Lately, a couple friends have asked us how we “come up with this stuff” to blog about. And the answer is that we don’t actually come up with anything, I just turn a tape recorder on at some point during the day. Sunday is kind of an exception, because on Sundays I try and have a definite question that I want Buck to answer for Q&A. But I’m not a planner in the planning sense; I shoot from the hip when it comes to pretty much everything. Because of that, every now and then I tape a conversation that just isn’t suitable for print. They’re not dirty conversations, or racist or anything like that. As far at that stuff is concerned, both Buck and myself would sooner put fork to eye than listen to racist comments, or even worse, a racist “joke”.
No, the conversations that I find unsuitable are ones that just don’t go anywhere. Not that our conversations ever go anywhere, but some are to the Nth degree. We jump around, make insider references that no one would get, state misinformation then insist it’s fact, and I can’t even find a sound byte to end it on. They’re just interviews gone bad.
Normally I take a conversation like that and just tape over it later in the day, but this past weekend we were buried in work and time didn’t allow for a second, better discussion later on. So, to demonstrate what I’m talking about when I say how bad an interview can go, I’m blogging the following:
Without this helpful yellow circle, I would have missed ax-wielding serial killer Fritz Haarmann in this charming Christmas advent calendar offered by the Hanover, Germany, board of tourism. Here, Haarmann is pictured at his old stomping grounds along the Leine river where he dumped the bodies of the 24 boys and young men he murdered before he was caught in 1925.
Me: I read that in Germany, an advent calendar is creating a lot of problems. The board of tourism who created the calendar included a famous serial killer in the little pictures, because he lived and killed in that town. So my question to you is, how much time must pass before a murderer can become a national treasure? At what point in time is all forgiven and it’s okay — and smart business sense, even — to embrace a killer’s path as a tourist destination?
Buck: [sighs deeply] Is this your topic?
Me: Kind of. Yeah. What do you think of tourism people embracing killers and their crime scenes?
Buck: Well, people go to Nicole Simpson’s house, they go to OJ’s house. There are bus tours, and people like to get photographed there, so I guess there’s a call for it and there are good parts to it. Unless you’re a neighbor.
Me: There are no good parts to it.
Buck: Well, what’s your question? I don’t understand what you’re angling at.
Me: [laughing] I’m not angling for anything. I thought … I thought …
Buck: What did you think?
Me: I don’t know. I guess I saw that advent calendar and it made me think of the Jack the Ripper tours in England –
Buck: Well this topic … is kinda weird. You know?
Me: Yeah. I agree, it’s weird. And probably in poor taste even for us.
Buck: [in stupidly high voice meant to be mine] Do YOU have an opinion whether it’s good to have a killer on your town Christmas card?
Me: [laughing] That wasn’t even my question. [laughing]
Buck: [laughing] Oh. My mistake I guess. What was your question?
Me: Oh, God.
Buck: Did you think this murderer Christmas card thing was lighthearted? Because it’s not. It’s a downer, not to mention weird. And not weird in a good way.
Me: [laughing] I suppose I could do a different topic.
Buck: Oh, I think we should continue with this one. This one’s really going places. Plus, it will help to alienate all the people whom we haven’t alienated yet.
Me: [laughing]
Buck: Another good thing about it, is that you haven’t used the fuck-word in your blog lately so maybe you could refer to it as the fucking advent calendar –
Me: [laughing]
Buck: — which will keep you in good standing with that subversive sub-culture you’ve joined where you’ve all taken a vow to use swear words in your posts. You’ve probably been kicked out by now.
Me: I was never part of that thing and they are not a weird sub-culture. They’re linguists for crying out loud. LINGUISTS. And I was never part of it. I just happened to read about it. Not that I’m against it, it’s just that I don’t go out of my way to swear for shock value. I just swear when I swear, but like everything else I’m pretty lazy about it, so I couldn’t have participated even if I’d been asked to.
Buck: That’s true.
Me: But this whole interview has taken a weird turn because I was talking about murders in history and how tourism is exploiting the whole thing, and you brought up a recent killer who’s still on the loose playing golf and robbing people at gunpoint and whatnot.
Buck: [laughing] What’s the difference?
Me: WELL THAT’S WHAT I’M ASKING. Is there a difference? Is it acceptable to embrace murderers after a certain amount of time goes by? Ten years? A hundred years?
Buck: I think the old ones are more boring. Most of them, anyway.
