Highlights from March's SWS

Sadly, one of the great "only in Los Angeles" landmarks (a bar plastered with minuscule residual checks) has been converted into yet another fake Irish pub, but even still it seemed appropriate to have our St. Patrick's Day celebration there, and thank you all who came out for this event.

Although GHOULA was able to confirm that this bar does have a ghost story (from an overheard telephone conversation between a bartender and the bar's owner), and the unusual location of the haunting was confirmed (the crawl space above the storage room), the exact details of the haunting were never confirmed.

The bartender told us to talk to the owner about the ghost. The owner didn't want to talk about it, and suggested that we talk to the former owner. After several failed attempts at meeting the former owner, we still don't have the story.

With such a wild goose chase, GHOULA would normally reject this venue as haunted, if it weren't for the initial overheard conversation, which involved the bartender (away from the bar) asking the owner if the place was haunted, and then recoiling from the stories told to her over the other end. It's seems unlikely that the staff would stage such an incident in the chance that it would drum up business, especially considering every one's unwillingness to talk about it after being approached.

This just goes to show, that every restaurant/bar/business handles their ghost lore differently, and why for the most part our group does not announce to the venue that we will be coming. You never know what kind of reaction you are going to get.

(for more info on this haunted location...)

March's SPIRITS with SPIRITS

GHOULA meets for cocktails in haunted places on the 13th of each month. “SPIRITS with SPIRITS” is a casual gathering of regional ghost hunters and those that just like ghost stories. Open to all, from the curious skeptic to the passionate phantom pursuer. Make friends, and toast a ghost! Let's put the “Boo!” back into “booze.”

All those who attend will receive a free (square) G.H.O.U.L.A. button. If you already have one, please wear it so others can find you.

THE DATE: March 13th, 2011 (Sunday "Bloody" Sunday)

THE PLACE: Maeve's Residuals
11042 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City (map)

THE TIME: 8:00pm to Midnight

THE GHOST:

On March 13th, exactly twenty-five years ago this Sunday, "Residuals," a little bar catering to local actors opened its doors for business in Studio City. In the last 4 years, Maeve purchased the bar and gave it an Irish Pub atmosphere, and made it a destination for fans of the mixological arts, particularly on Sundays when gourmet "Bloody Marys" ("the best in the San Fernando Valley") are served for their "Sunday Bloody Sunday" celebration.

Like most neighborhood bars in the San Fernando Valley, it is a dark cave-like environment stuck in the middle of a sunny roadside strip mall. However, supernaturally speaking, there are many things that make this tavern special.

First, Residuals was built (and billed) as an "actor's hang-out." As such, many depressed, rejected, out-of-work, and down-on-their-luck actors have passed though it's doors and wallowed in their misery at this site, which are wonderful ingredients for a great haunted location. The name "Residuals" comes from the term for the reduced payments actors get when their work is rerun on television. Sometimes the checks mailed to them were less than the postage on the envelope. There was a time when one could give the bartender a residual check (valued less than a dollar) and receive a free well drink in exchange. As a result, the walls quickly became plastered with studio checks for minuscule amounts, as the actors themselves got "plastered." Although, these sad souvenirs of the acting profession were removed recently, some can still be seen on the walls of the restroom.

Secondly, Residuals is in the shadow of (and walking distance from) two famously haunted/historic studio lots. To the East, Universal (home to all the famous monsters of filmdom) and to the west, the old Mack Sennett Studios (now known as CBS Studio Center). Is there a better place for a haunted actor's bar to be located than in between these two vortexs of entertainment industry paranormal activity?

Thirdly, the land Residuals sits on top of has history and was part of the original alignment of the old "El Camino Royal," California's first road, dating back hundreds of years to when the Native Americans used this footpath to travel between tribes throughout the state. Later the Spanish Missionaries used it to connect their Missions. Eventually, it was paved over with the invention of the automobile, and this section is known today as Ventura Blvd. Needless to say, many hardships occurred on this well-worn trail thru the decades, and much of it is said to be haunted.

Lastly, the name "Residuals" is also coincidentally a ghost-hunting term for latent (non-intelligent) spirit energy left at a location of significance that manifests as a form that seems to repeat an action over and over again (and is always seen doing that same action).

Thus, is it any wonder that this unique watering hole has its own resident ghost in their attic above the actual bar? To hear more about this and other nearby ghosts come out for a drink this Sunday (Bloody Sunday).

http://www.maevesresiduals.com/

(for more info about the ghost of this location...)

(to read about last month's location...)

REAL GHOSTS with REEL GHOSTS: The AMAZING World of GHOSTS

(This is not a GHOULA Event!)

THE PLACE: The Silent Movie Theater
(611 N. Fairfax Ave.) map

Come out and see a movie about ghosts in an actual haunted theater!
The Silent Movie Theater is said to be the home of a phantom projectionist and a disappearing/reappearing blood stain in the lobby... (read more)

SATURDAY MARCH 26

Phenome-Con 2011!, Day One
(feat. The Amazing World Of Ghosts, The Legend of Boggy Creek, Journey Into The Beyond & The Devil's Triangle!)

The Amazing World Of Ghosts - 7:30pm-ish

Is it accidental surrealism, an arthouse hoax -- or both? The Amazing World of Ghosts holds a special place in our hearts as the single strangest entry in the ‘70s Phenome-con sweepstakes. Comprised out of piles of seemingly unrelated stock footage, glued together with a rambling, Joycean stream-of-consciousness voice-over, the film is a schizo treatise loosely linking the universe’s colorful rainbow of ghosts: Bigfoot ghosts, space alien ghosts, voodoo ghosts, Loch Ness ghosts, wild child ghosts, goat herder ghosts, Chilean earthquake ghosts, bicycle-riding ghosts, and more.

Amazingly, this creation was “directed” by renowned movie historian/experimental filmmaker Wheeler Winston Dixon, and most likely was an influence on a young Craig Baldwin. Like a fuzzy transmission from the heart of the Fourth Dimension, drenched in raw, harsh zonked-out Moog blurps and library record funk cuts, the demented results of this enigmatic oddity make your average paranormal doc look positively -- uh, normal!

Presented in a truly rare archival 16mm print, flown in from Australia!
Dir. Wheeler Winston Dixon, 1978, 16mm, 91 min.



Here's the ticket link! See ya there...and if you go, wear your button so we can come say hi!