Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion (34 page)

John said, “It’s not
you
zombies, Mick. It’s
us
zombies.
Us
zombies. You are we, and we are us, and we are all together.”

They gave each other a long hug, and if John’s mouth hadn’t been covered with drying blood and dead skin, and if Mick hadn’t been turning gray before my very eyes, it would’ve been a terribly touching moment.

GEORGE HARRISON:
After the BBC fiasco, I needed to get out of the country for a while. The Mania of touring was no longer a problem, but the Mania of living in London with John, Paul, and Ringo was becoming more maniacal than ever, so I shoved off to San Francisco. Why San Fran? Well, it was apparently the place to be if you wanted to experience the Summer of Love. Also, I’d heard that San Francisco was the acid epicenter of the United States. I didn’t particularly
enjoy my experiences with the dreaded lysergic, but it’s possible that Eppy didn’t do a good job of mixing the stuff and I was missing out on the real thing. So, as the song says, California, here I come.

I was surprised at how many zombies were wandering around the city—why zombies would migrate to San Francisco, I have no clue—and I was also surprised at how badly they cared for themselves. As a lot, the undead are nasty to begin with—our scent is horrific, and you can’t even imagine what it’s like to live with these insurmountable skin problems—but we’re very meticulous about our personal hygiene, because if we don’t properly groom ourselves, we’d be shunned even more than we already are, and that’s saying something.

Those Bay Area zombies, however, were disgusting. They lived on the streets, and the moist San Francisco climate exacerbated their odor and skin issues. Their clothes were tattered and torn, the kind of clichéd gear you’d see in one of those Hammer Productions movies that John and Paul were always going on about. Worst of all, most of them were missing a limb and/or some digits and didn’t seem concerned about replacing them.

Now, I dunno if this all meant that the acid was really bloody good or really bloody bad, so I didn’t want to take any chances. On the other hand, I couldn’t leave San Francisco without trying
some
drug, so my second day in town I smoked some terrific weed, farted a few impressive rainbow clouds, then called it a day.

I had an open-ended airline ticket, so I could go back to London whenever I wanted, but if I’d returned after only three days, I’d have looked like a prat. So I went to Oakland in search of the Hell’s Angels.

E
very morning when I wake up, I thank whatever force is in charge of the universe that when the late Hunter S. Thompson was trashed, his gun-aiming skills went right into the crapper. You see, when I set foot on his land in Woody Creek, Colorado, in September 2004, Thompson took four potshots at me before I was anywhere near the house.

But it was important I speak with the Gonzo guru, so while he was reloading his Remington, I waved an issue of
ESPN The Magazine
in the air as if it were a white flag, and said, “I contribute to this! You contribute to this! We’re practically related!” Always a contradictory sort, Hunter told me to fuck off, then invited me in.

Thompson’s 1966 book
Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang
was a groundbreaking piece of you-are-there journalism that almost got him killed by the hair-trigger bikers, and it was believed that after the book was published, Thompson became persona non grata among the Angels. Not true. Hunter had made nice-nice with a number of high-ranking gang members, and up until he ran for sheriff of Colorado’s Pitkin County in 1970, he had his finger on the pulse of all that was Angel.

Thompson wasn’t in Oakland when George Harrison and Angels godhead Sonny Barger had their little summit meeting, but Thompson’s sources were impeccable, and as he was one of the great journalists of his era—even when he was whacked out of his gourd on some substance or another—one can take his depiction of the Harrison/Barger get-together as fact.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON:
Yeah, yeah, I know George Harrison has the strength of ten mules, but he was a fucking idiot to go meet Barger without any backup. Sure, he could’ve taken that fucker Sonny one-on-one, but Sonny was hardly ever alone, and I think even a hard-strapped zombie would have trouble against fifteen or twenty of those Angel motherfuckers.

There weren’t too many Angels who gave a rat’s ass about the Beatles, so when Harrison showed up at their clubhouse, unannounced
and un-goddamn-invited, it could’ve been a clusterfuck. The Angels could’ve opened fire on Harrison or gone after him with tire irons before he even said hello. But before they started pounding on him, one of those assholes recognized him and put the kibosh on the beat-down. Beating up a Beatle would’ve been horrible PR, and no matter what they say, those bastards care about how they’re viewed by the public.

Barger was always a bit of a star-fucker, so he was all into meeting Harrison. My inside man didn’t get close enough to their conversation to find out what they specifically discussed, but from what I know about Sonny, and from what I’ve read about Harrison, my guess is that it was some disjointed fucking discourse.