Me: I don’t think that one murder story is more boring than another. Old murders aren’t more boring –
Buck: They were. There was no DNA, no photos. Murderers could be anybody. YOU could have been a serial killer –
Me: I could have never been a serial killer –
Buck: No, what I’m saying is that anybody could have committed the crimes because getting away with it was easier before all the new technology –
Me: I can’t get into this now. Never mind.
Buck: All I’m saying is that the old killers are boring because killing back then wasn’t that hard. I mean, Lizzie Borden kills her fa–
Me: HEY! Lizzie Borden is totally off-limits here. Don’t even go there. I’ve read a lot about the case, watched all the forensic documentaries AND the Elizabeth Montgomery movie, and I believe the theory that Mr. Borden had a history of sexually abusing Lizzie and her sister and Lizzie had had enough. So, given the era and the circumstances, given her history prior to the crime and after, I can’t fault Lizzie Borden for what I believe was an act of rage and desperation. So leave Lizzie out of this.
Buck: God. Elizabeth Montgomery must have been very powerful in that roll for you to feel so strongly … she must have done a helluva job –
Me: [laughing] Shut up. [laughing]Elizabeth Montgomery was not the deciding factor, although it was fascinating the way they said Lizzie did the whole thing naked, which is why there were no bloody clothes or shoes –
Buck: I think you believe Elizabeth Montgomery was Lizzie Borden.
Me: She did do a great job and I liked having it all put into perspective that way. The timeline, the trial. I welcomed that movie after hearing the Lizzie Borden song my whole life, and having Fall River and Lizzie Borden become synonymous –
Buck: Synonymous for you. I don’t think of Lizzie Borden when I think of Fall River.
Me: I hate this conversation. And my mail box is full of stuff I haven’t even opened. Seriously. It’s FULL. I have 175 unopened emails, and the thought of them makes me very tired. I don’t even think there’s any spam or stupid chain letters in there. That’s weird isn’t it, wishing half my mail was spam and chain letters? And I’m hungry. I need something to eat.
Buck: I’m gonna go get the M&M bag. I need some M&Ms after this conversation.
Me: What conversation? I don’t even know what this was, but I have to post it anyway.
Buck: Why?
Me: I don’t know.
Thanks again for the ashtray from Hawaii, Gail. I love it.
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Links:
Lizzie Borden B&B in Fall River.
London Times: German Calendar Reminds Children of Serial Killer
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Technorati Tags: Humor, Life With Buck, topics, blogging, advent calanders, Lizzie Borden, Jack the Ripper tours, Fritz Haarmann
Is Buck wearing TWO bathrobes???
@ Barbara – Yeah. He wears two now, because the weather has gotten cooler. Sometimes he wears three or four, and a hat, but that’s not till January or so.
I always wanted to go to that Lizzie Borden bed & breakfast and to England for that Jack the ripper tour. The Bewtiched girl’s movie is called the Legend of Lizzie Borden and it’s one of my favorite tv movies.
My brother used to love watching those Faces of Death videos. That stuff is too freaky for me. In fact, I was flipping through channels recently and came across a “Stunts Gone Bad” show that showed daredevils wrecking their motorcycles and breaking their bones and stuff. Even that was too much for me stomach. Yeah, I’m a wimp.
Anyway, my point: We’re such morbid beings, aren’t we? Always fascinated with the sickest and weirdest people in our society.
Although, when I first looked at that picture, I thought the guy in the circle was just some observer eating a really big, gray popsicle that has a bite taken out of it.
Hmmm…and this conversation was stranger than your other ones how?????????
@ Pinto Kris – That movie is one of my favorites, also. I’d like to stay at the LB B&B, too. But I have to figure out a way to do a travel article on it, so that someone else will pay my tab. Unfortunately, I think there’s a long line ahead of me. (George Noory’s in that line, I’m sure, but maybe he’ll chicken out and I can have his room.)
@ Stu - Yeah, we’re all morbid and gross as a society. I’ve never had the nerve to watch those Faces of Death videos, and I’ve never even wanted to. I don’t watch those, snuff movies, or the Animal Planet. But I do have a fascination with morbid things that are way, way in the past. Post-mortem daguerreotypes of the 1800s, cannibalism at Jamestown, anything eery and historical count me in. But count Buck out. He likes comedies and things with wheels and thinks I’m sick.
@ MBMQ – Your comment made me laugh out loud.
I’m wondering if I should draw in an ax on my holiday cards???
