Plastic Pumpkins: The Deleted Scenes

Hey! Since I don't have a camera or scanner to help me come up with something new to post why don't I dig through all my old files and see if I can find some crap that I scanned or photoed in the past and then never bothered to write about for whatever reason and then write about those reasons. That sounds close enough to an actual idea to just barely fly...

This first pic of some of my PEZ dispensers displayed on an old spice rack was originally going to be some sort of Plastic Pumpkin's Thrift Shop Design helpful hints type post. My helpful hint... old spice racks make excellent PEZ displays. Couldn't really flesh that out into an entire post...

Here are some old ride tickets from Lakeside Park. Lakeside was an old amusement park in Salem, VA that was torn down years and years ago. My only memory of the place was of me in a stroller being pushed alongside of a creaky old wooden coaster that seemed on the verge of imminent collapse. This may not really be a memory from my own childhood and might instead be a memory from the made-for-TV-movie, "Death of Ocean View Park," a truly, truly atrocious movie that I would sell my best friend to a blood-drinking cult in order to see again. If anybody knows where I can get a DVD of this movie please let me know. I will go bootleg. I'm not afraid to say it!

Sidebar: another interesting thing about Lakeside Park was that it was torn down and replaced by a shopping center that is called "Lakeside Plaza" or something along those lines, which is an example of a phenomenon that I call "Naming Shopping Centers After The Shit You Tore Up In Order To Build Them" as there is no longer a lake or Lakeside on that spot. Other local examples include; "Orchard Hill Shopping Center" which sits on a hill that ain't got no orchards on it any more, and "Willow Lawn Shopping Center" which has neither of those two things, unless you count the cartoon willow on the sign and your idea of a 'lawn' is 'asphalt.' Take a look around your own neighborhoods for more fun examples.

This is a weird Greco-Roman-esque (I don't really know what any of that means!) temple that sits at the very back end of a local church's graveyard. It's kind of weird in that it's a Greco-Roman-esque(It really sounds like I know what I'm talking about! Ha!) temple at the back end of a small Southern Church and for the fact that the grand staircase you see leading up to the temple is facing away from the church and the rest of the graveyard and towards an overgrown back corner of the property and an empty neighboring field. In order to approach the temple head on, you must first sneak in through the back, walk down that flight of stone stairs and then turn around and walk right back up them. This was weird enough that I thought it might make for an interesting edition of 'From The Plastic Pumpkin's Case Files,' but no... it wasn't that interesting. For those of you asking yourselves "How would that have differed from every other Case Files post?" I say to you... just shut up!

Here's a close-up of the Greco-Roman-esque(I think I saw that word in a Wonder Woman comic!) temple. Still not interesting...

Here is a picture taken from afar. Slightly interesting, but too little too late.

Ya'll remember Simzilla don't ya? Back in the day, Simzilla was a favorite here a the big PP. That was back before I forgot where I put my Sims CD. Now the only things we have to remember him by are these two never before seen clips...

This first scene was from a never finished episode entitled "Taxi Cabs Never Stop For Kaiju." In it you would have watched as poor Simzilla tries to hail a cab after an evening of barhopping. Taxi after taxi would have sped right past him without slowing down until poor Simzilla was forced to take the bus home. This episode of Simzilla was going to be heavy on social commentary disquised as sci-fi adventure, much like "Star Trek," "X-Men," or "The Death of Ocean View Park." It was too hard to make it look like Simzilla was hailing a cab (he just kinda stands there looking at them as they drive by) so the whole thing was scrapped. Plus, 'social commentary?' Who the hell am I, Maya Angelou?

This is Simzilla being frightened by a plastic flamingo. Amusing, but limited story potential.

I was going to use this picture of dead leaves as the background for some sort of Hallowe'en logo back in '06 before I remembered that I was lazy. In '07 I remembered early on that I was lazy and went the black Sharpie on index card route and passed it off as a plot point. Suckers!

I thought that I might come up with something funny to say about this old magazine ad, but no go. Seems like there should be something in there, though.

I had some sort of "Night of the Living Dead Gingerbread Men" thing going on here that never really went anywhere.

