news from doswell

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 7

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Tue, 29 May 2012 15:37:00 +0000

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Live Fast, Die Hard: Richmond’s Idlewood Amusement Park

Part 7 in a series

May 30, 1906 was the grand opening of what then was called “The finest amusement park south of Philadelphia” -- Richmond, Virginia's own Idlewood Park.

Idlewood was the brainchild of Jake Wells, president of the newly-formed Richmond Amusement Company (RAC). His intent was to build in Richmond what was being created in practically every major city across the country, a “Pleasure Park” at the end of the streetcar lines, in this case Boulevard. Wells and the RAC bought a sizeable tract of land near the intersections of Idlewood Avenue, South Davis and Meadow Streets, the area that is today Byrd Park (the park extended approximately from the present carillon to east of the reservoir).

A huge amount of money was invested in construction. Visitors were beckoned through a magnificent oriental-styled entranceway, then down a boardwalk brilliantly lit with electric lights. The park included a 4,000-seat horse show pavilion, a vaudeville show, casino, picnic grounds, a natatorium (what we call today an indoor swimming pool) and extravagantly illuminated lakes and lagoons.

The centerpieces of the park were the three major rides: a roller coaster (presumably a Philadelphia Toboggan product, billed as “the biggest in the country”), a swing ride, and a “mammoth Carrousel”, described with typical turn-of-the-century embellishment as being able to carry “100 people!” This “mammoth Carrousel” was actually Philadelphia Toboggan Company Carrousel #10, a 3-row machine commissioned in 1905 by the RAC and delivered in time for Idlewood's grand opening. Being a 3-row unit, it more truthfully carried about 56 people.

Fifteen thousand paying guests showed up for the opening, with July 4 the peak operating day for that season with twenty thousand guests (in comparison, Kings Dominion pulls in about 20,000 guests on a typical operating day during the peak summer days).

With such an outstanding first season, no one could have imagined that twelve months later the park would be direly in debt, unable to pay its bills. The RAC finally declared bankruptcy September 1, 1908, and by early 1910 Richmond City Council ordered the park's destruction to make way for a residential neighborhood. With just the roller coaster, Carrousel and horse pavilion left, the Virginia Railway and Power Company bought the park in a vain attempt to salvage what was left. The park limped along until 1914, when City Council again ordered these attractions removed. The horse pavilion and roller coaster were torn down, and the Carrousel was purchased by Sand Springs Park, a similar amusement park built by oil baron Charles Page outside of Tulsa Oklahoma.

While it was television that almost killed the amusement park in the early 1950s, the fledgling motion picture industry was a major contributor to Idlewood's dissolution. “Such is the price of progress,” lamented an unidentified Richmonder to the News-Leader, “… there is now a motion picture on every street corner - where one can view the wonders of the world and the underworld - all for the price of carfare. Shed a discrete tear for the Idlewood that was.”

For a fictionalized account of working at a theme park, Read my eBook "Bad Day at the Amusement Park", available for Kindle and Nook.

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 6

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:20:00 +0000

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Old Reliables: 2 Rides that refuse to break down

part 6 of a series

With the enormous engineering and maintenance costs associated with amusement rides’ modern technology, especially as it ages, it is important to note that two of the oldest rides at Kings Dominion have run trouble-free for years, accrue almost zero mechanical down-time and accumulate relatively little winter maintenance costs. They knew how to build ‘em back then.

Carousel: Auchy and Artizans

The oldest ride at Kings Dominion is of course the Carousel (or “Carrousel” per the original manufacturer’s spelling). Built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1917, the PTC Carrousel #44 is a four-row machine originally built for Riverside Park in Springfield, Massachusetts (Riverside Park is now Six Flags New England, and is touted as the largest amusement park in New England). Around 1938 the ride was moved to Roger Williams Park in Providence, Rhode Island. Kings Dominion bought the ride in 1973 when offered for sale by Williams Park management Joseph Michela, Inc.

A photograph of the Carrousel operating at Riverside Park prior to 1938 appears in the book “A Pictorial History of the carousel” by Fredrich Fried (Vestal).

This Carrousel features 66 hand-carved boxwood horses, arranged in an outside row of 16 stationary horses and three inside rows of 50 “jumpers”, which are presumed to have been carved by apprentices, as none of them sport the PTC logo. Only two horses have their mouths shut. Originally, the ride came with 68 horses; however, one (possibly the “lead” horse) was donated to the Smithsonian Institute. The other was given as a gift to Lew Hooper, a former Kings Dominion General Manager.

Also included with the machine are two carved chariots, which seat four persons each. The center decorations of the Carrousel include 10 large mirrors and 22 large oil paintings by local Philadelphia artists of different pastoral scenes and portraits. Eighteen water-colored garlands of flowers, each topped with a crest are also featured. Thirty-six angelic cherubs, eighteen ornately framed oil paintings and eighteen mirrors decorate the filigree rim. Approximately 1800 electric lights highlight the decoration.

The ride was in terrible condition when it arrived in trucks to Doswell in late 1973, and Kings Dominion’s Paint and Utilities department took the task of restoring the ride upon its arrival. The condition of each horse and chariot was painstakingly documented, down to the tiniest chip and scuffmark. Approximately 20% of the horses were held together by nothing more than old paint – 16 to 18 layers in most cases. Once the old paint was eventually removed, the horses were reassembled and reinforced with steel or wooden dowels and automobile body putty.

The Carrousel has inside a 66 key Artizan band organ with a continuous playing, double-track Wurlitzer system driven by electric motor (According to PTC, Artizan organs were not original equipment in their Carousels, therefore the whereabouts of the original organ is unknown). Also originally included with the ride was a matching ticket booth. After extensive renovation the ride opened in Candy Apple Grove May 3, 1975.

The ride rarely, if ever breaks down. It is balanced on a center “tree” with a bronze bushing known as a “cheeseblock” on the very top. The weight of the entire carrousel rests on that 4”-diameter cheeseblock. The ride turns via a huge bull gear driven by an interior spur gear which is tied to a vertical driveshaft down to a 3-ft diameter steel disk that is driven by two rawhide drive cones, powered by matching electric motors. This is called the “Auchy friction drive”, a device patented in 1909, and it is probably one of the only PTC carrousels operating that uses the original drive. The horses “jump” by means of tapered spur gears meshed with a horizontal main gear at the top.

Of course, there is a secret to being able to step off a moving Carrousel without killing yourself. Want to know what it is? Read my eBook “Bad Day at the Amusement Park” to find out!

***

Flying Eagles: An unstoppable Cajun import

The second-oldest ride at Kings Dominion and one with the most spotless operating record, the "Flying Eagles" ride was originally introduced at the 1939 World's Fair by the Bisch-Rocco amusement company under the name “Flying Scooters”. Kings Dominion’s particular machine (purchased from Ponchatrain Beach Park in New Orleans in 1975) is estimated to have been built in the early 1940's, and has been running virtually trouble-free since it opened under the name “Spirit of '76” in 1975 in the Candy Apple Grove section. Its name and theme were changed around 1979 to “Parrotroopers” and it ran uninterrupted in Safari Village out over Lake Charles until 1991, when it was disassembled to make room for the Anaconda Coke machines. The opening of Wayne's World in 1994 heralded the return of the ride, repainted and refurbished under the name “Screamweaver”. Then, in 2003 it was moved and named once more to its current incarnation of “Flying Eagles” in Old Virginia.

Nostalgia is not the only reason for keeping this ride running; it is fun as all get-out and the damn thing refuses to breaks down. It is powered by the biggest, scariest looking gearbox in the entire park, with a hellish vertical drive shaft that is probably 10 times what is needed to power the ride. Other than minor electrical glitches that may have shuttered the ride for mere minutes at a time, the ride has registered almost zero mechanical downtime since opening in 1975.

Take that, Volcano.

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 5

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 21 May 2012 16:19:00 +0000

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Kings Dominion's Diamond Falls: the ride common sense (and its manufacturer) apparently forgot

Part 5 of a Series

In January of 1985 the Kings Dominion Maintenance and Construction department was drumming its fingers, wondering when the new ride was going to show up. It was like waiting for the pizza guy to deliver a $4 million pizza. The park had contracted with Intamin AG to construct and build a “spillwater” ride that was going to be placed in an unused corner of Lake Charles in the Congo area of the park and it was late.

The ride, going by the manufacturer’s name of “The Lost Diamond Mines of Zanzibar” straddled the family/thrill categories, and was running down to the wire. The lake had been drained, the footings had been poured and part of the station had been built. All that was needed was the ride.

Then, one day in late February, just as the park VPs were about to bust a blood vessel, several trucks showed up with huge chunks of galvanized steel strapped on them. The ride had arrived, and all other work stopped dead, with all park resources thrown into building and piecing together this weird hybrid in time for a March 30 opening – about 30 days away.

A steady parade of cranes, loaders and forklifts unloaded the pieces off the trucks, and teams of maintenance guys and contractors began piecing together parts of the ride in the parking lot. There wasn’t a lot to the ride: the lift hill was the most complex, with 3 steel sides and dual lift chains tied by lift boards that carried the boats up the hill. There was a topside trough that carried the boats through the treetops, then a “camelback” style drop that sent the boat with a huge splash into a runout, where the boat drifted through a “diamond mine” tunnel complete with a fiberglass dragon. Once through the “mine” the boat re-entered the station and unloaded.

Busch Gardens’ “Escape to Pompeii” is basically the same ride but with more extensive theming.

There was speculation that Intamin forgot about the ride then threw it together at the last minute. Many of us truly believed that scenario, as it quickly became apparent that hardly any of the pieces fit. Parts had to be forced to fit and holes had to be re-drilled. It was as if different departments at Intamin made individual pieces and never consulted with one another. Once sections were finally forced together they were carried down to the ride and set in place, where a whole another round of forcing, prying, reaming and re-drilling took place. Guys worked from 6 AM to 11 PM seven days a week to make it all fit.

