Wednesday, April 30, 2014

IS ACCURACY IMPORTANT?

by Chris Chaos

(A short essay concerning accuracy and consistency in the medical field)

I find it ironic that a few years ago I was "properly" trained and qualified to dispense medication to "people that need them"...and the company emphasized the importance of accuracy, precision and that mistakes could lose or damage a life......when I received my medical certificate, my name was misspelled. Some say grammar and medicine are unrelated and it is no big deal...I say not, if you mix up two like sounding medications...that could spell disaster.

Let me elaborate: A few years back, I took a position and medical training that would assist me in the production of the book and video series entitled "CURSED: An Explanation of the Unknown". The position was working with people that sustained brain injuries and could not function to capacity, prisoners, sex abuse victims, the homeless and others that did not function with a "normal" cognitive/mental capacity. During this stint, I learned vastly about the medical field and how the inside operations work in correlation to medical grade drugs and pharmaceuticals. Bottom line, it is a huge money maker for the companies involved and the doctors that accept the kickbacks and push unnecessary drugs onto a public that they see as cash cows.


Many of the people that I was dispensing medication to have become some what of a functional zombie due to being over medicated. Usually they would be taking a med for one issue and that would have side effects, so they took a secondary drug to combat the side effect of the initial drug, now that drug had additional side effects and then a 3rd and 4th drug were introduced to deal with the new added side effects. Some of the patients were popping upwards of 30-40 pills in a session just to deal with one initial health issue and all the side effects caused by the additional meds. When all in all, half the meds that deal with mental health were really not having any sort of positive effect in the first place, but that is a seperate issue.

Back to the original issue at hand, accuracy in the medical field. My name misspelled on a medical diploma is not life threatening, but the wrong name of a patient or a medical drug on a label could mean the difference between life and death. If Drug A was meant for Patient A and there was a mix up and patient B received this drug, there could be dire consequences.
   
So with the teachings of accuracy and precision, I would have liked to add in "consistency". To also be consistent with the accuracy and precision.

(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey.  He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, has a black cat named Jynx, two rats: Hopping Heather and Climbing Carol, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings. Chris can be reached at: Axisvideo@aol.com)

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

The Origin and Background of CURSED: An Explanation of the Unknown

by Chris Chaos

Over the last few years I have been working on some various projects (video, written, books, etc) concerning supposedly haunted, lore, abandoned and locations of a historical note. The research has been recorded into a series entitled CURSED: An Explanation of the Unknown, which currently has three books released and various accompanying videos. In the coming years we will also convert the information and content contained in the various Cursed books into a movie and encyclopedia form.

The Purgatory House (Burned down in 2011)

A few years ago it was decided to produce a documentary and an accompanying book entitled “CURSED: An Explanation of the Unknown”, it is to be an exploration and documentation concerning abandoned buildings, the investigation of supposed haunted locations, preservation of history, lore and documenting architectural wonders.

The first inspiration for this series was an exploration into the "cursed" section of Haddon Heights, New Jersey. This location served jumping point for a few unsolved murders from many years ago near Haddon Lake. Such as, an attempted suicide where a man drove his car 100 mph into a McDonald's killing several of the workers, a tree that a number of people hung themselves from and home to where a transsexual accused of molesting neighborhood children had a shoot-out with the police when they came to serve a warrant.

Cursed Haddon Lake

After much research, the CURSED project branched off into other locations that were in danger of being torn down and lost to modern memory that were shrouded in some sort of dark past. While researching and documenting, we visited hundreds of locations in the NJ and PA area examining the history and documenting through video, photo and drafting reports. Looking back, many of the buildings/structures have been torn down or vandalized beyond recognition since then and something else was built in its place. We hope their legends can live on and preserved through CURSED: An Explanation of the Unknown.

Essex County

Some of the locations that we investigated were abandoned mental facilities, prisons, schools and hospitals or just simply an area that something "bad" happened there. One thing that was noticed about many of the popular ghost hunting shows were that the cast were lacking credibility, experience and knowledge on the backgrounds of the “ghosts” they were talking to...most of these supposed ghosts were former mental patients or criminals..the celebrity ghost hunters also had no real world experience in dealing with these “former people” (or people in general for that matter). A few years ago, I wished to expand my talents into the psychological field so I took a position with V.O.A. and Bancroft which deals with the criminally insane, people with brain/mental disorders, T.B.I., victims of crimes, atrocities and the like. With the training they provided and more exposure to the living people contrasted to and bled over into these abandoned buildings where I might encounter their ghostly counter parts. Learning how to talk, counsel and associate with these people in a real life experience gave the edge to interact with any specters that may be encountered in our expeditions. Knowing how to talk to these possible ghosts may put them at ease and make a bridge for an open dialogue.

The project has evolved tremendously since we first set out and has grown in scope exponential. We hope these stories will inspire others to document locations in their area and may help people preserve the history associated with them.

Please be respectful of the locations. Leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but photographs.


Chris Chaos in front of Lambertville School

To purchase the Cursed books:
Cursed: An Explanation of the Unknown

Cursed: Revisited

Cursed III
(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey.  He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, has a black cat named Jynx, two rats: Hopping Heather and Climbing Carol, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings.) 

