Monthly Archives: October 2025
Tea’s Weird Week: Count Krulos’ Vault of Horror
Tis the witching season, so I just wanted to share some recent Halloween treats I’ve cooked up if you’re looking for something eerie to read about under the moonlight:
–“From Whence the Witches Came” Milwaukee Magazine (Sept. 2025). I wrote this feature about Whitewater’s spiritualist college, the Morris Pratt Institute and some of the legends that have spun out of it.
–“Will Milwaukee Public Museum’s Ghost Move to a New Museum?” Milwaukee Magazine (Oct. 2025). This is a short piece that was part of MilMag’s “Hidden Milwaukee” cover story speculating on the museum’s resident ghost, Dr. Stephan de Borhegyi.
–“Milwaukee’s Scream Queen: Performer Katie Kadaver lives the Halloween life 365” Milwaukee Record (Oct. 2025). A fun profile on horror burlesque producer and performer, model, podcast host, B-movie actress, and one-time mud wrestler Katie Kadaver.
–I contributed two stories to the Riverwest Radio Ghost Walk project, “The Bremen Street Triangle” and “A Haunting at Cafe Corazon.” You can buy a booklet for $10 (the money supports Riverwest Radio), read the stories (fiction and non-fiction) and walk to different houses and businesses that have decorated to reflect the story. Really fun project! It goes through Halloween, more info: https://www.riverwestradio.com/
I was on the Ghost Walk Spooky Talk show to read an excerpt and talk about the stories, you can listen to that here: https://soundcloud.com/user-240416425/2025-10-26
–This one is from 2023, for Atlas Obscura: “From Elvira to Svengoolie, Local Horror Hosts’ Frightfully Fun History” it’s about horror hosts. Speaking of, be sure to check out I’m Your Host, a documentary on Kenosha horror hosts I produced and now available online (it even comes with a download of a sheet of horror host trading cards and the posters): https://artforanti-villains.vhx.tv/
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Tea’s Weird Week: From Whence the Witches Came
I just wanted to note that my feature (titled “From Whence the Witches Came” in print) is now available to read on Milwaukee Magazine’s website here: https://www.milwaukeemag.com/second-salem-the-haunted-history-of-whitewaters-spiritualist-past/
This was my favorite article I worked on this year, it’s about the Morris Pratt Institute, a Spiritualist college that was built in the 1800s in Whitewater, Wisconsin (and still exists today in Wauwatosa. The article appeared in the September issue of MilMag. I was somewhat familiar with the story but was excited for the chance to take a deeper dive. I had a (somewhat rare) long lead time, so I was able to take a trip to Whitewater (and Wauwatosa) to conduct interviews and had a fair amount of time to read up on the story. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
In fact, I’ve been working on a book project and I think a slightly different version of this might be part of it. We’ll see. For now, I hope you enjoy this story, it’s a true story about a unique and unusual chapter of Wisconsin history, perfect, I think, for the Halloween season.
Tea’s Weird Week Episode 003: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference Preview
New Tea’s Weird Week episode!
“Tea talks to Allison Jornlin and Mike Huberty, proprietors of American Ghost Walks, about the ghost tour biz and what’s in store for the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference on Oct. 18 (Tea will be a guest speaker!). Then Tea and Heidi discuss strange Cubs curses and conspiracies, micronations, Wisconsin Bigfoot sightings, and more. In the Long Days Travel segment, Jenny tells us about her bewitching trip to Salem, Massachusetts.”
https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/j82mgs2bfaxd3cdb/TeasWeirdWeekNewStructure2025_Ep3_MIXED_MP38v6wl.mp3
Tea’s Weird Week: I Gotta Lotta October Left
Here’s just a list of things I’ve done or will be doing this month. I hope you get a chance to check some of it out.
October 3-5: QWERTYFEST MKE: Great stuff. We had people from Milwaukee and all over the country turn out for a celebration of typewriters, writing, and much more. I talked with my co-organizer Molly Snyder about the event for the TWW podcast, episode 2: https://teasweirdweek.podbean.com/e/teas-weird-week-episode-002-qwerty/
Follow QF on Instagram and FB, we’ll have photos and more stuff from the event posted soon!
Friday, Oct. 10: The UnXplained: I appeared as a guest commentator on Season 7, episode 16 of the History Channel show: “Unlocking the Sixth Sense.” It was a fun experience. I’ll be discussing Milwaukee psychic detective Arthur Price Roberts, one of the topics of that episode, at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference (see entry below).
Ongoing through Oct. 31: Riverwest Radio Ghost Walk: I wrote two stories for this fun, interactive, self-guided tour. Really fun project, you buy a copy of a booklet from several participating Riverwest businesses that is full of stories and art and a map that guides you to homes and businesses that have decorated to correspond to the stories. More info: https://www.riverwestradio.com/
I’ll be on Riverwest Radio to discuss my stories on Sunday, October 26, at 6pm.
