Day: October 16, 2014

The Pro Clown world is testy over AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAKSHOW

When AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FREAK SHOW debuted this month, strong ratings gave the show one of the biggest premieres. Ever..

But the theme of the show was unsettling to some who enjoy the finer things in life. Such as clowns..

According to various reports now, the ‘pro clown’ community is freaking out over the freak show. While it is strange to even comprehend an entire community of people being pro clown, it appears to be the case..

The show’s scariest character is killer clown. In all actuality, the role in the show actually has people truly freaked out..  People are scared .. and real life clowns are lamenting the bashing of their cherished trade.

Clowns in pop culture are nothing new.
When I was young, Pennywise the Dancing Clown appeared in the television adaption of Stephen King’s IT. Tim Curry’s role as the dancing clown was haunting and effective. Until FREAKSHOW, Pennywise may have been the scariest clown to grace our society..

Michael Myers is also a bit of a clown–the blank face of pale death is reminiscent of the appearance of the zany circus actor. Even professional wrestling tried the clown role with “DOINK and Dink” in the 1990s–of course he was a good guy at first and then took on the role of a villain.

Why are clowns scary?

You may want to check out an truly amazing and listenable GROUND ZERO WITH CLYDE LEWS radio program from the other evening he called “MEDIEVAL CARNIVAL 666.” Lewis did he best to track back the origins of the pale white figure to the Middle Ages, when clowns were introduced to the masses dying from the Bubonic Plague. The clown’s appearance was devised to mock death–the embellished aspects of a clown all had a meaning to represent some part of the process of the body decomposing.

In a 1989 PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER article, the paper profiled a fiction play –based on reality– in which the church employed a squadron of clowns to entertain the dying.  But clowns could be traced back even further than the dark times of the middle ages.. Some say they can be found in ancient Egypt in 2400 BC.  The ghostface appearance came somewhere in the 1800s..
Film and literature always made them seem scary..
And the fear of clowns blossomed into the phobia it is today.

Even the SMITHSONIAN studied the reasons why clowns were so frightening in a 2013 report. They conclude that people have been fearful for centuries of the appearance of a clown.

Recent news has given us more reason to be unsettled.. Only days ago, parts of California were haunted by the appearance of a clown at night named Wasco. Some reports actually had children claiming that clowns were chasing them around the streets at night with an ax.

The notion of a clown showing up at a time when reality has become unfathomably scary is frightening in itself. Imagine the planet suffering through deadly disease, a possible upcoming food crisis, droughts and plagues, and beheadings across the Middle East, and a clown shows up to sit on your local park bench. Armed with the persistent smile, balloons.. or an ax to chase a child across town..

Goosebumps times 50…

Some disagree that clowns represent death–as we see from the outcry over AMERICAN HORROR STORY, the pro-clown posse is existent.

I argue, though, that they do. Or they at least represent the attempt to mock death–the wild actions and bizarre makeup do have corpse-like features. And more, their mischievousness is tame at face value but also disturbing in a deeper way. Perhaps that is why children jump in fright so often when they initially come in contact with a clown.. especially a clown out of the element, a place such as a bus terminal or under a street light in the middle of the night..

We all seem to be a little unsettled by a clown..But we also latch on to staring at them when we see them. That may explain the amazingly high ratings of AMERICAN HORROR STORY..

So while the clown troupe is annoyed with the representation of their job, perhaps another group is going to get angry at the latest FREAKSHOW.. In the latest episode, conjoined twins played by Sarah Paulson disturbed viewers even more with the singing of the song CRIMINAL by Fiona Apple.. Let the outrage over that begin.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQKJ3jlRhG8]

#GAMERGATE and all of its pop culture consequences

Welcome to the new world of GAMERGATE, where men hate the women who are now playing the games that men thought were theirs »

The threat of violence against feminist Anita Sarkeesian has refocused attention on the often-misunderstood #Gamergate debate.

Video game culture wars.. They are certainly are not new.

It wasn’t long ago that people accused GRAND THEFT AUTO 5 of deliberating degrading women… And that debate has only intensified with newer fights and fads online..

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I have not been covering the game world lately, but there is something very notable taking place within it. Apparently there are high amounts of threats against women who review games.. the latest include a threat of violence against feminist and gaming critic Anita Sarkeesian.

CNN reports,

“It’s been the talk of video game professionals for the past two months,” gaming critic Evan Narcisse said. “The culture wars that … hit other creative media (are) hitting video games now.”

Here is the lowdown on something you may already know about if you’re a gamer in a gaming world. Men who play the hardcore violent video games are on one side. On the other: The new world of gamers, which so often includes women. And the world of online hate has entered the real world of pain..

CNN attempts to sum it up this way:

Then there are the others (see above) who smell a fight and have piled on. The vitriol, much of it aimed against women, has spilled from the Internet into the physical world. In recent months several women in the gaming industry say they received rape and death threats so specific they were forced to leave their homes.

Some gamers have adopted “Gamergate” as the term for a loosely defined movement defending hardcore games against criticisms from feminists and others.

It all begins, we are told, with a critic claiming that often women are the victims of violence in games. Or used as eye candy. And on that point, it’s undeniable. Women get bad treatment in really violent male-oriented games.

But it has moved on from there.. Now the allegations of sexism in the gamer world are coming to light, women claiming harassment from within the industry, and the constant barrage of rhetoric of males vs females over games online. This is the a pop culture war—not a culture one, perhaps, since it is confined to one small sliver of American life.

