February 20, 2001

7:18 PM

Are you a duclod?For at least a decade, mysterious letters have been sent from around the nation to students at a small midwestern college filled with facts about "duclods." From the best I can tell looking at the college newspaper webpage this is not a prank. Has anyone ever heard this term?
posted by croutonsupafreak (12 comments total)

From the article:

If you receive a duclod letter, don't panic.

A search on Google reveals a bunch of weird jokes by some guy named Chamo Howards posted between early 1998 and 2000. Hmmm.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 7:23 PM on February 20, 2001

Often found in proximity to garbmut. The plot thickens.
posted by eth0 at 8:23 PM on February 20, 2001

That garbmut page automatically wanted me to submit user details via e-mail. A warning would of been nice...
posted by Neale at 8:37 PM on February 20, 2001

Maybe the kids at Grinnell are just losers.

Notice how it's at a nobody small college in the middle of nowhere...maybe someone is trying to get the small place some attention?
posted by Capn_Stuby at 8:39 PM on February 20, 2001

(Don't be a jerk. There's nothing wrong with Grinnell.)

...and garbmuts (garbage mutts?) drink out of toilets, and a bolcub is a mirror-image duclod...

The theme I see is that a duclod is a "dual closet dweller," i.e., a non-out bisexual and therefore the person who is likely to "spread HIV to heterosexuals." Also links to a site with a weird (joke?) anti-feminist, anti-Title 9 popup rant thing...? Garbmut leads to links on husband-battering, and to this, and to various Nostradamus (in base 7!) and 666-oriented mutterings.

Seems like kind of a evangelico-Kibological sort of thing.

Neat.
posted by rodii at 8:50 PM on February 20, 2001

So I ended up chasing Red Kuller, he of garbmut, around some guestbooks via Google. Weird cat. But he did have this gem to offer:

We do not have to go on the way we've been going. For instance, if you like shaving cats, try shaving crayons; it's as good a way as any to practice shaving.

"Try shaving crayons." I think that's God's way of telling me to go to bed.
posted by rodii at 9:04 PM on February 20, 2001

Y'know it's not at all unlikely that the guy investigating this has yet to hear of "Chamo Howards". A simple Google search isn't necessarily an obvious first step to a lot of people. Maybe you should let the paper know, crouton.
posted by jpoulos at 6:54 AM on February 21, 2001

But what if I like shaving crayons?



Here, kitty, kitty, kitty....
posted by amanda at 9:07 AM on February 21, 2001

To say nothing of the suggestiveness inherent in cat-shaving.
posted by gleemax at 11:08 AM on February 21, 2001

"Kottke.org--it's a good a way as any to practice shaving"

Chamo Howards had an email address somewhere of [e-mail]. ChaMO HOWARDs? Methinks it's a pseudo of someone with a thing for the Three Stooges.

The weird thing was how many of those Google links led to guestbooks, and how many of those guestbooks were full of weird, evil and generally creepy stuff. Is there some jnd of guestbook subculture out there?
posted by rodii at 3:46 PM on February 21, 2001

For "jnd" please read "kind". How'd that happen?
posted by rodii at 5:13 PM on February 21, 2001

This is Fred Beukema, the author of the Duclod article in the S&B student paper. In the article I mention that one of the Residence Life Coordinators had done a web investigation, and I did some scouring myself. I found the Chamo Howards connection, and went to the page at www.angelfire.com/garbmut/, which is an odd little page that seems overripe with potentially malicious javascript.

I even tried to e-mail good old Chamo at one of the addresses listed in his many joke posts. The address does not currently exist, and I'd be surprised if it ever really did.

The whole business about jokes in the bathrooms here at Grinnell, and the letters, is true. As stated in the article, my goal was to increase awareness of the whole creepy business and see if anyone knew anything.
posted by beukema at 3:03 PM on March 3, 2001 [1 favorite]