Author Archives: teakrulos
Tea’s Weird Week: Send in the (Killer) Clowns (Again)
Back in October, I published a zine/e-book titled Political Monsters: How Presidents Influence Horror Movies. This explored an old theory which I expanded on. The Political Monsters Theory says that we get more vampire movies during Democratic Party administrations, more zombie flicks for Republican ones, with the monsters reflecting fears of the parties in power. After analyzing movie lists, I found this theory checked out for the most part. I also found an interesting new development– under Trump’s first administration, the MAGA Party had brought a new fear– there was a big spike in evil killer clown movies. When Biden won, vampire movies were back in. In particular, there were a wave of Dracula-inspired movies like Renfield, Abigail (inspired by Dracula’s Daughter), and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
The graceful last act of the Biden-era vampires is the remake of Nosferatu, which crept into theaters on Christmas. The story, also based on Dracula, is a box office hit, which will certainly inspire more vampire productions. Dracula and company will always be retold. But with the MAGA Party clown car pulling up to the White House on January 20, expect vampires to take a coffin nap while we hear more evil giggling on the horizon.
As I mentioned in Political Monsters, this is probably the least of concerns about what will happen in the next Trump era. But weird pop culture/ social stuff is how I cope, so I’ll be following this trend by launching CLOWNWATCH 2025. Here are the first reports of evil clowns we’re expected to encounter on screen in 2025/26.
Terrifier 4. One of 2024’s biggest fails was killer clown movie Joker: Folie a Deux. Unlike the first Joker film, this sequel was a commercial and critical stinkbomb. Terrifier 3, on the other hand, was quite successful with a box office of $68 million, the highest grossing unrated film of all time. Director Damien Leone confirmed that a Terrifier 4 will happen, probably with a 2025 or 26 release date. Leone says this will be Art the Clown’s “final chapter,” but they said that about Freddy and Jason before resurrecting them again and again.
Welcome to Derry. Although the Political Monsters Theory examines movies and doesn’t consider TV shows, it’s maybe time to revise and reconsider this. We’re seeing movie-TV crossovers more frequently– the MCU shows, Dune: Prophecy, and The Penguin being a few recent examples of TV shows tied to a cinematic universe. A prequel series to It, Welcome to Derry will premiere on HBO with an unannounced 2025 date with Bill Skarsgård returning as Pennywise. The It movies (2017, 2019), by the way, were both released in the first Trump administration (as well as Terrifier, 2018, and Joker, 2019).
Clown in a Cornfield. This adaptation of an award-winning 2020 YA horror novel by Adam Cesare will be directed by Eli Craig (Tucker & Dale vs. Evil). The movie has a May 9, 2025 release date.
UPDATE, 01/16/2025: Unless we find info to the contrary, it appears that the first killer clown movie of Trump 2.0 is the simply named Clowns (d. Alexander Kane) with an April 1, 2025 release date.
IMDb: “CLOWNS is a tale of revenge of a filmmaker-turned-serial killer who hunts down and captures the key individuals in his life responsible for his downward spiral.”
And so it starts! I’ll continue to ride this balloon animal over the next four years. Murderous, buffoonish… we shall see how the clown car unpacks.
—
Political Monsters is available as a zine: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1778576030/political-monsters-how-presidents
Or as an e-book: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Monsters-Presidents-Influence-Horror-ebook/dp/B0DFJ7DZKQ/ref=sr_1_1
Tea’s Weird Week: Favorite Words of 2024 (and where I wrote ’em)
Words! Some just feel better rolling off the tongue than others. I’ve been trying to keep track of some of my favorites over the last year. Here’s 12 I love (and by extension, some of the best articles I’ve written for various publications this year). I’m looking forward to more word usage in 2025. Happy New Year!
LANDLUBBERS: “Goth Barge has developed a following for their Dark Wave fueled boat cruises, but they do plenty of sets for landlubbers too.” —Madcap Milwaukee Calendar: Who Will You Ask to the Goth Prom?, Shepherd Express, Jan. 30.
