Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

And in true WeirdThings fashion here’s a story to enjoy while you’re waiting for your Turducken to golden its sweet self.

Most of you prefer white meat. Some of you prefer dark meat.

NYPD officer Gilberto Valle prefers something he’s coined ‘girl meat’. According to the prosecution in a bizarre case against Valle, he was going to sit down to a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings and a plateful of said ‘girl meat’.

“I’m planning on getting some girl meat. This November, for Thanksgiving. It’s a long way off, but I’m getting the plan in motion now. She’s not a volunteer. She has to be abducted. I know where she lives. I will grab her from her house. I was thinking of tying her body onto some kind of apparatus. Cook her over a low heat, keep her alive as long as possible.”

We can hear everyone quietly putting down their forks and looking around awkwardly.

Valle is apparently part of a small subculture that prefers its meat right off the bone…the human bone. The ‘girl meat’ that Valle was refering to was just that…the meat of an abducted girl. Federal prosecutors produced the transcript of an online chat between Gilberto Valle and an alleged co-conspirator that revealed his plan to abduct a woman he knew and roast her alive and slowly over an open flame.

While his defense claims that Valle would never commit such an act and that his thoughts alone don’t deserve jail-time (he’s currently locked up in solitary confinement), an FBI expert from Quantico looked at the case and stated that he would definitely eventually act on his plans.

The judge handling the case has denied bail for the third time as of this posting and the court proceedings begin on January 22nd which could actually make CourtTV worth watching.

Now pass us those fava beans (we couldn’t resist)!

[NY Times]

Here in the states, Bath-Salt Zombie activity has gone into a lull as everyone following the gruesome trend keeps a wary eye out for the next crazy-looking person who reeks of ‘Blossoming Garden Jasmine’ and keeps eyeballing your body like a slab of ribs.

Meanwhile, over in China, a strange attack has caused hopeful zombie apocalypse fans to perk up with curious dog head-tilt.

During a subway ride, a 67 year-old retiree asked a young man refused to give up the seat to his elder? The 28 year-old whipper-snapper suddenly found himself tackled by the older man. Not only was he being attacked, he was being chewed on! The elder man was literally taking chunks of flesh out of the younger man’s arm and the blood was flowing.

In behavior that resembled a bunch of cornered mice, witnesses scattered to corners of the subway car then someone hit the record button on their phone and caught the whole attack on video for the world to see. YouTube has taken down the video based on their policies but you can still find it online. We’re warning you. It’s not for the squeamish when you do find it.

According to the news covering the story, both men were apprehended, taken to the police station and let go.

Yup. Let go.

Not only that but they both apologized for their behavior and agreed to pay their own medical bills.

Neither of them will be charged with anything.

Anyone else seeing into the near-future now that this precedent’s been set? Us too.

[SINA]

Remember when eating bath-salts, slipping into a rabid zombie-like state, getting naked and chewing the faces off innocent pedestrians was kinda trendy and cool?

Apparently 20 year-old Richard Cimino Jr of Doylestown, Pennsylvania hasn’t been paying attention to the bath-salt fount of information that this blog is about such things.

State police responded to a call the other night from two women who reported an assault…an assault by?

We can hear all of you in a weird unison of unspoken nodding…’bath-salt zombie’.

According to early reports, Cimino pulled his car up behind a home early in the morning, stripped to his underwear and tried to break into the home. The resident at that home startled Cimino who fled to another home not far away and proceeded to break in to the second home. No one was home.

Cimino proceeded up to the second floor of the home and, like the erratic behavior exhibited by most of the ‘Bath-Salt Zombies’ we’ve seen so far, parkoured himself from the second-story window severely injuring his arms and legs when he slammed into the ground.

True to ‘Bath-Salt Zombie’ lore (which stretches back in time to the end of January of this year) Cimino got up and walked away while bleeding profusely.

Cimino then approached two women, who once again helped this whole incident slide into the typical ‘Bath-Salt Zombie’ profile when he jumped one of them and, “screaming like a wild animal”, began gnawing on the skull of one of the poor women.

Both women managed to escape Cimino, who police later found covered in blood acting delusional and confrontational.

After lunging at a state trooper and punching a medical technician, Cimino was tasered and taken to Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton.

Cimino is charged with two counts each of aggravated assault, criminal mischief, indecent exposure, three counts of burglary and several other charges.

At this time tests regarding what Cimino may have been hopped up on are still pending.

Anyone want to take a stab at what he may have been on? Anyone?

