31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 3: FRANKENSTEIN (1931)

When innocence collides with horror.

After DRACULA proved a hit with its era's audience, Universal wasted no time in greenlighting a followup. What audiences got was an adaptation of Mary Shelly's FRANKENSTEIN that, much like what happened with DRACULA, only utilized certain elements and concepts from its source novel. I can't speak for you but I've read Shelly's novel several times and although I love it unreservedly, I feel it was a wise idea to craft a new narrative almost from the ground up rather than faithfully bringing Shelly's talky and rather deep character study to the screen. It would have been interesting but I doubt that the audience of 1931 would have embraced an articulate monster who often expounded at length upon the cruelty of mankind and how much his own existence was an endless hell of rejection and revulsion. Instead as helmed by the legendary James Whale, the film establishes damned near every trope found in the man-made monster genre.

Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein: Obsessed as hell but not what I would consider insane.

Brilliant scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive, who gives one of cinema's great over-the-top performances here) wants nothing more than to create a living man from cobbled-together stolen pieces from assorted corpses. Grave-robbing and the theft of  a criminal brain from a medical school are just two of the questionable means by which Henry obtains raw materials and soon enough, born in a baptism of lightning, his hulking creation stirs with the first signs of unnatural vitality.

Boris Karloff as the nameless monster, one of cinema's greatest waking nightmares.

Emerging as something of a mental tabula rasa, the creation's first few days find him slowly being rejected by his creator and tortured with whips and fire by the doctor's hunchbacked assistant, Fritz (Dwight Frye), so all he knows of life is that it is a cornucopia of misery. He eventually kills Fritz and makes his way out of the remote laboratory and into the rustic world at large. As he makes his way across the apparently-Germanic landscape, the creature encounters several local villagers, all of whom flee screaming upon seeing his lumbering frame and gaunt, stitched-together visage. Seeking nothing more than simple kindness and acceptance, the creature finds it when he meets a sweet little girl named Maria (Marilyn Harris). The pair innocently play a riverside game that ends disastrously when the creature throws her into the water, not understanding that a human body is not necessarily as buoyant as the flowers that he and his new friend had been tossing into the drink. When the girl does not surface, the confused and frightened creature stumbles away, now legitimately the monster that all who meet him perceive him to be.

The rest of the narrative builds to a crescendo as Henry must find and deal with his creation while also keeping Elizabeth (Mae Clarke), his bride-to-be, safe as the monster, now intent upon vengeance against his creator, closes in. It all ends in a fiery climax at a windmill as Henry and the monster duke it out while the villagers, wielding the expected torches and pitchforks, have the place surrounded.

FRANKENSTEIN proved another hit for the studio, and deservedly so. For one thing, it was not directed to be as stagebound as its predecessor, DRACULA, was, and all of the performances radiate with liveliness. The visuals are also memorable, crafting a dreamlike world of forced perspective angles, deep shadows, sparking lab equipment, and eerie graveyards, all of which would go on to influence the man-made-monster sub-genre from that point onward.

On the acting front, the film is dominated by Colin Clive's Henry and Boris Karloff's monster. Their performances are absolutely iconic and defined the sub-genre as much as the visuals and the tropes involving the pissed-off villagers. Clive's balls-out obsession with creating life in his lab borders on the comical and camp, which was apparently James Whale's intent, and it is a delight to watch. To put it succinctly, Clive shamelessly turns scenery-chewing into a fine art.

But it's Karloff as the monster that truly cements this film's place in cinema and pop culture history. He perfectly conveys a pitiable blend of confused, hopeless sadness coupled with a murderous rage directed against the world and his creator. Each grunt and growl that he utters speak far more eloquently than words and despite his violent acts, we find ourselves on his side.

As is readily apparent from all that I've said thus far, FRANKENSTEIN is a landmark that must be experienced by all horror fans and those interested in the history of movies in general. But where would the Universal horror cycle go next? Stay tuned, dear readers...

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-Day 2: DRACULA (1931)

"Vot can I say? I am...an icon."