28 days later, after being congratulated by the General Manager for the “Yeoman’s job” putting the ride up in time for opening, it was time for a test run. The ride worked on a reverse-vacuum principle: Lake Charles filled the ride naturally, then three large submerged pumps pumped water out of the ride, pulling the boats around through the diamond mine and into the station instead of pushing them. Another pump sent water up the hill to the trough to propel those giant heavy boats around the curve and down the drop.

When the ride was started the whole thing leaked like a colander. So much water ran out of the trough onto the ground it actually temporarily lowered the lake level. Everything was shut off for the final remaining days to plug all the holes and squeeze a thousand tubes of silicone around the upper trough especially.

With two days left before opening day a boat was put in the ride for cycling. The boats were massive, with four rows of 5 seats for 20 people. They had 4 giant rubber running wheels and smaller side (friction) wheels to minimize the side-to-side motion of the boat in the ride. The ride was started, the boat climbed the lift hill then squealed to a stop in the upper trough. The side wheels needed adjusting.

Once adjusted the pumps were restarted and the boat roared down the hill, losing a wheel and tearing up a bunch of guardrail in the process.

The ride was shut off and guys worked 24-hour shifts to get the guardrail fixed and the boat wheels reinforced, as it was obvious they were horribly insufficient to carry the crashing weight at that speed.

Opening day finally dawned. The ride opened on time at 10:30 and exactly one load of people rode it before a boat lost another wheel and the ride shut down the rest of the day.

Every new ride has opening day jitters, but Diamond Falls’ opening day problems and repairs were beyond the pale. The next month after that was spent making major modifications: Extra support columns had to be added under the upper trough because the weight of the boats made it sag to the outside. The water inside the upper trough was not turbulent enough to “kick” the boats around to the drop, so dozens of wooden weir strips had to be bolted to the trough floor.

It was discovered after a couple of cycles the boats accumulated so much lake slime on the bottom they would slide on the lift, so all 450-some boards had to be removed and thick rubber grips screwed on them. The boards – made from ultra-hard Bengasi wood – could not be cut or drilled with conventional saws and drill bits, so diamond-point drill bits and concrete saw blades had to be used. It was time-consuming, back-breaking labor.

It was also discovered after a few cycles that not only would the boat shear all the Volkswagen lug bolts that held the running wheels on, but would bend and break the side wheel brackets. Bolted brackets that held the seats started breaking. All had to be removed and modified.

After the splash, you drift.
Notice the King Kobra in the background and the boat on
the repair dock - a common sight.

Concrete had to be poured in the runout, an unloading dock was designed (by this writer) and built and the station drive units had to be extensively modified. It was like building 2 rides. And it didn't stop after the first year - every winter major modifications and improvements had to be made to keep the ride running just one more season. It seemed to get worse, not better.

All in all, thousands of man-hours were put into a ride that little more than splash riders and onlookers on the exit ramp with stagnant lake water. And, by the end of summer, everything in the station and especially underneath the station was so disgusting with mold and that lake slime that powdered lime had to be sprinkled to hold down the smell. The ride periodically became home to water snakes, and at least once a snake turned up in a boat full of guests.

Still, the ride is remembered fondly by those guests who stood on the exit ramp and waited to not just be splashed but deluged by the enormous splash generated by a billion-ton boat roaring down a hill. But to a bunch of exhausted and frustrated park employees and contractors, it was all a big yawn.

For a fictionalized account of working at a theme park, Read my eBook "Bad Day at the Amusement Park", available for Kindle and Nook.

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 4

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 14 May 2012 01:34:00 +0000

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Part 4 in a series

Kings Dominion’s Time Shaft: Vomitus-induced craziness

As mentioned in part 1, Kings Dominion in 1979 opened an artificial mountain called “The Lost World” that consisted of four separate rides: Mt. Kilamanjaro, The Voyage to Atlantis boat ride, Journey to the Land of Dooz mine train ride and finally, the Time Shaft.

The Time Shaft was nothing more than a high-end carnival “Rotor” ride, built by Chance Manufacturing, makers of many fine amusement flat rides. Located at the far right-hand side of the cement mountain (near what is today the Volcano launch zone), the Time Shaft was accessible by entering and walking through what seemed like a mile of arched concrete. As mentioned before, the entry briefly ducked outside the mountain across a 10-ft long rope bridge the first year, but once the ropes started fraying no one in maintenance was willing to go out on it to fix it, so the rope bridge was retired.

One day, probably sometime in the Mesozoic era, someone waiting in line in that tunnel stuck their chewing gum on the wall. Then, over the years 7 million other guests took their cue, and eventually a large section of the Time Shaft entry tunnel was nothing but a colorful Jackson Pollock-like creation of wadded, used chewing gum impossible to scrape off. It could have been an attraction unto itself if it weren’t so nasty, but that’s the downside of leaving tunnel-dwellers standing bored and unsupervised for up to an hour or longer inside a dark airless passageway.

But after what seemed like hours channeling through a dim concrete maze, the now gumless guest (many of whom had no idea what they were in line for or what the ride even looked like) finally came out in the upper level of a big round room that looked like a cross between a Mayan ceremonial arena and a mad scientist laboratory, with a Dr. Frankenstein-like electro-neon apparatus and 6 disco mirror balls suspended from above and a round spinning drum down below. The que-line wisely entered above the actual rotor instead of level with it so guests – not knowing what to expect – had a chance to watch other people ride, then duck out of line and exit with their head still held high if they chose.

The Time Shaft itself was a circular steel drum, about 20-feet in diameter, 8-feet tall and open at the top. The interior was covered with a riveted rubber mat. After walking around the downhill concentric pathway to the entry level, about 20 Guests at a time entered through a door and stood with their backs pressed against the drum sides. Once loaded and locked inside, the operator said something like “Welcome to the Time Shaft, stand with your arms and legs straight. Enjoy your ride.” Then, with a “pull-up” of a red button, the drum started spinning.

The mechanics of the ride were quite simple. The ride sat on a steel frame on steel legs. The drum, mounted on a hydraulic lift cylinder, was driven by a regular truck tire mounted on an electric-over- hydraulic drive motor. That’s it – no brakes, nothing fancy.

The highlight of the ride was when the rotor got up to speed the operator pushed a button and the diamond-plate steel floor dropped, triggering a light show from the Frankenstein apparatus above and reflected in the 6 disco mirror balls. As mentioned, the floor was mounted on a massive hydraulic cylinder and dual scissor lifts underneath. It only dropped about a foot, but it seemed like a lot more to the spinning and now screaming guests who were stuck to the walls of the drum like inside a horizontal clothes dryer, centripetal force holding them in place while the bad LSD-trip light show flickered and flashed over their heads.

After less than a minute the operator raised the floor back up and hit the stop button, powering down the drive motor to an eventual stop. They jogged the drum in position to line up two hash marks on top so the doors were aligned to the entry and exit tunnels and shut it off. An exit operator opened the exit door and that’s when the fun really started.

While the ride was positively sickening for most riders, only a precious few actually threw up inside the drum while the ride was in motion (not cool – it was like those old spin-art booths, with the same splattering effect). Most chose instead to step off into the flat, motionless exit tunnel, the sudden change in perspective triggering extreme vertigo, before heaving all that greasy theme park food they paid a small fortune for. In fact, throwing up right outside that exit door got so bad the Operations department wisely installed a drum of peppermint cat litter called Voban and maintenance hooked up a water hose coiled right outside to wash down the exit, draining all that material down onto the ground below the ride. Out of sight, out of mind.

Once all the staggering riders were off and trying to negotiate the dim cement tunnel exit back outside (with many whacking their heads and shoulders on the rough concrete stalagtites), the operator closed the exit door and opened the entry door to allow the next group of hardy souls on board to repeat the process.

The ride was one of only a couple flat rides in the entire park not on a timer (one other was the Monster); the operator had leeway on how long to run the ride, although standard operating procedure kept the total operation time at about 3 minutes, from load to unload.

The lack of a timer played hell on the maintenance guys, however. It was a rite of passage for new seasonal maintenance employees to go with a full-time mechanic to inspect the ride, and the mechanic telling the clueless newbie to “check the inside of the drum”. Once inside, the clueless newbie heard the door slam and the hydraulic motor cut on, he found himself trapped with absolutely no way to get out. Then the evil maintenance mechanic would appear at the operator’s console, tell the newbie to enjoy his ride then start it up and let it run as long as he wanted.

Personally, a mechanic tricked this writer onto that ride and actually left the room, leaving me to spin helplessly for what seemed like an hour but was probably about 10 minutes. After a while I went into a state of Zen, I think, and as long as I focused on a wall rivet right across from me I was OK. But like the others, stepping off the ride (eventually) triggered that vertigo and I was sick for two days.

Payback in the theme park business can be hell, however: that mechanic was forced into 10 consecutive rides on the Rebel Yell (a ride he hated) later that fall, courtesy of an old-school amusement veteran named Bill who laughingly refused to open the lapbars.

That mechanic, one of the most conscientious ones there, died of emphysema three years ago. No hard feelings, and rest in peace, Wayne.

It is unknown how many riders threw up upon exiting that ride (payback for sticking their gum on the wall?), but it became obvious in 1993 (a couple of years before the ride was removed to make room for Volcano) that 14 years of vomit-water running down the steel support legs caused a unique problem: The ride now suffered from a condition called “vomit-induced corrosion” at the base of the supports where they bolted to the footers. A contractor was brought in that winter, and thousands of dollars were spent modifying and welding braces and gussets to the legs.

It was the first ride Kings Dominion had ever seen suffer from this particular problem. First and hopefully last.

For a fictionalized account of working at a theme park, Read my eBook "Bad Day at the Amusement Park", available for Kindle and Nook.

