Tag: creepy

Fall Beer Review AND Spooky NC!

We are in the pipeline, folks. T-Minus ten days and counting before we switch from jack-o-lanterns to turkeys and trees. It’s hard to believe we are in the last third of the month but…we are. So let’s do it right.

Tonight I am reviewing a beer that takes all things pumpkin to a higher and more sophisticated level. I usually shy away from reviewing such beers because it will attract the beer snob who picks apart the video and scoffs at he fact a guy like me can have two cents to throw. If you are reading beer jerk, expect to be pissy. But, I wanted to shed some kind light on Rogue Pumpkin Patch Ale because of the way they make it. It’s a farm to table way that I love. Real pumpkins from their farms make this mild and sweet beer all the more enjoyable.

Also! Also my pal Dave tells a spooky story about a notable haunted bridge only miles from where I live. He’s the type that is pretty serious so I 100% believe this tale. Now whether it was a ghost, who knows? Sometimes the perception is as fun as the reality of an event.

Enjoy this video and expect another catchup post later tonight.

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Spooky North Carolina: “Körner’s Folly”

Man oh man, I have been a busy beaver lately. Work always seems to wait until I specifically ask for a break to go completely insane. A little unknown Murphy’s law is “Don’t countdown to Halloween; just acknowledge it’s coming.”. I never take my own advice and end up over promising.

So, here is my latest episode in the series, “Spooky NC” where a friend and I poke our noses around a very odd house located right down from where I live. I have always seen it driving through the little town of Kernersville but until recently, I never had a reason to ask about it. I am glad I did.

It was built in the late 1800’s and nicknamed a “Folly” because of the crazy price tag attached to the building process and the fact it’s just an odd design in general. Every room has its own distinct personality, shape and size. It’s as if a seven-year old drew up the blue prints. I can see how many people in the Körner family thought this was a something that could eventually be the downfall to the family name.

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The house itself sat boarded up and abandoned from the 1960’s through the 1980’s until the city decided to restore it to the original condition and use it for holiday events, social gathering spots and tourism. Since then it has been a pretty popular place and a money pot for the little city of Kernersville, NC. But it also came with something else. Unexplained noises are common there to the locals who walk past the old house at night. They report lights from inside the closed building and the police have a special numbered call when the motion detectors trip the house alarm.

Last year a paranormal investigative team spent the night there and found some pretty convincing evidence like kids laughing from the bedrooms and actually recorded what sounded like a cocktail party on the top floor where plays and parties were held. On their way out of the house early in the morning over half of the lights mysteriously came on as they were backing out of the parking lot. Creepy.

So, that’s a brief and shitty history of the house. Now I want to talk about what happened when we went there.

The house closes to the public at 4pm on Saturdays but will stay open for just a few people who might want to get ghostly evidence if you ask nicely and donate a few extra dollars to the Körner’s upkeep fund. And that’s exactly what I did! I dragged my poor friend there since she likes that sort of stuff anyway and it was just us in the house for a good thirty minutes while the two staff ladies went to their office across the street. I had the camera and my friend snapped pictures on her phone as we made our way through the different levels.

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I didn’t get a spooked feeling or the creeps but I will say it’s a house like no other that I have been in. It almost didn’t make sense structurally. Every time you stepped it echoed and creaked so I have no idea how anyone got a moment of rest there. When editing this I decided to leave the audio out and overlay it with music because all you hear is deafening footsteps and breathing. And that brings me to the only thing we think we witnessed. Or think we did.

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Okay, so remember when I was saying that we were the only two in the building? Yeah….that’s the top of someones head looking over the railing two floors below us. I absolutely did not see that when I snapped this picture and when I showed it to my buddy, she screamed as if there was a spider on her head because we were both absolutely positive we were alone. I am not saying one way or another if this is a ghost but I can be sure of one thing, it’s not a person hiding in the house and somehow tip-toeing around.

And why didn’t I see that when I took the picture? It’s crazy. I guess you would have to be there to fully understand there is no way for another person to be in that house without either of us knowing. The stairs alone would give you away!

I’ll leave it up to you. Here is my short video that starts with a festival up in the North Carolina mountains and some of the people there were far scarier than any ghost could be. Enjoy!

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You Need To Stop Finding Me Like This

Over the many years I have writing here at Veggiemacabre, it always amazes me in this wide wide world of the web how people come to find me. Sometimes it’s on purpose, sometimes it’s a random Google search looking to see what Aaron Dozier is up to. Most of the time it’s a photo search that just happens to link to my small restate in cyber space. But every so often there is the bizarre person who finds me in their perverse and twisted internet search. I am creeped out but in some small way, I appreciate them. Just randomly poking around the site stats, here are a couple from yesterday.

A long time ago I did a little workout to an old VHS workout tape of the former Good Morning America host, Joan Lunden. As a young blogger this was an opportunity that I couldn’t miss and at that time I had the time. Fast forward years later, I am still a source for people’s random searches looking for Joan Lunden. I will say this is the first time I have been a hopeful site that exposes Joan Lunden’s funbags.