Tod Browning's DRACULA, unarguably one of the most influential films ever made, a landmark in horror cinema's landscape, and the effort that kicked off the classic Universal horror cycle. So pervasive is its influence that even today, some eighty-five years after its release, it is Bela Lugosi's version of Count Dracula that we all imitate when doing comedic vampire impressions. In fact, just about everything found in the 1931 DRACULA has entered our shared consciousness when we think of what an old school vampire flick is. So much so, that providing a synopsis of the narrative is pretty much unnecessary. The film only cribs certain elements from Bram Stoker's source novel, instead using the hit 1924 stage version as its Ground Zero, and what we are presented essentially became the carved-in-stone template for this sort of thing until Hammer Films and Christopher Lee's equally indelible and malevolent take on the Count forever relegated Lugosi's suave and accented interpretation to the fondly-remembered hall of fame gallery of 20th century pop culture.

The Count makes his move.

When I was a kid and absolutely determined to steep myself in as much horror movie history as possible, I sought out all of the classic black and white shockers to fill in any gaps of my education. My first exposure to the classic Universal Monsters (and other horrors of cinema) came in the form of those old Aurora model kits with the optional glow-in-the-dark parts, so I knew who all of the characters were but had yet to experience the movies that unleashed them upon the silver screen. (Upon seeing my long shelf of Aurora monster kits — I had all of them by the time I was seven, and they were among the first models I ever painted and assembled by myself — my mother remarked that she had no idea how I slept at night as a legion of monsters hovered over my bed, some providing an eerie glow in the dark of night. Little could she comprehend that those horrors offered me comfort in contrast to the real-life horrors that I was enduring at the time.) Of those kits, I have to say that the one of Lugosi's Dracula offered the closest likeness to its subject, so I took special care in providing it with a respectful paint job.

Anyway, when I finally saw the 1931 DRACULA on one of NYC's several televised showcases for old horror flicks, I was drawn in by its overwhelming sense of atmosphere and visual style, but I could not ignore the fact that the film itself was extremely slow-moving, stagey, featured virtually no music — which kills a great deal of a scary movie's power — and was not scary in the least. I was perplexed that such a film would be hailed as a classic and I just could not wrap my head around how it had gained such a lofty reputation. 

That said, to me the strongest element of the movie was Lugosi's eerie and utterly suave Dracula. He's hands down my favorite filmic version of the Count, exuding an aristocratic air that has never been equaled in other portrayals, as well as conveying a real sense of other-than-natural power over those around him. He also seemed weary of his eternal existence and displayed no small amount of sadness to go with that emotional state. But an arch vampire must do what an arch vampire does, so he drives a man into a state of insect-devouring madness and over the top mental slavery, and he preys upon innocent young women in the wee hours. He also contends with Professor Van Helsing (Edward Van Sloan), a doctor who, despite his firm grounding in science, absolutely believes in the existence of vampires, and the professor proves a worthy adversary who swiftly twigs to the exact nature of the Count.

Van Helsing busts Dracula with old mirror trick.

Those elements and more make up a solid 85 minutes of screen time, but the film's just-out-of-the-silent-era feel and storytelling style may prove a tough slog for modern audiences. The film is by no means bad, but it is very, very slow-moving and features many long stretches of total silence, so a viewer may find him or herself lulled to sleep by the movie's dreamlike feel and pacing. To tell the truth, it took me four tries to make it all the way through DRACULA when watching it as a refresher for this year's series of essays. I kept making the mistake of putting it on as my bedtime movie and in no time I would nod off. But if you've never seen DRACULA, it's an absolute must-see for your horror cinema education, so make sure to approach it when you are bright and chipper and not at the end of a long day. And just so we're clear on this, as the Universal horror cycle progressed and found its footing, the films became a hell of a lot livelier, as we shall soon see...

And one last thing: Though his accent has been the source of much lampooning and countless impersonations over the decades since the film's release, at no point does Bela Lugosi's Dracula state "I vant to suck your blood." I have no idea where that tired cliché came from but it is utterly spurious and best ignored by those in the know.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-DAY 1: NIGHT TIDE (1961)

While on shore leave, young sailor Johnny Drake (an impossibly youthful Dennis Hopper) cruises the Coney Island-esque boardwalk of Venice, California and meets Mora (Linda Lawson), an eerie beauty who works as the boardwalk's phony mermaid. Johnny somehow wins her over by acting like a creepy, aggressive stalker and in no time the two are a committed couple. But as the two grow closer, Johnny learns more about his exotic lover, such as the fact that she was raised by Captain Murdock (Gavin Muir), who found her on a remote Greek island when she was a child, and that she believes she is a mythological siren akin to those encountered by Ulysses. But the big red flag is that Mora's two previous boyfriends died mysterious deaths and it appears that Mora is responsible. And while it seems that Johnny is next in line for the chop, there's also a creepy foreign woman who occasionally appears to stalk Mora and who may be the leader of the mermaids/sirens...

