Striking a Chord With the Other Side

 

Recently I had a the opportunity to interview the wonderful Amanda D. Paulson for my podcast, The AP Strange Show, wherein we discussed her theories about Paranormal Emotive Touchpoints. You can check it out here:

Part of the conversation involved one of the main "Odd Emotions" Paulson describes as being useful in contacting the Other Side- Nostalgia- and in particular how one might use media such as movies or music to provoke the feeling. Since recording, then editing and releasing the episode, I've been thinking in particular about how much music informs both the psychical and mundane aspects of our existence here on Earth. So, whether you've listened to the show or not (I humbly recommend that you do...) here's a few thoughts.

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Music and the industry around it is largely built upon happenstance. The music that resonates with you largely has to do with where and when you were born, your family or other early influences, and the culture surrounding you. In a broader sense, for songs and musical artists, there are many examples throughout history of songs that become surprise hits or seem to capture a moment in time outside of anyone planning for them to do so. Songs can have deeply personal meanings, as well as widely recognized importance. Sometimes a song can remain fairly obscure for decades, then suddenly become popular for its use in a movie soundtrack. Think of "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel, and how much of a boost that song got from being featured in an infamous scene in Reservoir Dogs. The strange path the song took into many psyches and into the collective unconscious, with additional grim meanings attached to it, is really pretty strange- and very similar to how synchronicity tends to work.

If you think too hard about synchronicity, you might come around to considering what causal mechanism exists behind it- if any. For the more puzzling and strong synchronicities, it boggles the mind to think about all of the events that had to take place in just the right order, at just the right time and place, so that they'd line up with where you are at that moment to appreciate it. Of course its easy to drive oneself crazy noting such things, but there are patterns out there. It's not always clear why and how, and as long as you have stable footing its enough to know that they're there.

When it comes to music and associated media, one is able to track possible meanings and moments in time in which a song, artist, or album would have been culturally significant. It's not always obvious, however, and examples that might fly under the radar can, perhaps, show how both mundane and psychical effects can be wrought from an unassuming song. In thinking about this, I came up with the example of a viral video from the dark ages of five or six years ago.

Given the disposable nature of online content these days, it's easy to forget some viral moments- and even easier to miss it entirely, especially if you avoid social media. But in fall of 2021, one man's selfie while skateboarding and sipping his juice captured a moment when so many people had their lives upturned by a worldwide pandemic. Something about this dude cruising along, in a short form video on a rapidly growing social media outlet, struck a chord with millions of people. It spawned imitators for months, and- pertinent to our subject here- drove up sales and streams of the featured song, Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams". 

No one could have foreseen that a hit songs from 1977 would suddenly become very relevant, least of all because of a context-free video of a man skating along swigging back cranberry juice, during a time of upheaval and anxiety for many. The song was already well known, of course, and held very personal meanings for people of all ages. For those who were around to hear it upon its initial release, it meant one thing, for others perhaps it was a song their parents loved. The album it comes from, Rumours, is considered a classic and seems to rise and fall in popularity with listeners around the world. Regardless of the personal attachments however, the song is seemingly imprinted now with a singular moment in time. A time of chaos and uncertainty, and an oasis of calm in the form of a carefree man "vibing" to it while skating along the edge of a highway.

Whether one believes in the psychical imprinting of the song and this moment, the mood it captured for millions left a mark- whether people remember why or not. It's entirely likely that this particular moment will be lost in the shuffle of online media to the point that no one will remember why they feel a certain somber wistfulness when they hear Stevie Nicks singing this song. Perhaps many of them were never aware of the viral video to begin with. I would contend that its irrelevant. The emotive imprint on the song is now mixed in, with the background vocals, like distant thunder in a rainstorm.

On a personal note, something I discovered about myself made me realize how sneaky music can be in how we respond to it. It connects various moments in time, and the order of those events becomes irrelevant because of music's ability to take one's consciousness outside of time itself. I'm reminded of the first time I listened to the album "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, while up late at night sipping coffee and surreptitiously smoking cigarettes as a teenager in my friend's room. Hearing the synth-drenced main riff of "Have a Cigar" for the first time, while also experiencing the new-to-me chemical delight of caffeine and nicotine in tandem, felt revelatory. It felt like the coolest thing I had ever heard. 

