krissy eliot - HOT ALIEN

I Moved! The Dead Man’s Piss and Other Tales

Posted on December 1, 2020

Many of you have been asking where I’ve landed since leaving San Francisco, and I’ve been holding off on responding because 1) I’ve been fucking busy trying to move and 2) I really wasn’t sure where I was going to end up. My official statement, where I said I was going north with no specific destination in mind, wasn’t good enough for some of you. I’d get messages asking WHERE exactly the place was that I wasn’t sure I’d move to. ?!?!? Wanting to spare you all a digital text reenactment of “Who’s On First?” I ignored your messages, but not your desires to know more. Today, you finally get the news.

I’m living in a town in Washington state, not far from Portland, Oregon.

To be honest, I don’t know much about Portland, other than there’s supposed to be a lot of gluten free people and trees. My boyfriend and I passed through the city one night last year on our way to a Sasquatch conference. We stayed at the Jupiter Hotel, where all the employees have at least one earring and your room comes with drawing chalk and a single complimentary condom. The city felt artsy and fringe and kinda poor, appealing to all my being-an-artist-is-suffering sensibilities. So I’ve rolled the dice and set up shop close to the city of Portlandia but not in it—snagging a house in a small town where the cost of living is low, the scenic views are brilliant green, and the Mexican food unfortunately tastes like white people made it.

I’ve managed to get myself a sweet pandemic bunker with room for a home office, complete with Buffy the Vampire Slayer Funko-Pop decor and a footrest in the shape of a yak. I have a kitchen with enough counter space to comfortably chop a vegetable, a backyard, and a TV room (the American dream). It’s all alien to me. I got so used to living in 600 square feet of space in the Bay Area that I recently got lost and went into the wrong room on my way to bed.

But before you get too jealous, get this…

So Long, San Francisco: The Hot Alien Migrates North

Posted on October 1, 2020

Photo by Jessica Buckner-Knai

Today, I’m heading out. Leaving the San Francisco Bay Area. Hasta la vista, baby.

I don’t know exactly where I’ll end up, but I’m getting the hell out of California. Or rather, getting out of this fiery California hell.

Surprised? Don’t be. It’s been a long time coming. The alarm clock has been going off for years telling me to wake up and get moving, but I’ve been hitting the sleep button. Chasing dreams.

The reality is that unlike Tony Bennett, my heart left San Francisco a long time ago.

But I’m ready to find it again.

Something tells me it’s hanging out somewhere colder, where the artists still thrive along with big, hairy cryptids.

You can find more details on the why of my move in The Bold Italic’s latest piece showcasing the departures of many disenchanted Bay Areans (scroll down to find my story at the bottom). The exact where of my move, however, remains to be discovered.

Stay tuned.

A Cryptid Playlist by Your Favorite Scum Princess

Posted on April 6, 2020

Art brought to you by Rick Spears

In quarantine, you realize who you are. Steeped in the onion burrito scent of your own B.O., staring into a party sized bag of Cheetos, you’re forced to deal with your dark night of the soul. Who are you without the structure forced on you by your boss, your dad, your boyfriend, your gynecologist? You question everything you ever stood for and everything you believe!!! WHO ARE YOU?!

On the bright side of things, depending on your situation, self-quarantine might be good for you. The way an apple cider vinegar cleanse might be good. Or a colonoscopy.

It’s times like these that force me to come to terms with how many of my usual daily activities are unnecessary and frivolous. To decide what activities to keep and purge. Without the outside world interrupting your thoughts every five minutes to ask what size latte you want or what your major was in college, you can think.

This is the chance to discover how much of your daily schedule is dictated by the needs or wants of others. To find out whether you’re human waste waiting to be picked up and disposed of in what Mom, Boyfriend, or Janie from accounting has deemed your proper place. Or if you’re human waste that can sort itself!

Being a writer has made me a pro at being confined to one place for long stretches of time, but no more than a few weeks. The possibilities of extended isolation are endless and I’m looking forward to examining the results of this grand experiment. What a dream!

