"My Community Service"

I have been on staff at my regional anime convention for the past 7 years. My first con(vention) was at the age of 18; this is quite a bit later than most. I thought that I had finally found some crazy weird people that I could connect with! Hallelujah! Praise the gods!

But it wasn't quite the expirence that I had.

Yes, they loved anime just as much as I did. Yes, they were fun and strange, like me. But there was a barricade that stopped me from fully indoctrinating myself.

I didn't fit in because I was different.

I'm not saying that every single person at my con was socially retarded. And I'm not saying that I was more sophisticated and worldly than everyone there. (I am so far from sophisticated it's ridiculous.) But a common thread through many of the people around me seemed to fit certain factors. Being unable to find the right volume of speech. Inappropriate topics in conversation. A kind of awkwardness that I didn't understand. The inability to have an even flowing conversation. Or some were seemingly so nervous that they could barely speak. I would get so confused, frustrated or even angry at some of these kids. I didn't understand why that couldn't just calm down and speak to me!

Then I talked to another staff member. We talked about this exact topic. She said that some were mildly autistic or just extremely awkward, however you wanted to look at it. Others were just young and especially the boys, unable to talk to girl. That there was something about these cult subjects (anime, Star Trek, comics, etc) that attracted that kind of person.

So i didn't find the people of my planet. But I did find a ton of really great, sweet friends. And I do have tons of fun every year. I think of it as part of my life long education.

It reminds me that everyone needs compassion and understanding. Not everyone has the same start in life as I did. Not everyone can be the things society says we must be. I understand that now.

My mother calls it my 'community service'. Helping the nerds out. Nah. I think everyone there teaches me more than anything.

I heart nerds. (And therefore, I heart myself.)







Me. Kinda.

Geeky and Lovely

• More Geeky Cakes Than You Can Shake a Stick At
• it turns out that i get to go to comic-con after all

Hawaiian Camp from Hell

Up to that point in my short adult life, it was the hardest thing I had ever had to go through. Everything you're about to read it true, as far as my brain can recall. (Some names have been changed and you know why.)

I was fed up with school. My relationship was on the verge of suck, I had no friends since my high school buddies had turned their backs on me. I was not doing so hot at the whole life thing. So what's a better answer to all of life's problems than to run away.

So I did.

I wanted to be far away from home but still make money and maybe have some fun too. So I applied for a job teaching kids age 10-17 photography in Maui. (the camp also taught surfing.) And what do ya know, I got the job. (mostly because of the awesome recommendation from my old photo teacher and the fact I have my diving license.)

So the summer I was 21 years old, I flew to Hawaii. I met two of my 8 fellow councilors right away. K and Canola were all smiles and jokes and we became friends instantly. I also met the camp director, named Lew Lazurus. He was a big man. He was over six feet and 300 lbs+. There was something strange about him. Odd fellow.

We slept at his house the first couple of nights, as we didn't have access to camp grounds until later in the week. That was fine, because we had a little training to do and the ocean view was amazing. My first night at the house, I met Squirrel. He was quiet and sweet. He was renting out a room in the garage and working at one of the local hotels that dotted the island. Llew offered him a job to work with us at the camp, so he became one of us.

The last night we spent in the house, the four of us sat on the curb in front, smoking as it just started to sprinkle rain on us. We sat quietly and I leaned up against K. There was a strangeness in the air. We didn't know it yet, but it was the quiet before the storm.

We arrived at the camp and started to get to work cleaning, setting up and airing out. We had scuba gear, kayaks, paint ball guns, jump ropes, and tons of other fun things for the kids (and us) to play with. We were setting up the dozens of tiki torches when the van carrying the rest of the councilors arrived. Keo was a native and gorgeous. Q was going to college there, and like Keo, was an avid surfer. Mama J was the matriarch and den mother to us all. J was the other photography teacher. (You could tell who the photo teachers were; we were the palest things on the island!) His skill was obvious and his photos were beautiful.

We bonded instantly. It was all so strange to me. The eight of us got along so easily. We joked and teased and in the end, truly cared for one another. And I was part of it, something I had never been a part of before. Even after a long day with the kids, when we had been up since 6am, we would still hang out, singing along with Q's guitar or just talking until midnight or later. We were a great team.

The kids began to arrive. We bandaged knees and ate in the mess hall and helped patch up friendships when they fought with each other. Life was simple and good.

