Tune out and TUNE IN!

 

It might be the end of the world as we know it - with hostile aliens from outer space coming to vaporize us - but at least there's STILL a few things to look forward to before we meet our inevitable demise... 

 

...one of them being my dear friend Terry and his Seventies Show on

RADIO SOUTHLAND

So tune out (of your current worries) and TUNE IN to Terry!

 

Terry Toner & me...

- - -

 

Joey's For The Birds

Woodbury Public Library Presents

CLASSIC MOVIE NIGHT

with Joey Vento of the Haunted Barn Museum

Now Playing...

 

Thursday, October 9, 2025

Woodbury Senior Center - all abilities welcome - Movie concessions will be served.

Doors open at 5:30 - Film Starts at 6 pm

Please note: Pre-registration required.

Register online at woodburypubliclibrary.org or call 845-928-6162.

Please note that this film is not appropriate for children under the age of 13.

- - -

Scam Jam - Career Boy

 

Lloyd's boys show you how it's done!... 

Check out

Scam Jam by Career Boy

 

- - -

Why does AI create horrifying distortions?

(as explained by.... AI)

AI generates horrifying distortions

primarily because it lacks a human-like understanding of reality

. Instead of comprehending objects, proportions, and context, AI models identify mathematical patterns in their training data. When this process fails, the results can fall into the "uncanny valley," where an image is almost—but not quite—realistic, making it unsettling to human observers. 

The underlying causes of horrifying distortions

Flaws in training data

• Incomplete or biased datasets: AI models are trained on massive datasets of internet images, but these sets are rarely perfect. If the data lacks diverse examples of human anatomy, the AI will fail to generate realistic images. For example, censoring images with nudity can prevent an AI from accurately learning human anatomy, leading to distortions.
• Low-quality or filtered data: If the training data includes low-resolution, filtered, or altered images, the AI can produce results that are over-processed and unnatural-looking. 

Misinterpretation of concepts

• Pattern, not meaning: An AI sees an image as a collection of pixels and mathematical patterns, not a cohesive scene with a narrative. It doesn't know that a human has five fingers or that eyes must be symmetrical. It simply predicts the next pixel based on what it has seen before, leading to misshapen hands, mismatched eyes, and other unsettling features.
• Balancing realism and abstraction: Human artists can choose when to abstract or simplify features, but AI models may struggle with this balance. When generating a human form, an AI might focus excessively on one detail, like skin texture, while distorting the overall structure because it lacks a clear sense of priorities. 

Technical limitations

• Challenges with complexity: The human body is one of the most complex things for an AI to render correctly. The intricate anatomical structures, subtle movements, and nuanced details of hands and faces are areas where generative models often fail.
• Aspect ratio problems: Many image-generation models are trained on square images. When asked to create an image with a different aspect ratio, like widescreen, the AI may warp or duplicate elements to fill the extra space, resulting in surreal and distorted effects.
• Overfitting: If a model is overtrained on a limited dataset, it can become too focused on specific patterns. When generating human images, this can lead to exaggerated or distorted features that are not physically possible. 

Why this creates the "uncanny valley" effect

Our brains are exceptionally good at recognizing human forms, and we are instinctively repulsed by anything that is "almost" human but has minor, unsettling flaws. AI distortions often hit this uncanny valley directly by creating imperfections in the features our brains are most attuned to, such as: 

• Eyes: Subtle flaws in reflections, shape, or symmetry can make eyes look "off" or dead.
• Hands and teeth: The complex anatomy of hands and the symmetry of teeth are areas where AI frequently makes mistakes, adding too many fingers or misplacing teeth.
• Proportions: Unnatural body proportions, extra limbs, or features in the wrong place are common AI errors that trigger an instinctive sense of wrongness. 

- - - 

...Only 30 cents a day...

 

What started here...

...is continuing HERE...

Oh good lord... HURRY!!!!

- - - 

Out Of Bodies "Window Pain" nominated for 2025 Golden Kayak Award

This past July someone pointed out that one of our songs, Window Pain, was being nominated on indiemusicpeople.com for something called the 2025 Golden Kayak Award, in the Alternative category... which as they put it, represents the journey of the indie, one artist, navigating down the river towards destiny.

My first reaction was... HUHHH?? Followed by the apologetic self-depreciating thought "well, it's not really a very good song... I mean, it's one of our throw-aways... and last I looked it's not even included on our website, not even on the EXTRAS page..."

