What I meant to do last night: watch a few videos on youtube, finish my graphic requests, go to bed

What I actually did: read sites about abandoned malls and theme parks til 5AM. Damn you, internet, for being so interesting!

It started as a simple search for my beloved Old Towne Mall dark ride, which I do periodically to see if anything popped up. I wonder if that mall was still around, unchanged, would it mean as much to me or would I just take it for granted? (You don't know what you've got til it's gone, etc.) I think it would, because I never got tired of going there as a child, and I'm even more of a kid now than I was when I was a kid. :D I love to visit the few places from my childhood that are still around as much as I ever did. So it's not just the nostalgia, it's something truly special and unique that's been lost to all but memories. There aren't even any pictures of the ride, at least not online or in my mom's huge collection.

I realize nostalgia is kind of a fluid thing - no matter when you grew up, you'll feel nostalgic for what was around at the time. People who grew up in the 50s or 60s probably find 80s nostalgia about as ridiculous as I'd find nostalgia for the sad state of today. But the 80s were my era, and it was still a simpler time. Bad things were afoot, like greed, drugs and rap music, but most of the music still sounded like music, the clothes were wonderfully naive in their attempt to be cool (and I loved the colors!), and we had movies like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future and Pretty in Pink. The 80s were fun. I look back and see them in amusement park lights and colors.

So I wonder, what would be nostalgic now? Will the kids of today one day be pining for the homogenous target-best-buy-wal-mart-old-navy-home-depot strip malls? Maybe they will, if that's all they know. But that's kind of sad. Even true nostalgia is being bought out. I mean...



which one of these is more interesting? Which one is more likely to capture a child's memories forever? Or an adult's, for that matter? Will kids today have the chance to dream of magical carousels and hazy, low budget dark rides? Or will all their memories be of video games? The world is... shrinking. And not in a fun way like Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I read that the beautiful carousel still exists somewhere in the country, so that's something. But it should be in CA! That's its HOME, dammit.

Something cool I found that made me smile: http://irodephantasmagoria.blogspot.com/
This was another dark ride from my childhood. I remember this one much better because I was older when I rode it. We probably went to Bell's in Tulsa about three times, and I rode this ride twice every time. It had a big yellow school bus that would pop out and honk at you (AHHHH IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!!! every single time!) Bell's also had an awesome wooden roller coaster, called the Cyclone I think. So... I too rode Phantasmagoria! I never knew how to pronounce it. I still don't. But damn, what a cool ride.

Finding things like this is like finding little pieces of my childhood on the internet, pieces that other people I don't even know share. It's pretty awesome. But damn, 5AM comes too soon.

Here's something I like.



Tom Waits is the PERFECT music to describe abandoned houses. Abandoned things tend to evoke tom-waits-type feelings in me even without the musical accompaniment so... wow. His music is like late at night when you don't really want to go to bed but you turn out the light and it's dark and you're alone but you're smiling a little at a memory. It's always there, it always speaks to you, it's always right. It's not hip or unhip, it just IS, like a river or a shot of whiskey. His music is what the absence of artifice sounds like.

I could go on and on but... yeah. I really like this video and how sad and happy it makes me feel. One of those youtube gems that makes me feel less alone in this crazy world of action.

A cool video of a guy exploring a "lost city," who says pretty much everything I feel about the past, present and future.

So in light of my last couple posts, I'm stopping right here and backing this blog up. From now on I'm focusing on the AWESOME in life. (Well, except T&T, cause it's AWESOMELY AWFUL.) While working on my "search for sanity" post, I was watching all these awesome videos. And it hit me like a rather obvious ton of bricks. This stuff isn't just escapism... this is the sweet sweet valley of sanity. Taking what you love and DOING something with it, instead of doing what THE MAN says you should do. Tee hee... THE MAN. I apparently now live in the 60s and smoke lots of weed.

Anyway. This guy, Adam the Woo, is my favorite. If anyone reads this thing ever, check out his site! Warning: may cause sleep deprivation. http://adamthewoo.tumblr.com/ One of my favorite things about this guy is he never seems to have a flashlight. That would so be me. "OOH DARK CREEPY PLACE! *RUN RUN FLAIL* CAN'T WAIT... oh. In my excitement I seem to have forgotten my flashlight, can I borrow yours?"