I was head of house #3, which held the youngest of the girl campers. Now I have never been great with little kids. I never understood them. When I was a kid, I was more grown up and serious than my friends. But my girls, they were special. They were sweet and kind and listened to me and I listened to them. One little girl in particular caught my attention. She had dark hair and wore glasses. Her father had been killed in an accident and her mother had remarried a family friend. He was now serving in Iraq and she was scared for him. I hope she is happy now, where ever she is.

As the days went on, we (the councilors) called a meeting. We had a few concerns and asked Llew how we could resolve them. Camp seemed caotic at times, like he didn't have a plan or perhaps he did and he wasn't communicating. He said he would work on that with us. Also, we needed to keep all the kids together on outings. One of the little girls had been running around and split her chin open when she should have been eating dinner with everyone else. He agreed. But our major issue was the way he drove. We asked that he slow down, be more cautious while driving a van full of kids. Some of the kids got so carsick from his sharp turning and speed that they threw up in the car. He dismissed us. He had been driving longer than we had been alive, he said. He was being perfectly safe, he said. This was the beginning of my uneasiness. He wouldn't yield to our concern about the children's safety?

One evening, I was heading up towards the bonfire when I looked around and realized that there weren't any councilors around watching the kids. I kept an eye on the kids, eating around the fire until I spotted 7 people sitting and talking in one of the vans. They started to pile out. I asked Squirrel what was going on. He brushed past me.

I don't remember who told me. I don't remember what I said. Everything just happened so fast.

One of the older girls, 16, had spoken to one of our junior councilors and he had come to one of us. She had told him that our camp director, Llew, had said some things that had made her uncomfortable. She said he had offered her a place to sleep in the van with him while we were on an overnight a few days ago and that he had said some things about the way she looked.

All hell broke loose.

Word spread. Someone called the police. Kids began to call their parents on their cellphones that they weren't supposed to have. Representatives for the Girl Scouts of American came for a visit. (they owned the camp grounds) And then, Llew disappeared.

We had no contacts, no support and no money. We decided it was time to close camp down. We started contacting all the airlines to get the kids back home. We shuttled nearly 40 kids to and from the airport all day, contacted parents to advise them of the situation, finding somewhere for these kids to go. We had to fly 2 of the kids, brother and sister, to their grand parents in Texas, because the next flight home to Australia wasn't for another 5 days.

We were all devastated. We cried. K said it best. We were walking outside camp grounds, taking a breather and smoke break. We sat on the side of the dirt road and she said that she felt like someone had died. That nailed it. Maybe it was the death of our care free summer. Or maybe the death of our innocence, that things like this would never happen to us.

By the end of that day, we had sent home all but 7 kids. Those 7 had flights the next morning. So we got in the van and drove around. The kids were too scared to go back to camp but there was no where else for us to go. We drove around, bought them food and distracted them as much as possible, until, inevitably, we returned to camp. We all slept in the mess hall together that night. The guy councilors took turns staying up and keeping watch so we could sleep.

The 4 girl councilors, including myself, decided it was time to leave; the boys would finish up and meet us the next day. One of the wonderful mothers set us up with a hotel room so we packed our things and headed out. It was so nice to have a hot shower and clean sheet to sleep in.

I got a call at 3am that night/morning. It was J. He said that a new bunch of kids had arrived for camp so they had called the GSOA for help. (Our angels!) After they did some research they found that Llew had forged insurance documents on the camp and called the police. Then when the new kids arrived, Child Protective Services took them for the night until arrangements could be made. He told me that the four of them and all the kids were in a safe place. And there was something else. Llew was not who he seemed. His real name was Raymond Thomas and he had served time for 'sex crimes involving a child' in California. He said to call the front desk and tell them to not release any information about which room we were in because he might be looking for us.

The other girls had woken up and were looking at me through the dark. I hung up and they asked me what was wrong. They couldn't see my face but they had heard the tone of my voice. I didn't want to tell them. It was too awful. We were devastated. We didn't sleep well that night.

The boys arrived after all the kids had been put back on their planes. And it was just the 8 of us again. We bounced from hotel to hotel until the money ran out. We ate cheap local food. We stole the camp's surfboards and went surfing all day. At night, we slept in the van and on the beach. The sand flea bit me everywhere that wasn't covered; even years later I still have scars on my chest and arms.