But I digress... it DOES feature an actual audio recording of a Sigmund Freud lecture on psychosis - THAT has to count for something, no? No, I guess it doesn't. Not when in reality it was only added in an attempt to make the recording seem a lot deeper than it was - as if the play on words, changing Window PANE to Window PAIN wasn't heavy-handed enough. Am I being too hard on the song? No, it's quite all right. I can knock it because I wrote it. I KNEW it was awful then... it's no less awful now. Look at Sigmund's face... even HE knows it's an awful song...

 

But then again - SOMEONE nominated it - - and it certainly wasn't me or anyone I know. Slow day at Indie Music People? Why do I ponder such things? What's wrong with me?... Why can't I just accept a compliment?... or several compliments... maybe Sigmund would know the answers to that.

WINDOW PAIN

 

There's Gold In Them Thar Hills

Our ol friends 'Out of Bodies' return to the site, got that British Invasion/by way of Hell's Kitchen?, intriguin' voice-over on an emotive vocal that recalls The Bee Gees or maybe Herman's hermits, or Manfred Mann, remember them?, a soulful 2 minute ditty, recalls "N.Y. Mining Disaster, 1941" a bit here or there, kudos... 

Moody, Cool, Psychotic, and Mesmerizing

Psychotic and Mesmerizing...ly Cool!

I Like Strange

Psychotic and Mesmerizing...ly Cool!

 

Funny/Funnier

 How a random funny Out Of Bodies shot

became an even FUNNIER Out Of Bodies shot...

the original pic - Joey and Donald just being silly...

and then that became this!!

by Joey

(Lettering by Diane)

- - - 

Butterscotch The Clown won't eat your kids...

Conan O'Brien clips featuring Butterscotch The Clown...

because everyone LOVES clowns...

(don't they?)

 

- - - 

The Oogah Boogah Song?

 ....and to think for all these years I thought this was Dan's song....

 Don't You Just Know It - Huey (Piano) Smith & The Clowns

 

and here's Dan's version...

 Oogah Boogah Song

 

- - -

The Seventies Show

 

This week on the Seventies Show -

a nod to the passing of Brian Wilson and a
collection of the "soft" sounds of the Seventies (Blokes Edition)

Hosted by Terry Toner

RADIO SOUTHLAND

Terry Toner & me...

- - - 

Auditioning for the band

 Herman and Grampa auditioning for the Out Of Bodies...

Thanks, Dan!

Welcome!

 A nice little pic to welcome all to the OOB site...

Charlie's Cha Cha Chimp

This is one of those little ditties we grew up with, Lloyd and I - - and if I were to look long enough through an endless collection of unmarked cassette tapes I own (somewhere), I'd probably find a recording of us two SINGING this (eventually)...

Charlie tried to teach
his chimpanzee to cha cha cha
to give his chubby chum a chance to dance....

but the chimp would rather munch (cha cha)
another bunch of lunch (cha cha)
than cha cha cheek to cheek
with Charlie's chaps.... (cha cha cha)

Full disclosure, that last line actually goes "than cha cha cheek to cheek with Charlie's aunts" but Lloyd and I IMPROVED it, following closely with the "CH" theme - at least that's OUR opinion.

Been wondering about this animated oddity for years - google searches would lead only to lyrics and some scarce information about it's PBS Electric Company origins, but never a video - until one day I inquired about it on a FaceBook Pop Culture Memories page and someone mentioned "the animation was by Bruce Cayard who did several cartoons for Electric Company and Sesame Street" and another guy offered a link which led to a video - although it wasn't YouTube, and the page it was buggy to say the least - which would probably contribute to it's evasiveness. So before it leaped back into it's rabbit hole I made a copy - and here it is - for now...

Cha Cha while you can...

- - - 

Living Dead at the Monroeville Mall

No, that's not the title of an upcoming unreleased George Romero zombie flick - - but an actual EVENT that took place this past weekend in the Monroeville Mall in Pennsylvania (who anyone worth their salt knows, was the filming location of George Romero's Dawn Of The Dead in 1978 - as well as the location of the Living Dead Museum)... 

Living Dead Merch, celebrity appearances, movie location tours, cosplay and vendors, a VIP party, collectibles and art, exhibits and panels, movie screenings and...

The Housedress Ghoul!

