Urban legends..

[The Curmudgeon]

A few years ago (and without any influence from the crappy movie), I became interested in the phenomenon of urban legends. I bought about four books on the subject and poured over the net for them. It's fascinating stuff, not just the "hook handed killer in the back of the car" ones, but more everyday stuff that we hear all the time and take for granted.

Like, if you leave a tooth in a glass of coke it will melt overnight. I heard that one when I was a kid (and believed it) but it's total shit. But how does some boy, before the net (well, before it became the unstoppable juggernaut it is today), know of this story the same as some kid in, say, Florida know it? It's incredible.

Anyway, what urban legends have you come across in your everyday life? I remember hearing the story about the girl who's lying in bed and she feels the dog lick her hand, and she can hear a tap dripping in the bathroom, and when she goes to the bathroom the dog is pinned to the wall, its blood dripping onto the floor (so what was licking her hand?) I must've heard that about twenty times when I was younger.

I also remember hearing about a girl who hid in her brothers cupboard (or closet, I suppose), trying to catch him jacking off. He then starts praying to the DEVIL and then kills himself in front of her (honestly, who makes this shit up?). I heard that one a lot too.

It's impossible not to be smug, though, when you hear gullible folks telling you stories that they swear are true that you've already read about in a book. I knew a girl who told me the old "welcome to the AIDS club" story (kids at college get injected at parties and then a note is attached to their backs), and she got all pissy when I told her it was fake. I also got a similar story about needles hidden in fuel pumps with the same message, again told to me by someone who knew a guy who knew a guy that it happened to. Uh-huh.

So what about you? Any microwaved dogs? Any people with blades hiding under cars?

[trashcanman]

I think I've given this lecture here before, but in the 80's America was flooded with Satanic panic. Every dead animal found was supposedly sacrificed to Satan, rumors of child abductions and rituals in this building or that (in my town it was the Masonic temple), and all sorts of fucked up shit. The Dead Kennedys used to have a newspaper clipping on their site that had their logo spray painted in an alley and the paper reported that it was evidence of Satanic activity. I heard this sort of crap nonstop when I was growing up. Eventually, the FBI got involved and investigated, and you know what? Not one credible piece of evidence or legitimate police report about anything resembling these rampant stories was uncovered. And to this day I hear people tell stories about how their cousin's best friend's husband or whoever was a cop and they'll describe the scene of the slaughter in detail and all about the ritual and a bunch of 70's horror bullshit. A perfectly reasonable ex-cop co-worker of mine swears that the Satanic threat was real and she's got stories about her ex-partner's sister-in-law having her baby kidnapped and sacrificed and all that. I seriously wonder about the human race's capacity for gullibility. A fucking COP believed this shit. They of all people should know that no evidence = no crime. People think I'm lying when I tell them the truth. Why cling to something so outlandishly grim?

Here's an article :
www.helium.com/items/771456-the-truth-about-the-80s-satanic-panic

People still don't acknowledge the truth. Most of them just got bored and forgot all about the paranoia that consumed a decade of their life. Now it's all about terrorists, who are real but not nearly as widespread outside of attacking perceived imperialists occupying their countries as people think. And the cycle goes on...

[The Curmudgeon]

The problem is, even in todays media soaked culture, some people instantly believe anything they read, that if its written down in a literate, professional way then it MUST be true. That's why racist hate groups like the BNP (in the UK) get normally decent citizens behind them, through playing on their own ignorance and fear. Oh, terrorists are everywhere! You can't trust foreigners etc etc. And, as you said Trashy, the cycle goes on..

[InvisibleWolfMan]

I loved, LOVED reading about urban myths and legends when I was growing up. Man, it'd freak me out to the point I'd have some fucked up dreams but deep down I somehow always felt that there was more to it then just "the truth." As I got older, I started to see through the bullshit enough that I stopped paying attention to it.

I believe I'll credit my oldest aunt (sadly now deceased...and no, not the one I often mention in other stories) to this. I can remember being horrified to be at the local "rock band's" 4th of July concert and full of fear that I'd be soon in Hell (having been recently baptized and all). I remember her asking me what was wrong and I told her, scared and perhaps even tearing up. She looked at me and said:

"Do you listen to Elvis with your mom?"

I said "Yes."

"Ok. And do you watch stuff like "The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas" with her when it's on tv?"

I said "Yes."

"Well then, she's going to Hell faster than you. Know why?"

I said "No. Why?"

"Not only are those things sinful in the eyes of the church but she's at this concert, too!"

Gotta love that logic. We had a longer discussion, but that really broke the ice. I really started to question things after that.

