Post by Lillian Vanderdark on Apr 5, 2011 22:52:30 GMT -5
By Russ, our wonderful chainsaw guy.
Hi there.
Recently, a friend of mine recovered an old flash drive from early 2009 that she had found, picked up and simply forgotten about. I discovered a whole assortment of wonderful old memories on there, and - okay, that's a fucking lie, there wasn't much on there aside from old assignments from Dr. Salas' American Lit Since 1914 class. However, I did recover the little gem below, a tract worthy of the founding fathers, called "The DOs and DON'Ts of Haunting at the Baxter Avenue Morgue," which I had intended to ask the directors about printing out and giving to all of our wonderful, wonderful, SIMPLY FUCKING WONDERFUL volunteers. As you'll see, it's too long by far for any noob to sit down and read between getting made up, shown around and learning how to scare, so it really wouldn't have worked anyway, but I thought my fellow Morguies might enjoy this little list. Naturally, it's a year and a half old, so there might be some outdated info, or a name you don't recognize, or something, if you've joined us after that point. Also naturally, I don't care enough to change it.
Enjoy!
THE DOS AND DON'TS OF HAUNTING AT THE BAXTER AVENUE MORGUE
By the chainsaw guy
To steal a line from our wonderful doorman Warren, good evening and welcome to the Baxter Avenue Morgue. However, if you’re reading this then you’re about to experience the Morgue in a much, much different way than most people who hear that line every weekend in October. Much like a retirement home nurse, as a volunteer at the Morgue (or a cast member reading this for kicks), you’ll be responsible for helping to manage the bodily functions of our customers. Except in this case you want them to use the bathroom all over themselves. Plus, you won’t have to clean it up! And somehow this 100-year-old place filled with dead people smells better than a brand new retirement home filled with people who are still clinging, stubbornly, onto life. Who would have guessed?
Anywho, I was democratically elected (by myself and without any official approval amounting to so much as a "meh, go ahead" from the directors or owners) to compose this little code of ethics for volunteering at the Morgue. Why? Because, to steal a line from the washed-up melon-smashing comedian Gallagher, “There’s some shit you just can’t do” here. And, there’s some other shit we would just love for you to do, but we don’t see it as much as we’d like.
To get serious for a second (durr, okay!) I’ve been working at the Baxter Avenue Morgue for about four seasons as of this writing, I’ve worked in just about every room of the house in a variety of roles over the years, and this is a list of essential things I’ve learned in my experience that every haunter, whether paid cast or volunteer, NEEDS to know. If you’ve worked here for a couple of seasons or so, you will most likely read over this list and say, “Well, it’s about fucking time someone said it!” If you’re a volunteer or are relatively new to haunting, pay attention: I’m not making this shit up. If you do some of the DON’TS, there is a good chance that you will either be asked not to return by the directors, or utterly ostracized and hated by the other haunters – and, worst of all, they probably won’t accept your Facebook friend requests. Poor you.
So here we go, just to avoid showing favoritism (I like the DON’Ts better) I’ll alternate between DOs and DON’Ts.
DON’T
Copy/imitate/steal the motifs or routines of other established characters in the house. Some of these characters have been refined over a number of seasons, and their respective actors have mastered and become attached to them - not to mentioned spent time and money of their own outside the Morgue to improve and develop them. You, however, have not. We seem to have had a lot of trouble with this as regards to “Pongo” and “Oni the Refridgerator Magnet” (also known by the less imaginative name of “Grudge Girl”). I can’t count how many people last season were wearing dog collars and bandages on their faces, running from room to room like Pongo or trying in vain to perform reverse screams like Oni. These actors can do these things because they have mastered the subtle nuances that really make them effective; if you try them, you will suck. The rule should be...
