Threat Quality Press

Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about fiscal responsibility.

Nah, just screwing with you, let’s talk about….Monsters!

This summer, a new monster washed ashore, and an old monster was very temporarily laid to rest.

In Montauk, NY, a creature supposedly washed up on from the ocean, bearing a resemblance to a dog, a turtle, a raccoon, and/or some kind of man-made mutant. So far, attempts to identify the thing have proven so inconclusive as raise questions of it being a stunt for a movie, a kind of Cloverfield-lite.

Meanwhile, a couple of “Bigfoot trackers” who aren’t at all attention-craving morons claimed to have found the corpse of the beloved legend, and somehow gained national attention despite not providing actual, whaddayacallit…“proof.”

The two stories popped up around the same time, begging the question: What is it about our current state of things that’s prompting stories about monsters? So many questions.

1) Was “Cloverfield” really that popular?
2) Has Photoshop advanced to the point that a local newspaper can’t tell the difference between a half-assed hoax and something worth publishing?
3) Who the hell would want to create a dog-turtle mutant hybrid, anyway? Seriously, what use would such a creature have? Combining the short attention span of a dog with the slowness of a turtle seems…actually, now that I put it that way? I can’t blame a scientist for wondering “What if?” Genetics and comedy should meet more often.

Strangely enough, regarding the Bigfoot story, the reaction around the office wasn’t “Hooray! Someone found a Bigfoot, for real!” It was “Awww…Bigfoot’s dead.”

The reaction to this story was disappointment, not victory over the unknown. I like to think it was disappointment that such a wily and elusive creature as Bigfoot could be felled by a couple of gimme-cap-wearing yahoos.

But I think it speaks to a greater need for our myths to remain myths. Think about it. No adult believes, say, Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy, or Dick Cheney is real. We invented those creatures, right? That would be crazy. “Dick Cheney.” Ha! Got a bridge you want to sell me?

But our monster myths are different, somehow. There are adults who believe in Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or this “Cheney-saurus” that’s been making its way around the internets.

Never forget. In our society, an adult who believes in Santa Claus has special needs. But an adult who believes in Bigfoot is just Open-Minded.

Belief is a strange and wondrous beast. Not nearly as strange or wondrous as a turtle-dog, but still.

This entry was posted on September 16, 2008 at 2:01 am and is filed under Jeff Holland with tags Jeff Holland, monsters, Teh Goofy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.