Invisibility and the Power of Madness

 “Power, I said! Power! Power to walk into the gold vaults of nations, into the secrets of kings, into the Holy of Holies; power to make the multitudes run squealing in terror at the touch of my little invisible finger. Even the moon’s frightened of me! Frightened to death! The whole world’s frightened to death!”

(NOTE: this piece includes examples from true crime, including rape and murder- if you are sensitive to such things take this under consideration)

Dr. Jack Griffin, in the 1933 movie The Invisible Man, revels in the terror he can cultivate while at the same time overestimating his abilities. Such are the risks one takes on when using experimental serums to gain the power of invisibility; the side effects, namely madness and megalomania, undermine the usefulness of such an otherworldly talent. Surely there are more noble uses for such a power, although the required nudity for the full effect would again undermine non-creepy aspirations. It seems that the very existence of imperceptible forces- particularly ones with agency and equally undetectable motives- is inherently terror-inducing. Ghosts are an obvious example of this; while full-bodied apparitions are reported, more commonly they are not seen but rather felt, heard, recorded as electronic voice phenomena, or in the case of poltergeists, seen only through their effect on material objects. All of this can be unnerving to someone living in a haunted house. Seeing is believing, they say- but sometimes the unseen opens the mind to previously unknown heights of fear.

We see this often in the realms of the highly weird. In various streams of folklore, beings such as elves and boggarts can be invisible; UFOs seem to disappear and reappear at will, and some suggest that Bigfoot can dip in and out of our plane of reality. John Keel proposed the idea of ultraterrestrials, beings existing alongside us but on a wavelength of tangible reality that doesn’t translate in our limited human view of the world. Ghost hunters of the Warren school of paranormal investigation would have you believe that invisible demons are hiding in every corner, waiting for a chance to possess or obsess you. In recent years we see more reports of Shadow Men, including the Hat Man, which can easily hide in the dark- and podcasts such as Monsters Among Us bring us reports of the Glimmer Man, a being who is almost entirely invisible but for a shimmering outline, like the effect used in the Predator movies. These sound very much like what is described in Robert Guffey’s book Chameleo, and said book contains a patent for the technology needed to accomplish such a feat. Incidentally, in conversation with the author, it seems entirely likely that the writers of The Invisible Man remake in 2020 used his book as a reference. We are brought around, as if by unseen forces, full circle.

The thing about ghosts, bigfoot, and whatever other weird entities people report having encountered is that no one can really definitively prove their existence. When something spooky happens in your home, you can always shrug and say “well, there must be a rational explanation.” Paranormal events are fleeting, unexpected and ephemeral; while they can be traumatic or terrifying, and often have lasting impact on the experiencer. A large part of this lingering effect seems to be exploration of the mystery. The quest for answers, for definitions, for an adequate understanding of the mechanisms behind a high strangeness event can last a lifetime- or longer, as the stories live on through written accounts in the paranormal literature. Uncertainty isn’t comforting, and can cause all manner of strife, but certain kinds of certainty are much more upsetting. Suppose you hear a sound in your kitchen in the middle of the night, and when you go to see what it was you find only an empty room. It’s puzzling, but chances are you’d go back to bed. But suppose there’s a flesh and blood man you’ve never seen before standing at your kitchen sink- that’s scary! I’ve heard many paranormal investigators say this, and this writer is inclined to agree- other people are scarier than most spooks, goblins, cryptids, and what-have-yous.

In a practical sense, for investigators, this often comes up when discussing the etiquette around boots-on-the-ground research on public and private property. There are places in the United States where people will be less than subtle in response to trespassers. It’s good to keep in mind when permission is needed to visit a place, and in the case of wooded areas it is best to be aware of when hunting season is to avoid becoming an accidental target. There’s loads of practical considerations to be taken under advisement, should you pursue the paranormal out in the wild, but such is not the purpose of this meditation. Our focus here, as we adjust our night vision goggles, is on those who often go unseen- despite being very much real people.

For starters, the human mind is only capable of taking in so much at any given time. Walking down a busy city street, you’re more apt to notice a crowd of people than several hundred individuals. It would be impossible and pointless to notice each one, so the mind tends to pay attention only to ones who stand out or to ones it might be steering you into collision with. If you want to take an extra step into the weird, you could consider that some percentage of those people aren’t really people at all. How would you know if some of them were ghosts, or something else entirely? This little thought experiment  has so far neglected the animal and plant life you might pass by on such a walk, and inanimate objects, structures, and physical accoutrement. Much of it is effectively invisible, hidden in plain sight.

This is particularly true of people in positions of physical labor. As a former master of the custodial arts, this writer can affirm that the janitor is the most innocuous fly on the wall at any company. Where there is road work, or utility work on a roadway, workers wear bright orange or yellow to make them stand out and paradoxically we fail to see them as people when we drive by- they are more like walking road obstructions. More to the point, when someone is dressed for work in some manner of uniform and appears to be doing something work related, we ignore them because they’re probably supposed to be doing that. No alarms are set off. They basically aren’t really seen at all.

There’s a whole digression one might attempt to convey about how this reflects on us all in regard to class, capitalism, and so on, but the point here is that most people have their blinders on because they have better things to worry about. A lineman up on a utility pole is supposed to be up there doing something probably beneficial, and warrants no more than a passing notice which will be forgotten once the percipient looks at the time and realizes with dread that they might be a couple of minutes late for work again. But what if the lineman isn’t supposed to be there? What if he’s up to no good?

A perfect illustration of paranoia in this respect can be found in the episode “Wetwired”, from the third season of The X-Files. Mulder and Scully investigate a series of baffling murders by average people with no criminal backgrounds. It’s revealed (spoiler alert) that their TV signals are being tampered with, and the subliminal effect of said tampering is that they imagine objects of their personal fears and hatred superimposed over the people they see. Scully even falls victim to it, imagining a clandestine meeting between Mulder and the mysterious Smoking Man in a car, which causes her to unravel and think the worst about her partner. As it happens, the lineman who installed this mind control device was working for The Smoking Man, in one of the many experiments under his purview that occur in the show’s run. The Smoking Man himself is an invisible man, with no discernable history or even a name; he is one of many government workers, unquestioned as he goes from one federal building to the next, but is also pulling the strings or observing in a darkened corner while puffing on a Morley. The X-Files at its best was exceptional in its menacing and often subtle glimpses of the paranoiac mindset, of the impulses that drive one to conspiracy theory and aluminum foil hats. The idea that the man on the utility pole is casually and brazenly installing a mind control device on the cable line, in broad daylight, is very unsettling. 

