Archives for January 2011

From bell bottoms to roller disco to mullets (business in the front, party in the back! Sounds like a porno title!), it seems that some fads will not die. Just when you think it’s safe to burn the stuff in the back of your closet, neighbor kids are begging to borrow them so they can “look cool” at he next dance or whatever.

Not that you would look cool wearing them. Far from it. You would look like that creepy guy folks call the cops on when their kids are outside. If you’re a woman, and I know that some of you are, you would forever be labeled as Crazy Aunt – insert your name here. Worse yet are the people who try and rock a modern look when they are well past their shelf date. 40 something dudes should no more be pimping the baggy jeans look than some cougar should be sporting Hello Kitty gear.

You know I’m right.

But, sometimes, pulling out a classic can be fun for all. Back in the 80’s (yes, I know, before some of you were born) my bud, Dino T. Manzella, figured out how to program his answering machine into a game. You’d dial the number, make a numeric selection and you’d be off on a multiple choice trip from hell. The idea, apparently, was for the caller to make it to the fridge and grab a beer. At which point, allegedly, you could leave a message.

Since I never made it that far, I don’t know.

Well a short time ago, between hanging boars heads in his bathroom and asking for decorating tips, he came across his old answering machine. One thing led to another and, after a quick call to his local phone provider, the answering machine was back on line.

To coin a phrase.

I know I know, I can hear you squealing already.

“Oh please Mr. Big Bad, what’s the number? We want to play too!”

Do you seriously think I would put up some guy’s private phone number so that random stalkers could call him?

If you guessed yes, you’ve been paying attention.

All you have to do is punch (or dial or select or ….) 630.847.5241 into your smart or dumb phone and you too can have hours of mindless fun. Naturally the answering machine has its own Facebook page. Just click the number if you doubt me.

My old answering machine, with it’s “Hello, you’re not there right now…” message, seems like the work of a rank amateur compared to this masterpiece.

The machine’s Facebook page goes on to memorialize some of the great answering machine messages of all time. It’s an art that was lost with the invention of voicemail, so some of you may be unfamiliar with it. One of Dino’s favorites, listed on the page, had this very exciting scary music, along with a kitten crying in the background, and then the voice says: “The machine answering this message is connected to a 5000 volt power supply, and a relay which is wired to this small kitten. If you hang up before you leave a message, it will complete the circuit and will fry the kitty. The choice is YOURS…. BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP”

Admit it, you want to kill a kitten now, don’t you?

Not to be outdone by himself, Dino has also added a page that details his philosophy on anything that has his attention at the moment. Since that moment is often fleeting, you have to pay attention.

And if your boss wants to know why you’ve been on one phone call for a couple of hours while laughing your boot-aay off, just say “I’ve been researching the tangential variables of antique communications systems, some of which we should be able to utilize in our company’s voicemail system. These will enhance customer satisfaction as well as free staff up to do more important work.”

Then give them the number and tell them they can leave a message if they can find the beer.

You’ll never see them again.

The Apocalypse has come and gone over 200 times already and I bet you missed it. In case you want to get your party planning in order, the world will end … again … on October, 21, 2011. The Judgement Day countdown begins on May 21, 2011, so make sure to be on your best behavior. The nice thing about this impending Apocalypse is that it will allow us to get this whole ‘end of the world’ business out of the way before the one in 2012. That’ll show those silly Mayans. Clear signs of impending doom can easily be found in stories of cats being called for jury duty and the great Tasmanian Devil die off. While, to the layman, the two would seem unrelated, they are contained in the same story. So, obviously, there must be something there.

There are also alternate predictions based on something called the Bible Code. This is a code allegedly hidden in the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament. The problem, unfortunately, is that the same mathematical permutations that found this code can also find codes in Moby Dick, War and Peace and pretty much any other book that contains those funny word thingies.

In other words we need a clearer precursor of doom.