Later on I began to learn guitar and write songs for myself, and noticed a pattern. Songs in E Minor, especially ones that relied on an E minor which adds the 9- the F#, to the chord. The dissonance from the added note with the minor third, the G, activated some part of my nervous system in ways I couldn't explain. "Have a Cigar" more or less outlines this chord in that main riff, and although as a teen it was a new song to me, it had a nostalgic feeling attached to it. In learning to play guitar, I would get pointers from my mother. She had played since her teenage years, mostly for her church, but one of her favorite songs to play was "Diamonds and Rust" by Joan Baez. It was her go-to song when she was warming up or just making sure her old twelve string guitar was in tune. When she showed me how to pick the intro to that song, and when I learned how to play the aforementioned Floyd tune, it clicked- it was the same chord. Something about that chord had stuck with me, possibly from the time I was in the womb. My mom had probably picked out those notes plenty of times while I was gestating, and the notes became a part of me. Even if this is too far fetched, I had heard the song as a small child and notably in the album version there is also synthesizer, which probably triggered the feeling as well.

 

"Diamonds and Rust" and "Have a Cigar" are very different songs. The connection isn't entirely obvious, and probably something I never would have figured out had I not decided to learn guitar for myself. Without any doubt, both songs and the chord in question hit tons of other people in their own unique ways, but somewhere between that F# and G note there exists a secret tone which unites a multitude of consciousnesses and moments in time. For me at least, the vibration of it connects distinct moments in my life in a bittersweet way- and I have little doubt that it connects me to other minds like the sympathetic strings on a harp. I'm sure that other music lovers and musicians could find their own examples, and hopefully this inspires you. 

*** Additional notes:

That last video is a song I wrote using the aforementioned EmAdd9 chord. 

I am not a big music theory guy. If I got anything wrong about how tones work, don't @ me as the kids used to say.

"Stuck in the Middle With You" has an additional weird story attached- for a period of a year or so I seemed to be living in an alternated dimension wherein that song was a little slower, sung in a different register, and lacking background vocals. It was unnerving, kind of a Mandela Effect moment, as I seemed to be the only one who noticed. Eventually it went back to normal. No idea what that was about.

When the Trickster Comes to Town

 

“There’s a sucker born every minute”, P. T. Barnum said. The original huckster, the carnival barker and showman of American circus history, is well-known to have said these words in regard to the money he made off of marks and rubes. The trouble is, he never said that- a detractor of his said that as a way of criticizing Barnum’s sensationalism and false claims. 

Would old Phineas have disagreed with the sentiment? Likely not, but the point here is that the Trickster spirit that animates and lives parallel to all hoaxes, illusions, and lies is so intrusive and all-encompassing it even permeates those things that everybody knows. When we think of the Trickster in terms of high strangeness, we run the risk of ignoring its presence in the more mundane realms. This is to say, the highly strange phenomena itself is but the exterior workings of the Trickster; what we do with it, what concepts we build from it, and how we ultimately synthesize the data is the really tricky stuff. Trying to pin down any particular event definitively amounts to playing three-card monte on a cosmic card table, and always walking away a few dollars short and mystified.

While we’re talking about cards, let’s look at the old 21 Card Trick for a bit of table magic. “Magic” in this sense relates to the stage variety, although this trick tends to fall more under “uncle magic”, common tricks a family member or bartender might pull out on a whim. We talk about stage magic as distinct from magical magic, and sometimes append a “k” to the end of the word so no mistake can be made, but let’s really look at the trick to see how tricky- and magical- it is.

21 cards are laid out in columns, face up. The “victim” selects a card without saying what it is, but indicates the column of seven cards and all of them are gathered, then redistributed in three columns again. Eventually Uncle Bartender will take up all the cards, spell out “Abra Cadabra!” and lay a card down for each letter, and wouldn’t you know it? The last card is the one the victim picked.

This is what’s known as a “self-working” trick. There is no real “trick” involved, no sleight, no palming of cards or manipulation. Just simple math. Mathematically, in ways I can’t explain, if you follow the correct order of operations with the columns and the laying out of cards, that last card will always be the one your victim silently selected. It may as well actually be magical magic. And why, I think it’s fair to ask, can’t it be both?