Sharon Carroll, "The Housedress Ghoul"
greets Living Dead Weekend attendees.

Recently featured in the Pittsburgh City Paper, Rachael Narins (daughter of The Housedress Ghoul) remembers back in the hazy 80s, when she was a mere 10 years old...

"My mother roused me and my brother from our beds and tucked us under a blanket on the couch to watch Night of the Living Dead." She recalls this was her first introduction to NOTLD, expecting the black and white movie to be CAMPY... but it was anything but... it was outright terrifying. The scariest part? For young Rachael it was the moment mommy hit the pause button and pointed to one of the ghouls and exclaimed...

"That's MOMMY!"

"She grinned. I screamed. ...I can laugh about it NOW..."

 

"My mother was a teenage zombie... or more accurately, she played a flesh-eating, undead ghoul (they never referred to them as zombies in the movie) in Pittsburgh's most famous movie. It wasn't until 2024 though that anyone outside of our family knew the name of the specter of a woman referred to by fans as "The Housedress Ghoul".

Over the decades, as with any popular film or TV show, dedicated fans have searched for and consumed any and all information they could find about NOTLD. For the casual viewer to the superfan, there's lots out there about this movie that was shot in less than 30 days. Documentaries have been made, and there are conferences put on around the country to bring together people who appreciate the work of director George Romero and his franchise of movies.

"John Vullo of New York, who works with the original film production company, Image Ten, has spent years tracking down every person related to the film, even down to extras like my mom. The challenge is interesting, Start with an incomplete list of background actors, and scan scenes of them roaming in a graveyard, but without many ways to put names to faces the quest becomes more difficult when trying to track down women since many of them have different names now."

 

 

"It was the film's credits that led my mom, now Sharon Brunch Rapone (Sharon Carroll at the time the movie was filmed) to the convention. Her former full name was all they had to go on.

Sharon is a retired senior who lives a quiet life. She swims every day and enjoys reading and painting. She no longer lives in Pittsburgh but misses it. It's a city she is grateful to have grown up in."

 

 

Vullo tracked her and other extras through serious sleuthing. Like many women her age, she doesn't have an online presence, so finding her was a challenge. Vullo searched through records, found obituaries, connected her maiden name to her current married name, requested documents, and kept searching.

Less than three weeks before the big convention in Pittsburgh, to her surprise, Sharon got a call from Image Ten asking if she wanted to appear as a guest. She didn't even know anyone was looking for her, but it made her smile. A polite stranger asked if she had at one time been Sharon Carroll and if she had been in the movie. She spent some time trying to decide if it was a scam. She replied saying that attending a nostalgic convention wasn't really for her, but after some thought, she asked for a few accommodations that were graciously met - and off she went on a new adventure.

 

 

One of the film's producers, Russ Streiner, (who also played Johnny, Barbera's brother who famously says "They're coming to get you, Barbara!!") tells Pittsburgh City Paper that he vaguely recalls Sharon was a friend of his ex-wife, but little more. Indeed, in 1967, while studying and working at Pitt, Sharon became friends with Jackie Steiner, wife of Russ, who lived in the same apartment building. One day Jackie asked if Sharon was busy and if she wanted to be in a movie. To Sharon, it seemed like a fun time. She was told to bring her own wardrobe, and for the first day of shooting, picked out what became known as the "housedress" and spent two days filming.

 

 

"That was it" says Rachael, "She had no aspirations of being an actress, and she wasn't there for the money - since she got $25 total, about $225 by today's standards. She was there because, why not? She was young and thought it sounded like an amusing way to pass the time. During that weekend, one of the actors, Karl Hardman, (who played Harry Cooper - the father of the family that hides in the basement) took out his camera to document the goings-on. Fortunately for the world, but not so great for Sharon, those now famous copyrighted images that included her have been used on dozens of products without her knowledge - everything from t-shirts to a VHS release of the movie, to the Konami game Zombies Ate My Neighbors, and a Living Dead themed board game."

 

 

"Arriving at the conference my mom was utterly charmed that people lined up to get a signed photo and take pictures with her. She was bemused that people had flown from as far as Texas and Tennessee just to give her a hug. (I can attest, it's a fantastic hug.) She posed and smiled, and was so grateful when someone conjured a slice of Mineo's pizza. "Best pizza I've had in a decade," she said. The bonus was that she not only spent the day meeting a whole litany of fans, but she made more in the first hour than she made for two days of work on the movie. Worth it."

