Vector, Jones, Vladypus (me), and 3 others (Mo, El, Es), who have yet to make accounts, decide to head out to Colma to complete the Graveyard Venture:

In a small group, sneak into a graveyard or cemetery at night. The larger the better. Be there at midnight. Document interesting headstones, explore a Mausoleum, if possible. Meet ghosts, maybe? Find the final resting place of someone famous during this visit.

For those that haven't haven't heard of Colma, it is called the city of the silent/dead; it has 17 cemeteries and the dead outnumber its living population. (more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma%2C_California ).


Part of the task requires finding the grave of a famous person. Wikipedia tells us that Willam Hearst, the newspaper mogul, inspiration for Citizen Kane, and son of George Hearst ¹ is buried in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma. We have our target.

We pack the important stuff: cheese, bread, salami, and wine. [9:00 PM]We drive over to Colma and park in front of The Italian Cemetery. Since we don't see any reason not to visit multiple cemeteries, some of us climb over a chain tied around the entrance and wander inside while the rest are still rummaging through supplies in the car.



We make it about 20 feet in and El turns on a flashlight to have a look around. I feel like we are too close to the entrance for flashlights and say something to that effect. As he turns off the light, and just as Vector, back at the car, hovering over the trunk, gives the bottle opener its last turn into the wine cork, a police car pulls up and parks right across the from the cemetery entrance, not a stone's throw from the car. We duck behind a mausoleum and freak out. Vector and company close the trunk and start walking away along the side of the cemetery. We decide that we will walk with them, except we are inside the cemetery and at this point on the other side of a chain link fence (luckily only 4 feet high). So we make some distance between ourselves and the cops and climb the fence. Damages are sustained in the climb. Two people with bleeding hands, one pair of pants ripped to shit and sporting a hole in the crotch. Luckily no crotch damage, only a bruised thigh. So from this point on, the group is rife with a paranoia. We decide to keep walking and head towards Cypress Lawn Cemetery. Everyone is pretty rattled, some worse than others.

[9:20 PM] We begin walking along the perimeter of Cypress Lawn and quickly spot Hearst's mausoleum. We had seen pictures before leaving so it stuck right out when we came upon it. It is right along the road; I don't know if the cemetery underwent major changes or what, but I don't understand how the Hearst estate let the mausoleum be right on the side of such a huge road. I would imagine the would want it in the center in its own private area or something. So we hang around the mausoleum and take some pictures. ²



Some of us [me included] are pissed because the wine is back at the car, but we yield to warnings about cops and potential liability and we agree to holding off for a while to see if there is any more activity before returning for the wine. We head into the cemetery. [9:30 PM]



It is cold. We walk for a while and Rachel starts getting bad vibes. We convince her to keep going. We walk for about 15 minutes and come to open grave. Mo wants to climb in. We shine a light and see that its an open grave with a coffin in it. Mo decides not to climb in.



We start hearing screams and begin walking toward them. After listening and following for a while, it seems like the screams are coming from a party somewhere outside the cemetery.



We keep walking until we come to a really large phallic monument surrounded by a semicircle of tall shrubs [ :P ]. I can't exactly remember what this was, I think it was an armed forces memorial of some sort [one of the other players should correct me if I'm wrong]. [10:00 PM]We decide the monument is a good place to settle and plop down on its foundation. We take out the food and hang out and eat. Elvis gets bad vibes an stomach pains [he keeps silent and we don't find out until later].



I think about 30 minutes pass and we are all freezing. We realize that we are underdressed and underboozed for this adventure. We gather our stuff, sigh, and head back to the car.


[10:45] Short detour to Japanese cemetery.



¹George Hearst was a super rich prospector and industrialist. He was also the main villain on HBO's Deadwood, one of the best television drama's ever! Though according to Geoffrey Nunberg the Deadwood language, which I love oooooh so much, is completely historically inaccurate. Better inaccurate than boring(see William Hearst).

² I was skeptical about it actually being his resting place so I compared our pictures with some on the web, and though it bore some resemblence, it in fact WAS NOT his grave.

In conlusion we neither found Hearst's grave nor did we make it to midnight at the cemetery.

Fun and Failure both start the same way.