This week’s Nyogtha is rather a weird one. There’s no folklore. Just out and out insanity.
If you’ve been following my exploits for the last decade you know I’m been doing the whole “Folklore of Monsters” thing for almost 10 years now professionally/semi-professionally. In that time I’ve encountered some truly weird stuff. Cults, secret societies, blood fetishists who believe themselves to be vampires, and so on. One of the strangest, as well as stupidest and most annoying over the past ten years have what my friends, long time readers and I refer to as “Vampire Hunter Drama.”
I don’t know why or when it started. Maybe it really does boil down simply to the fact my name can be considered an anagram for Dracula. A. Lucard = Dracul.A after all. Maybe it’s because outside of the Inside Pulse stuff I do here, I have a pretty large international audience if you’re into this sort of thing. Whatever the reason I have attracted people who believe I am a vampire or Vlad Tepes masquerading in human form. Same too with “vampires” thinking the same thing. And then there’s the aforementioned vampire hunters. Oy. Insanity on top of insanity on top of insanity.
It started up way back when I was doing the VC for the Go Network. Then when I stopped it died down again. Until January 17th, 2005. On that day, we published Nyogtha Volume I, Issue IX. in which I published a recount of the insanity in England back in the late 1960’s which we folklorists refer to as, “The Highgate Vampire Incident” in which a lunatic named Sean Manchester perpetrated a hoax by trying to convince the British that a vampire lurked in this particular cemetery. You can read this complete insanity by clicking on the column. This incident is also of note for the purpose of this column because it also involves one “Occult Enthusiast” named David Farrant.
Now considering this event I wrote about took place from 1967-1970, that forty years later it would simply be a footnote in the annals of history long forgotten save for when we monster historians pull it out to laugh at the whole thing. Alas no. Fast forward to April 25th of 2005. < a href="http://diehardgamefan.com/2005/04/24/36819/" Nyogtha Volume I, Issue XXI featured correspondence from one of the two “vampire hunters” in question. This particular case was Sean Manchester, who had to be in his mid 60’s at best when he wrote me. I strongly suggest reading the column and seeing his lunacy first hand. The man is either so trapped in insanity and delusion that he truly believes the shit he writes, or he just can’t admit that forty years ago he got caught in a massive hoax and has been mocked by the international media. It’s sad and pathetic that this is how a man lives out the entirety of his life, not to mention his last few years, but hey, what are you going to do? You can also read the Livejournal reaction to his letters to me here. As you scroll to bottom you’ll see it took him a literal YEAR to find this particular post and then comments twice, not understanding how blogs work, and more importantly that no one reads it. Please not that his main criticism is that I supposedly ban supporters of his “righteous cause” from commenting, not realizing that the man is a joke to every single one of my fellow professionals that knows of him.
In May of 2005, I had to put up another Livejournal post as I started getting email from Manchester again claiming he was not him but a feverent supporter and member of his Occult organization, even though the IP was exactly the same as Manchester’s. Like I said, delusional and completely ignorant on how the internet works and can be tracked. But hey, he’s old and was crazy in the 1960’s. Age has probably old made him worse. In the comments though, you’ll notice a member of the Farrant Occult group begins to comment in my LJ there and trashes Manchester, and then he steps in and we have two “vampire hunters” feuding in my LJ. The best part is that again, these comments begin almost a year after I made the original post, meaning that I had to have occult groups sifting through my blog for any potential mention of them. Also note Manchester repeatedly copy and pastes comments, some duplicated more than once.
My final post was made back on May 11th of 2005, in which David Farrant starts emailing me and I of course post those emails as part of my legal right as a journalist. And here is where everything goes insane. Manchester begins attacking Farrant, sometimes by posing as more than one person, all with the same writing voice, IP address and sometimes the exact same comments. Farrant’s side, which actually does has members in it, begins to attack Manchester en masse and vampire hunter drama breaks out for 330 comments, with 95% of the comments beginning in April of 2006 and not ending until the beginning of this month, June 2006. Once again we have three levels of comedy.
1) It’s a group of retirement age occultists fighting with each other in my blog in an entry from May 2005
2) None of them can figure out how to navigate Livejournal and it all becomes contained into this one post instead of spilling into current stuff, thus defeating the obvious “OMG! Please pay attention to me.” aspect of the insanity.
3) Sean Manchester, who at the beginning of this demanded not to be censored and to let his comments stand, when he realized people were pulling evidence of his hoaxes and membership in Nazi organizations, decided to throw a temper tantrum the likes of which usually aren’t done by anyone older than the age of 8. And only then, that eight year old needs to be socially retarded. Manchester started posting comments about his own personal life, not realizing LJ tracks IP addresses and then reported my LJ for a breach of the terms of service. Sadly, the members of “LJ Abuse” who enforce rules had no idea who this lunatic was and that he believed me to be a vampire myself, and got my LJ suspended for a few hours, telling me to delete his comments. It happened a second time, and I was asked to delete the entire post and all 300+ comments to keep them from having to keep suspending my journal as LJ’s policy is to act first and think later. Hey, it’s a blog site that they gear more towards teenagers and young twenty year olds than anything professional or geared for journalists like myself. However, both sides began to speak of litigation against each other and I had a severe issue with the posts being deleted. Not just for the comedy aspect, but because if they did sue, my LJ would inevitably be brought in as evidence by both sides against each other. LJ abuse didn’t understand and eventually I had to call the Vice President of Six Apart, Livejournal’s parent organization and explain the entire madness and that Sean Manchester for ten years has been pulling on my coattails in vain attempts after another for attention and remembrance. However, LJ was bound by their own terms of service and he could keep reporting his own comments as breaches of the TOS and thus keep getting my LJ suspended.