 

She gets a giggle out of the whole situation. "I feel like I met family - EVERYONE was so nice to me!"

Now, she is part of the fold, and looking forward to getting more involved in future events.

- - - 

Acknowledgments to
The Pittsburgh City Paper

and Joey Vento 

- - -

Beloved local ambassador to NOTLD Ella Mae Smith passes away at age 93

Ella Mae Smith, who played one of the flesh-eating ghouls in George Romero's 1968 horror classic Night Of The Living Dead has passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

A lifelong resident of Evans City PA, she and her husband, Philip, lived in a home right in front of the farmhouse where the movie was filmed. They were sitting in their front yard one day when a car pulled up and asked them if they wanted to be in a movie. Ella Mae persuaded Philip and they both appeared as ghouls. Little did they know at the time that they were participating in the creation of one of the greatest and most recognizable horror films of all time.

 

40 years after her lone acting role, Smith was interviewed in the documentary One for the Fire: The Legacy of Night of the Living Dead. She also appeared in the doc Autopsy of the Dead and the featurette Walking Like the Dead.

The official Night of the Living Dead FaceBook page wrote "for at least the past 20 years Ella Mae Smith has been the beloved local ambassador to Night of the Living Dead, always making time to meet with visiting fans and escort them around her property and the adjacent filming location where the farmhouse originally stood."

 

 

"You wouldn't believe how many people stop here at my house and ask me where this movie was made. And I tell them, and I tell them I was in it and everything, and we have lots of fun about it," Smith said in One for the Fire. "I didn't make much money, but I had a million dollars worth of fun out of this movie."

 

 

 

 

Haunted Barn Museum proprietor and fellow Out Of Bodies member, Joey Vento, shares his memories and pictures... 

 

 

 

"...We used to visit Ella Mae Smith each time we were in Evans City. This is the day we took her out for ice cream. She was a dear, sweet lady who would tell us such great stories - not only about her Night of the Living Dead days, but local stuff - about EC in the 50s.

 

 

 

Right before this, she had sent us a letter and photo, inviting us down and we always had a place to take a break while visiting a convention down there or something. She would always make us tea and share MORE stories.

 

One visit, she took down, out of a closet, a box full of the derma-wax that was used on her husband Phil's hand in the movie. Her daughter had saved it, and used it in a school composition she did called "My Mother and Father were in Night of the Living Dead". At a screening I went to of NOTLD Ella was in the audience and yelled "that's MY MAILBOX" during the scene when the posse is forming... right in front of her home in the movie!

 

Oh, the stories... One really great one is when she told us that right before they burned the famous farmhouse (which was right down the road from her house) the dummies used as static ghouls were still in the house, propped up - sitting on the sofa and chairs - and they frightened the heck out of the local kids who were curious enough to peek inside through the windows!!

 

 

Ella kept them coming!! We will never forget her kindness to many fans and travelers, like us. Rest in Peace Ella and Phil!"

 

 

 - - - 

 

Special thanks to Joey for contributing memories and pics

- - - 

POP goes the weasel!

There's something hilarious about the fact that when we'd send home-made DVDs to each other in the mail that we'd have to put a "NO BUDD" promise on the packaging!!...

Happy 73rd Birthday Svengoolie!!

Happy 73rd birthday to actor and broadcaster Rich Koz! Koz, best known for his portrayal of horror-movie host Svengoolie (originally “Son of Svengoolie”), was born on March 12, 1952 in Park Ridge, Illinois. Check out this piece on Koz and the Son of Svengoolie that aired on PM Magazine Chicago in 1981!

 

- - -

Just some random OOB pics on a rainy day

Hello friends... just a few random Out Of Bodies pics I found on a yucky rainy day...

Out Of Bodies brothers - Dan, Joe and Donald

a couple of Dan doodles... Ringo...

...and Curious George

 

Charlie's always watching...

 

For Joey...

Mark

That time Lloyd met Frank Oz (and Grover)

 

Joey, Donald and a fan

So clucking stupid...

In case you've been spending the last 10 years tossing and turning at night wondering about that damn chicken in the Tic Tac Toe arcade game and how it would manage to beat you... every... single... time...

...wonder no more... we have an update. Go ahead... click it...

CLICK IT!!!

Goofy Goggles

 ............just because.