The original movie’s structure—which was based around an unscripted bus ride—was flimsy at best, and the extra footage, while interesting and well-shot, wouldn’t have made the plot any clearer, but there was a whole lot of action that would’ve lifted MMT close to classic status. The most memorable material involved a surprise visit from Rod Argent. Rod, who was apparently still upset about the Beatles allegedly ruining the Zombies’ careers, bum-rushed the set on day three, and to my eternal happiness, Lennon, McCartney, et al. kept the cameras rolling.
Word is that Argent had been in training for that very moment since the Beatles beat him up in Chicago back in ’64, and he must’ve been training well, because he looked like a defensive lineman: muscles on top of muscles; head attached directly to his shoulders; walking like his quadriceps were overdeveloped to the nth degree; sweating like a pig; ready for a fight.
You could tell by the way he looked around the set that he hadn’t come with a specific game plan. He went after Starr first, probably because Starr was the first Beatle he laid eyes on. The only reason he was able to do any damage is that he snuck up on Ringo; had Ringo seen him coming, the battle probably would’ve been over before it started. But Argent got in a couple of good shots with a rock to the back of Ringo’s neck—nothing major, just enough to draw a few drops of blood. By the time Ringo turned around to respond, Argent was gone; Rod somehow out-Ninja’d the Ninja.
Seconds later, Argent reappeared behind Harrison, and, before George even knew what was happening, Argent ripped George’s right arm off, then threw it on top of the bus. Even though it lasted only a few seconds, that single moment was more graphic than the whole twenty-minute section of Saving Private Ryan when the troops storm the beach at Normandy.
At this point, Lennon and McCartney became aware of what was going on, so they took off after Argent. Argent was fast, though, and for a few hundred meters, he outpaced the zombies. But he ran out of gas, and that’s where the fun began.
Lennon grabbed Argent by his long hair and tossed him toward the sky. The sun was shining brightly, and the camera wasn’t equipped to handle that sort of explosion of brightness, so it was impossible to see how high Argent went, but since he splatted onto the ground a full forty-five seconds later, you can assume that Lennon got some good lift.
By now, Harrison had retrieved his right arm from the top of the bus, and you could tell he was pissed off. Using his left hand, he balled up the right fist, then hurled the arm at Argent like it was a javelin. If I may be permitted to make a horrible pun, it pounded Rod right in the rod. All the fight went out of Mr. Argent. But not Mr. McCartney.
Paul picked up Argent like he was a sack of feathers, then threw him back up in the air, probably even higher than Lennon had. Harrison zipped on over and caught Argent before he splatted again, then he contorted the poor man into a pretzel.
And then George said to Paul, “This guy is a bloody cunt, but I kind of dig his band. Maybe we should show some mercy.”
Paul said, “Yeah, that cover of ‘Goin’ Out of My Head’ they did is solid, y’know. Should we, y’know, do the do?”
Ringo said, “It would be a nice thing. Positive karma, and all that.”
John said, “I vote yes. What one of you geezers wants to go for it?”
George said, “It was my idea, I suppose, so I’ll take the reins. Ringo, can you please finish off Rod so I can have access to his brain?”
Ringo said, “It’ll be my pleasure.” And then he punched Argent in the heart, and that was it.
George seemed to take great pleasure in transforming Argent—it came off on film as a celebration, albeit in a weird zombie kind of way—but there’s no way they could’ve put that particular moment in the final cut, as it was to be shown on BBC, rather than in theaters. It made an impression on me, though; that scene informed a number of the rougher set pieces in Poltergeist and, believe it or not, Schindler’s List.
It’s probably best I don’t discuss the remainder of the footage, which could be best summarized in two words: snuff film.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: All four of us were in a horrible state after Magical Mystery Tour went belly-up. Ringo and George found their own ways to amuse themselves, which was lovely for them, but John and I needed something to occupy our minds, because had we become idle, bad things could’ve happened, y’know. Very bad things. Unspeakable things. So, erm, I shan’t speak of them.