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 3

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Wed, 09 May 2012 15:22:00 +0000

Thrill ride at Cherrelyn, 1900: The horse pulled the car up the mountain, then got on board and rode back down.

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Part 3 in a series

When Roller Coaster Riding was a Blood Sport

Roller Coasters enjoy unprecedented popularity with both the riding public, who enjoy the latest thrills, and theme park management, who enjoy the crowds new coaster technology fetches.

While a modern roller coaster packs a tremendous wallop for the buck, thrills experienced by 19th century coaster enthusiasts who dared venture on the weekends to the coal mines, the timber mills or the end of the trolley lines got a truly death-defying experience without the conveniences of built-in safety features that today furnishes only the illusion of danger. Any new wooden coaster looks similar in appearance to some of those turn-of-the-century deathtraps, but the hidden computer-aided design of today's roller coasters would give those early riders a tremendous thrill without the very real element of danger inherent in those early rides.

While today’s coasters have practically reached the ultimate in safety, those early experiments were the polar opposites, as safety always took a back seat to profit back in the early days of pay-as-you-ride. In fact, from the 1880's to 1920, reports of injuries frequently increased a ride's popularity, and many times incurred a charge just to watch other brave souls take their chances.

A downhill coal delivery train called the Mauch Chunk railway was one of those examples. Originally built in 1827, coal barons got the idea in the late 1880s to fill the cars with children (and sometimes parents) and let them roll down the mountain to make a couple of extra bucks from something that sat idle all weekend anyway. Rolling by gravity with no guide wheels, brakes or lap bars of any kind, the Mauch Chunk traveled at trouser-soiling speeds up to 100 miles per hour, and a single ride in this prehistoric monster lasted almost 30 minutes – an eternity in today’s capacity-conscious park environment.

Around 1900 a "Scenic Railway" operated in Cherrelyn, Colorado (see picture above). A vehicle resembling a trolley car loaded with paying riders was pulled by a horse to the top of the mountain, where the horse was then actually loaded onto the vehicle, and it roared back down. No word on if the horse enjoyed the ride.

After the debut of the “gravity switchback railway” (the first recognized roller coaster that ran at New York’s Coney Island in the 1880s), coaster designers began thinking of newer and better thrills without the nagging nuisances of safety or liability . A 1902 looping wooden coaster called the Flip-Flap opened for one season and exposed riders to up to 11 G's – as much as experienced by modern day Navy pilots, and almost three times more than allowed today. Riders frequently blacked out either entering or exiting the mechanically unsound, unengineered circular loop, and the sight of workers pulling unconscious riders off the ride made the lines even longer. For those uninterested in risking brain hemorrhage, it was also common for wussy onlookers to pay a quarter just to watch the Flip-Flap operate.

The Flip-Flap. YOW!

There is a reason why wooden coasters do not have loops. With a running track comprised of 7 to 9 layers of 2x10 pressure-treated boards, a loop places the wood under far too much stress. Wood always wants to return to its original shape, and the energy bottled up within all that stressed wood would make the loop too brittle and subject to breakage. Cincinnati’s Kings Island in 2000 built a looping wooden coaster called “Son of Beast”, but the loop was made of steel, not wood. Still, the transitions from wood to steel in that ride presented too many maintenance issues, and the loop was removed a few seasons later.

By 1919 there were 1,500 amusement parks in operation in the U.S., and almost all of them had a terrifying wooden coaster, including one at Richmond’s Idlewood Park at the end of Boulevard in today’s Byrd Park. This emphasis on thrills spawned a theme park Satan in the form of Harry Travers, a former schoolteacher and designer of not just mild flat rides but of three of possibly the most fearsome coasters ever built, known as the “terrifying triplets”.

The first “Cyclone” at Crystal Beach and the “Lightning” at Revere Beach opened in the spring of 1927. On the second day of operation, a woman either jumped or fell from the Lightning train and was killed. The accident only drew more riders to the coaster, and in fact a line of anxious riders formed as the woman's body was physically removed from the track.

Ontario Cyclone: Get me off this damn thing

Truly, coaster riding was a blood sport.

The death of a man on the Crystal Beach Cyclone that same year prompted the management to keep a nurse in the station to help lower insurance costs and assist anyone who fainted. Of course, in an unintentional marketing move, it only helped the ride’s reputation to have a nurse visible in the station and ridership soared.

Later that same year, Palisades Park in Fort Lee, New Jersey, contacted Traver about building one of his horrifying coasters (also to be named the Cyclone) there in time for the 1928 season. An absolute beast of a ride, constant structural and mechanical failures prevented a regular operating schedule and the sheer viciousness of it caused low ridership. By the 1930’s the bankrupt Palisades and Revere Beach rides were torn down.

In 1938 the Crystal Beach Cyclone was re-profiled to reduce the insane stresses on the structure since it was physically shaking itself to pieces, but still it was eventually torn down in 1946.

Closer to home, in 1937 a tamer wood coaster called the “Wild Boar” opened in Cincinnati’s Old Coney Amusement Park. Wildly popular, it was torn down in 1971 when the park was closed but today lives on as Kings Dominion’s Grizzly, which used some of the original blueprints in construction. In 2012 the Grizzly celebrates its 30th anniversary at Kings Dominion.

While coaster riders today enjoy high-fiving after enduring a circuit on a steel pretzel that is actually 50 times safer than walking out to their own mailbox, 19th century coaster riders truly had not only something to high-five over upon exiting but ample reason to enjoy still being alive.

What a bunch of pansies we’ve become.

THEME PARK BABYLON: PART 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:22:00 +0000

The Kid from Deliverance
auditions for "Hootin' Holler"

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Part 2 in a series

Bad Concepts: Hootin’ Holler and a "real" Eiffel Tower

In a 1970s semi-regular Saturday Night Live sketch, Dan Aykroyd appeared as a prissy theater host named Leonard Pimph-Garnell to introduce a “Bad” work of theater, ballet, or conceptual Art. “Welcome to Bad Theatre”, he would say, followed by a clip of a hilariously awful musical about the life of Anton von Leeuwenhoek, for example. After the clip he would shake his head sadly, saying “So very, very bad.” It was a recurring one-joke sketch that never seemed to get old.

In the narrow window that theme parks have to develop new themed areas and attractions some fairly lame-brained ideas get kicked around, with almost all of them never getting past that initial concept stage. “Hootin’ Holler” was one such idea presented by Kings Dominion parent company Taft Broadcasting’s design department that thankfully never made it further than a sketch.

Had Hootin’ Holler somehow made it past the conceptual blueprint stage and gone into development in 1979, theme park patrons may have expected Leonard Pimph-Garnell to come to Kings Dominion to haughtily introduce it as “A very very bad theme area”.

Hootin’ Holler was, according to the sketch, a wacky re-creation of a dirt poor, ramshackle Appalachian mining town that took the worst socio-economic aspects and stereotypes – unemployment, alcoholism, grinding poverty, laziness, even veiled pedophilia and sexual assault – and twisted them into a fun-filled amusement park themed experience. Taft was going to charge people $35 to enter the park and face for one day the horror people in any hollow of Tennessee or West Virginia experienced every day of their lives.

Hills, trees, shrubs and boulders were to be brought in to make up the “mountainous” landscape, and shoddily-constructed shacks, a general store, a church, a bank and other businesses and buildings dotted the bleak landscape. A junked Ford Model-T sat on blocks in a dirt yard.

But the most jaw-dropping component of the idea was that according to the drawing, live actors were to be hired to portray the rural citizens of Hootin’ Holler. And they were the worst sweeping generalizations, typecasting and politically incorrect portrayals of Appalachian residents imaginable.

Nothing like a theme park celebrating the worst aspects of rural poverty. In Hootin’ Holler there were no jobs and no economic stimulus packages, so none of the alcoholic and bearded men worked; they just laid around with a jug of moonshine cradled in their arm. Marriages were forced in Hootin’ Holler, as portrayed by a preacher presiding over an impromptu ceremony with a man presumed to be the homely bride’s father holding a shotgun at the groom’s neck. Assault and kidnapping was common, as two salivating barefoot bumpkins were chasing a young woman through the woods. Crime was apparently rampant, as proven on the drawing by another barefoot man holding up the Savings & Loan with a sawed-off shotgun.

With the noted exceptions, all the portrayed women of Hootin’ Holler were young and pretty, barefoot (but still apparently able to outrun their brothers) and dressed in gingham skirts (except for the bride and the old crone who ran the still up in the holler and chased away interlopers with the ubiquitous shotgun). All the guys wore patched jeans, coveralls or flannel shirts and suspenders. A funeral for a bearded geezer in bib overalls in an open casket was taking place, with the typical tall skinny undertaker in a black top hat salivating at the prospect of another payable stiff in his portfolio.

It is not known if the designers of this mess would specify only actors with no teeth or with 6 toes on each foot.

A note at the bottom of the drawing (squirreled away somewhere in Kings Dominion’s maintenance blueprint room) indicated that square dancing and other audience participation-style activities would be a regular occurrence in Hootin’ Holler, although it is curious how many park guests would willingly participate in the “blind from drinking bad moonshine” or the “incestual relations” activities.

Very, very bad, indeed.

***

25th Anniversary Marker, 2000. The height is incorrect.

A “Real” Eiffel Tower: If 333 feet is good, then 1,000 feet is better - Right?

The centerpiece of Taft Broadcasting’s first theme park near Cincinnati, Ohio, was curiously not a distinctly American icon, but a 1/3-scale replica of Paris’ Eiffel Tower that rose about 333 feet into the rural Lebanon countryside.

Incongruity in a theme park setting, especially from the 1970s, is not all that unusual and widely accepted by the public anyway. How many visitors to Kings Dominion wonder why there is a scale model of the Liberty Bell in the Old Virginia themed area – a symbol of our country that in real life has everything to do with Philadelphia but absolutely zero to do with Virginia?