The young lovers, before things get weird.

I'm going to be totally honest with you, dear readers. I wanted to see NIGHT TIDE since first hearing about it during junior high, mostly because I'm a huge fan of Dennis Hopper but also because of my love of mythological creatures, which Mora allegedly is. I only recently got my hands on the film and when I finally sat through it, I was heartbroken to find out that it's one of those flicks that goes out of its way to convince you that it's a straight-up horror film when it really isn't. If anything, NIGHT TIDE can be considered a "thriller," but even when presented as such it's a rather tepid affair despite its considerable atmosphere. The narrative builds Mora's strangeness from the moment we first meet her, only to have all of the supernatural potential flushed straight down the toilet during the exposition dump that serves as the story's ending.

"Sea People," my ass. J'accuse!!!

While not at all a bad movie, though admittedly a very low key slow burn, NIGHT TIDE hit me as a huge disappointment, so I'm writing about it as a public service to spare curious horror and Hopper fans sitting through what amounts to a case of bait and switch. The only real reason to see this film is to see a 25-year-old Dennis Hopper acting completely normal. (Stalker behavior in the early portion of the film notwithstanding.) Bottom line: NIGHT TIDE would have been right at home as a lesser entry on the old THRILLER television series, but it does not pass muster as a feature-length supposed horror movie. Caveat emptor.

Poster from the original theatrical release.

31 DAYS OF HORROR 2016-INTRODUCTION

Hey, dear and loyal Cine-Miscreants!

October, the month that culminates in the most excellent day that is Halloween, is about to kick off, so you regulars know that means it's time once again for my annual month-long journey through the dark annals of horror cinema (and occasionally television).

Scary stories have been around as long as there have been storytellers, and a sizable segment of this planet's sentients eat up spine-chilling tales like a rapacious werewolf devours the tender flesh of an unlucky woodland wanderer, so it comes as no surprise that the horror genre has been a staple of global entertainment and has grown and thrived as the means to enthrall audiences with narratives that evolved along with us. Horror as a motion picture genre goes back to the dawn of the movies and it's been over a century since the first moving images silently flickered across the screen in the darkness as the public absorbed the wondrous diversions that unspooled. While comedies, dramas, romances, and adventure narratives held moviegoers riveted, darker, more sinister material also lurked in the indoor twilight and filmmakers were quick to realize that such chillers were a rich lode to be mined. From there the genre grew like Topsy and filled the silver screen with hordes of shambling revenants, thirsting nosferatu, eldritch demoniacal entities conjured through the wielding of forbidden rites, unrestful spectres, blasphemous man-made creatures, other-worldly wigglies that the mere sight of which drives the most stalwart of men to states of gibbering madness, medical nightmares in which our own bodies become our enemies or the healers who are supposed to grant us their aid turn their skills to dire pursuits, seemingly indestructible wielders of kitchen implements and power tools who stalk remote back-woods to prey upon randy youths, primordial throwbacks that defied extinction to terrorize swimwear-clad nubile young maidens, and even that most seemingly-mundane of threats, the unhinged murderer who walks among us and blends in while committing atrocities that would make veteran homicide detectives blanch and fall to their hands and knees while voiding the contents of their stomachs. All of those and more can be found in a richly-fetid cornucopia that often slyly reflects the needs and climate of the given era of production and examines areas of the human condition that may otherwise be un-broachable if not cloaked in shadow.

But enough of all that flowery film school yakkety-blah-blah-blah. If you've bothered to read this far, it's plain that you care about scary movies and are here to see what baleful chronicles of fright Yer Bunche will dredge up from the celluloid depths for the year of two-thousand and sixteen. As in previous yearss, there is no real rhyme or reason behind my choices, though there will be the occasional thematic overlap and comparison/contrast of certain sub-groups within the genre. I will also take pains to point out that stories that are ostensibly viewed as examples of other flavors — comedy, science-fiction, "thrillers," and non-supernatural drama — can quite easily be revealed as horror to the very core, and that horror can function equally well as art or junk food for the imagination.

