Tea’s Weird Week: Hey, I’m Going to be on “The UnXplained” TOMORROW
UPDATE: This episode (“Unlocking the Sixth Sense,” Season 7, Episode 16) was supposed to premiere August 15, but has been bumped back to sometime in October.
UPDATE UPDATE: Airs tomorrow, Oct. 10, 8pm CST
A few months ago, I was flown out to Boise for an interview session for an episode of The UnXplained. If you’re not familiar, the show is hosted by our Captain, William Shatner, for the History Channel. It’s a similar format to Unsolved Mysteries and similar shows. Each show focuses on a paranormal or mystery topic, Shatner delivers dramatic narration, and a motley crew of experts weigh in.
This season, the show producers wanted to focus an episode, “Unlocking the Sixth Sense,” on people who have claimed to have psychic ability. Their research led them to discover the story of a highly unusual Milwaukeean named Arthur Price Roberts (1871-1940). We’ll talk more about him in a minute. My friend, fellow Milwaukee writer Anna Lardinois (Milwaukee Ghosts and Legends) penned an article on Roberts for Milwaukee Magazine. The producers found this and set up an interview with Anna and asked if she could recommend anyone else to speak on this matter and she did your guy here a solid and said they should talk to me, Tea Krulos.
I’m a bit leery of TV shows. Some of them will ask you to do stuff like roll around on the ground and pretend you’re being attacked by a ghost and all sorts of rubbish. But in this case they just wanted me to talk about what I knew about Roberts and other famous psychic case files. In the case of Roberts, I didn’t want to just parrot Anna’s article, so I took a bit of a dive into newspaper archives (mostly the Milwaukee Journal and Sentinel) and I found some pretty great stuff. I’ll be talking about it more on the show, of course, and I’m also writing an article that goes into more detail (I’m not sure when or where that article will appear yet). Meanwhile, here are some things I discovered about Arthur Price Roberts to give you a little bit of background.
-Roberts was born in Wales, and moved to Fox Lake, WI as a teen to live with an uncle. He moved briefly to North Dakota, where he worked on a ranch. It’s unknown exactly when he moved to Milwaukee, but he opened his psychic detective business out of his house here in 1895.
-Roberts was often in the press and he was definitely a well-known local character (maybe an early 1900s answer to the Milverine). Reporting on him was not mean-spirited but often tongue in cheek. They referred to him as “Doctor” or “Professor,” perhaps a sarcastic nickname at first. Roberts was illiterate and said that learning to read or write would damage his psychic abilities (this also meant he didn’t leave behind correspondence or a journal) so he was not an actual doctor or professor. There were also plenty of jokes about how “he failed to predict” things like his very public divorce.
-Roberts was also probably hard to understand at times. He spoke in a thick Welsh accent and while in a trance he would speak rapidly in the Welsh language. He reportedly had no teeth and was fond of whiskey, telling one reporter he had “two whiskies before breakfast,” and five the day before.
-Despite this, there are several reports that say Roberts was successful in visualizing where missing persons, alive and dead, would be found.
-He had some issues with the law, getting arrested at least 3 times for “telling fortunes for gain.” His divorce from a wife he claimed was violent was widely reported, as was a case where a woman tried to sue him for “breach of promise” after he asked her to marry him but got cold feet when his “spirit guides” told him to back out.
-The most enduring story of a Roberts predication is the claim that he visualized a string of bombings in 1935. Two bombers dynamited Shorewood Village Hall, two banks, and two police stations before they accidentally blew themselves up. There is a report on this in a newspaper that was called Milwaukee News and it’s been handed down in collections of supernatural stories ever since, The UnXplained being the latest. I’m pretty sure this is the first TV show to explore the case.
The UnXplained episode (Season 7, Episode 16, “Unlocking the Sixth Sense”) featuring this story will air in sometime in October on the History Channel. I’ll also be discussing Roberts and another unique Wisconsinite, Morris Pratt, in a presentation at the Milwaukee Paranormal Conference on October 18. Here’s some “bonus material” while you wait.
One profile I found was by Dixie Tighe, a reporter from New York. It appears she spent a couple weeks in Milwaukee as a guest writer for the Sentinel and they told her to check out Roberts. She wrote a fun, slightly snarky profile on him for the December 20, 1929, edition of the Milwaukee Sentinel. It sounds like Dixie was a total badass. She’d report on her adventures scuba diving and skydiving and became a war correspondent during WWII, the first woman correspondent to ride along on a bombing mission, though she was not allowed to accompany paratroopers on D-Day because she was told the parachute would “damage her delicate female apparatus.” She was “famous for her blunt language and flamboyant lifestyle.” She died at age 41 of a stroke in Tokyo.
