God Hates the Lords of Salem - Rob Zombie Sightings in Salem, MA

[11/21/11: Most recent article here.]

"Lords of Salem is probably the bleakest of all my films."

Although I question the concept of Rob Zombie's upcoming movie Lord of Salem, I am still looking forward to it. It can't possibly disappoint me, nothing he has ever done has. In fact, Zombie always surprises and impresses people with his ability to imbue depth and emotion into movies that, on the outside, just seem like violence and gore.

In a recent interview with Empire Online ("www.EmpireOnline.com) Rob mentions that this is an idea he's had for a while, "Like a lot of my ideas, I had this one a long time ago, but it was never the right time to make it. Eventually it spun off into a song [see video below] but there were still no plans to turn it into a movie until the Paranormal Activity guys approached me and wanted to do something. I didn't have any specific plans, but I mentioned Lords of Salem and they really latched onto it."



He goes on to clear up the plot a bit, "There were twenty people that everyone knows about - obviously all innocent - executed as witches in Salem," explains Rob. "The basic premise of the film is that there were a further four who actually were witches, who were killed secretly, and vowed one day to return to wreak havoc on Salem's descendants. That's when the movie jumps ahead to the present day and things start to go wrong..."

Another interesting rumor is that Zombie is actually going to be using his own music in the film, creating an original score or just writing songs to use. I wonder if he will do a new version of the song that gives the movie it's title?

Yesterday, Zombie told his fans "Heading out for more location scouting on The Lords Of Salem," via Twitter, and today there have been multiple sightings of him around the city, including a stop into Coven, a local cafe. (I always wonder what famous people eat, so I asked around and found out he got a coffee and croissant. lol)

Honestly, I don't know how people scout locations in a town they don't know. I can think of at least a few different amazing places that would be great for filming near that the average person wouldn't just stumble across. Hell, ask some of the townie kids where they go to drink in the woods, those are usually the most isolated and scary places around!

And thank the gods that he scrapped his idea to remake The Blob "without the blob", and that it was only a rumor he would be directing the Motly Crue movie. Those both sounds like horrible ideas. Lords of Salem sounds far more interesting and I, for one, can't wait to hear more about it. When I do, you will be the first to know!

And as far as film, what's next for Zombie? "I'd love to make a Western too, but the trouble is that films are expensive."

[edit: One hour ago he updated his Twitter feed again "Just left Salem. Great day of scouting. Found some amazing locations." ... So exciting!]

Salem "Warlock" Uses Charlie Sheen Meme for Free Publicity

Haha, I am so sorry Christian, but I have to write about you again. lol

Anyone who is watching this Charlie Sheen fiasco can see it's getting out of hand. It was an insta-meme that exploded the interwebz with the expected wins and fails, bad mspaint macros, and application of quotes into non-sequitur pics via the lolBuilder. Personally I am not a big fan of this meme. I like the nerdy ones a bit more.

But now, this meme has hit close to home.

Sheen's use of the word "warlock" resulted in some great jokes, but also an opportunity. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, local witch Christian Day has a habit of using controversy for publicity. How do you cause controversy? Through provocation or causing an argument - otherwise known as trolling. In fact, Christian has already been using the controversy surrounding the use of the word warlock to describe a male practitioner of the witchcraftness as a way to drum up publicity. This whole Charlie Sheen thing was just pure luck and opportunity for him, and he jumped at the chance.

So I wake up this morning and check my various news feeds to find our local Troll Warlock has achieved a certain level of media saturation. The Daily Telegraph, The Boston Herald, ONTD, Random morning radio shows so many blogs, so so many plugs for his new book. That's right. New Book. Who would have guessed?

So how did this happen? Well, by listening to his blogcast show it's pretty clear. He and a local shop owner made the decision to contact TMZ. You know, TMZ the entertainment show/website that exists only because of paparazzi embarrassing, stalking, and harassing people, gossip, and cheap media tricks - surely they will buy into the meme as well.

What has resulted is nothing short of absolute proliferation. At the time I write this article there are approximately 100 websites that come up when doing a Google news search for ' "christian day" warlock "charlie sheen" ' and it will continue to climb.

My opinion? I play a lot of online games and frequent many online communities where trolling can be considered a fun and entertaining addition to any forum or chat room - as long as it is witty and thought provoking. I have yet to make a decision whether I view Mr. Day's trolling as entertaining or think it just makes him look like a sell-out. The first thing to do is wait and see if all this publicity backfires on him.

Shout out to Christian: I'm worried about you, dude. You're playing with fire. Or trash rather. TMZ is a trashy trash fire. And it smells. Don't let that stink rub off on you because some Salem witches already smell bad enough!

