Mike Vraney, founder of Something Weird Video, RIP

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This is sad. I remember buying vs tapes from him at comic hook conventions many many years ago. Never did get the infamous eel video. (Don’t ask.)

He will be missed by all those collectors of the weird, unusual and sleazy.

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I read yesterday the US Government, via the NSA is spending billions on a new computer that will have unimaginable abilities to snoop. Instead of that, why shouldn’t we use that computer to uncode the mysteries of lung cancer? If the goal is saving lives, I think the return on investment would be much higher doing that. I spoke with the guy who ran the Human Genome Project a while back. He said they now know how to turn most cancers (including lung cancer) into chronic diseases–you would just take a pill every day to control it). All they need is the money to do the genetic decoding. I just don’t get why we aren’t putting more resources there?

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I’m sure Mike Vraney was a perfectly nice fellow; it sucks for him to go so soon, and my heart goes out to his friends and family. As a geek, I can certainly understand and sympathize with the magpie urge to collect stuff, and culture is culture regardless of quality.

Having said all that, it’s still kinda weird to me that we celebrate people for diligently collecting and preserving piles and piles of cheap, shoddy garbage.

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Mike was a perfectly WONDERFUL fellow. An Amazing guy. And what he preserved was NOT garbage but a real piece of history. He was a great guy and a real friend and my heart goes out to his wife Lisa and his children Mark and Danielle and also to his right hand man Tim Lewis.

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Maybe this is an example of “one mans trash is another mans treasure”?

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Mike Varney was one of those friends that you lose track of over the years. He introduced me to a lot of cool obscure stuff. It was not crap, just unknown to most people. He could find things that were next to impossible to find and saved a lot of movies that needed to be saved. I really wish I would have kept in touch all these years.

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Rest in Peace. And condolences to his family.
I have dozens of ‘Something Weird’ movies in my collection. A lot of these films would never have come to light without his tireless efforts.
Thank you Mike, for the great laughs you have given to many.

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