Below is one of my favorite finds, from the June 5, 1928 edition of the Milwaukee Journal. Some notes follow.
1. I love the term “Drys” as slang for Prohibition officers. And this headline…*chef’s kiss*
2. 1405 Fond du Lac Ave was about a block away from where Roberts lived and operated his psychic consultation business out of his home office.
3. “they’re going to pinch the place,” another *chef’s kiss”
4. “Wildcat brewery” refers to an illegal, Prohibition-era brewery.
Tea’s Weird Week: The Jewish Space Laser Bill
In 2020, the year the conspiracy tsunami broke loose, I had a book published titled American Madness. In it, I got to know an intense conspiracy theorist named Richard McCaslin (also known as the costumed vigilante Phantom Patriot). Richard died in 2018. I still think about that story frequently and how much conspiracy culture has changed since I first met Richard in 2010. Conspiracy is mainstream now. It is the party in power. And now the QAnon Party is writing legislation.
Marjorie Talor Greene aligned with QAnon early on until she realized she should distance herself, but she kept those beliefs moving forward. She recently revealed that she has been “researching weather modification,” and using her new DIY knowledge of climatology, has drafted a bill that would make “altering weather” a felony. She made this announcement right after the deadly flooding in Texas, which some conspiracists have speculated was caused by cloud seeding. Cloud seeding is a real thing, where particles are introduced to certain types of clouds to enhance precipitation. But cloud seeding would not cause precipitation of this magnitude.
Greene didn’t mention that theory or her infamous “Jewish space laser” conspiracy, which suggested wealthy Jews were starting California forest fires with a frickin’ laser, or “chemtrails,” a classic conspiracy that she’s waxed poetic about in the past (she suggested they were the cause of hurricanes Helene and Milton), but that is what’s between the lines. A Deep State weather program being used for nefarious purposes. Ok, sure. Who has it, specifically? Where? Why does the Deep State want to create hurricanes and forest fires? To what end? And isn’t the Republican Party the Deep State now?
“I am introducing a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity,” MTG says. “It will be a felony offense.” This is some “they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” level of ridiculous bullshit, but I predict this is just the beginning. Expect to see legislation regarding Reptilian aliens and an official proclamation that the moon landing was fake in the future. We are quickly hurling ass backwards into the Dark Ages.
If Richard McCaslin was alive today, he’d probably be elected to Congress or a Cabinet position.
By the way, I have a conspiracy MTG and company can look into. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, Marj: Attorney General Pam Bondi tells the press in February that the Epstein File client list is “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Trump hems and haws on Fox & Friends about releasing the files (and more recently scolds a reporter to move on from the story) and then voila the DOJ says there is no list. Kinda strange, huh?
UPDATE (07/10): Why this is dangerous. Much like Richard McCaslin was inspired by Alex Jones or the “Wolverine Watchman” seized on COVID/ election conspiracies to plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a militia group called “Veterans on Patrol” is “targeting” Oklahoma weather radars over this nonsense: “Anti-Government Militia” Says It’s Targeting Oklahoma Weather Radars.”
And awaaaay we go.
Buy: American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (2020, Feral House)
Tea’s Weird Week: I Love Central Library (and a last call for help in QWERTYFEST fundraising)
Last month, I penned a piece for the Shepherd Express titled “A Love Letter to American Science & Surplus,” which was about the unique store’s fundraiser to stay in business (I’m glad to say they’ve since met their goal and are close to meeting a stretch goal). It felt good to write about a place that I think is great, so with QWERTYFEST MKE 2025 fundraising wrapping up, I wanted to say something about another place I love: Milwaukee Central Library.
We are going to be hosting QWERTYFEST presentations, workshops, and a library tour there on Saturday, October 4 and I could not be more thrilled to be there and to have our festival attendees check it out. Central Library is like a cathedral to me, and it looks the part. I can’t wait for QWERTYFEST guests who haven’t been there to see the rotunda lobby. It is just stunning.