The classic show from the 1990s of course also used the UFOlogical trope of Men in Black, but the thread we’re now pulling on is a class of “men” (although gender need not really be considered) altogether different. There are likely endless variations on the idea of invisible people, phantom strangers and the like which never get reported because they don’t fit a profile- or perhaps are never noticed at all. It’s such a nebulous subject that one wonders whether it's worth following up on- but, if you’ve read this far, we can assume you’re interested enough to consider it. While Men in Black are menacing in their assumed authority, often posing as or suggesting a government assignment, the phantoms we set our sights on today are quite the opposite. These invisible people very much come out of the woodwork, and vanish again, leaving behind a vague unease and concerns of intrusion and violation.

In fiction, particularly horror and mystery, we see these figures as red herrings often enough. The groundskeeper or some other form of “help” is a focus of our attention in the narrative just to throw us off, and having a mystery resolve with the butler as the killer has been a considered hackneyed device since the 1930s. Still, in these instances, the characters are known. They have names, and are trusted by their employers. All the same, they can be terrifying for reasons that are difficult to understand; take the chauffeur in Burnt Offerings, for example. There is no real explanation for him in the movie and he plays no role in the events that unfold, yet his appearance is one of the more unsettling elements in the film. 

Urban legends and folklore more broadly present us with other variations on the theme. Take, for instance, Owen Davies' look at folklore around ice cream vans and the sinister narratives they engender. From rumors of drug trafficking to phantom ice cream truck jingles in remote places, it shows how the mundane can become the extremely weird with just a slight alteration in perception. There are also reports, mostly considered urban legend, of such things as phantom social workers, or roving cults posing as legitimate companies for hire. The trouble is, real people do use fake credentials to win confidence with their victims, and there are and have been very real cults flying under the radar as “volunteer organizations”. Virtually anywhere you look, you can find sinister motives if you squint hard enough or apply the right light- but doing so is the very essence of paranoia. Perhaps it’s best to simply keep in mind that just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. 

Years ago I stumbled upon an obscure bit of such strangeness from none other than Betty and Barney Hill, known as the first high-profile abductees in American UFOlogy. The story, as printed in an issue of Flying Saucer Review from the 1970s, is about a trio of Men in Green. While less menacing, perhaps, than the black clad variety, these men are nevertheless baffling and eerie in their appearance. Barney’s sister had made a surprise visit, and let herself into the Hills’ home one day when a man came to check the gas meter in the basement. He looked like he was supposed to be there doing that very thing, clad in a green work uniform, so she let him in. Before long another man dressed the same way came to the door for the same reason. Rationalizing that the man was supposed to be there, perhaps following up on the first guy having taken the reading incorrectly, she let him in. The third man who showed up made mention of the fact that Barney had told him she’d be there to let him in, at which point she realized that something untoward was going on. Barney didn’t know she was there. She slammed the door in his face and spent the afternoon terrified, anxiously awaiting her brother’s return. 

It’s unsettling and seemingly pointless- what could the men have been up to in the Hills’ basement? Even stranger, Betty found the story familiar. In August of 1975 the same series of events happened to her, except the third man arrived a few weeks after the first two. She only realized something was up when the gas bill arrived and the cost was labelled as “estimated’, and upon calling the gas company to complain that three men had come to read her meter without apparently having done so, she was informed that the actual workers for the utility wore blue uniforms, not green. Betty was mystified, as I’m sure the reader is, about who or what those Men in Green were and what possible business they got up to in the basement. If it weren’t for her status as an abductee who people frequently interviewed, we may never have gotten the story at all.

The story brings to mind The Mad Gasser of Mattoon, which is considered by many to have been a case of mass hysteria. Was it? The connection here is tenuous, it seems, but in 1944 a series of attacks were reported in Mattoon Illinois involving sudden illnesses thought to be caused by a mystery gas. Reports came in about the culprit, a shadowy figure wearing black and using some strange device to pump gas into the homes of unsuspecting women and make them ill. The Mad Anesthetist, as he was also called, seemed to be a strange phantom cat burglar except for the fact that the crimes appeared to be pointless and nothing was ever stolen. The police eventually concluded that there was no Mad Gasser, and the variations in witness descriptions of the attacker didn’t help matters. In some cases, the Gasser was thought to be a woman, and in one event a tube of lipstick was found left behind. Others claimed that the culprit wasn’t human at all, some even saying it was some form of ape man. But suppose that the gas was time-released by Green Men weeks before the events in the summer of ‘44, flying under the radar and falling out of conscious memory by the time people noticed the effects? To follow the line of thought to its most paranoid extreme, the phantom “Gasser” might have just been the red herring, or there to measure the effects… and possibly, to aid in the cover-up. 

To make this strange line of thought even more sobering and plausible, Fortean writer Loren Coleman had an odd experience in researching the case back in the 1970s when he wrote for FATE Magazine. He was tracking the crimes of Michael Hubert Kenyon, who at the time hadn’t been caught and was known as the Illinois Enema Bandit. Coleman thought that there might be a worthwhile comparison between the inexplicable Mad Gasser crimes and the then-current bizarre sexual assaults perpetrated by the Bandit. Kenyon would abduct women in order to administer enemas to them against their will. Coleman wrote inquiries to newspapers and police departments to get the facts of the case, and was visited one day at his Decatur home by a man in dark clothing calling himself Lieutenant Detective Applegate. He strongly suggested Coleman cease his questioning of the Enema Bandit case, which he eventually did- but later, when he called the local police department, he found that no such detective was in their employ. The tall, thin, dark-suited man who arrived one night to question the investigator of anomalies turned out to be one himself. He vanished into the night like the Mad Gasser or so many reported Men in Black. 