Fortunately for us, even before Zaphod Beeblebrox grew, or regrew, his third arm (as the case may be), people have been freaked out by the whimsies of nature. They see omens and portents in any creature born which does not fit neatly on their grid.

Well here we are, rounding out the month named in honor of Janus (the two headed god of ancient Rome), and we are seeing a severe uptick in the number of two headed animals being born. Mark Hartzman at AOL News wonders if it could be a coincidence.

Or is it a sign of the end times?

January has been a busy month for two-headed animals. But then, maybe it’s supposed to be — after all, the month is named after the two-headed Roman god, Janus.

Earlier this week, January saw its third two-headed calf born in an Armenian village. It’s currently being fed artificially and according to local veterinarians, it has characteristics of both sexes.

Last week, a second two-headed calf was born on a farm in the eastern region of Colombia.

According to reports, owner Ramon Torres said the calf came out legs first and appeared normal until the baby’s two distinct heads got stuck inside. A vet was forced to cut open the cow to safely deliver the calf, which unfortunately led to the mother’s death.

The two-headed creature didn’t last much longer. The owner claimed to have “sacrificed” the animal.

“I almost cried,” said Todd Ray, who has 22 live two-headed animals on display at his Venice Beach Freakshow. “You rarely see a cow born with two heads separate like that. They killed probably the rarest animal alive. It had a stout look — that animal would’ve made it. I would’ve bought that man a house for that cow.”

The month’s first two-headed calf was born on Jan. 2 in the Republic of Georgia and made headlines around the world. Both heads have been accepting milk fed from a bottle.

Days later, a two-headed, seven-legged camel was reportedly discovered in Saudi Arabia. The mother was in labor for two days before a veterinarian delivered it stillborn by cesarean section. Its owner, Hassan Fahmi, said it was the strangest case he’d ever seen in camels.

That same week, in Swink, Colo., a conjoined-twin lamb entered the world. Like the camel, it was delivered by C-section. The baby ewe had a total of eight legs, three eyes, four ears, two tails, one nose and one mouth. It survived for only four minutes.

And though never actually born, last week two two-headed shark embryos were uncovered after being hidden away in a private collection. They’ve been preserved in jars since their discovery off the coast of Argentina back in 1934.

Granted, the two heads that depict Janus represent the past and future — looking back on the previous year and looking ahead to the new one. But might there be something to so many unusual births this month?

According to Leonard Sonnenschein, president of the World Aquarium in St. Louis, two-headed animals aren’t as unusual as one might think.

“There are often two-headed cows, goats, camels, llamas and sheep, but very few are born alive,” he said. “Most that are born alive only live two or three days.”

January might see a greater share of those births than other months.

“Being that spring is the birthing time for many ungulates, I don’t find it odd that two-headed stillborn ungulates are more likely to be prematurely delivered due to the fact that they are at risk and therefore mothers generally do not carry them full term,” Sonnenschein told AOL News.

Sonnenschein’s aquarium has cared for numerous double-headed creatures over the years. In 2006 it boasted 11 living twin-headed animals. Currently it has three, plus “We” — a preserved two-headed rat snake that resided there for eight years.

We has been succeeded by a live 4-foot-long, two-headed carpet python named Us. It’s joined by a two-headed, eight-legged red-eared slider turtle and a two-headed musk turtle. The noggins on the latter are a perfect 180 degrees from each other, reminiscent of the Pushmi-pullyu from “Dr. Dolittle.”

I know, I know, you want to book a slumber party at the Venice Beach Freak Show. Well, click the link and have at it. They accept reservations.

The good news is that, in Ephesians 3:21, we were promised a “World without end.” The bad news is that nowhere in there did they promise there’d be any people on it.

