Footsteps on the floorboards, creaks in the walls

Stuff that's hidden and murky and ambiguous is scary because you don't know what it does.
 
~ Jerry Garcia

Happy Halloween Everyone! Tonight I plan to help the shadowy thoughts out of the darkness of your mind. Like last year's Halloween post, this one is filled with some spooky things I've been saving up. All of these spooky things are shrouded in mystery. You won't see the ghosts in the first video, and you'll only find the songs scary because of your own imagination. Sometimes it's the things you don't see that are the scariest. You only see them in your mind, but you know they're lurking under the surface of reality.

I just became familiar with the psychic medium, Lisa Williams. Whether or not you believe in her abilities, I think you'll find this video plenty freaky. I chose the spookiest video of hers I could find. Here Lisa visits the Glen Tavern Inn and runs across some unpleasant spirits and their grisly history:



While watching this, I kept yelling at the screen "Don't lie on the closet floor Lisa!" You sure wouldn't see me doing that if I knew the history of that space.

Now you need to turn out the lights and turn up your speakers. Listen closely and get some goosebumps from Jack Kittel's Psycho. Thank you Bob, from It Came From the Man Cave for introducing this song to me!



Some interesting background on this song: It was viewed as too controversial to play on the radio when it was first recorded. Once a DJ dared to play the song on a radio station's underground segment, it became an instant hit.

In keeping with the same general theme, Wendy sent me a song titled Janie's Tomb, by Peter Gabriel. I couldn't find his version on YouTube, but I did find the song being sung by The Superfine Dandelion. Don't let their band name and looks deceive you, this is scary stuff!



Speaking of homebodies...

"She might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother."

 

As I said earlier, sometimes it's those things you don't see that are the worst. In this case, the problem is in front of our faces through most of the movie, but we aren't aware of it. The first time we see Psycho, Norman Bates seems like a nice enough guy. How scary is that?

Back to songs that leave an eerie feeling in your mind, I have to include this one.

Ode to Billy Joe by Bobbie Gentry:



I had thought about writing a blog post entirely around this song, but it was difficult to decide on a direction to go with it. It seems that everyone has a different theory about the song's meaning. I am shocked at what some people think she was tossing off that bridge. Still, we all know something's wrong in this story. Maybe the mystery is a good thing, because Ode to Billy Joe wouldn't be so awesome without it.

Bobbie Gentry strolling across the Tallahatchie Bridge

This last video always leaves me with chills. It definitely has something subtle that sneaks up on you.



Hopefully this post doesn't leave you with too many nightmares!

I hope you all have a fun Halloween celebrating in whatever way you choose. I'll be attending a play tonight, titled The Alchemist Eye, and it promises to be scary. The play is at The Alchemist Theatre which is rumored to be haunted. There are quite a few videos of the theater online, but this one really spooked me!



Well, at least I know which seat not to take...

Happy Halloween Everybody!

You're unique, just like everyone else!

A few blog entries ago, I mentioned that I like to google every one of my blog titles after I think it up. I do this because I'm curious about how original I really am. One of my blog buddies, Copyboy suggested that I share some of these search results. (By the way, you can learn all sorts of things you didn't even know you wanted to learn in Copyboy's blog, which is titled: Not Worth Mentioning) Anyway, I decided to take his suggestion! Those of you with blogs may have fun trying this experiment with your own titles, but I warn you it's a little tedious.

Every one of my blog titles is listed below. The titles that are highlighted are the ones I found exact matches for. When I say exact matches, I mean the phrase was used as the title of an article, web page, book, song, movie, piece of art, video, etc. It didn't count if only a part of the phrase turned up in the middle of a sentence somewhere. Any title that isn't linked to a page, was unique to my brain. As of today, I have written 74 blog posts and 28 of my titles are also the title of something else. So, I'm feeling pretty original! There were multiple options for some of these, so I just linked to what I thought was the most interesting search result.

If you check out every link in this post, you'll get a treat at the bottom of the page! I know I can trust you to follow every one of these links, right? ;) Just kidding ~ Feel free to eat the dessert before the meal on this one! Oh, and I have things set up so that each link will open in a new window. That should save a little annoyance.

Alright, so lets start with today's title. I will admit to not being original with this one. Someone I follow on Twitter posted this quote and I liked it. Anyway, here are the results:


