Friday, April 16, 2010

We Believed In Them All Along

Like the Phantom, the legend of the Cave of Cool was born on the sea. Most specifically on the east coast of Canada where a lobster fishing vessel was attacked and destroyed by what the only surviving crew member described as a Kraken.

That young boy carried the memory of that day with him into adulthood where his obsession with the beast caused him to gather all the first hand accounts of any contact made with the beast.

Armed only with a growing conspiracy theory he travelled to the home waters of the beast to see for himself.

Emerging from the waters six years later he came across U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt's Madagascar beach party and after a drunken conversation where the two compared scars and bragged about all the types of animal testicles the two had fried and eaten, a friendship was formed, a deal was struck but only after a surf battle that left them the only two survivors.

(Estimates of the number of party goers range from 50 - 150. The guest list included several former heavyweight boxers, a Japanese samurai in full regalia, several Hindu mystics, female knife fighting experts from the Philippines and one Inuit they called ol' 'Hook Hands' - If the story is true then the last two living must have fought a fierce struggle with a creature or creatures of enormous skill and size.)

Roosevelt never spoke of the incident except for on his deathbed where his last words were - "The Beasts live." Much of the acquired hidden fortune of the ex-president was then transferred to an mysterious Inuit cabal who have handled the finances of the Cave of Cool for generations. Their wealth also is rumored to come from salvage of the vast stores of human treasure lying on the bottom of the world's oceans.

It is not known what became of that young man that emerged from the sea that day but it is rumored that he is known as 'The First' and was the first to conceive of a world-wide organization of like minded individuals who, along with their regular day jobs, fight the cephalopod menace.

Once, when asked WHY such an organized and concentrated effort to exterminate a species from the planet was necessary, The Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said, "It's just the right thing to do, brother. If you are not careful they will 'getcha' too and only THEN will you understand. Plus, they gossip."


"One of the most famous mythical sea monsters is the Kraken. Legends of this formidable denizen of the sea, armed with powerful tentacles and strong enough to sink a ship, were told in Norway and Iceland and according to modern scientists, were based on sightings of the giant squid (Architeuthis). Since the giant squid prefers to live in abyssal waters, it is almost never seen alive by humans; even so, dead specimens are sometimes washed ashore, and so the existence of the creature has been reported since ancient times; Pliny the Elder mentioned them in his treaty on Natural History, and said that they could grow up to 9.1 meters long (now we know they get bigger!).

As well as the legend of the Kraken, the giant squid may have inspired other classic myths, including the Greek Scylla, a multi-headed monster that snatched men from their ships and devoured them, and even the “sea serpents” that strangled Laocoön and his sons in the Iliad. But even though giant squids were reported by Aristotle and Pliny the Elder, they were so fantastic that even later scientists still had trouble to believe in their existence; in 1861, the crew of the Alecton dispatch steamer had a close encounter with a giant squid, and even managed to get hold of a piece of the animal’s tail. However, they were ridiculed by scientists, who told them that such a creature was “against the laws of nature”! Even today, the giant squid maintains its semi-legendary status. We all know it exists, but it has been called “the most elusive image in Natural History”. It was only in 2004 that the giant squid was finally photographed in its natural habitat; the first video was taken two years later."

6 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Always knew there was a cool, adventurous tale in the Cave's past. This just confirms it.

Wings1295 said...

But testicles? Bleeehhh...

TS Hendrik said...

Wow, such a rich tapestry is the history of the cave. I had no idea.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Wings, that was the 'thing' that travelling east coast party goers ate after the start of the 20th Century.

Copyboy said...

I think I would crap every ounce of my body out if I ever saw that kind of creature.

Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness said...

Then Copyboy, you have passed the first qulification for membership. They are the demons of my nightmares. They scare me too.