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Tea’s Weird Week: My Chicago Mothman eBook is Live!
Years in the making, I’m glad to say that an eBook project of mine is finally done and out. Chicago Mothman: A History and Cultural Study of a Monster Case contains three pieces. “Chicago Mothman: The Story of Red-eyed Creatures and Green-eyed Monsters” is a repackaging of my two-part article for Fortean Times magazine (a British publication). It ran in their February and March issues. “A Strange Door Opens” is an oral history style writing, in which the investigators in the Chicago Mothman case explain how they got interested in paranormal investigation to begin with. “Mothman: A Cultural Study” is an essay looking at all the ways Mothman has become a pop icon. Plus an Introduction to all this by Yours Truly.
The eBook is 86 pages and is $3.99 (or free on Kindle Unlimited). All monies raised go to the Krulos Lunch Fund so I can get something to eat. Just click here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZY598JX/ref=sr_1_2
I’ll be talking about this project and other adventures from my writing career on Sunday, April 16, 4-6pm at Lion’s Tooth.
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My latest books are:
Brady Street Pharmacy: Stories and Sketches (2021, VA Press)
American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (2020, Feral House)
Tea’s Weird Week: Let’s Talk About the Dang Old Chicago Mothman
Hey, it’s the first Tea’s Weird Week column of 2023! I started this column in 2019 and kept up with it weekly for years, but this year I have many projects to work on, so this column will be sporadic and when I have time for it, but I’ll have a column atleast a couple times a month. Hopefully the TWW podcast will return soon, too.
I’ve not had any writing published this month, but I’ve got some articles lined up for the next few months for a variety of publications that I’m excited about. One is a project I’ve been working on over the last three years that is finally seeing the light of day, an article titled “The Chicago Mothman: Red-eyed Creatures and Green-eyed Monsters,” a two-part article that is the cover story for the February issue of Fortean Times, with the second part appearing in the March issue. In April, I will be packaging the article, as well as some “bonus material,” as an e-book.
When reports of a “Mothman” (also called the “Lake Michigan Mothman,” “Chicago Bat,” and “Chicago Phantom”) creature haunting the Chicago area began to circulate in 2016, I, of course, had a strong interest as my homebase of Milwaukee is just north of Chicagoland. As the story unfolded, I became more interested in what was going on behind the reports rather than the reports themselves. In 2020 I visualized writing a longform piece on the entire case and began interviewing people associated with the investigation. I ended up interviewing 12 people between January and May 2020. As you can see, the project soon had extra time for interviewing and the massive undertaking of transcribing the interviews (my least favorite and most time consuming aspect of writing) during pandemic quarantine. I’d work on transcribing for an hour, then doomscroll the news for a bit.
I thought I would be a good person to write this because even though I obviously have a strong interest in the paranormal, I think I’m good at viewing the field and the people involved in it objectively because I’m not deeply immersed in it. It is one of my interests, but one of many. I don’t belong to any paranormal teams or groups. I get invited to paranormal events and conferences once in awhile, but not often cause I got no “star power.” I don’t have a reality show where a nightvision camera follows me as I roll around on the ground screaming about ghosts and that’s what you need to succeed in that field.
Of the 12 people I interviewed about the Chicago Mothman case, I know some of them and some I don’t, but I didn’t have an agenda against anyone. I just wanted to report the story.
I worked on it and re-worked it. I struggled on how to present the story. At one time, I was inspired by the great Chicago oral historian and author Studs Terkel (1912-2008) to present the case as an oral history. Studs was best known for this style, where he would record stories from a wide array of people and compile them to tell a story of American life. He won the Pulitzer for The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two and his book Division Street is a classic oral history and examination of race, class, and everyday life in Chicago. In these volumes, Studs let the people do the talking while he used his skills quietly as an editor. Studs was one of Chicago’s most famous voices. I don’t know that Studs had any interest in the paranormal — but I think he would have at least humored this strange story as it spread across his beloved Chicagoland, from Oz Park to the lakeshore to O’Hare to the neighborhood of Little Village.
I decided to ditch the oral history format (though you’ll see an element of that in the e-book) because it’s a lot harder than it looks. I opted for a more traditional article presentation and sent it across the pond as a submission to Fortean Times, the great British magazine dedicated to all things weird.
Publishing is a funny business. Sometimes it moves really fast, other times it just goes on forever and a day. And so now, about 3-years after I began the project, I’m glad to say it’s done and in print. At least that’s what I hear, I haven’t received my copy as it takes time to ship from Jolly Old England, and I’m told extra time as a postal strike is going on over there.
Anyway, it’s done! I did it! But what exactly the hell is the Chicago Mothman? Unidentified creature? Aliens? Owl? Interdimensional beings? Demons? Internet hoax? I’ll let the investigators speak for themselves and let you puzzle on the mystery, as I have.
