the history of some monsters

To finish out my treatise on favorite horror stories I wanted to talk about the possible reasons for these thoughts and ideas having come up in the first place. Zombies are actually a religious expression from the voodoo religion. They would drug people and put them into trances and those people would have exhibited all the tendencies of a dead man. So that is actually a normal idea. The original zombies however would not have more than a passing resemblance to current ones. They were hypnotized or drugged people who were under the control of, often unscrupulous, voodoo practitioners. Vampires and werewolves were an attempt to figure out the vagaries of human kind and they also might have had something to do with the deficiencies in medical knowledge of the day. There were times when people were buried before they were REALLY dead. As miracle max put it they were only mostly dead. Sometimes peoples bodies were misdiagnosed as being dead. In fact a lot of our tradition today comes from that fact. The viewing of the body, the Irish wake these are reflections of those times. Also many of our phrases come from that time too. Like graveyard shift, or saved by the bell. The graveyard shift, and saved by the bell both come from how people were sometimes buried alive. At some point people realized that people were not always dead when they went into that hole. In order to make sure only the dead were truly buried they would leave a hole in the coffin top and tie a string to the finger of the body. After tying that to a bell above ground, if the body moved the bell would ring and so they could be saved by the ringing of that little bell. But in order to hear it sometimes you had to have someone on duty late at night in the graveyard to listen for that bell. Thus graveyard shift. By the way, Ghouls were people who would dig up corpses for the money they might be able to get from stealing from the bodies. Hmm maybe that was how they found out that some of the dead weren’t really dead when they were buried… Anyway now you know… if you want to know more there is lots of research out there to look into.

A series on monsters 3

Werewolves among us? Today’s installment in the horror theme thing is werewolves. A man is bitten by a wild creature, then on the next full moon he finds out that his razor is just not doing the job anymore. Spooky. What can we use against werewolves in our defense? Wolfsbane (good luck tracking that down) or silver bullets. (in this economy???) But they are stopable. So what makes them so scary? Well like both our predecessors in this series the first creep out is that they can turn you into them. The second is the lack of control, unless you get some REALLY thick curtains you will always have to be worried about that sneaky moon. You will be following that sucker more than a UFO nut. Again it would appear that werewolves have a really good PR guy. They are certainly gaining popularity. Still they are supposed to be scary. I think the thing that most makes them scary is that they could be ANYONE. It could be your best friend or your mom or dad or even, in some scenarios, you yourself. Think about that if you will. Still if you are a werewolf this is not the end of the world. I mean, after all, on the positive list you have, being a were wolf means you will not have to worry about balding. Unlike vampires you can still enjoy a nice Italian bistro, and there will be periods of time when you can relax knowing that at least for this one night of the month you will NOT be a bloodthirsty hairy monster. So enjoy this Halloween and try not to eat any of the trick or treaters.

A series on monsters 2

Ok so October has arrived and been here for a while. With this month we will start seeing more horror movies airing on t.v. we will see witches hats and vampire fangs on the shelves in our stores and we will soon see all the little goblins and ghouls roaming our streets looking for sweet treats. SO I want to start looking at the logic of our favorite horror figures For example tonight I want to talk about zombies. Do they make any sense? Honestly I have seen a lot of takes on what a zombie is and what creates them or motivates them. I have read books and watched movies and listened to the stories. I am NOT going to get into the history of the zombie “legend” here, I may save that for another blog later. But I do want to see how viable they are. First almost all the stories/legends/myths focus on the apparent motivation. The motivation is the main point to the whole Zombie Genre… What makes the zombie scary? Is it fast? No not usually. Is it smart? Nope, not too much intelligence. Maybe it is because they are sneaky? No… they are pretty straightforward. The thing that makes them scariest is because they keep coming and coming. They don’t stop! And then, the crowning touch, the piece de resistance, They turn you into one of them! But is that what motivates them? They want to make more zombies? No their motivation seems to be simple hunger. We all can understand that. But what do they eat? Brains. Any brains? No, human brains. And that is all there is to it. Next aspect… How do zombies usually make new zombies? Their bite can turn a person from human to zombie. So how do we stop the zombie? Shoot it in the head. Destroy the brain. Well wait a minute here!!!! If the food the zombie wants is your brain where is it going to go for when it attacks you? They go for the head, the brains. But if the new buffet has no brains then how does it turn into one of the undead? It can’t. so logically zombies are impossible or at least so extremely inefficient that they are really not that scary. So as you go out there for your little thrills and scares do not worry about that pasty weirdo coming after you with the skin rotting off his body. It is probably just someone who really wants your tootsie roll stash. Then again maybe the stories have gotten it all wrong and they are coming out there… No no just kidding.