I appreciate Central’s resources greatly. I’ve written five non-fiction books and an unknown number of articles and many research materials for that work have come from there. Being on a pretty thin budget, I’ve been able to borrow almost anything I’ve needed. When I was 20 and interested in listening to classic Blues music, I checked out a bunch of CDs from Central. It was nice to go somewhere to get out of the house but without needing to spend money. When I wanted to read collections of superhero comics while researching Heroes in the Night, they had them. More recently, when I wrote an article on the history of Serb Hall for Milwaukee Magazine, the library’s online newspaper database archive was the key to getting that article done.
I’ve been working a lot on the presentation/workshop line-up a lot this week and it’s a wonderful mix of librarians, typewriter aficionados, poets, mystery novelists, artists, and other interesting characters. It’s everything I hoped QWERTYFEST would be. We’ll be announcing that lineup soon (just got to confirm a couple things) at: www.qwertyfest.com
We are offering all these talks and workshops for FREE. Your support can help us make it happen by supporting our last call for our fundraiser, it is closing in the next couple days. Every little bit helps us fund QWERTYFEST programming: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qwertyfest-mke-2025#/
You can also contact us about fundraising/ sponsorship at: qwertyfestmke@gmail.com
I hope I might see you there at one of my favorite places on earth, Central Library.
Tea’s Weird Week: I’m Looking for View-Masters
I got an idea I’m working on, possibly somewhere at QWERTYFEST MKE or a QF related event– a View-Master Theater, where there are maybe 6 or 8 stereoscopes (View-Master is the popular brand name) that people can scope (sorry for the pun) out.
If you’re not familiar, View-Master is a little device, usually red plastic, that you put a reel disc in, then you look into it and advance through the photos with a lever. I used to enjoy them as a kid and they still make them. The first View-Master was marketed in 1939 and it grew in popularity throughout the decades that followed. Companies made reels based on everything from nature to travel to pop culture.
This idea was spun because I discovered some classic reels related to Milwaukee and Wisconsin, there’s one that shows some famous spots around the state and another that looks like it’s maybe from the 70s with slides from the Milwaukee County Zoo, and another for the Domes (and there’s probably others out there, too). I guess what I’m saying is that I’m low key collecting View-Masters and reels.
I’m especially interested in:
-Anything related to Wisconsin.
-Sci fi/ horror/ fantasy/ super heroes
-1940s-1980s travel/ spotlights on cities or countries
-Music/ bands
-Anything weird, of course
-Not looking for: Disney (they made TONS of reels) or pop culture post-80s
If you got ones you’re willing to part with or sell on the cheap, I’m interested. The’ll go to a good home and I intend to share them with others. E-mail me: teakrulos@gmail.com
Please Clap Dept. Speaking of QWERTYFEST, we’re entering the final stretch of fundraising. Every little bit helps, so please donate (and get some great perks in exchange) to help us make it happen: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qwertyfest-mke-2025#/
Want TWW delivered to your inbox? You can sign up for my Substack HERE. Follow me on: Facebook Bluesky Instagram
Tea’s Weird Week: We Can Battle A.I. with Dive Bars
I’m honored to say that an article I contributed to, “High Dive,” for Milwaukee Magazine, won a National City & Regional Magazine Award in the “Lifestyle/ Leisure” category. Bar culture is big here in Milwaukee, so this piece lovingly took a look at some of our city’s best “dives.” I’ve spent over half my life hanging around one bar or another, so it was music to my ears. I was assigned what I’ve named the “apostrophe beat,” Just Art’s, Dale’s, Gordie’s, and Mamie’s, all great places in their own way.
The other writers on this package were Chris Drosner (who also edited), Tom Kertscher, and Spencer Creal, fantastic photos by Aliza Baran, designed by Chelsea Mamerow.
I’ve won a few awards now and when that happens, I like to try to reflect on what made it stand out. They ain’t all going to be winners, that’s for sure, so what makes this one special? Well, as my mind tend to do, my thoughts began wander. I’ve been running into a lot stories about A.I. these days and it perks my interest, but usually not in a good way. There are a lot of people trying to “cheat” with their writing by using A.I. to do the heavy lifting for them.
I really don’t get it– why be a writer if you don’t like to write? People are publishing books written by A.I. RFK Jr.’s recent “Make America Healthy Again” report had fake citations as A.I. generated papers “tend to hallucinate references,” as Ivan Oransky, co-founder of Retraction Watch says in a USA Today article (the White House says it was a “formatting error.” Yeah, sure.) It’s all kinda depressing to me.