Please Clap Dept.:
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My latest books are:
Brady Street Pharmacy: Stories and Sketches (2021, Vegetarian Alcoholic Press)
American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (2020, Feral House)
Tea’s Weird Week: Hodag vs Snallygaster
It’s so thrilling to have the podcast back on the air for a “season 2.” We kicked things off this season with an epic showdown between two local legend contenders. As I say in the intro to this podcast episode, we love folklore and legends at Tea’s Weird Week. There’s so many small towns across the country that have some story about a monster lurking in the forest, creeping a country lane, or swimming in the local pond. For many of these towns, their monster story is their main claim to fame– consider, for example, Mothman– who has made Point Pleasant, West Virginia a tourist destination.
This episode talks about the Hodag, monster celebrity of Rhinelander, Wisconsin, and the Snallygaster of Fredrick County, Maryland.
I’m very well familiar with the Hodag. My parents took me to Rhinelander during a trip “Up North,” just so I could see photos and a sculpture of the monster in the Lumberjack Museum and they got me a t-shirt and a plush Hodag. People are still make a pilgrimage to Rhinelander to get souvenirs, as I found when I talked to Ben Brunell, proprietor of the Hodag Store (thehodagstore.com) for this episode. But what the heck is a Hodag? Well, I wrote an entry on it for my book Wisconsin Legends & Lore (2020, History Press) and here’s an excerpt:
Perhaps the most uniquely Wisconsin monster in this list is the Hodag, a fearsome animal with giant horns, fangs, and a row of spines down its back. It’s frightening and yet also a sign of civic pride in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, where the Hodag story originates.
The Hodag, I hate to spoil so quickly, was a hoax. It was created by one of Wisconsin history’s most colorful characters, Eugene Shepard, who worked in the timber industry as a land surveyor and later in life ran a resort near Rhinelander. He hung around lumberjack camps, and as you might recall from the last chapter, claims to be the originator of Paul Bunyan folklore. He was an early circulator of the tall tales, but taking his word on anything would be hard to do as he was also a well known practical joker.
Among his many pranks were fooling people at a resort he ran into believing he had a unique, rare breed of scented moss on the property (which was regular moss doused in perfume) and a fake muskie he had rigged up to leap out of the water to entice guests into taking fishing trips. He liked to enlist a friend to pinch people’s legs on public transportation while he imitated a growling dog to fool them into thinking they had been bitten. To be in Shepard’s vicinity was to be a practical joke victim in waiting.
Shepard’s hoax with the longest-lasting impact began in 1893 when he claimed he had encountered a Hodag, a beast based on lumberjack folklore. A Hodag, lumberjacks believed, was the ghost of a disgruntled ox. In 1896, Shepard claimed he had captured the beast (by putting chloroform at the end of a long pole and knocking the monster unconscious). Several other details about the life of the Hodag were embellished and reported by Shepard and others—the Hodag preferred to dine on white bulldogs, for example, or that its young were delivered from a set of 13 eggs.
While scrolling through Instagram, I discovered the American Snallygaster Museum and was delighted by the story. The Snallygaster is a weird bird/octopus/dragon hybrid– depictions have varied slightly, some show it with one eye or three eyes, tentacles on it’s mouth or body, etc. The legend came with German immigrants who settled in Frederick County, Maryland. It’s not a story as well known as the Hodag or Mothman, but Sarah Cooper, creator of the American Snallygaster Museum (snallygastermuseum.com) is hoping to change that. She’s assembled art and other artifacts that’s she’s been displaying as a pop-up, but is working on a permanent location.
The Hodag Store and the American Snallygaster Museum– two spots to add to your monster road trip!
Tea’s Weird Week, S2, Ep02: Hodag vs Snallygaster: In addition to talking to Ben Brunell (Hodag Store) and Sarah Cooper (American Snallygaster Museum), me and Heidi had a lot of catching up to do on weird news– Miss Information is back with a trivia question (answer to win fabulous prizes), and we close the episode out with a beautiful track from Mere of Light, “Moon from a Well.” Additional music: “Mecha vs Titan” by Kaijusonic/T.Reed/ Tao X Productions and “Demon Business” by Android138.
Listen here: Tea’s Weird Week S2 ep01: Hodag vs Snallygaster (podbean.com)
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Tea’s Weird Week: Ask Tea Anything (Pandemic Edition)
Tea’s Weird Week started as an outlet to write about whatever I wanted to once a week, engage readers, and promote stuff I’m working on– books, articles, events. In this year of crazy 2020, I’ve mostly been writing about “conspiracy theories in the news.” I have a book out in August titled American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness and quite a few people I wrote about have big in 2020: Alex Jones (most recently for leading an anti-quarantine protest in Austin), David Icke (“5G is Coronavirus”), Roger Stone (“Bill Gates is Coronavirus”), QAnon, and Anti-vaxxers have all been in the news this month.
