Free Give Death A Chance by Alan Goldsher

she thought she’d have a better shot at a record deal as Lady Gaga. Turns out she was right.”
    Paul asked, “That fake name shite was our idea, y’know. We did that first, back in 1967. If you’ll recall, we renamed ourselves Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
    “Yes, Paul,” I said, “I recall.”
    John said, “Paulie, you renamed us Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I thought the idea was bollocks.”
    “It was brilliant, y’know,” Paul said.
    George said, “It was bollocks.”
    “It was brilliant .”
    “It was bullcrap .”
    “It was genius .”
    “It was mania .”
    I’d been with the lads long enough that I could literally smell a fight a mile away—turns out Liverpool Zombies emit an odd, not-unpleasant scent right before they go into battle against one another—and I wanted to put the kibosh on it, because the faster we got to work, the faster they could do what they were going to do to Lady Gaga, and the faster they did what they were going to do to Gaga, the faster I could be free. So in what I thought was an inspired attempt to defuse the situation, I said, “Listen, Paul, the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band thing was a perfectly clever idea, but the fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter what you called yourselves. You’d have sold as many records if you were called Randy and the Rockets, or the Plastic Ono Band, or Wings, or the Traveling Wilburys, or Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band, or the Firemen, or the Four Arseholes of the Apocalypse. Your music is beloved, no matter how it’s presented.”
    After a moment of silence, John said, “Thanks, Scribe. That’s the first time somebody’s said something nice about us in, fook, I don’t know how long.”
    “Well,” I said, “when you end your concerts by killing the crowd, you have to expect backlash.”
    Ringo said, “He has a point. Maybe we should reconsider how we handle the upcoming tour.”
    John said, “There won’t be an upcoming tour until we talk to this Goo Goo cunt.”
    “Gaga,” I said.
    “Goo Goo, Gaga, who gives a fook? She has what we want—America’s ears, hearts, and souls—and we’re going to bloody figure out how she got it, and then we’re going to bloody well take it from her, and then we’ll bloody well get to the Toppermost of the Poppermost.” He straightened his New York Yankees hat, rolled up the sleeves of his New Jersey Devils jersey, and told his band, “All I’m saying is, boys, is let’s show Goo Goo she can give death a chance.”
    “That’s a good thing to say, y’know,” Paul noted. “Now, erm, let’s put it into action.” Then they ate the brains of several dozen cops and security guards, and off we went.
    I’d never been to a Lady Gaga show—can’t say I was a fan, although I will admit she has a smokin’ bod—but I didn’t live in a cave, so I knew what she was all about: flamboyant, revealing costumes; oddball makeup; controversial stage theatrics; and fluffy, vaguely provocative songs that she insists she doesn’t lip synch in concert. She refers to her fans as Little Monsters, which is at once precious and pretentious.
    When I reiterated this to the lads as we approached the backstage area, they came to a screeching halt. Paul asked, “Wait—what does she mean, Little Monsters?”
    “I don’t know what it means, exactly. It’s a term of endearment, I guess. Kind of like Beatlemaniacs.”
    “ We didn’t call our fans Beatlemaniacs,” George pointed out. “It was the goddamn press who coined that shite. That was just part of the mania.”
    “Christ, enough with the mania shite, Georgie,” John said. “It’s 2009. Let it go. Cheer the fook up. We need to deal with this Little Monster bollocks.”
    I asked, “Why do you care about this chick’s silly nickname for her crowd?”
    John turned to Paul and said, “Tell the Scribe about the Little Monsters.”
    “Alan is Mister Liverpool Zombie Expert,” Paul said.