After they were done chatting, Barger, Harrison, and my inside man went in search of some good shit. See, apparently Harrison told Sonny that the LSD in San Francisco sucked, and Sonny insisted they could track down some good shit in Oak-town, and that was indeed the case. Except that shit was
too
good, and the only reason Harrison made it back to merry old fucking England with his faculties more or less intact was because my inside man didn’t take a tab, and protected them from reality during their trip. Had they all gotten high, there’s a good chance all three of those motherfuckers would’ve ended up at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay.

Those wasted morons wandered around the city for over forty-eight hours, but it would’ve been a lot less if Harrison’s nose hadn’t have fallen off in fucking East Oakland. I still can’t believe they found that thing. If it happened today, no way he would’ve gotten it back. East Oakland’s a shithole, and those people need bread
badly
. Imagine how much George Harrison’s schnozz would go for on eBay.

They brought Harrison back to the clubhouse, and, since Barger was Barger and the Angels were the Angels, they got into a fight,
and it turned out that three dozen Hell’s Angels couldn’t take down a lone Beatle zombie. My inside man was a smart dude, so he got the fuck out of there when the melee got bad. He found out the next day that five Angels were killed, and every single one of those motherfuckers in the place got hurt … except for Harrison. The moral of the story is, don’t get into the shit with the undead unless you’ve got a fucking werewolf in your crew—and everybody knows that werewolves don’t exist.

GEORGE HARRISON:
Almost permanently losing my nose was a wake-up call, so after Oakland, I was done with acid, but I needed something to fill the ever-increasing void in my soul. Music wasn’t getting me excited, nor was murder, so I went on a search that’ll last me the rest of my undeath. My first discovery: the Maharishi.

RINGO STARR:
George hipped us to this bloke called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who apparently had the ability to get us in touch with our inner something-or-other through meditation … and my inner something-or-other was in serious need of touching.

I didn’t think
or the High Ninja Council would approve of me studying with Maharishi—those Ninjas are very proprietary about spirituality—but they’d denied me an opportunity to reach Level Eight, so, you know, sod ’em.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
If Ringo and George were doing it,
I
was doing it.

JOHN LENNON:
If Ringo, George, and Paul were doing it,
I
was doing it.

GEORGE HARRISON:
One of the great things about being a Liverpool zombie is that we can remove our brains and give them a good cleanse. Some cold water, a drop or two of dish soap, and a quick
pat dry with a towel, and voila, your synapses are firing better than ever. But it is a tricky process, and you don’t want to do it all that often, because why take chances? What if your brain slips out of your hand and falls onto the floor? Who’s to say your Alsatian won’t wander over and take a nibble?

That all being the case, the fact that we were able to find a way of cleaning our brains without actually physically cleaning our brains was nothing short of a revelation.

We went up to Wales for a few days, and Maharishi taught us about Transcendental Meditation and gave us each a mantra, and it
worked
. Within hours, I was more relaxed than I’d been since elementary school. The fact that some pink gunk began leaking from my nose when I reached a higher consciousness didn’t even bother me.

JOHN LENNON:
After only two hours with Maha, the sky looked bluer, the grass looked greener, the sun and stars shone brighter, and the brains tasted better.

And I didn’t like it one fookin’ bit.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
I was in my hotel room, sitting on my bed, reciting my mantra, contemplating the universe, and, erm, mentally running some sales figures, when John pulled my door off its hinges. Without so much as a hello, he said, “The Maharishi must die.”

JOHN LENNON:
If I was relaxed, how was I supposed to maintain my artistic edge? If I was in a positive headspace, how could I defend myself and my band against attacks? If I was at one with the universe, chowing down on a living brain would be practically impossible, zombie nature or no zombie nature. I couldn’t take a chance
that I’d get led to a happy place, so I couldn’t take a chance that the Maharishi continue to walk the Earth.

PAUL M
C
CARTNEY:
I told John, “If you’re concerned about him walking the Earth, you don’t need to kill him; all you need to do is cut off his legs, y’know.”

He said, “Paulie, you’re a genius. But just to play it safe, I’m gonna cut off his arms, too.”

JOHN LENNON:
I went to his hotel room and told him, “Maha, your teachings are genius. Never in my life have I felt so at peace. The wisdom you exude is an inspiration. But you’re ruining my groove, so you have to suffer, and suffer badly.”

The entire process took about ten minutes, and he never felt a thing, and he couldn’t have been more gracious. He even thanked me when it was done. Let me go on record as saying that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the kindest, most gentle person I’d ever had the honor of fully dismembering.

Without limbs, Maha’s authoritative presence wasn’t nearly as compelling—one of his minions had to haul him around in a wicker container, and it’s hard to take a guru too seriously when he has to travel in a picnic basket—so I was able to unrelax. Without arms and legs, Maha was much more fun to be around, and we probably would’ve stayed a few more days if Eppy hadn’t topped himself.