There were days at the end of 1967 when John and I couldn’t be in the same room—we’d been together almost every day for ten years, and his scent was nauseating me more and more each week, and I’m sure my stink was getting to him too. George was off experimenting with more weirdo guitars; he’d developed something called a Hair-ison, which was a mandolin strung with strings fashioned from the pubic hair of his female victims. Nobody knew where the fook Ringo was, and it was a mess. With Eppy gone, the Beatles were like a barely functioning airplane flying over the Bermuda Triangle. One harsh gust of wind, and we would be done.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1968
GEORGE HARRISON: I planned a trip to India to get a few Transcendental Meditation lessons with Maharishi. I invited the guys—I thought they’d benefit from it, plus it might keep us from becoming more splintered—but John didn’t want to go, because he was still on that “I’m afraid of losing my edge” kick. I insisted it would be impossible for any zombie to lose his edge, especially one as grouchy as he was. He yanked off my arm and beat me with it for about five minutes, then the lightbulb clicked on, and he said, “Oh. Hunh. You may have a point there, mate.”
I said, “I know I have a point. Besides, after what you did to Maharishi in Wales, he’ll probably tweak your lesson plan however you want it tweaked. I mean, the only extremities of his you didn’t tear off were his head and his plonker, and I think he’s gonna want those, so if you say ‘Jump,’ he’ll say, ‘How high?’”
John mumbled, “Something tells me that legless git won’t want to discuss jumping.”
JOHN LENNON: Maha wasn’t the kind of cat who’d get an artificial limb—he’d rather display his wounds so everybody’d know he was at one with himself, or whatever—so when we pulled into his compound in Rishikesh, they had to wheel him over in this sharp little wagonlike thing, covered with diamonds and jewels, and being pushed by three of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen. I elbowed George and said, “That’s enough to make you wanna rip off your own limbs and chuck ’em in the garbage, eh?”
He rolled his eyes at me, then told Maha, “Thank you for welcoming us to your home. As a small token of my appreciation, I’d like to play you a song I’ve written especially for the occasion.” And then he pulled out that fookin’ skintar, and those gorgeous birds ran off to the hills, screaming like banshees.
Maha, who suddenly looked a little green himself, smiled and said, “That’s okay, my son. A tune is not necessary, as the songs of nature fill my soul. Besides, your positive vibes are powerful, very powerful, and that is enough for me.” Then, in a dead-on Liverpool accent, said, “Now put that smelly fookin’ piece of music-making machinery back into its case before I toss me curry.”
Don’t let anybody tell you that old Maha didn’t have a sense of humor.
RINGO STARR: Paul and I got to Rishikesh a few days after John and George, and by the time we showed up, the two of them were already bored to tears. When we got to the compound, they were off under some tree, way away from the action, playing strip poker. They’d obviously been playing for a while, because they were both not only naked but also legless.
John looked up at Paul and said, “Macca, it’s so fookin’ dull here that I’m even glad to see you.”
Paul said, “Cheers, mate. But if you’re so bored, why don’t you do something productive?”
John said, “Like what?”
Paul said, “Oh, gosh, erm, I dunno, maybe write some songs or something.”
George said, “Not a bad suggestion. But I have a better idea.”
> JOHN LENNON: The irony is that I was always the guy who came up with those sorts of schemes. I never thought George had it in him.
RINGO STARR: George was the most spiritual zombie I’d ever met, but when he laid his plan out for us, I realized there was a limit to a zombie’s spirituality.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: On one hand, I thought George’s idea was a horrible one that’d lead to bad press and bad juju, an’ that. But on the other hand, I was really, really hungry, y’know.
GEORGE HARRISON: That American actress Mia Farrow was at the compound with us, as was her sister Prudence. Mia was a good egg and participated in all the activities and ate all of Maharishi’s shite food with us. Hell, she even joined us for a round of strip poker. Prudence, on the other hand, was always up in her room with the door locked, doing who knows what. So my idea was, let’s eat Prudence. But not just her brain: everything. Skin, bones, organs, muscles, eyeballs, the entire shebang.
