James Dean, like Jimi Hendrix, was doomed because of the letter J.
Questions Americans frequently ask me about Halloween.
You mean you guys have Halloween in England too?
"Dude. We invented it. We're still basically pagan. As late as the 18th century grizzled yokels could be heard muttering about human sacrifice guaranteeing good crops, as highwaymen kicked their last on the gallows at Tyburn. You've seen The Wicker Man? True story. Guy Fawkes? Pete Doherty? Princess Diana? Same thing."
Excuse me? What are you talking about?
"Just that Lyndon LaRouche and David Icke are essentially right. The world really is run by the baby-eating, alien-space-lizard British royal family who invented rock'n'roll as a convenient way of slaughtering our most beautiful and most talented in order to placate the Old Gods who really run things.
Please keep your distance, sir. I have Mace.
"No, wait. John Barleycorn, Jesus Christ, John the Baptist, Janis Joplin. James Dean, Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Brian James, John Denver, Jeff Buckley. Johnny "Guitar" Watson. Jim Morrison, Jayne Mansfield and Judas. What do they all have in common?"
I'm sorry?
"The letter J. If Britney had been christened Jitney she'd have been dead years ago. Little Jimmy Osmond is a walking time bomb. If the Jam, Jethro Tull, Jazzy Jeff and Jesus and Mary Chain had ever played on the same bill it would have opened a portal to hell."
But what about Freddie Mercury. Or Buddy Holly? Or ...
"Shut up. This Halloween sees the release of the straight-to-DVD horror flick Rapturious in which a white, ginger rapper learns that his awesome rhyming powers have been bestowed by the evil soul of a demonically possessed cowboy killer from the Wild West or something. It's an interesting twist on the bluesman-sells-his-soul-to-the-devil-at-the-crossroads-at-midnight myth."
You mean like -oh, my God - Robert Johnson!
"Exactly. And the same satanic forces gave - get this - Jimmy Page and Robert Jeffrey Plant and John Bonham the power to buy old blues records and be inspired by them, often note for note. Which is why they were originally gonna be called Jed Jeppelin."
Really?
"Straight up. In the NME in the 1970s afro'd honky hack Charles Shaar Murray put forward the theory that the reason so many second albums are crap is that the tribesfolk of Papua New Guinea (who speak over 715 indigenous languages, none of which use the letter J) were right, and that every time your photo is taken, a slice of your soul goes with it."
That can't be true.
"It isn't. The real reason most second albums suck is the aptly named sucubbi - Satan's armies of painted jezebels, or groupies as they are known on Earth, who literally suck the creative life force out of young musicians."
Whoa!
"Actually that's not true either. But it does fit into the misogynist mind-set of most male rock fans who are in total denial about the their homoerotic feelings towards their rock idols. No, the real reason second albums suck is that the 'devil's horns' sign rock fans make in tribute to their heroes is actually an ancient Roman curse. Get too many of them and it's goodbye talent, hello heroin."
You saw that on HBO's Rome, didn't you?
"Yes."
So this whole column is just a spurious attempt to find a link between Halloween and pop music?
"Yes. But one that doesn't mentions Monster Mash, or Helloween, or Marilyn Manson, or black/death/satanic metal, or Kate Bush, or the 150 song titles with the word 'witch' in them on iTunes. Or the plethora of gibbberingly insane born-again Christian 'pop music is satanic' websites put out there by Satan to warp the minds of the innocent. Because Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for meeeeeee. Dang dang dang a diddle dang etc.
(Disappears in cloud of foul-smelling purple smoke.)
