LJ Idol Season 8: Week 27; Once Upon A Time

Life isn't a fairy tale. There's no such thing as a happily ever after. In life, much like an apocalyptic movie, everyone dies in the end. No matter what we may try to do, we can't escape it. So some of us say “screw it” and develop a morbid fascination with it. Others might even go as far as to collect death-related memorabilia.

My boyfriend decided to take me on a surprise romantic adventure to Hollywood. We parked and walked up to a white building on Hollywood Boulevard that looked more like a pot shop than a museum. The Hollywood sign could be seen in the distance, hovering over the museum to remind us of shattered dreams and missed opportunities. The windows were barred and when you step inside (passing through a door that could hold off a SWAT team), you're greeted by a beagle named Bruce. Old and practically blind, he doesn't judge the denizens that walk through the door. Scratch his ears and he just might follow you on your journey... Or he might choose to settle back in the front room for a nap instead. 

Welcome to the Museum of Death.


(For the visually impaired: The above photo is of the Museum of Death as described in the paragraph above and with a skull decal on the front of the door)

A girl came out at the sound of the door buzzer and gave us a cheerful smile that didn’t seem to fit in a place like that. Then again, she looked like she could have been a member of the Manson family with her hippie clothing and flower child hair. She smiled at us nonetheless.

She pointed to the warning sign and taunted us, "What you're about to see is very graphic. Think you can handle it?" 

I swallowed my nervousness and nodded. I didn’t want to look uncool in front of the beagle and the boyfriend.

"Well just in case.” The girl went on and I sensed that she had her doubts about me. "Here's a test." 

Mounted to the desk, there was a photo I briefly glanced at earlier but hadn’t been able to make out.

"We call him the Mile Man." She told us the story that went along with the photo and her tale finally brought the picture to life. A motorcycle accident had killed the "Mile Man” and as the nickname implied, he was spread over a mile of road in pieces and chunks.

The boyfriend stared in horror and looked a little green which made me giggle. To me, it looked like something made in one of the Hollywood studios down the road. Sometimes it’s easier to downplay what you’re looking if your brain doesn’t comprehend that it’s real. I seemed to be better at that than he was, which made me realize maybe this adventure wouldn’t be as bad as I feared. Led by the attendant, I took his shaky hand and we stepped through the beaded curtain. 

First up was the Serial Killer gallery. A woman and her teenage daughter came in shortly after we did, but refused to look in our direction, hurrying off to the next room without giving us a second glance. 

However, for us, serial killers never fail to delight our imaginations. Oblivious to whoever might have overhead us, the memorabilia provoked much animated and excited conversation between us. Who knew that many of the world’s worst serial killers were also brilliant artists? The artwork that lined the walls could have easily been hung in any gallery but all were signed by someone made famous only for death. Except for David "Son of Sam” Berkowitz whose drawings looked like mine. Nothing more than ragged stick figures and trees. If artwork were to be the judge, it’s little wonder that he was a pretty crappy serial killer. 



(A photo of serial killer artwork and letters on display, including a painting of the characters from Natural Born Killers.)

We moved into the next room which featured the many forms of execution, where we were greeted with the guillotined head of  the Blue Beard of Paris (the only severed head of a serial killer on display) sitting next to an electric chair. We stood hand-in-hand and took in a documentary on the ills of capital punishment complete with real executions which were caught on tape.

So far we'd handled everything we’d seen with neither a grimace nor dry heave. However the further we went into the museum, the more gruesome things got. We moved on to the autopsy room where we were met with gadgets to operate on and to preserve the dead. We passed child-sized body bags and coffins with a view. 

"Why windows?” The boyfriend asked as he admired a late 19th century coffin. "It's not like the dead can see out? And besides... All they would see is dirt!"

"It's for the family members to see them, silly, not for the dead to see out.” I had to admit his naivete was adorable. "They didn't have embalming techniques like we have today. They'd close the lid to escape the smell."

"Ohhhh.... Ewwww.”

 Autopsy photos also lined the walls, and one particular picture caught my interest. It only took me a moment to realize I had to warn my blood-phobic boyfriend, "Don't look at that.”

Of course, as any stubborn man would, he disregarded what I had to say.

"What is that on the table beside him?" He leaned in for a closer look. 

"His brain..."

"Ohhhh", He made a funny face and looked greener than before. "Oh now I see it. Ewww".

That was a common phrase throughout our tour of the museum. 

To further drill in the point that ultimately life has no happy endings, we came to a series of photos depicting a sweet-as-pie girl standing over the mutilated corpse of her husband. According to the story posted by the photos, she was orally pleasuring him on the couch when her boyfriend slit his throat from behind.  They immortalized date night with photos of themselves stark naked and grinning like fools with her headless former husband. And apparently, just for kicks, they posed the head engaged in various fun activities such as picking his nose and sucking on the toe of his amputated foot. Even more absurd... They had the photos developed at the local Wal-Greens.

I promised the boyfriend that I’d simply break up with him rather than behead him. It just seemed like too much trouble to go through all that when a divorce would be easier.

One of our favorites was a room dedicated to the Heaven’s Gate cult. A recruitment video from Marshall Applewhite himself was playing on an endless loop in the background. It’s beyond me how one man persuaded so many people to kill themselves on the promise of a better life aboard a spaceship tailing a comet. Though the boyfriend and I briefly discussed how profitable such an endeavor could be, but unlike good old Marshall, we would rather take the money and run instead of hopping a spaceship to nowhere. 

The faux dormitory room on display contained the actual clothing, beds, purple shrouds and other paraphernalia from the night they went on their space adventure. It’s a stark reminder of how easy it is to fall prey to stupidity on the road to everlasting life.

Instead of feeling grossed out by the images of death and mutilation that included autopsy photos of the Black Dahlia, crime scene photos from the Manson family and other notorious murders, I was intrigued. And obviously so were others since we weren’t the only ones there. There were girls with knee-high boots and pierced faces and women who could have passed for my second grade teacher (and I went to a Catholic school). We had two couples who followed closely behind us and the women seemed squeamish, but still couldn’t resist stealing glances at the exhibits which made them squeal in disgust.

The rooms were tiny and we were standing within feet of one another, but no one dared look into the eyes of anyone else. It felt like we were in a porn shop or a strip club, like we were all doing something dirty by simply being there.

But the boyfriend and I were too busy discussing how to tell whether a person shot themselves at close range or if someone shot them from further away by the size of the bullet holes in the head and blood spatter around them. Or I mentioned how we saw the cannibal fork at the Bower Museum, but here they only had photos of them and I really wanted to touch one. We laughed. We discussed what we were looking at (or in his case, what he wasn’t looking at). Because we don’t judge each other by our interest in such strange things. Here we are, me with my medically-obsessed brain that allows me to stare at blood and guts for hours without flinching, him with his squeamish fascination with all things horror (including writing his own twisted and bloody tales). 

We get each other. 

Life is a fickle thing; the end can be brutal, bloody and downright gruesome as the museum had shown us. But finding someone who shares your interests and passions can make the journey to the end much more fun. No matter how morbid those interests are. 




(This is my entry for Week 27 of therealljidol. Please stop by and read some of the awesome writers who've been writing their butts off for 27 weeks now. Give them some love and if you aren't already playing, maybe consider signing up for next season. It's a blast.)