I could become anorexic or fat. Go so long without brushing my teeth that my throat hurts from the tongue residue. Realize which people I really miss and who doesn’t miss me at all. I may not be able to leave my apartment, but these are the psychological trips that money just can’t buy!

That said, over the last month my usual existential dread has transformed into a focused pandemic-dread, with not much room for self-reflection. Every once in a while between reading COVID-19 tweets, my throat will start to burn like there’s ash in it, and I’ll swear it’s coronavirus creeping, when really it’s just allergies that come with the miracle of spring.

They Are Already Here: A Journalist’s Close Encounters with UFO Culture

Posted on March 3, 2020

Photo by Greg Rakozy

When science journalist Sarah Scoles was working on a few articles for Wired magazine, she was assigned the task of following up on a 2017 New York Times piece about The Pentagon’s “shadowy” UFO investigation program. The program was originally founded as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to the story, and for years officials had been studying unidentified objects and aircraft. Scoles’ editor asked if she wanted to go out and confirm—or not confirm—what the New York Times found. While she had written a book about the science behind the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, she had never reported on UFOs. Moved enough by the opportunity, she told her editor, “Sure,” thereby sealing her fate.

It was this astronomical moment that lead to Scoles’ immaculate conception of a book now being birthed onto store shelves today: They Are Already Here: UFO Culture and Why We See Saucers.

The book chronicles Scoles’ encounters with the UFO phenomenon and the people who devote their lives to it. She rockets through both the weirdest and most rational of claims—picking up a series of warped puzzle pieces that may never fit into a logical explanation.

As a journalist who has covered various fringe beliefs myself, I reached out to Scoles to learn about her experiences and research, wanting to compare notes. So we got on the phone and shot the breeze about UFO facts, fiction, and the fantasy of ever finding the whole truth.

Big Fur: A Taxidermy Documentary That’s Stuffed with Surprises

Posted on February 10, 2020

Ken Walker, the star of Big Fur, creates a life-sized Bigfoot. Image courtesy of Big Fur director Dan Wayne.

When Ken Walker was little, he found a dead bird, broke it apart and put it back together. He carried a jar of bugs around because he wanted to open them up to see how their anatomy worked. Later, he became one of the best taxidermists on the planet, dead set on designing the perfect bigfoot. And then some Kansas City director came along and made a movie about that shit.

Big Fur is a documentary that takes you inside the world of taxidermy, giving you a sneak peak into the belly of the beast… often literally. You get to see Walker carve Bigfoot’s tummy out of Styrofoam, select the right fur from other animals to mimic Bigfoot’s pelt, choose the perfect glass eyes for a mythical hominid, and debate whether or not to add nipples. He’s doing all of this to enter his creation into the World Taxidermy Championship and win. He also thinks his fake sasquatch will someday lead him to a real bigfoot.

“There might be somebody someday that walks up and sees that model [of Bigfoot] and decides to give me what’s in his freezer,” Walker says. “That is my ultimate goal.”

“I’m positive that proof of Sasquatch already exists. I know there’s somebody out there that has something. I know for a fact. And I’m just waiting until I can get it,” Walker says in the film. “There might be somebody someday that walks up and sees that model [of Bigfoot] and decides to give me what’s in his freezer. That is my ultimate goal.”

The most important detail of this undertaking is that Walker hasn’t decided to create just any bigfoot, but the most famous bigfoot to ever walk the Earth: Patty.

Patty is the sasquatch from what’s called the “Patterson-Gimlin film,” a short movie recorded in 1969 by two dudes trekking in the wilds of Humboldt County. Some people think that it was staged as all get-out, and that the bigfoot in the film is just a guy in a monkey suit. Others, like Walker, believe it’s some of the best recorded evidence to date. But he didn’t always think this way.

At the film’s San Francisco Indie Fest premiere, Walker admits to a tumultuous relationship with Sasquatch. “I wasn’t a believer until I saw one myself,” Walker says, his thick helmet of graying hair hanging over his brow. “Actually, I wasn’t a believer even after I had an encounter. It wasn’t until people started coming into my shop and telling me stories, people I trusted, that I understood it was real.”