So we came to a compromise. They backed up my LJ post in a manner that he could no long effect. The other was to post the information here on INSIDEPULSE.com. This would allow a larger audience to see his idiocy and show a sad pathetic geezer what happens when you try to infringe on the American right to free speech and press. Now instead of being in a blog that’s read by 25-50,000 or people a day (depending on content), the information is now posted on a site that gets 200,000 visitors a day. In other words, he now has potentially four times as many people who get to see proof of his insanity, illegal activities, and shady organizations he has subscribed to. Oh, and there’s no terms of service here. Just Widro who thinks this whole thing is hilarious and should be exploited and myself, who Manchester won’t deal with directly because hey, he thinks I’m the Lord of the Undead.
Here now is a perfect save of the entire insanity and every single comment from the beginning until I was asked to delete it so that LJ Abuse didn’t have to devote their entire attention to a crazed old man who likes to dig up corpses and violate them. The first three links are the main bits. Please note as the whole thing is a straight HTML copy, the threads will not work as they direct back to the deleted LJ post. That’s why I have saved each thread as an .htm of their own so every last bit can be seen, savored and laughed at by you the readers. Plus, you the readers will find access to Sean Manchester’s IP address, email and website for his Vampire Hunting Organization. Enjoy the comedy potential there as well.
Vampire Hunter Drama Page 1
Vampire Hunter Drama Page 2
Vampire Hunter Drama Page 3
And now for the various threads that are collapsed and unreadable on some of those links. The threads are worth it if only for watch a sixty-seventy year old man display an absolute lack of knowledge of both US and British law, not to mention his attempts to “stalk and find my home” and assuming that I’m British myself and that I live in the country.
Thread 1
Thread 2
Thread 3
Thread 4
Thread 5
Thread 6
Thread 7
Thread 7, part 2
Thead 7, Part 3
Thread 7, part 4
Thread 8
Thread 9
Thread 10
Thread 11
Thread 12
Thread 13
Thread 14
Thread 15
Thread 16
Thread 17
Thread 18
Thread 19
Thread 20
Thread 21
Thread 22
Thread 23
Thread 24
Thread 25
Thread 26
Thread 27
Thread 28
Thread 29
Thread 29, Part 2
Thread 29, part 3
Thread 30
Thread 31
Thread 32
Thread 33
Thread 34
Thread 35
Thread 36
Thread 37
And that my friends, is a whole lot of nuttiness. The morale is either: Never fake a vampire sighting and then attempt to profit from it or Ron Jaffe’s Mazes & Monsters was right! I’m not sure which.
Cooking
With July 4th right around the corner, millions of Americans will be spending their 3-4 day weekend out grilling. To prepare for it, I decided to do a little steak grilling with you all this week. It’s going top be normal strip steaks, but really, when it comes to beef, it’s how you accessorize it that counts. Rubs, sauces, and the like. These are the keys to making your steak stand out rather than be yet aside hunk of beef.
One should always buy grass fed cattle over corn fed. Corn is not something a cow can digest properly, and thus a corn fed cow will be higher in fat and lower in healthy aspects. Plus, there is a HUGE taste difference.
We’re going to look at two sauces this week. The first is called a Chimichurri. A Chimichurri is an Argentinean invention that is primarily composed of olive oil, garlic, and parsley. It’s not just for steaks though, as you can dip bread, veggies, and just about anything into it. This sauce is a wonderful compliment to your cooking and should impress anyone you serve it to.
Ingredients
2 cups fresh mint leaves
1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 cup fresh cilantro leaves
10-12 cloves of garlic, chopped
3 serrano chilies, roasted and seeded.
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
salt and black pepper to taste
BTW, Serrano peppers are VERY hot. They’re very thin and are about two inches in length. You can get them in green and red, with green being the hotter variant.
Combine the mint, parsley, cilantro, garlic, chilies, honey, and mustard in a food processor or blender. Let the machine run until you have a nice paste formed. With the motor STILL RUNNING, begin to add the olive oil. Once the olive oil is emulsified in the mixture, transfer it into a bowl. If it is too thick, add a few tablespoons of cold water and whisk. You’ll know the sauce is perfect when it has the consistency of a vinaigrette.
Next up we’re going to take a look at a Remoulade sauce. Remoulade is a French sauce that is primarily mayonnaise based. Now I don’t eat mayonnaise, so keep in mind I make this, but have never tasted it myself. So far no complaints or deaths from those who have eaten it, which I take as a good sign. Plus I got the original recipe from my “Emeril Live” watching days and have tweaked it here or there. Remoulade started as a fish sauce, often used like a tartar sauce, but it evolved into being used on things like roast beef and hot dogs. In Denmark it is also used in the same way we use ketchup.
Ingredients
1 cup Mayonnaise (Your choice)
2 tablespoons whole grain mustard
2 tablespoons ketchup
1/2 cup finely chopped green onions (green parts ONLY)
2 tablespoons of fresh parsley leaves
2 tablespoons finely chopped celery
3 tablespoons chopped garlic
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1 teaspoon of Nando’s Hot peri-peri sauce. If you can’t get this try your favorite hot sauce, although I recommend one not heavily vinegar based.
Salt and ground pepper to taste.
1. In a good sized bowl, combined the mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, green onions, parsley, celery, garlic, paprika, and peri-peri sauce. Mix well then season with salt and pepper to taste.
2. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.
Closing
That’s it for this week. I’ll see you back here on the third of July. Remember to watch out for those vampire hunters, because you’re obviously corrupted by my evil vampiric influence and must be destroyed. Adieu.