Ray's X-Blog

Ray X Sells Out I always said I would sell out if the price was right. After years of printing an adless zine, followed by an ad-free blog, I’ve had enough of poverty. That’s why I am now the official spokesperson for Dr. Cheeseman’s Female Regulating Pills. I will only stand behind a product with a proven track record stretching over 170 years. Dr. C’s miraculous pill were invented in sometime in the 1830s, the exact date lost to history. Hey, if it worked back way back then, why not now? After all, consider all the fringe items that the Food and Drug Administration allows to be sold -- dietary supplements, magnetic soles, whatever -- that also claim relief. Let’s look at an ad from the Plattsburgh Sentinel newspaper, Thursday, April 5, 1866: Dr. Cheeseman's Female Pills Will immediately relieve without pain all disturbances of the Periodic discharge whether arising from relaxation or suppression. They act like a charm in removing the pains that accompany difficult or immoder...

Liar, Liar, Panties On Fire? ITEM: In Japan panties previously worn by schoolgirls are available in vending machines. That factoid was sent to me by Jim Moseley, perpetrator of the zine, Saucer Smear . He said that such a news item was too hot for Smear , a publication known for reproducing artwork depicting a man abducted by crypto-sexy aliens, ET females undressed for the occasion. Well, I’m Ray X, not Ray XXX. But I did investigate the vending machine story because I’m interested in urban legends and objective reality. The article Jim snail mailed me was a printout from snopes.com, a site that is supposed to weed out the crap from the candy when it comes to rumors. But after the Mr. Ed deal, I double-check anything that Snopes passes along. Mr. Ed was the star of a TV show called, appropriately, Mr. Ed . It was a half-hour comedy series about a talking horse and the problems he caused for his owner. This show harks back to the days of black-and-white broadcasts – a detail that ...

Cracker-Barrel UFO Stories Late at night. Sittin’ around the cracker barrel at the general store, swappin’ spooky stories about strange lights and weird critters. I’ve never had the pleasure of sitting in on such a get-together. But I do have a recording of a local radio program that featured such stories contributed by callers. The cassette tape is dated 08/08/06. After haunting my desk for a couple of years, I thought the time had come to write about its contents. Flashback: WIRY 1340-AM, Plattsburgh’s Hometown Radio Station, used to broadcast a weekly program called “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise.” The co-hosts were Bob, a jovial WIRY DJ, and Gail, owner of the Crystal Caboose up there in West Chazy. Gail described the Crystal Caboose as a gift shop, bookstore, music shop and community meeting place all rolled into one. I’m guessing that one could find the right crystal for aura-tuning at her metaphysical resource center. Each week Gail and Bob would discuss a particular New Age...

Word Twisting Is Mind Bending Followers of Yahweh ben Yahweh know this to be true: the events described in the New Testament didn’t happen around 1900 years ago – they occurred in modern times. The word “new” means refers to something or someone who never existed. If you watch the TV program, The Universe of Yahweh ben Yahweh , you will learn that YbY is the Messiah, that his “judicial crucifixion” was predicted in the New Testament. In her book, Kooks , author Donna Kossy describes many different leaders and thinkers on the fringe. Spotlighted in the chapter Black Messiahs , the rise and fall of Yahweh ben Yahweh (AKA Hulon Mitchell, Jr.) from the late 1970s up to 1995 is detailed. His religious following grew into a financial empire with motels, food markets, and other real estate holdings in the Miami area. While such success exuded positive vibes, there was dark side to the Nation of Yahweh. The Messiah and some of his followers were charged with extortion and even murder. Wh...

Of Phlogiston and Aether, Cabbages and Kings Why does wood burn? Simple. It’s rich in phlogiston, that alchemical sulfurous spirit. Ashes are left behind when all of the phlogiston has been used up. Or scientific thinkers used to believe back in the 1700s. In his book, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (2008), New York Times science writer George Johnson shows how some scientific theories held sway until researchers empirically proved they were bunk. Through his experiments Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier provided evidence in 1777 to the Academy of Science that oxygen, not phlogiston, made things burn. Before he left the scene he introduced the concept of an invisible substance called caloric, a subtle fluid that acted as the carrier of heat. But James Joule disproved that idea during a presentation at Oxford in 1847. He demonstrated that energy, not caloric, was the force behind a horse pulling a wagon or a steam engine pushing a piston. Another concept that bit the dust was aether. ...