[Times-Tribune]

Almost 30 people have been arrested during a dawn raid on what’s believed to be a cannibal cult in Papua New Guinea.

Members range from a 13-year-old boy to a teacher in his 50s. Two men are still on the run.

The group has killed at least four men and three women since April according to local authorities.

“The group alleges that there were some deaths related to sorcery in the area.
“They were initiated into a cultural house and believe they could identify sorcerers. It has been an ongoing problem.”

Although sorcery is legally defined in Papua New Guinea, the government’s Law Reform Commission is trying to rid that particular outdated legalese because once a murder is claimed sorcery-related the prosecution process becomes murky.

In this case, however, facts, forensic evidence and statements made by the accused have led invesitgators to believe that parts of the victims were eaten.

[Herald Sun Australia]

Eventually it’s going to stop, right? The zombie-style incidents? They’ll come to an end before we all end up eating one another, won’t they?

Not any time soon, people.

Not only will they not stop but they’re already getting tired of the taste of tender human meat and are now moving on to man’s best friend.

Yeah. You read that last part correctly…a dog is the latest victim in the new drug-zombie phenomena.

Michael Terron Daniel, a 22-year-old Texan was high on the designer drug known as K2 (a synthetic cannabis) when he began chasing a neighbor…like a dog. Complete with barks and growls, Daniel then turned his attention to the family dog. What happened next was too graphic to really go into detail about according to reports. One witness reported that he was “ripping pieces of flesh away.” The dog was pronounced dead at the scene.

Waco officers (yes…THAT Waco) arrived to find a blood-covered porch and Daniel pleading for them to either fight him or use the stun gun in order “to help him get off his bad trip.”

Daniel has been charged with felony cruelty to a non-livestock animal.

[WPTV]

Two Dutch television-show hosts said they had their flesh cooked by a top chef and then dined on each other before a studio audience.

“Nothing is really that special when you’re talking about the taste of the meat,”  host Dennis Storm told ABCNews.com. “But it is weird to look into the eyes of a friend when you are chewing on his belly.”

Yeah, so. Dutch cannibalism on TV. Nothing I can add to this.

[ABC News]

In North Korea, povery is rampant. People struggle to find shelter, buy clothing, and even find food.  Humanitarian efforts have been going on for a while, hoping to supply the poor Communist country with basic supplies. However, their bespectacled and very tiny dictator has been stopping these efforts from taking fruit. People have been trying to escape from this terror for a while now, but this new piece of news is definitely going to be forcing people to get the heck out of the country.

A recent document has been leaked to the Caleb Mission details 721 criminal cases, most of which deal with food. These run the gamut of crimes, leading from theft to assault, but the truly terrifying part of the story is that 5 cases of cannibalism have been recorded. That means that 5 cases of cannibalism have been found, there’s no telling how many more cases there are. One particular story tells of how a hungry guard took an axe, killed a colleague, ate some of him, and then sold off the rest of him as mutton. Kind of like a modern day Sweeney Todd.

Remind me to never visit North Korea.

[Global Post]

Justin Robert Young recounts his harrowing ordeal in the Forest with a Million Eyes. Brian, Andrew and Justin then step into the treacherous mental playground of a loyal listener and reveal their most deep-seated primal motivations when they are faced with surviving in a post-Zombie Apocalypse. One of them will become a ravenous fiend roving the ruins of civilization in search of fresh brains. Another will unleash his inner amoral self and cackle in delight as the world burns and search out female survivors to indulge his earthly desires. The final member of the trio will rise above tragedy and seek out vengeance for the horrific fate the befell is family and adopt a heroic new identity, and another, and another.

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Everyday this week…Brett Rounsaville brings us the Weirdest Murders ever committed.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the phrase, “Eat your heart out…”. As in, “Eat your heart out Google, there’s a new iPhone in town,” or “Eat your heart out Thierry, I just ate your lung.”

Right, well…something like that.

Want more explanation? I thought you’d never ask.

In 2007, Nicolas Cocaign’s lawyer TRIED to explain that the French attempted rapist was crazy. He TRIED to get the dude shipped to a psych ward. Unfortunately, when the prison officials refused, it was up to Cocaign to provide the actual proof.

That’s where Cocaign’s cellmate, Thierry Baudry, comes in…or exits rather. After stabbing Baudry repeatedly in the chest with a pair of scissors Cocaign finished him off by suffocating him with a plastic bag. (Why a crazy rapist had access to a pair of scissors and a plastic bag I leave up to you to try to figure out.)