If we broaden our circus tent to a Bradburyan degree, and let in some spooky mysteries and curious creatures alongside the gaffs and stage illusions, we can see our assumptions about reality warp like a dwarf in a funhouse mirror. Everywhere one looks in Forteana, ufology, paranormal history, and occult magic claims one finds weird truths behind tall tales and only smoke and mirrors behind more cut-and-dry explanations. Sometimes a credible seeming explanation of an incredible claim, when interrogated, seems much less likely than the original claim itself- and often, those little things that “everybody knows” turn out to be fallacies. Through it all, there’s an air of mystery within the tent and without. Phantom odors of both popcorn and elephant dung simultaneously entice and repulse you as you weave your way toward the side-show.

If we move from the metaphor of this fantastical circus of the mind to the more literal and historical circus history, we might consider claims that Helena Blavatsky started out as a trick rider of horses in a traveling show after abandoning her first marriage. Whether this is true or not, the idea that the woman who would ultimately be the face of Theosophy, with its myriad influences throughout occult traditions culminating in all manner of New Age beliefs, had a carnivalesque origin story is oddly appealing and fitting. Similarly, much later, Anton LaVey would claim to have played organ for the Clyde Beatty Circus, all the while learning from the animal trainers and magicians there. While there is no proof of such a connection, outside of his claims, the performative and influential effects produced through his Satanic Church had a carnival barker quality. In both examples, keeping an open mind, one wonders where the show ends and the mystery begins. One gets a sense, returning to the metaphorical tent, that within it somewhere is a fortune teller who is actually a powerful soothsayer- someone with eyes sewn shut and yet with the ability to predict more than just illustrated men. Perhaps it wouldn’t be difficult to prognosticate where all of this leads us, as following our noses leads us either to the concession stands or animal stalls tracing histories of fringe belief and weird phenomena. It seems all of it is, after all, in the eye of the beholder, not the nose- and that whatever your preconceived biases, the investigation of the highly strange continues to be the Best Show on Earth. 

If you haven’t yet thrown up your hands in frustration, and are willing to further traverse the phantom fairgrounds, you might consider again the magician who deals with illusions and sleights. Often, these types are some of the best-equipped in evaluation of paranormal claims. John Keel, for example, remains an influential voice and to some investigators one of the best who ever wrote on the subjects of the highly strange, which is largely to do with his background in magic. Much has been made of magicians like James Randi or Houdini debunking claims of various phenomena, but this is only part of the story. There are also investigators like Loyd Auerbach or John E. L. Tenney, who both practice magic for the stage while being more open to an examination of the otherworldly. Still in our histories we see others, like the Davenport Brothers, who conjured spirits in seances with claims to legitimacy- and upon being found out, continued their performances as stage magic. It’s a small matter of saying it’s a show, “For entertainment purposes only”- but is it, ultimately? Or is it all a part of the Big Show in the Big Tent, all under the umbrella of the Trickster, still looking for that newly born sucker?

It’s all fun and games to conjecture, and fun and games is where we meet the Trickster halfway. There’s a crossroads outside of the fairground where we appear, dressed as Mr. Dark, to meet the Trickster. Down the road is a place where people are concerned only with what they can prove, and what authority figures tell them. This writer has no fear of offending these folks, since none of them will have read this far into these poetic meanderings. Those who seek proof, Disclosure, acceptance from the amorphous and ever-ill-defined entity known as Science in regard to their pet theories about ghosts, UFOs, monsters, and whatzits of all kinds celebrate when sitting congressmen talk about UAP or NHI. It’s a big deal, they claim, when our legislators are finally taking the weird stuff seriously! It might interest these people to know that in American history, legislators and even presidents have been open to or strong believers in all kinds of wild claims. It was a congressman who wrote one of the most influential books about the existence of and history of Atlantis, which would later inspire the aforementioned Blavatsky as well as contribute to all manner of wild beliefs. John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States, approved a mission to discover and sign a treaty with the Mole People of the inner earth. Bringing it back home, Barnum himself served in the Connecticut legislature. The appeal to authority and the self-satisfaction of certainty as regards the various mysteries informing the Big Mystery is anathema to the equation, and only serves to illustrate how tricky the Trickster gets.