There are new conspiracy stories in the news every day, but I thought I would take a break from analyzing them this week and answer my friend’s questions, solicited through social media. Here’s answers about anti-quarantine protests, doomsday bunkers, cryptozoology, and more.
Real talk. I know you’re all about the absurd and crazy shit. I just gotta know because I care about you- are you planning on going to one of these wingnut anti-stay-at-home/ pro-plague rallies to document? Because, if so, please be safe friend. This is obviously not an encouragement to go be a journalist at one of those. I’m just saying, if you do, be safe as fuck. Also please live long enough to get your own Netflix special because I know you’re capable of that.–Concerned
First, thanks for caring about me. Your message has reminded me that I should be spending some of my spare time messaging people to check in.
Here’s the thing– I really enjoy writing about things that I am enjoy and am genuinely interested in. I have become friends with a lot of people I write about. But sometimes I like getting out of my comfort zone and want to observe something I don’t understand up close. Some examples of this would be attending one of Bob Larson’s “exorcism seminars” for my book Monster Hunters, attending an anti-vaxxer rally and flat earth conference for my book American Madness and most recently, attending a Trump rally (in January, I wrote it up for the Shepherd Express.)
I’m going to sit this one out. I’m processing enough crazy stuff as it is. Watching a bunch of MAGA-hat wearin,’ Gadsen flag wavin’, 2A militia types, anti-vaxxers, etc. shouting about how they demand haircuts just ain’t doing it for me. As far as a Netflix special– as long as I don’t end up getting eaten by a tiger, I’m in!
Joshua A. Bickel took this iconic photo, which is sure to be used in future texts about this era.
Any thoughts on those fallout type shelters/bunkers at the moment? Or if you know if people are using theirs in the face of pandemic? Just curious and interested in what qualifies those who own space in one to activate its use. –Aims
I think Aims is referring to the Survival Condos, which I toured with my friend Paul while working on a chapter (“Doomsday Bunkers of the Rich and Famous”) for my book Apocalypse Any Day Now. Built into an old Atlas missile silo in Kansas (with more being developed), the building featured several condo units (all sold) and recreation levels.
One thing we were told is that the condo owners had access whenever they wanted. There had recently been a football watching party, and owners would sometimes “vacation” there. As such, it’s possible that the owners could ride out the entire pandemic there if they wanted, and it certainly would be the ultimate quarantine.
Tea at the Luxury Survival Condos in Kansas.
What’s one conspiracy that most others find false; but, you kinda believe in?— Mando
I’m skeptical about most conspiracies, but I think it’s worth noting that some stuff that seems like conspiracy later turns out to be true. I talk about a few of those in American Madness, the CIA’s Project MK-ultra (a mind control program) being one one quick example. The most believable conspiracy to me is that there has been some kind of UFO cover-up. I don’t mean necessarily extra-terrestrial, but some secret program. There’s just so many compelling UFO cases, I think something is going on. The truth is out there (winking emoticon).
What was really normal, too normal, about one of your subjects that you researched?–Addo
I really love those moments. In my book Heroes in the Night I shared a funny story about how me and Real Life Superhero The Watchman got lost and couldn’t find his car in a parking garage. It was humorously mundane. A lot of Real Life Superheroes were pretty normal outside of their secret lifestyle, as were a lot of paranormal investigators.
One of the major stories I tell in American Madness is that of conspiracist Richard McCaslin. He told me some of the most wild ideas I’ve ever heard– Reptilian aliens secretly controlling our world, Satanists eating babies, all sorts of crazy and terrible things.
Meeting him in person several times, I found I got along with him pretty well and he was friendly and could be oddly normal. I visited him at his house and I remember walking into his kitchen to find him drinking orange juice and laughing as he watched some baby jackrabbits chase each other around his yard in what seemed like a game of tag. It was the first time he said “you gotta see this!” and wasn’t referring to some Illuminati code he had cracked.
Do you have a favorite cryptid?— Matt …and have you ever had a personal experience with one or saw one?— Lynn
If you don’t know, cryptids are creatures studied in cryptozoology. I’ve not had a cryptid encounter myself, but while working on Monster Hunters, I did go on expeditions looking for Sasquatch, a Lake Monster (“Champ” of Lake Champlain), a Skunk Ape, went to the Mothman Festival, and took a ride down Bray Road looking for the Beast. It was all really fun and interesting, I love cryptozoology. I’m working on a writing project about Mothman. I love ’em all, but because of this project, I’m going to declare Mothman as my favorite cryptid, a close second would be Chupacabras.
Me and Jim Sherman of Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization out in the woods of Michigan on the trail of the Sasquatch.
