COLUMN: Van Meter Visitor

2021 has been a year of challenges: life in a pandemic, trouble in the Middle East, political divides, racial strife, you name it.

I just wasn't expecting to add NINE-FOOT TALL BAT MONSTER to the list. But honestly, given the year we're having, it kinda tracks.

I'm a sucker for any good paranormal show on TV. Heck, I'm a sucker for the bad ones, too. I can waste hours contentedly watching people chase ghosts, UFOs, Bigfeet, and any number of things that go bump in the night. Life can get a little boring without some magic now and again. When it comes to chasing the unexplained, I'm all in.

There's endless paranormal shows out there, and they all tend to follow the same formula. Someone reports seeing something scary. A crack team of investigators descends upon the scene with a van full of high-tech gadgets, which they will carefully employ in order to find... nothing. But they'll find that nothing in the scariest and most needlessly dangerous of ways.

"What's that? You saw a UFO hovering above these very woods just eight months ago? Well, we'd better rappel into this cave at 3 a.m. on a foggy moonless night and check it out. You know, for aliens and stuff."

At the end of the show, one investigator will usually conclude the legend is false, while another will offer some grainy video footage or a bone that supposedly proves the location is most definitely haunted by alien goat creatures or whatever. It's ridiculous, but if one of these shows pops on my screen, I watch with bated breath thinking it might just be the episode where they finally film an alien turning a cow inside out (as aliens are wont to do.)

This explains why I found myself last weekend watching the latest episode of "Expedition X," which is a spin-off of "Expedition Unknown," which is itself a reworking of "Destination Truth," and I know all of this because I've sat through every episode of these ridiculously wonderful shows. I'm jealous I don't live anywhere where there's legendary bogeymen. 

Or so I thought.

This episode started off like always. The team has been called to investigate the legend of the Van Meter Visitor, a giant bat-like creature reported to have terrorized a small town in 1903. "And now," the show said, "new sightings have been reported. Has the Van Meter Visitor returned?"

"Sweet," I said to myself as I dunked a chip in some salsa -- a chip I would choke on roughly two seconds later as the announcer returned.

"We begin with a recent sighting in the nearby town... of IOWA CITY."

WAIT, WHAT?  Van Meter is in IOWA? The bat monster is in our backyard? SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

As it turns out, Van Meter IS in Iowa, but it's far from what I'd call "nearby" to Iowa City. It's actually southwest of Des Moines. Van Meter is known for two things: it's the home of baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller, and it's also the home of a 9' winged bat-monster that terrified townsfolk in the fall of 1903. The creature was sighted by several reputable citizens of Van Meter, who did what any reputable citizen would naturally do: they shot it. Repeatedly. Turns out our winged bat buddy is bulletproof. As the old newspaper clippings tell, the creature smelled foul and stalked the citizens of Van Meter for four days, until a posse of townsfolk cornered it in an abandoned coal mine, which they sealed off forever... OR DID THEY?

According to "Expedition X," an Iowa City college student and his girlfriend recently came face to face with a similar monster at a local park -- and he MUST be telling the truth, because he got the monster tattooed on his arm as a permanent reminder of his ghastly encounter. Awesome.

Other than the dude's arm, I've now seen two illustrations of the Van Meter Visitor, and I'm sold. In the first, which I think dates back to the original 1903 news story, it's depicted as a total Game-of-Thrones-style dragon, flying off into the distance WITH A FULLY GROWN HORSE IN ITS MOUTH. In the second, it's depicted as looking kinda like Charizard from Pokemon, but with lasers shooting out of its forehead.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to mention that part? It's a flying bulletproof horse-eating bat monster THAT SHOOTS LASERS FROM ITS SKULL. Not only do we have a cryptid in our 'hood, we might have the best one of all time. Bigfoot can't fly. The Loch Ness Monster isn't bulletproof. Not even Godzilla can shoot laser beams from its skull. Score one for the locals!

"This thing looks like a Pokemon," I texted my friend Jason.

"Maybe Pokemon just exists to desensitize children to the horrors of the world," he replied.

"If so, they did a great job of it," I texted back. "Maybe every time we drive to Iowa City, we're just ignoring the laser dragons flying off with horses."