Perhaps the metaphor of the circus tent and the surrounding area along with the Bradbury allusions is a bit too dark and cerebral. The sinister carnival has been a useful theme for as long as we’ve had carnivals; the subversion of amusements and novelty betraying our confidences and thus instilling terror has its place, but there is a risk of putting too much emphasis on fear. It might be more helpful to think of high strangeness and the Trickster nature of it all as operating on cartoon logic. I’ve often said that in order to understand the weirdness of the wyrdshit out there, one should study the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon Duck Amuck. There are several ways one might take such a suggestion, but for our purposes here let us consider the investigator to be in the role of Daffy Duck. Daffy is keenly aware that he is painted onto a cell in a cartoon, awaiting direction from the mostly unseen animator. He accepts that anything is possible in his cartoon world, and further, that most of it is illusory. Despite this, he is still frustrated in his attempts to compromise with the animator who torments him. He finds himself transported, transformed into a motley beast, and even in conflict with his own double; even though he knows the trick, he can still be tricked.

The animator of course (spoiler alert) turns out to be none other than the ultimate trickster, Bugs Bunny. Bugs is a demiurgic stinker, casually toying with his feathered frenemy in the surprising reveal. It only makes sense that the legendary rascal would attain godlike powers after a lifetime’s experience traveling down rabbit holes… and the clowns of the circus, which we failed to mention early, are the real power in the Big Top. At this point the reader might think we’ve wandered into the realm of nonsense, which surely we have- after all, the whole premise of “going down rabbit holes” comes from a classic of nonsense literature. Chasing the White Rabbit down into Wonderland we find ourselves sitting for tea with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter, who asks us why a raven is like a writing desk. It might be the most appropriate question we’ve yet been asked.

In several Native American cultures, Raven is a Trickster figure, with his own motives and purposes. He is variously also a messenger, which corresponds to the ravens depicted in Norse mythology as associates of Odin. Much like the desk where tales of high strangeness are written down, dissected, and disseminated, Raven sends messages while himself also being the message in question. It’s tricky stuff, and accepting that you’ll be fooled is a step toward overcoming the frustration of not knowing. Laugh at thyself, from time to time, and learn to unknow.

It is significant that some of the wildest tales of the highly strange prominently involve children as witnesses. Think of Gef the Talking Mongoose, and his association with young Voirrey. Think of the young girls who took photos of the Cottingley Fairies, and all that resulted from them. Hell, consider the Fox Sisters and their outsized impact on the entire world once they conjured spirits through raps and knocks. Children are more readily accepting of cartoon logic, of the wider range of possibilities reality has available. They haven’t yet learned to abandon flights of fancy, through which fanciful things might filter through from another realm. Recently I had occasion to interview Paul A. T. Wilson, who shared with me what he learned from a woman who claimed to be the little girl from the now famous Sam the Sandown Clown story. Before long, I was receiving all manner of comments and messages picking apart Paul’s narrative, accusations of fraud and attacks on his character. It seemed so strange to me that these folks would so readily accept the narrative of the young girl, about her improbable encounter with a weird entity on the Isle of Wight, and yet spend so much time and effort finding reasons to reject any further story. Perhaps we’re more sympathetic to tall tales told from the perspective of children. There’s a purity there, albeit one that’s intrinsically tied to the impish impulses of youth, that we respond to out of nostalgia and empathy. It may also be the case that each of us knows there was a time when the monster under the bed posed a real threat, or that dragons were something to look out for or that the spooky old house down the road was the home of an old witch. Reality is more malleable for children because they see not with their eyes, but with an infinite prismatic kaleidoscope of probability. Raven delivers true visions to those who deserve to see what can’t be seen through normal eyeballs. Adopting a childlike view, where cartoons make sense and preconceived notions don’t prohibit one from entertaining wild ideas is a wild talent in and of itself. 

And so we’re back at the circus, standing at the platform next to Mr. Dark’s Merry-go-Round, weighing the risks of taking the ride…

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…