I did a Google search for “Joan Lunden boobs” and wouldn’t you know it?

I was on the first page! Why am I proud of that? Granted, there were a few that had the word “breast” in some sort of Joan Lunden recipe site but if you want to talk about Joan Lunden’s hose-hounds, I’m your guy! Actually, I don’t think I ever mentioned her boobs in that post. But don’t tell the weirdos that. I need the site hits. I’m a sneeze away from a half-million.

I also like the “Oldest Female Celebrity That You’d Knock The Bottom Out Of”. *cough cough cough*

Okay, let’s see what other strange people are out there from this past week.

What the crap? Is this real or a dream? Are people meaning to make eye contact with their pets while they are shitting on the lawn? I can’t tell if I am more disturbed by the intentional search for “eyes of a dog trying to poop” or the fact that it led to me.

 

So, just like before I had to search for this just to see how far into the “search” I am and why. Dog poop? Fine. Dog’s eyes? Fine. Dog’s eyes while pooping? Nope.

Well, I couldn’t find an exact avenue leading me home from this search. Mainly worried owners who watch their dog shit. I had a dog years ago and I have no memory of watching him trot around the back yard looking for the perfect place to shit. I did, however, have an awkward moment when my cat was pooping and wouldn’t stop meowing. I just turned the TV up louder.

I am so sorry for this post. Perhaps I am tired from building this dang office or just the work week. Regardless, there are about five good ones on the way. But until then, deal with old boobs and dog poop. You’re welcome.

 

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Just Call Me Sally

So get this. My Dad was playing golf over the weekend in Southern New Jersey when he hit a poor tee shot out into the wood-line where the grass was knee-high. While searching for his Nike ball he felt a sharp pain on his ankle which he immediately brushed off as a bee sting. Jump 24 hours ahead and his ankle is swollen to the size of a baseball and with much convincing from Mom, he decides to go to the doctor. What did the doctor tell him? He told Dad that in fact he was not stung by a bee but rather a poisonous copperhead snake.  What?

So, the doctor gave him meds, pain management drugs and hopefully a tetanus shot for good measure. But this begs the question, who gets bit by a snake and brushes it off as an insect bite/sting and has to be coerced into going to see a doctor? Well, the toughest dude I know, my Dad.  Sadly I am not near the man as my, well, old man is. Case in point.

I walked home from a goodbye party for a dear friend of one of my best friends. Was that confusing? Well, they are great friends of mine too but it is a far bigger impact on her since she has known them from the first time they started grad school. Living in a college town, it is inevitable that people do graduate and leave the nest. So where was I….oh yeah! I walked home very late and the mood was perfectly set: lightning storm, no one around on what normally is a very busy street, blowing wind and a slightly tipsy dude whistling “Love Will Keep Us Together”. And then I stumbled upon this.

 

Now keep in mind it was 2am, I had a few drinks and the over all ambiance was a tad unsettling so when I saw this I did stop and stare for a solid minute. It wasn’t a parking meter because it was on the side-walk and it was standing under the bus stop. But I am rational. Of course it couldn’t be this…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right? Because at that moment my 33 years on this Earth full of rational thought, this is where my mind went. So I walked closer, still not seeing exactly what this 3 and a half-foot figure was, standing on the side-walk at 2am in a thunder and lightning storm across from a convenience store appropriately name the “Murder Mart”. I am not making that up at all.

Still not entirely convincing even after my loud coughs and throat clearing that this was just a thing and not a thing. Looking at the photos now that it is sunny and I am sober, one can see that this isn’t paranormal but rather just some statue or object wrapped in plastic. But last night I wasn’t completely sure and cautiously approached, gingerly stepped much like a cat staring down a laser pointer.

I remember when I was in a combat unit over seas and carried a belt-fed machine gun and live hand grenades. Good to know that guy is still around. *eye roll*

So…a chuckle ensued as I finally was close enough to see that this wasn’t a 3 foot devil or menacing midget from a black mass party. No. It was just a credit card pay-meter that are being installed all over Chapel Hill. I know I lost cool points for this but ask yourself this, looking at the first picture, can you perhaps see where I was coming from? Ok. I know.

I need to lay off the scary movies for a minute. Sheesh.

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Father and Son: A Rip In Reality

Every so often my perception of reality changes; some for the good and some for the bad. Recently a dear friend and fellow blogger extraordinaire, introduced me to a multilevel retail extravaganza that was so extreme, I left a better person, friend and lover. Okay, maybe not any of those things but it had a profound effect on me that fits VeggieMacabre to a T. I introduce to you an iconic shop that makes the bookstore from The Never Ending Story and Ray Stanz’s spook shop in Ghostbusters 2 look like a Baby’s R Us. Meet “Father and Son” located in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Located right downtown in Raleigh, this store looks like an ordinary retro second-hand store that most cities have but once inside, there is a sort of Twilight zone feeling in the pit of the stomach. You will see what I am talking about very shortly.