Driving around rural Iowa for no good reason is, like, my third favorite pasttime. There's barely a back road I haven't been on at some point. I've seen a lot of weird stuff, but you'd think I'd remember a nine foot horse-eating bulletproof laser bat-dragon. Maybe not. Maybe there was a good song on the radio at the time or something.

If you want to hunt the monster yourself, I'd recommend the Van Meter Visitor Festival -- which just happens to be this weekend, and features walking tours, vendors, and cryptid experts from all over the country. Maybe they can figure out a way to trap it in another coal mine. We might not be able to shoot it, but never underestimate Iowan ingenuity - if we put our heads together, I guarantee we can figure out a way to deep fry that sucker and sell it on a stick with a lemon shake-up.

COLUMN: Gen X Crossroads

I need to talk to my fellow Gen-X'ers for a minute.

Never did I think I'd say those words. I've never bought into the stereotypes of the generation gap. The differences are there, I suppose. But I've never considered myself part of the Gen-X club.

I think I stopped maturing in college. I don't care what the calendar, my grey hairs, or my waistline have to say about it. I'm pretty sure my brain still thinks it's 1990, just with WAY worse music and more bills. I still have nightmares that I've overslept for my final exams and haven't studied. There's a good portion of my noggin that steadfastly refuses to believe I'm an adult.

But this week, my age may have caught up to me a little bit. I fear I've entered a Gen-X technological crossroads.

As you may know, for the better part of the past year, our local cable company has been in the world's lamest game of chicken with one of our local TV stations. Contract renewal talks didn't go so well, and as a result, our local ABC affiliate has been "temporarily" dropped from our cable lineup. 

Stand-offs like this aren't uncommon. It's a frequent tactic in contract negotiations between cable companies and affiliate owners. If the two parties hit a brick wall and can't reach an agreement before deadline, the station gets blacked out on the cable line-up. This usually causes immediate public outcry and in short time brings both parties back to the bargaining table until they can hammer out a new deal.

This time, however, I think somebody got lost on the way to the bargaining table. This particular staredown started back in December. I haven't seen a single ABC show yet in 2021, and that's a bummer.

Don't ask me to pick sides, because I won't. Back in January, the owners of our local ABC affiliate claimed the cable company "refused to reach a fair, market-based agreement." Meanwhile, when you call the cable company to complain, you're greeted with a looped recording saying they're "OUTRAGED" by the station "pressuring us to raise the amount of money we collect from hard-working customers like you."

Who's to blame? I have no clue, and I honestly don't care. I just want 'em to put on their big boy pants and hash it out. It's bad enough I willingly hand over a disturbing percentage of my annual income just to watch people play-act on a picture box in my living room. But if I'm going to pay a king's ransom every month, I'd at least like to be able to watch shows like... like... okay, I'm not even sure what's even ON ABC any more, but I bet I could waste some quality time in front of it regardless.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands. We as a society existed for decades without needing cable television. I even have vague memories of what that was like. I needed to go old school. I needed -- rabbit ears.

Here's where I hit the Gen-X crossroads. I feel like our generation may have reached an era where we're too old for new technology, but too young for old technology.

A couple years ago, I got suckered into buying one of those curved flatscreen TVs with 3D capability that was amazing for the two days after I bought it and I'm pretty sure I've never used the 3D mode since. Still, it's a decent TV and has everything I need -- except any kind of obvious plug-in for a set of vintage rabbit ears. And it would be really stupid looking to have this futuristic TV on my wall with a rinky-dink antenna jutting out of it.

Still, I'd put up with a rinky-dink if it meant sticking it to The Man, so the other day, I got up, got dressed, and set off to Radio Shack to buy some rabbit-ears. Until, that is, I realized there are no Radio Shacks left in town. This is sad. Future generations will never know the joy of that stupid yapping robot dog they always had on display, or spending 20 minutes trying to find the right adapters to hook six hi-fi's together in an ill-fated attempt to make a MEGA-STEREO in your friend Mark's basement.

I'm too old for the new school, but too modern for the old school. I don't even know where one buys rabbit ears in a Shack-less society. I ordered a pair online -- and yep, the package got stolen right off the porch. I ordered a second set and had them sent to work, but the doohicky on the end definitely doesn't match the doohicky on the back of my TV. I give up.