Apparently satisfied with his attempt to prove his insanity Cocaign then set out to prove that he also had no anatomical knowledge whatsoever.

In an effort to absorb Baudry’s soul by eating his heart, our buddy Cocaign, managed instead to eat a lung AND two chest muscles. (I like to think that after finishing the lung he looked down, saw another one and with a quiet sigh, said to himself, “crap.” Before resigning himself to chowing down on the more centrally located albeit no more heart-shaped chest muscles.)

Fun fact: At his subsequent murder trial the lead juror announced the verdict by standing up and singing:

He’s a plight,

He’s a plight,

He’s a plight,

COCAIGN.

(Shoot. I promised myself no more Eric Clapton jokes.)

Your thoughts? Have any other weird cannibal/murder stories? (Or Eric Clapton jokes?)

Thanksgiving’s over, your bowels are weeping to grief counselors and Weird Things is celebrating gastronomy, Epicureanism and indiscriminate face-stuffing with the last installment of a three-part look at the most delicious meat of them all. It’s a Cultural Tribute to Cannibalism (sans recipes). Monday we looked at the Wendigo, Wednesday we explored the deleted human eating element of fairy tales.

Today: Hard, Cold Facts and Soft, Chili Fingers – Modern Cannibalism Terror

A few lingering, neo-primitive cultures still employ cannibalism as a means of honoring the dead and dominating enemies. Meanwhile, the civilized world has spent centuries building cannibalism up into one of the cardinal cultural taboos (along with incest – another primal form of indulging in one’s kin), a mission that’s been so effectively carried out that even accidental cannibalism has become an object of fear. In America alone, a bevy of urban legends and contemporary folktales hinge on the hair-raising premise that soylent green has already arrived.

A classic: The body in the wine (or beer

, soda, etc.) vat. Usually set in a impoverished country where an American vintner has outsourced production of cheap wine, the story goes that several shipments of wine have just left the facility when a man’s pickled corpse, complete with a knife sticking out of its back, is found lulling in the dregs at the bottom of the storage vat. The company decides it would be too expensive to recall the product, so, well, you’re the one who just wanted to buy the cheap stuff.

In this story, as well as many others, the incident is the result of low safety and cleanliness standards in the food production industry. These stories are cut from the same cloth as all the “KFC comes from headless mutants” and “chocolate milk is regular milk with too much cow blood” legends. It’s all paranoia and distrust of a modern culture to which we’ve ceded control in exchange for convenience (and the illusion of civility – people are so concerned with supposed modern sophistication, they’re no longer comfortable with meat looking like meat; hence, the nuggefication of chicken and the fingerizing of fish).

The worst food fear, then, combines our ancient aversion to people meat and our modern fear of corporate malfeasance. Just look at the woman who planted a human finger in her Wendy’s chili. She could have scammed the restaurant just as hard (and more believably) with a rat’s foot or a roach’s head, but, in her mind, the finger was the most disgusting of all readily available food contaminates. There are also cases in which minor production anomalies result in wild accusations – in 1987, a beef ligament in a can of tripe was mistaken for a finger, and in 2001, a mold growth in improperly sealed fruit punch was initially reported as a human penis. Clearly, cannibalism is as prevalent a nightmare to the modern subconscious as it was among the snowed-in Algonquians.

Now, enjoy your leftovers.

This week, as you prepare a variety of food blocks for the annual game of tummy Tetris that is Thanksgiving, Weird Things is celebrating gastronomy, Epicureanism and indiscriminate face-stuffing with a three-part look at the most delicious meat of them all. Monday, Wednesday and Friday – A Cultural Tribute to Cannibalism (sans recipes). Monday we looked at the cautionary tale of the Wendigo.

Today: Once Upon a California Cheeseburger – Cannibalism in Fairy Tales

It’s no secret that the blank-stared march of supposed social progress hasn’t been kind to fairy tales. Declawing. Sanitizing. Neutering. Whatever wince-evoking action verb you prefer, the children stories of yesterday have been pain-stakingly redacted to excise the rape, bloodshed and murder that were what made the concise narratives sufficiently cautionary in the first place. Along with all the forced, violent sex and baby murders, a requisite amount of cannibalism used to be a dependable bedtime story trope.

