Far Out...
Aug. 17th, 2019 04:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakEssay by Art Spiegelman about how the golden age superheroes were shaped by the rise of fascism. Was originally declined publication for a sentence which sums up the state of affairs today: „Captain America’s most nefarious villain, the Red Skull, is alive on screen and an Orange Skull haunts America.“
I hear you, Mr. Spiegelman. In other news, the other Captain America is dead: I wonder whether Peter Fonda ever faced legal trouble from Marvel for giving his Easy Rider character that name? (I should know; I did read his memoirs, Don’t tell Dad which are two thirds entertaining and occasionally moving/disturbing (i.e. if you have a repeatedly institutionalized mother who slashes her throat and only find this out via the media…), and one third far too much sailing for a non-sailor like me.) Mind you, Peter Fonda in the 60s or early 70s actually could have played Steve Rogers, and I wonder what a counterculture 60s/70s version of The Winter Soldier would have been like. For added Fonda family psychodrama, Henry could have played Alexander Pierce.
In said memoirs, Peter mentions one of the countless articles published at the time referring to him as „the mouthy little brother“, which, he adds delightedly, would make for a great epitaph. Sure enough, Jane is quoted today as saying: He was my sweet-hearted baby brother, the talker of the family. If you’re a Beatles fan, Peter Fonda also comes to mind as the unwitting inspiration of She said she said. (The Beatles met him in Los Angeles during one of their last US tours, when they’d just gotten into LSD – well, John and George had – and Peter mentioned shooting himself by accident as a child, which led to a near death experience. This to a tripping John Lennon was so not the kind of story he wanted to hear, but he couldn’t get „I know what it’s like to be dead“ out of his head, hence the song on Revolver. Or, to quote both Fonda and Lennon on the event:
PF: “I remember sitting out on the deck of the house with George, who was telling me that he thought he was dying. I told him that there was nothing to be afraid of and all that he needed to do was relax. I said that I knew what it was like to be dead because, when I was 10 years old, I’d accidentally shot myself in the stomach and my heart stopped beating three times while I was on the operating table because I had lost so much blood.“
JL: “Peter kept on saying, in a whisper, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we said, 'What?’ And he kept on saying it. We were saying, 'For Christ’s sake, shut up! We don’t care, we don’t want to know!’ But he kept going on about it.“
PF: „”John looked at me and said, ’You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born. Who put all that shit in your head?' “
The result of that encounter was one of the more nightmarish songs in the Beatles catalogue, but certainly memorable.
I hear you, Mr. Spiegelman. In other news, the other Captain America is dead: I wonder whether Peter Fonda ever faced legal trouble from Marvel for giving his Easy Rider character that name? (I should know; I did read his memoirs, Don’t tell Dad which are two thirds entertaining and occasionally moving/disturbing (i.e. if you have a repeatedly institutionalized mother who slashes her throat and only find this out via the media…), and one third far too much sailing for a non-sailor like me.) Mind you, Peter Fonda in the 60s or early 70s actually could have played Steve Rogers, and I wonder what a counterculture 60s/70s version of The Winter Soldier would have been like. For added Fonda family psychodrama, Henry could have played Alexander Pierce.
In said memoirs, Peter mentions one of the countless articles published at the time referring to him as „the mouthy little brother“, which, he adds delightedly, would make for a great epitaph. Sure enough, Jane is quoted today as saying: He was my sweet-hearted baby brother, the talker of the family. If you’re a Beatles fan, Peter Fonda also comes to mind as the unwitting inspiration of She said she said. (The Beatles met him in Los Angeles during one of their last US tours, when they’d just gotten into LSD – well, John and George had – and Peter mentioned shooting himself by accident as a child, which led to a near death experience. This to a tripping John Lennon was so not the kind of story he wanted to hear, but he couldn’t get „I know what it’s like to be dead“ out of his head, hence the song on Revolver. Or, to quote both Fonda and Lennon on the event:
PF: “I remember sitting out on the deck of the house with George, who was telling me that he thought he was dying. I told him that there was nothing to be afraid of and all that he needed to do was relax. I said that I knew what it was like to be dead because, when I was 10 years old, I’d accidentally shot myself in the stomach and my heart stopped beating three times while I was on the operating table because I had lost so much blood.“
JL: “Peter kept on saying, in a whisper, ‘I know what it’s like to be dead,’ and we said, 'What?’ And he kept on saying it. We were saying, 'For Christ’s sake, shut up! We don’t care, we don’t want to know!’ But he kept going on about it.“
PF: „”John looked at me and said, ’You’re making me feel like I’ve never been born. Who put all that shit in your head?' “
The result of that encounter was one of the more nightmarish songs in the Beatles catalogue, but certainly memorable.
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Date: 2019-08-17 09:07 pm (UTC)Now THAT would have been trippy, especially including the Nomad outfit!
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Date: 2019-08-18 08:28 am (UTC)