Category Archives: The Teaches of Peaches

Facebook Apocalypse 2015

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If any of you fine folks follow the Kindertrauma fan page on Facebook or have friended my Unkle Lancifer profile, you may have noticed that they both recently up and disappeared. What happened was, Facebook had an issue with Unkle Lancifer not being my “real” name and as the Kindertrauma page was set up by that account, it was assassinated too. Both, by the way, were created before such a rule existed. If you rely on Facebook to alert you to new Kindertrauma posts, I’m sorry, that won’t be happening anymore. So far, from what I can see our readership has not taken a major dive since this occurred and it’s pretty obvious Facebook was only showing the updates to a fraction of our followers anyway in some lame attempt to get us to pay for them to “boost” their visibility. Frankly, on more than a few occasions, I wondered if posting flyers on telephone poles would be more effective.

I have tried everything to fix the situation and it’s basically like having brunch with the monolith from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I’ve sent them I.D., as requested, and explained that “Unkle Lancifer” is a nick name/alias/pen name all to no avail. All I have received in return are automated emails designed to look like they are from a human when clearly they are not (and I’m the phony?) They refuse to even acknowledge my grievance until I present them with ID that says “Unkle Lancifer” and of course, nothing like that exists. Their only excuse for that random Draconian practice is, “We take your online security seriously’’ which is funny coming from the people who badger me for days about items that I happened to glance at on Ebay or Amazon earlier in the week. Robot-cookie-dudes, I looked up that DEATH SPA DVD merely to see if it existed, not because I wanted it (well, maybe I do want it but that’s not the point- nor is it FB’s business).

This steamroller of a policy has already gotten Facebook on many a drag queen’s shit list and it’s not hard to see why (more HERE). There are a myriad of reasons why a person may want to use a name other than the one they were born with and many of them far outweigh, in legitimacy, whatever this spurious policy is allegedly trying to accomplish.

My incentive, I admit, was not fueled by a necessity, as I just wanted to present a horror host type persona a’la DR. SHOCK or ELVIRA. There was absolutely nothing conniving or deceitful about that action so it’s weird that Facebook provides more wiggle room for hate groups than it does a nostalgic movie site designed to provide entertainment (for free I might add). Even if Facebook does come to provide an actual solution (rather than an empty apology) to the drag community, there’s no way to be certain that it will revive my Facebook account (which is ironic considering I’ve often been mistaken for “Richie” JANE MARCH’s male persona in COLOR OF NIGHT (1994). Ooops…spoiler alert).

Furthermore, I don’t know how many hoops I even want to jump through for this Facebook thing. In a rare instance of my taste not coinciding with that of the average shut-in, I’ve never been much of a fan. Some think of it as a necessary evil but I’ve come to call it by its real name “The Ego Pit of Flaming Insecurities.” On the plus side, it does showcase some of the most adorable animals in the world but on the minus side, nothing has been responsible for lessening my view of humanity more. I mean it’s basically VIDEODROME. Right? How is it not exactly, precisely and literally (give it a rest, word police) VIDEODROME?

Maybe that’s a little harsh. I know some people who get a lot of positive use from it. It’s just never been a comfortable fit for me. I guess I’ve always had some weird instinctive aversion to hive chatter and anything that operates like a mind control parasite invasion from outer space.

I don’t know. Does Kindertrauma even need Facebook? We existed before without it and I feel like those were the salad days. I know theoretically you are supposed to desire the largest following possible but I’m more than fine with the clubhouse vibe going on here. The few times a post of ours has been picked up by a larger horror site on Facebook and I have gotten to see the types of comments a more popular joint attracts all I can think is, “Thank God I don’t have to digest that type of nonsense regularly.”

Anyway, I’m leaving it up to you readers. If you enjoy the convenience of being alerted to our updates via Facebook, I’ll just open a new account under my “real” name and we can have it there for that purpose alone. Sure, it’ll sting to start over at zero friends but I can’t pretend I’ve never experienced that wonderful sensation before. Let me know. I can go either way. I quit smoking 7 months ago (!) after 25 plus years and if I can quit that, I can drop Facebook quicker than a Christmas tree in January.

Plus the idea of never having to rate the worth of our output again by how many folks deign to “like” it in the Thunderdome kind of thrills me. Not that discovering that Facebook had left my cake out in the rain didn’t hurt, it did. We lost a ton. There was a lot of original content (that I’m praying we backed up) and all of the great comments we got from our readers over the years are now gone (Not to play favorites, but I took a screenshot of Nancy Allen’s comment, so that’s safe).

What kills me the most though is that in the early days we posted so many pictures of the stray kittens we adopted (as duplicitous fiends do) and although we’re sure to have saved them elsewhere, I’ll miss having them in the timeline order they occurred. I even went through all the five stages of grief: DENIAL (it’s a mistake); ANGER (cue MADELINE KAHN flaming head CLUE (1985) gif!); BARGAINING (You can throw out the account that I use to connect with my family if I can have KT’s back!); DEPRESSION (I own every album by THE CURE and I’m not afraid to use them); and finally ACCEPTANCE (We’ll live and hey, don’t they let you post pictures on Twitter these days?).

I’ll keep you guys posted and in the meantime here is our TWITTER that you can follow for updates. I realize that’s probably just another head sprouting from the same dragon but at least when it breathes fire on you, it does it in 140 puffs or less and doesn’t try to charge you for the privilege.