A series on monsters

Vampire time. Well today I want to continue what I started in my last blog with a break down of our favorite horror stories. Tonight it is the old standby, Vampires! Now these guys are a little more believable than our prior subject. They are simply after blood. They do not resort in wholesale harvesting of their victims like zombies do, they can turn you into one of them but there is control. And they are smart. Most of the time your modern vampire could be portrayed as stylish, suave even sophisticated. While the current trend is to make them more inviting and desirable, they are a very strong staple of the horror genre from time immemorial. The original vampires were NOT handsome pale heart breakers. If you watch the old time Black and White “Nosferatu” you will see a misshapen wretch who had a power of hypnosis over his (it’s ?) victims. To me this one is far more believable because it has more weaknesses. But also because of how it has been treated by popular culture. I mean think about it. Here is a creature that started out despised and truly horrible and now it has become something to be lusted after. I mean that really sounds to me like a VERY good P.R. job on the part of the coalition of vampires. First they went from misshapen things, to suave debonair gentlemen of the night. Then from there to desirable young men (and women) to the current idea of them being a preferred “mate” for real human beings. Sounds like about the best P.R. job in the entire history of earth. I guess that means we better all stock up on Holy water, garlic and wooden stakes. Of course there is no real evidence that vampires are real. But maybe you better be prepared

Are security officers really the issue?

o.k. so I was on a social website for professionals, in there I was looking at a site where they were talking about the lack of professionalism of security guards. One of the big questions was whether this lack extended all the way throughout the industry or if it was only limited to certain areas. Now I have a bit of experience in this area and I got to thinking, the real problem is that you expect them to act professional, but you refuse to treat them like they were professionals. You call them names, you pay them poor wages, you refuse to give them the training or tools they need to do their job, you work them like you would work no other employee and then you demand them to be professional as well. That is why a lot of people who MIGHT have been great assets who have considered being in the industry aren’t. These things are why there is a high turnover rate and this is why you can only get people to work for you that are less than the best or at least less motivated than most. Think about it! What kind of conditions do the security officers, that you know, work in? I know of one job near me where the security officer sits in a “Room” up to 12 hours a day. The room is little more than a closet measuring about 6 feet by 4 feet. The walls are all painted a dirty yellow and the only items in there are a radio clock, a grey institutional desk and a camera monitor that is hooked to cameras that do not actually work. The standards of operation dictate when to turn the monitor on and off, and even though the monitor has NO use whatsoever the officer is still expected to follow those procedures. The officer is tasked with preventing any trespassers but at the same time the company insists that certain doors to the outside not only must remain unlocked but they have to be propped open to allow air flow through the building to keep people from suffering heatstroke or worse. And ALL those doors are outside of the view of the officer in his room. Sometimes the officer is required to maintain the premises and the machinery of the business when other employees are unavailable basically then doing the job of those other employees AND his own job simultaneously while still getting paid little more than minimum wage. Right down the hall from his room is a bulletin board where the company lists the starting wages and positions that are open in the company. Every wage on that list is higher than anything the officer can look forward to but because he is contracted with the business and not a direct employee he is ineligible for any of those positions. So he is stuck in a job that pays 10 cents over minimum wage even though he has already proven that he CAN do any of the jobs at the business, because he DOES do ALL of the jobs, simultaneously, whenever the regulars are gone.) All of that and yet when the business cannot seem to keep any regular officers on the post they complain that “no one wants to earn their paychecks anymore.” I kid you not this was actually said to me one day as someone in the business offices was complaining about the lack of decent help. I told her to consider all the information I just presented here but she refused to hear it. There is no respect for the officers there, only spite. So maybe now I can ask you, if those are the conditions that a security officer faces, What do you think the answer is to the question about the lack of professionalism of security guards?

Family time

Wow school is almost back for us and I was just thinking how short time can be. My little baby, who to me was born just a little while ago, is going into third grade. THIRD GRADE!!! What the heck happened??? She isn’t old enough for that! Sadly she is. Her little sister is going into first and we are trying to figure out what we will be doing for preschool for her other little sister in just a short time. I mean, next year they will all be going to a school. How does this happen? I think that what needs to happen here is when a man becomes a dad or a woman a mom they ought to be allowed, even paid to stay at home with their families. Until they can get the kids to the point where they are out of the house, the job of the parents ought to be simply to raise their kids. There should not be any point where the parents are going to have to look back and say “how did I miss those moments?” At least that is the way it ought to work, I think. Think of all the things that kids do these days. Cheerleading, Christmas plays and concerts, Little league, AYSO, Scouting (boy or girl) Church events, Art shows, Piano recitals, ballet, … the list is huge! So many things that a parent can miss. So there you go. My solution to these problems in a nutshell. Pay the parents to be there for their kids. To share in the memories and the joys. The triumphs and the losses. To kiss every scrape and cheer every smile. AND maybe if we did that there would be stronger families making happier kids and giving us all a brighter future.

