About me:

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W...TF???







Fleeing the political turmoil and carnivorous moths of their native Yuthanasia, Sebaceous and Effluvia Von Goolo sought to start new lives in the promising social humus of America. Missing Ellis Island by precisely the width of a continent, their boat came aground on the Oregon coastline, where the constant rain and mossy dank held promise for Effluvia’s respiratory challenges. The two decided to settle there, and soon used their Old World contacts to establish the import company that would make them unfairly wealthy.


It was not long afterwards that the Von Goolos’ lives would change forever. Inspecting his inventory one moist eve, Sebaceous heard a faint cooing coming from a crate of Burmese monkey’s paws. Grabbing a crowbar, Sebaceous ripped the crate open and discovered, amidst the swaddled meats, a pale young boy that couldn’t have been two years old. Happily gnawing on the packing sawdust, the boy seemed healthy and whole despite his journey. Checking the manifest, Sebaceous could find no record of a small child of any gender, and surmised that the boy’s parents must have stowed him away in hopes of giving him a better life in the New World. His suspicions were confirmed when he found a note pinned to the child’s muleskin diaper, a note that read simply:

NOW HE IS YOURS

Having long ago lost his manhood in an unfortunate hunting accident, Sebaceous had since resigned himself to the notion of dying heirless. Now, thanks to a crate of rotting ape fingers that may as well have been a golden chariot pulled by angels, this had all changed. Heart racing, Sebaceous rushed home to his beloved. Upon seeing the boy and hearing her husband’s wild tale, Effluvia was seized by a fit of what was later determined to be joy and as she cradled the babe against her shuddering bosom they concocted a story of distant travels and Haitian fertility brews, and named their son Baron.


The years went by and the pale young boy grew into a pale young man that was the delight of his adoptive parents no matter what any public records might suggest to the contrary. Sebaceous was especially proud of Baron and took him to work every day, exposing him to the priceless and arcane relics that were the mainstay of Von Goolo Imports, Inc. Baron took to the import business like a carnivorous moth to a human ear. His fascination for his father’s inventory of shrunken heads and werewolf pelts, Fiji mermen and mummy’s feet grew to become an obsession. Ironically, Sebaceous believed in none of it: he saw himself only as an importer of convincing fakery that bored and wealthy Americans would pay a pretty penny for. But Baron thought differently. He thought – no, he knew – that the oddities and entities that filled his father’s warehouses were as real as the hair on his back. And thanks to the financial advantages that come from having stinking rich parents, Baron decided to dedicate his life to the research, the discovery and, most significantly, to the collection of the weird, the horrific and the unexplained. Baron didn’t date much.

By age 16, Baron was a regular fixture on his father’s worldwide travels to root for unique wares. It was on one such journey that his ambitions would be realized.

It was in the open marketplace in Marzipan, where his father had gone in search of saleable carvings and statuary. Baron had strayed, lured by the sights and smells and occasionally the feels that the market had to offer a young man of his slightly effeminate build. He was about to chastise a vendor for an obviously counterfeit two-headed chicken (Baron could see the staples with practiced ease), when he noticed an old crone staring at him from an alleyway. Curious, he approached as the hag slipped into the shadows, away from prying eyes. She was short, very short, in the way that people are far from tall, and she was wrapped in the pelt of a mammal or bird. Her eyes were turned and her nose was crossed in a way that reminded him of a bag of frogs, and when she smiled Baron could see that no two of her teeth were exactly the same shade of yellow. Easy enough to determine, among the four she had left.

He asked her what she wanted: her only answer was a rasping giggle, like the sound of a snake swallowing a bumblebee. She reached into the folds of her second skin and produced a small knapsack of faded red and gold fabric, placed it in his outstretched hands and with a flick of her spidery fingers, opened it. And there it was. The skull of a goblin.

At least that’s what the staff of the Von Goolo Institute of Inexplicable Studies determined it to be some four decades later. At the time, it could have been a gremlin or an imp or a leprechaun with particularly tragic orthodontia. Baron didn’t care. He knew it immediately for what it was: tangible proof that monsters exist. That ghosties and ghoulies and long-leggedy beasties really do go bump in the night. That every tale of terror whispered at a campfire had a basis in fact, a basis that he would now squander the rest of his life and his parents’ considerable fortune on discovering and collecting. He stared at the skull, breathless and panting, then breathing and pantsless, for what seemed like hours but what was in fact only about an hour and forty minutes. Still, it was long enough for the old woman to grow bored and leave. Baron never had the chance to thank her, never even knew her name – only that she had given him this wonderful gift. And had somehow managed to steal his socks.

Today, the Von Goolo Institute is the largest, private center for the research and preservation of bizarre and unexplained phenomena in the world, boasting the largest collection of living and un-living cryptozoological specimens on record since 34 B.C. and the infamous Midnight Circus of Emperor Incredulous III. For years, Baron Von Goolo’s amazing collection remained shrouded in secrecy, glimpsed only by the cream of celebrity and royalty, and even then only after a comprehensive battery of vaccinations. But now, thanks to the lobbyists whose tireless efforts to loosen suffocating environmental impact laws have finally borne fruit, this collection of freaks, bogies and nightmares may finally be viewed by the public without fear of litigation.



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