But not everything is online and able to be stuffed into an A.I. meat grinder, and it struck me that this piece was a great example that. Some of these places have little internet presence at all. Part of the package was a guide of signs that you’re in a dive bar. I think one we forgot is “Facebook page that is only updated once every three months” or “stopped with status updates six years ago, but still open.”
We’re still a ways off from an A.I. robot putting on a pair of pants or a bathrobe, heading down to the corner bar, taking a shot with the bartender and chatting with some regulars about the weather or the Brewers or sharing a dirty joke. A.I. can’t really duplicate that experience (yet). They can’t hear the slamming sound of a game of bar dice or smell the mixture of rail whiskey and frozen pizza and secondhand smoke wafting through the door when someone opens it.
Thank the stars for that. The next round of Schlitz is on me (but only if you can prove you’re human).
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Please Clap (and donate) Dept.: Speaking of not being A.I.-generated: Fundraising for QWERTYFEST MKE is underway and we got a long way to go to meet our goal. Our fundraiser page is here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qwertyfest-mke-2025 and includes great perks like tickets, shirts, zines, even a historic bobblehead. We’re also doing a “Telethon” at Sugar Maple (which will also be livestreamed) on Sunday, June 22. More info here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1529533825125088/ Please help make it happen!
Tea’s Weird Week: Cotton. Balls. The Nadine Zine is on the Loose!
I’ve collaborated with illustrator extraordinaire David Beyer for close to 20 years now. He’s done illustrations for my books and events. There’s been art shows and pet portraits and David edits the Currents Comix Page in the Riverwest Currents, a page I founded 22 years ago (time flies?!) What can I say, the guy has style! So when he asked if I would contribute to his Twin Peaks fanzine, I immediately got a coffee as black as Midnight on a moonless night and several dozen pies and donuts and got to work.
I have fond memories of Twin Peaks. When I was in my early 20s (this was the late 1990s), I lived with a bunch of roommates in the Riverwest neighborhood. One of my roomies, Shelly, had a complete VHS box set of Twin Peaks. I had seen a few David Lynch movies by this point but had never seen the show. For weeks we had a ritual where all the roommates would gather in the living room at night, drink beer and watch a couple episodes. “We’re gonna have a TV party tonight,” as the song goes. It was a carefree time.
I loved all the weird characters, of course. And the strangest of the strange was probably Nadine. She sports an eyepatch, is obsessed with noiseless drape runners, and for some reason has superhuman strength. She has a particularly kooky storyline in season 2 where she awakes from a coma and thinks that she’s still a high schooler.
The piece-de-resistance of The Nadine Zine is a comic David drew, a-ahem-Nadine’s eye view (Oh, Ed!) of some of the plot points of Twin Peaks. I contributed a short appreciation of one of my favorite characters– the no nonsense Special Agent Albert Rosenfield. The talented Anna Alicia Rodriguez (who I’ve also collaborated with a few times) wrote and illustrated a nice tribute to Audrey Horne. Some of David’s other pals contributed some vibrant gallery pages. Get me a glass of water cause my socks are on fire!
Well done! In a truly Lynchian twist, the publication is only available via eBay. Haaaaa, I love it: AN EBAY EXCLUSIVE. Order a copy right here. It’s $15 shipped, you don’t have to snipe someone’s bid on it: https://www.ebay.com/itm/236087374601
And remember: the owls are not what they seem. Want TWW delivered to your inbox? You can sign up for my Substack HERE. Follow me on: Facebook Bluesky Instagram
Tea’s Weird Week: If You Don’t Support QWERTY, You Might End Up Butt-hurty (Revisited)
I wrote a similar column title last year in a plea to get people to support something I’m proud of– QWERTYFEST MKE. QF was officially started by me and my co-organizer Molly Snyder in 2023. This year will be our 3rd annual event (though I should note we do smaller events throughout the year, too). It’s been a wild ride, but I absolutely love some of the things we’ve accomplished with the resources we’ve had available.
So what is QWERTYFEST? The inspiration comes from a Milwaukeean named Christopher Latham Sholes. Sholes was an inventor, newspaper editor, and politician. He worked with collaborators at the Kleinsteuber Machine Shop, which was kind of like a Makerspace of it’s day, located on State St., right next to Turner Hall (where our QWERTYFEST opening night party will take place), it was located where State Street Pizza Pub is today. Although there had been attempts at a typing machine before, Sholes developed the first commercial typewriter. Part of that design was the QWERTY keyboard configuration (named after the first 6 letters of the first row), which we still use on our computers and phones today.