What this guy was doing last week while I was watching T&T:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzpAQxt6h3c&feature=youtu.be

Yeah, I suck. But I suck slightly less for having watched this. I'm gonna donate to him and suggest a few cool spots if he ever comes out west. You know, I used to think I was so weird for liking stuff like this. Yay internet for making me feel less weird! Side note: why does it seem like people on the internet and people in real life are like, totally different people? When I express an interest in something "off the beaten track" to someone I meet in person, I get the 0_o face. But online, there are hundreds of people going "yeah me too that's awesome!" I guess it's just easier to find like-minded people online. Man, I wish "real life" could be more like that. Not that the internet isn't "real life," it's not like you're transported to the Magical Land of Oz while you're online... lol.

These guys are cool too! They're like the kings of awesome crumbly structures. http://stuffthatsgone.com/

Obviously I wanna explore stuff myself, not just watch other people doing it. I have done this every chance I've gotten though sadly, I don't own a camera so it's just for my own enjoyment. I think what really renewed my interest was last year, when I lived in Colorado and went to Lakeside Amusement Park (an awesomely old and NOT abandoned place), and saw the long-abandoned Lakeside Speedway sitting next to it. Even from the outside, this thing is INSANELY awesome and creepy. I wanted in so bad, but all I could do was peer through some cracks in the wall. I always meant to go back by myself and see if I could find a way in. But even just walking the exterior is cool. I got a FEELING when I was close to it, not exactly a "this place is haunted" feeling but a "something strange happened here" feeling. When I got home I immediately looked it up online and there it was... it closed in 1988 after a spectator was killed. I didn't see any reports of it being haunted, but if you're receptive to certain feelings like I am, there is a major cool creepy vibe there.



I did not take this rad photo.

After staring through those cracks like a kid at a candy store window, I was reluctantly pulled away and back to the "real world." There was nothing more to see. But for me there was. I could have stood there a lot longer, just soaking it in. It was then I realized I have an odd kind of sensitivity that most people don't have, or have to a much lesser extent. I'm not sure how to explain it. I'm not psychic, I don't see ghosts, but I feel "attuned" to things, both visible and not, well beyond the point that other people would say "I'm boooooooored." I think I'd be good at exploring because I have no fear (within reason, I wouldn't do anything stupid). I have no fear because I love being creeped out.

I will leave you with this because it is literally my favorite thing ever. Creepy burnt ruins AND my sense of humor! Oh this guy also shares my love for weird roadside attractions, Disney parks, and old B horror movies. I wonder if he's a MSTie too. And he eschews the consumer grind by living in his van and going on adventures. Swell! I think he's my brother from another mother. or something that sounds less stupid.



I just typed "nipples flying everywhere!" to my fiance. (He works in a warehouse. There are metal doohickeys called nipples. I don't ask too many questions.)

There are two kinds of people in this world.



Those who see something like this and run away screaming, and those who see it and run towards it... screaming. I am the latter. "This" is an image from an abandoned theme park called Dogpatch USA in Arkansas that I actually went to as a child. No it isn't a dead body, just a dead hillbilly dummy (photo from undergroundozarks.com, which is a cool site).

I've always had a love for the past. Not history like wars and who was king of Austria in 1702 or whatever crap you're forced to memorize in school, but modern history. Personal history. Towns, buildings, people, stories. For example, what happened in Centralia, PA. Sad, creepy, and endlessly fascinating.

Again... two kinds of people.



OOH CRACKED HIGHWAY WITH SATAN COMING OUT OF IT... MUST GET CLOSER!

I've also always had a love for odd and unique things. One of my favorite places growing up, as much as I remember because I was so young, was the Old Towne Mall in Torrance, CA. This was not an ordinary mall, more like a small town carnival. It had this fairy tale kind of dark ride in it that I can barely remember the details of, yet the atmosphere is one of the most lingering memories of my childhood. It was magical, in all its low-budget glory. It's also long, long gone. I've searched the internet for years for any images of this ride, but none seem to exist. A lot of people who have similar memories of it to this day, and some great photos of the mall itself, but not that one thing from my childhood I want back. It's sort of become my Holy Grail. In my perfect world, this mall and this ride would still be there. Instead, it is a strip mall. In my dreams, the fairy tale ride and its inhabitants still sit, untouched for 25 years, behind the wall of the Best Buy or whatever it is now, waiting to be discovered.



I still remember exactly what this place smelled like - caramel corn, cotton candy, and FUN!

I've also always had a love for abandoned things. As a child I remember being drawn to old ruins, caves, empty houses (I even have a picture of me on a camping trip in Utah or someplace when I was about 6, building my own "ruin" out of rocks for me and my dolls to live in. :D) Old bridges, aqueducts, lighthouses, railroad tracks and trestles, any kind of random structure, crumbling or just old and interesting captures my imagination. And the internet is full of seriously cool people who feel the same way and make cool stuff out of it!

~ continued next post