Most importantly we’re HERE, as in here at Kindertrauma.com. This is our home and these are our pink walls and around these parts my name is Unkle Lancifer and my husband goes by Aunt John. If that’s a problem you know where the door is (it’s that pointy “back” button at the top left corner). Everybody else; “nuestra casa es su casa.” If you want to talk scary movies or creepy stuff on TV or anything that freaked you out as a kid and made you the horror fan you are today– we’ve got you covered. I guarantee you’ll see stuff here you won’t see anywhere else. We’ll keep coming back as long as you guys keep coming back and maybe, probably, even longer. Honestly I’ve always pegged Facebook being to blogs as the freeway was to the Bates Motel, so don’t be surprised if this place only gets more interesting.

Kinder-News:: Kindertrauma Nominated for “Best Fan Blog” By Total Film!

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UNK SEZ:: Hey look at this! KINDERTRAUMA has been nominated for “Best Fan Blog” by TOTAL FILM. Many other fine blogs were nominated as well, including some of our bestest pals. We hate to grade-grub but we’ll do it anyway, if you like what we do here give us a high five via a click vote! Thanks times a million for recognizing us TOTAL FILM and remember folks, vote for KINDERTRAUMA because we don’t even want to go to college! Check out the ballot HERE!

Traumafessions :: Joshua Grannell (a.k.a. Peaches Christ), Writer/Director of ALL ABOUT EVIL on the Charms of Leatherface and Freddy!

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I think my earliest memory of truly being traumatized by a movie experience had to be seeing a VHS rental of the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE at an elementary school birthday party. I have a distinct memory of this kiddie party being held in a finished basement where the parents were upstairs while fourth-graders played party games below, like pin the tail on the donkey and seven minutes in heaven. Anyhow, we stuck in this tape and I knew right away that this was something very adult, that we shouldn’t be watching. The opening flashing images felt gritty and real in a way that movies hadn’t before. It was exhilarating. The corpse shot at the end of the credits sequence terrified and fascinated me. As the movie continued to play the other kids got bored and ran around doing other things. I sat and watched the movie. The whole thing. It was the most upsetting, horrific thing I’d ever experienced and I loved it so much. All of it! I couldn’t stop thinking about Leatherface, his mask, his family, his chainsaw. I drew pictures of him in class, thought about what (or who) he and his father were having for dinner, and if they’d ever get caught. I don’t think I was truly convinced it wasn’t real. I think it may have changed my life.

Shortly thereafter a trip to the video shop took on new meaning. How could I convince my mom to allow me to rent completely inappropriate things? She’d protest and not let me get what I wanted, but I launched a campaign. One weekend, my little brother and I stayed with our aunt and she took us to the video store where I was able to pull the wool over her eyes and convince her that we’d seen THE EXORCIST and CUJO before, even though we hadn’t. I think I picked movies based on their cover art and these two looked real good, especially CUJO. Shortly after THE EXORCIST began my aunt went to bed and my brother and I stayed up and watched both movies. Again, captivated and terrified. They were effective and I loved that feeling of being so effectively frightened by something. I soon became obsessed with these films as well and knew I had to seek out more STEPHEN KING, and movies about Catholic scary shit.

I came back from that weekend at my aunt’s and proudly boasted to my mother that my brother and I watched R-rated movies. This seemed to piss her off, but also worked to wear her down. The next time we were at the video store and I begged and begged for A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and she relented. It had just come out on video and I knew it involved a killer with finger-knives. I HAD TO SEE IT! Well, we got home and popped it in that night and I worked myself up into a frenzy of fear from the very start. The opening titles alone! I can now see why title designs are so important to me. They set the whole tone. I almost had to turn it off. Later on, at the point where those razor fingers come up slowly out of the water in the bathtub, I thought I was having a heart attack. No lie! I thought I might die. Finishing the film felt like a triumph and my love affair with Leatherface sorta ended and Freddy became my new long-time childhood mistress. I was obsessed with Freddy. I wanted to hang out with Freddy. I was in love with Freddy. All these years later, I look back on those formative traumas and can see how important they were. I’m still in love with Freddy, the ROBERT ENGLUND one.

UNK SEZ: Thanks JOSHUA/PEACHES, for the super excellent traumafession! I should also thank you for creating ALL ABOUT EVIL; I swear this may be the first time in my and Aunt John‘s four hundred year old marriage where we are both equally enthusiastic about seeing the same movie!

Kids, make sure you check out ALL ABOUT EVIL‘s official site HERE so that you can see when it’s coming to your neck of the woods! This fantastic flick not only stars the incomparable NATASHA LYONNE but also showcases our heroes CASSANDRA PETERSON (ELVIRA, of course!) and MINK STOLE (Who, once upon a time, I saw on Philadelphia’s South street. I asked her for her autograph and she was sweet as hell and gave it to me and didn’t even punch me like some celebrities might!)

Above all else check out the trailer for ALL ABOUT EVIL below; if it doesn’t stroke your appetite for hilarity fueled mayhem then you really need to reevaluate your existence… pronto! Seriously silly rabbits, GO SEE THIS MOVIE, otherwise it means you’re just trying not to have fun on purpose!

STOP THE PRESSES! Need more PEACHES in your diet? Allow me to recommend PEACHES‘ super fine horror and cult themed blog which you can stumble into HERE! You guys are going to love the four-part article on Italian horror by ROBERT BARBER and you’ll also find insightful film reviews and updates on PEACHES‘ actions and whereabouts! Go PEACHES!