I try real hard to NOT copy other people's themes (since everyone is already copying Hollywood,TV or some other haunt)
How do I not-copy?
My house is an old 1870 Inn with a huge wine cellar below the basement level. I know such a unique property is not easy to come by and I know that from what I went through to get this!
Besides the house and grounds itself, my show here is maybe more like a twisted comedy club than any one else's idea or practice of a "Haunt"?
I guess that I have always had my own ideas.
I have always also felt that life is too short to waste time copying other peoples ideas, since I seem to have plenty of my own that I will probably never get done, unless I happened to live to be a happy, active 130 year old! (I'm already 1/2 way there at 65.)
Odd things I have built here: a 1979 T-Bird with a motorcycle wreck in the big dent on the passenger door, complete with a skeletal rider on it which was also built by me /
I presently have a 1989 Olds station wagon art cart with large arms on the hood which go up and down for parades (Advertising!), it also has a suitcase on the roof luggage rack, open with clothes strewn out as a skeleton reaches out from inside the suitcase holding a long, boney arm up holding an old license plate formerly on a car of mine that says "Raven G" on it. I have a set of solar-powered lights inside the car for illuminating the figure in the passenger seat. Almost every day .night I drive this spooky car 2 blocks to park it on the County Court house square to have it noticed from Rt. 78.
In my basement is my "Coffin Tank" it is an upright steel coffin I made with tank tracks (Steel bars) and a V-12 flat head motor tight behind it.
Like many other things I have designed and built, it is very heavy, but will disassemble. It is in my basement,after all! IT had better disassemble!
Tonight a good-sized group of adults and kids came here . Afterwards a man who has been here numerous times said I am always putting on different "shows" here and saying new and different things. (Try to do this)
I speak of some of the funny things people have done while taking this house tour, I have a story about almost every part of the house and the same goes for almost every object in the house too! (And after 27 years of being in this house, there is a lot of stuff here!)
We can and do scare people here, but not phobia-iaze or psychologically imprint drastic memories involving fear upon them.
I have scared many people with common, cheap, throw away, tiny items,(NOT Plague Germs) because I have done the work to set them up for their expectations and apprehension to explode.
Sometimes I am in a state of contemplation and study of how someone is reacting to what I say or do so I may possibly improve upon my delivery, timing, speech pattern, or voice I use to better affect them, the way I want to affect them.
Right beside all of these more mental concerns I am still running through the house to beat them to the next turn, setting up my one-man commando ambush operations.
During the 90 minutes many tours here require, I am talking almost the entire time, sometimes talking very quickly.
After just one tour, I have from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to get everything put back, opened, or shut, turned off or on to reset everything. I do try to help myself as much as I can by resetting during the tour as I am running or walking passed a switch or something.
Then I am carrying the slide blankets and butt-pads and elbow pads back up to the beginning of the slide, which is a very long walk, it's just like work, but it is what I do .
How do I not-copy?
My house is an old 1870 Inn with a huge wine cellar below the basement level. I know such a unique property is not easy to come by and I know that from what I went through to get this!
Besides the house and grounds itself, my show here is maybe more like a twisted comedy club than any one else's idea or practice of a "Haunt"?
I guess that I have always had my own ideas.
I have always also felt that life is too short to waste time copying other peoples ideas, since I seem to have plenty of my own that I will probably never get done, unless I happened to live to be a happy, active 130 year old! (I'm already 1/2 way there at 65.)
Odd things I have built here: a 1979 T-Bird with a motorcycle wreck in the big dent on the passenger door, complete with a skeletal rider on it which was also built by me /
I presently have a 1989 Olds station wagon art cart with large arms on the hood which go up and down for parades (Advertising!), it also has a suitcase on the roof luggage rack, open with clothes strewn out as a skeleton reaches out from inside the suitcase holding a long, boney arm up holding an old license plate formerly on a car of mine that says "Raven G" on it. I have a set of solar-powered lights inside the car for illuminating the figure in the passenger seat. Almost every day .night I drive this spooky car 2 blocks to park it on the County Court house square to have it noticed from Rt. 78.
In my basement is my "Coffin Tank" it is an upright steel coffin I made with tank tracks (Steel bars) and a V-12 flat head motor tight behind it.
Like many other things I have designed and built, it is very heavy, but will disassemble. It is in my basement,after all! IT had better disassemble!
Tonight a good-sized group of adults and kids came here . Afterwards a man who has been here numerous times said I am always putting on different "shows" here and saying new and different things. (Try to do this)
I speak of some of the funny things people have done while taking this house tour, I have a story about almost every part of the house and the same goes for almost every object in the house too! (And after 27 years of being in this house, there is a lot of stuff here!)
We can and do scare people here, but not phobia-iaze or psychologically imprint drastic memories involving fear upon them.
I have scared many people with common, cheap, throw away, tiny items,(NOT Plague Germs) because I have done the work to set them up for their expectations and apprehension to explode.
Sometimes I am in a state of contemplation and study of how someone is reacting to what I say or do so I may possibly improve upon my delivery, timing, speech pattern, or voice I use to better affect them, the way I want to affect them.
Right beside all of these more mental concerns I am still running through the house to beat them to the next turn, setting up my one-man commando ambush operations.
During the 90 minutes many tours here require, I am talking almost the entire time, sometimes talking very quickly.
After just one tour, I have from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to get everything put back, opened, or shut, turned off or on to reset everything. I do try to help myself as much as I can by resetting during the tour as I am running or walking passed a switch or something.
Then I am carrying the slide blankets and butt-pads and elbow pads back up to the beginning of the slide, which is a very long walk, it's just like work, but it is what I do .