And I’m with Moonbeam
The hostess of a TV show I direct is a fan of serial killers. She has a Gacy painting in the house and once they were having work done in the house and, while a worker was walking up the stairs and with no banging going on, it fell off the wall (the painting not the worker). From that moment on the guy wouldn’t go upstairs.
I know someone who got married in the room next to the room Henry Lee Lucas was being interrogated in (the above named serial killer fan has a tape of the interrogation). That same person, not through any work or inclination of their own, ended up living in the apartment that was previously occupied by David Berkowitz. They were offered the apartment rent free for six months because it was the only way to get it rented.
I was a couple stools down from Linda Kasabian in a bar in NH. Not quite a serial killer but quite a surreal moment for me.
It looks like a popsickle to me. Remember last year the hoopla over the book of OJ explaining how he would have done the killings of his ex wife and Ron Goldman. Well Judith Regan the publisher got fired for it but no one ever got her side of the story of why she wanted that book published and it wasn’t because of some sick way of trying to squeeze the last bit of juice from the Ken Burns orange out of the entire story. She wrote her reasons and posted them on the web and made a radio interview explaining her point of view of basically puting him on public view to gain reason as to why he would commit the murders. She explained it better than I just did but she had a solid reason behind her actions and it was far from trying to forgive him. She ‘s a babe and I just wanted to say it in a public forum. It looks like a popsickle to me.
Sorry it’s taken me all day to get back to you guys — I was working all day (still am, actually) and didn’t dare come over here to the blog for fear I’d fall in and never return to work.
@ Susan – I’d laugh, but some might not. You probably shouldn’t draw the ax.
@ Bound and Gags - I’d like to say WTF? about your Gacy-loving hostess, but in all honesty I imagine that she and I would have lots to talk about. Although a painting by Gacy is just too creepy to own (or even look at), whenever his face passes across A&E, or History Channel, etc., I stop whatever I’m doing and stare at him in total horror. Most people would probably keep changing channels, but I’m so appalled by him, and so fearful of him, that all I can do is stare. And weird-props to you for having a Linda Kasabian story to pull out at dinner parties. I have a friend with a couple of Heidi Fleiss stories — not the same thing as yours, but good dinner conversation just the same.
@ Raging Storm – The ax looks like a popsicle? I can’t really argue that, because I thought it looked like a flag. And Judith Reagan is interesting to say the least. I know she took the hit on that OJ thing, but I do see her viewpoint. And if she offered to be my agent I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes.
I’m so glad you reposted this now that the holiday season is upon us. I always seem to get the holiday symbols mixed up what with all the bunnies, crucifixes, eggs, candy corn, turkeys, goblins and Friday the 13th shit.
Now, IF I was a religious Jew, which I ain’t, and IF I had a list of people to send Hanukah cards to, which I don’t, then I would be all for having Lizzie Borden, as played by TV’s beloved Bewitched Elizabeth Montgomery, on those cards, naked, with a menorah full of 8 wax-dripping, flaming candle stubs. Yeah, that would make me feel real, uh, festive? Right through to Boxing Day. Or Michaelmas, or Shreve Tuesday. Uh huh.
Ha! It’s so good to hear from you, David! You know, I didn’t even read this post. I just wanted to play with the repost options. I haven’t been over here in awhile, and the buttons have all changed!
BTW, Elizabeth Montgomery was excellent as Lizzie Borden and hers is the story I’m sticking with.
So glad I swung by today–love this post.
For the record, I enjoy murder tourism. I can’t help it. I’ve been on the Jack the Ripper tour in London, and when I went to LA, I had my friend (whose a native) take me by all of the celebrity death places.
I have no shame, lol!
Hello? Are you coming back?
Hey Girl! I’d LOVE to come back to blogging. But now I’m a full time editor and it just drains all the ideas from my brain, and by the end of the day my back is just killing me. I can’t bring myself to sit down and blog. I’d love to, and want to come back some day, I just can’t do it right now. But thanks for asking…it’s nice to know you’re not forgotten! <3
Of course you aren’t forgotten!
I am just missing you and your sister’s sense of humor, very, very much. I hate Facebook, only go on to promote my posts, so I miss out on getting chatty with most of the old blog friends.
Wow, congrats on the full-time editor position. I did that type of work PT for 6 months for a non-profit’s in-house & out of house publications, and the work just about killed me. I can’t even imagine how busy you are!