WEBVTT

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As I mentioned earlier,
when I was young

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both my parents worked and
I was very much on my own.

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And one of the more constructive
things I did during that period

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was to collect horror movies.

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And I did it with a vengeance.

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It was a great time to be
collecting horror movies too

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because there was this great
repertory theater, really,

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of people who are making
these movies like John

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Carradine, and Lon Chaney Jr,
and Bela Lugosi, and Boris

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Karloff, and Basil Rathbone
and Gale Sondergaard great,

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heroes like that.

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And I've always been
fascinated by horror movies

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and has never been quite
the same since then.

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But I was reading in the New
York Times earlier this year,

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earlier last year and
there was an article

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about a man who's
going to Romania to do

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a book on the Dracula legend.

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And he had a grant to do this.

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And he wasn't having
much luck really, he

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wasn't finding
very much material

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but he was going to
write this book anyway

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because he had this grant.

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And I don't usually use
a quote above my poem

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because I think
they become crutches

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but there was this one
quote from the times.

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I think it's one of the great
newspaper quotes of all time

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and let me read it to you.

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It's from the New York
Times February the 5th 1970.

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Quote, "Most country
people around Transylvania

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looked blank when
asked if they've ever

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heard of the vampire Dracula."

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[LAUGHTER]

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So I was inspired
by this, believe me.

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With my background I
couldn't resist it.

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So I made this poem
about it and I call

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it "Zimmer Fearing Anemia."

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Nobody sucks blood in
Transylvania anymore.

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The fusty castles have
lost their shadows

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being broken open
to the sunlight.

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Stakes are used
exclusively as landmarks,

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and pale ladies are
presumed safe now

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in their four poster beds.

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The peasants believe that Bela
Lugosi is a brand of goulash.

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They laugh at the
ancient legends

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but they don't feel
as bad as I do.

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And they haven't seen
or heard what I have.

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How the elf owl peered
through the dry ice fog

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and screamed when
the kill was made.

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How gypsy bears moaned beneath
the mic booms and the moon

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glared like the eye of a wolf
that the clouds that spun

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like flax within
the filtered lenses.

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Nobody believes that blood is
sucked in Transylvania anymore.

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But there are days when I feel
so bad, when my head seems

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like a prune, and my
body is folding, folding,

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that I find myself
fingering my neck

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to be sure that two
little holes aren't there.

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