LYNCHIAN: “If you want to make the experience even more immersive, show up ‘dressed in your Lynchian best’ to win a prize in the costume contest.” — Madcap Milwaukee Calendar: Furries and Motorcyclists Assemble; Music for Your Lynchian Lifestyle, Shepherd Express, Feb. 14
PENDING: “Pending approval, the statue will be placed in a corner of Elm Park they hope to rename Gygax Park and will feature a likeness of Gary Gyagx sitting at the head of a table, where visitors can sit down and join him for a game.”– Dungeons & Dragons All Started In This Tiny Wisconsin Town, Atlas Obscura, March 28
CAPRINE VINYASA: “Share your yoga mat with a baby dwarf goat in a session of “caprine vinyasa,” or goat yoga, a trend that dates back to an Oregon farm in 2016.” — Madcap Milwaukee Calendar: Buffy Prom is Ready to Slay, Shepherd Express, May 8.
GOTHABILLIES: “These sour goths don’t like looking out their window to see their moonlit lawn filled with cybergoths, dark wavers, deathrockers, gothabillies, and other new-fangled creatures of the night.”–I’m on a goth boat: All aboard Milwaukee’s Goth Barge, Milwaukee Record, June 4. Please Clap Dept.: This article was included on the “25 favorite Milwaukee Record stories of 2024 list.”
TERRAZZO: “Waitstaff zipped across the hall’s terrazzo floor, delivering plates of fried cod and perch to the maze of tables, each decorated with a centerpiece vase featuring minature American and Serbian flags and colored carnations nestled amongst the condiments.”– Generations of Politicians Have Passed Through Serb Hall, Milwaukee Magazine, July 2024
CLACK: “With both parties satisfied with the deal, Dul sits at his Olympia SG-1 typewriter, and with a clack clack clack he types the customer a receipt, turning a crank to pull it free from the platen (the roller that holds the paper).”– Gen Z is into typewriters, Chicago Reader, Sept. 19
CLOWNADO: “The success of those movies led to a score of low budget entries like Killer Clowns: Unleashed (2016), Crispy’s Curse (2017), Clowntergeist (2017), Clown Motel: Spirits Arise (2018), and a film title that perhaps sums up the Trump administration in a single word: Clownado (2019).”– Political Monsters: How Presidents Influence Horror Movies, zine/e-book, October 2024
BLOWHOLE: “The band’s logo, a mohawked humpback whale in a leather jacket (with an enormous safety pin piercing the noble animal’s blowhole) breaching the water while defiantly raising a flipper, was a common sight on the streets, plastered everywhere on flyers and stickers slapped on dumpsters and electrical boxes.”– The Terrible Curse of the Humpbacks, Riverwest Radio Ghost Walk booklet, October 2024. Please Clap Dept.: Illustrator Ashley Altadonna captured what I thought this logo might look like exactly:
SCHTICK: “I sell a drink, put the money in the register; at the end of the night, I count the money – immediate gratification,” Guenther says. “I make a new customer, I tell a joke, people laugh, and that’s my schtick.”– A Short Guide to Milwaukee’s Dive Bars, Milwaukee Magazine, October 2024
HODAG-GREEN: “Then, in 2018, he went all in, giving the exterior of the shop a Hodag-green coat of paint and rebranding as The Hodag Store.”– Do You Know the Legend of the Rhinelander Hodag? Milwaukee Magazine, October 2024
KRAMPUSSCHLAP: “Krampuschlap,” a game where people slap each other as hard as they can, is revealed to be “the favorite game of Krampusnacht” in the action comedy Red One. At Milwaukee Krampusnacht, we partnered with Best Place on a “Krampusschlap” drink special (cider and Fireball) and set up a photo opp so people could pretend they were being slapped by a Krampus hand. —Milwaukee Krampusnacht website and social media promotions
TWW: 4 More Years…of Vampires or Killer Clowns?
Political Monsters Week Continues
To conclude my posts about the Political Monsters project, I want to do some monster-casting to the future. During election years, we’re bombarded by both campaigns via emails, texts, junk mail, billboards, TV and internet ads– everywhere we look.
My zine/e-book Political Monsters talks about how we get more zombie movies during Republican administrations and more vampire movies during Democratic ones– the exception being Trump, who launched a rise in killer clown themed movies. In this last year or so we’ve seen lots of vampire movies, particularly Dracula inspired ones– The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, Nosferatu. But with Trump on the periphery, there’s also been a bump in killer clown movies– Joker 2, Terrifier 3. I think if Trump is elected, the chaotic candidate will bring in another wave of evil clown movies.
But what about Kamala Harris? She would be unique in becoming the first woman president. But she’s deeply associated with the Democratic Party as Biden’s VP, unlike Trump’s unhinged splinter MAGA Party. I think Harris would continue the trend of vampire movies as seen during Biden’s term. If anything, there’s be more lady vampire movies along the lines of what we saw in this year’s film Abigail (loosely inspired by the horrror classic Dracula’s Daughter).
