Ancient Alien Conspiracy Regarding "The War of the Worlds"

Orson Welles...the genius mastermind responsible for such epic creations as "Citizen Kane", "The Magnificent Ambersons", and "The Third Man" got his brilliant idea of "The War of the Worlds" radio show on the exact same day as the Roswell, New Mexico alien spaceship crash.  Yes, unbeknownst to Welles, his panic-laden historic "Martians landing in a farmer's field in Grover's Mills, New Jersey" idea came into his head on 4 July 1947. 

Yes, the broadcast was a full nine years earlier, but some ancient alien theorists discount the date and, in fact, insist that aliens did indeed land when the inception of the idea first popped into Welles' head. The infamous Halloween radio show was broadcast 30 October 1938...but due to a full nine years of unaccountable time, it actually occurred the exact same time.  "If Welles were alive, he'd emphatically collaborate our findings." ancient alien theorist, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, was quoted as saying. Tsoukalos further posited, "The time difference is just further proof that aliens indeed landed on Earth and have been time-travelling, interweaving fact with fiction all along.  That's what aliens are best at doing.  They've been setting the clocks back further than we've ever done.  We've only just begun to scratch the surface of this and firmly believe Orson Welles was a cosmic conduit between space aliens and 'The War of the Worlds' author H.G. Wells. Their surnames are nearly identical, both states the aliens landed in have the word 'New' in them, and Welles wrote that radio show interpretation of that exact same book.  This does not happen coincidentally...the aliens were trying to tell us something...and this was probably it."

(This was a little Halloween homage parody I wrote.  But...if they use it in one of their upcoming episodes, you will know where they got the idea.  I hope I get the check.)

No Small Feet to Accomplish

I want to believe.

I want to believe so badly that I spent another two hours (or was it one hour - with TiVo...the time drags out sometimes) of my life watching another bogus show talking about things like Bigfoot.

It was one about Bigfoot, in fact. It was something on "The History Channel" and seriously, I hate the shaky camera technique and I really hate, in fact I'd go as far to say I despise, Brad Meltzer.* I never knew who you were before "Decoded" on "The History Channel" - but you are more than annoying and you, as my father used to say, "Don't think your own s*** stinks". I've never before said this about a person...but I'm saying it about you: You are a pompous ass who makes the late William F. Buckley seem like "Snuggle the fabric softener bear". You and your shaky camera technique can go take a flying leap off the cornerstone off the White House...or better yet, bale out of some airplane like D.B. Cooper. That's what I think of you and your annoying program. Your annoying program wouldn't be so annoying if it wasn't for the fact that: 1) You're an annoying pompous ass; 2) The shaky camera technique makes me think I'm going to have aneurysms and seizures, and 3) I've heard this all before - if you are going to have an exposé-type of show - at least give me stuff I didn't read in the same book I am sure me and Chris Carter (of X-Files fame) both checked out of the county library in the 1970s.

Now enter any show regarding Bigfoot, UFOs, Loch Ness-type monsters, or ghosts in the past three decades.

I, like Fox Mulder in the "X-Files" want to believe. I seriously want to believe. I really do. Not in the Peter Pan fairies way...but I want to believe in these things. I want to believe anything in Erich von Däniken's book "Chariots of the Gods" - was indeed alien-inspired and alien-made. I want to believe they've found some new evidence - I want to believe in crystal skulls and Nessie and "The Jersey Devil" (no, not Snooki), Chupacabras and the scariest of them all: Spontaneous Human Combustion.

I want to believe it all exists and I want to believe they are going to show me new evidence each time I fall for one of these shows on television. I am, sadly I feel, way too naïve.

I mean, what are the odds they found some skeletal remains of some Yeti and we didn't hear about it? What are the odds Houdini made it over and is finally getting a message across because he had to wait his turn in line patiently? What are odds I'm going to watch yet another show about some secret society or pyramid builders or lake monster next week if they show one?

I'll tell you: Pretty damned good.

But they NEVER find anything new. They might add something inconsequential I never heard of before - but no one ever saves a piece of a Bigfoot or takes photos of a giant squid...or has a new photo of some floating debris which six people now sitting around a lighted table can't argue 'yea or nay' about.

I have lived through the early 70s - and everyone had a UFO and Bigfoot in their yard then. Yeah, sure, there was also a show on television called H.R. Pufnstuf - and if you puffed enough stuff you'd be hearing lights and seeing sounds, too. But still...

...where's my monster?

I want some proof.

