think he probably would.

I had issue with the question of whether or not Jesus would take on a bunch of wives, including 16 year old girls.

Then I figured that, while Jesus was theoretically the son of god (though I approach that claim as though he meant that we are all children of god, himself included, and not that he’s like, literally the son of god) he was still a mortal man. I imagine that a mortal man who has been put into this position of power over that many people would probably take advantage of it. Especially if he can find bible verses to back him up.

The whole situation was totally fucked up and I certainly don’t agree with really anything that happened there, whether it’s what the Branch Davidians were up to or the way the raid was handled.

But still… what if?

My movie would take place entirely in the Mount Carmel compound. There wouldn’t be anything about the ATF or FBI investigations or anything leading up to the raid except the things that directly involved the people in the compound. And I would probably get Christian Bale to play David Koresh. My first thought was Val Kilmer, but I think he might be a little too old. I mean, David Koresh was 33 when he died. Was there anyone else who was 33 when they were martyred by the government? Oh yeah, JESUS.

I don’t think I could do that movie and retain any credibility or get funding for future movies. I think it would pretty much sink my career.
And I have to start now because I’m starting to research and it’s really not a good idea. I tend to do that. I read an entire book about Jack the Ripper and looked a hundreds of websites to research a ten minute scene in my Vampire movie… and that scene didn’t actually REALLY have anything to do with anything that really happened in the Jack the Ripper case. My Jack was an entirely invented character and I didn’t focus on any of the real murders with any detail.

So yeah, I need to stop doing research for a movie I’m not going to write.

Huh. Someone just posted a whack of pictures of the compound today in the abandoned places community.

Jack the Ripper ‘may have been female’

May 17, 2006 – 1:09PM

Jack the Ripper could well be a Jill.

In a bid to crack the identity of one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time, technology developed in Australia has tested 118-year-old DNA the notorious serial killer may have left behind and built a partial female profile.

Scientist Ian Findlay said the partial profile had been created from saliva possibly from the Ripper on the back of stamps on the envelopes of letters sent to London police.

Most of the 600 or so letters claiming to have come from the Ripper – who butchered at least five prostitutes in London’s East End in 1888 – have been dismissed as hoaxes but a few are thought to be genuine.

Brisbane-based Professor Findlay said he used his method, called Cell Track-ID, capable of extracting and compiling a DNA fingerprint from a single cell or strand of hair up to 160 years old.

It can amplify information from a single cell and is hundreds of times more powerful than DNA profiling techniques used by crime fighting bodies such as the FBI that require at least 200 human cells.

“It’s possible the Ripper could be female but the results are inconclusive,” said Prof Findlay, who is the chief scientific officer at the Gribbles Molecular Science forensic lab.

He said because the samples were so old, very small and poorly preserved, only a partial profile was built that “didn’t reach forensic standards” nor identified an individual.

“It shows the technology works … the FBI lab in Virginia got no profiles … but the samples were just too difficult,” Prof Findlay said.

The partial profile was built from what is known as the Openshaw letter.

“The Dear Boss letter, said to have blood stains from (victim number five) Mary Kelly had a male profile so it wasn’t the blood of Mary Kelly,” he also said.

Prof Findlay tested hair and debunked the belief it was from another mutilated victim, Catherine Eddowes.

The detective in charge of the case, Frederick Abberline, suggested the Ripper was a woman following claims Ms Kelly was seen hours after she was killed.

Abberline believed this was the killer escaping in Kelly’s clothes.

Mary Pearcey was the only female suspect and was convicted and hanged for killing her lover’s wife shortly after the Ripper murders – and reportedly used the same modus operandi.

Lewis Carroll a suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders?

Obviously, the chances that Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll, author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) was Jack the Ripper is entirely ludicrous, but the idea of it makes me smile for some reason. Not because I want it to be true, but because I love that someone, somewhere believes it. There’s a certain degree of darkness surrounding the Alice stories that appeals to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper%2C_Light-Hearted_Friend

Jack the Ripper, Light-Hearted Friend is a 1996 book by Richard Wallace in which Wallace expressed the theory that British mathematician Lewis Carroll, whose real name was Charles L. Dodgson (1832-1898) and his colleague Thomas Vere Bayne were responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders.

This theory was based primarily on a number of anagrams derived from passages in two of Carroll’s works, The Nursery Alice, an adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for younger readers, and from the first volume of Sylvie and Bruno. Carroll first published both works in 1889 and was probably still working on them during the period of the canonical murders. Wallace claimed that the books contained hidden but detailed descriptions of the murders. This theory gained enough attention to make Carroll a late but notable addition to the list of suspects, although one that is generally not taken very seriously.

