Post #417036 by bigbrotiki on Mon, Nov 3, 2008 12:11 PM

Wow, how cooool, man! Dig this, what a classic story of the squares against the hipsters: "The last straw was when the local ladies Church League came down on them for creating a stained-glass window of the Frankenstein monster. The Church League claimed that stained glass was only for use in the church, and rallied the community against the Frankenstein. Owner, Burt Shonberg, threatened to erect a crucified Frankenstein dummy in front of the coffeehouse, if they didn't back off...." And now it's just another parking lot.

I know Jeff Fox who wrote and published Barracuda, but he stopped making the magazine last year. You should save the Cafe Frankenstein story for a chapter in your Beatnik book, Brian. There you can get into how the monster became such an icon for kids in the 60s in general. When I was a teenager, I had a photo frame with THIS photo on my night stand!:

The monster was just such a bumbling, misunderstood creature, trying to fit in --the classic anti hero that growing teenage boys could identify with. I loved that guy!
As a matter of fact, I identified with him so much that a couple of years later, going to film school in Berlin, I made a short film where I myself played the monster, for which I also created my own make up. (A week ago or so I published a photo of me with long hair here on TC, I might as well show one of me with lip stick!) :) :

Don't ask me what happened to the film, it's long gone just like those music shorts I did at the S.F. Art Institute.
Anyway, do you know the recipe for the "Frankenstein" drink...even if it was non-alcoholic? They did serve a Frankenstein at Hinky Dinks, before it became Trader Vic's:

Here is the recipe:

I know they did not serve THAT to the kids at the Cafe Frankenstein! :)