When the Bible talks about Jesus drinking wine, it conveniently leaves out that it’s not talking about some wimpy Chablis or pinot noir. 2,000 years ago wine was just fermented fruit and not processed. If you try to make it at home you’ll come up with a drink that’s closer to grain alcohol than anything you’ll get on shelves today. Not that I’m claiming Jesus was a drunkard, far from it, I’m just pointing out that there was strong drink available back then and, at least at the wedding at Cana, people weren’t afraid to pour it. Ancient Egypt had those huge granaries. After making all the breads and cakes you could possibly eat, you needed something with which to wash them down. As they quickly discovered, excess grains make great booze. Mostly beers, but they had a nice variety going after a while.

Great wonders of science have come from men and beer. In 1796 Dr. Edward Jenner discovered a cure for smallpox. Was this done in a lab? Of course not. He figured it out by kicking back and watching milk maids.

“No, really honey, it’s science. Grab me another beer on your way back to the laundry, will you?”

That wonderfully healthy pasteurized milk you drink? Happy accident. Louis Pasteur was looking for a way to keep beer from spoiling. I can imagine no nobler quest.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Thanks to men and beer civilization has flourished and gotten healthier. Oh sure, the more picayune among you may point out that the Third Reich got started in a bar, but I feel safe in pointing out that history shows that was an aberration and not the norm.

Now, Ben Muessig of AOL News reports that the greatest idea in the history of history is headed to a bar near you.

California entrepreneur Sam Sparks has created a sport dubbed “Knokkers” — but he insists it’s not a whole new ballgame.

“Everyone has seen pool and everyone has seen bowling — and everyone has probably played both,” Sparks told AOL News. “There is a familiarity that is inviting. People don’t have much of an aversion to it, even though it’s new.”

For the most part, Knokkers is just like billiards, only bigger. Much bigger.

Players don’t hit the cue ball with a stick. They use their hands. And they don’t eye their next shot while walking around the table. They pick their angles while walking on it.

It’s a merger between pool and bowling, and in a single word, it’s massive.

The game is played on a 15-foot by 30-foot table with bowling ball-sized projectiles. Unlike pool, players don’t “scratch” if they move the cue ball before taking a shot.

“The rule in the game of Knokkers is that once you touch the cue ball you have to keep at least one of your feet stationary — like a pivot foot in basketball,” he said. “You can stretch and totally change the geometry of your shot. It makes for fewer difficult shots.”

That leads to an easier, faster game that Sparks believes will appeal to both children and adults.

Plans for large-scale billiard games aren’t exactly new — in fact, one inventor in the 1970s even patented a game that would mix pool, bowling and disco aesthetics by allowing players to walk on the table but forcing them to wear tall platform shoes “for safety purposes.”

According to Knokkers lore, this massive pool iteration is the brainchild of Steve Wienecke, Sparks’ cousin, who says he dreamed up a big pool game in the 1980s. He didn’t get around to building a table until three years ago when he finally managed to lay a concrete slab in his Missouri backyard. Since then the game has taken off.

“We had a party, and we couldn’t get the kids off of it — so I thought, ‘Let’s commercialize this thing — let’s build this for real,’ ” Sparks told AOL News.

Sparks and his cousin began building table prototypes from construction materials, such as railroad ties, indoor/outdoor carpet and recycled tires, and painting bowling balls so they looked like billiards balls.

Through trial and error they say they eventually came out with a table that has the same responsiveness as a standard pool table.

“It has the exact action as a pool table — you can make a three- or a four-rail shot.”

They also realized that normal bowling balls can’t withstand the wear and tear of the game, so Sparks used his background in the plastics industry to design 6-pound Knokkers balls from polyurethane.

Standing on a table and dodging those ricocheting balls isn’t as dangerous as it sounds, according to Sparks.

“We haven’t had anybody hit with a ball,” he said. “Because the balls are only 6 pounds, if you were to be hit with one it would be more of a nuisance. It might hurt, but it wouldn’t injure you.”

Sparks is ready to manufacture tables for interested buyers, and in the next few weeks, he hopes to open the first public Knokkers court at a bowling center in Southern California.