DO
Be original! Now I know that acting like a human dog, dressing up like a bloody doctor in surgery, and especially chasing people with a chainsaw are NOT new ideas. They have all been done before – in fact, most haunts have most or all of these things. But if you are creative, you can still put your own spin on it. One of the reasons Pongo is one of the most famous characters is not because of what he does in the house. It’s the crazy gimmicks he pulls out along the line at the beginning of the night. Offering customers a taste of his multi-colored drool, eating old ham out of a fake arm, and getting really brave guests to hand-feed him Beggin’ Strips are things you will NOT see at other haunts. Granted, few others (in fact, no others) have quite the same roaming freedom as our family dog, but that doesn’t prevent you from trying unusual new techniques in your role. Once you find a routine you are comfortable and effective with, try changing it up a bit. Nothing drastic at first, but once you really understand how a role works, you can go nuts trying to improve it. Maze Monster Dave has done everything in the book over the years he’s been here, and he still comes up with stuff that I would never have thought about. Ask him about the worm collar.
Oh, and a little side note on this one: if you want to put on Joker or Crow makeup, do it outside of the Morgue, when you're standing in front of your mirror beating off, or whatever the hell you people do when you're wearing that shit.
DON’T
say “Boo!” or “Get out!” or any such nonsense. If I hear any of this I will come into your room, in the middle of your group, and kill you. Dead. Not really, but I’ll probably yell at you after the group is gone. This one goes along with...
DON’T
Bang on walls. I realize this seems like an easy and obvious way to get someone to jump when you’re up in their face (especially in the dark hallways), but believe me, it gets old (for both customers AND actors that have to listen to that shit all night long). Last time I checked, our flyers did not say “Louisville’s Largest Annoying Morgue.” Usually inexperienced haunters accompany their wall-banging with senseless screaming that they think sounds aggressive, but really just sounds angsty and pathetic. Plus, you can only hit the walls so long before you inevitably wound your hands. On to our next DO:
DO
Recognize the power of subtlety! Creepy/disturbing nuances will touch people on a deeper level than banging on shit and screaming, and it will stay with them longer. If you notice something in the house is really, really scaring people consistently, try to figure out why it’s so scary. To use one of our best examples again, Oni terrifies people in a way that is best described as “body horror.” A human being is not supposed to move in the way that she moves. It is unnatural, a distortion on something familiar and comforting, it is not supposed to be, but there it is, right in front of the customers’ very eyes, where it could reach out and touch them. Again, if you figure out what it is that works, don’t copy the idea; try to figure out how you can make the same or similar principle work in your assigned role.
DON’T
Corner customers or block their way out of your room. I know it seems like it would be terrifying, and for some, it is; thus, don’t be surprised when that helpless, screaming little girl you just scared into a corner gives you a well-deserved kick in the groin to get away from you. We call that a “Code Blue,” and we WILL make fun of you for it if it was your fault. Like Kevin Spacey would say, scare them forward.
DO
Plan your scares! A room with multiple actors can only work if each person recognizes their boundaries. One night last season there were three girls placed in the spark cages to work with me who had never worked a haunt before. For the first couple of groups, they all came out at once as soon as they saw people, screaming and banging their weapons against the cages, and none of them stopped until the group had left the room. Naturally, the crowd was not scared, just annoyed. After working with them a bit, explaining how staggering their scares and bouncing the group’s attention from one to the other would make the room more effective, I saw the spark cages work better that night than they have in a very long time. All I did was explain the basic pinball effect of haunted house scares to those girls, and they picked it up, kicked ass with it, and were coming up with new ideas to make it better – and they weren’t even able to stay all night. They had it down in just a couple of hours. They were the talk of the house that night, and a major reason I decided to write this inane, self-gratifying list; they proved to me that for imaginative, creative, and patient people, this haunting stuff is really not that difficult.
DON’T
Wander out of your assigned room like an idiot and set off other rooms’ cues. Certain parts of the house rely on motion detectors or other cues to tell them if customers are about to come into their rooms. Tripping these sensors sends the actors in those rooms scrambling for their positions to wait, wait, wait….for a group that never shows up. Repeatedly doing so sets in motion a Twit Who Cried Wolf scenario. It’s aggravating. If you’re a newbie and you do it once by accident, you’ll probably be forgiven. Repeat offenders will be subject to the retaliation of those actors whom they have been pissing off all night…or, Satan forbid, all season.
DO
tell the directors if you are having problems with somebody. If it’s a customer, tell the directors immediately; don’t try to resolve the problem on your own. When big dudes get drunk, and then get scared and humiliated in front of their macho friends, they like to hit people to redeem themselves. No, it’s not right, but they do it anyway.