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

BACKYARD HOOLIGANS, Fighting and Wrestling

by Chris Chaos 

Back in the early 2000's I was in between film projects and looking for the next project to work on. So my business partner and myself put our heads together to think of what project to take on next. After running several ideas, we came up with a fighting themed video, a hybrid documentary/action that featured people fighting. Now we both hated wrestling and the mentality of the people that watched it, but we could tolerate UFC and other real outlets featuring two people fighting.

So we took to the internet in search of people that wished to star in our next action packed film. We really didn't have much of a direction in mind, so we went with the flow and shot gunned our ads in search of participants. One of our first responses was from a wrestling crew in the Mullica Hill, NJ area. They stated they had their own Backyard Wrestling federation, that they used weapons, had a professional ring in their backyard, assured us that all was real and they called themselves the ACW (Anarchy Championship Wrestling).


This all seemed too good to be true since the response was very quick and the information that they supplied sounded great for what we needed. Then came the kicker, they stated they were located on Breakneck Road..hmm, they bash skulls on Breakneck Road, did we just get scammed? So we quickly did a Google search and it came up as a real road in Mullica Hill, New Jersey. The history concerning the name of the road stated that it was historically a dangerous road where many people lost their lives in various car accidents.

I was still hesitant since it all seemed too good to be true. But we set off to see if this was all going to happen. We drove to the area and saw many ritzy houses and wonder who would tolerate this activity in their neighborhood. We reached the address and it looked like an old farm with a shack and several rundown vehicles sitting there. It looked to be a scene straight out of a WWE meeting in Alabama. The ring was there, so we know we had the right location.

We exited our cars and introduced ourselves as we see two people battling it out in the ring. After a few minutes they made their way over to us and introduced themselves as Reaper and Destruction. They then jump into a few matches so that we can film them. The day ends and we agree to meet up again in the future with some themed matches.

That night, after the matches, we brainstormed some crazy matches for them to compete in for our next round of filming. One we dubbed "The Outhouse Match" since they had an actual bonafide nasty outhouse with double portholes on their property. The rules were simple, battle it out and the loser gets their head dunked into the nastiness that lurks below. The aftermath and the stink was unbearable when the loser's head made contact with the poo, it actually made several people throw up. Then Pa came out all mad that his wooden throne was desecrated.

The second match was entitled, "The Breakfast Club". During the match we threw eggs at them and the loser was doused with a gallon of sticky syrup and then covered with feathers from a down pillow. Note that it was summer and bees were in full force. It made for an interesting variable.

The third match was called, "Fish Fight". We purchased the largest fish from the store and left it outside in the heat overnight to gain a real stink. While trying to figure out how to get the fish to stick to the fighters hands. as we didn't wish to touch it ourselves, so we made Reaper give the other wrestler a pep talk while duct taping the fish to his hands. Each time the fighters tried to punch each other, pieces of the fish would fly everywhere. As you can imagine and know, fish smells bad to begin with, just picture a fish after sitting in the sun all day and then brutally smashed into someones face. Yeah.

For the rest of the matches you will have to purchase the DVD:

Breakneck Wrestling

Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey.  He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, has a black cat named Jynx, two rats: Hopping Heather and Climbing Carol, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

The Adventures of the Parasite #1

By Chris Chaos

Parasite: an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense.

Here is a fun little story concerning the sad mentality and lack of ambition by America's youth and approaching middle age population. Where are your priorities?



The Parasite had a wonderful night sitting up and arguing his point on many hot topics with the population of the internet, he felt victorious since he outlasted his competition. The Man had to go to bed and leave the conversation since he had to wake up early to go to work. The Parasite has no job so he was able to stay up all night and prove his point.

The Parasite was all gung ho about the pending move to raise the minimum wage despite the fact that he has no job to begin with. All his bills and obligations are covered by his parents as he lives in his parents basement.

In the argument the night before, The Man was talking about educating yourself so that you can secure a good paying job in this down turned economy. The Parasite stated that he has no money to begin with and cannot afford college or secondary schooling. You see, The Parasite is an expert in creating excuses (and self inflicted Learned Helplessness) to explain how he has been wronged and was limited in his choices.

In between arguing with The Man, The Parasite was trying to decide how he was getting to Gamestop so he could purchase the new game coming out in the AM. But he could not decide if he wanted the game for PS4, Wii or the XBox.

The Parasite is in his 30's, lives in his parents basement and plays video games all day. All The Parasites money goes towards purchasing video games and going to the movies. The Parasite always brags that he owned just about all the video games ever released since the the Atari 2600. His greatest accomplishment in life is beating and completing all the games that he plays.

Now if The Parasite would have used that money for higher learning, then maybe he wouldn't be a leech and sponge off of his parents.

You can observe some people and immediately tell they will only gain two certificates during their lifetime...a birth and a death certificate.

(Chris Chaos is a long time resident of South Jersey who once again resides in and writes from Gloucester City, New Jersey.  He is a filmmaker, a business owner, writer, urban explorer and investigator of the odd and weird, has a black cat named Jynx, two rats: Hopping Heather and Climbing Carol, a proud parent, happily taken and a connoisseur of hot wings.)