So sharpen your axe, dust off the Necronomicon, apply fresh lipstick to grandma's mummified corpse, and make sure your homemade shroud of supple human skin is properly secured to your febrile pate. 'Tis once again the month of All Hallows' Eve and we are nothing if not prepared...

A FATED MEETING AT MOUNT SINAI

It could only happen to me, and I swear that it's true.

Today I went back to Mount Sinai, this time to the hematology department because my last blood work with the dermatology department revealed that my platelets were inexplicably high. My ankles and right knee of course chose the day when I would have to haul my ass up to 102nd Street and Madison Avenue to act up again — a journey of around anhour each way from where I live in Brooklyn and featuring lots and lots of long sets of stairs — so I was in agony and limping the whole way there.

Upon arrival I waited for a while until I was ushered in and my vitals were taken, including two vials of blood. Eventually the doctor showed up, a friendly sixty-something with an Italian surname, so I instantly felt at ease, and she put me through the most thorough medical history Q&A that I've ever had (which showed me she's on the ball). While asking about my job history and the possibility of being exposed to carcinogens and such while at work, I mentioned that we occasionally used assorted noxious chemicals during the pre-digital days in the Marvel Bullpen but nothing that resulted in prolonged exposure, and when I mentioned that I had worked in the Bullpen, her face lit up and she threw up her hands in surprised delight. From her reaction I figured she was a comics fan but then she dropped the bombshell:

Doctor: Do you know who Jack Kirby is?
Me: (putting on my best Spock-style raised eyebrow with sarcastic voice) How dare you ask me that? I'm a lifelong comics goon and Kirby was one of the influences that made me want to learn how to draw...
Doctor: I ask because most people have no idea who he was. HE WAS MY COUSIN.

You could have knocked me over with a feather as my mouth fell open in shock and speechlessness. Of all the medical experts for me to get hooked up with, I end up with the King's relative.

The next fifteen minutes turned into an unabashed geek-out session where she filled me in on having visited his studio and watching him draw all kinds of stuff. She also talked with intimate knowledge about his family, the lawsuit, and the fact that she has some of his drawings. We eventually got back to business but hearing her clearly-true reminiscences was a treat and a half.

When she was done garthering all of my info, she bade me farewell until I return in two weeks,after which a nurse came in and drew fifteen more vials of blood — not an exaggeration; I counted — before I was dismissed, bringing the blood vial total to a personal record of seventeen in one visit. Anyway, I look forward to hearing more of the doctor's Kirby lore.

THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (2016)

Alexander Skarsgard as the latest live-action iteration of Edgar Rice Burroughs's feral hero.

Sorry, folks, but this will be a bit of a rant rather than a straight review.

Earlier this afternoon I saw THE LEGEND OF TARZAN (2016) and had a pretty good time with it, though, speaking as a lifelong Tarzan booster, the film is in no way without its faults. It's the latest attempt to make the Lord of the Jungle appeal to modern sensibilities and it certainly has a hell of a lot more action/adventure than the turgid GREYSTOKE: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN OF THE APES (1984), but would somebody please explain to me when it became verboten for Tarzan to wield a knife, a spear, or even a bow and arrows? (Plus to say nothing of the fact that he doesn't rock his signature loincloth until the very end of the movie.)

And as for all of the concern about Tarzan being a white man's fantasy of a Caucasian hero of colonialist values being out of step with more enlightened attitudes that have come to pass during the character's 115-year existence and therefore an offensive figure to people of color, specifically black people, I loudly and adamantly call "bullshit." Black people have enjoyed Tarzan as a hero since he first appeared on the big screen, not just because he's fucking awesome but also because his attitude toward native Africans was astoundingly liberal for its era. It was as simple as "Don't fuck with him, his woman, the jungle, or his friends — human or otherwise — and he only sees you as a person," perhaps someone soon to be a new friend and possibly someone worthy of his respect as an equal. The Negroes Tarzan killed in films of yore were all cannibals, kidnappers, desecrators of nature, or miscreants of some vile stripe, and each and every one of them that he dispatched had it coming.