In the next 10 years, Sparks hopes to construct 1,000 tables worldwide. His business is starting out offering two kinds of tables — permanent fixtures intended for bowling alleys, sports bars and the backyards of the most dedicated players (starting at $39,000), and portable tables that can be quickly installed at fairs, festivals and sporting events.

By showing off Knokkers in public places, he hopes the game will win fans.

“It has a real captivating presence. It pulls people in, kind of like moths to light.”

Though he says the game is popular with his kids as well as his mother, Sparks plans to market the game to a demographic between the ages of 21 and 35 — particularly bar and bowling alley patrons.

That’s not very surprising considering the not-so-subtle double entendre in the game’s name and logo.

In fact, Knokkers can serve as an icebreaker for singles looking to hook up at bars and bowling alleys, according to Sparks.

“A girl can say, ‘Hey, look at my Knokkers!’ and get away with it,” he explained.

Beyond the risque jokes, Sparks sees Knokkers as liberating.

“When you’re standing on the felt, it’s kind of taboo. You feel like you’re getting away with something when you’re playing a game.”

“Hey, look at my Knokkers!” is the kind of command that can make a grown man weep with joy.

I know I’m a bit misty.

If you want to see just how much fun it can be for consenting adults to play with their Knokkers, just watch the video.

Back in the late 40’s, renowned author L. Sprague de Camp went a mini-tour in which he read people’s minds, told their future and pretty much freaked the heck out of folks. Then he, like a post war version of Penn & Teller, would show the audience exactly how he did it. Robert Heinlein talks about it in his book Expanded Universe. Basically, de Camp wanted the world to know that there were plenty of real mysteries yet to be solved and they needn’t bother themselves with mountebanks and frauds. Later the devout rationalist and premiere illusionist, James Randi, tore a new bung-hole into every facet of “6th sense” advocates. He even went so far as to offer one million of his own dollars to anyone who could prove him wrong. Over 40 years later that money’s still sitting in a bank.

And he got that account back when banks offered 7% interest and a free toaster. It may be the best investment he ever made.

But, sadly, there are still people who read their horoscopes for guidance oblivious of the fact that if you pattern your day a certain way, no matter the motivation, that’s usually how your day will go. Others have their tea leaves read or throw bones or whatever other silliness they can feebly grasp in an attempt to understand the world around them.

In a world which has had science and nature give us true wonders to ponder, there are still people who think that Charmed is a documentary.

Hopefully, those people will go and see a real documentary instead. AOL News’ Monica Garske writes about a new movie from filmmaker Blake Freeman that tackles psychic phenomena head on.

Many of us have given a few bucks to some alleged psychic to tell us stuff we already know, but what if you spent your entire life savings looking into the future, attempting to contact ghosts and protecting yourself from aliens?

That’s the premise behind filmmaker Blake Freeman’s newest documentary, “Gawd Bless America,” in which he travels across America with a 69-year-old “believer” named LeRoy Tessina who’s gone bankrupt after years of buying into fraudulent fortune-tellers and alien-protection devices.

In hopes of setting Tessina straight, the duo set out on a weird cross-country adventure to debunk self-proclaimed psychics, healers, alien-abduction experts and ghost hunters.

To get to the truth, Freeman and Tessina go around playing pranks on these alleged “experts” — sort of like Sacha Baron Cohen did in “Borat,” minus the bad Kazakh accent and neon-green thong bathing suit.

Freeman told AOL News that the minute he met Tessina, he knew his story had to be told.

“My friends and I ordered pizza one night and LeRoy delivered it to us. The tab came out to $88.88, and LeRoy started talking to me about numerology and what the total on the tab meant. Then he started talking about UFOs and psychics and I thought, ‘Holy s–t, this guy really believes in this stuff.’