What I would like to see in MP3’S.

I have been moving out of the dark ages of music slowly and there is one point I would like to make about WHY it is taking so long for me to do this. When I was a boy we got our music out of the magic box that spoke to us about the weather and played songs. There were many of these magic boxes all over the place. They were called radios. They were in cars and homes and businesses and all over the place. They brought an interesting world to our attention. One that we could not really experience in any other way. But we were somewhat subjected to their whims. Oh sure if I wanted to listen to a certain genre I could tune in a specific station that played that type of music otherwise you got what you got whether it was really what you wanted or not. Of course if there was a specific thing I wanted to listen to, say for example “Surfer Girl” by the Beach Boys or “Yesterday” by the Beatles then I could always turn to my trusty record player. The record player gave me choices that radio did not and it gave me a little bit of control over what I was listening to. Then there were Cassette Tapes. A magnificent invention which allowed me to take MY music wherever I went. Much more compact and useful. I would like to pause for a moment and point out that I got VERY good at both placing a needle in just the right groove to hear a song that I specifically liked and also at fast forwarding a cassette to the song that I wanted. But back to my original discussion. Briefly the recording industry realized that people wanted more ability to listen to what THEY wanted WHEN they wanted, thus the “8-track” was born. This gave even easier control over finding your song choice as well as allowing you to be able to listen to the same songs on a loop until you really got tired of it. This was also useful to D.J.s all over the world since they could get singles on an 8 track format and they never had to worry about rewinding the tape or anything. Sadly the 8-track never really got the chance to shine like it should have. For a couple of reasons… one, it was a niche type thing, a popular niche but a niche nonetheless. Two, it was bulkier than regular cassette tapes and thus limited the amount of music you could carry. OH and three, it was soon confronting a new technology, one which promised better fidelity and experience… the CD. WOW the CD… clear crisp sound over and over, no worries about proximity to magnets didn’t tear or break easily… often touted as “indestructible”. Of course we know better NOW still at the time in comparison to 8 tracks and cassettes it WAS a technically superior product. Of course one other point that went in it’s favor is the fact that, due to the laser coding of the disks the players for the cd’s could jump you straight to the exact song/s you wanted. They could also randomize the song/s, they could play them in a programmed order, you could really control the music the way you wanted. Enter the MP3. Selling point/s? (1) You can carry TONS of music all on a tiny device that fits easily in a pocket or your hand. (2) It sounds about as clear as a cd because it too is digitized. (3) You could find more individualized songs and set things up so that you weren’t stuck with just one type/genre. But here is where the problem comes in for me… Too many of these things are simply taking us back to the point where we had little to no control. I have had a few mp3s now. I think each of them had something that was good in them. But they don’t have ALL the things I want in one package. I started with a really cheap mp3 that actually let me program the order I wanted the songs in. it contained a lot of songs and it was great. The problem was it WAS cheap in the construction and did not last long before it pretty much broke. (not in software or whatever just in the case shattered.) I think one of the drawbacks there was that it was TOO small and thus too easily damaged. Of course then I got another that one was ok too. But there were a few issues there. This one didn’t let me categorize my music how I want. In fact it has a rather stubborn insistence that all the songs HAVE to be played in alphabetical sequence. There is no allowance in it for either MY wishes or the wishes of the makers of the music. In fact if loaded two different CDs (albums) onto the player it would have a fine disregard for all points except “which SONG comes first alphabetically?” However the MP3 also played video (AWESOME!!!) although it was small on the screen that was cool. It also will access FM radio so I get to listen still to other music as well and get news reports. Still I would have really liked to be able to listen to music in the order that I want not in the order that IT thinks is alphabetically superior. Well soon I will go onto a new player. I am unsure if this will be mine, or one that I give to my girls. The first mp3 I bought for my wife she immediately filled with lullabies and then “loaned” to the girls, talk about making me feel selfish. Her second mp3 she claims to be unable to make work the way she wants and for the most part she just listens to the radio now (full circle there huh?) although it does have features like the ability to do live recording so you could literally put what ever you want on it. So we will see, my next player has already been ordered and is on it’s way, I chose one that has a “Large screen” of 4 inches and hope that we may be able to use it to keep our youngest child occupied on an upcoming long trip. If it works well I may be allowing one of my girls to take over the old one, or I may let them have the new one… like I said, we will see. I hope that some day I will find the mp3 that is right for me. Until then…