[Edit: And how does the warlock himself feel about all this sudden media attention? A reliable anonymous source promises me that this is an ACTUAL status update from Christian's Facebook, it might not be true, but it totally sounds like him: "I hope that all this publicity has enabled me to potentially fulfill one of my important New Year's resolutions ... to find a midget personal assistant like Margaret Cho has. Well, ok, I think they're called little people now, but I've asked on three radio shows for one to come to me. I'm sure this will really put 'em over the edge, but I must find one! :-D"

Salem - Still Destroying History

Tourist season is still a few months away, so nothing much is going on here, but an update is still needed in order to cover the more interesting things going on.

With Destination Salem's new Rorschach test of a logo, they hope to appeal to both the large witch tourism seeking demographic and the much smaller, but much more wealthy, yuppie/merchant history demographic. If you look closely it can be interpreted as either a witch's hat OR a sailboat looking sort of thing.

I hate the dichotomy that people insist exists between these two groups. Does it really exist? As a local tour guide and historian I can attest to the fact that the trading history of Salem can be interesting to everyone, it's just that the tourist institutions and the historians in Salem tell the stories in boring, dry, and uninteresting ways.

The other issue I have with the new logo is the new motto that goes along with it? "Still making history." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Still making history how? By allowing a national television show to take a crap on our history? By allowing the historic Old Salem Jail to be renovated into condos and a restaurant that betrays and capitalizes on the history of the building at the same time? The Old Burying Point cemetery, one of the only respectable historic tourist destinations in the city has been falling apart for decades and we just allow it (I see people working on restoration in there no more than 1 or 2 days a year)? We allow tour companies to exist that blatantly lie, take advantage of tourists, and disgrace our history.

If by "making history" they mean allowing the past to die and creating a new history to take it's place, then yes, we are creating history every day. But the ultimate goal is to do a service to history a little less like Winston Smith at Minitrue and a little more like detached observers with a desire to simply preserve what once was.

A Brief Critique on the Salem Ghost Adventures Episode <|:)

A strange energy hung in the air all day yesterday. Was it the full moon? Maybe the thunderstorm rolling through?

A quick look at my news feed reminded what it was. This was the night that the Salem episode of *shudder* Ghost Adventures was airing. I get goose pimples just thinking about it. o.0

It ended up being mildly entertaining, although there were numerous problems and obvious historical inaccuracies. I mean lots. ...I could just let it go and said I had fun drinking root beer and watching tv on a huge movie screen at Cinema Salem, but that's not what you all want, is it? XD

I showed up five minutes late and slid int the back row after a brief trip to the concession stand. I don't want to complain too much about "reality" tv, because most people know a lot of it is staged, but, man, watching this just pissed me off! They were being really disrespectful towards witchcraft, for one. In one scene they were walking down Essex st as Zak Bagans pretended to run frantically around asking every person he saw "Are you a witch??" Well, I remember that day clearly, and they walked right past me as I stood in front of the Spellbound Museum with my super long hair and wizard beard wearing a shirt with a huge pentacle on it. I said "Hey, we're the local ghost hunters, come here if you want to know what's really going on in Salem." That prompted them to stare at me and film me speaking then all turn their backs on me at the same time and walk away without saying anything. Then my boss went up to them and introduced herself and her dog, Braveheart, and they actually showed a clip of her introducing the dog but not herself! Threatened much?

Later, at the Witch House, the very first time that Zak Bagans whips out his digital voice recorder and asks a question, he gets some scribbles that he claims are electronic voice phenomena ( or EVPs, which he later describes as "phenomenas[sic]" in the same way a child asks for "pesgetti"). And, of course, it's a little girl. Isn't it always?

Any time they mentioned Christian Day or his shop, Hex,there was boisterous laughter and yelling from a section up in the first few rows. I could hear his voice, which can only be described as 'fabulous' exclaiming "That's right, I'm a WARLOCK, baby!" I could only help but giggle at his attempts to troll someone into the witch/warlock debate, which has good and bad evidence on either side and which I am assuming he has been studying extensively lately as his first book is coming out soon and people are saying it might be called something about warlocks or something. He leaked some of it which I have read and I must admit he is truly reveling in his controversial image. Nonetheless, I can't wait to read it. [edit: as an aside, here is a video of him and the extremely magical and wise Lori Bruno helping out their realtor friend with a cleansing ritual that doubles as a fantastic publicity stun. They were just in the Wall street Journal as well for this same stuff.]