Oh, by the way, I’m giddy to say we teamed up with the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame to create a Sholes bobblehead, which you can pre-order HERE.
I won’t go on and on about typewriter philosophy, but in a world filled with parasitic AI programs, deep fakes, spam bots, disinformation, trolls, cyberbullying, privacy concerns, vapid influencers, social isolation, etc. etc. it is a relief to sit in a space with your brain and a piece of paper you can clack-clack-clack away at. QWERTYFEST gives you a chance to do that and hang out with other people who love creativity– writers, readers, artists, musicians, builders, and other creators.
But as much as we love to see (and hear) typewriters in action, QWERTYFEST is more than a “typewriter convention.” We like to celebrate the QWERTY keyboard in all iterations. This year we’re going to be working with DarkFusion Systems to feature more mechanical keyboards people can try out. Our Quick Brown Fox Typing Contest will be back with manual and electric typewriter categories, as well as a texting one. Equally important– we want to celebrate writers of all genres who use these keyboards. New opportunities for local writers to connect and showcase their work is something we love to see.
We also have an appreciation for other analog/ vintage technologies and are working some of that in– pre-digital cameras, board games, records, stamp collecting, stereoscopes– if anything like that is your passion, let us know. Last, me and Molly are both advocates of Milwaukee culture in general, so we like to share Milwaukee history and innovation and collaborate with local businesses we feel are making the city a better place.
Me and Molly are the familiar faces of QWERTYFEST, cause we’re the organizers, but I want to mention the incredible support we’ve gotten both locally in Milwaukee and in the typewriter community. It’s humbling to say that there’s too many people to thank– I would feel awful forgetting anyone. So this is just a huge blanket THANK YOU to everyone who has helped support QWERTYFEST and our related projects (like our zine, QWERTY Quarterly).
And one of those supporters could be YOU. We launched our 2025 fundraiser on Indiegogo. We are trying to raise a lot of money. Venue rental, paying entertainers, artists, and other guests, plus a ton of other costs that pop up here and there adds up to a lot really quickly, but we’re glad to say that almost all of that money goes to local businesses and creators. Our pledge levels include great perks like subscriptions to QWERTY Quarterly, our beloved “We Built Milwaukee on Beer and Typewriters” T-shirt, tickets to our QWERTYFEST events, typed letters or poems, and more. Donations help, so does sharing the fundraiser on your social media, email lists, or wherever you can.
Look, here’s the short version: we want to do big things with QWERTYFEST MKE and you can help make that happen by supporting our fundraiser here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/qwertyfest-mke-2025#/
Next week on TWW: The Nadine Zine! Want TWW delivered to your inbox? You can sign up for my Substack HERE. Follow me on: Facebook Bluesky Instagram
Tea’s Weird Week: Apocalypse Every Show Now
My third book, Apocalypse Any Day Now, was published in 2019 (by Chicago Review Press). I talked to a wide range of people on their ideas on how the world as we know it might end, and some of their plans for the apocalypse. It was deeply stressful at times, but I had some fun with it, too. For example, I thought it would be interesting to read some dystopian fiction, so I started a book club, The Apocalypse Blog Book Club (I had renamed my website here The Apocalypse Blog while I was working on the book) in 2017. We read some classics like Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and many others. You can see a list of our selections here: https://teakrulos.com/apocalypse-any-day-now/
Anyway, I thought of all this recently after I binged a show called Paradise (which was released in January on Hulu), a post-apocalyptic murder mystery. I really enjoyed it, even if it managed to earworm “Another Day in Paradise” in my damn head for over a week. But I was also like, wow there are a lot of shows on this theme lately, aren’t there? Maybe I was too distracted studying the theory I explored in Political Monsters about the correlation of zombie, vampire, and killer clown movies and politics to dwell on it too much.
But yeah, the shit hitting the fan scenarios, dystopias, and that post-apocalyptic lifestyle is a popular theme in shows like Silo (2023-present), Fallout (2024-present), The Walking Dead and all the spinoffs (2010-present), The Handmaid’s Tale (2017-2025), The Last of Us (2023-present), Westworld (2016-2022), even shows like Severance (2022-present) play on this theme. And that’s just naming off the top of my head.