Then came the day I left. The Maui police had helped us change our flight arrangements to get us home. My parents paid the $100 flight change fee. We sat at the Krispie Kreme, wasting time before I had to get on my flight, staring at each other, unable to make sense of everything that had happened to us. I kissed my friends goodbye. This group, where I felt loved and accepted for the first time in my life, our unstoppable team, was disappearing. I tried not to cry. I handed them all notes I written to each of them the night before and told them to write me. I got on the plane and it was gone.

I came home and slept for a week. I felt as if I had been to war. I didn't eat. I cried a lot.

When I was ready, I got on the internet and did some research. With the help of the Honolulu Advertiser and other newspapers, I found this.

"Thomas was sentenced in 1991 to six years and eight months in prison for lewd and lascivious acts on a girl who was 6, and for two counts involving sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old girl and using her for the purpose of making sexual photos or videos."

I threw up. I couldn't take it. How could this man be allowed near children? How could this have happened? How could I not have known? I'm a woman, I should have some kind of instinct about this, right? I mean, I should have know when he introduced himself as Llew Lazarus... Lazarus was a man in the bible who died and came back to life. It's synonymous with rebirth and 2nd chances. It's so obvious...now. I was so confused and sad and really fucking angry.

It turns out this guy wasn't stupid. (Fucked and sick but not dumb.) He had done his research. There was a loop hole in Hawaii's laws. First, the sex offender registry wasn't public. (Whether this information is public or not is up to the individual state.) And second, a camp that is registered as a 'specialty camp' didn't require background checks. Ironically, he required all the councilors to get fingerprinted (something the papers got wrong) and have background checks. Not for himself though. Hawaii has since tweaked their laws a bit for the better but I still think they have some more work to do...but I digress.

Raymond L. Thomas ran off with over $45,000 of the camps money. (those who paid with their credit cards did eventually get their money back...) He resurfaced in 2006 in Nantucket, Mass when he was found living in a van. They arrested him when he failed to register as a sex offender in that state. He was in the middle of setting up another program for international high school students to come and study. He was facing up to 5 years. I couldn't find anymore information. I don't know if he's in jail or roaming the streets.

I still have nightmares. I'm underwater, I can't breath. I grasp at K but I can't reach her. He jumps out of a dark cave and snatches me away, like a octopus does a fish. I dream he is waiting at my car when I come out of the grocery store. I dream he calls me and writes me letters, asking me to testify that he's a good person.

None of the kids have come forward to say that they had been hurt. I hope that it's true. I hope that no one is holding on to a dark secret. Squirrel said that G-d had brought us eight together to bring him down. He had run this camp 2 years prior but G-d had decided to step in and brought us to Maui to keep him from hurting anyone else. I hope that is true.

If it is, this is the most important thing I have ever done.



All the photos in this piece are mine or J's. If you want to use them, please let me know and link this site. thanks.















This is me.



Check out these articles about this whole mess-
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.comarticle/2004/Jul/ 18/ln/ln02a.html
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Aug/ 19/ln/ln11a.html
http://fromwhisperstor.6.forumer.com/a/raymond- thomassex-offender-who-ran-maui-camp-reemerges_ post11462.html

If you know anything more about this guy, like where he is, please help me out and drop me a line. I might sleep better knowing. Thanks.

Pet Peeves

• Rudeness
• Loud cell phone talkers in public
• Loud talkers, laughers in public
• People who puke, pee, and spit in front of my business; yes, this is a constant problem.
• Parents who won't control their kids
• People who must aggressively assert their personality onto others "Look at me! I'm crazy!"
• Pickup lines, unless for comical use
• Talking/cell phone ringing during the movie
• If someone interrupts me
• If I have to repeat myself
• The movie is not "stuck" or "frozen", it just hasn't started yet. Have a tiny bit of patience!

What are yours?

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Our History

The tragic lost and the places they departed from...

I'm not sure when exactly my interest with history and death came to fruition. I knew I always loved history in general. I stood in the green, seeming boring fields in Gettysburg when I was 10 and knew I was somewhere very important. I stared at pictures of the great Hartford circus fire and wanted to ask Emmet Kelly what he felt when we was carrying children from the fire. I saw WW2 vet pilots and I wanted to crawl their minds and see what they saw. I wanted to know what color underwear Louise the 14th wore. I was always a curious and strange kid.

