"Why must you always dwell on the positive?" the letter read. "Every week I check this site only to be inundated with light-hearted stories about some great new band or artsy digital photographs taken by some supposably hip twenty something. Why not tell both sides of the story for a change? I want a dash of disaster and disappointment to go along with all the happy stuff. This is America, in case you've forgotten."
This woman's words cut me to the quick. Have I consciouly been trying to shield my audience from the darker aspects of life by creating a blog where no pain or sorrow exist?
I've learned in my many years of blogging to shrug off criticism, but perhaps she had a point. I decided to adhere to the ancient blogging adage and give the people what they want.
I didn't find it hard to come up with a few unpleasant topics to write about, but I also didn't want to regale readers with all the standard blogospheric laments ("moving sucks," "quitting smoking is hard," "i haven't had my coffee this morning," "my first-born child was born with bat wings", et cetera). I needed something else. Something exciting. Something exclusive.
To get the story I was looking for I had to tap my brother, crack reporter/photographer Deez Wetzel. In the spring of 2006, while driving back from an all-night recording session at Bell Labs in Norman, Oklahoma, Young Deezy and his bandmates came across a roadside scene they would not soon forget.
In just 30 seconds and a few quick snaps of the shutter, David captured the surreal images and haunting impressions you will read below. Lucubrations.net would like to thank Young Deez for sharing this troubling experience, told in his own words.
April 24, 2006: While driving home on I-35 just south of Guthrie, OK, traffic slowed to a crawl. In the distance emergency lights flashed and a fire reaching great heights was plainly visible. What exactly was burning was not clear. As emergency vehicles sped past us on the shoulder, we waited for nearly an hour in standstill traffic watching white smoke billow on the horizon. When we finally started moving, we edged forward past the accident and realized that this was no ordinary car fire.
The Hampton umbrella ride appeared to be OK.
More confusion ahead.
The first visible casualty: an orange monkey. We were told that CPR failed, and that he had flown 400 feet to his final resting place.
More animals laying dead or motionless. Among them, an extremely rare rainbow monkey and several of his friends. It was becoming obvious that this must have been some sort of caravaning circus/carnival. What else could explain the three-legged man on the right? We were still clueless about what might have caused the fire, but decided not to rule out cigarettes.
Smiling dragons, obviously grateful that they weren't riding in back of the yellow truck.
You've heard of the ship of state. Well, this is the semi. These colors may not run, but they do char worse than a burnt bratwurst. At this point, we realized that this was no accident. It could only be international terrorism, striking a devastating blow in the heartland by laying waste to an innocent carnie convoy. As the true embodiment of American freedom at its most free, carnies are the ultimate enemy of terrorists.
These giant green suspiciously unharmed aliens are definitely suspect. Perhaps they are -- or are harboring -- terrorists. Best to arrest them all and ask questions later.
Even well over a year after the incident took place, DWetz still recalls the incident with a shudder.
"After waiting for so long in traffic, drifting in and out of sleep, the whole experience took on mythic proportions for us," Wetzel said. "I'm not gonna say Oliver Stone type proportions, but it was pretty strange to imagine how not only the leading truck but several other following vehicles got so messed up. I only wish I would've had more time to photographically assess the damage."
Even stranger to Deez was the complete absence of the catastrophe from local news reports. He scoured local papers and Web sites for days afterwards but found no mention of what he'd seen.
On one hand, I can understand why the media would choose not to cover such a story. A highway littered with crashed semis, dead rainbow monkeys and terrorist-smuggling aliens is pretty heavy shit. On the other hand, the urgency with which police ushered by passing cars suggests that perhaps the story was intentionally suppressed. No one can say for certain, at least not without assuming a certain amount of risk.
There may indeed be stories out there too macabre for the mainstream media and too sensitive for Uncle Sam, but rest assured that you will still find these stories at www.lucubrations.net, your chief source for doom and gloom in the AMerican Midwest.