(This writer posed that question to a park VP in the 1980s. I was told I ask too many questions. I wisely let the matter drop).

An almost exact 1/3-scale replica of the real Eiffel Tower at 333’-6”, the Kings Island tower was designed exclusively for that park by Intamin AG, a German firm and erected in 1972. Twin elevators carry guests to two platforms at the top, where they could (at that time) gaze off at the flat Ohio countryside or plug a quarter into a binocular and get closer views of the same flat Ohio countryside. The tower was such a hit that another one was built just like it for Kings Island’s brand new sister park just north of Richmond Virginia, with construction starting in 1973.

The Kings Dominion Eiffel Tower is also 333’-6” tall and weighs a little over 800 tons. The top observation platform is 275-ft high. It cost $1,648,000.00 to construct. There are 440 steps from the ground to the elevator motor house.

A humongous crane was set up on the small stretch of road at Kings Dominion that leads from the current tower down to the Carrousel. Construction took about a year once all the parts arrived, and the tower was ready in time for the May 3, 1975 park opening. KD’s tower is the tallest structure up I-95 between Richmond and the Washington Monument.

What many do not know, however, is that Intamin also submitted a concept drawing in 1971 to Taft for a full-size replica Eiffel Tower – a towering 1,000-ft monster that would have dwarfed every other structure not just in Cincinnati or Hanover but almost the entire nation.

The tower as sketched was frankly, ugly. It was not shaped exactly like the real Eiffel Tower, looking more modern and “streamlined” to account presumably for weather, aircraft flight patterns, topography and whatever other considerations existed for an almost Babel-like edifice complex in the middle of a former cornfield in central Hanover.

Given the construction, painting and maintenance logistics and cost of a 333-ft tower it is unimaginable to transfer those headaches to one 3X taller. Footings for a 1,000-ft structure would have to tunnel dozens of feet straight down, and filled with hundreds of cubic yards of reinforced concrete. Years ago it cost over $35,000 and 1,500 gallons of paint just to paint the current tower (in a unique color called “Eiffel Tower green” that is not used anywhere else), so the cost of painting a much larger tower would be inconceivable. It is truly mind-boggling to imagine the Bureaucracy, paperwork, permits, construction cost and upkeep behind such a mammoth undertaking, and Taft wisely discounted the idea of a full-size Tower.

Today that drawing lies buried in a file drawer in Doswell, a curious reminder of a young company with big ideas.

Read Part 1 HERE

For a fictionalized account of working at a theme park, Read my eBook "Bad Day at the Amusement Park", available for Kindle and Nook.

OHHHHHH, YEAAAHHHHHHHH...

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:51:00 +0000

THEME PARK BABYLON:

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Thu, 03 May 2012 00:19:00 +0000

A look back at bad ideas, questionable themes, dubious concepts and epic fails seen during 20 years in the Amusement industry

Part 1 in a series

Kings Dominion’s Land of Dooz / Smurf Mountain: Not Just Boring but Fundamentally Flawed

Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia is a great theme park. It does almost everything right in its quest for newer and better rides and attractions. I worked there full-time almost 20 years, and my children have been there 6 years, working in a variety of capacities. Rides like Flight of Fear, Intimidator, Volcano and the Grizzly are classic, world-class rides and safely enjoyed by millions of riders. The water park there is without compare.

An issue tackled not just by Kings Dominion but every theme park across the country is the annual quest for bigger and better rides and more relevant and family-friendly themed areas created in a severely limited time window. The time crunch can unfortunately sometimes lead to half-baked concepts or inappropriate rides that almost always never make it past the drawing boards, but sometimes do anyway for a number of reasons to which no one will admit.

In 1978 Kings Dominion stuck its neck out on a major 4-ride attraction called “The Lost World” that was gigantic and cost a bloody fortune but was frankly lacking in the thrills category. The novelty was presumed to be the sheer scope of the project, not necessarily the rides included. Consequently the Lost World was a Saturn-5 rocket that couldn’t leave the launch pad. And one of the rides in particular suffered from what could only be described as fundamentally flawed in its concept and engineering.

The ride was one of three inside an artificial cement mountain that was built of rebar, I-beams, wire mesh and sprayed-on concrete. A water ride originally called “Voyage to Atlantis” then changed to the “Haunted River’ was on the lower level. The “Journey to the Land of Dooz” was on the topside, and a parking lot carnival rotor ride called the “Time Shaft” was buried inside on the far right at the end of an impossibly long tunnel that (for one year only) briefly wandered outside the mountain, leading guests across a rope bridge. It became obvious very quickly that the rope bridge was a blunder, as when some of the ropes broke no one in maintenance was willing to go out on it to fix it. The rope bridge quickly became history.

Outside the mountain tucked in an alcove was a “Himalaya”-style flat ride called Mt. Kilimanjaro.

Apparently mountain construction was dogged by cost overruns. The entire first construction crew was fired and a whole new crew brought in. The first time they attempted to spray on the concrete shell it all went on the ground. It was rumored the entire mountain attraction and rides cost over $20 million in 1978 dollars – in comparison 2011’s “Intimidator” which cost $25 million. It was at that time the single most expensive theme park attraction in the U.S. (outside of Disney).

“Journey to the Land of Dooz” (later known as “Smurf Mountain”) was nothing more than an overblown kiddie ride – a slow “mine train” (as dubbed by the maintenance mechanics) that carried families and clueless teenagers who unknowingly climbed aboard in a gaudy, filigree-covered 4-car train at walking speed through a place called the land of Dooz. Dooz was a supposed underground lair inhabited by bulbous, animated Hobbit-like dwellers in checkered bib overalls who did things like push plants out of the ground, manufacture water and air and other tasks generally credited to a God or Deity of some sort. “Welcome to the land of Doozies, it’s a Doozy day” warbled the thundering speakers as guests struggled to either stay awake or fought against punching the fat foam-filled smiling creatures that jerkily waved at them and sang that dentist drill-like song.

Unconfirmed rumor has it that “Doozy” was a variation on the park’s hometown of Doswell.

Finally, after winding its way through several “scenes” the mine train chugged its way out of the mountain across a wooden bridge past a waterfall and parked back in the station. Total ride time from load to unload was about 7 minutes; an eternity in theme park rides, where hourly capacity is king. Guests were rarely laughing or smiling as they exited, wondering why the hell they got dragged onto such a lackluster ride as they then sought out faster and more exciting fish to fry.

But the real problem with the mine train ride was not the jerky pneumatic-and-servo animation or the operational procedures, which were carried out with a forced smile by seasonal teenagers wondering whose lunchbucket they must have peed into to get relegated to this slow ride purgatory, but the basic engineering concept, which seemed to escape the geniuses at Arrow Dynamics who designed and built the thing.

Arrow Dynamics had a pretty good track record with rides going into 1978. In 1959 they built the first tubular steel roller coaster, the Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland, as well as “Pirates of the Caribbean” and the Haunted Mansion at that park. They perfected the clothoid loop that is now standard design for looping coasters. Bush Gardens’ Loch Ness Monster was hailed as almost perfect in its design, thrill factor and topographical layout, as were other rides across the country that continue uninterrupted operation to this day. It is unknown what happened with the design and execution of the mine train, and it was speculated by the mechanics that Arrow pushed the project on a team of chimpanzees in the hopes they would eventually stop flinging feces and design a ride.

The land of Dooz track was standard steel coaster “Ribbed backbone” construction, with a 20” diameter main tube ribbed with twin 6” steel tube running rails. A storage area accessed by double transfer tracks held up to 2 trains.

The Land of Dooz trains themselves – designed to resemble Victorian, Jules Verne-style exploratory vehicles that could tunnel through the earth or fly to the sun – looked underneath as if they were made from steel scraps left lying around Arrow’s fabrication shop. A giant fiberglass screw-type augur was mounted on the front of the lead car – an artistic nod to “Journey to the center of the earth” but actually more a middle finger to anyone getting on the ride thinking they were going to have a good time. Lap bars with no function other than giving the impression of holding riders in their seats actuated by air cylinders in the station were notoriously fickle, needlessly complicated and almost impossible to troubleshoot, with literally dozens of cams, springs, bearings, threaded adjustments and other moving parts. Mechanics inspecting the ride in the early mornings were always dismayed to see lap bars tied off with trash bags, and were more eager to swap trains than attempt a repair.

The trains were individually electric motor-driven, with power supplied by copper brushes that slid through an electrified buss-bar when activated by a board operator. The motor transferred power through a gearbox mounted upside down, then through a standard Ford drive shaft and transaxle possibly scavenged from a Detroit junkyard that drove the rear wheels.

Each car had four running nylon-composite running wheels and twin inside friction (side) wheels under each running wheel. The cars had no pickup wheels, only skid plates.

An operator rode in the lead car, and could stop and start the train as dictated by guest misbehavior or electrical or mechanical problems. One the train was loaded and the lap bars locked, the operator pressed a start button, and the train left the station, rounded a turn and climbed up a 50-degree chain-driven lift hill (an odd direction for a train that supposedly was tunneling underground – but that’s just the start of the mine train madness).

Therein lies the engineering anomaly of the mine train: Why in God’s green earth did Arrow build a motor-driven, self-propelled train with a chain lift hill and a subsequent downhill profile?

It was a maintenance and operational debacle that no one seemed to anticipate. The motors were not strong enough to drive the train up the steep hill, therefore the train was equipped with the same style “chain dogs” used by real roller coasters that hooked into the giant, greasy chain and pulled it up the hill. The chain and train motors had to be perfectly synchronized at the EXACT same speeds. If the chain was running even slightly faster than the train motors, the train would slide and start bouncing, causing a derailment. If the train motors were running fast than the chain, the chain dog hook would try to pull out, then at the top of the hill it would pop out of the chain with a noise that sounded like a hand grenade inside an oil drum. Then the train would derail anyway.