Carroll’s recent biographers and Ripperologists have argued that this theory has some very serious flaws. One of the most vocal critics was Karoline Leach, who in a lecture about Wallace’s theory gave three main arguments against it:

• The same method of anagrams can be applied to any number of works written in the Latin alphabet and using the English language without proving any intention by the original author. Leach demonstrated her point by applying it to passages of A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh.

• Carroll and Bayne had clear alibis for at least three of the murders:
  • On April 3, 1888, when Emma Elizabeth Smith was attacked in London, Carroll was in Oxford and was temporarily unable to walk due to health problems. (Although most authorities do not believe the Ripper was responsible for Smith’s injuries.)
  • From August 31 through September 30, 1888, when Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes were killed, Carroll was vacationing in Eastbourne, East Sussex along with Isa Bowman, a child actress and personal friend of his. Meanwhile, Thomas Vere Bayne had severe back pain during the summer of 1888 and was barely able to move.
  • On November 9, 1888, when Mary Jane Kelly was killed, both Carroll and Bayne were reportedly in Oxford.

• Carroll had some interest in the Jack the Ripper case, though given the intense publicity given to the murders, his interest was hardly unusual. An August 26, 1891 passage of his diary reports that he spoke that day with Dr. Dabbs, an acquaintance of his, about “his very ingenious theory about ‘Jack the Ripper’”. Although the theory he refers to is unknown, the passage does not indicate that Carroll was personally involved in the case.

Carroll has been voted by the staff and readers of Casebook: Jack the Ripper as the least likely suspect (out of 22 names featured) to have actually been Jack the Ripper.

External links

• Casebook: Jack the Ripper
• “Jack Through the Looking-Glass (or Wallace in Wonderland)” – An article by Karoline Leach from Ripper Notes, January 2001 (issue #7), giving more detailed criticism of Wallace’s book.

Current music: The Smiths – Jack the Ripper

It occurred to me that other people (sane people) might not be as familiar with Charles Manson’s particular manner of speaking. So the humor of the clips I posted earlier from the Ben Stiller show and Bob Odenkirk’s impersonation of him might be lost on some.

For reference, here’s a slip of the real Charles Manson on the Today Show. It’s an interview with Heidi Schulman from the 80s.

The crazy bullshit is an act by Manson that he puts on when he’s being interviewed. It works in his favor to be perceived as completely insane and I think he finds it entertaining.

Current music: The Who – Cousin Kevin

Bob Odenkirk (of Mr. Show Starring Bob and Dave) played Charles Manson on the Ben Stiller show. Friggin hilarious. Especially if you know anything about Charles Manson.

Whoa… okay, so he’s admitted to killing 49 women, and was going after one more when he was caught. He wanted to make it an even fifty. They found a bunch of severed heads in buckets in his house and… get this… he ground the women up and made sausages out of them and then sold them as pork! HOLY FUCK! The police are advising people that if they are worried about Hepatitis, they’ll be fine if they fully cooked the sausages, but if they have any left, they should throw them out.

FUCK! This is going to be exciting!

So I was watching The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos last night. That’s Stroumboulopoulos, not Stephanopoulos, Bill Clinton’s political advisor dude.

For those who don’t know, George was a correspondent on the Canadian equivalent of MTV, Much Music, who went on to have his own show on the CBC called The Hour. He’s pretty damned good at what he does and brings a good perspective to news and media events. He really knows his shit too. I enjoy watching the show, provided that he’s talking about something interesting or there’s nothing else on.

Anyway, now that that’s established, last night he had on Henry Rollins. I haven’t seen Rollins in years. I had no idea that he got so… old. His hair is gray, his muscles are soft. His tattoos don’t look like they’re stretched over concrete anymore… they’re like, old man tattoos. It’s sad. Not sad for him, but sad for me, because it’s a reminder that I’m getting old too.

I remember when Henry Rollins was this huge tower of strength and intensity.

When I was a kid, he was what I wanted to be as an adult. Smart, huge, good looking, covered in tattoos, not at all full of shit and totally badass. This was a guy who could kick the shit out of you and then sit down with your broken and bleeding body and explain exactly WHY he kicked the shit out of you and make you feel bad about it and apologize to him for hurting his fists.

Now, I don’t doubt that he could still do that, but there’s something shocking about seeing him like this. Not huge. Not all powerful. Old.

I still have all the respect in the world for Rollins, but it did bum me out a bit watching this interview.

Here’s a link to the video of the interview, if you’re interested.

In related news (related because it’s also distinctly Canadian) the trial of Robert Pickton starts next week.

Pickton is (allegedly) an extremely prolific serial killer from Port Coquitlam, BC, right outside of Vancouver. He’s accused (or, at least being charged with) 26 counts of murder. The remains of over thirty women (mostly prostitutes) were found on his property.

