RETRO KIMMER'S BLOG

10.07.2013

KIMMER'S TOP 3 FAVORITE DRACULAS

It's the season we love once more! We love the chill, the colors, the darker days, the spooky shadows, the children anxious to wear their costumes and go door to door for treats, we love it all. HALLOWEEN!

We watch our favorite Halloween movies, we decorate our yards and homes, we buy tons of candy, (eat tons of candy), yes we love this season. In honor of our favorite time of year we would like to show you our top 3 favorite Dracula's!

1. Of course is BELA LUGOSI visit Bela's Official Website it is so fabulous. His life was complicated by type casting and addiction. The Tim Burton's movie Ed Wood aptly depicts his later life.

2. Of course the Terrifying Christopher Lee! A very accomplished actor, he avoided typecasting unlike poor Bela. See his Official Website

3. Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula... A very dapper Dracula dontcha think? He was so scary.. much more than Bela. See the Movie Trailer Here

Amazon.com Widgets

BORIS AND NATASHA DEPORTED!!

Breaking News!!!!

Boris and Natasha are being deported!!!

THE LOVELY WOMEN OF HALLOWEEN

Cassandra Peterson, Elvira's alter ego, was born in Manhattan, Kansas, and raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She remembers always being a fan of Ann-Margret. Since Cassandra saw her in Viva Las Vegas (1964), she wanted to be a dancer. Just days after graduating from high school, Cassandra traveled to Las Vegas where, at the age of 17, she became the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas history.

Film and television appearances such as Cheech & Chong's Next Movie (1980) and others followed, but Cassandra was just the typical struggling actress and spent years wondering where her next meal was coming from. It was the fall of 1981, with the birth of her character, Elvira, that it all changed.

While she has since played herself in many film and television shows, Cassandra Peterson ultimately combines her numerous talents into an intriguing persona which has not only become a Halloween icon but a "vamp" for all seasons.

Elsa Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London, England. Her parents, James Sullivan and Edith Lanchester, were considered Bohemian and refused to legalize their union in any conventional way to satisfy the era's conservative society. Edith's parents even successfully sent her to an asylum for a while, as she refused to wed James even if she wanted to live with him. An older brother, Waldo (b. 1898), completed the family.

As a child, Elsa studied dance in Paris under Isadora Duncan, whom she disliked. When the school was discontinued due to the start of First World War she returned to England.

At that point (she was about twelve years of age) she considered herself capable to teach dancing in the Isadora Duncan style (despite her own scathing remarks about her former teacher's style) and, very enterprisingly, started to give classes to children of her South London neighborhood, with which she earned a welcome bit of extra income in her household.

Vampira

The original glamour ghoul herself, "Vampira," of late-night 50s TV, was actually born Maila Syrjäniemi (later changed to the easier surname Nurmi) on December 11, 1921, in Petsamo, Finland.

Her uncle was the multiple Olympic medal runner Paavo Nurmi. Maila arrived in the United States with her family as a baby and lived a rather nomadic existence at first as her father was a writer who lectured on temperance.

The Addams Family was a big hit and Carolyn Jones received all the fame she had craved. However, the network decided to cancel the show, despite its success, after only two years. Typecast as Morticia but without the income that a few more years would have provided, she found life difficult and roles few.

While acting on the road, she married her voice coach, Herbert S. Greene, a man who was not much liked in the industry, and he persuaded her to retire to Palm Springs, California, where she lost contact with many friends.

Yvonne De Carlo Lilly Munster

The most famous role that led Yvonne DeCarlo to pop culture stardom is of Lily Munster in the cult television series The Munsters (1964-1966). The Munsters allowed De Carlo to demonstrate a comic flair that her films had failed to utilize. She also played Lily in the 1966 feature film Munster, Go Home and the 1981 TV movie The Munsters' Revenge.