A famous Men in Black encounter comes to mind, that of Dr. Herbert Hopkins in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The mystery man was reported to have been pale and seemingly wearing lipstick, which has resonance with one of the few clues left by the Gasser; he also told Hopkins, after causing a coin to disappear, that Barney Hill had died because he had no heart- “just as you no longer have a coin”. The implied threat is chilling, and although the event itself is believed by many to have been completely fabricated by Hopkins, it has nevertheless been very influential in our conception of MiB. The references to lipstick and Barney Hill make it worth mentioning here, and brings us back on track to examine his mystery Men in Green.

The attire of the mysterious trio visiting the Hills’ New Hampshire home brings to mind an infamous killer who terrorized nearby Massachusetts, over a decade prior. The Boston Strangler had everyone in the state on edge, while he was at large, and people began to suspect members of their own communities. People who had never been regarded before now came under scrutiny. Much of what I say here is anecdotal, from people who remember hearing about the grotesque murders on the news and how others behaved- even if they lived nowhere near Boston. Eventually, an inmate at Bridgewater State Hospital admitted to the killings. The man in question was Albert DeSalvo, who had previously been known as The Measuring Man and… the Green Man. His crimes started with convincing young women that he had been sent by a modeling agency, on a tip from someone the victim knew, to take their measurements in order to secure a job as a clothing model. He gained their trust through innocuous seeming means. He was dubbed the Green Man for a series of rapes committed throughout Connecticut, because of his tendency to wear green work pants. He claimed to have committed 300 such crimes over four states, though authorities doubt those figures. Many believe now that he had nothing to do with the murders attributed to The Strangler, and it’s possible those crimes were committed by more than one person. It’s worth noting that his coworkers found him to be a likeable guy, a family man. As is the case with many serial killers or sex criminals, they pass the test of normalcy in their day to day lives. By all appearances, they seem average and harmless.

“An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, rape, and kill!”

DeSalvo was killed in prison in 1973. Clearly he had nothing to do with the Hills and their basement in the years that followed, but the workwear description is eerie. Even if he didn’t kill anyone during the wave of Strangler murders, his known crimes are quite bad enough- and if he admitted to crimes he didn’t commit, that can only mean the real Strangler got off scot free, roaming invisibly among the population. One might consider what it means to be a Green Man, and consider the popular decorative motif down through the ages of a foliate face emerging from a stone structure, blended in with the wall. A Green Man blending in with vegetation, some primordial entity typifying the grandeur and terror of nature, the scope of which is often seen as a whole with the distinct particulars beyond our ability to see and identify clearly. The invisible is all around us, and can be seen if one knows how to look- but looking too hard can have you jumping at shadows. 

The fact is that although we see each other everyday, we, unlike another famous fictional invisible man, don’t know what evil lurks inside the hearts of men. Our age has allowed unprecedented insights into how people think, and one would be forgiven for thinking it was better when everyone didn’t broadcast their weird views into the ether of the internet for all to see. This may distance us even further from the physical acknowledgment of being seen out in the world, but the point here is that criminals and monsters of all kinds have their own unknowable motives- and if you add mind control narratives into the mix, those motives may not even be their own. It’s worth noting that Barney Hill was a postal worker, and had he been a victim of MK Ultra, as some claim, could himself have been an invisible man. A Manchurian Candidate, delivering the mail, unquestioned and unfettered, with purposes unknown to just about everyone least of all himself. By the 90s, when The X-Files brought this kind of paranoia into focus, mailmen were in the news for workplace shootings and the trope of “disgruntled postal workers” became common. Sadly, mass shootings are so common now that such events would barely register in the cultural zeitgeist. 

Looking for unseen forces controlling the apparent chaos that unfolds daily can be seen as a fool’s errand. There may or may not be a Smoking Man in a dark room watching his plans unfold, but either way knowing about it isn’t terribly helpful. Perhaps it's best to accept that everyone to some degree is quietly crazy in their own way, and that the apparent chaos is exactly what it seems to be. The invisible people around us, both the human variety and the other, interlock with one another in a clockwork current of madness in a way that is perceived as normal right up until the moment it is seen for what it is. What’s scary is that we are part of it as well. We are all the Invisible Man, ruling and terrifying the world.

When the Stars Aligned For Comedy

Time is a funny thing. I often felt in my youth that I was growing up in the wrong time, which had a lot to do with the movies I watched and the music I listened to. I grew up listening to the “oldies” radio station with my dad in his old pickup truck, which filled my head with Bo Diddley beats and Chuck Berry doublestops, Buddy Holly jangles and Little Richard’s howls. The Beatles were my Dad’s favorite band, but the oldies station would only play their early songs back then. I still heard the 80s songs that were current at the time, but my concept of good music was from Motown, the British Invasion, and pre-Vegas Elvis. 

Dad was also responsible for introducing me to The Three Stooges, which played on the local network on Sunday mornings which, for my money, was a fine substitute for church. There weren’t many my age who really dug the Stooges all that much, or for that matter anything else in black and white- but Moe, Larry, and Curly opened a door into a monochrome world that I accepted without question. Even if I had no friends to share the laughs with, there was an embarrassment of hilarious riches for me in the films of Abbott and Costello, the Marx Brothers, Our Gang, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel and Hardy. There were stations that had room for the classic comedy material in their programming here and there, and I figured out which days I had to get up early to watch them. Often I’d be laughing into a pillow to muffle the sound, for fear of waking my family.

By extension, this opened my mind to the history of cinema more broadly, in ways that were perhaps alien to my peers. As a result, when I went to the video rental spot or surfed the channels on early cable, I became fluent in the classic Universal Monster flicks, tons of atomic age B-movies, films by Hitchcock, and eventually surrealist works by masters like Bunuel. I was always unapologetically a nerd about this stuff, and as I made my way to adulthood (if indeed I ever grew up, in the stricter sense) I found others who had similar tastes. Now, in an age where everything can be streamed or downloaded or purchased online with a quick two-day delivery, it seems like I might have been born at precisely the right time. The same technology also allows me to wax nostalgic online and record podcasts, finding still other friends and sympathetic audiences for my nerdery. Sirius XM has whole channels that will play music from the 50s and 60s, and my commute home can transport me back in time to the shotgun seat of my Dad’s pickup truck with a twist of the dial or a quick search on spotify. Perhaps best of all, finding any answer to any question, no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential, about the artists who made these songs, movies, and other media is readily searchable and discoverable online. Which leads me, circuitously and idiosyncratically, to the subject at hand: how the stars aligned for the biggest stars in early comedy.