If it’s an actor, talk to them about whatever’s bugging you between groups. If that doesn’t help, wait until your break if possible and tell the directors that you are having problems with someone; if it's really bad, tell them would like to be assigned to a different role if possible. If the actor is out of line, the directors may take action to quell the jackassery.
If it’s the latter and you can’t find a director, you could also tell me about it. Seriously, I’ve found that people tend to think the guy with the chainsaw is the boss. It doesn’t always happen like this, but several times when I’ve told volunteers to cut out their stupid behavior, they acquiesce rather quickly. It could be the fact that I’m holding a deadly weapon which some people have feared since childhood, the mere sound of which makes many pee in terror. I don’t pretend to understand these things, I’m not a psychologist.
DON’T
Take a break whenever you want. Seriously. And this goes for the veteran haunters, too, who should know better. In order for the house to be effective, for people to be ready to run by the time they get to the last room, we have to all stay on them, in every room, 100%. If they’re allowed a room or two of calm – say, when the actor just decides he or she doesn’t give a fuck about the rest of the house, and that they’ve scared their five groups of the night and it’s time to just hang out, so they leave their room empty – the entire house suffers. If you’re not in place, your room will suck, and so do you. Cast members: I know you get tired, but in addition to being fun, this IS a job. You are getting paid to basically have a blast scaring people and hang out with other weirdoes like yourself in between groups; why would you take that for granted? If you’re a volunteer…well, you’re not getting paid, and we can’t make you stay, but we can prevent you from ever coming back if you prove to be unreliable. And no, nobody will miss you.
P.S. Unless otherwise specified breaks are NO MORE THAN 15 MINUTES!!!
DO
Throw away used makeup pads and put away makeup supplies! Not really a tip about the house, just common courtesy. Also I'm running out of DOs, so get off my dick already. Somebody does have to spend time cleaning up at the end of the night, after all. They’re tired too, and they want to go home; help them out! Also, close the makeup room door when you come in / go out! Some customers linger in the tent, and might get curious. They don’t need to be in there.
DON’T
Blame a customer for you fucking up and unintentionally wounding them. Seriously, this can happen, and unless they used Jedi mind tricks to make you take a swing at their face, you should always assume it’s your fault. No, it doesn’t sound fair, but the customers always complain that it’s not fair that we can touch them, but they can’t touch us. So this is the trade-off: IT IS YOUR FAULT. If it’s a really quick accident, like turning around and bumping heads with someone you didn’t see, they will probably just laugh it off and keep going; you should do the same. It is funny, isn’t it? If it’s more serious, such as hitting them with a prop – and especially if they fall down or appear to really be hurt – you should apologize immediately and either attract the attention of a director or security personnel or show them to a chicken door and guide them out to the tent. I know you're playing a monster, but forcing guests to tramp over a bleeding, maimed customer all night is just bad for business.
DO
Warm up your voice! There’s a slim chance you may have lines or be required to speak, and a really good chance that you will be screaming/yelling/growling/etc. The voice is a muscle, and before you put it to frequent, strenuous use, you should stretch it! Sing along in the car on the way over (preferably to something that doesn’t involve the same vocal activities you will be using in the house!), bring water along, or even hot chocolate mix. Scream from your belly, not your throat! Screaming from the throat will kill your voice pretty quickly. If you bring your drink into your room, find a place to hide it where the customers won’t see it. A water bottle in the middle of a dark, eerie room can kill the mood pretty quickly. And finally, BRING YOUR TRASH OUT WITH YOU!
I hope you've all enjoyed my little list. Please feel free to print it out and distribute it to hapless, wide-eyed volunteers this season, or read over it yourself if you find that you've gone retarded over the past year and just don't know how to stop pissing off the other haunters. If you have comments, questions, or offerings of reverent sacrifice to me, please burn them whilst reciting the appropriate eldritch tongues upon a flesh altar erected in front of your nearest Fundamentalist church, as is normal. Hate mail and bombs intended for me should be redirected to the PGA headquarters and local orphanages. All words by Russell Jackson. Baxter Avenue Morgue founded and haunted by Warren Vanderdark. Moose trained to mix concrete and sign complicated insurance forms by Jurgan Wigg. Have a good day, everybody.