This should be exciting! I love serial killers! I was worried that they were going to cut us off from media coverage of the trial, but all indications are that we’re going to get a massive media circus. Thank god for that!

Well, I don’t love serial killers. I love learning about them. In a purely academic way. It doesn’t like, give me wood or anything. It’s just interesting to me.

Man held in deaths of 5 Brit prostitutes

By MARTIN BENEDYK, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 18 minutes ago

IPSWICH, England – Police on Monday arrested a 37-year-old grocery store clerk on suspicion of killing five prostitutes — slayings that struck terror in this quiet English community.

British media quoted the suspect as saying he knew all the victims and had been repeatedly interviewed by police about the killings.

But the man, identified as Tom Stephens, said he did not kill the women, whose naked bodies were dumped in rural areas around Ipswich, 70 miles northeast of London.

“I don’t have alibis for some of the times (of the killings), actually I’m not entirely sure I have tight alibis for any of the times. But I’m not worried about being charged. I’m innocent,” he was quoted as telling The Sunday Mirror.

Stephens, who also worked as a part-time taxi driver, was known to have visited an Internet blog site under the pseudonym “The Bishop,” where he listed his interests as “keeping fit” and music from the ’80s. His hero, he said, is the cartoon character Hong Kong Phooey.

The arrest, which came 16 tense days after the first body was found dumped in a stream, caused a sensation in Britain. It prompted comparisons with Jack the Ripper, the notorious Victorian serial killer who murdered at least five East London prostitutes in 1888.

Photographers and news crews swarmed the street where the suspect lived in Trimley St. Martin, eight miles southeast of Ipswich. Television news helicopters buzzed overhead.

“Well it’s all just very frightening knowing … a possible murderer was where I used to walk alone sometimes,” said neighbor Evelyn Davey. “My husband doesn’t let me out of his sight since all this happened.”

Suffolk police said they arrested the suspect at 7:20 a.m. but refused to identify him or say where he was being held.

“He has been arrested on the suspicion of murdering all five women,” said Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull.

In the Sunday Mirror interview, Stephens was quoted as saying he had already been questioned by authorities under caution — meaning he was regarded as a suspect and had been warned of his legal rights.

“From the police profiling it does look like me — white male between 25 and 40, knows the area, works strange hours. The bodies have got close to my house,” Stephens was quoted as saying.

“If new information, coincidental information, crops up, I could get arrested,” he added, maintaining he was confident he would not be charged.

The victims have been identified as Paula Clennell, 24, who died of compression to her neck, and Anneli Alderton, 24, who was strangled. Forensic examinations of the bodies of Tania Nicol, 19, Annette Nicholls, 29, and Gemma Adams, 25, have reached no conclusion on the cause of death.

Stephens said he was a friend of all five victims.

 ”I was closest to Tania. And Gemma as well. I was close to the others as well. But I should have been there to look over them,” The Sunday Mirror quoted him as saying.

He said he had visited around 50 prostitutes in the year after his eight-year marriage collapsed. “Over time I have been involved with most of the (dead) girls,” he was quote as saying.

At one point he described himself as a “protector” of the women, but he also said he was as “close as there was to a pimp.”

In excerpts from an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. aired Monday, Stephens said he sometimes drove the women to collect their drugs.

A neighbor said police had searched Stephens’ house earlier this month.

“About a week and a half ago, forensic teams were at that house for four to five hours,” said Geoffrey Bond, 53. “They took some stuff away in boxes from the area.”

Three of the bodies were found near the main road and the rail line between Ipswich and Trimley; the other two were discovered near the same road in areas south and southwest of Ipswich.

Lesley-Anne Barber, 50, who lives near Stephens, described him as “a bit of a weirdo.”

“He used to just wander around in the back garden. He didn’t seem the sort of person that would want to have anything to do with anyone,” Barber said.

so I just woke up.

I got nothing really to say.

Okay, that’s not true, I’ve got tons to say but I don’t really have the energy to write it all out.

The Joker.

Okay, so we know that The Joker has been cast in the sequel to Batman Begins. Heath Ledger is playing The Joker. My initial gut reaction is “OMG NO” because, well… The Joker is my all time favorite comic book character, and really… who the fuck is Heath Ledger? Everything I know about him can be summed up by his photograph. He looks like a male model.

That being said, I haven’t seen him in much of anything. I saw The Brothers Grim, and he was fine in that, but he didn’t really do a lot. I can’t really judge his abilities based on one performance in a mediocre and flawed film.

In his favor, he’s got two things going for him as far as I can tell. #1. Terry Gilliam trusted his abilities enough to cast him in The Brothers Grim and #2. The people who made Batman Begins trusted his abilities enough to cast him as The Joker.

I didn’t see his audition and I don’t know a whole lot about him, so I’m gonna try and trust that these people know what they’re doing.