So before I get old and feeble and start complaining about the weather making my bones ache: I beg of you, Tegna and Mediacom, sit down and work this out. It's getting old. Until then, I guess I'll have to make do with my other 246 channels and 9 different streaming services. Somehow, some way, I'll figure out a way to perservere. After all, I'm Gen-X -- it's what we do.

COLUMN: The Vast of Night

In a year when you can barely read the headlines without openly grimacing, I've decided it's best to stop wasting blood pressure spikes on hot-button topics our society will never agree on. Instead, I'm trying to direct my ire needlessly onto mundane pet peeves that drive me into silent fury.

I've got a new favorite gripe.

Is there nothing worse than watching a REALLY great movie and wanting to talk to everyone you know about said movie, except none of those people have SEEN said movie? I saw a flick this week that was super cool, but the only other viewers I know who've seen it are my cats, and they didn't seem quite as impressed.

Well, there's one other person who's seen it -- my best friend. He's the one who recommended I watch it. He enjoys weird esoteric indie films that no one's ever heard of. He's into highbrow black-and-white dramatic think-pieces. That's usually not my kind of movie. Watching a two-hour flick where someone slowly succumbs to alcoholism or discusses philosophy over dinner isn't exactly my idea of entertainment. 

I have what you might call "questionable" taste when it comes to movies. I own "From Justin to Kelly" and "Spice World" on DVD. I've sat through every Adam Sandler flick. I can recite full lines of dialogue from "Mega Python vs. Gatoroid." When it comes to cinema, I have little depth.

But my friend told me I would love "The Vast of Night," and he was not wrong.

If you haven't seen it, it's on Amazon Prime and definitely worth a stream. It might be a small-budget indie film, but it's a remarkable directorial debut for filmmaker Andrew Patterson and shoves you head-first into a world you don't want to leave.

That world, specifically, is a small town in 1950's New Mexico. No spoilers, but the whole film happens in real time and involves a late-night radio DJ, a telephone switchboard operator, some amazing cinematography, acting triumphs by a virtually unknown cast -- and maybe a UFO or two.

"The Vast of Night" doesn't just make me yearn to discuss the movie with friends. It makes me want to be in New Mexico -- or at least the New Mexico of the 1950s. And it definitely makes me want to see a UFO, like, right now.

Okay, maybe not RIGHT now. Right now I'm alone in my house. If a UFO came down this very second to say hi, I'd probably pee my pants and have a heart attack. Seeing a UFO by yourself is sheer terror. But if there's one thing movies have taught us, it's that seeing UFOs with friends, especially if you're in a small town, is usually an exciting adventure. That's what I want: a weird light in the sky, maybe a spirited car chase, and a chance to ponder the nature of human existence while staring at the stars with some close friends.

I don't think it's too much to ask for. It's not a stretch to imagine life existing on other planets. The universe is REALLY big. It seems pretty conceited to think we're the only dot in the sky with a tadpole plucky enough to grow legs and step out of the mire. BUT the odds of another planet developing INTELLIGENT life is a tougher pill to swallow, let alone life intelligent enough to develop interstellar space travel. 

If there IS life out there, it's probably going to end up being a planet full of angry space cicadas or something. And even if there's intelligent life out there, they're probably only capable of seeing our sun as a dot in the sky like we see theirs. Maybe somewhere out there, there's a cicada monster lying on his back right now (do cicadas have backs?) staring at the night sky wondering if there's life outside Planet Cicadus and fearful the aliens will be fleshy monsters with only 2 arms, 2 legs, and 2 eyes. 

I don't think I have the steely constitution it would take to actually meet a sentient alien, and I don't know if I'd ever want to. They're probably not friendly. Remember: there's a big difference between an alien inviting you TO dinner and inviting you FOR dinner. I prefer my aliens to be the weird-light-in-the-sky variety, NOT the sharp-fanged, lay-eggs-in-your-belly variety. 

All I know is that it's unfair. I've been on countless moonlit drives in the country on countless gravel roads that would make a SPECTACULAR setting for a close encounter, and the best I've seen are some meteors, a comet or two, and a few lucky glimpes of the International Space Station whizzing overhead at umpteen thousand miles an hour.

So, my alien friends, if you're out there reading this, feel free to do a flyover anytime you fancy. And if you're nice and a vegetarian NOT hungry for my flesh, feel free to stop by. I've got a movie you should TOTALLY check out.