In comedy, timing is everything. For a master class in comedic timing, one need only watch Abbott and Costello’s “Who's on First?” routine. The premise is ridiculous, and the punchlines are minimal- it’s the rhythm that really sells it. If you watch this routine, then watch any episode of Seinfeld, you’ll notice a similarity in this punctuated comedic timing between Jerry and George. Likewise, if you were to watch anyone attempt the classic baseball sketch who lacks the necessary skills that Bud and Lou innately had it wouldn’t be funny at all. It would fall completely flat. Through wit or pratfall, through cheap laughs or clever satire, comedy is hard- but if you can’t time the joke correctly, it’s impossible.

William “Bud” Abbott was born on October 2, 1897, and would go on to be considered the greatest straight man of all time. Comedy duos often rely on the tension and interplay between the one who plays it straight and the one who hams it up, and usually the straight man was considered the real talent- and was compensated accordingly. One might think, as I always did, that this was counter intuitive- isn’t the wackier guy really carrying the comedy? But, as it happens, you need both parts for the balance to work properly. Besides, it must be extremely difficult to avoid laughing or smiling in the role of the straight man, and Bud was the best in the biz. One prominent voice in comedy who thought so was none other than Julius “Groucho” Marx, who was born on the same day as Abbott seven years earlier. A pattern emerges- two of the greatest voices in classic comedy, born on the same day! For a comedy nerd such as myself, who also has leanings toward the mystical, the thread was too enticing to avoid tugging on. 

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Naturally, I had to see if any Three Stooges birthdays fell on the same day, and while none did, Ted Healy’s birthday was the day before. Healy was the original leader of the trio, and they were billed as “Ted Healy and His Stooges”. The original lineup was just Moe and Shemp, with Larry added later. The boys were unfairly treated (and poorly paid) by Healy, which inspired them to break out on their own and forgo the straight man. Shemp, however, was so afraid of crossing Ted that he left the group. As such, needing a third member, Jerome “Curly” Howard became the beloved third Stooge. Incidentally, Larry Fine’s birthday was October 5. 

Although born in different years, it seems worth further digging when three of the best known comedy teams of all time share such a birthday cluster. The natural next step is to see if other patterns emerge- and wouldn’t you know it, they did! Lou Costello, Shemp Howard, and Chico Marx were all born in March (on the 3rd, the 11th, and the 22nd respectively). While the date range is slightly more spread out, it’s striking that all three comedy groups had this October to March dynamic in them. Thinking in terms of astrology, this would be the interplay between the signs of Libra and Pisces. Technically, this falls apart since Chico was born outside of Pisces, but his brother Zeppo wasn’t- his birthday was February 25. Zeppo was always stuck with smaller roles that were played much more straight than those of Harpo, Chico, and Groucho. After appearing in five of their movies, he left the group, and many Marx Brothers fans agree that despite his apparently minor contributions in the movies, they were never the same without him. Even though he wasn’t as outlandish as his brothers in the films, it is said that he was something of an understudy to Groucho. If, for some reason, Groucho couldn’t make it to a live show, Zeppo would throw on a greasepaint moustache and eyebrows and play the part well enough that no one knew the difference! In an odd twist to an already odd line of inquiry, regular cast member and foil to the antics of the Marxes Margaret Dumont was born in the sign of Libra and died in the sign of Pisces. 

Expanding the scope of birthdays to a full month or full astrological birth sign, we can go ahead and include Curly Howard, since he was born on October 22nd, the tail end of Libra. This means that the Libra-Pisces convergence between Healy and Shemp, which was the origin of the Three Stooges, once broken, gave way to a Libra-heavy team as Curly stepped in. When Curly’s health left him unable to continue making films, Shemp returned, restoring the balance. Shemp and Curly were about equally funny, but in very different ways. Perhaps a comparison of the two might unlock a secret about this cosmic comedy dynamic, and unveil the reason behind this alchemy that produces the finest farce. Or perhaps, like explaining a joke, it will simply render it a formula bereft of life and laughter. 

The truth is, I know much more about classic comedy than I do astrology. I’m loath to admit that I have never really had much interest in horoscopes and zodiac signs, which may mean I’m a bad occultist. I find it all very tedious, and not least for the reason that it’s all so complicated and involves a lot of math.

(Fortuitously enough, as I was putting this post together the local clowns here in Worcester put together a Clown Zodiac, which is very helpful and appropriate. How's THAT for timing? Go follow Mother Goose (@motherlucygoose) on Instagram to find your clown sign!)

I know enough about astrology to know that the sign you’re born under is only a part of your overall chart, and that the place of birth, the year, and the time of day all inform the broader picture of your personality and fate. That being the case, only the broadest conclusions could be pulled from what is admittedly an incredibly niche and weird focus of study. I have doubts in the extreme that anyone would be interested enough in doing a deeper dive into the astrological profiles of the comedy giants mentioned in this article, but if that person exists, I’d like to meet them! Beyond these caveats, it seems to me that a lot of astrology is somewhat open to interpretation. So I will do my best, with limited ability, to work with what I have… *

The zodiac has 12 signs, and the two signs in question here represent the 7th and 12. The earlier signs in the zodiac, ending with Virgo, are highly individualized and focus strictly on the personality while the last six illustrate the individual in relation to others. Libra is symbolized by scales, representing justice. Libras prefer to work in teams or partnerships, which seems significant for our purposes, and make great leaders and diplomats. We see this in Groucho, Abbott, and Ted Healy as they were all leaders in their own way. Likewise, Larry Fine was the glue that held the Stooges together, a bridge between the ornery Moe and the third Stooge, and remained in the act until the end. Curly was the team player who acted as a bridge for Shemp’s absence and eventual return. Meanwhile, Pisces is represented by two fish, and as a sign is much more creative and emotional in nature. Thinking in terms of emotion, one might consider that the funniest on-screen moments from Shemp or Lou Costello result from them becoming angry or fearful. According to astrology dot com, both signs share similarities and seek balance in their own ways. It seems like perhaps they do in ways that are complimentary, at least fleetingly, but often don’t last. We can consider that Bud and Lou eventually parted ways, and that Zeppo left his brothers a trio, and that Shemp only returned well after the danger of crossing Healy was moot. Perhaps there’s a kind of tension creatively that makes the timing work so well, that informs the routines and increases the laughter- or perhaps the answer isn’t to be found in the stars.