Later on, during a mention of the famous mysterious figure some of 1692's accusers claimed to be afflicted by, known as the "Dark/Shadow/Black Man", they showed shaded grainy footage of the statue of Roger Conant. Only the most unperceptive of tourists don't realize that the man with the walking stick and a cloak is not some spooky figure, but the man who founded Salem as a fishing village in 1626 before the ignorant Puritans showed up in 1629. A rookie mistake really.

During the investigation when they were visited by afore mentioned Salem Warlock and his friend Kelly (whom you can get psychic readings from over the phone for only 3.99 per minute!, lol), they were treated to a ritual that was pretty much devoid of any actual ritual, but contained a cute speech. Christian sure did raise a lot of energy in the room and the guys from the show were getting all worked up about him, but mostly about his skull, which he named Robert. The editing was hilarious, and if Christian did do anything respectful or authentic they completely removed it - but made sure to include him talking about blood sacrifice. Hats off to Mr. Day, though, he cut his finger (or faked it convincingly) and did a blood sacrifice on tv! Wicked awesome. I could tell from his cackling laughter he thought the editing made it a little cheesy, too, but it was good. He totally freaked the guys on the show out.

Now, after the ritual the digital voice recorder seemed to actually respond to multiple questions on cue with specific answers. Really? Wow. Let us suspend disbelief for a moment and say that this was true, only problem? Content! Historical accuracy!

They claimed the voice was Bridget Bishop and that Jonathan Corwin presided over her trial and may have even questioned or tortured her in his home. There are multiple issues with this. The first is that Jonathan Corwin was not made a judge in the court of Oyer and Terminer until after Nathanial Saltonstall left, and what motivated him to leave? The first hanging, of Bridget Bishop, and it's basis on spectral evidence.

TL;DR version: Corwin became a judge AFTER Bridget's execution and could not have presided over her trail.

Now, to move on, they moved the investigation to The Lyceum restaurant(a great place, but a bit pricey), which has never been proven to be the site of where Bridget Bishop's property once was, but it is possible. The show did not mention that this was only a theory, and completely accepted it as fact without question. I hope that the fashionable little steampunk kid from Beverly High that was the guest investigator on the show reads this because I wanted to ask, could you tell Zak Bagans was flattering you? This kid, Max, seemed very skeptical at first, but then after a pep talk from Zak about how cool he thought he was, he seemed much more likely to buy into whatever was going on around him. Did anyone else catch that, or am I wrong? Flattery is how a lot of psychics work, as well. It is a very easy way to manipulate someone.

Later on, they caught a suspected EVP - a low and raspy sound that they deduced was the voice of Bridget Bishop saying "Mary". If that was Bridget Bishop, then she must have been fugly as hell, because she sounded like a nasty old drag queen.

A bunch of other stuff happened but, nothing notable or very exciting and this entry is too long already. Tomorrow, a quick update on the rest of what is going on in the world of witches, there has been too much to not update, but then back to winter blog break.

[Also, in researching this entry I found a fantastic article written by someone ten times more skeptical than I about this episode that I had to link because it's extremely funny. http://frothygirlz.com/2011/02/19/ghost-adventures-salem-witch-house/ ]

On winter vacation from the blog.

iPhone Apps and Horse's Asses

So far, I have had more than 2000 people on my tours this month with very little problems.

The 10pm tours on the weekends are always the worst because I'll not only having drunk people walking by yelling at the tours, but drunk people ON the tours as well. Some people actually turn the tour into a drinking game and hide booze in their sodas or coffees. After one tour these girls told me they had decided to take a sip anytime I said 'witch', 'ghost', or 'orb' - so you can imagine they were pretty wrecked by the end.

Asking business owners around town I am hearing that everyone's numbers are WAY up this year. The people over at Destination Salem (whose website was never completed this year because they apparently spent too much time on their new iPhone App) are saying, in all so far, the amount of tourists coming into the city has gone up 12%, but I think those numbers are only based on who visits the Visitor's Center, and many tourists never go there so we can assume it's higher.

Some people don't even know why they come to Salem in the first place, they just kind of come here based on herd mentality. I had these two dudes in their 20s come up to me and start asking about the tours because they could tell I was their age and would tell it like it is. One of them looked at me 100% seriously and asked "Is the tour scary?" and I couldn't help but laugh.

I said, "Scary? You are grown men. Unless I pull a knife on you I am not going to actually scare you. The history is messed up and disturbing and that leaves paranormal energy behind." Because I approach the paranormal in such a scientific way, nothing really scares me and I don't see why it should scare anyone else. The truly frightening part is reality. For instance, did you know one test for witchcraft in 1692 involved putting a pipe in a horse's butt and lighting it - and someone was killed based partially on the results of said test? Sounds pretty scary to me.