After all these years and countless programs - I'm beginning to believe the best place to put fake Bigfoot footprints IS 20,000 feet up. If you put them 20,000 feet up...who the heck's going to argue with you. "Yep...that's a footprint of something for sure...brrrrrrrrrrrr...now get me off this God-forsaken mountain!" If I'm going to fake something I'm going to fake it where no one is going to go to in order to "unfake it" later on.

But yet...I am starting to believe I don't believe. After all these years - all these people who believe sound more like the kids we sold oregano to in high school and less like the kids we made fun of for wearing white belts and pocket protectors.

I am sorry, not to be overly judgmental, but if you are professor of something or other in some prestigious university and you have a streak of purple running through both sides of your jet-black 'straight as a bone' hair, it's harder for me (and I'm sure at least five others) to take you seriously when you talk about how conclusive the evidence is to support the "X-Woman" theory. I'm just sitting here wondering if that's really your accent or if it's just a stud in your tongue and envisioning where all your tattoos are. I'm also wondering how many times you participated in naked Druid ceremonies...and if you've ever boinked Brad Meltzer.

I do walk away from these programs more inclined to believe more people have seen a UFO or Bigfoot than have ever boinked Brad Meltzer, but then again...I really want to believe some things...and some things I just don't EVER want to see.

*As far as I know, this show didn't actually have anything to do with Brad Meltzer other than running previews of his next show during some commercial breaks...but, as he REALLY IS a pompous ass - I wanted to take the opportunity to mention it yet again.

History - It Is What You Make It: Blogger Idol - Round 4

Damn you, Philip Marder!

Mr. Marder was my eighth grade History teacher...and while I am cursing him right now...he is no way to blame. Let me elucidate...

I loved Mr. Marder. He was this dark-haired guy who always wore a burgundy suit on Friday, and sported mutton-chop sideburns...sideburns invented (or at least made famous) by Ambrose Burnside (don't believe me, look it up)...and thanks to Mr. Marder I remember silly historical trivial tidbits like those. (I'll be doing a lot of "thanking" later on, by the way.)

He'd come up with all sorts of gimmicks which we thought were just plain stupid to get us to remember facts and figures. We'd roll our eyes at such "beauties" as this one...

"Where are we going?"
"Bearing straight."
"Get it 'Bering Strait'?"

Silly perhaps, but I still remember those idiotic mnemonic devices after all these years. And I still remember he had a friend who worked in the Archives and History Department in Washington, DC, who would smuggle out all kinds of films to him in 1974 that any school system nowadays would get sued over watching. They were...in a word...fascinating. Shocking, in your face realism...but it was history and you couldn't deny it...there it was...in black and white archival format...and I sat there mesmerized.

With a flick of the lights and a flip of a film projector switch, he did something no other teacher before him...or after...could manage to do...until The History Channel came along: he made history interesting.

In fact, thanks to him I owe a debt of gratitude...I love documentaries. I eat them up. Give me anything on Egypt, mummies (peat bog or regular), Kennedy conspiracy theories, Tunguska, UFOs, icebergs melting, global warming, the history of distilling (hey, I'm still fond of all things distilled), the Romanovs, Newton, Einstein, Euclid, and Copernicus. The list literally goes on and on.

I am like a deer in headlights. I love them. And for a long time I went without.

Then came things like NOVA and Carl Sagan's Cosmos Series. Oh, how I loved Carl when I was young. Then there was nothing...there was a void...and then came A&E's "Biography"...and I was again hooked. Discovery Channel had pyramids and The History Channel had bi-planes and Hitler. Well, those last two I could do without -- but the first couple years, that's all The History Channel had to offer. Then it graduated to Civil War...which wasn't very civil, by the way...but it somehow it piqued my interest again.

History, I found, could indeed be interesting again.

Mr. Marder you have now met your match!

For years, between episodes of Seinfeld and Frasier, I was enraptured. I could always tune into A&E for a show like "Cold Case Files" (years before CSI, there was Cold Case Files) - and I could watch...until the wee hours of the night...all sorts of things. Jack the Ripper theories abounded. So did Tutankhamen ones. Who killed Kennedy? Who killed Rasputin? Who killed Marilyn?

The field was wide open...and so were my eyes.

Then, just when it started to get really good...

...it ended.

A&E's "Biography" ran out of people it seemed. They started doing biographies about...people I didn't care about. They went from the guy who invented Ford's assembly line...to the guy who invented the straws they put on juice drink packages. What the??