Ringo said, “The brains I can understand, by why the whole thing?”
I said, “Because we can. Plus she’s a pill, and nobody’d miss her anyhow.”
JOHN LENNON: Right at that moment, right when he suggested we make a meal out of dear Prudence, I couldn’t have been prouder of George Harold Harrison. My little boy had finally become a man.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: We decided to sneak into Prudence’s room in the dark of night, but truthfully, everybody at the compound was so wrapped up in their own heads that we could’ve wandered in there at high noon carrying signs that said PRUDENCE FARROW IS ABOUT TO BECOME OUR LUNCH, and nobody would’ve blinked an eye.
GEORGE HARRISON: I hypnotized her first, so she never felt a thing. Just because she was an antisocial bore didn’t mean she deserved to die a painful death.
JOHN LENNON: It wasn’t a big to-do. We butchered her, then called it a day. We were quite tidy about it, and we didn’t leave a single drop of blood or gristle in her room; after all, eating a fellow TM student isn’t the way a good TM houseguest should act, so the least we could do was be neat about it.
Our picnic was very civil. I got the drumsticks, George got the thighs and the wings, Paulie got the breasts.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: What can I tell you? I’m a tit man, y’know. Plus I’ve always been partial to white meat.
RINGO STARR: It took everybody a full two days to realize that Prudence was even missing, and another two days for any of the Maharishi’s people to question us about it. Actually, they didn’t question us about it—they questioned me. And I ratted the lads out.
JOHN LENNON: Yeah, Ringo went all Guy Fawkes on us, and they chucked the lot of us, but that was fine with me, because I was ready to get the fook out of there. That peace shit was getting on me last nerves.
The next day, we get to the Nagpur Airport, and guess which wally shows up out of nowhere?
ROD ARGENT: I was still on the fence about my newfound zombie life. The powers were nice and all, but did they make up for my horrible scent, or the fact that my family and girlfriend shunned me? Yes and no. Eternity on Earth seemed like it would have its advantages, but it would’ve been nice to get a hug from my loved ones, you know? I think all mortals who become undead later in life have to deal with this sort of internal conflict.
The main thing that cheesed me off was that I wasn’t given any choice in the matter. It would’ve been nice had Ringo or Paul said, “Oi, Roddy, I know you’ve been trying to mess us up for the last five or six years, but as proven by your dreadful showing while we were shooting Magical Mystery Tour, no matter how much you train, no matter how many muscles you develop, and no matter how fast you might get, you don’t have a shot. So what say we zombify you and turn it into a fairer fight? You still won’t be able to take us because we outnumber you—plus we have a Ninja in the fold—but maybe, just maybe, if you score a point or two off of us, like maybe if you briefly remove John’s arm or throw George off a cliff, you’ll feel better about the whole thing.”
I probably would’ve told them no, then thrown in the towel and concentrated on my music. I mean, there’re only so many times you can get your face bashed in before you realize it’s time to call it quits. But they didn’t ask. They just did it. Thus, the battle continued.
The press covered the Beatles’ every move, so they were easy enough to track down in India. I thought that going after them in an unfamiliar airport would be something of an equalizer. Like launching an attack at, say, Abbey Road Studios would’ve been suicide … not that I could’ve actually died, but you get the point. Also, I wanted as many journos to capture it as possible; a few good newspaper articles would’ve boosted the Zombies’ record sales, and we needed all the help we could get.
They were flying a private plane, naturally, and they probably thought that taking their own aircraft would keep them safe. Little did they know that ol’ Roddy Argent was waiting for them on the tarmac.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: Argent looked pissed, and he had zombie powers now, and I was still feeling logy from having eaten Prudence Farrow’s sweet bristols, y’know, and I didn’t want any part of him, so after Rod issued his challenge, I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.