As I note in the Political Monsters zine, the fate of the world will hinge on the election in a couple weeks on November 5. Significantly less frightening, it may determine the amount of vampires vs evil clowns we see on the silver screen.
—
You can get a copy of Political Monsters…
In person: Saturday, Oct. 19: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference, I’ll be on the vendor floor 10am-5pm at the Irish Cultural & Heritage Center. Register for a free ticket here: milwaukeeparacon.com
Sunday, Oct. 20: Political Monsters Party at Lion’s Tooth, 3-5pm. Admission is free. I’ll talk briefly about the project, we’ll do a round of horror trivia, and if you dress like a zombie, vampire, or killer clown, you get a free copy of the Political Monsters zine!
You can also buy copies at Lion’s Tooth here in Milwaukee and Quimby’s in Chicago. You can order a print copy via the QWERTYFEST MKE Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1778576030/political-monsters-how-presidents
And an e-book version is available through Kindle/KU: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Monsters-Presidents-Influence-Horror-ebook/dp/B0DFJ7DZKQ/ref=sr_1_1
TWW: The Late, Great Hannibal Lecter
Political Monsters Week Continues
One of the many bizarre things to come out of this election cycle is the Trump campaign’s racist fearmongering and spreading of false internet stories about immigrants eating the dogs, the cats, the geese, everything in sight– maybe even you. Trump says the countries south of the border are not only sending criminals, but highly intelligent forensic psychiatrist/ cannibal serial killers like “the late, great” Dr. Hannibal Lecter, the character who originated in novels by Thomas Harris and was adapted to various TV shows and movies, most famously The Silence of the Lambs (1991), played by Anthony Hopkins, who won an Academy Award for his portrayal.
Rolling Stone’s Miles Klee outlines the history of Trump referencing the killer in an article titled “Why is Trump So Obsessed With Hannibal Lecter?: A Complete Timeline.” Klee pinpoints the first reference at a rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on July 29, 2023, where Trump claims immigrants are “pouring” out of “mental institutions, from insane asylums,” adding “that’s like Silence of the Lambs stuff.” Trump continued to work on the bit, like a comedian refining a joke, over the months and by May 11, 2024 he referred to the character as “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” for the first time. As Rolling Stone notes, this is a strange reference as there’s no Hannibal Lecter related book or movie that depicts him as dying off.
Rolling Stone points out that perhaps Trump “initially conflated the term ‘insane asylums’ with ‘asylum seekers'” or maybe identified more with Lecter than the FBI agents who locked him up. I think that latter idea is the key here– Trump is a fan of the character. Much like he fawns over dictators like Putin, Jong Un, and Orbán, he admires Lecter.
In fact, I’m going to use Trump’s playbook of fearmongering lies here– the Trump family isn’t sending their best. They’re eating the public, they’re eating the people! They’re shooting people on 5th Avenue, then eating their livers with some fava beans and a nice chianti and the crooked Supreme Court is granting them total immunity. Horrible!
—
See yesterday’s post for more on the Political Monsters project. Tomorrow I’ll give a monster forecast: “4 More Years: Vampires or Evil Clowns?”
You can get a copy of Political Monsters…
In person: Saturday, Oct. 19: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference, I’ll be on the vendor floor 10am-5pm at the Irish Cultural & Heritage Center. Register for a free ticket here: milwaukeeparacon.com
Sunday, Oct. 20: Political Monsters Party at Lion’s Tooth, 3-5pm. Admission is free. I’ll talk briefly about the project, we’ll do a round of horror trivia, and if you dress like a zombie, vampire, or killer clown, you get a free copy of the Political Monsters zine!
You can also buy copies at Lion’s Tooth here in Milwaukee and Quimby’s in Chicago. You can order a print copy via the QWERTYFEST MKE Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1778576030/political-monsters-how-presidents
And an e-book version is available through Kindle/KU: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Monsters-Presidents-Influence-Horror-ebook/dp/B0DFJ7DZKQ/ref=sr_1_1
TWW: It’s “Political Monsters Week!”
Alright, well, it’s been a while since I’ve done anything significant with Tea’s Weird Week. But we’re getting into the Halloween season and this weekend I’ll be tabling with my Political Monsters zine at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference on Saturday and at a special party at Lion’s Tooth on Sunday. Leading up to that, I thought I’d do some posts here this week tying to the project.
