The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (48 page)

Rock ’n’ roller Gene Simmons, of the seventies group KISS, was once a high school teacher. He taught at a public school in Spanish Harlem while moonlighting on his music career. His tenure at Public School 75 was somewhat tenuous. He broke ranks with traditional English curriculum by using
Spiderman
comic books as teaching aids instead of classic Western literature. Years before, Simmons wrote a college English term paper titled, “The Social Significance of the Panel Graphic Art Form,” devoted to the impact of comic strips on American culture.

NEVER COULD RESIST A PHOTO OP

In 1995, the three remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison, went into the studio to add their voices to an old recording of “Free as a Bird” by their fallen bandmate, John Lennon. When
they were finished, the three stars posed for a quick photo outside the studio. At the same moment that the shutter clicked, a white peacock ambled into the shot. McCartney was convinced that the bird was his friend John Lennon, reincarnated.

“It rubs me the wrong way, a camera . . . It's a frightening thing . . . Cameras make ghosts out of people.”

—BOB DYLAN

WILL NOT LEAVE THE BUILDING

Elvis Presley recorded his 1956 hit song “Heartbreak Hotel” in RCA's broken down corporate headquarters and recording studio in Nashville, Tennessee. When the company finally moved out of the building, it was stripped and converted into a TV production facility that included an audio studio in the space where Elvis had recorded. Crew members at the renovated facility swore that every time the late star's name was mentioned in that space, something weird would happen—a lightbulb would burst, a ladder would fall, or the sound system would go haywire.

OCCULT PURIST

Before Led Zeppelin really took off, guitarist Jimmy Page owned and ran an occult bookstore and publishing house: the Equinox Booksellers and Publishers, based in London. A serious occultist, Page oversaw the publication of a facsimile of Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley's book
The Goetia
, which was faithful to the original, down to the camel-hair paper used to make the dust cover.

THAT MIC'S ON FIRE!

Guitarist Les Harvey, best known for his work with the band Stone the Crows, was killed while performing onstage in a Swansea, Wales, club on May 3, 1972. The culprit was a microphone—Harvey was grounded, and the microphone wasn't. He was electrocuted and died instantly.

IRONCLAD

The rock group Iron Maiden took its name from a medieval torture device. The most famous of these contraptions, the iron maiden of Nuremberg, was destroyed in World War II, but gruesome photographs of it remain. It consisted of a standing box with metal spikes fixed inside the doors and protruding inward from the back wall. The doors were closed slowly, effectively impaling the person inside.

DONNA, LET'S STAY HOME