If there was a power failure on the train while on the lift (such as a copper brush popping out of the buss bar), the train’s brakes would lock automatically but the chain would continue dragging it up the hill, sliding a flat spot on the nylon wheels and causing a derailment (a pressure indicator was mounted on the lift idler pulley that supposedly would stop the lift chain if excessive force was detected, but the train always derailed before the lift shut off). If the lift for some reason cut off but the train kept running, the chain dog would pop out with that characteristic cannon blast, derailing the train with the added bonus of terrifying everyone in that end of Hanover County.

Luckily, the train was also equipped on the bottom with a chunk of standard operating procedure steel called an “anti-rollback dog” that prevented a stopped train on the lift from rolling backwards. That is the clanking sound heard when a roller coaster climbs a lift hill.

To prevent power interruptions while the train was on the lift the on-board operator had to hold their thumb continuously on the train power button. Another operator had to stand at the top of the lift hill and depress the lift power button the entire time the train was on the lift. And everybody held their breath until the train was safely off the lift hill.

If the train successfully negotiated the lift hill and released from both the lift chain and a secondary auxiliary chain, it was a downhill ride through the mountain then back into the station – which was engineering dumbass mistake #2. A motor-driven train, running at a precise, regulated speed on a downhill slope of even a few degrees is like driving a car while riding the brakes. Crazy wear patterns started showing up on the nylon coated wheels, necessitating numerous wheel changes. No one could figure it out – why would a train like the Anaconda, which traveled up to 50 MPH have less wheel wear than a stupid mine train that traveled at 3 MPH?

It was simple actually – the train was trying to drift through the mountain faster than the motors were driving it, prematurely wearing down the wheels (even melting them in some instances) and wearing out the clutch discs in the motors. In a perfect “Doozy world”, the Land of Dooz would have been a perfectly flat, winding circuit, with no lift hill and no downhill profile, which would have eliminated 99% of all the problems with that ride.

Doozies

In 1984 the ride was re-themed to “Smurf Mountain” and all the highly-flammable Doozies were taken away and hopefully buried somewhere. The ride was now more enjoyable for the Underoos set but everyone else, including the maintenance guys, got no reprieve. The ride continued to operate as Smurf Mountain until 1995, when the mountain was gutted to transform it into “Volcano: the Blast Coaster”.

On a personal note, this writer lost a fingertip on Smurf Mountain in 1992 when coupling 2 cars together, using his right index finger as a line-up tool. The tip was found in a pile of grease and taken to St. Mary’s Hospital, where Richmond plastic surgeon Dr. Boykin sewed it back on.

Ultimately, the Smurfs went back to Paramount and the rest of the ride went into a dumpster.

Ashland Beware! Hanover Artists Appear to be Organizing!

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Ashland Arts Alliance to bring local artists, writers and artisans out of the shadows and into the center of the street, to the concern of the old Aristocracy

Old time Ashlanders are concerned about the recent meeting of the brand new Ashland Arts Alliance and the fact that “scruffy, strange-looking artists” may be becoming far more visible than what makes them comfortable.

“I love the arts,” sniffed long-time Ashland resident Gladiola Maxtone-Graham, “I have many paintings in my home, and the most delightful counterculture man with shaggy hair and a moustache that smelled like clove cigarettes painted my parlor just last summer, but that doesn’t mean I particularly want to see them out on the sidewalks, what with their unusual lifestyles, non-conforming appearance, vegetarian ways and fancy hybrid cars. Well, I never!”

Several members of the Ashland Garden Club are also turning up their noses at the mention of an organization of artists. According to garden club president Violet Leach, the group is a “necessary, but regrettable” effort.

“Violet and the ladies are a bit concerned about having artists scurrying about, doing artsy things” said Leach’s husband Wallace. “But anything to keep most of them out of the Schnappes for a few hours is a good thing. Don’t quote me on that.”

“We hear there’s a commune of Oregon Hill-style hippies just up the road in Doswell,” stated a worried Naomi Southall, as she hurriedly packaged several Sally Bell lunches in an eco-friendly canvas Martin’s bag. “I mean, several families in one house? Where are we, Haight-Ashbury? And just where the hell is my Ciabatta bread? I swear it has become positively primitive around here anymore! Well I never!”

Always on time: Clockwork Collective and friends

Newsfromdoswell did some old fashioned leg work to dispute the concerns of the garden club ladies. In fact, there a multi-family in Doswell – called the “Clockworks Collective”, whose goal is to bring more multi-disciplinary arts to Hanover County and the surrounding areas, including Ashland and possibly even such far-away places as Hewlett and Noel.

Troy Whitcomb, food and beverage manager at the Doswell Bar None Restaurant says his brand new sushi bar will be open a month early specifically for the Ashland crowd who wish to make the drive up Route 1 to take part in Hanover arts. “If those people from Ashland want raw fish and sticky rice, then I’ll give them raw fish and sticky rice,” said Whitcomb. “I have only the finest quality eels, scrod and mud skippers Doswell offers. And while I don’t have a real Oriental guy to prepare it, I’ll wrap rubber bands around one of my cooks’ eyes to make him look authentic. So come on over to the Bar None!”

Ramud Dumar, the palindrome-named guy who seems to be at the Doswell Stop-n-Go every minute of the day and night also has food available for hungry Ashland garden club and others eager to partake of Hanover arts. And while Southall’s concern over a lack of ciabatta bread in Ashland may be unfortunate, Ramud has many sandwiches made with fresh, wholesome white bread available. “The Doswell Stop-n-Go is ready for your arts visit in Doswell!” he proclaimed from behind a counter stacked with other handy items to help worried Ashlanders through the day, such as lottery tickets, 6-Hour Energy shots, John Deere caps and adult magazines.

Doswell’s Dixie Treat Motor Court is sprucing up in preparation of being a part of the Ashland Arts Alliance as well. Unit Manager and archivist Herthel Wedig says many Dixie Treat residents have dragged personal items out on their lawns and for potential sale or trade as genuine “Objets d’Art”. “If the Ashland Arts shoppers want gaily-painted used tires, well, the Dixie Treat is their one-stop shop.” She says with a smile as she watched Verdon Road for a tell-tale parade of expensive late-model cars in her direction. “We have colorful old sofas, artsy pole lamps, stuff that’s broken but that looks like modern sculpture – why even Mr. Reilly said he will put away his racist old lawn jockeys for today if it will attract more people -- unless somebody from Ashland wants to buy one.”

Dixie Treat: Sprucing up for the arts

It is hoped also that Rosco, the Doswell Crazy Man will not show up and taint the Arts alliance with his lunatic screaming and lewd dancing, which we suspect is less a dance and more a motor neuron seizure brought on by living in that crap hole he calls a house. Anyone who sees Rosco is reminded to shoo him back into the woods.

Still ,with all the work Hanover artists have put into forming the alliance, many Ashlanders are still reticent to admit they actually want to see artists out in public. “I don’t mind looking at cement and asphalt plants and lumber yards when I am out and about in Hanover,” says concerned Ashlander Hazel Zembower, “But If I wanted to see an artist I would just hire one. My Lord, when will this day be over? I never!”

Doswell Teen Shares Correspondence from Pen Pal

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:21:00 +0000

Dear Mgambe,

Greetings from my country to yours! My name is Tera, and I am a junior at Scotchtown High School in Virginia, U.S.A.! I have selected you to be my overseas pen pal as part of our “Reach across the world” class project in Mr. Belden’s Global studies class. School is so boring! But I look forward to the summer when I can spend days at the pool and not in class! Anyway, I will tell you more as we go along! Please write me back and let me know you received my letter, and I will write to you again soon!

Your overseas pen pal,

Tera

***

Dear Tarra,

Much is happening in our village and all the medacal suplies and were taken by the milisha since your letter came and our shcool was burned. And it is a 3 days jurney to a UN mail centr The civil war is still on and it has not rained in almost 16 monnths and food is no place to found. Our well was taken by Mubaro brotherhodd gunman and you have to pay a lot of cash to get water. My father was taken at midnight by gunman but recently returned without just 2 fingurs so we are glad. Our friend in the hutt acress the field wrote a letter to our newpaper and was taken outside his house and beaten with sticks. He is today laying in the dich by his house his mouth with blodd coming out. But Soon we will over throe the Mubaro brotherhodd an will enchoy American cigarets and the play boy bunnys Are you one of the play boy bunnys?

Mgambe

***

Dear Mgambe,

Thank you for taking the time to write and tell me about events in your country! I would love to come and see some of your colorful customs and spend time with your family learning your language! I saw on Wikipedia that the “festival of the sand briars” is coming soon; how I would love to see that! Thank you again and please write again real soon!

Your overseas pen pal, Tera

PS – you may want to try running spell check! Thanks!

Secret Service Space Shuttle 'Colombia' Wows Washington With Unannounced Mounted Flyover

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:57:00 +0000

Missive fired on CNN Explodes in Face of Democratic Party

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:47:00 +0000

Hilary "Jong" Rosen's comments
as seen on CNN

Seen as ‘Humiliation’ in Nationally Concocted 'War Against Women'

WASHINGTON DC — For President Barack Obama, his government’s failure to contain a satellite strategist from self-destructing on Wednesday became a priceless setback in his manufactured so-called war against women.

On Friday, Strategist Hillary Rosen disintegrated in a flaming trainwreck when she exploded midair about one minute after saying on CNN that Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s wife Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life”, according to American, South Korean and Japanese officials. Rosen and her comment— which cost the United States an estimated 35 trips to the White House, according to WH guest log estimates — splintered into many pieces and plunged into the gray blue matter of a 24-hour cable television news cycle shortly afterward.

The failed missive drew swift national condemnation, and raised concerns that the Democrats might speed ahead with what Republican strategists suggest are preparations for weapons-grade Administration distancing and backpedaling.