Today, let’s start at the beginning. What is the “Political Monsters Theory?” In 2008, a theory began to circulate that found a correlation between the political party in power and monster movies. It suggested that we get more vampire films during Democratic Party administrations and more zombies during Republican ones. The idea is that these monsters play into stereotypical visions of those parties. The short version: Democrats being kinky necksuckers and Republicans being a mob consuming everything in their path and warmongers.
My research found that the numbers checked out pretty well from the Carter through the Bush administrations.
During George W. Bush’s administration there was an explosion in zombie movies. 9/11 and war in Iraq in Afghanistan was one factor. Easier accessibility to affordable camera and editing software for low budget filmmakers was another. The theory was upended somewhat during Obama’s administration as there were far more zombie movies than vampire ones. However, as I argue in Political Monsters, if you look at another metric– box office money vs number of films, the sparkly vampires of The Twilight Saga far outpace all the zombie movies of that era combined with a total box office of $3.36 billion.
Then, in 2019 I made an observation. A political outsider, Trump, had broken the theory with a new trend…killer clowns. During the chaotic MAGA Party administration, we saw box office hits like Joker and the two-part It movie adaptation, as well as a surge of low budget imitators. After Trump packed up his clown car and left the White House, the vampires returned with Joe Biden. The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, Abigail, Salem’s Lot, and Nosferatu are just some of the titles from 2023 and 24. In Political Monsters I also share a special tie one-term presidents Carter and Biden have with the most famous of vampires, Count Dracula.
Tomorrow (Thursday), I’ll be writing about “The Late, Great Hannibal Lecter” and on Friday I’ll give a monster forecast: “4 More Years: Vampires or Evil Clowns?”
You can get a copy of Political Monsters…
In person: Saturday, Oct. 19: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference, I’ll be on the vendor floor 10am-5pm at the Irish Cultural & Heritage Center. Register for a free ticket here: milwaukeeparacon.com
Sunday, Oct. 20: Political Monsters Party at Lion’s Tooth, 3-5pm. Admission is free. I’ll talk briefly about the project, we’ll do a round of horror trivia, and if you dress like a zombie, vampire, or killer clown, you get a free copy of the Political Monsters zine!
You can also buy copies at Lion’s Tooth here in Milwaukee and Quimby’s in Chicago. You can order a print copy via the QWERTYFEST MKE Etsy page: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1778576030/political-monsters-how-presidents
And an e-book version is available through Kindle/KU: https://www.amazon.com/Political-Monsters-Presidents-Influence-Horror-ebook/dp/B0DFJ7DZKQ/ref=sr_1_1
Tea’s Weird Week: Riverwest Ghosts, Typewriters, Political Monsters, etc.
September was a busy one! Here’s a roundup of some writings and media I did.
Chicago typewriter scene: I wrote my first piece for Chicago Reader, “Gen Z is into typewriters,” which appeared in their print edition and online. It’s a look at a fairly new typewriter service shop, Typewriter Chicago and the Chicago typing scene in general.
Riverwest Radio Ghost Walk: This is a unique, fun project created by Jill Capicchioni. Writers and artists provided fiction and nonfiction ghost stories and business and homeowners decorated their buildings to correspond to them. The stories and a map of the participants are collected in a booklet you can buy at several Riverwest businesses (see flyer below) for $10 and the proceeds benefit Riverwest Radio. You pick up a copy, then check out the spots at your own leisure, whenever you want between October 4-31. I contributed two short write ups based on people’s stories of supernatural experiences at Cafe Corazon and Nessun Dorma and a short fiction about an ill-fated punk band called The Humpbacks. I haven’t done a lot of fiction writing, so that was fun. More info on the project: https://www.riverwestradio.com/riverwest-radio-ghost-walk/
Political Monsters: My zine detailing the correlation between the political party in power and vampire, zombie, and evil clown movies debuted this month. I’m doing a little party for it Sunday Oct. 20 at Lion’s Tooth. I’ll talk briefly on how I discovered the theory and we’ll have a quick round of horror trivia. Anyone dressed as a vampire, zombie, or evil clown gets a free copy of the zine!
