"Check it out… he’s a DRACULA!!”

So, you know the Universal Monsters? Yeah. Me too. And, for a while, I thought everyone did. But no.

I’m not even going to get into Frankenstein (that’ll come another time), but Dracula; aw boy. He’s a pimp, that’s a fact. Not only does he live in a castle swerving game all over some nasty vixen , dress to impress rockin’ a cape, and suck on necks like it ain’t no thing, but he’s also been the father to more horror stories and creations than any other of the Universal Monsters. Don't believe me, check it out: Blacula, Count Von Count “the Count”, Dr. Acula, Alucard, and any guy that whore Buffy ever got down with. Oh, and about a googolplex of porno characters. Yeah boiiiiiii! Oh, and Batman. Oh, and Nelson too.


But honestly, Dracula, he’s taking a beating. I kind of feel bad for him. No, I really do feel bad for him. Bram Stoker wrote him as a caricature of evil, a stereotypes of the dark and the dirty and the incredibly sexy. Dracula was those things that go bump in the night, who actually could go bump in the night, and did.

-“I don’t see nothing wrong with a little bump and grind with a little bump and grind”

Dracula was a frustration and contradiction, and it must have worn on him. He was a lover who could not love, an undead living out death as a man of action who was not a man. And he did it all in the dark… in England…with a bunch of protestants….sort of…for a little while.

But what is Dracula now? As I said, Stoker wrote him as a caricature of other, short sighted fears. But now, he is even a caricature of that, of his once strong self. He’s a joke. A sharp orifice with a widow’s peak. That’s not sexy, that’s not money baby.
And Count Dracula was money baby. He was fresh.

So looking past Stoker and Nosferatu, and Batman and Manbat, and Count Dooku and Saruman and let’s talk about the man, the one that deserves the credit, the love, the cash and the women: Bela Lugosi. The man made Count Dracula, Dracula. Lugosi is the reason some little kids and foreigners and those people I mentioned who don’t know the Universal Monsters yell “he’s a DRACULA!,” and not “he’s a vampire!” Because Dracula’s the only one that even matters! BECAUSE HE’S A DRACULA! HE IS DRACULA!

Bela Lugosi was a holy cross burnt on film. A ghost, so lifeless and empty of anything but evil his character wasn’t a reflection of light on film, but a burn mark or a vacuum. Lugosi was Dracula, he did travel to America from Eastern Europe, and I bet his boat had a few dead crewmen and rats, and he couldn’t really speak very well, and he kind of looked sickly and grotesque, but he was rolling in it. Yeah boiii. Yes boy.

And people don’t know who he is? HE’S A DRACULA!

So that’s it, I’m going to tell them all. A piece for each, of last words, or a eulogy, an epitaph, or a salute, or a shout out; for the biggies, the masters, those monsters, the terrors and inspirations. Who? The Universal Monsters! Those DRACULAS!:
-Frankenstein’s Monster
-The Phantom
-The Mummy
-The Invisible Man
-The Bride of Frankenstein
-The Wolf Man
-And The Creature from the Black Lagoon

…but fuck the hunchback, and his Disney gypsy…

So, if you have no idea who the Universal Monsters are, if you don’t know Dracula's a vampire, or you think that the Invisible Man is the same thing as the Headless Horseman, or that Frankenstein "has bolts in his head an shit...and he's green, right?”, and you have no clue about the Wolf man, or you just think mummies look like “someone wrapped in toilet paper or something... and they walk around with there arms out...or something...no those are zombies right? Or do mummies do that too?”…

Or, if you just think that, well, "monsters are green,” than you might enjoy some of this. Or you might just want to pretend you’re a little kid again, and that all of this is true, and is happening in your neighborhood, and in your closet, and under your bed, and you might just want to enjoy that feeling instead, while you still can. Because one day the only thing that’ll be left to be scared of, will be the really scary things, those things that really are a Dracula.

Oh, and remember, like my good friend Wynston taught me one frightful night:

“Monsters are green…Apples are green. Apples, are green.”
(…and no Biasman, she wasn’t high)

-CML, The Invisible Dr.Glogger’s Monster from the Blacula Lagoon…. Returned….’s bride….
In Black and White