Ongoing: I’m Your Host. October is the perfect month to rent or buy I’m Your Host, a documentary on Kenosha area horror hosts that I produced: https://artforanti-villains.vhx.tv/
Ongoing through Nov. 1: American Ghost Walks: I (usually) lead AGW’s Third Ward tour Friday evenings, and the Shadow of City Hall tour on Saturdays. You can find info/tickets here: https://www.americanghostwalks.com/wisconsin/milwaukee
Ongoing through Dec. 7: Milwaukee Krampusnacht: this is when planning this event, now in it’s eighth year, really ramps up. Tickets are available and more info is slowly being added here: www.milwaukeekrampusnacht.com
Out now: Oct. issue of Milwaukee Magazine: I was one of the contributors to the cover story on “Hidden Milwaukee,” I wrote about the Kingdom of Talossa, the Ghost of the Milwaukee Public Museum, and more. On news stands now, the story will eventually be added to: www.milwaukeemagazine.com
Saturday, October 18: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference: I was the founder of this event 10 years ago and it is now being organized by American Ghost Walks. Really nice line-up this year. I’ll be giving a talk at 2pm about Spiritualist college founder Morris Pratt and Arthur Price Roberts, the psychic detective I talked about on The UnXplained. Sadly, this will be the last event ever held at the Irish Cultural & Heritage Center before they close. Check out the full line-up and register for free here: https://milwaukeeparacon.com/
October 31: Happy Halloween!
Tea’s Weird Week: I Dream of Gein-y
QWERTYFEST MKE took place this past weekend and it was just fantastic. I don’t even know where to begin, but me and my event co-organizer Molly Snyder are incredibly grateful to everyone who participated and made it a great experience. Hundreds of people showed up for QWERTY events at State Street Pizza Pub, Turner Hall, Central Library, Interstate Theater, Newsroom Pub, Forest Home Cemetery, and Falcon Bowl. There will be lots to sort through and discuss and photos to share in the future.
It was a lot of work moving dozens of typewriters, boxes of merch and supplies, tables and chairs, etc. so I took Monday off for rest and recovery, to lay in bed and watch TV. I decided to check out the new Monster: The Ed Gein Story on Netflix, but I was so tired I kept falling asleep during the show and somewhere around episode 3 or 4 I just shut the TV off and passed out. I didn’t see enough to say if I can recommend it or not, but I can definitely recommend not using it as a portal to dreamland, cause I had some real weird dreams about Ed Gein hanging around at QWERTYFEST. Yikes! From what I did see, it seemed to be wildly inaccurate, but that’s show biz for ya. Anyway, I just wanted to share some random Ed Gein related notes:
–If you want to read a really well done (but disturbing) and much more accurate telling of the Ed Gein story, I recommend the graphic novel Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Did? by Eric Powell (The Goon) and Harold Schechter.
–I was glad to see Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, depicted (by actor Ethan Sandler) in scenes talking with Alfred Hitchcock (played by Tom Hollander) about Gein on the show. Bloch spent his formative writing years in Milwaukee, he lived for many years in an apartment above Glorioso’s (old location) on Brady Street, where he clacked away thousands of words for pulp magazines like Weird Tales. I wrote about him for Milwaukee Record ten years ago: https://milwaukeerecord.com/city-life/bloch-buster-milwaukees-connection-to-psycho-h-p-lovecraft-and-robert-bloch/
More recently, I wrote about Bloch for QWERTY Quarterly, and I’m actually reading some of Bloch’s work right now and plan to write more about him for an upcoming project I’m hoping I’ll be able to announce soon.
Like other things in the Netflix show, this conversation between Bloch and Hitchcock likely did not happen. Bloch didn’t know a lot of the details of the Gein case (many details did not come out until later) and didn’t have an understanding of Gein’s psychology as he appears to have here. Bloch said the main theme he got from Gein to create Norman Bates was Gein’s solitude in a small town setting. Gein and Bates also share a very unhealthy relationship with their mothers.
–I don’t know if they went there on the show, but one of my favorite Gein stories was that the great Werner Herzog was interested in filming a Gein documentary. It’s speculated that Gein might have exhumed his own mother’s grave, though this was never investigated. Herzog was ready to dig the grave up (without permission) and actually showed up with a shovel, but his directing partner chickened out and it didn’t happen. I talke about this and other wild Herzog moments in a TWW column from 2022, “High on the Herzog.”
Tea’s Weird Week, Episode 002: QWERTY
Tea talks to his QWERTYFEST MKE co-organizer Molly Snyder; Tea and Heidi talk weird news about Super Tardigrade Soldiers and more; Jenny tells us about her “Long Days Travel” to North Carolina.
https://teasweirdweek.podbean.com/e/teas-weird-week-episode-002-qwerty/
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