“The Fans” (myself included) were gunning for Crispin Glover. Hell, Crispin Glover was gunning for Crispin Glover.

But that is apparently not to be, which is kind of a shame.

Though, when I really think about it, I don’t know if Glover has the acting chops to pull it off. I’m sure he could be wickedly scary and funny as The Joker, but I don’t know if he could really pull off a well rounded character or not, or if he’d just be more of a cartoony monster.

Here’s the question though… how are they going to approach this?

Ledger has said that he’s approaching The Joker more along the lines of Alex from A Clockwork Orange. That’s very interesting to me. It says, to me, that they’re on the right track.

I was never happy with Jack Nicholson in the Tim Burton Batman movie. To me, it felt like Nicholson was picking up a paycheck. He put on the goofy makeup and did his Jack Nicholson thing, but he always just felt like Jack wearing make up. I never got the impression that he particularly cared WHAT he was saying or who he was playing.

The other problem with Nicholson as The Joker was the story they gave him to work with. They decided that before The Joker became The Joker, he was a mob thug. This automatically took away any real defining characteristics and made him cartoon from the get go. He’s suddenly a comic book cliche. Another bad guy wearing a black shirt that says “GOON” across the front in block white letters. There was no sympathy for the character because he started off as a bad guy who just got badder. That’s not interesting. It doesn’t make for a good story, and it certainly doesn’t make for a good Batman villain.

The Joker deserves better than that.

Here’s the thing about The Joker: He’s essentially Batman gone wrong. That’s important. The Joker represents the direction Batman COULD have taken, had he gone just a little crazier than he went.

For those who don’t know, the definitive Joker origin comes from the brilliant comic writer Alan Moore, in the story The Killing Joke. It’s a retelling of the original Joker origin. In it, we find out that The Joker was a failed stand up comic who was unable to support his family through his craft. He tried and tried but could never quite put food on the table being a comedian. Desperate to make ends me, he takes on a job doing a small task for the mob. All he has to do is take these two thieves through a chemical plant that he used to work at (and therefor knows his way around) so they can rob the place. He tries to back out of the job at the last minute (after finding out that his pregnant wife has been accidentally killed) but the criminals won’t let him.

Once inside, the robbery goes terrible wrong and they’re confronted by Batman. In an attempt to escape, The Joker jumps into a vat of chemicals and is washed out to the river, only to find that his skin and hair have all been discolored (white, red and green) which pushes him over the edge into insanity.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Now, if I were to do The Joker story in a new Batman movie, I’d probably go with some variation of this story.

One thing that would need to be addressed is exactly WHY The Joker has his constant insane grin that is his trademark. Burton’s Batman movie through in a flimsy explanation (probably to try and explain the ridiculous latex exaggeration they had glued on Nicholson’s face) saying that he had been hit in the face with broken glass and that the nerves in his face had been completely severed, leaving him incapable of NOT smiling. Hence the famous scene where Nicholson smashes the mirror in the back ally surgeon’s office.

That’s one way to look at it. Unfortunately for Burton, it left a major hole in his story (IE, if the chemicals in the vat only make your skin white and your hair green, then why did make the victims of The Joker’s poisoning with the same chemicals have the same ghastly grin) and it also took even more away from The Joker’s insanity, which is the most important part of his character.

The Joker shouldn’t constantly grin because he’s disfigured… he should constantly grin because he’s that fucking crazy.

The key element of The Joker’s story is it’s correlation to Batman’s story. Both men went crazy after the death of their families. The difference between the two is that The Joker went just a little bit crazier. Batman’s insanity manifests in his vigilante vengeance. He beats up petty crooks (and costumed villains) to make him feel better about his parents being murdered. The Joker takes it a step further and hurts anyone who happens to cross his path, and he doesn’t presume to atatch it to any particular purpose, even though he is where he is because of the death of his wife and unborn child. In this way, Batman and The Joker are almost the same person. The difference is that Batman feels as though he’s doing something good for the world and The Joker simply doesn’t care.

Nicholson’s Joker was a sociopath who felt was producing great art by disfiguring the public in his own image. This is a very Joker thing to do, but it was approached from an angle that I don’t agree with. The Joker in Burton’s Batman was a sadistic monster who got off on hurting people. He was obsessed with death and suffering. There was a very creepy scene where he’s kidnapped Vicki Vale (a photographer and the film’s female lead) and is explaining that what he’s interested in is “The skulls… the bodies… you give it all such a glow! I don’t know if it’s art, but I like it!”

I don’t know. I’m not really into it. It seems to me that we’re missing something important here.