It should also be noted that the loudest detractors of Tarzan as a racist trope in the 2000's are mostly Social Justice Warrior-types who have, from what their discussion of the character and his oeuvre betrays, never read a Tarzan novel nor seen a Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie, instead making ill-founded and utterly ignorant proclamations from out of their whiny asses. Black folks of the generations that preceded mine "got" what Tarzan was about — man in perfect, savage harmony with nature — and thrilled to his adventures, and the audience I saw the film with this afternoon was a reasonably-packed house composed of nothing but Hispanics and fellow highly-rhythmic individuals, all of whom dug the film to varying degrees, with three very turned-on middle-aged females predicting it will be a hit. (Presumably because of Tarzan being an unashamedly handsome and rugged shirtless bohunk with an eight-pack.)

Bottom Line: THE LEGEND OF TARZAN was a lot of fun — but, again, not without flaws — and I predict it will make its mark as a popular date movie, eventually to join the home video collections of Tarzan-boosters like myself and those who will want to make return trips to this beautifully-lensed romantic adventure.

SPOT THE LOONEY: NY SUBWAY EDITION

Today's "SPOT THE LOONEY: NY SUBWAY EDITION" kicked off when a loud and belligerent black dude entered the Brooklyn-bound 5 train.

Looney: RADIATION! Microwaves make radiation, muthafukkas!!! Just like the phones! RADIATION!!! (sits down, rhythmically pounds seat for emphasis, pauses briefly before resuming) I'm gonna get me a white girl! (pause) I'm gonna get me a CHINESE girl!!! (pause) But I don't know about the Spanish girls...I FUCKIN' HATE SPICS!!! Fuckin' HATE those muthafukkas!!!

(At this point, the stunned silence was broken by much commentary from the numerous people of Spanish-speaking descent who were passengers, all of whom found the sudden turn toward ethnic hatred to be extremely amusing.)

Latina subway rider: This nigga must be for Trump! (laughter from surrounding riders)

Looney (not missing a beat): Yeah, I'm for Trump! That muthafukka has ALL the money! He's got the right idea! Mexicans have ALL the jobs! Fuckin' Puerto Ricans!!! Ruinin' the fuckin' country! (pause) RADIATION!!! Microwave make radiation! GO BACK TO SCHOOL, MUTHAFUKKAS!!!

(His ranting continued along those lines for two more stops, at which point I disembarked.)

HAPPY 2016!!!

What's the new year without Charles Bronson killing an entire neighborhood in the immortal DEATH WISH 3 (1985)?

IT WAS 35 YEARS AGO TODAY...

Dear Vaulties-

here's a re-run from the past couple of years, complete with the title change and a few edits to render the accurate passage of time. Bear with it, because this has become an annual fixture.NOTE : every word of the following story is true (or rather remembered as exactly as humanly possible given that over three decades have elapsed since it happened), and if you find some of it offensive at this late date, imagine being in my shoes at age fifteen!

December 9th, 1980-

It was the start of my tenth grade school day morning and I was disgruntled (as usual) at being denied sleep and instead being herded along with the rest of the cattle at Westport', CT's Staples High School into yet another inane class. The first item of regurgitation/education of the morning was English with Mr. Dyskolos (not his real name; changed for reasons soon to be apparent), a late-forty-something red-headed guy who then resembled what Danny Bonaduce looks like today who was also among the minute handful of teachers whose classes would keep students awake because he was genuinely interesting, did not talk down to the kids, and had not allowed the thankless teaching system to beat him down and force him to consider his job a mocking reminder of wage-slavery (I'm the son of a teacher, so I speak with a working knowledge of such things).