I have no idea how I've amassed that many Candyland game pieces...

And last, but not least... or should I say "L st, but not l ast?"... at the time that I took this picture I thought that it was friggin' hilarious. "Who's L?" I thought, "And does he know what they have in store for him on Thursday." Then, when I was no longer really, really, very drunk, I realized that it wasn't all that funny. Luckily, I'm really, really, very drunk right now so I'm laughing my ass off.

I just reread this post and realized that I used the word 'shit' a few paragraphs back. I usually like to keep the blog four-letter word free, but I'm feeling a little PG-13 tonight so fuck it.

From The Plastic Pumpkins Case Files: Mystery Poo!

I was out in the woods today playing with my Mego dolls, like you do, when what should appear on the path before me but a still warm and steaming pile of poo. As pictured:

I'm not one who is usually bothered by a little forest poo, but this was a most perplexing pile of poo and perplexing poo is always off-putting. The worst thing about this poo was the sheer size of the pile... I didn't think to put anything in the picture for size reference, but this poo was only a few more handfuls of Triscuits away from being full-grown man head-size! Right off the bat, I'm not comfortable with the thought of anything that leaves behind a poo that big lumbering up a shady forest trail just a few steps ahead of me. The second slightly odd thing about this poo was its consistency and chemical make-up. To these un-poo-trained eyes this looked like a big pile of poo-colored sawdust. It was even as light as a pile of sawdust, as a hesitant finger poke with a fallen leaf prophylactic proved to me. But it was definitely poo. I mentioned the steaming already didn't I? And there were flies, too. Lots and lots of flies.

So my question to you is- from what creature's bowels did this poo come? The only animal that I can think of that might leave behind a pile of pooey sawdust is a beaver, but this would have to have been one big beaver. Sci-Fi channel Saturday night movie big, I'm talking! Any guesses, educated or otherwise? Any poo experts out there care to weigh in on this Unsolved Mystery? Mr. Riddleburger, I'm looking at you.

I apologize for today's subject matter and promise that this will be the only time I devote an entire post to a pile of poo that I found in the woods. Unless this post gets a lot of hits and then it's all poo, all the time!

From The Plastic Pumpkins Case Files: The Sinister Secret of Alden House

Perched high atop a hill on a winding and secluded country lane there stands a house who's every bit of brick and wood exudes an evil so palpable that Campbell's could capture it in tin, call it "Cream of Evil House" soup and sell it at your local grocery store, but not for very long since no one would buy "Cream of Evil Anything" soup and stores would soon remove the product from their shelves and replace it with something more popular like another facing of "Chicken Noodle-O's" and the exec at Campbell's who had the brilliant idea of trying to sell a soup that was nothing more than the very essence of evil house itself (in what is already, let's face it, an overcrowded market) would find his sorry behind fired so fast that the trip from his swanky corner office down to the employee parking lot would be nothing more than a red and white with gold lettering blur...

Where was I? Oh, yeah-

What Is The Sinister Secret Of Alden House!?!

Alden House sits alone (except for the big observatory that's right next door) and forgotten (except by those who drive past every day on their way to and from that big observatory) on the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where the people in charge don't mind you trespassing on private property so long as it's for a worthy cause, such as paranormal research and investigation or taking pictures for your blog. While the building is still owned by the college, the people concerned with such things have long since given up any attempts at occupying the property. Alden House has been abandoned and sealed off for as long as any one that I talked to about the matter can remember. (I talked to no one.) What resides within the walls of Alden House that have driven otherwise logical and collegiate-type people to run screaming (one assumes) from it's shadowed halls in the dead of night (I imagine) taking nothing with them but the clothes on their backs (probably)? Theories abound, all of them formulated by this writer. Was Alden House once the scene of a multiple murder so gruesome and violent that the victims of this crime continue to haunt their former home, staring with unseeing eyes out of every mirror and re-arranging the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator to spell out rude and vaguely threatening messages? Was Alden House the site of a long ago frat initiation stunt that went hideously awry leaving the poor initiate who was the focus of the deed forever scarred, both physically and mentally? Was the Alden House frat then closed down for many years thereafter until some rowdy, over-sexed and possibly hopped up kids decided that it was the perfect spot for a rocking Arbor Day party only to have the party crashed by that now-crazed initiate who'd just the evening before escaped from the asylum he'd called home for the past twenty-five years and who then proceeded to decapitate, garrote, disembowel, crush and mutilate each and every one of the drunken revellers all the while dressed as a lumberjack until finally only one party-goer remained... probably a girl... probably blond... who alone managed to kill this homicidal maniac in such a way that he may or may not really be dead, but will at least lie low for another 8 to 12 months? Was Alden House built on land that was once the burial ground of Native Americans or a cemetery for freed slaves and do those souls buried beneath Alden's foundation cry out for vengeance against all who would dare dwell there as the spirits of deceased minorities are so want to do? Nobody who knows the truth of this matter is talking but I say- probably yes to all those things! Alden House is one bad-ass MoFo.