And it seems where ever history is, so is death. They go hand in hand, most times. With the death of Queen Mary the first of England, her sister Elizabeth took over and united England after much upheaval and confusion.

A little boy named Adam Walsh was kidnapped at a Sears in Florida. His head was found weeks later. The horrifying death of this one little boy changed America and even the world. John Walsh, his father, a successful business man who built luxury hotel, began a life long mission. It resulted in the capture of over 1000 criminals, the foundation of The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and multiple pieces of legislation passed into law to help protect children.

Jayne Mansfield, her boyfriend, driver and 3 children were driving to New Orleans for a show when 20 year old Ronnie Harrison, the driver, continued to drive through a fog of insecticide without slowing and slammed into the back of a semi. The three adults in the front seat were killed instantly while the three children were spared with only cuts and minor breaks. Because of this horrifying accident, all large semis have a protective bar underneath the trailer to prevent smaller cars from hitting under the bottom and shearing the top of the car off. (Sometimes called 'Mansfield Bars', or so I'm told...) How many lives has this saved?

Of course, there is a kind of morbid fascination, but only to an extent. I am not one who gets their rocks off by looking a crime scene photos or masturbates to car accidents. It's the history and the life that was lived and the events that took place. If you don't recognize the dead, then you ignore everything they did, what they died for and even how they lived. Lionel Barrymore said in the movie Grand Hotel, "Believe me, if a man doesn't know death, he doesn't know life." That pretty much covers it.

And it's about loss. Because we all die. We all have to deal with our own mortality. Some are lucky and get to drift away in their warm beds. Others not so much. This is one reason why I am so fascinated by the lives and deaths of the people that touch my heart, even if only a little. If they are a part of me and they shuffle off this mortal coil, I am compelled to know what happened to that little piece of my heart.

The actor that made me cry when he sat in Rick's Cafe and wept over the girl that had come back into his life... with another man. Drowning his sorrow, barely holding his head up, listening to their song over and over again. I know you have felt this kind of sorrow; haven't all of us? He died of cancer at his home.

A young woman, only 22 years old, was executed via guillotine for opposing the Third Reich by distributing anti-Nazi leaflets at her college. When you were 22, did you believe in something so much that you were willing to die for it? She was an amazing person.

And in 1967, my cousin was driving to New Orleans and accidentally hit a semi, killing an aging Hollywood starlet.

History happens all around us.

When I was 19, I stood in the side drive at Griffith Observatory and watched James Dean fight with the other boys from school. The beautiful boy, only 24 years old in his red jacket and heartbreaking tears. When he shot his last scene for Rebel Without a Cause, he only had 4 months before his fateful drive on Route 466. His passenger walked away with a broken collarbone and a few other minor injuries. (He would die in a different car accident in 1981.)

When I was 24, I sat at the Eiffel tower and watched as the people of France wept as the Nazis marched into the city in June 1940. I saw the spot where Hitler stood for a photo op in front of the tower. (I am determined to visit the same spot where he took his own life and Europe was truly free from that piece of evil.) Over 2 million allies were killed or wounded. In the end, the world was free from the Nazis hold, but at such a cost.

And now, I've just booked myself a seat on the Dearly Departed Van Tour of old and new Hollywood to visit the places where some of my favorite people lived and died.

It's about history. It's about death. It's about a three hour tour. And I plan to have a great time. See you there.

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The show on the side

Freaks. Sideshow performers. Unfortunates. Unclean.


There are a million names for people that made their living themselves in traveling shows. I think they were amazing.

Sometimes people forget that these performers had back stories, most much more interesting than what was fictionalized on the back of their pitch cards. (These were kind of like postcards; pictures with a short biography on the back that the performers would sell for extra income. Many times, much of this story was fiction.) They would go in, watch the freak and leave. Not me. (And if you are still reading, not you either.)