Another scary thing is all the street hustling ghost tour rip-offs in town this month trying to rope in tourists. One company that has a joke of a haunted attraction and has never done a ghost tour before suddenly hired and got licenses for more than 25 kids based on a Craigslist ad they put out. 25 tour guides for just the month of October, none of which are from Salem and most of which are still completing high school. How can they possibly be qualified or even trained remotely adequately? The haunted attraction this company has is a two-minute walk through two black-lit rooms while teenagers in drug-store Halloween costumes jump out and say "boo!" for eight bucks. I can only imagine how bad the tour is.

This year is the most crowded year since I have been a tour guide. There are literally DOUBLE the amount of tour groups vying for space this year than last year, many with unlicensed guides and many of which trespass WITH the tours. When my boss and I complained about it to an officer he said "We can't do anything unless someone calls," which is a complete contradiction from the letter every tour company in town received this summer from the Salem Police stating that if tours kept trespassing on private property we would all be brought before the city council in order to have our licenses revoked. Well I don't want my license revoked, I follow the rules, and I am going to be punished for these horse's asses that only operate during high tourist season anyways?

Plus, the stories these other groups tell people, and the gullibility of the average person is disturbing. Based on a ridiculous photo in which a tourist claimed to see the shape of a face in some stones, one tour company now stops directly in the path of my tour and encourages each and every person to put their hand on a door to feel for a dead little girl or something. Seeing the looks in the people's eyes as the touch the door is just amazing. They want to believe so much that they are being lemmings.

Truly fascinating. It's things like this that encourage me to study anthropology/sociology.

Hoax Adventures and Seasonal Witches

"Who is that? The guy from American Idol?" I hear a young woman on Essex st ask.

Nope. That slick-haired celeb with the camera crew and boom following him while he walks down the street swinging his arms and popping his hips extra casually is Zak Bagans of Ghost Adventures mugging for the camera and stopping for photo ops with his biggest fans - little girls.

Even if I were to accept the flawed science on the show, I truly hate paranormal investigators that taunt and provoke in order to get results. It is not only a cheap and showy way to build excitement and energy, but just plain disrespectful. A paranormal investigator should show the utmost respect for the history of any place and the people that were once there. I bet during their filming in the witch house (see how they painted it black back in the day to trick tourists into thinking it is spooky?) they really play up the old legend about how some of the examinations of suspected witches may have taken place there, which has been mostly proven completely false.

Just a quick Youtube search results in countless amateurs casually debunking their "paranormal" activity. I wont even waste any more time talking about them.

One of the best things about Salem in October is seeing people I have never seen before swoop into town and represent the city as if they are locals. I say 'best' because I know they will be gone in November, but it does get a little annoying. On Saturday afternoon I counted EIGHT different people passing out flyers on a 1/4 mile stretch of Essex st and EVERY SINGLE ONE was a girl dressed like a stereotypical pointy-hatted cartoonish witch. And I may be wrong, but it seemed like at least HALF of those people were employed by the self proclaimed "Howard Stern of witchcraft". Give it a rest! I am so sick of seeing all the litter scattered everywhere ALL being from the same two shops: HEX and OMEN. Aren't these supposed to be the newest coolest shops in town? What's with the saturation campaign? Shouldn't their awesomeness speak for itself? Clearly not.

Honestly, I feel bad for all the seasonal October people. Most of the time they have no idea what they are getting themselves into. This one guy who is an awesome and funny magician who is doing shows for my friend's shop said "I'm used to renaissance fairs, so [Salem drama] is nothing compared to that." Haha, so true. But still, most intelligent enemies make sure you underestimate them! As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, "...rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's coming, but on our own readiness to receive him..." Then there are the people who my boss yells at for handing out our competitor's flyers in front of her ticket office... Some don't even know what they are handing out. All they know is that ten bucks an hour to bother tourists is a great way to make beer money.

Oh and I have to mention... My 3pm tour goes by Salem City Hall right around closing time and I saw the mayor talking on her cellphone while driving as she pulled out of her parking spot onto Washington st! LMAO They JUST made that illegal in this state so I will give her a break, but my tourists were all dying laughing. It was pretty funny.

[Edit: I realized after I wrote this that it was TEXTING while driving that was made illegal. As far as just regular talking Massachusetts law states "Drivers can use their cell phone while driving as long as it does not get in the way of the vehicle's operation and one hand is on the wheel at all times." So, I was totally wrong. Sorry Mayor Driscoll! But just so you know I would love you even if you did break the law!]