The gamer world needs to come out of the basement and realize that what they are playing is not real..  This nonsense of female vs male is ridiculous.

For the men who hate women in entertainment and games, get ready: Women are the ones now buying games, deciding what movies to watch, and creating popular television shows.  All-male oriented entertainment is going to be gone.. just as the movie studio creating a all-female GHOSTBUSTERS remake. The wizard master may be the male in that one..

Also, for those playing video games, mired in the world of fiction and false realities, get a grip on yourself before you wreck yourself..  I wrote about how too often our pop culture and entertainment gives us false sense of security. While you play games, the real world is at war outside your safe walls.. For some people, the walls come down and the real world enters.

I am sure GAMERGATE will continue.
After a while, it will burn itself out.. and the fight if today will be a distant memory of tomorrow.. as women slowly begin taking their path into the rough and tumble gamer world. Men need to make room.. Haters will hate. But gamers will play.

And the only way to unite gamers is to play a game.

Fanning the flames of oddity: The news of the world on an early Thursday morning in October

It was the best of times..
The worst of times..
The rest of the time,
The world’s sublime.

Here is a sample of a sampling of news from the world that we think you should know today.. Some good, some bad, some scary, a few fads.. read and weep, Earthling..

Some political news to begin
Here is a bizarre story from the political world in Florida: Apparently there was a debate at the Governor’s debate over a fan that was propped to keep Charlie Crist cool. Here is the VIDEO from CSpan..
The rules said no fan. Crist denied knowing about it. Eventually Florida Governor Scott came out after several minutes of shouting, jeering, and controversy from the audience..  It was tense, weird, and perhaps one of the weirdest moments in debate history in politics.

“Nothing to see here” continues strong in Japan.. Radiation levels from Fukushima are the highest ever after the monster typhoon that just struck. As a matter of fact, they are three times higher than previous levels. And the previous levels were high..

Is he with the CDC? Both the ambulance company and Emory University Hospital said the unprotected man with the clipboard (center) is not one of their employees - meaning he is likely a CDC employee
Who is the mystery man that was not wearing protective gear around an Ebola infected patient being transported from Dallas to Atlanta.. But at least he had a clipboard. Meanwhile, there are worries in Dallas that things may get worse. Also this: The hospital that seemingly has screwed up so bad in Dallas is saying sorry for the Ebola mistakes it has made.. Kevin Sack in the New York TIMES writes about the downfall of a hospital due to Ebola. This seems to be a very big wake up call hospitals that are not trying to prepare–as the hospital in Dallas apparently fell victim to.

The NEW YORK GIANTS received an EBOLA primer.. They play this weekend in Dallas.

Meanwhile in the UK, a nurse is finding herself in hot water after purposely breathing on a child … she was doing so while she had a throat infection.


There are accusations being made of a double standard in France’s judicial system. Apparently a topless woman imitated an abortion at a church. She simulated an abortion by carrying to the altar pieces of a calf’s liver, symbolically representing the fetus. The act culminated in Bouton urinating on the altar’s steps.. But amazingly, that’s not the story of controversy.  Some are saying that the penalty is much less than the group got when they put a pig’s head out of a mosque. A fine for the abortion stunt. Prison time for the ‘religious intimidation’ of the pig’s head bit. Either way, always topless, rude and crude.

Real news is beginning to look like a horror movie..

This is a scary map: Watch 13 years of a drought develop in the state of California on one GIF.. the most amazing sight to see is how the dark red sort of develops out of no where over the past 24 months.


This must have been a horrific scene in Missouri: Spiders “bleeding from the walls” in a home drove the family out–6000 venomous spiders to be exact.  Two pest control companies were unable to stop the deluge of horror..

VICE has a must read article running about the man who trick the chemtrail conspiracy theorists.. Michael Allen writes in the publication about a man who used ‘video evidence’ to show chemtrails–all the while duping people into thinking it was evidence of chemtrails.  While this is not a commentary in my opinion that dismisses all chemtrail evidence, it certainly shows how pervasive hoaxes can be online. Perhaps someone needs to come up with the ANTI-SNOPES page, a site that will announce a conspiracy theory but discredit anyone who is trying to discredit it with fakery. Nonetheless, good read in VICE.

Here is another hoax that people are STILL falling for: The future according to Adam Sandler.  The pervasive rumor that the actor predicted many horrid tragedies was put out by the ONION in a satirical piece. That has not stopped people from believing it and re-posting the fallacious information.

TIS THE SEASON: A group of ‘ghostbusters’ in the UK say that when they went to a haunted mansion, they saw ghosts crawling around on the ground. The SCOTSMAN has the full creepy story of the haunted house..

Terrified mother captures snap of evil black-eyed ghost on family day out
I think this may just be a tree, but the DAILY STAR in the UK is reported that a ‘terrified mum’ (love their way of speaking) saw a black eyed ghost in a tree.. I still just think it’s a tree.

A website posted a list of the most annoying Facebook status updates. We agree.. along with it, throw in the photos of food and other Instagramed-colored hue-ed photos that pretend life is grand.

I am sandwiched in the middle of two locations GAWKER reports have the ‘ugliest accents’ in the United States. I pick Pittsburgh, simply because the Scranton accent has more weight in the coal region of  Pennsylvania where I currently reside.  The dialect is peculiar and often tough to listen to.. the videos in the GAWKER article are right on the money.