Despite the embarrassing launch and crackup, Ms. Rosen doubled down in her dumbed-down comments immediately during a Twitter meeting in the country’s capital, Washington, on Friday before finally issuing a half-hearted apology when she was schooled by CNN host Wolf Blitzer.

For this launching and probably other future “war-on-women” style missives, The Democratic National Committee has recently completed a brand new discharge site near their left border with MSNBC.

Rosen’s comments reached the upper blogosphere, far less than required to place an idiotic comment into repeated front-page orbit and, as Democrat officials liked to say, present “a gift” to the closest the Democrats had to a heavenly Father: The White House Occupier Barack H. Obama.

“The main drive behind the missive launch was domestic politics,” said Time Magazine’s Judith Warner, a liberal apologist, supporter of Rosen and critic of cancer survivor Ann Romney. “[Rosen] wanted to introduce the Obama re-election era with a big celebratory bang. She wanted to make their people believe that we were winning this war on women.”

Republicans did not miss the opportunity to jab at the Democrat’s hurt pride and sputtering backpedaling.

“It is very regrettable that a top Democratic Strategist like Rosen is spending enormous resources on developing these missive capabilities while ignoring the urgent welfare issue of the American people such as joblessness, rising food and energy prices and the overall economy,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus.

“It is hard to imagine a greater humiliation,” liberal policy expert Ed Morrissey said on his blog at Hot Air. “The Democratic party has managed in a single stroke to not only throw 5 million stay-at-home votes out the window, but also demonstrate startling ineptitude in dealing with the fallout from the Rosen comment.”

White House spokesman Art Carney said only that he "knew 3 Ralph Kramdens" and "zero Hilary Rosens".

Planned Parenthood to Hand out Birkenstocks as Free Birth Control

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:46:00 +0000

Noting that they are most likely the ugliest shoes ever devised, Planned Parenthood announced they will start handing out the women’s shoes free of charge as part of their free birth control initiative as mandated by the Obama administration’s Affordable care act.

“For a woman, wearing a pair of Birkenstocks is the equivalent of a chastity belt as far as men are concerned” says Planned Parenthood Director Cecile Richards. “Other than abstinence, it is the only other absolutely 100% foolproof form of birth control there is.”

The Virginia General Assembly hailed the move, stating that it took them “off the front page”.

The Kiss

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:12:00 +0000

I know who kissed me.

Holy Thursday Mass at St. Benedict’s Parish in Richmond in 2009 had just concluded with the placement of the Holy Sacrament in the St. Mary’s Altar. A small group had gathered around it to pray and contemplate. I walked over near a marble column in front of the Altar and knelt down. I had a lot to be thankful for that Easter season.

On March 7, 2009 my wife Susan woke up and noticed her hands would not stop tingling. Thinking she slept on them wrong, she shook and shook them. When the tingling ran up her arms she called the Doctor. He told her to go straight to the ER.

Susan spent 39 of the 40 days of Lent lying in the hospital. On Good Friday she was coming home. The ordeal was over; she had made remarkable progress. I was so thankful she had recovered that I knelt before the Altar and lay my head down on my arm, thanking God for bringing her home.

I had to drop off the kids that day so I met her at the emergency room. She was at that point unable to write her own name. They did a battery of tests, including a CAT scan and an MRI. They were all negative, but Susan was still losing sensation in her extremities. Soon she was unable to walk. Soon after that she was unable to move at all. She was paralyzed from the shoulders down.

I knelt before the Altar, with my head down on my arm and my eyes closed, for several minutes before suddenly someone kissed me on the cheek. It wasn’t a passing peck from a well-wisher; it was fervent and alive – the kind of kiss you receive from someone who cares about you very much. It was unmistakable; loud and wet, planted solidly on my right cheek. I smiled, thinking how sweet it was that someone at St. Benedict’s cared enough about me and my family to extend such an eager and demonstrative gesture. Before I even raised my head I suspected the kiss was from one of the ladies of our church who had been so kind to our family during our ordeal. I assumed she was as happy as me that Susan was coming home.

So less than one second after the kiss I raised my head to acknowledge that person.

A sharp neurologist came in to the ER and asked Susan a few questions. He checked her reflexes – they did not exist anymore. “I think I know your problem” he said, “And it will get much worse before it gets better.” His diagnosis was Guillian-Barré syndrome. She was admitted to the ICU, where she remained for eight days, paralyzed from the shoulders down. On the ninth day they transferred her to Sheltering Arms Rehabilitation Hospital, where she began a rigorous regimen of physical therapy to re-learn how to get up, bathe, dress and feed herself.

I looked up after the kiss and no one was there.

I snapped my head around behind me to see who kissed me. There was a small group talking quietly in the center aisle, their backs to me. A man fifty feet away walked from the side porch toward me before turning to join the group in the center aisle. They were all too far away. I turned to look the other way. A small crowd was still gathered around the Altar. None of them had just walked by; in fact I barely knew any of them. Whoever kissed me literally had to sprint for the door – or simply vanish.

During Susan’s hospitalization I did everything I could to keep life as normal as possible. The kids and I visited her every day (sometimes twice a day) and recited the rosary every night. We had our bad moments: After visiting her the second day in ICU I broke down, scared to death the disease was going into her diaphragm and make a ventilator necessary. No one told me at the time, for good reason, that mortality goes to 50% in those cases.

As I turned back from the Altar I had another, much more profound realization: during the kiss there was no human presence beside me. Even though my eyes were closed and my head bowed I had no sense of someone kneeling or standing that close. Normally when someone gets close enough to kiss you sight unseen you sense when they are beside you. There are indicators – a shadow, breath on your cheek, a brushing of their nose or rustling of clothing. It is almost impossible for someone to get close enough to kiss you without noticing, even when your eyes are closed. I realized too that whoever kissed me left no lingering remnants – no dampness, no lipstick, no whiff of perfume. I experienced none of those, only a kiss.

I kept that kiss a secret for two weeks before I told Susan about it. She was dumbfounded. We tried to recreate the kiss – I knelt in our den, and she tried to sneak in to kiss me the same way at the same angles. It was impossible – she couldn’t get within three feet of me without me knowing she was there. Even with eyes shut tight, you just know if someone is beside you. I heard and felt her breath against my cheek. I smelled her. I heard her breathing and the close sounds of someone bending way down. When she kissed me because of the position her nose planted firmly against me. She was there. The one who kissed me on Holy Thursday was not there. Not in person anyway.

The kisser wasn’t who I thought – but I know who it was. It was indeed someone who cares very much about me. It was someone who through their tender act of kindness was assuring me that even though the years ahead will hold difficult choices and tribulations, everything will be OK. The one who kissed me was not someone who snuck in close, landed a wet one then sprinted for the door to avoid detection. The one who kissed me walks with me every day. I just have to believe they are at my side, and will never leave. Their kiss was reassuring and gave me hope.

Three years after the kiss I work to maintain the memory of the event exactly as it happened. Human nature embellishes memories. I fight every day avoiding embellishing the memory of my kiss.

Susan likes to relate that her Lenten penance that year was to be paralyzed and have to learn again how to perform the basic life functions we take for granted. I could say that my Lenten penance was to deal with the stress and loneliness of having a loved one in the hospital, but I don’t really believe it. That lets me off too easy.

Today Susan is 100% healed, and because of her ordeal is beginning her final year in her quest to become a registered nurse. It is a challenge – in the Fall of 2012 all five of us will be in college. I work days and Susan works as a PRN many nights. We go days barely seeing each other. I never know where the money for the next semesters are coming from, but it always appears from somewhere. “Even if I win the lottery I still want to be a nurse” she says. Yes, I say, absolutely, you are going to be a great nurse.

I have the kiss to prove it.

***

You can read Susan’s account of her illness at http://www.richmondmagazine.com/?articleID=c4946485162019dc1bfd488cede941ed

Note: This piece first ran last year. It is the first time I have ever rerun anything.

Doswell Blogger on TV; Tells Interviewer he "Gave up Watching TV" & Was Not Reprimanded

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:43:00 +0000

Kings Dominion Declares Employee Martial Law

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:33:00 +0000

KD Employees: More rides like this

Curfew Violators Detained

DOSWELL, 10:25 a.m. EDT March 24, 2012 – Kings Dominion security threatened to arrest two employees for violating curfew during the first night of a state of emergency declared at the theme park in response to a maintenance revolt concerning a wanted return to the “simple days of yore” at the park by employees.

Park officials instituted martial law in response to unrest that broke out in the Maintenance department during the past three nights after an incident that began Monday afternoon and continued for three hours by unidentified disgruntled members of the park maintenance staff in response to the recent influx of large, expensive, difficult-to-maintain rides. An anonymous letter found in the General Manager’s office appealed to Cedar Fairs to return Kings Dominion rides and attractions to the “glory days” of the 1970s and 1980s.

An unnamed Park VP signed the order enacting the curfew at 8:00 a.m. Thursday.

International Street was virtually empty most of the evening, Kingsdominion.com reported. A guy pushing a lawnmower challenged the curfew, but security was "pretty active, as active as they can get, anyway" in enforcing it, park officials said. The guy detained for the curfew violation was held in the Maintenance break room until he finished his lunch.

Officials have not decided how many hours the curfew will be enforced. The park web site reported that there has been relatively little activity Thursday night during the parkwide curfew.

Security Officers were forced to swing non-lethal beanbag chairs and giant keyrings several times during imagined altercations with the unruly maintenance staff. One loudmouth was hit with the beanbags four times and was taken to a hospital waiting room, where he sat quietly and watched the 1957 public-service educational film “If it falls off don’t touch it” on the hospital cable channel.

"The time has come for us to enact serious measures to deal with and quell the violence on Park streets," the vice president said. "The violence must stop and the violence will stop."