Hi there.
Recently, a friend of mine recovered an old flash drive from early 2009 that she had found, picked up and simply forgotten about. I discovered a whole assortment of wonderful old memories on there, and - okay, that's a fucking lie, there wasn't much on there aside from old assignments from Dr. Salas' American Lit Since 1914 class. However, I did recover the little gem below, a tract worthy of the founding fathers, called "The DOs and DON'Ts of Haunting at the Baxter Avenue Morgue," which I had intended to ask the directors about printing out and giving to all of our wonderful, wonderful, SIMPLY FUCKING WONDERFUL volunteers. As you'll see, it's too long by far for any noob to sit down and read between getting made up, shown around and learning how to scare, so it really wouldn't have worked anyway, but I thought my fellow Morguies might enjoy this little list. Naturally, it's a year and a half old, so there might be some outdated info, or a name you don't recognize, or something, if you've joined us after that point. Also naturally, I don't care enough to change it.
Enjoy!
THE DOS AND DON'TS OF HAUNTING AT THE BAXTER AVENUE MORGUE
By the chainsaw guy
To steal a line from our wonderful doorman Warren, good evening and welcome to the Baxter Avenue Morgue. However, if you’re reading this then you’re about to experience the Morgue in a much, much different way than most people who hear that line every weekend in October. Much like a retirement home nurse, as a volunteer at the Morgue (or a cast member reading this for kicks), you’ll be responsible for helping to manage the bodily functions of our customers. Except in this case you want them to use the bathroom all over themselves. Plus, you won’t have to clean it up! And somehow this 100-year-old place filled with dead people smells better than a brand new retirement home filled with people who are still clinging, stubbornly, onto life. Who would have guessed?
Anywho, I was democratically elected (by myself and without any official approval amounting to so much as a "meh, go ahead" from the directors or owners) to compose this little code of ethics for volunteering at the Morgue. Why? Because, to steal a line from the washed-up melon-smashing comedian Gallagher, “There’s some shit you just can’t do” here. And, there’s some other shit we would just love for you to do, but we don’t see it as much as we’d like.
To get serious for a second (durr, okay!) I’ve been working at the Baxter Avenue Morgue for about four seasons as of this writing, I’ve worked in just about every room of the house in a variety of roles over the years, and this is a list of essential things I’ve learned in my experience that every haunter, whether paid cast or volunteer, NEEDS to know. If you’ve worked here for a couple of seasons or so, you will most likely read over this list and say, “Well, it’s about fucking time someone said it!” If you’re a volunteer or are relatively new to haunting, pay attention: I’m not making this shit up. If you do some of the DON’TS, there is a good chance that you will either be asked not to return by the directors, or utterly ostracized and hated by the other haunters – and, worst of all, they probably won’t accept your Facebook friend requests. Poor you.
So here we go, just to avoid showing favoritism (I like the DON’Ts better) I’ll alternate between DOs and DON’Ts.
DON’T
Copy/imitate/steal the motifs or routines of other established characters in the house. Some of these characters have been refined over a number of seasons, and their respective actors have mastered and become attached to them - not to mentioned spent time and money of their own outside the Morgue to improve and develop them. You, however, have not. We seem to have had a lot of trouble with this as regards to “Pongo” and “Oni the Refridgerator Magnet” (also known by the less imaginative name of “Grudge Girl”). I can’t count how many people last season were wearing dog collars and bandages on their faces, running from room to room like Pongo or trying in vain to perform reverse screams like Oni. These actors can do these things because they have mastered the subtle nuances that really make them effective; if you try them, you will suck. The rule should be...
DO
Be original! Now I know that acting like a human dog, dressing up like a bloody doctor in surgery, and especially chasing people with a chainsaw are NOT new ideas. They have all been done before – in fact, most haunts have most or all of these things. But if you are creative, you can still put your own spin on it. One of the reasons Pongo is one of the most famous characters is not because of what he does in the house. It’s the crazy gimmicks he pulls out along the line at the beginning of the night. Offering customers a taste of his multi-colored drool, eating old ham out of a fake arm, and getting really brave guests to hand-feed him Beggin’ Strips are things you will NOT see at other haunts. Granted, few others (in fact, no others) have quite the same roaming freedom as our family dog, but that doesn’t prevent you from trying unusual new techniques in your role. Once you find a routine you are comfortable and effective with, try changing it up a bit. Nothing drastic at first, but once you really understand how a role works, you can go nuts trying to improve it. Maze Monster Dave has done everything in the book over the years he’s been here, and he still comes up with stuff that I would never have thought about. Ask him about the worm collar.
