Lo-Fidelity: Holy bat-bite, Batman!

Did you happen to catch the biting article (“Caution encouraged as bats increase Aspen’s rabies exposure”) by intrepid Assistant Editor and Senior Reporter River Stingray (where the ocean meets the stream) about bats and rabies in Aspen? I found this bit rather intriguing:

“And bat bite marks are what she called “minuscule,” so they can be difficult to identify. Lara Xaiz, wildlife coordinator for the city of Aspen, underscored this: “It’s always a possibility that someone could have been bitten in their sleep and not know it,” Xaiz said. There was also mention of someone waking up with a bat crawling on them.

Talk about a wicked wake-up call. Holy bat-bite!

I can remember first realizing one summer in the early ’80s there was a robust population of the fuzzy, little, rubbery-winged nocturnal nuisances in Aspen. I stopped underneath a streetlamp at the corner of Seventh and Francis, straddled the top tube of my Mongoose BMX bike and watched with morbid fascination as a gaggle of bats feasted on insects underneath the eerie, fluorescent light. Their unpredictable, herky-jerky flight made them look almost as if a maniacal puppeteer was orchestrating their midair movements.

What’s Aspen’s connection to Batman? You’re looking right at him.

My father, Lorenzo Semple, Jr., wrote the TV series and the motion picture — released on July 30, 1966, as a pilot featuring all of the zany characters. My mom told me what my dad did for a living while I was sitting in a high chair in the kitchen of our house on Kingman Avenue in Santa Monica. I was seated in front of the boob tube, ready to decimate a Swanson’s TV dinner — cobbler first.

“Your father,” she said very matter of fact-ly, “wrote Batman.”

I’m sure he did, I thought dismissively to myself, now move, I’m trying to watch Batman!

Years later, I put two and two together and realized the gravity of my dad’s career in television, cementing a legacy of camp and spoofy pop culture. My sisters used to have birthday parties at the Batcave, but apparently I was “too little” or, as a “boy,” wasn’t invited. Unforgiveable! Joke’s on them because I have a birthmark in the shape of a bat. “BAM!” My dad is buried up at the Aspen Grove Cemetery. His gravestone is the one with the toy vintage Batmobile on the headstone. As Father’s Day approaches, I’m undyingly appreciative that my dad brought our family to Aspen, so much so that I stayed and raised my family here.

“Poppy,” as we called our ol’ man, was really proud of the writing he contributed to the original Batman movie and TV series. One time I asked him what he thought about the new Batman movies and character. He seemed unimpressed, saying that the latest Batman wasn’t someone you’d want to take home and introduce to your mom. “Too brooding and turmoiled,” he said. It’s worth noting that hardcore Batman comic book aficionados sent my dad hate mail for how he portrayed Batman. Over the years of my writing career, I’ve learned a thing or two about hate mail myself.

Years ago, I came across a clip of what I feel is some of my father’s best work — on par with “The Parallax View,” “Papillion,” “3-Days of the Condor,” “King Kong,” and “Flash Gordon” — much of which he typed with two fingers on a manual Olympia typewriter, right here in town. Aspen was his muse.

The premise is so absurd and so ingenious that it’s hard to conceive as you watch.

A call comes in to the Batphone from Commissioner Gordon. Bruce Wayne answers in Batman’s voice. As “Batman” is talking to Commissioner Gordon, Bruce Wayne’s home phone suddenly rings. Robin dutifully answers the call. It’s Chief O’Hara looking for Bruce Wayne. Batman and Bruce Wayne are in serious jeopardy of being outed as being the same dude here, but in a stunning twist of wit, the otherwise bumbling Chief O’Hara suggests they marry the two phones together, so that Bruce Wayne and Batman can talk to each other.

Holding both receivers, Batman and Bruce Wayne, the same person, then effectively proceeds to have a telephone conversation with himself, maintain the autonomy and integrity of the two characters while simultaneously hatching a plan to thaw the nefarious “Mr. Freeze.” The whole scene is so hilariously clever that I’m baffled by the concept and execution. You have to see it to believe it. Go online, and search “Batman has conversation with himself.”

The concept of a “bat-man” and the genesis of the character are still somewhat vague to me, but I feel like the opportunity exists to reboot a sensitive, new age, mountain-man Aspen version of Batman. The fundamental basis for his dual character lives here: a suave, do-gooder billionaire whose parents were murdered, then raised by a butler in a Starwood mansion chock full of hi-tech gadgets. The crimes he could solve would be hysterical, like enforcing leash laws and abandoned dog doo bags, e-bike violations, litterbugs, citing reckless skiers and snowboarders, HOV lane transgressions, and smarmy real-estate schemes. Can’t you see the Batmobile parked out in front of the Belly Up as Aspen’s own Batman does the “Batusi” down on the general admission dance floor, carousing with a group of rabid locals?

Aspenites beware: If you wakeup with small bite marks on your neck this summer after a full moon, get your tights, mask, codpiece, and cape ready because you might be in for a massive lifestyle change — but first go see your doctor because it could just be rabies.

Contact Lorenzo via email at suityourself@sopris.net.