Here’s the thing. The Joker is not a serial killer. He’s not a sadist. He doesn’t get off on hurting people. He’s a sociopath, not a sadist. He does what he does because he finds it entertaining. It’s fun for him. It’s not a sick compulsion that needs to be fed but a demented cure for boredom. He’s having fun. The Joker isn’t Ted Bundy or Ed Gein. He’s something more evil. He’s someone who hurts people for fun. He’s not feeding some sort of sick sexual desire and he’s doesn’t go home and cry and hurt himself when he’s all alone. He simply doesn’t care. He does what he does without any empathy or understanding and he doesn’t care. Even the worst serial killers have moments where they question what they’ve done. I have the feeling that The Joker would barely remember what he’s done, muchless feel bad about it.

::later::

I went to work and now I’m back. I should finish up this post.

I think my fascination with The Joker stems from a general interest that I have in the evil that human beings do and why they do it. I’ve always been interested in that. When I was younger it manifested in a somewhat sick hero worship of Charles Manson. That was a passing phase, but the interest has always remained. There was a time when I could discuss the details of the Tate/LaBianca murders and exactly why I believed that Charles Manson was not directly responsible for those deaths. As an adult, I am comfortable with admitting that I was slightly misguided and that Charles Manson is an evil fucker, though still very interesting. Recently I became very interested in Ted Bundy, though not to the degree that I obsessed about Manson. My interest in Bundy had a lot more to do with the way his image and story clashed with the typical serial killer model.

That’s something that’s been a thread through my life, and I doubt it will ever stop being there. I’m certainly not ashamed or embarrassed about it, though it’s not something I bring up casually.

It all comes back to a fascination with evil. Not just evil in a broad Good/Evil way, but in that way that enables human beings to do terrible, terrible things without guilt or remorse. And without a feeling of responsibility. Ted Bundy and Charles Manson ascertained through out their trials and lives that they were simply victims of circumstance, even though mountains of evidence proved that they were 100% guilty of their crimes.

That’s interesting to me.

And I believe that’s why I love The Joker so much. Unlike the majority of comic book villains, The Joker doesn’t do what he does out of greed or a lust for power or a rivalry with a superhero. The Joker does what he does because he’s a sick bastard.

If The Joker were a real person in the real world, he’d be the most interesting and entertaining murder in modern times.

That’s how he should be approached in a Batman movie. He should be approached with respect for what he is in the context of the world he exists in.

Batman Begins worked so well because Christopher Nolan and David Goyer were able to successfully put Batman in a real world setting. Sure, it was comic booky in it’s way, but it was the most realistic approach to a comic book superhero I’ve ever seen on film. While Burton’s films attempted to create a cartoony and comic book style world for Batman to exist in on screen, Nolan and Goyer put Batman in the context of OUR world. That’s why it’s essential that they approach The Joker not as a flamboyant goof but as he would be interpreted in our world: a serial killer. He may not be exactly that, but that’s what he’d be classified as if he existed in our world.

A serial killer, yes, but a very special kind of killer. He fits into that rare breed of killers who are cocky and comfortable with what they are. He fits in with Ted Bundy in that way. Not in the nature of his crimes (IE, he’s not raping and dismembering people) but in the way he carries himself. He has to believe that he’s untouchable. He has to believe that he’s god and everyone else is on some level below them, incapable of thinking for themselves or comprehending the way he works. The Joker isn’t a David Berkowitz (The Son of Sam) or Jeffrey Dahmer. He’s not tortured. He’s not someone who could have possibly been saved through medication and therapy. The Joker, like Ted Bundy and Charles Manson, is a completely new breed of human being. He’s someone who is incapable of relating to other humans on his own level. He’s someone who can’t be touched or understood by logical thinking people. The Joker is someone who exists on his own playing field, and the people around him are simply sheep ready for slaughter. And he, like Bundy and Manson, is quite simply a monster.

And no one is that kind of monster in his world.

Except Batman.

That’s the key to The Joker’s involvement in a Batman story. He can relate to Batman in some way. Because Batman is also a monster. Batman is also a sociopath. Batman sees the world in black and white. He sees people as either evil, and in need of punishment, or as weak and in need of protection. He doesn’t relate to anyone. Even though he may not believe it himself, Batman doesn’t truly care for anyone except himself. He can’t. He’s too far gone. Bruce Wayne doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a reoccurring theme in the Batman universe that Bruce Wayne is the mask that Batman puts on, not the other way around. Bruce Wayne is who Batman pretends to be in order to exist.

The Joker is Batman’s mirror. That’s why they work so well together. That’s why the best Batman comics are Joker stories. Batman and The Joker understand each other, even though Batman may not be willing to admit it.