Why are shows like this so popular now? Oh gee, I dunno– art imitating life? Women’s rights being taken away, like in The Handmaid’s Tale. People are being disappeared in cases of mistaken identity, as seen in Brazil. Reality is being redrawn and renamed, like in Nineteen Eighty-Four, some real “Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia,” type of stuff. Homeland Security is even thinking of doing a reality show that sounds like an idea out of The Hunger Games.
I don’t expect this trend to stop any time soon. These are tough, dismal times. I wish you all well– may the odds be ever in your favor and all that.
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Next week on TWW: If you don’t support QWERTY, you might end up feeling butt-hurty (Part II). Want TWW delivered to your inbox? You can sign up for my Substack HERE. Follow me on: Facebook Bluesky Instagram
Apocalypse Any Day Now: Deep Underground with America’s Doomsday Preppers (2019, Chicago Review Press) can be bought here: www.chicagoreviewpress.com/ApocalypseAnyDayNow
Tea’s Weird Week: Hot Cryptid Summer (Part 1)
Local legends have drawn tourist dollars for decades, attracting curious legend trippers. Celebrations like West Virginia’s Mothman Festival (Sept. 20-21) and the Ohio Bigfoot Conference (which happened earlier this month) draw big crowds, but in the last few years the number of festivals celebrating lesser known cryptids have grown. Frogman Fest (which happened in March) in Loveland, Ohio, for example, was inspired by an odd case of a 4-foot-tall frog sighting in 1972. I really love to see towns across the country embrace these strange stories and have some pride in them! I decided to list out some summer cryptid fests for all you legend trippers. This column has listings May through August, I’ll write a part 2 of this in August to list more taking place end of summer and into fall.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. If this sort of thing is your jam, I recommend signing up for Sharon Hill’s Pop Cryptid Spectator Substack, which explores representations of “pop cryptozoology” including updates on cryptid themed events.
Hodag Heritage Festival (May 17)
Rhinelander, WI
Wisconsin’s favorite cryptid, the Hodag, dates back to a hoax from the 1890s by town prankster Eugene Shepard, which evolved to become the love and pride of Rhinelander. I wrote more about this for Milwaukee Magazine last year: https://www.milwaukeemag.com/what-is-the-hodag-rhinelander/
Hodag Heritage Festival has been around about five years now and has grown quite a bit. The line-up for this Saturday looks really fun: a pancake breakfast, talks related to folklore, a Hodag calling contest, and much more. It’s organized in part by The Hodag Store. More info: https://www.rhinelanderchamber.com/hodagheritagefestival
Grafton Monster Festival (June 13-14)
Grafton, WV
West Virginia is one of the country’s most cryptid-dense states. Mothman of Point Pleasant is the most well-known, but there’s a lot of other strange creatures out of time and space running around there. Take, for example, the Grafton Monster, a cryptid described as being 7-9 feet tall with white, seal-like skin, and no discernable head, but a face peering from the creature’s chest. It was said to give a loud, deep bellow. There were several sightings around Grafton, WV in June of 1964.
More info on the 2nd Annual Grafton Monster Festival, organized by The Grafton Monster Museum: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61563258026085
Big Muddy Monster Festival (June 21)
Murphysboro, IL
Also known as the “Murphysboro Mud Monster,” this Bigfoot creature described as being slathered in mud, was first seen by a couple getting hot and heavy parked on a lover’s lane in southern Illinois in 1973. Several other people claimed to see– and smell– the stinky cryptid. Big Muddy has since become an iconic symbol of Murphysboro. More info: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100094542990087
Veggie Man Day (July 13)
Fairmont, WV
Another West Virginian cryptid and a strange one. The “Vegetable Man” was a humanoid entity that looked to be made out of plants that was allegedly encountered by a West Virginian hunting in the woods in 1968. The first Veggie Man Day is taking place at the Frank & Jane Gabor West Virginia Folklife Center. More: https://www.facebook.com/events/s/veggie-man-day-2025/1177423897211539
Squonkapalooza (Aug. 2)
Johnstown, PA
Based on Pennsylvanian lumberjack lore, the Squonk is said to be a butt ugly cryptid that is constantly weeping over their own ugly appearance. Aw, poor Squonk– I like you just the way you are. Like all of the festivals I’m listing, Squonkapalooza is a nice mix of craft/art vendors, presentations, and entertainment. Check out more: https://squonkapalooza.com/
Fearsome Folklore Festival (Aug. 23)
Murfreesboro, TN
This one doesn’t focus on a particular entity but is a free, “family friendly folklore and cryptid themed celebration.” Speakers, live music, cryptid drawing workshops, and a petting zoo– I’m assuming the zoo is of known animals and not cryptids. Both Squonkapalooza and this one are created by Cryptid Comforts.