Then it was the Discovery Channel. My channel about diseases and medical things and scientific paraphernalia...was tanking. Slowly I was discovering it was turning into the reality show channel.

"Engineering an Empire"...went more to engineering a gang...when "Gangland" started up...and I still haven't a clue what "The Dog Whisperer" does...nor do I care. And I have no idea how many "Dirty Jobs" they can do...I think they exhausted their supply and are now down to "the guy who picks the straws up off the floor on the juice box assembly line".

"Ice Road Truckers"? Let me guess. Truckers who drive on ice? How many different variations on this theme can we get? Okay...there's a lot of ice...there's a big truck. Episode One: Battery doesn't start. Episode Two: Truck slides off road. Episode Three: Truck falls through ice. Episode Four: Um...truck slides off road AND his battery doesn't start...ad infinitum...ad nauseum.

"Monster Quest"? About as entertaining as when I saw it all before...IN 1979! "Nothing new ever happens here...move along people."

But I had hope. "Mythbusters" still survived...until it went from being the "Jamie and Adam" show to the "Three Other People No One Cares About" show. All I can remember is that one year they went from interesting topics like "Can you really get your tongue stuck on a pole like in "A Christmas Story"? and "Can you get your butt stuck on a toilet at 30,000 feet?" to totally far-fetched, cockamamie ideas like "Can you actually eat just one Lays potato chip?" and "Can thunking a watermelon predict doneness?" Oh yeah...myth busted! I'm sooooo glad I watched Cary Grant and Tory this time around. (Yes, I know it's "Kari, Grant and Tory" - I just always think of Cary Grant when they say that and how livid he would be if he saw one of these episodes.) I'd like to see more episodes where logical myth things are blown up, and less other stupid stuff...oh, wait, I've got something really stupid for them to blow up: Kari, Grant and Tory! Now that's a show I'd watch for sure.

And I don't know if any of you have noticed...but The History Channel now makes up their own history. It's true. That show "Life After People" isn't even ABOUT history. It's just a play-by-play "as we see it" pre-historical fabrication we're hoping no one will be around in 2013 to dispute. Yes...they are obsessed with the 21 December 2012 Mayan Calendar and everyone's eventual death on that day; and you thought Conan had high ratings...tune in on 20 December 2012 for this "final" episode.

You know - it's bad enough I read Nostradamus' quatrains when I was 14 (thank you, Al Stewart)...and (thanks to a library book on paranormal activity) worried unduly about my premature demise by Spontaneous Human Combustion...but to have to be reminded that I'm going to turn into some Pompeiian-ish cinder right before Christmas two years from now...every single day??? That's a bit much...so thank you, Mayan Calendar Apocalyptical shows...I can't wait until the next 24-hour marathon you've got planned. I'll be there with my remote in one hand and a noose in the other.

Sigh...whatever happened to the good old days where the most you'd have to worry about from watching some documentary is some crop circle in your yard and a sore butt from an alien probing the night before?

So, thank you, interesting history and science documentary channels for morphing your line-ups into some asinine reality show pabulum, and, in essence, giving us "Human Death Race 2012".

And thank you, Mr. Marder for getting me interested in all of this in the first place. While most of these channels stink right now...at least they're not extinct; and there's always hope that "History" (and A&E, and Discovery) will repeat itself.


Seriously, I promised when I first started blogging that I would dedicate one to Mr. Philip Marder. This is it. I don't know if he's still around...but he was the 7th/8th grade History teacher at Laurel Hill School in Browns Mills, New Jersey. If you know him...or ARE him...I'd love to thank you personally. You've instilled a love of history in me that I am forever indebted to you for.

If you liked this blog...please vote for it at Knucklehead's Blog site (link in the image above). Please read all the other contenders as well. If you still like mine, great! Thank you for your vote and your time to read it. I hope my blog was, at the very least, entertaining for everyone. Thank you!

But were they banned in Boston???

I just was watching "The History Channel" and this commercial came on. I thought it was "bleeping" brilliant - but I'm figuring it won't last long on the airwaves in Alabama...along with the others (below it) which only aired less than a handful of times here:

Powermat

Here are the others (which were hilariously funny in my opinion) which met their demise in a New York advertising minute:

7-Up

Hardee's

Clearblue

Minute Maid

All deserved much more airplay if you ask me...unfortunately, it seems, all the incredibly stupid ones go on and on and on...

(I apologize for not knowing how to imbed YouTube videos on Blogger.com...if anyone knows how - feel free to clue me in.)