That’s why they’ll never kill each other. The Joker will never kill Batman intentionally. He’ll torture him and put him through the worst possible tests and challenges, but he’ll never kill him. He can’t kill Batman. Killing Batman would be like killing himself. And, of course, Batman will never kill the Joker. At least in a good Batman story. That’s one of the things I hated about Burton’s Batman movie. Batman killed the Joker. He not only killed him, but he murdered him. Not only is that something that Batman would never do to anyone, it’s something he especially wouldn’t ever do to The Joker. He needs The Joker. They need each other. They’re almost like twins. One is evil and one is good, but they both share the same genetic structure and they’re identical.

So what do you do with The Joker in the next Batman movie?

Of course I’m nervous about Heath Ledger. I can’t help that. I do like the fact that they could both be about the same age. I think that’s important.

A while back I put forth the completely unusable and downright silly idea of actually having Christian Bale play both Batman AND The Joker. Even I wouldn’t have the balls to try and pull that off, but I think that if someone WERE able to do that, it would be fucking awesome. I’m hopeful that they’ll subscribe to at least some of my interpretation of The Joker and his place in the Batman storyline. I believe that they have a pretty similar understanding of what makes Batman interesting, and I hope that carries through with their telling of The Joker’s tale.

Early on, there was talk of Michael Keaton playing The Joker. That would be incredibly interesting, though not my ideal choice. It would be interesting simply because of the fact that Keaton played Batman in the Burton movies. That would very nicely pull the idea that Batman and The Joker are almost the same guy into the mix. I don’t believe that Keaton would quite fit the bill as far as the actual task of playing the character goes. I think he would have probably done something very similar to what Jack Nicholson did, but it was a nice thought anyway.

Now, the question is: How would I do it?

I’ve talked in the past about the Batman script I partially wrote (and recently found in a box in the closet and haven’t scanned yet, or even reread) back when I was naive about how the movie industry works. What I wrote was about 45 pages of an Arkham Asylum adaptation. I was around seventeen or eighteen at the time. My vision for that film included, for some reason, a primarily British cast. I pictured Gary Oldman as Batman (funny considering that Oldman ended up playing James Gordon in Batman Begins) and, at times, David Bowie as The Joker. I even pictured them with their British accents intact. At the time, I felt comfortable with the idea that Gotham City wasn’t necessarily in America, or any other specific place.

In retrospect, there are aspects of it that just seem silly now, and aspects of it that I really like. When I was writing the script, (ten years ago or so) Gary Oldman was at just the right age that he probably could have done a decent job as Batman. He’s a little old for it now, as is Bowie.

If I were to do it now, I actually probably would still do the Arkham Asylum story. It’s a great story and it’s primary theme is what interests me most about Batman. It’s basically about the fact that Batman is just as insane as the people he locks away in the asylum.

There are a number of actors I could see playing The Joker. I think Adrian Brody would do a fine job. I think Josh Lucas could pull it off nicely as well. He’s got a certain intensity in his eyes and a mania bubbling under the surface that I can appreciate.

Now I’m getting sleepy and must go to bed. I’m pretty sure that a lot of this post is rambling nonsense. I’m also fairly sure that I’ve repeated myself a few times and that I’ve even contradicted myself as far as saying that The Joker isn’t like Ted Bundy and then going on to explain why he IS like Ted Bundy. Whatever, it’s all good.

So I’m watching some CNN thing about Steve Irwin. The chump hosting it has Steve’s best friend and manager on the phone. He keeps asking him to describe the attack and if it was true that Steve pulled the barb out of his chest and wanted to go back in the water. The guy is just about crying on the phone talking about the death of his best friend and this guy’s asking him for more details on exactly what happened when they pulled Steve out of the water.

Then they brought out Jack Hanna and started asking him about sting rays. Jack kept reiterating that sting rays are generally not dangerous animals. He said that he didn’t want people to start staying away from the ocean out of fear of sting rays the way they did about sharks after Jaws. He said that the last person in Australia (where Irwin was killed) to die from a sting ray attack was eighteen years ago.

The host kept trying to play sting rays up as these like, vicious monsters of the ocean. Then they brought out this other Animal Planet host (I forget his name) and that guy said the same thing about sting rays, that he didn’t want people to start freaking out about them and that you’re more likely to get struck by lightning than to be attacked by a sting ray.

So then that segment ends and CNN’s next segment starts and the title is in big ominous letters and it’s something like “STING RAYS!!! NATURES MOST EVIL SONS OF BITCHES!! DON’T LEAVE YOUR HOUSE OR THEY’LL KILL YOU!!!” and they did this whole segment about sting rays and how badly they can fuck you up. They interviewed this dude from some aquarium somewhere and he’d be stung once in the hand and he kept going on about how badly it hurt, but that his job was handling sting rays and it probably would have happened eventually, considering that he fucks with them it all the time. But CNN kept on with the sting ray scare tactics.

