Blog Archives
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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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.
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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
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.
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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!
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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.
teakrulos.com 