More stuff: I wrote about Dungeons & Dragons again for Milwaukee Magazine and talked about it briefly on Lake Effect. Speaking of MilMag, check out the October issue, it’s like the Krulos Olympics in that issue– I wrote about dive bars, the hodag, and puppets! Also, I was a guest on the Indecent with Kiki Anderson podcast to discuss my 2019 book Apocalypse Any Day Now: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2X5taeOs5BAxB0ri9rYM1X
Please Clap Dept.: I’m a producer of the horror host documentary I’m Your Host, directed by Alicia Krupsky, which I’m glad to say won both “Best Wisconsin Feature” at Port of Fear Film Festival in Kenosha and “Best Documentary Feature” at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival this month. Nice!
October forecast: Leading up to my party at Lion’s Tooth Oct. 20, I’ll be featuring a “Political Monsters Week” of related material here on my site every day from October 14-18.
Tea’s Weird Week: OUT NOW: Political Monsters are Creeping Your Way This Fall
I’m thrilled to say that I have a new publication (a short zine/ e-book) out in time for the horror season (Halloween and Election Day) titled Political Monsters: How Presidents Influence Horror Movies. It’s a study of a pop culture/ sociology/ horror film trend.
Hell’s Bells, here’s a blurb:
“Political Monsters explores a theory that dates back to the Obama administration that suggests that we get more vampire movies during Democrat administrations and more zombies during Republican ones. During Trump’s MAGA Party reign, journalist Tea Krulos noticed a new trend– lots of killer clown themed movies were being made, in fact the single biggest cluster of this theme in film history (vampires returned with Biden). Krulos decided to look at some data in his mad scientist lab to determine how much truth there was to this theory. Did it hold up? The answer is: for the most part, yes. The main section of Political Monsters explores the trends and data, but there’s also some bonus appendix material about the history of these genres.”
You can buy a print copy of the zine at the QWERTYFEST MKE Etsy store here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1778576030/political-monsters-how-presidents
E-book version available on Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DFJ7DZKQ
I’ll also have copies at these fantastic events:
Sunday, Sept. 22, 11am-5pm: Awkward Nerd Events Book Fair @ Tripoli Shrine Center (3000 W. Wisconsin Ave.)
Sunday, Sept. 22: 5-7pm: Records and Typewriters QWERTY Quarterly #6 Release Party @ Wiggle Room (2988 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.)
Saturday, Oct. 19: Milwaukee Paranormal Conference 2024 @ Irish Cultural and Heritage Center (2133 W. Wisconsin Ave.)
Sunday, Oct. 20, 4pm: Political Monsters Party @ Lion’s Tooth (2421 S. Kinnickinnic Ave.)
You can also buy a copy at:
Milwaukee: Lion’s Tooth (2421 S. Kinnicknnic Ave.)
Chicago: Quimby’s Bookstore (1854 W. North Ave.)
If you’re interested in having me for an appearance or on your media outlet, drop me a line at: teakrulos@gmail.com
The fang-tastic cover art is by Ashley Altadonna.
Tea’s Weird Week: Podcast Recommendation: Fur & Loathing
Back in 2021 one of the favorite things I wrote that year was a column (plus a related TWW podcast episode) titled “How a Dogged Reporter Sniffed Out an Alt-Right Furry Infiltration,” in which I wrote about Patch O’ Furr, creator of the Dogpatch Press website, which reports news related to the furry subculture. If you’re interested in learning more about a particular subculture, I recommend finding the media that they themselves create to learn more about them. Although Dogpatch Press reports on plenty of fun stuff going on with the furry fandom, Patch is also important as a watchdog (pun intended) that has put in impressive work exposing potential threats to their world. In particular, Patch has exposed a disturbing and dangerous fringe of the fandom– Alt-Right or Nazi Furs.
Related to that is the case of a 2014 terror attack at the Midwest Fur Fest (in Rosemont, outside of Chicago) in which several attendees were injured in after someone released chlorine gas in one of the hotel’s hallways. To date, no one has been charged with that crime, although there is a clear suspect. Patch dropped me a line to tell me about a new podcast series that delves into this case (and A+ on this title): Fur & Loathing. This series was created by Nicky Woolf, a journalist who writes for The Guardian, and produced by Brazen, a podcast and multimedia platform. Patch’s investigations and insight are a key part of the story.
The podcast is six episodes, with some bonus material, and does a fantastic job delving into the suspenseful twists and turns of this strange case. The podcast team leaves no stone unturned in their extension effort to figure the case out. It is alternately funny, empathetic, surprising, and disturbing.
You can listen here: https://brazen.fm/fur-and-loathing/ and if you scroll down on that page, you’ll find links to Apple, Spotify, etc. Well worth listening if you are interested in a true crime podcast with an unusual, furry twist.