It just pisses me off. CNN is so bent on keeping people scared of everything. The next segment after the sting ray one was “It’s been five years since 9-11! Are we any safer now from terrorists than we were before?!” and now they’re talking about how terrorists are going to kill us all at any minute.

Jesus Christ!

I wish that the terrorists would go to Atlanta and fucking blow up CNN. That’s how sick of it I am.

Why does every fucking news story have to be twisted into  “Do you REALLY THINK YOU’RE SAFE?!”

By Christmas they’ll be doing stories about people being killed at shopping malls going Christmas shopping. Halloween will be all about people dressed up in costumes kidnapping kids and passing out tainted candy.

I don’t know if people still do this or not, but remember how when we were kids and we went Trick or Treating and our parents had to inspect our candy to make sure there weren’t razorblades or poison in our candy?

What in the complete fuck was THAT about? I know that they learned that from the news, because I remember the news telling people “you better check your kid’s candy because it might be tainted with evil!”

What the shit?! Have you EVER heard of a kid getting poisoned or finding a razorblade in their candy? That shit just doesn’t happen. Okay, so there might be one crazy guy once who did that. I’m sure it’s maybe happened once or twice, like, ever. Does that mean that we’ve all of a sudden got to inspect all candy for tampering? Are you fucking shitting me?

I’m not checking shit when my kids get their trick or treat candy. They can eat it all in the car on the way home for all I care. Kids are more likely to get a box of Reese’s Pieces with a dead baby rat in it from the factory in the middle of June than a Tootsie Roll with a razorblade in it on Halloween. It’s completely fucking retarded.

Sting rays aren’t going to attack you unless you fuck with them, and even then it’s not going to kill you. Terrorists aren’t going to blow you up and crazy people aren’t going to poison your kids Halloween candy. Oh, and, you know what? Chances are, unless you live in Africa, you’re probably not going to get AIDS either. CNN needs to shut the fuck up.

Alright, being the horror fan that I am, I’m a little embarrassed to say that I watched the first Halloween movie tonight. For the first time.

In fact, it was the first time I’ve ever watched any of the Halloween movies. I have no idea why. I’ve seen all of the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks and all of the Friday the 13^th flicks (except for Jason X, which I never got around to seeing) and a billion other imitators. I just never saw the original.

I think I could never get past what I knew of the Michael Myers character. The whole “silent guy in a mask” thing has been done SO many times over the past thirty years that I never really had the incentive to watch another one, even if it was the first of it’s kind. Which is kind of stupid really. I mean, why not?

Also, I’m generally not a fan of the “faceless, unstoppable supernatural killer in a mask” thing. I’ve always preferred Freddy over Jason. I like my villains to have some personality. I don’t find a silent guy in a mask stabbing people particularly interesting. Especially one who can get shot and stabbed and burned and blown up and still keep coming back with no explanation why.

Sure, Freddy gets killed a million different ways and always comes back… but that’s already. He’s a ghost. He only exists in people’s minds and fucks with them in their dreams. That makes sense. Freddy can cut off his own fingers just to freak people out and then laugh about it because BAM they grow right back.

Jason on the other hand… who the fuck is Jason Voorhees? Some choad ass retarded kid that drowned in a lake? That shit doesn’t make sense. So… Jason drowned in a lake and then came back as a supernatural unkillable adult? If he died when he was a kid, why did he come back twenty years later as an adult? WTF? Did he grow up at the bottom of the lake, hanging out with Spongebob? Why did he wait twenty years until he decided to start fucking people up? Was he waiting for his mom to make the first move?

For that matter, what the fuck IS Jason? A ghost? A zombie? If that’s what he is, then some people having some splainin’ to do.

Ya know, I’m content with things happening “just because.” For the most part, that’s alright with me. I don’t need everything spelled out for me. BUT… if something is uber-lame and the entire film is based around it and it makes absolutely no fucking sense, then I want someone to explain it to me.

So Jason is the dead drowned retarded kid grown up and punishing the sex crazed councilors of Camp Crystal Lake who let him drown. He’s apparently still retarded (I mean, he was actually fooled by Corey Feldman and his make up kit) and is obviously not really sure exactly WHO was responsible for his death (cause his mom already took care of most of those guys in the first one) so he just kills whoever happens to show up at the camp and smoke a joint.

In fact, now that I think about it, FUCK Jason. Sure, the idea of an invincible retarded guy killing people is kind of cool in theory, but really… it’s the same friggin movie over and over again. The first one was cool cause it wasn’t actually Jason (it was his mom) and Kevin Bacon got stabbed in the neck, but after that… lame.

Except for the one where Jason turned out to be Crispin Glover. That was kind of cool.

Anyway, wasn’t I talking about Halloween at some point?

Back to it

Halloween.