RINGO STARR: I missed London like you wouldn’t believe, and I wanted to get home as fast as possible. Besides, I’d eaten nothing but Heinz baked beans for the last two weeks—no way I was touching that Indian shite—and I wasn’t in any shape to fight Rod. So I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.
GEORGE HARRISON: I was hauling seven instruments: my skintar; my Hair-ison; my double-reeded plonker-phone; my toe-monica; my hi-head-hat; my nose flute; and my jaw harp. These were all delicate pieces, and I had zero urge to get involved with some pointless Mania with Rod Argent, so I gently put down everything I was holding, flipped him the double bird, and got on the plane.
JOHN LENNON: Rod looked heartbroken when we didn’t accept his invitation to battle, so I walked over to him and said, “Listen, mate, we dig why you’ve always been upset with us. If four giant beetles started a band and sold a bunch of records based on a tenuous connection with us, I might get upset, too. But just because we’re zombies doesn’t mean you can’t be a Zombie. Besides, you’re a zombie now anyhow, so you might as well roll with it. We all wish you the best of luck, and you should probably know that if we ever see your face again, we’re going to rip it off and throw it into the Atlantic Ocean.” Then I reached into my pocket and pulled out a few thousand rupees, handed them over, and said, “Go buy yourself a first-class ticket home, mate. You’ve worked hard trying to kill us, and you deserve something special.”
And then I flipped him the bird and got on the plane.
ROD ARGENT: All the fight went out of me. I went back to the terminal, bought my first-class seat, and never saw the Beatles again.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: We’d been discussing starting up our own record label for a while, but we got serious when we got back from India. John wanted to call it Maggot Music, but that was summarily voted down. By me.
JOHN LENNON: To us, the music industry didn’t work. A band would get a record deal; then, unless they immediately hit the charts, they’d become persona non grata. There was no nurturing. No vision. No love. And no monsters.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: Outside of the Grateful Dead, we were the only successful rock band that had a zombie, y’know. There were plenty of jazz monsters around—Miles Davis is a vampire, of course; and Thelonious Monk is an unclassifiable deity, kind of like our old friend Roy Orbison, I suppose—and the classical world was littered with swamp things, but in rock ’n’ roll, nothing. So we decided that our new baby, Apple Records, would have a roster consisting entirely of otherworldly beings. (George came up with Apple, because it reminded him of the satisfying crunch of a fresh skull. Good one, Georgie.) Thing is, it’s not easy to find monster musicians in Europe, as England isn’t loaded with clubs that offer open-mic nights for so-called creatures, so we had to put the word out all by ourselves. And that meant hitting the streets. And the sewers.
JOHN LE
NNON: Neil and I designed these leaflets alerting the monster world that we were accepting demos from non-mortals of all shapes and sizes. We hung the posters all over London, and got only one single demo from one single band, and we didn’t consider signing them, because, well, let’s just say that “Something Fishy’s Going On” by the Raspberry Blueberry Booger Boogie Beat Extraction featuring Willie the Hydra wasn’t exactly a toe-tapper. We found out quickly that the chance of finding a solid, well-oiled all-monster band was unlikely, as your typical moleman doesn’t have the means to buy a decent guitar or rent a decent rehearsal studio.
So we ripped down the old notices and replaced them with new posters announcing a one-day-only audition. Be you monster, human, man, woman, or child, if you were good, you’d get signed. But if you were bad, you’d get killed.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: John talked a good game but didn’t follow through. We didn’t kill anybody at the audition, although John took a couple of token swipes at an American bloke named James Taylor, who hightailed it right on back to Heathrow, y’know. Once we abandoned the monster idea, we gave the label a rest. That left us with a lot of time on our hands, y’know, so John and I put our heads together and came up with what seemed like a damn good idea.
By the late-sixties, zombies were accepted in most parts of society, but that didn’t mean we were catered to—like, good luck finding an undead restaurant. So John and I decided we should give something back to our zombie brethren.
Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion Page 22