“I started to think about how many people there were just like him out there; how many people had paid money to psychics and alien ‘experts’ just to be taken advantage of. We decided to show LeRoy the truth by taking him on a little trip and documenting it,” Freeman said.

And just like that, Freeman and his new buddy were off to debunk “believers” and prove that pet psychics, alien abductees, voodoo experts and the like are, frankly, full of crap.

They even spoke to a guy, Freeman said, who claimed to be an “alien-human hybrid,” who believed he had been conceived after his mother was artificially inseminated by an extraterrestrial.

“I asked another ‘expert’ about anal probing, and he stuttered for 17 seconds during his response. He couldn’t tell me why aliens were interested in looking up our butts. Once they’ve seen one ass, don’t you think they’d stop? Why would they keep doing it?” Freeman said with a laugh.

Freeman also debunked the myth of crop circles by showing Tessina that humans, not aliens, could easily make the mysterious symbols often found in corn fields.

“I hired a guy for $100 off Craigslist and he helped us make a geometrically perfect crop circle in a field in less than four hours,” explained Freeman.

The crop circle’s shape, you ask? A huge middle-finger flipping off researchers and supposed crop circle “scientists.”

While dealing with alien believers was certainly strange, Freeman said their weirdest encounter, hands down, was meeting a self-proclaimed “scatomancer” — a guy who claimed he could read people’s futures by staring at their feces.

“He was a poop-reader. He had LeRoy go to the bathroom and bring his poop out in a bowl. I was laughing through the whole thing — I couldn’t stop,” Freeman said.

The poop-reader — who later admitted he learned his crappy craft on the Internet — poked, prodded and even sniffed Tessina’s poop only to tell him a bunch of BS about his future.

Needless to say, Freeman confirmed that the “scatomancer” was full of it.

Another time, Freeman said Tessina had his aura “cleansed” by a man who rubbed flowers all over Tessina’s body and then spit on him. Again, not much came of that weird encounter except a steep bill for the spitting services.

The cross-country journey also led Freeman and Tessina to several ghost hunters, but Freeman said they never experienced any paranormal activity themselves.

Instead, they invited an alleged paranormal expert to examine a frat house that wasn’t really haunted and tried to channel the ghost of Marilyn Monroe at the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, to no avail.

Throughout the bizarre trip, Freeman said he was surprised to learn just how many Americans actually believe in this type of stuff without having any concrete evidence.

“It’s crazy and kind of shocking, if you think about it. LeRoy definitely wasn’t alone in his beliefs, but at least he eventually got his head on straight.”

While Freeman feels he proved his point and filmed some pretty funny footage in the process, he also made a lifelong friend.

The filmmaker, who’s in his mid-30s, said that after a few months of traveling together he and Tessina didn’t even feel the age gap and turned out to be really good pals.

They ate together, pranked unsuspecting loons together and even did keg stands together.

Now, there’s something you’d have to see to believe.

“Gawd Bless America” hits theaters March 4, and the DVD will follow soon thereafter.

I’ve already written about how unlikely it is that the Earth is at the crossroads of the universe. Mostly because we’re on the outskirts of our own galaxy. Think of it this way, if the majority of life forms live in the galactic equivalent of New York, we’re in Nome. While they may get curious about it someday, there just isn’t a lot of incentive to head out there on a daily basis. Whale blubber tacos just aren’t that interesting.

As to the rest of the so-called “psychic phenomena,” I believe that the scatologist is the best analogy going.

I’ve discovered one of Chicago’s best kept secrets, and it’s on Sheffield by Belmont.  You might know The Vic Theatre as a venue that typically has live concerts…. but did you know it also does a movie night which they call  “Brew & View.”  The Brew & View is the Vic’s alter ego, transforming the theatre from live music venue to movie house.

I love finding something new and different to do in the city, and this looks like my next exciting adventure. Check them out online for the latest movies listings– and join me for a brew and view sometime soon :).

The Vic Theatre is located at: 3145 N. Sheffield Ave.