I often think of the comedy in these old films as being timeless, even if the jokes are dated and a bit corny. There's a cosmic thread of primordial funny running through in spite of the black and white set pieces and archaic lingo. Paradoxically, the timing is timeless. Groucho said that humor is logic gone mad, and here we are. He also said he wanted to live forever or die trying, and in a way he has. The influence of the planets may have something to do with the chemistry, which is, after all, just another name for alchemy. As discussed above, Bud and Lou were dynamic as a duo, balancing each other perfectly. It gets more complicated with the four Marx Brothers or the Three Stooges, but examining this chemistry is worthwhile there as well. Abbott and Costello were a pair of buddies, the Stooges were like the Three Musketeers, while the Marx Brothers had an altogether different formula.

Groucho, as the Libra Jester portrayed authority figures as a way of challenging the entire concept of authority. Chico was always paired with his silent partner Harpo. (Hey, I had to get a dumb joke in on that one. It's worth noting that Harpo's mime routine was picked up as an avatar for the "Greek God of Silence" Harpocrates by Discordians...) There's probably no better example of Groucho's parody of leadership than his role as Rufus T. Firefly, the leader of Freedonia in "Duck Soup". The wacky political satire received mixed reviews at its 1933 release, but saw a renaissance of recognition as a classic by the counterculture of the 60s and 70s. The Jester figure of Firefly is never far from my mind when real-life political buffoonery presents itself. Just a few days before writing this, I had occasion to paraphrase the character in regard to our current president... "He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you-- he really is an idiot." This, of course, was a line at Chico's expense. Though Chico and Harpo were paired together and often in opposition to Groucho, some of the best and most quotable scenes in the films are those with Groucho and Chico. Whether it's Groucho trying to gain access to a speakeasy with Chico in his way, or the signing of a contract in "A Night at the Opera", the wisecracking Groucho finds that no quick turn of wit can compete fully with Chico's blissful lack of understanding. Humor IS logic gone mad, and there ain't no sanity clause after all.

The Three Stooges have a lot less of this dynamic in isolation to study. Moe was often the one directing the action, and Curly or Shemp (and later, Joe Besser or Curly Joe DeRita) was on the receiving end of the most slapstick moments. Larry is often left out of the discussion, as he is less often the main subject of our attention. He was great though, as as the Libra of the group was the fulcrum in the balancing act without which the whole thing falls apart. For our purposes here, we can analyze Larry with Shemp at the beginning of The Brideless Groom. Shemp and Larry both have an advantage in comedy simply for being funny looking. Shemp could be funny with just his hair- going from the slicked back look to hair covering his face was always laugh-worthy. Known as "The ugliest man in Hollywood", prior to joining back up with the boys for the short films, he was doing ok for himself with other comedy acts. He appeared alongside W. C. Fields, Fatty Arbuckle, and Abbott and Costello. Scenes of his were cut from Abbott and Costello's movies because they were too funny, and stealing the thunder of Bud and Lou. We see him at his best in The Brideless Groom, in which he's forced to marry as a condition of receiving an inheritance. The singing lesson at the beginning has Larry and Shemp both reacting in their own ways to terrible singing, and it's hilarious. I will contend that Shemp was just as funny as Curly again, and sadly we only get to see them together onscreen once- Curly appears as a sleeping passenger on a train in the 1947 short "Hold That Lion!"

It makes one wonder if there's a hidden Leo influence in the mix...

Perhaps there’s something about being born in the months when autumn lays the trees bare and something about having a birthday when those same trees are about to come back to life again- the death and rebirth cycle- that lends itself to great, timeless comedy. There may be other examples of this phenomena, if indeed the word applies, outside of comedy. There may be others still within the comedic but in a later era which have escaped me. This dynamic seems to exist in the aforementioned Our Gang films, as George McFarlane (Spanky) also shares a birthday with Groucho and Bud, while his co-star Billie Thomas (Buckwheat) was a Pisces. Perhaps I’m seeing patterns where they don’t exist, but I consider comedy to be a mystical and sacred thing. I can’t help but wonder…

It’s not as though I haven’t noticed other examples. Take the month of June, for instance, along with the great oldies music I grew up with- Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Ray Davies all have birthdays within a few days of one another. McCartney and Wilson were even born in the same year! It’s amazing to think that some of the most well-remembered songwriters for three of the biggest bands in the 60s- The Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Kinks- would have this in common. One might be interested to know that Elvis Presley and David Bowie also shared a birthday.

 

Here’s another one: horror legends Vincent Price and Christopher Lee shared the same birthday, while Peter Cushing’s birthday was the day before. It seems such an odd coincidence, and maybe that’s because it’s not. Or maybe, coincidence is entirely common and we all seek meaning where there is none. 

There are times, however, when one wants to chase these phantom flights of fancy if only for a laugh, a hit of nostalgia, or a passing moment of wonder at the machinery of the universe and the myriad ways it produces joy. Whatever time it is for you, I hope it was well spent as I indulged in this investigation.

*This piece has been on the back burner for literally years. I have had more than enough time to learn astrology but have failed to do so. Readers might be surprised how often something I’m writing has wallowed in the wings for years before finally being fleshed out…

A World-Weary Wizard Wills Himself to Write

 

It has been a while since I've written anything for this site. I have still been writing, though not as much as I would like. I have also released a podcast every week for almost a year, covering a variety of topics with guests I feel blessed to chat with. Over the summer was my very first public lecture, traveling to Gettysburg to speak at the Paranormal Research Symposium. I think I've done OK for myself, considering all that is happening in the world, but still when I meet someone and tell them I'm a writer in response to the unavoidable question "What do you do?", I immediately feel sheepish for not doing more of it. I wonder if I deserve the title, if I'm kidding myself, or whether any of it matters. Therein lies the rub...