Conversations are ongoing with Cedar fairs corporate office over whether to bring Weeblos to the park for backup security, he said. All motorized wheelchairs and scooters obeyed the curfew across KD. Nighttime funnel cake production was also halted.

The violence, described as the worst at Kings Dominion since the “Flight of Fear” construction, began Monday night when staff members began reminiscing about the simplicity of rides and attractions that built the park in the early 1970s. “We hereby demand a return of the following rides,” The anonymous note stated, “including, but not restricted to: Wacky Wheels, the Land of Dooz, Skyride, Thunder Looper, Apple Turnover, Flying Carpets, Galaxie, Vertigo, monorail, Old Dominion Line, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Racing Rivers, Time Shaft, and Haunted River. Also in Kiddie land: Ole ’99, Jr. Turnpike, Dino’s Derby, Ranger’s Hat, Hickory Limbs and Yogi’s Yacht Club

Reports of crime sprees began coming in to Park Security on Monday night after a raucous full-time employee meeting, in which Cedar Fairs CEO Dick Kinzel announced an ambitious expansion project, including a giant, 10,000-ft. long wooden prototype coaster and a billion dollar something or other that “picks people up and flings them all over the damn place”. Angering the staff even more was the announcement that full-time park personnel would have to work weekends all season running the rides and making funnel cakes.

At least 66 park employees were reprimanded Monday night and Tuesday morning. Windows in the employee cafeteria were smeared by greasy, unwashed heads, park map racks and garbage cans were left in disarray, and the suspect Dippin’ Dots cart may have been overturned, park officials reported.

The worst of the disturbances were reported Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, when the two Maintenance employees tossed brickbats and set fire to the end of a cigarette, even though neither of them smoked. This was in response to widespread but unsubstantiated reports last summer of children pulled from small cars, pointed toward an exit gate and told to “have a nice day” by park employees.

Tensions appeared to ease by Wednesday, but shortly before 11 p.m., a Park security officer was reported hit by a spitball near the Water Works entrance. The person or persons accused of annoying the guard has not been caught.

In response to the crisis, President Obama on Thursday called in Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss ways the government can rent the park for the day.

"The president understands the very strong emotions involved and he joins Cedar Fairs leaders in their appeal to the employees of Kings Dominion for calm and a nonviolent resolution to the current situation," White House spokesman Jim Carney said. “He also can’t wait to try out Windseeker”.

Stay tuned to www.Kingsdominion.com and Newsfromdoswell for additional updates.

AWARD-WINNING RICHMOND JOURNALIST PUTS VIRGINIA IN THE SPOTLIGHT WITH NEW HORROR NOVEL

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:34:00 +0000

New Book from Dale Brumfield Leads Readers on a Frightening Journey from Richmond to the Shenandoah Valley and Back Again

Release Party!

March 30, 2012, 6-8 PM

Chop Suey Books, 2913 West Cary Street, Richmond, VA 23221

Food – Fun – Standing dead people

Richmond, VA – Dale Brumfield, author of Bad Day at the Amusement Park, celebrates the release of his most evolved work to date entitled Standers on March 30, 2012 with a launch party hosted by Chop Suey Books in Carytown from 6:00-8:00 PM.

The novel depicts the terrifying decline of society in central Virginia through the eyes of Jake Lotts following a bizarre event that leaves the dead standing atop their own graves. In the story, fear grows quickly, accelerated by a heavy-handed government who continue to police the masses using more military and private security forces than Jake could even fathom. Cemeteries were quarantined and trespassing in one becomes a crime punishable - ironically - by death.

When a nosy neighbor and a set of misunderstood circumstances land Jake in the chamber of horrors that now passes for a prison, everything changes. A series of strange events, things that Jake can only think to describe as miracles, sends him on both a spiritual journey into his own

psyche and a physical journey back to his old neighborhood to try and unravel the mystery and meaning of the "standers". What he discovers, however, is something much darker than he could have imagined.

About the author:

A Waynesboro native and a Fine Arts graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Dale Brumfield worked for years as a technical writer and illustrator in the theme park industry and as an employee benefits provider before publishing a short story collection entitled Three Buck

Naked Commodes: and 18 More Tales from a Small Town in 2009. In 1981 he co-founded Richmond's ThroTTle Magazine as production manager, editor, and illustrator. Dale is also an arts features writer, cartoonist, and opinion commentator in Richmond's Style Weekly magazine, and in 2010 won numerous state and national awards for his investigative cover story "The Best Worst Movie you Never Saw", about the "lost" 1982 Richmond movie "Rock n' Roll Hotel".

Dale Brumfield lives in Doswell, Virginia with his wife Susan and three college-age children. He blogs at NewsFromDoswell.com.

Release Date: March 30, 2012 List Price: $19.95 (Paperback) ISBN: 978-0-9838914-2-0

Newt Gingrich’s Entire Staff Admits Acquiring a Raging Case of Gonorrhea after Visiting Florida’s ‘The Villages’ Retirement Community

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 17:09:00 +0000

“America’s friendliest hometown my ass”.

A month after visiting The Villages Retirement Community near Orlando Florida on a campaign swing, Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich’s campaign staff now was laid up with a “raging case of gonorhhea” that has required multiple treatments to bring under control to allow Gingrich to continue his Presidential bid.

“You see, the real reason I fell in the polls and Santorum surged ahead is because I had to stay behind while my staff got all those shots,” Gingrich said at a press conference in Lansing Michigan, where the primary will be held February 28. “Florida’s friendliest hometown my ass – they got infected just walking through that Godforsaken place.”

“A Florida gynecologist reported that she treated more cases of herpes and human papillomavirus at The Villages than she did when she worked in Miami,” Gingrich spokesman Ray Allen said, shifting uncomfortably on his “special” chair with built-in “donut”. “Christalmighty the place is Sin City for the velcro shoes set.”

Doswell ‘Film Enthusiast’ Never Going to Watch another Serious Film with Goofball Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 14:28:00 +0000

Film Enthusiast Watley, sporting his film-watching togs

Teman Road resident and self-described “film enthusiast” George Watley got so disgusted trying to watch “2001: a Space Odyssey” with his friend Tyler that he has sworm off trying to watch any more cinematic classics with that “goofball”.

“Tyler told me how much he loved “Hangover 2”. And I said that movie was crap, and he needed to watch a truly great film,” said the Doswell man who refuses to be called a mere “movie buff”. “He then claimed never to have heard of Stanley Kubrick, a claim I found preposterous, so I invited him over to watch the science fiction classic on a special edition Japanese Blu-ray version that has almost 8 seconds of added footage and and grey-level enhancement not available on the American or British Blu-Ray versions.”

Watley says the experience was an exercise in frustration, starting with the opening shot. “I had to keep stopping the film to answer Tyler’s inane questions,” he says. “At the beginning he said ‘I thought this was a outer space movie, so why are there monkeys?’ I first admonished him not to refer to ‘2001’ as a ‘movie’ – then I had to keep telling him to ‘just watch’ and ‘shutup’.”

As the film wore on Tyler got even more restless and fidgety, infuriating Watley by jumping up to go to the bathroom, running to the fridge for another beer, even rustling endlessly through a potato chip bag during key scenes. “I had to pause the film so many times the narrative became incoherent,” said Watley. “During the critical HAL shutdown Tyler turned to me and said ‘Who’s Hal?’ I almost lost it with him at that point.”

The final insult was came during the last 20 minutes, starting with the ‘stargate’ sequence. “About three minutes into the stargate sequence I tried to engage Tyler by asking what he thought was the significance of the shifting eye coloration and he didn’t answer. It was then I noticed he was asleep.”

Watley claims he stopped the film at that point, woke up Tyler and told him he had to leave, after which he had to start the film all over from the beginning.

“Tyler is a great guy, but he will never watch another film at my house” claims Watley, abandoning plans to expose Tyler to “L’Aventurra”, “Wings of Desire” and “Fitzcarraldo”. “He can just wallow in his own cinematic cesspool as far as I’m concerned.”

First Walk, Then Run, Then Stand: "Standers" & the Shambling Ambulation of Undead Behavior in Popular Zombie Culture

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 01:28:00 +0000

Reprinted with permission of Please Stand By Magazine

“The dead are standing on their graves”.

The overnight appearance of human corpses that just stand on their graves as presented in the upcoming novel “Standers” by Dale Brumfield (http://www.standersnovel.com/, Iron Cauldron Books) harkens back to stories that originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual system of Vodou (anglicized voodoo) that described people, dead or otherwise, as being controlled by an outside or interior force.

The concept of the walking dead first gained popularity in modern era fiction with the publication of H.P. Lovecraft’s story “Herbert West: Reanimator”, in which a medical doctor injects a serum into the dead that reanimates them. The 1976 book “Illuminatus!” describes Nazi SS officers who come back from the dead to slaughter a quarter million attendees at a Bavarian rock festival. Since 2000 a zombie craze took hold, and too many books to count have been published following the same basic descriptions of the undead portrayed as lumbering, murderous cannibalistic shells of their former selves, roaming the countryside and committing heinous acts. “Standers” breaks that mold.

There are several possible etymologies of the word zombie. One possible origin is jumbie, which comes from the Carribean term for ghost. Another possible origin is the word nzambi which in Kongo means ‘spirit of a dead person’. The Merriam-Webster dictionary claims the word zombie originates from the Louisiana and Haitian Creole word zonbi, which represented a person who died and was then brought to life without speech or free will.

The followers of Vodou believe that a dead person can be revived by a sorcerer, but after being revived, the undead remain under the control of the sorcerer because they have no will of their own. Another theory claims that a sorcerer uses a ‘zombie powder’ as a powerful neurotoxin that temporarily paralyzes the nervous system and creates a state of hibernation.

