Yet We Do Not Want for Freaks
This is like something out of Don DeLillo or George Saunders.
“Ripley’s Believe It or Not” can’t find good freaks
Los Angeles TimesAlthough the Census Bureau doesn’t keep statistics, the folks at Ripley’s Believe It or Not insist that California is second only to Texas in the number of residents with bizarre talents and hobbies.
For example, there’s the Long Beach woman who turned laundry lint into a life-size sculpture of John Wayne, the Covina man who fashioned a statue of Jesus from 65,000 toothpicks and the Beverly Hills matron whose body is 68% silicone, collagen or botox. OK, we made up the last one, but nobody would be surprised if it were true, right? After all, California has a reputation for kooks and freaks.
Thus, when auditions were announced for the next edition of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not Encyclopedia of the Bizarre,” Los Angeles seemed a logical starting point.
Except nobody showed up. Believe it or not!
The story introduces Ripley archivist Edward Meyer:
“One thing that becomes clear in this business is that people have way too much time on their hands,” Meyer said.
But that doesn’t mean everyone in Ripley’s is a nut case, he added. For example, in Texas, Meyer met a guy called the Lizard Man, who tattooed green scales over his entire body, inserted a ridge of bones over his eyes and is considering grafting a tail onto his backside.
“On the one hand, he is one of the strangest people I’ve ever met,” Meyer said. “But after sitting in a taxicab with him for 2 1/2 hours while stuck in traffic, I though he was perfectly normal and very intelligent, like the guy next door.”
Via Jim Romenesko’s Obscure Store and Reading Room
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Posted to Oh, the Humanity • 2002.07.04 (Thu) • 09:49
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