Petrified Creatures Museum (revisited)

We revisited the awesomely absurd Petrified Creatures Museum in Richfield Springs, NY. Click here to check out the full article.

Ham

Stuffed camel on top of dairy case

We’re not sure why this stuffed camel was on top of the dairy case in the Big M in Elbridge, NY, but it sure is absurd!

Mister Shake

Click here to check out the absurdly awesome Mister Shake mini-golf course in Richfield Springs, NY.

Ham

AC/DC House in Castle Creek, NY

As I was on my way to Binghamton, NY one morning I spotted an odd looking house off of Route 81 near Castle Creek.

Hmmm. Let’s zoom in on that a bit, shall we?

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought it was. Someone painted (or posted or whatever) the band AC/DC’s logo on the site of their two story house. Now that’s class! You have to be on a completely new level of fan-dom to make something like this. Unless…

Perhaps this is AC/DC’s secret American hideaway house disguised as a crazy fan’s house. Perhaps this logo is the only way drunken band members can find their way home at night. Or…

Perhaps this isn’t about the band AC/DC at all. Perhaps the crazy religious people were right and this stands for “Against Christ/Devil’s Children”. Perhaps satanic band logo making rituals and games of “Hell Monopoly” are played here. Or…

Oh, never mind.

HAM
Project Absurd

El Chupacabra in Phoenix, NY

For over three years, we here at Project Absurd have been anxiously awaiting the opening of the Lost World Museum in Phoenix, NY. Owner John Adolfi has been posting on his site about the upcoming opening of his museum since February 2006. Finally, in October 2009, he opened the museum to the public. Well, sort of.

Perhaps I should explain more about the museum before I go any further. Mr. Adolfi claims his reasons for opening the museum are to raise questions about evolution and to prove creationism by displaying strange oddities – human, animal and otherwise. Now, I don’t know if I exactly understand his theory, and I’d rather not even get into it on our little goofy site (you can click here to go to his site and read through his blog posts for yourself). What I do understand is that if there’s going to be a museum filled with strange oddities, then Project Absurd is there!

As you can see on the Lost World Museum site, early on Mr. Adolfi had mentioned obtaining several items including a one-eyed cat, a mastodon skull and the alleged chupacabra noted in the video below. But, the museum still remained unopened. We were, however, treated to some fabulous videos featuring interviews with some teenagers that claimed to have captured a chupacabra. This is some grade A, high quality, stuff.

Here’s video #1:

I love this interview! These kids crack me up! Let’s recap what happened, according to our tractor-lovin’, tobacco-chewin’ friends Josh and Jordy. They’re driving along, going to get some pizza, and they spot a strange creature running across the road. They stop the vehicle and chase the creature. Jordy says he kicked it out of the weeds. Then, when asked by Mr. Adolfi if he kicked it, he says “no”. The kids then catch the creature and put it in their vehicle. Josh then brags about holding it out the back window while eating pizza and drinking soda. Now that’s talent! And, of course, that is what any of us would do if we caught a strange, mythological creature. The boys then put the creature in a shed. They did not once consider taking a picture of it or contacting the authorities. Instead, after it wouldn’t eat or drink, they shot it. No, wait… Jordy’s brother shot it. Then, after a week they went back to the shed and only found the bones of the creature. So, after they shot it they still left it in the shed for a week? My brain hurts.

This next video is an interview with Jordy’s mother, Susan, and is, in my opinion, even funnier than the previous video.

You can tell a lot of thought was put into the location of this interview. From the trash behind Susan to the lovely chair she’s sitting on, this puts Josh and Jordy’s tractor to shame. However, the real stars of this interview are the crazy dog and the baby. First the dog keeps trying to smell Susan’s face, then it frantically follows her hands around as she gestures. The absolute best part of the interview is when the baby sneezes on the picture of a chupacabra that Mr. Adolfi gives to Susan. Hilarious! I wonder if that was his only copy of the picture and, if so, how he explains the baby snot all over it to anyone he happens to show it to – “Well, the chupacabra is known for having a shiny, sticky feel to it”.

Anyway, after all of the blog posts, pictures and now videos on their website, the Lost World Museum still hadn’t opened.

Sometime in the summer of 2009, a chupacabra corpse and been found in Texas. It was stuffed and mounted and then purchased by… you guessed it, John Adolfi.

This finally brings us to the (sort-of) opening of the Lost World Museum in October 2009. This was billed as a “preview” of the museum to raise funds, and would only feature the newly purchased chupacabra. So, of course, we had to go check it out.

Going into Phoenix, NY we certainly had no trouble finding where we wanted to go.

They certainly spared no expense on their signage. I can’t exactly say the same for the front of the museum.

The white door features a sign that will probably be included in our Signs Of The Absurd section, stating, “Thank you for closing the door”.

