St. Remedius Medical College: “Mirth and Megalosaurs”

The Backstory on Jayme’s Kaiju Bar, One of Dallas’s Great Open Secrets

(Who was St. Remedius? And why is a medical college named after him?)

Cold War military enthusiasts make much of September 1, 1952, when during incoming thunderstorms hitting Fort Worth, a tornado touched down on the edge of what was then known as Carswell Air Force Base and damaged two-thirds of the United States fleet of B-36 Peacemaker bombers, then the main delivery system for atomic weaponry. The officially released information on the tornado only noted that the storm hit wind speeds of 90 miles per hour (144.8 kph) before the gauge was sheared off, and that the Air Force evacuated the B-36 bombers from Carswell every time severe weather approached the base. Meteorologists note the severe storms regularly blowing off the Edwards Plateau and building up strength over Mineral Wells and Weatherford before slamming into Fort Worth, including the F3 tornado that struck downtown Fort Worth in March 2000. Cryptozoologists note that either the thunderstorm or the tornado stimulated an early migration of the vishap kaiju known as “Boulderbirds” from the strata below Carswell, with the flock invigorated by multiple lightning strikes on the Carswell airfields before migrating to the greater Big Bend area to recharge and restore before their final mating flight over Galveston. All three are correct, but all three miss vital information on the incident.

St. Remedius Medical College had, before its disappearance, limited information on the Carswell Boulderbirds, and not just because the College was founded three years after the incident. That limited information was also not due to the famed antipathy of Fort Worthers toward Dallasites, which St. Remedius attempted to mitigate during the events and situations stirred up by the 2000 tornado. For thirty years, the best information on the Carswell incident was not available through St. Remedius, SPG, the Knitting Circle, or any other extranormal research facility, but instead through a singularly loved bar at 831 Exposition Avenue in Dallas, the home of the world-famous Jayme’s Kaiju Bar.

Jayme’s Kaiju Bar started as a typo: Jayme Friesenhahn originally had plans to start a small tiki bar and restaurant on the edge of Exposition Park across from Fair Park, hiring a sign painter to come up with a distinctive mural that would match the rest of the Expo Park neighborhood. Unfortunately for that future, the sign painter thought he heard “kaiju bar” instead of “tiki bar” and rolled on, drawing on personal memories of various Galveston nestings as a child. When presented with the final sign, others would have demanded a redo or a refund, but Jayme saw an opportunity. Three months later, the bar opened with a drastically revised interior, with walls covered in maps, photos, drawings, and shelves full of esoterica, and Jayme never looked back.

Besides its reknown for kaiju-connected food and drink far past the usual guides (the most popular dish was a large plate of Memphis-style batter fries cooked in 100 percent triffid oil, usually surrounded by a mob of extremely hungry St. Remedius postgrads), Jayme’s was a rest and relaxation pilgrimage for serious kaiju researchers and dabblers alike. All of the items on the walls were reproductions to minimize the risk of theft or vandalism, but from its beginning in 1991, friends and enthusiasts brought authentic kaiju documentation, photography, biometric scans, and even surviving fragments from the actual beasts to Jayme, leading him to convert a former conversion garage at 3525 Ash Street into the first public Kaiju Museum in the United States to display the results of his visitors’ generosity. This itself rapidly expanded to hold declassified and security-dubious materials from all over the planet, from private collections and estates not able to catalogue and stabilize their holdings, and the Museum became famous just as much for its archives as for art exhibitions (including a symposium on the St. Remedius Kirby Suits in action) and its annual Bring Your Own Meat Barbecue (contrary to rumor, the cuts offered for cooking rarely included actual cryptids) in the parking lot across the street. (Rumors of a third facility to hold potentially dangerous radiological, biological, and/or thaumaturgic are still unconfirmed, but surviving financial records of a significant private donation suggest that at least that some of that money went into a trust to “maintain.” “Maintain” what, nobody is quite sure.)

As with so many other Dallas institutions, Jayme’s Kaiju Bar was directly affected by the events involving the disappearance of St. Remedius, with an overly enthusiastic freelance subversive vaporizing the building in the last femtoseconds of the Quantum War, leaving nothing but the soil under the foundation. At the same time, the Museum and the entire block upon which it was located was locked into a stasis bubble with a 500-year estimated collapse, so all that remains accessible of that gigantic collection for the next five centuries are digitized samples and staff memories. Rumors persist that Jayme escaped both disasters and moved on to a new career. These rumors should never be trusted.

Want to get caught up on the St. Remedius story so far? Check out the main archive. Want more hints as to the history of St. Remedius Medical College? Check out Backstories and Fragments. Want to forget all of that and look at cat pictures from a beast who dreams of his own OnlyFans for his birthday? Check out Mandatory Parker. Questions, concerns, and disgust over generative AI? Check out Contact, Privacy Policy, and AI Policy. And feel free to visit the St. Remedius Medical College Redbubble shop for all of your Mandatory Parker needs.

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