This Just In! (Monster Memories)

I've been threatening for years to write a post entitled "I Was A Teenage Movie Star"* documenting those days of yore when my friend Sam, armed with a Kodak Super-8 camera and the most astounding powers of persuasion imaginable**, enlisted our aid in producing a series of low-budget (really low budget, as in "close to non-existent") monster movies. Unfortunately, an essay like that demanded photo-documentation and I didn't have any.

Until now.

Sam just e-mailed me a couple of stills from his/Moriser Productions third feature film, The Frankenstein Experiment***, with yours truly playing the role of The Monster (I was maybe 16):

G. W. freshly decapitated and awaiting reconstructive surgery.

Re-assembled and ready for the ladies!

So now I guess I'm gonna have to quit procrastinating and get to writin'. Thanks, Sam, for the pics, for the experience, for the memories, but not for that damned dent in my skull from 10 lbs. of putty atop an ill-fitting styrofoam cap!

*But this ain't it.

**Evidenced by the fact we allowed him to set one of us (well, me) on fire, bury another one of us alive (not me), slather us with gobs of latex, cosmetics, plaster, alginate, and Crom knows what-all in unexpectedly painful multi-hour make-up sessions, have us wander around in freezing temperatures drooling huge mouthfuls of Karo syrup.**** Sam missed his calling; he should have been a professional con man. Or politician.

***Sometimes known as The Frankenstein Experience. Years ago Sam sent in his films to be duped onto videotape and the company providing this service inadvertently recorded the technicians' comments:

"What's that say? The Frankenstein Experience?"
"It's just a bunch of bad shots!"
"You think this is bad? You should see the stuff we get from JMU!"

****It was years before I could eat pancakes again.