Upon entering the museum, we were greeted by Mr. Adolfi, his wife Christen, and one of the nicest dogs I’ve ever met, a black Lab named Moo-Moo. We were given a tour by Christen while John worked on his computer. First, we were shown a couple of video clips about chupacabras, while Moo-Moo rolled about on the floor and then asked us for some scratching behind the ears. We were then shown the bones of the chupacabra that our friends Josh and Jordy killed.

I’ll let you make up your own opinions in this one. Notice the Ziploc bag that contains “Stomach Contents”.

We were then taken into a room containing the infamous chupacabra. To her credit, Mrs. Adolfi didn’t proclaim that it was a mythological creature, instead exclaiming that they “didn’t know what it was”. She also stated that DNA samples had been given to scientists to find out what the creature was, and as soon as they were told they would post the results on their site.

I guess this would be quite an anticlimactic post if I didn’t post a picture of the chupacabra, wouldn’t it? So, here it is:

I don’t know. Looks a bit like a dog to me, but what do I know of mythological creatures? I must say the taxidermist did a fantastic job. The eyes in particular looked really creepy.

Aaah! Scares me every time!

We were afraid we would get lectured about creationism when we went to the museum, but we were pleasantly surprised to find that was not the case. Mrs. Adolfi only told us they like to present the question, “Did we come from Apes, Aliens or Adam?”. She also gave us a bit of a preview of the museum, showing us a huge mastodon head. I was very impressed, until Kelly told me later that she said it was a replica of a mastodon head. Somehow, I didn’t hear her say the “replica” part.

The latest official opening date of the museum is Spring 2010. So, if this actually happens, we will be returning and making a full post on Project Absurd.

Thanks for reading,
Ham

House Of Frankenstein Wax Museum – Lake George, NY

Click here to see our review of the House Of Frankenstein Wax Museum in Lake George, NY.

Ham

Frontier Town – North Hudson, NY

Frontier Town was a Wild West Theme Park in the Adirondack Region of Upstate New York that opened in 1952 and, except for a few years in the 1980s, remained open until 1998. The park has been abandoned since that time and still contains many of its original structures. Project Absurd visited what was left of Frontier Town in the summer of 2009, and have posted two pages worth of pictures and videos documenting our visits. Click on the links below to check them out.

Frontier Town – Page One

Frontier Town – Page Two

Ham & Kelly

Knight Statue in Oneonta, NY

I was driving through Oneonta, NY and saw this odd statue of a giant knight in front of a used book store.

 

This knight appears to be about 12 feet tall and is wearing some sort of leather mask shaped like lips. Lets take a closer look at our leather-faced knight.

I guess there’s not much else to be said. If you know why this is here, how it got here, or why it’s wearing a leather-lip mask please leave a comment below and let us know!

For the best in absurd travel destinations (and much more) please visit Project Absurd. Thank you!

HAM

Auto Graveyard

I saw something a bit absurd today. Not quite big enough to make a full web site post, but quite absurd nonetheless.

I was driving through the tiny town of Holland Patent, NY when some things in the wooded area off the side of the road caught my eye.

Do you see anything odd in the picture? Something that wouldn’t normally be in a wooded area near a stream? Well, let’s take a look at a couple of closer pictures.

Yes, there are several shells of old, dead cars scattered throughout the trees. I have not been able to figure out why these are here. If anyone knows the reason for this auto graveyard please leave a comment below and let me know.

For full articles about some of the more absurd things life has to offer - including travel destinations, movies, retail, etc. – please visit the Project Absurd main page.

HAM

My first concert – KISS in Syracuse, NY 1984

The first concert I ever went to was Elvis Presley at the Syracuse War Memorial on July 25, 1976. I had just turned 4 years old, so I have no memory of this show at all. However, it is still a cool fact to mention whenever the topic is discussed.

The first concert I actually remember going to was KISS with Queensryche at the War Memorial on November 20, 1984. It will be 24 years ago this month (Holy crap! How has it been 24 damn years?!). Anyway, I was only a wee 12 year old so my brother got the unenviable task of taking his squirrelly little brother to the show instead of going with his friends. My older cousin named Tim went with us to the show. Tim always seemed a bit “stuffy” and tended to look down upon any music that wasn’t made by The Beatles. So, I have no idea why he went to this show. He just acted annoyed the whole time.

Also, a friend of mine named Eric went to this show with us. Eric and I made what is possibly the world’s worst banner for the concert. From what I remember, I drew most of the “art” on this banner and Eric colored it in. Please try to contain your laughter.