You're unique, just like everyone else!
Don't go making phony calls (If you'd like to study the song lyrics more closely.)
Monsters are Good (Umm...I'm not sure if everyone should be allowed to put themselves on youtube.)
Out of the fog (Another movie with this title)
For the Cultured Werewolf
And the Winner is...
Guardians of the Tomb
Celebrating 50 Followers with a Giveaway
A Venomous Villain (Venomous Villain is also the name of a rapper, but I liked this Disney villain themed makeup too much not to link to it)
Morbid Makeovers (If we're being technical, her title is Morbid Makeover, but that's pretty close. Here's something from a mind that is more morbid than mine!)
Cultural Differences Among Zombies
The Death of a B-Movie Star
Poe's Heartbreak and Loss Performed by my Favorite Witchy Woman
A Mystery Solved with Frenzied Voodoo Rock
Neo-Gothic grandeur
Bold and British (Don't bother visiting this page, unless you're into aircraft economics)
Flash Freezing (If you're a Phantom of the Opera fan you might enjoy this. For my part, I can't believe the amount of comments this received!)
Blood Sucking Bunnies and Cruelty to Peeps
My First Guest Blog Entry
A Grand House Once Sat There
Gallery Night and Night Gallery
My Encounter With Them!
Scandinavian Easter Witches
Waxy and Wacky
Barbie's Darkside
Killer Trivia About "The Birds"
Howl at the Moon (This place looks fun!)
Skeletons on the Runway (A totally different spin on this phrase)
Deadly Decoupage
Thrilling Graveyard Dance
Chenille Macabre
Remedios Varo - An Artist You Will Like
Glee's Zombie Makeover
Sassy yet Sinister
Something to do while hiding from the cold
Pumpkins singing The Ghosts' High Noon
When the night wind howls
Alcatraz ER Restaurant
Oh My Goth!
Impressive Makeup Artists
Animated Poe Movie
"The Raven" Starring John Cusack
Edgar Allen Poe's Birthday
A little gothic shopping
A friend for the scary vegetable
The Scariest Vegetable
Guess who was on the roof? (Sounds like this person was on their own roof)
Haunted Gingerbread Houses
Frightening Fred (It would appear this is the name of a race horse?)
Lunar Eclipse
Christmas Shopping for Halloween Lovers
Spooky Amityville Radio Show
Terrifying Beauty (Something to seriously run from)
Young Frankenstein Movie
Bizarre yet Addictive
Extreme Pumpkins
Pumpkin Creatures (I feel so fancy now that I'm sharing titles with Martha!)
Halloween with Everyday Minerals
Young Frankenstein Musical Review (not as favorable a review as mine)
I'm Seeing Young Frankenstein Tonight!
After Halloween Target Haul!
A Wonderful Halloween Weekend! (Aww, so cute! Although, I have no idea what I'm looking at here.)
A Community of Zombies!
My Witch is in this neat collection!
Halloween Floral Arrangements (Crafters sharing Halloween display tips)
Gorgeous Halloween Makeup (Definitely worth looking at)
The Launch of Justine's Halloween (I'd start getting paranoid if this one showed up anywhere else)

OK, so here's your treat! A video of Nellie McKay performing the "Clonie" song. This seemed like the perfect song to include in this post, because I was searching for my blog titles' exact matches. The lyrics in this song are so witty. You might unfortunately have to watch a commercial before this, but it's worth the wait.



Aside from Lady Gaga, Nellie is the only singer I've found entertaining throughout the last decade. There are all sorts of interesting thoughts lurking under her adorable demeanor.

Here's another one of her videos ~ Do the Zombie! This has basically nothing to do with today's topic or really much of anything, but it's a cool song and it fits with my blog's Halloween theme. Besides that, there are lots of fun people in the video who are either acting like zombies or are in some drunken state. You might have to turn up the volume on this one.

So, back to cloning...Do you think if you had a clone, it would be your BFF like the one in Nellie's song? Or do you think it would be evil and want to do away with its competition? Sometimes it's hard to get along with the people who have the most in common with you! I always thought it would be convenient to have a clone around, because as a team we'd be a lot more productive than I am alone. That's assuming that her brain was enough like mine to have my same goals! After all, no one has figured out a way to clone a brain. So it would impossible to predict the personality of a clone. If it was possible to have a clone made of yourself, would you go for it?

Don't go making phony calls

A few days ago, someone left me a very weird voice mail. I was going to write about it earlier, but my awesome prize of spooky pins took precedence. Basically, it was a recording of either coughing, sneezing, or gagging. A man was making some guttural noise, anyway. I'd love to know what was so thrilling about coughing into my voice mail!

This is maybe the third weirdest voice mail I've ever received. The second weirdest was a recording of a drunk man pretending to be Matt Damon. When I traced that phone number, it actually went to the South East chapter of our local Chess Club. Seriously. But the weirdest phone call I've ever received came when I was still in high school. I remember picking up the phone only to hear someone breathing loudly. I sat there for maybe 5 minutes listening to them breathe, when it occurred to me that they probably weren't going to hang up any time soon. I just left the phone off the hook (yes this was back in the day when phones had hooks and cords) and decided to take a walk. When I returned 45 minutes later and picked up the phone to listen, he was still breathing away. At this point I hung up.

Other phone silliness has included a phone call from inside a port-a-john, during which the guy dropped the phone...Not to mention the time some guy decided to pick my number, of all numbers, to give out to girls he wasn't interested in. So, they were calling me all the time asking for him, and then not believing me when I said I didn't know who he was! Think about what happened to me, if you like to give fake numbers to those you're uninterested in. Some unfortunate person will still be hearing from those people! But moving on....

Creepy phone calls figure into a lot of urban legends and movies. In honor of the coughing caller (since he did provide me with today's blogging material) I present to you...

A video exploring the famous "babysitter gets a creepy phone call from inside the house" urban legend:



I remember thinking about this story when I was a teenage babysitter. It would be night time, the kids would be tucked into bed, and I'd be alone on the couch trying to read. Except I'd be distracted thinking about fun stuff like this...

On a more positive note, here's the inspiration for this blog post's title:

Don't go making Phony Calls ~ A Weird Al classic!

I'd love to know...What's the weirdest phone call or voice mail you've received? Or maybe you were the prank caller! Have you ever left someone an um...interesting phone message? Don't worry, I won't report you to the phone police. :)