Before getting into the really gruesome stuff, I want to briefly respond to the gross number of people who cite “Hansel and Gretel” and “Jack and the Beanstalk” as examples of stories that retain cannibalistic overtones. I’m not including these stories because their respective threats – a blood-sniffing giant and feeder fetish witch – clearly exist external to the boundaries of human society. The giant obviously isn’t human. The witch is inhuman based on her narrative function as a spell-casting monstrous figure whose desire to eat porky little Hansel is

, in itself, used to underscore her inhumanity. It’s kind of like how in Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” they specify that the zombies aren’t cannibals because they don’t each other. This witch ain’t ever gonna eat other witches.

Okay then.

In early variants of “Little Red Riding Hood,” before disrobing and going eat crazy on Red, the wolf tricks her into drinking a cup of her grandmother’s blood (a story point that was only removed when illustrators repeatedly refused to depict it). This theme of inadvertent cannibalism via sinister subterfuge can also be found in the Grimms’ telling of “The Juniper Tree,” in which a jealous step-mother turns her step-son into pudding and feeds it to her husband. Likewise, in an early version of “Sleeping Beauty,” soon after the titular sleepy-head is abandoned, she’s discovered by a traveling King, who hangs out for a while, repeatedly rapes her and then goes on his way. Upon learning of his infidelity, and two resultant bastard kids Beauty birthed mid-snooze, the King’s wife demands Sleeping Beauty’s children be kidnapped and cooked into a stew to be eaten by the King.

Mitochondrial versions of “Snow White” feature the vain step-mother demanding receipt of Snow White’s heart in a jeweled box so that she could eat the organ and inherent White’s youthful beauty. The Robber Bridegroom, which is also featured in the Grimms’ compilation, centers on a roving band of cannibalistic thieves who kidnap beautiful young women solely to butcher and eat them.

Obviously, in all of these examples, cannibalism is used as a thematic device to demonstrate the complexities of human (especially familial) relationships, and the ways in which we all emotionally chew each other down to the bone. I’m not saying the stories don’t work without all the people eating – I’m just saying they feel a bit anorexic.

(rimshot)

This week, as you prepare a variety of food blocks for the annual game of tummy Tetris that is Thanksgiving, Weird Things is celebrating gastronomy, Epicureanism and indiscriminate face-stuffing with a three-part look at the most delicious meat of them all. Monday, Wednesday and Friday – A Cultural Tribute to Cannibalism (sans recipes).

Today: The Legend of the Wendigo – America’s Original PSA

The gaunt, emaciated creature that Algonquian Indians knew as the “Wendigo” was almost certainly not the first imagined antagonist invented to enforce a cultural taboo – but it’s probably one of the more awesome. Basically, the tale states that a person who ingests human meat will be gripped by a powerful and insatiable hunger for seconds, thirds and beyond. This hunger will drive them to kill, butcher and devour all those around them, but they will never feel satisfied. All emotion, all morality – all humanity – will be lost to the gastrological void and an excruciating urge to consume. The person becomes the Wendigo – starving, ferocious and unstoppable.

Keep in mind, the Wendigo wasn’t created to stop folk

s from gallivanting around and snacking on each other just for poops and smiles. The Algonquians lived in the Northern Unites States and Canada. They faced unpredictable weather, limited food availability and, one would imagine, intermittent morale shortages. Basically, there were plenty of dark, freezing nights when an Algonquian warrior looked over at his friend, saw a giant, steaming beaver leg, thought of the horrific Wendigo and opted for death by starvation. (The Wendigo was also used as a catch-all poster boy for gluttony and greed in discouraging selfishness and promoting tribal unity and resource sharing. After all, the bogarters of today are the cannibals of tomorrow.)

Even more interestingly, the threatening tale of the Wendigo, and its less-than-subtle discouragement of cannibalism, wasn’t created solely out of tribal nobility or some consensually acknowledged moral imperative – the tale’s description of the monster and it’s meat-fueled creation, embellished as it is by hyperbole and requisite awesomeness, isn’t wholly fictional. The Algonquians had a limited cultural history of necessity-based cannibalism. The problem became that tribe members who indulged out of need during harsh times often found themselves craving succulent friend chops even come prosperous seasons. This culture-bound syndrome, known as Wendigo Psychosis, was almost certainly a psychological consequence of post-noshing guilt. It’s unclear whether these cases actually served as the genesis of the Wendigo story, but there are several reported cases of Wendigo-aware, famine-driven cannibals who begged to be executed out of fear of transformation.

And here we are, a nation of pregnant kids all high on drugs, smashing eggs with frying pans and calling it education. Where did all the monsters go?