The store has a series of floors and rooms, each one a different theme and feel. Sure all the rooms basically offer the same stuff (used clothes and long forgotten items of yester-year) but each has a distinct feel, some feelings of being cluttered, some feelings of oddness and some feelings of down right creepiness. The kind of creepiness like a dream where you scream and nothing comes out as you are trapped in a yellow room with a fat hillbilly family in animal masks while “Moon River” plays in the background. That kind of creepy.

Here we begin with the front room and as you can see, there is no rhyme or reason but rather just random displays of some really weird shit. You can find anything here from stickers of quotes by Dr. Dre to a cross-stitched and framed Sesame Street Grover picture. To get through this part takes no less than a half an hour because just when you think you have seen it all, there are more items behind the items that are behind the items. Much like a fishing vessel, from a distance it looks like a mess until you look closer to find that everything is right where it is intended to be.

It goes without saying that in a Kohl’s this would warrant a Fox News investigative story into witchcraft being thrust into retail therapy but here, it works. A chicken-headed girl works like pastrami and rye.

Of all the items though, this one stuck out the most. A young Hasselhoff can rarely be perfected unless of course his head is superimposed on Mr. Olympia’s body. But put him in space and it now becomes ridiculous. Had the background been in a Wendy’s dining-room, this would be at a frame shop.

Ah, the second floor. I am not showing all the rooms because that level of detail would detract from the mystique of Father and Son so I will stick to the ones that left an impression on me the most. If you stare down this hall too long it seems like it gets longer. Kind of like the scene in Poltergeist when Diane is trying to run to save her kids. God I love that part. Ok, let’s go left.

I think keeping inventory in this store would be more complicated than astro-biology because there is literally one of everything in a four-story store of one million everythings. Get that?

I am not sure why I didn’t take a picture of the whole room because just out of frame is a working tub and shower with an American flag and a shrine to paperback risqué novels that drive women of menopause crazy. I think it was just a system overload of the brain.

Here is another room with an overwhelming smell of old. There is sign that clearly states to be careful not to be rough on the clothes since many of them are from the 1930’s which to me, means the original owners are most likely dead. Does this make anyone else uneasy? I donno. But if you look close enough you can see two bloggers.

This is the room that chilled me to the core and I have no idea why. I am not one to get “feelings” but when I walked into this particular room I stated “something bad happened in here” to the shock of Mandey who later told me she too had the same feeling months prior but didn’t want to concur right then because she felt it would make her seem silly. She is silly but not that kind of silly.

I really can’t put my finger on it but the whole place just seems wrong. Maybe it’s the mannequin parts randomly strewn about or perhaps it’s the oddly way it’s lit, but I really feel that Pazuzu had been here smoking on the couch. Something bad happened here.

Keeping on the track of things that make you shit yourself with no apologies I bring you to another floor and room reserved for the strange and unusual because I myself am strange and unusual. This is the art floor and goodness, artist do art scary here. Look at these Manson pictures.

Yeah. I really wish I could credit the photographer but there were no cards or even a description of the display. I was hesitant to even post these but I feel the true underlining feel of Father and Son may not be represented as well had I stuck to my ethics. I sacrifice for you.

Yup.

It’s a dangerous decision to include a toilet on the same floor as an art exhibit. Living art is always lost on me and there is a chance that I could have made it come alive should I have had one more cup of coffee. I still don’t know if this was art or a public restroom and I have too much dignity to be thrown out over confusion.

It’s weird to see the real world from a place of insanity. I felt like screaming to passing cars and people, “HEY! HEY! I AM IN FATHER AND SON! CAN YOU SEE ME?” only to watch them walk by as if I was in a parallel universe and the store that I think I am in is in reality, a burned out wreckage waiting for demolition. I think I have carried this a bit far.

Keeping with the creepy theme, I found this in a pile of discarded family photos. Have you ever seen such a family? This poor boy never had a chance and I am not a betting man but I am thinking this is the eldest daughters prom souvenir because Mom looks like she would be a tough sell. That statement is chalk for of ugliness. I am sorry.

And finally we are going down to the basement. Another odd fact about this place is Mandey had a dream she went down in this basement before she ever knew this place existed. While it is weird to shop in a basement, it had no where near the creep factor that the said room above had. You do have to be careful though because if you are over 5′ 10″ there is a great chance of a head-dent on a pipe. Six foot me had three.

What can you say? It’s like a dressing room in the basement of a haunted theater with more capes per square foot than any other place in the world. Seriously, this place would make a Shakespearean actor go prose in a rapid fire fashion.

Ok, for some reason, whether it is Photobucket or WordPress, I am unable to load anymore pictures so I will have to continue this report on one of the coolest but definitely creepiest stores in a second installment. Man, I hate when technology wins and fucks with my posts. I know it does this on purpose. Well, anyway, please check in tomorrow to see where I get murdered while looking at a Kenner R2D2 AM radio from 1977.  I will end this post with a picture of South Dakota.

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