I guess the reason I never saw Halloween was the same reason I didn’t start watching The Sopranos until the fifth season or Lost until a few weeks ago. The idea of tackling something that has SO much already established is kind of daunting. I’m the kind of guy that will invest a lot of time and energy into whatever it is I’m into. If I start watching The Sopranos (like I did this summer) then I’m going to start with the first disk of the first season and then just keep going until I’m caught up. It’s a serious investment.

I think I saw Halloween the same way. I knew that if I watched the first one, then I’d have to watch all of the other movies as well, and I just haven’t had that kind of energy.

Well, now I’ve seen the first one and I’m already thinking about going to Blockbuster tomorrow to get the rest of them. I probably won’t, because I’ve got like, five movies already on deck to watch (Phantasm, Predator, The Day After Tomorrow, The Ice Harvest and some other movie I got about incest or something that I’m probably not going to watch) but I’m still thinking about it.

Sorry, I’m rambling…

Alright, focus…

So yeah, I actually enjoyed it. Sure, it was pretty cheesy, but that’s to be expected considering the time and money they had to make the movie. Also, John Carpenter movies tend to be kind of cheesy.

But there were some really great moments in it. The shot of Jamie Lee Curtis freaking out in the corning and seeing Michael Myers’ mask slowly come into the light was cool. The scene where he stabs that dude up against the wall and then kind of steps back and checks out his work was totally bad ass.

Even though it ended up being kind of cheesy, the whole concept of the opening scene being one (well, two spliced together) shot through the eyes of little Mikey Myers was pretty dope.

And Jamie Lee Curtis was awesome. I really dig her. I wish she’d do more stuff. Even if she is a hermaphrodite. I’d still hit that.

There IS something I don’t understand though… and maybe it makes sense after watching the other movies.

Okay, so Michael Myers is six years old. For whatever reason, he takes it upon himself to stab the shit out of his hot naked older sister. He’s then put into a mental institution and is looked after by Dr. Donald Pleasence. According to the doctor, he hasn’t spoken a word in fifteen years, and he spent all of his time in the institution staring at a wall.

Then, on the night he’s supposed to be picked up to go to court to be evaluated for release, he escapes, steals a car (which is interesting considering that he’s been in an institution since he was six) and heads back to his home town and eats a dog. Dr. Donald Pleasence hunts him down and starts telling everybody that he’s the epitome of pure evil and like, the most dangerous man alive and all of this kind of stuff.

What I don’t get is this: Where is the doctor getting that he’s SO evil? I mean, sure, stabbing up your sister is totally uncool and not normal. But really… he did it when he was six and like… plenty of people stab up their sisters. I know that if I had a hot naked older sister, I’d probably carve her up too.

Well, probably not. But like, as far as murder goes, that’s fairly tame. A dude that killed one person fifteen years ago when he was six. While it’s totally uncalled for and rude, it’s hardly the end all and be all of evil. So he looked at a wall for fifteen years. I’d say he’s pretty crazy… but the epitome of evil? Come on now.

Of course, he was right, but that’s beside the point. What I want to know is why he believed it. What did he get from the limited amount of killing experience Michael Myers had that led him to believe that this dude was so very very evil.

Like I said… maybe it makes sense later on down the line, but from just watching the first movie, I don’t get it.

Oh, and I really could have done without the mongoloid slobbery breathing under the mask. That really took away from his creepiness and just made him seem retarded rather than evil.

One thing that I did like about it though was that they showed him in the day time.

I assumed that all of the Michael Myers stuff would be at night, in the shadows. I dug that they showed him like, cruising around in his station wagon and hanging out in people’s yards and stuff. That was kind of creepy.

Anyway, it’s almost two and I’m losing coherency. I think it’s time to go to sleep.

Man, if I was ever going to kill someone, this is the way I’d do it!

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_141023454.html

Freddy Krueger’s Nightmare On Hollywood Boulevard

Man Dressed As Horror Movie Character Stabs Homeless Man

(CBS) LOS ANGELES It was a nightmare on Hollywood Boulevard.

“We thought all the characters on Hollywood Boulevard had props made of plastic, but this guy’s hands were made of real metal,” Ballas said.

Fucking SWEET!

Not that I am pro-killing people… but still! Fucking sweet!

TAKE THAT SHIT HOMELESS MOTHERFUCKER! Serves him right. Being homeless and all.

in other creepy, costumed news:

I MUST HAVE THIS!

Burger King Mask
If I had that mask, I would recreate the scene in Leon where Gary Oldman is killing Natalie Portman’s family… except I’d be WEARING THE MASK!

In fact, I would recreate every cool scene in every movie ever. The scene Scarface where Frank is begging Tony for his life. The scene in Boogie Nights where Alfred Molina is smoking crack and playing Russian Roulette with himself. The Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper torture scene in True Romance

Oh… it would be ON!