I kept the picture large so you can see it in all of its ridiculousness. I’m just going to list off some of my random thoughts while I look at this picture. I obviously had a problem drawing eyes and noses. The space between Eric’s nose and mouth is equal to the size of his nose. Very disturbing. Poor Mark was the victim of some sort of liquid damage. Why is there fire coming out of the KISS logo? More importantly, why has the sun made an appearance in the upper right corner? It looks like we might’ve tried to make it look like the sun was shining on the band, with the left side of their hair being quite lighter than the right. Or maybe it was just a dumb mistake. I think we must’ve gotten tired of coloring in the band’s torsos after we did Paul.

We kept this banner on our seats while we stood up and watched the show. I remember at one point some hoodlums stole it from us. Now, who would steal a home-made banner from a couple of 12 year olds? More importantly, who would want to steal that thing? Someone sitting behind us eventually got the banner back for us.

Anyway, I got inspired to write this blog entry because I found an old “review” I wrote of the show. It wasn’t written in a diary, it was actually written out like I was submitting a review to the newspaper or something. So, it included many lines crossed out and other edits. I may have been inspired to write it by the horribly written review in the Syracuse Post Standard. Click here to check it out. The reviewer states the idea that this is “dumb heavy metal”, and keeps repeating this thought over and over again. She also has several inaccuracies in her review. She states that Mark St. John was the guitarist. Mark did not play this show. Bruce Kulick had taken his place because of a “condition” that Mark had that made him unable to play. Also, the reviewer states that the encore was a “medley” of KISS songs. What? This lady had never heard the song “Rock And Roll All Nite” before? It’s one song! Ugh!

Anyway, here’s my recently found review that I wrote a couple of days after the concert. I’ll leave in all the mistakes and cross out all of the words that were crossed out in the original. I will write this in black and make any comments I think of now in red. Also, I will be posted a couple of photos from this show throughout the review. I think these photos were taken by Don Stroup, but I’m not sure. Maybe he can clarify that.

KISS / Queensryche
War Memorial
Syracuse, N.Y.
November 20, 1984

The War Memorial in Syracuse, N.Y. hasn’t seen this much action since KISS came here last time on their 10th anniversary tour. Maybe I crossed this out because I didn’t go to their last show and had no idea how much “action” was seen. Queensryche was the opening act for KISS. They had a lot of power and set the crowd on their feet and set lighters a glow “a glow”? but they didn’t seem as good as the fantastic headlining act. They (Queensryche) played about 3 songs from they’re new album. The headbangers from Seattle, Washington or Warshington, as McCain would say got called out for a fantastic encore yes, how rare at a concert to see an encore. Following the 45 minute interrmission/ set-up (which I have no idea why it took so long because most of KISS’s equipment was already set up behind a curtain) came the explosive KISS. They had a leppard like skin flo They had a Animalize-like floor which was made of tiles which was mainly the reason it took so long for the set up. Ahh, that’s why I crossed out my bitching earlier The 4 members stood on a platform behind the drumset while Gene Simmons said the infamous “You wanted the best and you got the best, the hottest band in the world, KISS!!” Actually, Gene doesn’t say that, dummy Right after that, the drummer Eric Carr, jumped down to his position now that’s an odd use of commas while the band started singing not playing? Detroit Rock City.

KISS did not have the guitarist (to the disappointment of many fans) Hmmm, crossed out, so I guess it wasn’t that much of a disappointment have their guitarist Mark St. John with them because of an arthritis condition in his wrists. or something like that The guitarist that was taking his place was very good. I guess I didn’t know Bruce Kulick’s name yet

KISS was supposedly promoting their 19th album Animalize but only played 2 songs from the album, Heavan’s On Fire and Under The Gun. Instead the played great songs like, Detroit Rock City, Cold Gin, Black Diamond, Young and Waysted, Love Gun, Fits Like A Glove and many others. I must’ve really hated that whole paragraph for some reason
   All of the members came out to center stage alone, but the replacement for M. St. John. Bruce! His name is Bruce! Paul Stanley did a guitar solo and had a contest between the two sides of the audiance to see who would scream louder. Gene Simmons was doin did some chords on his battle-axe bass.

And, finally Eric Carr’s drumset moved out to center-stage as he did a long, hard, and completely awesome such adjectives! drum solo.

During the middle of a song, the a part of the light came down like a ramp huh? and the front stage members ran up on top of the lights and started jamming. Then a section of the lights came down and brought them down.

For their encore KISS played one of their best and most famous songs I Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite. They also played something you’d never expect from KISS, a country-medal “country medal”? Is that given out at one of the more “hick” Olympic events? song “Oh Susanna” (they didn’t sing it they just played a few notes) For their encore they played the title-track from their last album Lick It Up.
   KISS is definitally an act you have to see to believe, so go see them. Great Wrap-up!

So there’s my “review”. Thanks to Don (I think) for originally taking the pictures.

Please check out Project Absurd for more absurd fun (including a couple of KISS-related articles)!

HAM