As the students took their chairs we all noticed that Mr. Dyskolos's usual laid-back manner seemed somewhat "off" that morning and after nearly a minute of total silence as he stared into space as though contemplating some cosmic truth or inevitability, he suddenly focused himself, looked at us and said, as serious as a heart attack, "By the look of you, you haven't heard what happened this morning. I'll just get right to it. John Lennon, de facto leader of the Beatles, was shot dead by some lunatic fan." Most of the class had indeed not heard about Lennon's murder and those of us who hadn't, myself among them, were stunned. But before the horrible truth could fully set in, Mr. Dyskolos continued. "You kids probably know a lot about the Beatles from what your parents or maybe your older brothers and sisters played for you, but you can't even begin to imagine the worldwide pop culture impact those guys had at the time. Obviously I was there for the 1960's and can tell you firsthand what it was like, but I'm gonna spare you that nauseating, self-indulgent trip down memory lane. I guarantee you that all your other teachers are going to suspend actual teaching for the day and drag you along for their reminiscences of their flower-power salad days, but I'm not gonna do that to you. Instead, I'm gonna tell you a few truths that you won't hear anywhere else in this school, or damn near anywhere else, on what's gonna no doubt be a day of worldwide mourning."

He leaned forward in his chair, his face a mask of utmost solemnity, and uttered words that blew the minds of the roomful of privileged suburban white kids (and me): "The Beatles sucked. They were a bunch of marginally talented 'heads' who started out ripping off the work of their black American influences and made a hell of a lot of money for no good reason, killing real rock 'n' roll in the process and unleashing legions of even less-talented imitators in that godawful British Invasion nonsense. And then they went to India, supposedly to gain 'enlightenment' or some other George Harrison-inspired bee-ess, but if you ask me all it did was make their music more annoying." To emphasize that point of criticism, Mr. Dyskolos began making a nasal and high-pitched "neeeeeeer neeeeeer neeeeeeeeeee neeeer" sound by way of approximating the tones of a sitar.

By this point in his diatribe you could have heard an amoeba fart. Young eyes practically bugged out of their sockets and jaws had fallen into laps. This was rock 'n' roll blasphemy in the extreme, and on the morning of the senseless slaughter of a man held by most in the room to be a hero of peace, love and great music, no less. Our worlds were shaken to the core. And then Mr. Dyskolos continued, still looking solemn, but his mouth betrayed a slight half-smile as he was very obviously enjoying his class' speechless outrage.

"Then they put out that asinine White Album that had exactly two good songs on it — 'Birthday" and 'Back in the U.S.S.R.,' and those two were good because they sound like actual rock 'n' roll! — and they had the fucking unbelievable nerve to include that 'Revolution 9' horseshit! What the hell was that? (assumes comedic Liverpudlian accent) 'Noombuh nine? Noombuh nine?' What a load of crap! I'm telling you kids right here and now, remember how 'deep' that bullshit is when you decide to give acid a try!" (NOTE: this was the first time I ever hear a teacher curse when not discussing some of the content in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE.)

Before he could say another word, Mr. Dyskolos was cut off and drowned out by an aural assault of irate dissenting opinion, his every word being tarred as the rantings of an anti-peace & love curmudgeon who "just didn't get it." "Who do you think you are???" shrieked several of my classmates. "The Beatles were the most important band in history! John Lennon and Paul McCartney were two of the greatest songwriters who ever lived! Are you crazy?" Dyskolos responded with a sneer that would have done Vincent Price proud and uttered my favorite comeback heard in all of my teenage years, whether I agreed with him or not: "What the hell did they ever write that was worth a goddamn? 'We all live in a yellow submarine?' Puh-leeeeze. The only reason you kids enshrine those hacks is because of nostalgia filtered down from parents who were barely your age when the Beatles showed up and absorbed by the general public and your older brothers and sisters who used that garbage as a soundtrack for when they'd sneak off to smoke weed in the back of a van. Which also explains how anybody could ever find the stomach to listen to those Doors assholes! Face it, kids. For some of what are supposed to be this country's brightest young minds, you sure are a bunch of programmed parrots!" And when one of the students blurted out that John Lennon was a symbol of "give peace a chance," our sage teacher batted that one aside with "You've obviously never heard about the time when Mr. Give Peace A Chance went to some club and hung out with a Kotex stuck to his forehead," a then-shocking truth that only elicited more teenage keening.