There are a thousand stories in this industry. Uplifting, heartbreaking, inspiring, just plain funny and in the end, very human. I think it shocks people or at least strikes a cord when people hear how utterly human these stories can be, regardless of their completely different upbringing, living situation, job, friends, etc they have from this person. For example, the story of Grace McDaniels. She was believed by some to have suffered from a genetic disorder called Sturge-Weber syndrome which is characterized by a port wine stain on the face. It is also usually accompanied by seizers, glacoma at an early age and mental retardation to name a few, none of which was ever mentioned about Grace. (In fact, through all accounts she was said to have 100% 'normal' except for her facial deformity.) Through my own research, I found it might also have been Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome. This includes the presents of a port wine stain, hypertrophy (growing or shrinking) of the affected tissue and sometimes affects the lymph system. This syndrome can effect you anywhere on the body, but in Grace's case, it would have been the unfortunate location of her entire face. We will probably never know exactly what Grace had, but the crux of it all was her heart. She didn't love the sideshow like many of her peers, but she made such good money she couldn't walk away. She was well known for her generosity. Many remarked that she was the kindest woman they ever knew, often giving money and toys away to poor children that walked the fair grounds. But tragedy hit poor Grace. She became preganat after a carnival worker known for his drunken episodes, raped her. She kept the baby. But Grace couldn't catch a break; Elmer developed his father's drinking habit and he would often drink and beat his own mother. (Not to mention piss away her small fortune from preforming.) In the end, the sweet and kind Grace died in 1958 with little to her name. (Elmer died that same year, but there are many disagreements how and if it was before or after his mother.) I could find no pre-facial adema pictures of Grace, but there was many of her son. He was beautiful which seems to make it all that much more tragic. Her very handsome son, who undoubtedly looked a bit like her attacker, would hit and abuse her. I look at him and wonder, was she just as beautiful under all that?

During the off seasons, many performers, managers, and other carnival folk would find their home in Gibsonton, Florida. (It was often referred to as Gibtown.) Gibtown has special zoning laws in place so during the winter months, or for those who were retired, could keep their animals (monkeys, horses, elephants) on their property, as well as the rides and stands.

As I child I always wanted to go there. No, not to stare at the freaks. I could walk up to these people and talk to them. There were no longer on the stage, some place too far away for me to get to. They were right there. I would go and shake their hand (or foot or flipper or just wave hi) and ask them questions about the old days. I would have ask Jeanie Tolmini how she met and fell in love with her late husband. I would ask Melvin Burkhart which company he liked to tour with best. I would ask Monica Baress her favorite memory of her preforming days and if she misses them.

There were some though, I would have skipped a visit. Grady Stiles Jr. was perhaps the meanest son of a bitch to settle in Gibsontown. By all who knew him, he was a bully and murderer. He convicted of the murder in 1978 when he shot Jack Layne in the back. He didn't like the idea of his daughter marring him so BANG. Dead. Donna Stiles's one chance to get away from her abusive father was gone, just like that. And because of his genetic deformity, he never served a day in jail because there wasn't a jail that was equipped to handle someone with his special needs. He got 15 years probation. "I got away with it once, I can do it again" seemed to be his mentality, especially with his wife and children. One day, Maria Stiles had enough and knew she had to do something to save herself and her children. She hired a neighbor and one late night while Grady was alone in the trailer BANG. Dead. Maria was sentenced to 12 years in jail.

Why do I find these people so fascinating? Because I was one chromosome away from being Joseph Merrick or Minny Woolsey or Hugh Bailey. We all were. Becoming human from a tiny speck of almost nothing in our mothers is much more complicated and scary than one might assume.

I hope that in our modern times, people with genetic conditions such as the afflicted above can get the jobs they need. I wouldn't know, since I know none. I do know that in the past, many had only one choice to be independent and make enough money to live and that was to join the traveling shows. I assume that people born different from myself in this way are finding the jobs without ridicule and because there are almost no traveling shows left. And if it is true, I am not so sad that the side shows have almost fully disappeared from modern life. If you want to see a side show these days, you're going to see fire eaters, sword swallowers and human blockheads. And just as well. I'm a girl that loves her blockheads.


==========================================

Much about these performers has been lost to time or misinformation has taken over truth. Sadly, all that is left of some are their pictures. Information can be unreliable or just plain false. If you have any addition favorite stories or anything to add, drop me a line.

If you want to check out the few resources about Sideshow acts and performers, go get these awesome books-
Lobster Boy: The Bizarre Life and Death of Grady Stiles Jr. by Fred Rosen
and
American Sideshow by Marc Hartzman
also
Check out the fabulous website
http://www.phreeque.com
I love this chick.

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