ICP's Great Milenko Found Hiding in Ferndale Basement

In Winter 2008 my wife Julie and I decided to buy our first home in Ferndale. After looking at a few options in the area, we found our Ferndale bungalow on Jewell Street. One of the main selling points was the brand new finished basement. Unfortunately, after closing on the house, our moving day was tainted by the discovery of a small amount of water leaking onto the freshly laid carpet. Little did we know that this water wasn’t the only surprise our new basement had in store for us.

After a frustrating first few months of annoying water trickling into our basement, we were still clueless as to how it was actually getting into the house. Was it coming from cracks in the driveway? Was there a leaking crack in the block walled basement? Was it seeping up through the basement floor? Was there a hidden indoor pool that the previous owners had forgotten to list?

Our entire basement was encased in drywall, which made looking for the root cause of our problem all the more difficult. We had already gone through a box of water absorbent socks and pulled up a corner of our ruined carpet. It was time to do some deeper investigating. We decided to remove a small section of drywall where the water seemed to be originating to see what was behind it. Everything appeared to be in working order. There weren't any obvious leaks or cracks. However, as we removed another section of insulation we discovered a new surprise.

A hand.

No, it wasn’t ancient remains of a past Ferndalian, this was a blue hand painted on the wall holding what appeared to be a wand of some sort. Once Julie vacated the premises screaming the tale of our haunted basement to anyone who would answer their cell phone, I decided to investigate a little further.

As I removed another section of drywall, I discovered a second hand. This one was also the same mysterious blue color, but was holding a scepter instead. Upon the discovery of the second hand, Julie declared that our house had obviously been the site of some sort of ritual killings. She was convinced that the rest of our basement walls were covered in goat blood, curses, and pentagrams. I decided that in case she was right, I would stop investigating for the time being.

Even though the hands had added some intrigue and excitement to our basement, we still hadn’t solved the water problem. We had consulted various contractors with expensive estimates that included digging up the driveway to seal the outer wall, taking down all the drywall and patching the entire inner wall with waterproofing, and installing a sump pump system around the entire outer edge of our basement. All of these seemed excessive and were definitely out of our budget.

Considering there was only a small amount of water coming in when there was a downpour, we decided to stock up on more absorbent socks, live with a corner of the carpet lifted, and try our best to ignore ghastly hands offering us gifts on the wall until a less expensive solution to the problem presented itself.

After another year of living in harmony with the water and the hands, a solution presented itself in the form of a contractor specializing in basement leaks and drain tile replacement. He surveyed our basement and declared the problem to be related to drain tiles. His fees were reasonable and everything could be fixed by simply digging a couple feet into the basement floor where the water was seeping in.

Julie and I were elated. The mystery of the water in our basement was solved! We would finally have a dry and hands-free basement! However, there was still one mystery that remained to be solved.

What was waiting behind the drywall above the floating hands? Was it a local sports mascot? Was it an unknown original Warhol? Was there a giant scroll that read, “It Was the Drain Tiles the Whole Time, Dummy!”? I couldn’t wait to find out.

Julie, of course, warned me to forget about them, paint over them, and replace the drywall. My curiosity wouldn't allow me to move on.

The day finally arrived when we were going to replace the missing drywall. I made sure to purchase some extra because I planned to do some tearing down before I did any building up.

I waited for Julie to leave the house in case I somehow opened a secret portal to another dimension. I patiently cut a 4-foot square above the infamous hands and removed the large section of drywall. My heart was pounding as I peeked behind the insulation waiting underneath.

Shockingly, there was an eye peeking back at me!

I immediately took a step back to compose myself, and after a deep breath, I ripped down the insulation like a magician revealing their lovely assistant had disappeared.

A look of confusion crossed my face. A genie? A clown? Nope.

THE GREAT MILENKO?!

It was none other than the iconic image from the cover of Ferndale’s own, Insane Clown Posse’s fourth studio album, the Great Milenko.

I knew who to call and, luckily, it wasn't Ghostbusters. I got a hold of my friend, Jason Shaltz (half of the brother and sister photography team, the Shaltzes), who had just followed a member of Insane Clown Posse’s record label (Psychopathic Records) around the country documenting the Juggalo culture in photographs.

I had to know who had painted this in our basement. Did Violent J or Shaggy 2 Dope live in my house? Had my backyard been the site of their backyard wrestling events? Was this a first draft of the album cover? Were early albums recorded in my basement? Maybe it was nothing more than a Juggalo’s homage to their favorite album, but I still needed answers.

I figured if anyone could find out the source of this painting it was Jason. Using the names I knew of the previous owners, he contacted various members from Psychopathic Records and Juggalo culture. Unfortunately, these sources couldn’t produce an answer to who had painted this image on our wall or if they had any connection to ICP.

The second mystery of our basement remains unsolved to this day. Julie was a lot more comfortable with whom the hands belonged and agreed to return to our basement. The painting has since been re-covered with drywall but not painted over – the Great Milenko is still alive for future owners to discover.

Perhaps the entire discography rests on the other walls and we are none the wiser!

If anyone has any further information on who might have painted the fateful Milenko at 365 Jewell Street in Ferndale, please get a hold of the Ferndale Patch editor Terry Parris Jr. at Terry.Parris@patch.com.