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“I keep telling you, ghost sex is nothing! It’s worse than nothing!” “Then why were you moaning last time?”

6 Comments read Attractions, Pacific, Reviews, USA, Washington, West

To celebrate my friend Aisling’s birthday, we went on the Market Ghost Tour. The Pike Place Market has supposedly been voted the most haunted place in the Pacific Northwest, which seems somewhat convenient given that it’s a tourist destination, but I suppose that’s the way these things go. Almira could have Satan popping out of the ground on Main Street every fifteen minutes, and the people around here would hem and haw and conclude that if it isn’t within a fifteen minute drive of home, it isn’t worth seeing.

This was a ghost tour, unlike the Museum of the Mysteries’ ghost hunt, so there was no yelling at ghosts or recording EVP or running down dark hallways in an attempt to catch paranormal activity on a thermal camera. Instead, it focused on telling ghost stories located in the general area. And even then, it was a lot more general history than spooky stories involving encounters with the dead.

For instance, we were told about Dr. Linda Hazzard, a doctor who treated her patients by starving them to death. It was intimated that she practiced in or near the Pike Place Market, when a cursory internet search indicates that she did all of her practicing stateside in Olalla, Washington. Also, the story involved zero ghosts. In another story, we were told about a “fat lady barber” who used to steal from traveling sailors, but whose “fat caught up to her, she had a heart attack, and broke through the floor on account of being so fat.” Except we were told immediately afterward that wasn’t the case, they’d combined two stories into one–the “fat lady barber” was murdered by one of the sailors she’d stolen from, and another person had fallen and broken through the floor. We were told these stories were combined in order to have a better morality tale, so people will “eat their veg” and not steal. It’s really good of them to have done that; I don’t know if I could have made it a full seventy-five minutes without some form of fat-shaming. And really, who is going to believe that a fat lady died from her stab wounds? Please, like a knife could have even penetrated through all that fat. She was clearly double-teamed, but ultimately taken out by obesity: the silent killer. Once again, it’s good this story had a moral, because that made up for the lack of ghosts. There were stories about posing for pictures with dead relatives–no ghosts. A story about a raunchy old lady who used to hang out at the Pike Place Market–no ghosts. A tree blossomed after someone was buried at its roots–no ghosts. Hey, look at that tile on the market floor bought by the Heaven’s Gate Cult!–no ghosts.

Even when the stories did involve ghosts, they were nigh-universally lackluster. “There was ghost activity in the theater, but it stopped.” “There was a ghost haunting this building, but someone put cake on his grave and he stopped.” Even when the story should have had a little more punch, the guide rushed to the finish line and didn’t give any time for anything to register, hustling us to the next story area. “And the little boy had no eyes–and we’re walking, we’re walking!”

It’s not that I had a BAD time, I just expected a bit more. Maybe more ghost stories and fewer made up morality tales. After all, once someone has admitted to telling you a lie, how can you believe any of the other preposterous things they put forward as the truth? Ultimately, I think I could have had a ghostlier experience if I’d taken the $17 for my ticket and spent it on whiskey.

Where the hell am I supposed to find silver bullets? K-Mart?

4 Comments read (f)Art, Attractions, Pacific, Travel, USA, Washington, West

Of course, no trip to Long Beach would have been complete without a stop at Marsh’s Free Museum. It seems like they’ve actually scaled down some of the mayhem in their store–either that, or I’ve grown used to their brand of chaos.

Still, there were some things on the wall that I’d never noticed before–supposedly mythical creatures that had been captured and taxidermied as proof, like the South Florida Swamp Ape, or the Greek LambClops or the Wyoming Werewolf.

Ever since I saw a Real! Taxidermied! Werewolf!, it made me think a little bit more about werewolves in popular culture. Teen girls, have you really been getting lathered up over this guy?

I guess there’s no accounting for taste.

I know what I was saying. It was on the history of Astoria and these are the rejects!

Comments Off on I know what I was saying. It was on the history of Astoria and these are the rejects! read Attractions, Oregon, Pacific, Travel, USA, West

During this year’s long beach weekend, we made it a priority to visit the Goonie Museum, as we just missed it last time and had to settle for being bitten by the Goonie cat at the Goonie house. This museum is located inside the old county jail, which had been donated for this purpose by the city. Realizing that a museum dedicated to the Goonies alone might come up lacking, it recognizes many of the films that were shot in and/or featured Oregon, though it is still generally referred to as the Goonie Musuem.

Tell the Goonies why you’re here:

Up until this point in my life, I’d never really bothered to conceive what the inside of a jail might be like, and I’ve never had the misfortune to be forced into the experience. (Yes, once when I was in junior high, I was brought home in the back of a police car, and at one point I did attempt to visit a boyfriend who found himself incarcerated, but both of those are stories for another time, and neither resulted in me actually being inside a jail.) Still, it smelled exactly the way one might imagine a jail smells: a bit like sweat and pee and desperation. The walkways themselves were narrow and claustrophobia-inducing, and while I suppose that makes sense in terms of preventing prisoner escape, it’s less than comfortable for people visiting of their own free will.

Although it has been up and running for over a year now, it suffers from exhibits that are either not ready for the general public or are broken. In the cell area of the jail, you are supposed to be able to send your friends the link to the museum’s website so they can watch you rattling around a cell, moodily resting on a bed, or yelling for chow. That was broken. In the other section of the museum, you’re given access to video cameras and sets with greenscreens, one of which was broken. You’re supposed to be able to record yourselves through the camera and edit everything together. That was broken. We had a lot of fun fooling around and photographing ourselves in flattering light, but it wasn’t everything it could have been. But like I said, we still fooled around. Everyone’s natural ham came out in front of the camera, and we’ve taken this as a sign that we should own video equipment of our own while simultaneously knowing no good would come of it. It’s like going to a pet store and falling in love with a nervous tinkling dog named Stainmaster 2000. You love his cute face, but can you change his nature? Probably not.

After a while, we noticed a face-size hole cut into a door, which I assumed was there for me to recreate a scene from The Shining. I have no idea why it was actually there, though I suppose it could well be there for this purpose as the front exterior of the building was filmed in Oregon.

While having my Shining moment, I realized that fortuitously I was wearing my ET/Shining shirt mash-up and I had the opportunity to take an extra creepy photograph, if only I was willing to cram my boobs through a hole in the wall. As always, I was up for it.

At least, it was creepy until this happened.

After we’d done all of the fooling around in the museum that we could muster, we made our way to the gift shop and realized that each of the cameras they’d given the public to play with feed directly to a monitor on the gift shop screen. At least three faces turned beet red, and there were some strong mutterings of “Thank god we didn’t get our tits out”. There should be a warning! It’s not like we’re all of a sudden going to learn decorum on our own!