Oh, and a little side note on this one: if you want to put on Joker or Crow makeup, do it outside of the Morgue, when you're standing in front of your mirror beating off, or whatever the hell you people do when you're wearing that shit.
DON’T
say “Boo!” or “Get out!” or any such nonsense. If I hear any of this I will come into your room, in the middle of your group, and kill you. Dead. Not really, but I’ll probably yell at you after the group is gone. This one goes along with...
DON’T
Bang on walls. I realize this seems like an easy and obvious way to get someone to jump when you’re up in their face (especially in the dark hallways), but believe me, it gets old (for both customers AND actors that have to listen to that shit all night long). Last time I checked, our flyers did not say “Louisville’s Largest Annoying Morgue.” Usually inexperienced haunters accompany their wall-banging with senseless screaming that they think sounds aggressive, but really just sounds angsty and pathetic. Plus, you can only hit the walls so long before you inevitably wound your hands. On to our next DO:
DO
Recognize the power of subtlety! Creepy/disturbing nuances will touch people on a deeper level than banging on shit and screaming, and it will stay with them longer. If you notice something in the house is really, really scaring people consistently, try to figure out why it’s so scary. To use one of our best examples again, Oni terrifies people in a way that is best described as “body horror.” A human being is not supposed to move in the way that she moves. It is unnatural, a distortion on something familiar and comforting, it is not supposed to be, but there it is, right in front of the customers’ very eyes, where it could reach out and touch them. Again, if you figure out what it is that works, don’t copy the idea; try to figure out how you can make the same or similar principle work in your assigned role.
DON’T
Corner customers or block their way out of your room. I know it seems like it would be terrifying, and for some, it is; thus, don’t be surprised when that helpless, screaming little girl you just scared into a corner gives you a well-deserved kick in the groin to get away from you. We call that a “Code Blue,” and we WILL make fun of you for it if it was your fault. Like Kevin Spacey would say, scare them forward.
DO
Plan your scares! A room with multiple actors can only work if each person recognizes their boundaries. One night last season there were three girls placed in the spark cages to work with me who had never worked a haunt before. For the first couple of groups, they all came out at once as soon as they saw people, screaming and banging their weapons against the cages, and none of them stopped until the group had left the room. Naturally, the crowd was not scared, just annoyed. After working with them a bit, explaining how staggering their scares and bouncing the group’s attention from one to the other would make the room more effective, I saw the spark cages work better that night than they have in a very long time. All I did was explain the basic pinball effect of haunted house scares to those girls, and they picked it up, kicked ass with it, and were coming up with new ideas to make it better – and they weren’t even able to stay all night. They had it down in just a couple of hours. They were the talk of the house that night, and a major reason I decided to write this inane, self-gratifying list; they proved to me that for imaginative, creative, and patient people, this haunting stuff is really not that difficult.
DON’T
Wander out of your assigned room like an idiot and set off other rooms’ cues. Certain parts of the house rely on motion detectors or other cues to tell them if customers are about to come into their rooms. Tripping these sensors sends the actors in those rooms scrambling for their positions to wait, wait, wait….for a group that never shows up. Repeatedly doing so sets in motion a Twit Who Cried Wolf scenario. It’s aggravating. If you’re a newbie and you do it once by accident, you’ll probably be forgiven. Repeat offenders will be subject to the retaliation of those actors whom they have been pissing off all night…or, Satan forbid, all season.
DO
tell the directors if you are having problems with somebody. If it’s a customer, tell the directors immediately; don’t try to resolve the problem on your own. When big dudes get drunk, and then get scared and humiliated in front of their macho friends, they like to hit people to redeem themselves. No, it’s not right, but they do it anyway.