If the truth of this matter was ever to be known it would require some on-site investigation. A photo-taking excursion was planned for a day when the forecast called for clear and sunny skies. I mentioned before how Alden House exudes evil, so you'll understand why 'clear and sunny' was a must. It's kind of creepy up there and no one would come with me.
Upon arriving at Alden House I parked in the driveway at the rear of the building, then proceeded down the road so that I could approach the house from the front because it's a lot more dramatic that way. Looking at this photo I think that we can all agree that, clear and sunny weather not withstanding, there is some way-bad mojo going on at this place!


I approached the house cautiously, snapping pictures as I walked. The air seemed heavy and, except for all the birds and the passing cars and joggers and college kids on bikes, there was an unnatural silence about the place. But even more sinister still was the strange glow that seemed to emanate from the walls of Alden, a 'halo of evil' if you will. So intense was this glow that one could not stare directly at it for very long without soon finding themselves forced to avert their gaze. Lesser men and women would have turned back right then...

...but I sojourned on. I was crossing the front lawn of the building when suddenly, and with what I think in retrospect was probably a foreboding blast of frigid air, the image within my camera's viewfinder blurred and the ground beneath my feet seemed to give way! Was I so soon after arriving to feel the wrath of Alden's spirits? Did they resent the very fact of my having innocently set foot upon their property? Or, blinking and half-blinded from Alden's 'halo of evil' and looking through the camera at Alden's front porch rather than at where I was going, did I trip over a fallen branch lying in my path? Actually it was that last thing... but who put that branch in my way in the first place? Who... or what?

As I approached the porch I realized that any hopes I had of gaining entrance into the building via the front door must be discarded. Someone had seen to it that Alden would remain secure from inquisitive eyes. What must lurk inside that would make a man go to such lengths to keep out the unsuspecting passer-by? I cursed myself for not having brought the proper tools along with which I might force my way through this blockade. The very porch railing seemed to laugh at me, mocking my lack of foresight. "Ho, ho, ho!" it seemed to say. Then I saw that it was actually saying "Oh, oh, oh!" A cry of despair perhaps? Were the cursed souls trapped inside this godforsaken place actually praying that someone would find there way inside and stumble upon the secret journal that would hold the key to freedom from their earthbound imprisonment? Were the ghosts of Alden actually victims rather than tormentors? Food for thought. Then I realized that the funny-looking thing beside the 'o' wasn't actually an 'h' and that the front porch wasn't saying anything to me at all, unless it was something in Greek or possibly Russian... neither of which I speak. If the tortured souls wanted my help they should learn to speak American like everybody else before coming over here and dying.

Finding myself unable to go in I had to satisfy my naturally inquisitive and adventure-seeking nature by merely standing outside and taking pictures through the windows. This was the only window that I could take pictures through while still maintaining a safe distance from the house itself. Having mentioned several times before in this narrative that Alden exudes evil, I'm assured that you will all understand that I didn't want to stand too close to the walls for fear of ghostly hands reaching through and grabbing at me. Anyway, this particular window looked in on a staircase which, paranormally speaking, is an excellent location in which to catch photographic images of ghosts. Ghosts love going up and down staircases and even though they might not be visible to the eye at the time, they will be clearly noticeable on any photographs that you might take. In this first photo there's a very noticeable image of a tree behind me being reflected in the glass. Pretty!

I took several pictures through that window because I was certain that when I studied the photographs later I'd see a demonic face staring back at me just like Candy Clark did in 'Amityville 3-D.' While she was driving back to Amityville to warn Tony Roberts about what she had seen in the pictures the photographs burst into flames right there on the front seat of her car causing her to drive off the road, wrecking her car and trapping herself inside the inferno so that when rescuers managed to pry open the car door their was nothing left of her but a crispy carcass which lurched into the camera like it was gonna fall right on you and get charcoal stains all over your clothing. I wasn't worried that anything like this would happen since I was using a digital camera and if my computer happened to burst into flames I wouldn't be driving at the time. Anyway, you'll notice that there's no demon face in this picture. You maybe just can't see it because of the tree...

Alden house has a lot of chimneys. Who needs that many chimneys? People with a lot of secrets to burn that's who. As the old saying goes "Smoke, smoke, sign of the devil, sign of the devil, city on fire!" I don't know what that means really, but I can't think of anything else to say about chimneys.

Wait a minute... in that upper window? Oh my God!! IS THAT A FACE!!?!!

No.

This is a close up of one of the chimneys. Ghosts sometimes appear in pictures taken of chimneys. Ghost like to hang around chimneys. There's no ghost in this picture, unfortunately. Just a chimney. It's a nice chimney, though. More rectangularly than most chimneys. Most chimney are more square-ish than this chimney. Food for thought.

At this point in the investigation several things occurred that forced me to realize that I would need to cut short my investigations into Alden's secrets. The first thing was that something scurried through the undergrowth near my feet. It could have just been a groundhog or a possum, but knowing what I imagine that I know about this forlorn place it was probably more likely some sort of horrid demon pig. The second thing that happened was that I had to pee real bad and I didn't want to go in the bushes what with the grounds being all overrun with demon pigs and everything. I returned to my car, satisfied that I'd done my investigative best. I live by the letters "W.W.V.M.D" and I'm certain that I did all that anyone, even Ms. Mars, could expect of me. But don't fear, I haven't closed the book on Alden yet. I plan to return there at some point in the future to continue my inquiries, that is if I can find someone to go with me. I think my search for answers would go a lot smoother if I had someone with me who could keep an eye on the bushes while I peed and run for help if ghost arms came out of the walls and grabbed me.

Back at home I did some extensive research (i.e. 'Googling') into Alden's history and learned that the house once served as living quarters for the family of the Dean of Astronomy or whatever, which does seem to tie in with the fact that there's a big observatory right next door. This bit of info raises more questions than answers unfortunately and adds yet another theory as to the origins of Alden's taint (ooh, I like that!) Astronomers are notorious for accidentally breaching the barriers between dimensions in their mad quests for knowledge and power. Could Alden House house something of unspeakable Lovecraftian design? Again, it's very possible. I also managed to dig up (i.e. 'clicked on a link to') a PDF document where-in the suits at UVA claim that Alden was abandoned due to it's overall age and structural deterioration. A so-called 'committee' that had been formed to study certain college properties with an eye to their possible future uses supposedly determined that the cost to renovate Alden and bring it up to current housing codes would be economically prohibitive. Nice try UVA suits, but you have to get up pretty early in the morning to convince me that there's a perfectly logical explanation to something that I've convinced myself can only be explained away by the superstitious and irrational. Screw your company line, UVA suits!

Summary- Alden House: Exudes Evil.

From The Plastic Pumpkins Case Files: The Thrift Store Enigma

Awhile back I'm doing one of my semi-regular day-long thrift store runs, the kind where you hit as many thrift stores as you can in a day's time and scoop up just about anything that catches your eye and who's price tag is agreeable, and the 'photo' above ends up in my basket at one store or the other. I barely remembered grabbing it, but I always go for cool old photos if they're on the cheap and this was less than a dollar so in with the loot it flew. It wasn't 'til I got home and was picking through my bags of crap... sorry 'recycled treasures'... that I noticed something odd about these pictures. The glass in the frame was filthy, but I could still tell that neither of these pictures were an actual photo.

Well, I flipped the frame over and pried out the cardboard backing and discovered the truth. This was a forgery! The photo of the woman had been cut off of a postcard, the faded half-word 'postc' can still be read along the top, while the man's picture seemed to have been cut out of a book! So what I thought was a lovely photo of an attractive elderly couple is nothing but a big con job! Did these two people know each other at all? Had they ever even met? Did they even live in the same time period? I'm not well enough versed in the clothing styles of various historic eras to make any sort of a call on whether or not their costuming is copasetic.

So who would do this and why? The overly-romantic part of my mind pictures a lonely orphan girl, perhaps a newly arrived immigrant on these shores, with no family, no friends, no history. Desperate to create a sense of belonging in this cold, harsh world (even if entirely fictional) she uses one of her hard-earned pennies to purchase a picture postcard of someone (presumably) famous, someone she admires perhaps. Or did that kind woman's face just call out to her from the spinner rack, telling her "Yes child, I will be the home you seek!" Unable to spare a second penny to buy her new-found kin a mate, this normally law-abidding young lass finds her way to the local library where, when the stern matron behind the desk is distracted by children speaking aloud, she tears a page free from some random book and runs for the exit. We can forgive her this one act of desperate vandalism for after all, later in life when she has done quite well for herself she makes a sizeable, and anonymous, donation to this very same library. It's what her made-up Nana would have wanted her to do...

The more rational, and less often used, part of my brain says that this was just cobbled together as a prop for some school play or some such. But then my more rational brain also doesn't believe in Bigfoot or Uri Geller or the basic goodness of mankind. My more rational brain is a party pooper.

So who were this man and woman and why were they paired in this faux tableau? As I've said, I'm presuming at least the woman to be someone well-known if she merits postcard immortality. She seems familar, but only in the same sort of way that any b & w picture of anybody taken before a certain point in time will look familar. People from one time period will all look the same to people from another. The man looks like one of those creepy photos they used to take of dead people, but I'm pretty sure he's alive. If not, kudos to his embalmer!

So another unsolveable case for the PPCF's. I'll file it away in the 'Active, but don't hold your breath' drawer and move on to other things, but I can tell you right now- this is the case that will haunt my dreams forever...

Alternating nights with that dream where I'm prospecting for gold with Mickey Mouse and Goofy.

From The Plastic Pumpkins Case Files: The Mystery of Mill Race Park

I just recently returned from a business trip to Indiana and the small town of Columbus, where I expected to find very little with which to pass my time and instead stumbled upon a mystery that would baffle the greatest analytical minds of our generation, from Trixie Belden to the Bobbsey Twins. By 'our generation' I apparently refer to your great-grandmother's and by 'recently returned' I mean sometime back around the Fourth of July. I'm not up-to-date on what the kids are reading these days and it takes me a long time to get my film developed.

Columbus, Indiana had all sorts of things going for it. Educational and arty things which sounded like the sort of stuff a lot of people would find very interesting. They also had a Starbucks and a Target which was more than enough for me. Most of the places I'm sent to on business trips can offer up little more than a Dollar General and a Tastee-Freez to fill my long lonely evenings, so the Starbucks/Target combo rocked hard. There was also a White Castle restaurant, something I'd never seen before in my life. The White Castle visit alone filled an evening. It was very exciting... people kept telling me that you either love White Castle or you hate them. Magic 8-Ball says... 'Hate them!' Besides the fact of the meat looking and tasting a bit like Play-Doh that's been left out of the can overnight the secret to White Castle's success can be summed up in one word- onions. Every last thing on their menu is dipped in, covered with and reeking of onions. Onions make me sick like I want to kill. Just the smell from the sackful of 'sliders' that I ordered gave me a migraine. Still it was an adventure.

What was the point of this post... oh yeah, the park. Columbus had a lot of parks for a city of its size, a lot of parks. There was Clifty Park and Donner Park (which reminded me of the Donner Party which was not good) and Noblitt Park (which reminded me of Green Giant 'Niblets' which was good) and about 15 other parks, most of which were always empty save for a few people sitting in their cars in the parking lots with the engines off and the windows up, staring straight ahead and not doing much of anything else. Weird, but not the mind-baffling mystery portion of this post.

There was one park called Mill Race Park which I attempted to find on two occasions, driving past the entrance several times 'cause it didn't look like much more than a driveway running through an empty hill past two large upright stone thingies. The stone thingies I later assumed to be the remnants of a mill race. Clever. A sign would have been better.

Mill Race Park is a lovely park, a mish-mashed patchwork of odds and ends but a lovely park none-the-less. It features an 84-foot tall observation platform, a genuine wooden covered bridge, a reflecting pool, a steel trestle bridge sitting in the middle of a weedy bit of field, a lookout hill capped by a concrete slab scattered with one-seater benches facing in all manner of direction and, strangest of all, several structures built of glass blocks and red-painted metal and looking very much like 1960's bus stops. One of these structures was an amphitheater, one was a vine-covered tunnel, one was a picnic shelter and a couple, I think, were restrooms. I didn't have to pee so we'll never know. Then there was the 'Mystery.'

Mill Race Park, like most of the rest of the city's parks, featured plenty of beautiful and well-paved walking paths. Kudos to their Parks Department for these. One of the Mill Race paths took you over a wooden plank walkway, very reminiscent of the Everglades, and onto a metal bridge/platform that spanned a stanky pool of water with a large fountain in the center. On the opposite side of this small lake was a huge concrete observation platform hanging out over the water. In the center of this platform was a large concrete pole. This place is very hard to describe.

On this metal bridge, hidden back up under the tree branches was another glass block/red metal building. It was smallish, about the size of a newstand, with one door in the back which opened up inches away from the edge of the bridge and the thick green water below and a roll-up metal door in the front like a... well, like a newstand. I took it at first to be a rather oddly placed information booth, but I soon discovered that if that was what it indeed was than it was also a long-abandoned information booth 'cause it was securely padlocked and obviously uncared for. It was scrawled with graffiti, half the glass blocks were broken or missing and the interior was full of dead leaves and old candy wrappers.

I walked past it, but found myself returning to it later on. The more I had thought about it the stranger it had seemed. It was too far off the beaten path to have been conveniently located for anyone looking for an info-booth and yet not so far off to steer lost hikers back towards civilization. Could it have been used as a rental booth and if so what did they rent? Fishing equipment for the slimey lake? Bikes? Did they sell refreshments? Umbrellas and cuddly animals like that Roller Coaster Tycoon stand? Upon closer inspection it would seem that nothing of any real importance could have been kept in there since there was no actual roof just a canopy that left plenty of room for encroaching elements to sneak inside. There was a small metal bench beside it, so was it a bus stop? Did there use to be a bus route along that narrow dirt path? None of those options seem quite right for the odd location. Baffling.

And currently forlorn. It looked so sad just sitting there all padlocked and bruised and unused. Nothing but the trees and the subtle stench of the water keeping it company. I wanted to go to the city and ask them if I could take over the little place just so I could fix it up and stand there every day handing out maps of the park to passers-by and just giving the place a sense of purpose.

I've totally oversold this place now. Looking at the pictures I can't even begin to understand why I was so morbidly fascinated with this odd structure. Must have been the heat. Still for what it's worth, here's the 'Mystery' building in all its enigmatic glory-

That wing/blade feature was a signature look for the rest of the park's 'bus depot' buildings as well.

A closer look at the padlocked front window

The only picture that really does any justice to the 'abandoned-ness' of the place. You can see some of the broken glass blocks and a bit of the litter. I wish that I had gotten a better picture of the interior, but it made me nervous to get too close to the place. I'm weird that way.

The platform that the building sat on was a good two feet above the scummy water that ran underneath. Anyone who came out the back door on the right side of the above picture would have risked tumbling into the goop.

Like I said, totally oversold. I guess you really had to be there.