Very different from the vodou and the folklore zombies previously described, modern zombies follow a specific standard, similar as seen the plethora of books on the subject and in the movies. These ghoulish marauders are portrayed as mindless monsters who do not feel pain and who have an insatiable appetite for human ﬂesh. They are characterized by being undead, cannibalistic (a misnomer, since they eat the living and not other zombies) and slow-moving, with a sole aim to either kill, eat or infect people. These reanimated undead show signs of physical decomposition such as rotting ﬂesh, discoloured eyes and open wounds.

The Burning House from "Standers"

While these descriptions certainly apply to the zombie personification as portrayed in the cinema since George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” and those movies and TV shows made since, the zombies portrayed in films prior to that groundbreaking film were portrayed more like those as described in early folklore. In the 1920 German expressionist classic “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, the victim, known as “Cesar” was referred to as a somnambulist but behaved according to the standards of zombie behavior as described by the Afro-Caribbean legends: a mindless hulk catering to the bidding of his master, the bug-eyed Dr. Caligari. The later films of the 1930s and 1940s, including “White Zombie” and the classic “I Walk with a Zombie” portrayed them similarly with more sinister instincts infused within by a more dastardly mentor. A smattering of forgettable films in the 1950s and early 60’s pretty much buried the genre until George Romero brought them up out of the ground and off the slabs to become murderous mindless hulks in 1968.

These modern zombies as portrayed in fiction and movies are often related to an apocalypse or Rapture scenario, where societal segments have broken down or entire civilizations have collapsed due to a cataclysmic man-made, natural or even a supernatural event. Background stories of zombie movies (and even video games) are purposefully vague in explaining how the zombies appeared in the ﬁrst place. While some can blame radiation, air-borne viruses or disease mutation, none can explain how sickly, rotting corpses somehow break out of their coffins and get up out of the ground.

“Standers”, on the other hand, does not shy away from how and why the dead came up out of the ground – it is for very specific reasons that are quite terrifying.

In “Standers”, as is typical with almost all zombie or undead-themed stories and movies, overly-aggressive tactics are used to contain the (un)dead. Hard line government quarantining is utilized to stop potential infection, and in theory is hoped will result in eventual suppression. These results assume that the timescale of the outbreak is short. If the timescale of the outbreak increases, then the result is a certain doomsday scenario: a potential zombie outbreak that results in the collapse of civilization in general.

“Standers” takes the zombie/undead genre a lurching step in a wholly different direction – it is zombie culture for grownups. Using the tagline “The dead are standing on their graves”, standers do not stagger, walk, run, moan for brains or even attack the living; with minor exceptions they just stand there. Society wakes up one morning to find all the dead are standing on top of their burial place, then everything collapses because people do not understand why the dead are standing, and cannot anticipate what the standers will do next.

A 60-second video trailer for the book on YouTube and Vimeo, directed by the author’s son Hunter Brumfield, shoots a country road through the windshield with the noise of someone twisting a radio dial, trying to find something other than unsettling news reports and bizarre government announcements reminding us in a chipper voice as the car turns into a field that it is illegal to “touch or otherwise engage a standing corpse”. The headlights eventually stop on 9 or 10 standers in an old family cemetery as the voice implores that we “have a nice day”.

Read “Standers” if you don’t mind sleeping with your light on. For a month.

Standers

Written by Dale Brumfield

Edited and published by Beth Brown at Iron Cauldron Books .

Standers Video Trailer #1 and the upcoming trailer #2 directed by Hunter Brumfield; starring Doug Dobey, with John Ferguson, Zack Ferguson, Grace Huddleston, Hollis Brumfield, Jake Brumfield, Melody Milliker, Joey “Pepperoni” Purvis, Tina Eschleman, Olivia Harrison as the standers, with Don Harrison as the Beaver. Kudos to Irene Ziegler Aston for the voiceover and Susan Brumfield for driving.

“Standers” will be available both as a paperback and as an ebook nationwide March 31, 2012.

Doswell Man Claims TSA Went out of its Way to Keep Him Out of the Body Scanner at RIC

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:29:00 +0000

Armentrout: the only plane passenger allowed
to carry a pipe bomb in his anus

In light of recent news reports of an attractive woman at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport forced to pass three times through the body scanner to the delight of the male officers present, butt-ugly Blanton Road resident Harry Armentrout claims the TSA officers at Richmond International Airport “went out of their way” to keep him away from the full body scanners after numerous alarms sounded after he passed through the first stage metal detector.

“When I went through the first detector every bell and whistle on it went off,” claims the shirtless and repulsive Armentrout, sporting his “Git-R-Dun” forehead tattoo in the den of his squalid mobile home. “Don’t know what set it off, but shoot, all the security officers were females, and I figured what the hell – give me the wand, the scanner and the full-body patdown – the works! Hell, I woulda stripped buck naked had they asked!”

But apparently the TSA officers had second thoughts about touching, scanning or even approaching the squat, hairy man who is as attractive as Jurassic-era road kill and reeked of greasy flatus and spoiled milk. “They tried to say I was ok and just wave me through but I wouldn’t budge,” said the lascivious Armentrout, licking his cankered lips, “I even winked and told ‘em I maybe had a pipe bomb up my butt and I’d a bent over and showed it to ‘em but they said that didn’t matter, and would I just please get out of the security line and board my plane. Hell, I was gonna do a little dance in that scanner!”

A TSA spokesman at RIC shuddered at the mention of Armentrout’s situation and tried to deflect the questions surrounding his being let on a plane after his admission of carrying an explosive device onboard. “Oh, look at the time,” he finally answered, “I told my wife I would rotate the tires on the Bonneville on the way home. Bye.”

Armentrout said that eventually he was forced at gunpoint to be escorted around through the exit, then let back over so he could catch his flight to Orlando. “I had a accident at work and they offered me a cruise instead of worker’s comp – can you believe it?” he said. “Wanna see my tan lines?”

Chop Suey Bookstore Owner Named Ultimate Ellwood Thompson Shopper

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:07:00 +0000

Winner Teft before accepting award

Ward Teft, owner of Richmond’s Chop Suey Bookstore on Cary Street, has been named “The Ultimate Ellwood Thompson’s Natural Market Shopper” in a unanimous decision announced by the staff of Ellwood Thompson’s market.

“We are proud and thrilled to name Ward as the ultimate Ellwood Thompson’s shopper,” says store manager Todd Taylor, “and even more proud that the winner is a fellow business owner right down the road in Carytown.”

Taylor says that Teft “epitomizes” the type of shopper most likely to come into the store. “Ward has that unique combination of spectacular beard, black frame glasses and that vaguely Havana-1960 clothing style that practically exudes natural whole grains from his very pores,” Taylor said.

While of course the natural foods market tolerates and even welcomes clean-shaven men with 20-20 eyesight, Taylor claims the “overwhelming majority” of the typical male shopper is bearded and bespectacled, especially with little wire frame glasses that sit crooked on their face. In fact, the store briefly in 2010 experimented with offering clip-on beards to men who for whatever reason would not or could not grow their own.

“Ward has gone above and beyond what we expect, or even stereotype, from our off-the-street male shoppers,” Taylor said as he bestowed on Ward his prize – a year’s supply of Barlean’s mango-flavored fish oil concentrate and a pallet of Dr. Smearex’s all-Natural Cracked Suet Hair care products. “And we hope he continues to naturally cultivate that lush, organic beard without any artificial Monsanto-made genetic hair enhancers.”

“I am both thrilled and awed by this award,” says Ward, “And happily looking forward to years of all-natural beard growth, gradually disintegrating eyesight requiring hip glasses, and to stocking Dale Brumfield’s horror novel “Standers” on the shelf of Chop Suey Books, beginning in March.”

Brad's Own "Punxsutawney Phil" Sees His Shadow

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:26:00 +0000

Oh Crap: Doswell Man Makes Eye Contact with liberty Tax Mascot; Mascot Now Walking Towards Him

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:49:00 +0000

109-Year-Old Black Doswell Man Insists he is not a Blues legend, Despite Name and Nearby Guitar

noreply@blogger.com (Dale Brumfield) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:01:00 +0000

109-year-old Doswell resident “Gumbo” Lightnin’ Mud insists he “never played the blues”, never jammed with Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan, and to his knowledge never even influenced any modern-day rock or pop stars.

“Why is it every time you news people see an old black man who happens to have a guitar in his house you assume he sings the blues?” asks the cantankerous Mud, after a rather fierce explanation that the guitar belongs to his grandson. “I don’t even like the blues – never did. And I can’t even hold a guitar, much less even play it. I did play the French horn as a teenager.”

This reporter, however, openly doubted the French horn claim and refused to be swayed by the objections of the Flat Iron Road resident and kept pushing the point, connecting the dots between the name, the heritage and the guitar. “You’re a racist bigot, is what you are,” claimed the excitable Mud, wagging a shaking finger in my face, “You assume I sing the blues because I’m old and black. You also assume I’m on welfare? That maybe I got the gout and the diabetes? Wrong again, I got none of those. I’m a vegetarian and I’m Jewish.”

“You white reporters always think too that I must be a blues artist because of my name,” Mud went on, “My grandfather’s name was Gumbo Lightnin Mud too, and he was born the son of a freed northern slave in 1851 and died wealthy in 1933 – how does that fit with your idiotic blues narrative? Shit fire, boy.”

In addition to the obviously bogus French horn claim, Mud also insists his son, Gumbo Lightnin Mud Jr, is a wealthy cosmetic surgeon in Atlanta, Georgia. “That’s Doctor Lightnin’ Mud to you, you, pretty boy.” Mud said. “And does this look like the shack of a dirt poor blues artist?” Mud waved his hands through the den of his 7,000-square-ft brick rancher, pointing out the 68” HD TV, Blu-Ray player and home theatre sound system. “It’s way past time for you to go.”

“The pundits are right,” Mud said as his driver picked me up to take me back to the office, “Low expectations is the softest of bigotries.”