Ironically, it is her youngest child AKA my youngest cousin who, to this day, will swear up and down he knows "what really happened" and has met "friends/family of the victim(s)" who can "prove" it "happened. The video clip below is just one of a billion urban legends he believes in:



Let us not forget that THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE has deeply rooted itself into urban legend status not once but twice. It's amazing that the DVD release of the remake went so far to include the documentary about Ed Gein, who inspired both TCM and PSYCHO but yet there are those out there who flat out believe that there WAS a "real" massacre in Texas and the government covered it up there and so on and so on and so on.

Only in America....

Rare Fortress Fact: The "rock band" from the 4th of July concert now shingles roofs for a living. During my visit to my old hometown last summer I was driving around town and saw there medium sized, silver metal trailer with the bands name (also the last name of the founding members of the band) still there in the same logo styled font...with the added text underneath. ;D

[trashcanman]

I was about to bring up the TCM thing. God people are dumb. Nearly half a dozen times I've explained to people that didn't even know there was an original version that that footage at the end of the remake was not real and given them the whole history and told them who Ed Gein was and all that only to have them not understand a fucking word I said or retort with some bullshit about how their uncle's best friend's stepsister's boyfriend was a prison guard who knew the real Leatherface (the remake one, no less) so it must be true. Do people just make these lies up to impress people or do their distant relative's unverifiable acquaintances actually tell these stories? I'm so happy to be a social recluse.

[The Curmudgeon]

What about the urban legend that Prince had one of his ribs removed so he could give himself a blow-job? I've lost count of the amount of people who'd told me that. Even weirder, I heard the same thing about Marilyn Manson. Surely the only thing those two have in common?

As for TCM, I don't know if I'm remembering incorrectly, but I think Hooper said that the story wasn't actually based on Ed Gein, that when he made the film he'd never heard of him. That may be a false memory, and I'd imagine a few Dwellers will know the answer to that one.

Wolfman, the better I get to know you, the more I think we're actually the same person. We like the same movies, both obsessed by Prince, and now we're both heavily into urban legends? I wonder if maybe you're like some split personality I have, that when I go to sleep (ha, fat chance) I actually get up and become you?

I mean - have you ever seen us in the same room together?

[trashcanman]

Ever seen "The Prestige"? I believe Hooper has said Gein was the inspiration. And I just found an entire website based on this particular myth that we are discussing. Love the internet. www.texaschainsawmassacre.net/Convinced.htm

[The Curmudgeon]

It's the voice-over at the start, man. That message before the movie is read in such a genuine way you DO believe it all happened, and the film is so brutal and so realistic that, well, it COULD have happened quite easily. Shit, check out the Josef Fritzl story; worse things than TCM happen.

Great site you stumbled across, Trashy. There's some good reading in there. Man... just imagine if Gein had never done any of that stuff and the films that would have maybe gone unmade. Psycho, TCM..

God bless that man. Er, sort of.

[InvisibleWolfMan]

Sure, we've been in the same room together....see?



All kidding aside, it's been great getting to know you. I'm glad that I really tried hard to trade for your "Horror Boogeymen DVD" though you didn't want to (seeing how I only had foreign text on my DVD covers and all) and was very...err..."curmudgeonly" towards me. I decided then that either I was gonna cry like a baby who lost his bottle OR I was gonna roll with it and try to break through.

Common sense won out, of course and the rest is history....



Minus the hand holding......

[The Curmudgeon]

You almost had me at the hand holding there. I don't remember being "Curmudgeonly" towards you, Wolfy. I know I'm a dick to about 99% of everyone on the net, but I always thought I was more.. well.. pleasant, with you. Was I "in character" at the time?

[InvisibleWolfMan]

Yes, you were in character initially at the start. I offered the names of a few films I was looking to get rid of and you trashed them. On top of that, you commented on my signature there (which states that I live in Finland AND if I haven't mentioned what text is on the cover then ask to be sure) and said that you don't like foreign text on DVD cases. In fact, it bothered you so much you once traded away a Godzilla set for that very reason. Being new to Swaps and to your ...er... "unique" humor I took it a bit personal. I remember writing in my next post:

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, I might as well east some worms.

Daywalker replied: Ahhh, look Curmy. Now you've made him cry!

And you wrote: Tuck in!



Seeing that message from you made me realize I was overreacting and you actually were just being cynically hilarious. So I replied:

I think I'm gonna need a bigger fork!

And then I kept trying several more times for that Horror Boogeymen DVD until you said:

I hate telling you NO so many times in a row....but NO. Seeing how you have been asking for it so often, IF no one else takes it from me then it's yours.

From there on we got along great, especially when it came to certain movies or when I found out you liked Prince. Then I sent you my THE CROW comic as a surprise gift and then you eventually sent me the concert issue Prince CD that you got and you also helped with my radio show and so one and so on and so on...

And here we are!