IGGY'S LEATHER LEOPARD JACKET

Look at that Leopard Head! - growling from the back of Iggy Pop's Jacket on the Stooges 'Raw Power' album. The jacket was made by John Dove and Molly White in 1971. Iggy Pop - with that vacant sullen stare, immortalised by photographer Mick Rock who created an iconic image that has gone down in Rock 'n' Roll history.

I guess every part of the mix that came together by chance (and by design) on the back of the Stooges slab of absolute Punk Rock, would have it's own tale to tell. If you ever get to read anyone's account of the Raw Power tour in '73, you'll be convinced that Iggy was, in his time, the most outrageous Rock 'n' Roll talent in America.

WONDER WORKSHOP UK

Thanks HH

25 WAYS TO BECOME A WEREWOLF!

Even a man who is pure in heart and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.

In folklore, a werewolf, or occasionally lycanthrope, is a human with the ability to shapeshift into a wolf, either purposely or after being placed under a curse or affliction and especially on the night of a full moon.

Drink water from a wolf's paw-print

Drinking from a stream where three or more wolves have drunk

Commit a sacrilege

Drinking from a cursed stream

Affixing a lycanthropus flower to your clothes

Being born on a New Moon

Being born on Christmas day

Being born on Friday the 13th

Being scratched or clawed by another werewolf

Applying a magic salve to one’s body

Black magic and witchcraft

Inhaling certain potions

Wearing an enchanted belt made of wolf skin/fur, known as a wolf-belt

Applying a magic salve to one’s body

Simply wearing an animal’s pelt

Placing a wolf pelt on one’s body and then drinking beer mixed with blood

Eating the brains of a wolf

Being cursed by a witch or troll

Drinking from a lycanthropous stream

Sleeping on a Friday night under the full moon

Being the seventh son

Being conceived under a new moon

Not going to confession for 10 years

Being gruesomely murdered on a full moon

Being born on a full moon Friday

10.06.2013

DRACULA'S CASTLE BRAN IN TRANSYLVANIA!

Castle Bran or Dracula's Castle

Country: Romania

Built: 1212

DN73, Bran 507025,
Romania
Phone:+40 268 237 700

Haunting: In the heart of old Transylvania, deep in the Carpathian wilderness, is a castle named for a ruler from the 15th century – Vlad III Dracul. After Vlad's father was assassinated and his brother was buried alive, he set out to become more ruthless than anyone in fiction could believably create. He makes pint-sized tyrants like Joffrey Baratheon look like equitable play dates.

It all began at an Easter feast when Vlad asked his nobles how many princes they had survived, insinuating that they conspired against past rulers. The story goes that he arrested all of them. He impaled the older ones and their families and made the younger nobles into slaves for a wave of ambitious improvements to the castle.

All told, Vlad impaled tens of thousands of people, earning the nickname Vlad the Impaler, and the tales get so ridiculous that it is difficult to sift the myths from the truth. In fact, Vlad never actually lived in Castle Bran, though the castle has come to be associated with the "Son of the Dragon."

Bram Stoker’s character, Dracula, is a Transylvanian Count with a castle located high above a valley perched on a rock with a flowing river below in the Principality of Transylvania.

This character is often confused with Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), sometimes known as Vlad Dracul, who was a Walachian Prince with a castle, now in ruins, located in the Principality of Wallachia. Because Bran Castle is the only castle in all of Transylvania that actually fits Bram Stoker’s description of Dracula’s Castle, it is known throughout the world as Dracula’s Castle. Chapter 2, May 5 of “Dracula” describes the Count’s castle as “. . . on the very edge of a terrific precipice . . . with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm [with] silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests.”

The True Story of Dracula

The World's 10 Scariest Haunted Castles

10.05.2013

BREAKING BAD FUN STUFF & EPISODES GUIDE

Jesse and Walt

THE BADDEST LIST OF CHARACTERS EVER

I found this website so addicting! Even though I have watched every BB episode 10 times, I still had questions. Like, what was the teddy bear's eye ball about? I thought the fans would love this site and I made an easy way to click over to it.....click the box below...