There has been an overwhelming sense that nothing in particular matters- that is to say, that the mundane reality of everyday life is just so much inertia towards an inevitable endpoint while mad and evil monsters trample the landscape. In plain terms, shit's fucked these days, and it becomes increasingly difficult to care about the minutia of my day job and worse, that my creative endeavors are little more than momentary diversions for myself and brief distractions for those inclined to read or listen to me.

Writing, for me, is a sacred craft. It's art and it's magic. Weaving words together to convey a sentiment, to drive home a point, to wax poetic or to crack a joke, language affords us bridges from mind to mind and heart to heart. Those who have a gift with words, one supposes, have an obligation to use them. One wonders how best to do that for the benefit of all in a world with such divisions and contrasts. The world is insane, as Mr. Natural said; and I deeply resent being the one to point that out. I am content to stay in my lane, writing about Elvis and UFOs and Clowns and the Loch Ness Monster. These subjects make me happy, and I find all of the weirdest stuff so fascinating. If the metrics on my site or podcast are to be believed, plenty of others do as well and I am ever grateful for the opportunity to share this material. It would seem I'm at a disadvantage, thinking magically as I tend to do, in conveying to others just how nuts everything has gotten more broadly; and yet here I am, feeling like the only sane person in a galaxy of madness. I've been told that I have a gift for words, but if I have to confront the realities of the political world only the four letter variety come to mind. I've often thought that we're living in a story Kafka dreamed up, then discarded as too unbelievable to commit to page.

I have become less active online, and on the rare occasion I get drawn into an argument it really just feels like going through the motions. One wonders again how useful it is to even bother with opinions on social media, or to do much of anything at all. This is, of course, useful to the oppressors of the world. Hopelessness and fear work in their favor, but even as I resist these things I find myself just so exhausted from having to proceed as though everything is normal. It's hard to get into a mindset to read a book for enjoyment or research some odd topic when the inner voices just want to scream "WHAT THE FUCK" all day. In the wake of a rage-baiting online influencer's death, it has become apparent that none of us has the luxury to be quiet now and loud later. Many are already being silenced, and many more will be.

At the time of this writing, a late night show host has been suspended for one of the most milquetoast, mild, and barely insulting jokes toward a sitting president I have ever heard. The beatification process for the new martyr of MAGA is well underway, and critics are treated as heretics fit only for the stake. Some are seeing this as the canary in the coal mine as far as an authoritarian takeover of the U.S. goes, which to my mind ignores the many blacklunged, sick, dying, or dead miners who have piled up in the mine leading up to this moment. I'd argue that entire shafts have collapsed and there has probably been cannibalism, and worse, over-extended metaphor. The point is, authoritarianism is here, and it ain't going away any time soon.

The time may come when we all will be silenced, unless we pledge an oath to the orange Ubu Roi. I'm almost certain it will come, and soon.

While I still can, in the plainest terms possible, I must defer to my wizardly ways and exorcise the demons of WTF-ness clouding my mind by getting a few things off my chest. I won't say "Let's be clear", like so damned many Democrats say now. One should always be clear. What I mean is using plain words, avoiding the mire of bad faith discourse online trolls thrive on. Bad faith actors will endlessly twist words, demand definitions, supplant their own, and move away from any meaningful discussion. Most of the time the whole point is to invoke anger, confusion, and cruelty. So in plain words, we're up against bad people. Bad people are utilizing crazy ideas, stupidity, and malice in order to advance authoritarianism- and they are astonishingly adept at it.

We're in the age of the Trickster. Hunter S. Thompson said "when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." It becomes strangely prophetic in ways that I doubt he ever imagined, even in the deepest throes of the worst bad trip. The Trickster era is tricky, and terrifying, and darkly funny all at once. After all, I love crazy ideas. I cultivate plenty of them myself, and consider myself a connoisseur of weird beliefs down through the ages. It's easy to see, however, how many of these ideas lead to evil ends. "Conspiracy theory" has always been a term used as a shorthand for "crazy ideas", but these days has lost all meaning- especially as the worst and stupidest and most harmful ones have become mainstream. When the going gets this kind of weird, it turns out us weirdos are perhaps the most flummoxed. There are a multitude of old tropes being brought to the fore, dumbed down and delivered to the masses as news or as "independent research".  A straight decade of this has left the average person lost, cast adrift in waters of uncertainty. In a world of limitless information and infinite distraction, no one can be sure what to believe. And there are always monsters confidently telling those people what those beliefs should be.

I love stupidity too. Stupidity is great. As a longtime member in good standing of the Amalgamated Association of Morons I'm endlessly amused by it, but I don't want it in seats of power. I feel as though fear of being perceived as elitist, or some kind of bully, has made folks afraid of calling stupidity out when it is baldly showcased. The head of the current regime is as stupid as it gets, and no one will convince me otherwise. He's surrounded by sycophantic, unqualified rubes who are either just as stupid or who just don't mind appearing to be. It's all so mind-bendingly stupid that one wonders whether we can ever recover, or if perhaps its better to get a frontal lobotomy and be done with it once and for all.

If crazy and stupid weren't bad enough, this regime channels it all into pure malice, while moralizing to us about their alleged concerns. Ghouls gleefully joking about feeding immigrants to alligators as they resurrect the concentration camp here in the States will cynically talk about Christian belief and family values; they will consider the corpse and rubble strewn area that used to be Gaza nothing more than a promising piece of real estate while they demand you shed tears for a man who made it his mission to dehumanize not just the people of that region, but all Muslims everywhere. To them, everything is transactional, and one's humanity isn't guaranteed- it must be qualified, must meet criteria, must bow down to the inflated orange pussbag. Inalienable rights are a foreign concept to these smug goons, and even when they're winning, they're miserable. They act as though they're being persecuted even as they wield all the power, using their position to demonize the most vulnerable among us. They are bad people, and they are instituting a new and innovative form of authoritarian terror that has familiar hallmarks- and for the record, authoritarianism is bad. This is all very bad, and it's exhausting watching people behave as though it's not.

