"EXHIBITIONIST AT THE PICTURE SHOW"-PART ONE

EXHIBITIONIST AT THE PICTURE SHOW (part one)

From the moment it was placed into movie theaters (or maybe even before), the fate of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was sealed. Released in the summer of 1978, “Sgt. Pepper” has long been regarded as not only a tremendous box office flop which nearly killed the careers of everyone involved with it, it has also been noted as one of the worst films ever made. And I loved it. Let me say that again…I loved that movie. I know that I am probably the only one. But, so what?! It had it all. Sight. Sound. Great visuals. It was truly unique and it was a helluva lot better than “Grease,” I’ll tell you. Let’s be real, folks! It was bad enough that my parents teased me with the promise of seeing a movie that night and then driving directly past the theater showing “Sgt. Pepper” and ending up at the one showing “Grease.” Then, there was the unending hell of sitting through this half-baked, sub-“Happy Days,” ‘50s nostalgia piece set to ‘70s era disco tunes and starring the oldest high school senior class ever witnessed on celluloid! (But, there was Olivia Newton-John, and seeing her for two hours received no complaints from me!) 

But, let’s get back to business here. “Sgt. Pepper” was basically a live-action version of “Yellow Submarine.” It was a fairy-tale set to the best music there ever was so what’s not to love? To be fair, I loved it at the time. I actually haven’t seen it since I was maybe twelve years old, when they finally showed it on television. I loved it so much that I audio-recorded the whole thing because we didn’t have a VCR yet. This labored process consisted of sitting in front of the television speaker with a standard tape recorder. You edit out the commercials by controlling the pause button. Much more difficult to undertake during this process would be the consistent praying that no external noise (from ringing telephones to your own breathing) would ruin an otherwise pristine recording. I realize that this may sound obsessive. But, there was something about “Sgt. Pepper” that spoke to me. From the second I saw that commercial with that revolving, glowing cornet with an announcer bellowing the names of the biggest rock stars of the day (“PETER FRAMPTON!! THE BEE GEES!! AEROSMITH!! ALICE COOPER!! EARTH, WIND AND FIRE!!”), I just had to see that movie.

I eventually did see the movie while at a family reunion in Detroit. Very unusual for me to attend seeing as the only family members I knew were the ones I attended the reunion with! I mean—what was really the point for me to be there? All of these hefty adults, drunk with imagined memories of family experiences fawning over me because I had the good fortune to spring forth from the loins of forgotten cousins or whatever. It just made me want to do anything to get away from them all. I was nine years old! What would I have to say to any of those people?! I spent one afternoon on some unknown Uncle’s boat, which was tied to a nearby dock, constantly casting a line into the lake. Unknowingly, some future member of the Detroit penal colony, who also happened to be a cousin, snuck up behind me and released a wasp which was trapped underneath a plastic cup. Needless to say, I was stung and the humiliation increased on an exponential level as I shrieked with the tone of a three-year-old female, while simultaneously jumping up and down like said three-year-old female and for the coup de grace, I dropped my Uncle’s fishing pole into the lake, where it predictably sank. It takes an embarrassing moment of that magnitude to allow parents to offer their child some sort of reward for surviving the latest in a life-long series of embarrassing moments. So, of course, my parents offered to take my hedonistic cousin and myself to the movies that night. He wanted to see “Jaws 2” and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with man-eating sharks, so my Mother suggested that she would take him to the killer-shark carnage freak show and my Dad would take me to “Sgt. Pepper.” At last! I would finally get to see this dialogue free, ‘70s rock star extravaganza!

      Seeing that movie set me off on a road I could have never anticipated. I was so enthralled and entranced by its’ visual/aural splendor that I needed to obtain every possible souvenir I could find. Of course, there was the soundtrack album, which I listened to “constantly”-my older sister’s word, which she spat at me with supreme annoyance and despite the fact that she swiped my Peter Frampton poster, she still wailed her irritations to me as I sat blissfully in her room listening to the soundtrack on her 8-track player.

But, there were other “Sgt. Pepper” artifacts I stumbled across that made the experience last longer in my brain. I purchased a book, a self-described scrapbook really, about the making of the film and surprisingly, I found, of all things, the novelization, which I feverishly read in one night and re-read the next day. I even found a trading card series and spent the remainder of that summer collecting every single card containing still photos from the film! I would arrange and re-arrange them numerically or chronologically of when I bought them or re-told the film’s story with them. Nothing would deter my love for this movie and the experience of seeing it. Not its’ box office failure or the critical slaughter. I just figured that they didn’t get it because the audience I saw it with applauded it, just as I did. As I said earlier, I realize that this may sound obsessive. But, that’s just how I am when I get into something. I’ve gotta know it all and take in every corner of it. Take me or leave me, that’s just how I am.

The air was let out of my balloon slightly when I returned to school that fall for fourth grade and many of my friends had also seen it and despised it. That made it difficult for me to voice my love for it, fearing I would be immediately cast out and branded forever as a total loser. So, in that respect I kept this passion to myself save for a few choice friends that wouldn’t think less of me. This included Amaan, a new friend who had transferred to my school and began to ride the bus with me. We talked about everything and got along well yet somehow, many conversations led to the movie and me telling him about it. He actually seemed quite fascinated and I certainly didn’t mind having an audience. I never realized how audible my voicings were until one morning, as we were getting off of the bus at school, Louise, the husky-voiced, shaggy haired and deceptively sultry bus driver took hold of my jacket, pulled me close to her ear and whispered to me, “If you dug ‘Sgt. Pepper’ that much, you’re gonna love ‘Tommy.’” Those words lingered in the air for a second. I could almost see them travel from her mouth to my ear as I took in this cigarette breath laced secret. “Tommy?” I had no idea what she was talking about but the seed had been planted.

Copyright 2014 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.