If it’s an actor, talk to them about whatever’s bugging you between groups. If that doesn’t help, wait until your break if possible and tell the directors that you are having problems with someone; if it's really bad, tell them would like to be assigned to a different role if possible. If the actor is out of line, the directors may take action to quell the jackassery.
If it’s the latter and you can’t find a director, you could also tell me about it. Seriously, I’ve found that people tend to think the guy with the chainsaw is the boss. It doesn’t always happen like this, but several times when I’ve told volunteers to cut out their stupid behavior, they acquiesce rather quickly. It could be the fact that I’m holding a deadly weapon which some people have feared since childhood, the mere sound of which makes many pee in terror. I don’t pretend to understand these things, I’m not a psychologist.
DON’T
Take a break whenever you want. Seriously. And this goes for the veteran haunters, too, who should know better. In order for the house to be effective, for people to be ready to run by the time they get to the last room, we have to all stay on them, in every room, 100%. If they’re allowed a room or two of calm – say, when the actor just decides he or she doesn’t give a fuck about the rest of the house, and that they’ve scared their five groups of the night and it’s time to just hang out, so they leave their room empty – the entire house suffers. If you’re not in place, your room will suck, and so do you. Cast members: I know you get tired, but in addition to being fun, this IS a job. You are getting paid to basically have a blast scaring people and hang out with other weirdoes like yourself in between groups; why would you take that for granted? If you’re a volunteer…well, you’re not getting paid, and we can’t make you stay, but we can prevent you from ever coming back if you prove to be unreliable. And no, nobody will miss you.
P.S. Unless otherwise specified breaks are NO MORE THAN 15 MINUTES!!!
DO
Throw away used makeup pads and put away makeup supplies! Not really a tip about the house, just common courtesy. Also I'm running out of DOs, so get off my dick already. Somebody does have to spend time cleaning up at the end of the night, after all. They’re tired too, and they want to go home; help them out! Also, close the makeup room door when you come in / go out! Some customers linger in the tent, and might get curious. They don’t need to be in there.
DON’T
Blame a customer for you fucking up and unintentionally wounding them. Seriously, this can happen, and unless they used Jedi mind tricks to make you take a swing at their face, you should always assume it’s your fault. No, it doesn’t sound fair, but the customers always complain that it’s not fair that we can touch them, but they can’t touch us. So this is the trade-off: IT IS YOUR FAULT. If it’s a really quick accident, like turning around and bumping heads with someone you didn’t see, they will probably just laugh it off and keep going; you should do the same. It is funny, isn’t it? If it’s more serious, such as hitting them with a prop – and especially if they fall down or appear to really be hurt – you should apologize immediately and either attract the attention of a director or security personnel or show them to a chicken door and guide them out to the tent. I know you're playing a monster, but forcing guests to tramp over a bleeding, maimed customer all night is just bad for business.
DO
Warm up your voice! There’s a slim chance you may have lines or be required to speak, and a really good chance that you will be screaming/yelling/growling/etc. The voice is a muscle, and before you put it to frequent, strenuous use, you should stretch it! Sing along in the car on the way over (preferably to something that doesn’t involve the same vocal activities you will be using in the house!), bring water along, or even hot chocolate mix. Scream from your belly, not your throat! Screaming from the throat will kill your voice pretty quickly. If you bring your drink into your room, find a place to hide it where the customers won’t see it. A water bottle in the middle of a dark, eerie room can kill the mood pretty quickly. And finally, BRING YOUR TRASH OUT WITH YOU!
I hope you've all enjoyed my little list. Please feel free to print it out and distribute it to hapless, wide-eyed volunteers this season, or read over it yourself if you find that you've gone retarded over the past year and just don't know how to stop pissing off the other haunters. If you have comments, questions, or offerings of reverent sacrifice to me, please burn them whilst reciting the appropriate eldritch tongues upon a flesh altar erected in front of your nearest Fundamentalist church, as is normal. Hate mail and bombs intended for me should be redirected to the PGA headquarters and local orphanages. All words by Russell Jackson. Baxter Avenue Morgue founded and haunted by Warren Vanderdark. Moose trained to mix concrete and sign complicated insurance forms by Jurgan Wigg. Have a good day, everybody.