More listening: I was recently a guest on the New Books Network podcast, hosted by Tyler Thier. We discussed my book American Madness, published in 2020 but still very relevant today. You can listen here: https://newbooksnetwork.com/american-madness
Tea’s Weird Week: Goth Barge (and other recent excursions)
One of my favorite things about writing is the chance to have a unique experience and share that with other people in a story, so I was delighted to step aboard Goth Barge and write it up for Milwaukee Record. They got a good thing going on with this cruise.
Back in high school and into my early 20s I identified as a punk rocker. I had a mohawk and usually sported an Operation Ivy or Dead Kennedys T-shirt. But I was fortunate in that the circles I hung out in featured a variety of subcultures, including oh, you know, the Goths, the Vandals, the Huns, the Saxons…all the enemies of the Roman Empire.
I loved quite a few goth classics, my favorites being Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Cure, Joy Division (I dropped those in the article), Bauhaus, New Order, and The Damned. I also really liked a lot of 80s/90s industrial like Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult. It’s a mood, as the kids today say. Anyway, I’m glad to see that the article appears to have gotten a good reception from goth and not-so-goth readers alike.
You can check it out it here: “I’m on a goth boat: All aboard Milwaukee’s Goth Barge.”
More recent writings:
– I wrote an article for Milwaukee Magazine‘s website on local writer and game designer Jex Thomas, creator of Bump in the Night. I had a chance to sit down and play a session and had a great time. They created a crowdsource campaign to raise funds for a new edition and I’m glad to see it’s going really well. Read more and find the link here: “‘Bump in the Dark’ Is a New Tabletop Game by a Local Designer“
-As I said on Facebook, this story is like a weird dream: I dreamed that I found an unmarked secret building built into a railroad bridge and discovered a model railroad club that’s been in there for 8 decades. Well, it’s reality: “Milwaukee Model Railroad Club Is Hidden in Plain Sight” (a print version appeared in the May issue of Milwaukee Magazine).
–QWERTY Quarterly #5: have you heard the good word about QWERTYFEST? It’s happening soon– June 21-23. I’m co-editor of QWERTY Quarterly, official publication of QF. I wrote bits and pieces of the new issue, along with many other talented creators. This issue has a lot of material that ties into QF– a full schedule, articles on (or by) participants, there’s also poetry, fiction, a word scramble, a new comic strip and more! You can buy a QQ subscription (and we’ll have individual copies of QQ#5 listed soon) here: https://www.qwertyfest.com/qwerty-quarterly.html
And check out the full QF schedule (and ticket links) here: https://www.qwertyfest.com/qwertyfest-2024-schedule.html
-“Madcap Milwaukee Calendar” is a column I write for the Shepherd Express every two weeks. I find about five unique/unusual/ nerdy events around town to spotlight, so if you’re looking for something interesting, check it out. You can find the latest column here: https://shepherdexpress.com/culture/madcap-milwaukee-calendar
Tea’s Weird Week: Who Said It–Phantom Patriot or Marjorie Taylor Greene (Revisited)?
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was busted flying an American flag upside down (a form of protest to indicate dissent or that the country is in distress) outside his home as well as the “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown by J6ers outside his vacation home.
Don’t worry, Alito. Marjorie Taylor Greene has your back. Fresh off her conspiracy that the FBI was going to assassinate Trump, Greene rambled on X (aka Musk Twitter) about Trump and Alito.
“WE SHOULD ALL BE FLYING THE FLAG UPSIDE DOWN!!!” she concludes.
Hmm, that reminds me of someone. I can’t quite place it. I seem to remember he had a skull for a face. Raided the Bohemian Grove, charged with five felonies. Conspiracy theory ended up taking his life. Oh right, it’s this guy…Richard McCaslin, aka the Phantom Patriot.
About two years ago, I wrote a TWW column titled “Who Said It– Phantom Patriot or Marjorie Taylor Greene?” The quotes I provided were identical in ideology. The only difference– Richard was considered a “crackpot” and “domestic terrorist” while Greene for some reason is a member of Congress.
Read the story of the Phantom Patriot in my book American Madness: https://bookshop.org/p/books/american-madness-the-story-of-the-phantom-patriot-and-how-conspiracy-theories-hijacked-american-consciousness-tea-krulos/12625126
Please Clap Dept.: QWERTYFEST MKE is happening June 21-23. Check out the schedule here: https://www.qwertyfest.com/qwertyfest-2024-schedule.html
teakrulos.com 