LA Company Rents Real Bones
10.27.2010 By Winsip Custer CPW News Service
PT Barnum would be proud. So would Ripley. Believe it or not, the Los Angeles company WeBeBones Inc. has found a new niche in the bones-for-rent-market. "Eighty five percent of our profits come in October, said Webb Arachnoman who started the company after ten years in the mortuary business. "I was tired of being around death and dying all the time," he said. "This gives me a years' worth of income in one month and I get to be around kids and their families who really want to have an extra spooky month in the run up to Thanksgiving and Christmas."
I asked Mr. Arachnoman where he got the idea to rent bones. "Well, I was embalming a dead movie star who had been in a number of horror movies and I thought that something better than burying this poor guy should be done with his remains. So I talked to my lawyer and we drew up initial contracts for the families and we incorporated and the rest's history."
I didn't recognize any of the names on the bones in Arachnoman's stable of dead stars. I asked him to explain. "We were hoping to get the Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Basil Rathbone or Bela Lagosi familes to join us but they've not agreed yet," he said. "Some family members think that the idea of the exhumation and acid bath is a bit harsh."
"Who is Sunny Westerman, Virgil Franklin and Katrina Smithers?" I asked pointing to three skeletons hanging on what looked like a clothes rack with name tags around their necks.
"They were extras in the movie Night of the Living Dead," said Arachnoman. "Smithers was a stunt woman who was caught on fire when the leading character tried to get away in the truck. You remember that scene?"
"So who pays for these bones to be in their home during Halloween?" I asked.
"Anybody can, but it's mostly movie industry folks who like to add that little extra authentication to the Halloween experience," he said.
"What is that skeleton over there?" I asked. "The one without a foot. Was he or she in a movie?"
"Yes," said Arachnoman, "that's Randall C Compton, but he was not in a horror movie. He was the fellow who came out of the bilge of the slave ship in that scene in Ben Hur when Hur's ship got rammed. You know the one without a foot. Actually lost it in a motorcycle accident on the Santa Monica Freeway. Cool, huh?"
Ilse Kohler Koch the "Bitch of Buchenwald" |
Buchenwald prisoner tattoos and lampshades |
Arachnoman said that he is excited to announce that there is the strong possibility that next year the family of Ilse Kohler Koch, the "Bitch of Buchenwald" may be added to his skeleton crew and that the family of Joseph Mengele is also considering the financial implication of putting their relatives back to work, but there has been some resistance from the American Civil Liberties Union who believe that it is inhumane to make people work beyond their natural life-time. My lawyer told them that it would be a good way for the dead to pay restitution," said Arachnoman.
"And of course I would love to get into my collection the artifacts that seemed to make Ilse Koch's life so meaningful, the tattoos and lampshades, but sadly they are not available," said Arachnoman.
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