So much of this feels like it doesn't need to be said. I had high hopes, and still do in some ways, that most people recognize this. I can't blame people for diverting their gaze or being willfully ignorant, as in some ways I'm guilty of this myself. Human beings are odd creatures, and all of us are complicated with our own particular blindspots, biases, bigotries, and complex emotional sets. All of us are human, all of us are of a kind. We're kin, all of us, and Christ even said as much, regardless of what these fascists cosplaying as Christians tell you. Some will argue that it is human nature to fight, but I disagree. The average person does not want to bomb their neighbor out of existence. The atrocities and horrors that occur every day on our planet all blend together into a cacophony too large and disturbing to confront, and it seems many will avoid it until it's on their doorstep. A return to the old status quo, even if possible, only forestalls the inevitable. Fence post sitters will minimize every stripping away of rights, equivocate each indignity, and make excuses for every last violation of everything good in the human race. They will say "both sides have some good ideas", or throw whataboutisms out to confuse the issue. They will say that I'm overreacting. These people are the welcome mat that authoritarianism wipes its boot on, before using it to step on the throat of Liberty. 

So much for using plain language. Let's take that again- the trump regime is bad and stupid and crazy, and they are well on their way in turning the U.S. into an authoritarian dictatorship. That is bad, and you should feel bad if you support it.

No one is coming to save us and the checks and balances built in to our government have been systematically dismantled. No one can say with a straight face that the tinyhanded imbecile in charge has done anything to protect, preserve, or defend the Constitution. We, the People, are on our own. But we are on our own together. I refuse to give in, to give way to despair and hopelessness. I also will not romanticize the past or seek to return to systems that created our reality show sandwich of a nightmare hellworld. After it all burns down, we will have to rebuild, and the best time to start is now. What that looks like will be different for every compassionate person with half a brain and a functional heart. The basic principle is kindness and community. Love thy neighbor, help them out- it'll drive these "Christian" right whack jobs crazy. Think of the homeless, the transfolk in your area, the immigrants, everyone in the crosshairs of this maladjusted monstrosity of an administration, and dream up ways to help. Reality doesn't just happen. We make it happen. We made this current mess happen, and we'll have to clean it up. Assuming history books still exist for future generations, consider which side you'll be recorded as having been on.

I'm on team human. You can't join the team if you're OK with trump.

Now, maybe I can get back to exploring the workings of the cosmos...

Flim Flam, Fables, and the Phenomenon

 

The study and pursuit of something so nebulous as UFO phenomena, especially when you are open enough to include tangential phenomena as part of what is often now referred to simply as "The Phenomenon", can feel like a maddening and foolish endeavor. One can investigate UFOs in any number of ways, or some combination of various ways. UFOs have been looked as a sociological phenomenon, and from a psychological perspective. They have been studied in varying types of scientific methodologies, from the astronomical to the statistical. They can be fodder for B-movies and tabloid headlines, or they can be viewed through mystical and occult perspectives. All of these combine in a view of UFOs as modern folklore and myth-making, where the stories themselves are the important part and proof of their veracity or physical reality is secondary. After all, physical evidence is in short supply; it could be that the paradigms we have for determining "reality" of something so strange as UFOs is ill-equipped to contend with how malleable reality really is, that the physical realm isn't the only one, and that the truth tends to be found in unexpected places beyond the grasp of measurable data. 

Even when we consider the folkloric, mythic narratives of high strangeness, we are forced to contend with the old chestnut of reliability of the witness. I have tackled this subject before here on this blog, but for our purposes now I want to explore how witness testimony tends to be handled. A lot of the classic UFO stories were heralded by researchers because of the supposed reliability of the witness to the event; for instance, the Lonnie Zamora encounter- as a policeman he was thought to be trustworthy and a "trained observer". Many other incidents reported by law enforcement are held up as more reliable, and the same treatment gets applied to those serving in the armed forces or to those in academia. We gravitate towards authority when facing the unknown, even if the unknown by definition has no attendant authority figure. It seems that some amount of UFO enthusiasts have turned away from this mindset, and are more likely to consider cases like that of Joe Simonton and his flying saucer flapjacks. Of course, old Joe did have some physical evidence in the form of the pancake, which was tested and found to be composed of mundane, earthly elements- which would seem to discredit his story. It would seem that way, perhaps, but the story still persists, even though Simonton was not a "trained observer". 

Using too many specific examples may bog down the point being made here, but as a general rule most well-known UFO encounter stories, and personalities attached to them, become controversial in one way or another. Retellings of events, attempts at debunking (up to and including character assassination), profiteering, and sensationalism all play a part in weakening the credibility of a story. Sometimes the tales buckle under the weight of a little bit of scrutiny, only to be bolstered by further scrutiny of the sources scrutinizing them. Ultimately, they may fall down completely, or stand tall as a tale of mystery. If my way of writing about this seems absurdly repetitive, that's intentional- the idiosyncratic use of language here illustrates well the distortions caused by the feedback loop in looking closely at the highly strange. The caution here would be not to throw out the proverbial babies with the tubs of proverbial bath water. When scrutiny reveals inconsistencies, it may simply mean that the story is too weird to be related any other way.

UFOlogists have classically hated a hoaxer. Anyone caught in a lie (as a witness, at least) is subject to being written off entirely by some amount of what can loosely be called "the field" of UFOlogy. The major investigation groups abhorred "repeaters" back in the day; it was thought that the odds were against even a singular sighting, and that anyone with multiple such stories was likely to be a liar or mentally ill. If such a person also dabbled in magic, or lived in a haunted house, or once saw Bigfoot, the credibility meter would drop much further. Sometimes you would have what sounded like a "normal" UFO sighting, and the attendant other phenomena would be omitted from the report for fear that it would undermine the legitimacy of the primary story. In the service of presenting a palatable truth, only a half-truth was presented- and lies of omission are still lies, which then undermines the investigator... resulting in more proverbial babies being lost in the flood of discarded bath water.