More info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1256884292699296
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Please Clap Dept.: Speaking of festivals, this one isn’t cryptid related, but I’m co-organizer of typewriter/ innovation/ writing celebration QWERTYFEST MKE. We are launching fundraising next week and need your help to meet our goals. Stay tuned!
Next week on TWW: Apocalypse Every Show Now. Want TWW delivered to your inbox? You can sign up for my Substack HERE. Follow me on: Facebook Bluesky Instagram
Tea’s Weird Week: TWW Returns! (plus, a psychedelic time travel boat dream)
As things tend to go with me, at a certain point I was overworked and struggling to keep up and so my beloved column, Tea’s Weird Week, fell into hiatus. I think politics played a hand in this, too. It has felt overwhelming and fruitless to write about weird topics with the current climate of turmoil. But in times like these, we need to find our happy places to hide out in and take a break, and one of those refuges for me is writing about some strange shit.
I’ve missed having this venue to write about whatever I want and to update on some of the many projects I’m working on, so Tea’s Weird Week is back! Every Thursday (except the ones I don’t). We (me and my collaborators) had a good run of a Tea’s Weird Week podcast. Can we bring it back? I hope so. I’m thinking about it. But to start, here’s a weird dream I had and some brief updates.
On Tuesday, me and QWERTYFEST MKE co-organizer Molly Snyder had a meeting to discuss plans for the fest (Oct.3-5 this year!) but we took a break to watch the effort to finally remove Deep Thought, a boat that was beached and ditched way back in October. The abandoned, soon to be graffiti covered boat became a local celebrity of sorts, with lots of local media interest. After several failed attempts, a local towing company was called in to pull the sucker off the beach. We observed part of this effort (it took a long time) as they yanked the boat up onto the rocks, eventually hauling it away on a flatbed truck.
That night I had a dream– I was back at the beach, and Deep Thought was still wrecked there, but we had both time travelled back to the 1960s. The beach was filled with hippies, sitting around smoking weed. A guy with long hair and a beard was walking around hawking a newspaper (I would guess Milwaukee’s 60s underground paper, Kaleidoscope). Hippies were circled around playing hacky sack (this part of the dream might not be historically accurate) and some were playing acoustic guitars and bongos. The hippies offered me a joint, and I took some tokes. Sleepy, I climbed up on the Deep Thought and fell asleep in the sunlight. I woke up in my bed. The boat was gone. Faaaaaar out, man. Far-fucking-out. Good-bye Deep Thought.
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QWERTY Quarterly: Speaking of QWERTYFEST MKE, QQ is a zine edited by me and Molly, that is the official publication of the festival. I’m very proud of it, every issue features the work of talented local writers (poetry, fiction, articles, columns) and artists. You can pick up a copy at Lion’s Tooth and Woodland Pattern here in Milwaukee, Quimby’s in Chicago, or get it mailed anywhere via our Etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/qwertyquarterly
More QWERTYFEST MKE news soon!
Other recent writing: I wrote two short pieces for the May issue of Milwaukee Magazine, about local ham radio enthusiasts and a travelogue about a guy who faked his kayaking death here in Wisconsin, then took a meandering escape route to eastern Europe. I’ve got some entries in the Summer Guide issue out in June, and I wrote about a local “hoedown throwdown” between line-dancing groups for their website HERE.
Clownwatch 2025: last fall, I published a zine/ ebook titled Political Monsters, which explores the correlation between the party in power and the number of films starring zombies (higher during traditional Republican presidencies) vampires (Democratic Party), or in the case of Trump, killer clown (MAGA) movies being made. Trump’s first term saw the largest spike of killer clown themed movies in film history. Are the clowns back? We’ll see– I am tracking and cataloging all killer clowns released over the next 4 years, starting here with our first entry for Trump 2.0. I will update on more films as they are released.
1. May 9: Clown in a Cornfield (directed by Eli Craig) release date. Based on a 2020 novel by Adam Cesare, features a cornfield-lurking clown named Frendo, who enjoys killing horny teens.
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Next week on TWW: It’s going to be a hot cryptid summer!
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