That was the real meat of it but the back and forth ranting went on for the class's full hour, with order barely being restored with the ringing of the bell marking the rotation to the next class. Each of my classmates and I zombied off to the next class and swiftly discovered that Mr. Dyskolos had been correct in his auguring. Indeed, each and every teacher I had to endure for the rest of the day derailed the planned curriculum in favor of rose-colored reminiscences of "a more innocent time" full of free love, "the people getting together, man!"and how the Beatles were the troubadours that saw them through all of it and changed to reflect the time. That was all well and good in theory, but not for hours on end as heard from speakers of wildly varying levels of eloquence (to say nothing of interest), with lunch being the day's only respite from what was essentially the same story only with the most minor of variations.

When the day finally ended I headed downtown to do my volunteer teaching of a cartooning class at the local YMCA and the journey allowed me some time to process the events of the day and the "truths" imparted. I'd grown up liking the Beatles quite a lot but didn't own any of their albums on vinyl thanks to their many hits being available in endless rotation on some of the nascent stations that played what would come to be known as "classic rock," and as the seventies ended I avoided the agonizing repetition of disco and such by listening to the excellent oldies station WBLI out of Long Island, a radio entity that served to plant the seeds of my passion for pre-1970's rock that was either primitive and raw or bizarre and very much off the beaten path. WBLI played some of the standard Beatles hits, but they also threw stuff like "Devil in Her Heart," "Dig A Pony" and "Rain" (nowadays my favorite Beatles tune of all) into the mix and showed me just how much the classic rock stations played the same Fab Four songs over and over and over and over and over again, ad nauseum, and taking into account the espoused theory — voiced with absolute certainty of its veracity — that myself and my fellow students may have been a bunch of programmed drones, I began to wonder if Mr. Dyskolos had in fact done his young charges a favor by showing none of the rote reverence extended to the favorite sons of Liverpool by all who drew breath. He had effectively "killed our idol" on the day when one would expect nothing but 100% adherence to the party line, and that greatly intrigued my punk rock-influenced sensibilities.

As I pondered these thoughts, I wandered past Westport Record and Tape, one of the town's most accessible record stores, and greeted Jean, the sweet southern proprietor. I asked her if the shooting of John Lennon had affected her sales that day and she said, "Honey, look over at the Beatles and John Lennon sections. Whadda you see? Tumbleweeds 'n' cattle skulls, that's what! Folks came in and cleaned the place out like they were a bunch of vinyl-eatin' locusts! On sales of Beatles and Lennon records alone, I could close early today." And it was true. Every single Beatles/Lennon platter had vanished into the Westport ether, bought up by fools who believed those perennial best-sellers (okay, maybe not SOMETIME IN NEW YORK CITY) would become instant collector's items.

Later that night as I lay there in my bed staring up at the white stucco ceiling, I listened to my cassette tape of SERGEANT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND (the only Beatles album I owned at the time) and experienced it in a way that I never had before. I'd listened to it about two dozen times since acquiring it a couple of years previous, but now it served as a poignant grave marker for my favorite member of the Beatles and its words took on a whole new timbre. No one would be "fixing a hole" in Lennon and ensuring he would live to see sixty-four and beyond. He would not be getting better and there would be no more good mornings for him. Yet tragic though it was, this was just another day in the collective life, and that life would go on without John Lennon (though obviously not "within").

I remember the hue and cry when Elvis Presley, the so-called King of Rock 'n' Roll, gave up the ghost and people acted as though the world had come to an end, and I frankly didn't get it. I liked some of Elvis's music, but it didn't really speak to me in the way that the Beatles had and I now chalk that up to the Beatles happening during what could arguably be considered the most pivotal period of the twentieth century, a time that redefined much of American culture and into which my generation was born. We didn't grow up with Elvis, whose music helped set the template of rock 'n' roll, but we did come along during the rise of the Beatles and reached early sentience while under the influence of their sound. We couldn't know at the time just what their contribution meant, but we did know that we liked it. Obsessive poring over the minutia of the whys and wherefores of their lives, art and careers would come later. At that point in our young lives love was indeed all we needed, and in the wake of the plastic disco era and what small impact punk had in the U.S. at the time, that wasn't a bad thing.

So today marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of John Lennon's senseless slaughter and for me the day that it happened becomes ever more remote, so I figured I'd jot down my experience of it before age robs it of what clarity remains. If any of you have tales of that day, please write in and share.

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As seen on the Metro North train while returning to NYC from Thanksgiving. As Tom Lehrer once so astutely observed, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd."