By Richard Church~
Please grade on a curve, as I am writing this at 3AM (and I’ve been up since 6AM, yesterday), and these accounts may or may not be completely fabricated!
I’m always going to remember this week for two reasons; 1) I was somehow able to have an accident in a rental car halfway across the country and 2) I met Ormon FREAKIN’ Grimsby! I’m happy to say that latter went a long way in easing the pain of the former!
ROCK N SHOCK 2011 brought together various cast members from the 80’s slasher franchise A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. The most noteworthy of these was Robert Englund who has appeared many times in my native Chicago at the FLASHBACK WEEKEND conventions. Despite this fact, I had never formally met him. I’m not exactly sure why that was, but I suppose it might have been that I was never a huge fan of those films. I know this is probably coming across as horror blasphemy right now but, “back in the day,” I preferred my horror deadly serious and didn’t care for the clever puns and humorous turn the series would end up taking.
I first became aware of WerePups over a year ago. After a friend took pics of them at the HORRORFIND convention in Gettysburg, PA, I knew it was something that I wanted to find out more about (plus, of course, I wanted one). Thankfully one of the pics my friend took included the URL for the WerePups website and the rest is history so to speak. Over the past year I came into contact with Asia Eriksen (creator of the WerePups), her husband Anders Eriksen (creator of Nightmare Gloves, the BEST Freddy Krueger gloves available) and of course Eriq Chang, mastermind behind Fable Foundry, who brought everything together.
This past week, I had the unique opportunity to experience two zoo Halloween attractions located over a thousand miles from each other. Both Daves are volunteer docents (from the Greek word “to teach”) at their respective zoos and enjoy sharing their important conservation messages with thier guests. I have been affiliated with Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo for over 13 years (both as employee and volunteer) and David Albaugh joined his zoo (Roger Williams Park in Rhode Island) earlier this year. Before I continue, let me state that this is NOT a compare/contrast piece. Each year, numerous guests at the zoo will say things to me like, “Your zoo is better than mine,” “My zoo is better than yours,” etc. The truth is, all Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) accredited zoos are not in competition with one another. In fact, it is quite the contrary. These non-profit organizations all work together for the singular purpose of doing important conservation research around the world (which most of the public is unaware of ) while also educating and connecting their visitors with nature during their recreational visits.
There’s always a special place in my heart for the big ROCK N SHOCK horror convention that takes place each fall in Worcester, Massachusetts. Back in July 2010, when David Albaugh and I created this site, there had never been any plans for us to formally meet (that story covered HERE). ROCK N SHOCK provided the opportunity and venue for this to not only take place but to also solidify our friendship – turning online pals into best friends. By the time the weekend was over, there was never any question that I would return.
I have been a huge fan of Halloween since I was a kid and it is one of those things that I never grew out of. I have always made it a habit of visiting all of the local Halloween haunts and corn mazes as well as having my own yard haunt. Surprisingly though, I had never been to the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at Roger Williams Park Zoo in Providence, RI. This year, thanks to me becoming a docent at the zoo this past April, I was guaranteed to not only be seeing the event but also working it for most of the month. I had always heard great things about the event but had no idea that I would be totally blown away by it!
Terror from Beyond the Dave 