Would you want to have a really scary experience (alien abduction, possession, angry ghost) just to prove to yourself that it was real? What, if any, would be “too much”?— Judy
When faced with a tough question like this, I try to break it down. On the one hand, it would be pretty intensely transformative to have an experience like that, to witness a deep mystery of the universe. On the other hand, most people wouldn’t believe me anyway, and I know of several cases where people experienced stuff like this (or thought they did) and it damaged them forever. Final conclusion: I’d rather keep it a mystery. I enjoy not knowing.
Of all the people/things you interviewed or investigated was there any thing that you felt you were getting too deep into, or anything that you felt was getting too dangerous or did you fear for your life?— Gregory
The one things that stands out is the crazy night I spent on patrol with Real-Life Superhero Phoenix Jones while working on my book Heroes in the Night. He had pepper-sprayed a group of people that were fighting and they got angry and attacked us. I got punched in the face. At one point it looked like they were trying to get a gun. Then they tried to run us down with an SUV. “I hope this was worth it, cause now you’re going to get murdered,” was definitely a thought that crossed my mind as I was running from the angry, pepper-spray soaked mob. Other experiences– investigating Bobby Mackey’s, a notoriously haunted bar, and diving into some of the conspiracy stuff, has produced frightening moments, but nothing like that.
Thank you all for your questions! I’ll do another “ask me anything” to tie into the release of American Madness in late August or early September– pre-order info below!
Please Clap Dept.: I’ll leave you with some positive vibes– here’s an article I wrote for Milwaukee Magazine on a social distancing nightly dance party: “This Riverwest Neighborhood Dances Every Night at 8.”
My upcoming book American Madness features a journey through conspiracy culture. It’s out August 25, 2020 from Feral House. To pre-order: CLICK HERE
It’s on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52486773-american-madness
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“Having just returned from the grocery store during an official pandemic, I’m reminded to highly recommend Apocalypse Any Day Now, from Tea Krulos, who went way down the doomsday prepper rabbit hole. Fun and unfortunately highly relevant. Do it.” — Brent Gohde, Cedar Block/ Science Strikes Back
Tea’s Weird Week: Winter Reading List
I read 6 out of 8 books on my Fall reading list, 3 fiction, 3 non-fiction. I’m glad to say they were all good choices. I recommend:
Fiction:
Someday Jennifer by Risto Pakarinen. This was an excellent novel that is themed on nostalgia and the desire to go back in time to get our lives right. As an 80s kid, I loved all the 80s references. Someday Jennifer is a fun read– great work, Risto!
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I wanted to read this book for years and I did and it was great.
Feed by Mira Grant. This was the Apocalypse Blog Book Club fall selection. I enjoyed it– a good spin on the old zombie story, with a media theme I found interesting.
Non-fiction:
Bitten by Kris Newby. Explores the theory that the government manufactured Lyme Disease as part of a biological weapon program. Disturbing and fascinating.
Good Time Party Girl by Helen Cromwell with Robert Dougherty. An entertaining autobiography (and a vivid history) by “Dirty Helen,” who lived an adventurous life and worked as a madame and speakeasy operator.
The Enemy of the People by Jim Acosta. An account by Trump’s most detested “fake news” reporter from CNN who writes about his struggle as a White House reporter. A great insider perspective.
Winter is, of course, a great time to read here in the Midwest, where the weather is often cold and gloomy. Here’s what I got on my list so far.
(1) A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
This was the winter selection for the Apocalypse Blog Book Club. I know nothing about it (other than it is hopefully dystopian themed) but I’m looking forward to get into it and discuss it with the club.
(2) Up Jumped the Devil: The Real Life of Robert Johnson by Bruce Conforth and Dean Wardlow
One of my publishers (Chicago Review Press) put this out recently. I wrote a brief bit on Robert Johnson myths in a “Tea’s Weird Week” column here a few months ago and wanted to read more on it.
(3) The Lake Michigan Mothman: High Strangeness in the Midwest by Tobias Wayland
New book on the Lake Michigan Mothman phenomenon from the Singular Fortean Society, who have been referenced in this column several times. Congrats, Tobias, looking forward to reading it!
(4) The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
This one got bumped from my fall reading list, I just didn’t get around to it, but it’ll make great winter reading. This book is the second in a fantasy series by Wisconsinite Patrick Rothfuss.
(5) Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors of the Night by Ryan Hurd
I’m just starting to work on a fiction novel, a horror story, and this book is a little background research.
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Pre-order my book American Madness: The Story of the Phantom Patriot and How Conspiracy Theories Hijacked American Consciousness (August 2020, Feral House)
Read all my columns from last year collected in Tea’s Weird Week: 2019 Review ($1.99/ free on Kindle Unlimited)
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“Journalist Tea Krulos has made a curious and enlightening career out of examining groups of people with odd beliefs.” — Skeptical Inquirer
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