We all know that lying is wrong, even though all of us do it all of the time in small ways. Even back in the days of Aesop tales were told about the dangers of lies, and the boy who cried "wolf" served as a cautionary tale. On the other hand, as noted by Aristotle, the liar can tell the truth without having to worry about being taken at his word. Maybe the UFOs, whatever they may actually be, understand this aspect of narrative and choose to visit liars simply because no one will believe them. We can extrapolate from this that they might be more likely to appear in front of someone who is under the influence of drugs, or to a comedian who no-one would take seriously. To mix fables here, perhaps the wolf is really a UFO in wolf's clothing, and no matter how much the shepherd boy cries it won't prove a thing about the reality of wolves or UFOs.

In the interest of reinforcing this unconventional idea, by way of truth-finding via unlikely source material in our own peculiar idiosyncratic fashion, let us look at the Phenomenon as Flim Flam and Fable through two obscure sources from the 1960s. 

A 1960 Mexican movie, La Nave de los Monstruos (Ship of Monsters) becomes an unlikely candidate for illustrating the nature of the Phenomenon. It stars a popular actor, comedian, and singer / songwriter of Mexico during that era named Eulalio González, often called "Piporro". He is a singing cowboy who tells all manner of fish tales to his friends, all of whom rightly dismiss his stories. It's only natural that when a pair of buxom space ladies from Venus land the titular ship of monsters in search of a male earth specimen, they find Piporro's character Lauriano.

It would be easy to dismiss the movie as B-movie balderdash, even if, like your humble writer you are a fan of the genre. La nave de monstruos has in spades everything one could want from a B-movie; monsters, a cheesy robot, pin-up beauties, and even a vampire and some musical numbers. It also does not take itself too seriously, and its the very playfulness of the movie that makes it so profoundly appropriate in relation to the Phenomenon. When no one believes Lauriano about his experiences at the end of the movie, he is able to laugh about it and go on living his best singing cowboy life. And although the assemblage of elements in the story are absurd, they all have corollaries in the annals of UFO testimony. The creature on the poster, for instance, bears a passing resemblance to the humanoids reported in the Pascagoula abduction event, which occurred over a decade after the movie's release. The Venusian woman aren't very different from the alleged flying saucer occupants contactees like Truman Bethurum or Orfeo Angelucci wrote about. The movie also has a scene in which a cow is reduced to a skeleton in an instant, at a time well before cattle mutilation became associated with UFOs. 

The purpose for the Venusian mission is to find specimens to help repopulate Venus, hence the monsters which range from a cyclopean named Uk to a Martian prince, vaguely in the form of a grey alien, named Tagual. This fits in with the famous Antonio Villas-Boas case, in which he is forced to copulate with an alien, and also later narratives about genetic and reproductive motives behind abductions that became popular in the 1980s. It's worth mentioning as well that Villas-Boas was often characterized as a farmer, less reliable and respectable than one might prefer in a witness, but this is not true. He went on to lead a normal life, and became a successful lawyer. 

Ultimately, the movie is a fun romp and well worthy of a viewing. It may interest those who are interested in UFO lore, as it were, to look at it as an allegory for the Phenomenon more broadly.

Similarly, we see this kind of narrative play out in an episode of Twilight Zone called "Hocus Pocus and Frisby". It's certainly one of the sillier episodes of the Zone, and doesn't often rate on most lists of episodes that defined the series. However, the silliness of it mirrors the absurdity of UFO stories, replete with an unreliable narrator and an incredulous audience for his recounting of events. Rod Serling introduces Frisby in his inimitable way thusly:

He has all the drive of a broken camshaft and the aggressive vinegar of a corpse. As you've no doubt gathered, his big stock in trade is the tall tale. Now, what he doesn't know is that the visitors out front are a very special breed, destined to change his life beyond anything even his fertile imagination could manufacture.

Frisby is a shopkeeper, regaling his customers with whoppers so big Abe Simpson would blush at the telling. He is played by Andy Devine, known for his work in westerns and his whistling, wavering voice. The townsfolk balk at Frisby's grandiose lies of valor and genius, but he is unperturbed and keeps telling them. No one believes him, but, as we come to learn, they love hearing his stories even if they are visibly unconvinced.

As he is closing up for the day, a pair of well dressed men in a black car pull up outside looking for fuel. Frisby can't resist his impulses, and tells them all about his inventions in automotive history and his ingenious innovations in science. The two men are impressed, and say they will see him again very soon. The Men in Black phenomenon has a very obvious resonance here. The men act strangely, seem unfamiliar with very mundane things, and cryptically tell Frisby they will see him again soon. 

It turns out that these MiB are aliens, who have landed their craft somewhere nearby. They act unfamiliar with mundane things because they are visitors from another planet, and such mundane things are exotic to them. Also alien to their perspective is the concept of dishonesty. They take Frisby at his word, and decide he is an exemplary specimen to collect and bring back to their home planet. They selected him purely because of his lies, and when he tells the truth- that he is full of hot air and just enjoys spinning a yarn, it has no effect against their decision. He manages to escape by playing his harmonica badly. For some reason the sound of the musical instrument is incredibly painful to the aliens and messes up their technology. Naturally, the teller of insane tales finds himself in an insane situation, escaping because of an unbelievable weakness these extraterrestrial visitors have.

He arrives back at his shop to find his friends have set up a surprise 63rd birthday party for him, and they present him with a trophy for The World's Greatest Liar. Of course they don't believe their old pal, and never will- but they love the stories and celebrate him specifically for his tremendous yarns. Tell us another one, Frisby, we all want to hear it... Going from one group who wants him because they believe his lies to be true, back to the safety of those who feel a sense of truth to the certainty of his lies, we have an approximation of the way the lore in UFO history goes. 

Perhaps we also have an idea about the inherent mechanisms in the behaviors and motivations of these crafts and their reported occupants. At the very least, I am led to believe we have a rough guide on the best way to proceed- with a laugh, a song and dance, or a tall tale with good cheer and friendship. After all, that's really what it's all about.