Homicide Adjacent: Imitation in life.
Homicide Adjacent: Imitation in life.
Cosplay before it was cosplay.
I chose the song, Both Sides Now (Annie Lennox version) to set the stage for this article. There are two other great versions, by Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell. Choose wisely or listen to them all. Joni’s, you may end up breaking down and forgetting about this article, but I’ll take that chance.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” Oscar Wilde
When did it begin? In my family’s basement? When I was in the third grade? The fourth? I’d read something about Bonnie and Clyde in a magazine. I wanted to be them and so I wrote a movie about them. Then I did my best to imitate a Robin Hoodesque gangster like Clyde Barrow. To balance that out, I sent a letter to the FBI and told them there was a bad element in our little rural neighborhood, and that someone, namely me, should be duly deputized to be on the lookout for…well… me. I received a letter back, thanking me for my continued vigilance, saying my age was a roadblock to gainful employment with their agency. Please check back in 20 years.
Then, my brother and I imitated the Beatles. We were the full band, though he mostly played Paul or George and I, John or Ringo. That pissed me off, that he never let me play Paul - the one the girls went ga-ga for, in our minds. It never occurred to me that I could also play Paul, but rules being rules, dueling Pauls couldn’t exist in our 5 and 7-year-old make-believe world.
We had the wigs, bobbleheads, shoe boxes full of Topps Chewing Gum Beatles Trading Cards, brooms for guitars, TV trays for drums (when I dipped to play Ringo), and a single pair of treasured Beatles boots (no idea how we got them). They were far too big for our feet and one was missing a heel, so no matter how cool we thought we looked you always had a limp to overcome. We hid them in the garage, where our very Lutheran parents would never find them. For many parents at that time, the Beatles (even before John announced they were “More popular than Jesus”) were the Devil - and those boots represented sex on a sole. As dangerous as Elvis the Pelvis.