Did you know that you are legally obliged, when working for Hecklerspray, to attend Bootleg Beatles concerts in a t-shirt that says ‘I’m a Bootleg Mark Chapman’? It’s true. That’s the initiation process they make you go through. If you’re trolling people online, you have to have the nerve to do it in real life in front of mental Beatlefans.

Which clumsily brings us the news of Mark Chapman – he’s the man who shot John Lennon dead – and his parole.

Frequently, Mark Chapman asks to be released from the Attica prison in New York and he’s constantly knocked back… and he’s due a hearing soon.

Understandably, Yoko Ono has once again written to the parole board at the prison opposing the release of Chapman.

Chapman is scheduled to be interviewed by the board next week (August 9th onward) with regard to gaining release. Of course, he is serving 20 years to life for shooting Lennon outside the Dakota Building New York in December 1980.

Ono’s lawyer Peter Shukat confirmed that a letter had been sent to the board, but refused to say whether it was the same one she has routinely submitted every two years since 2000.

The circumstances of the day Chapman shot Lennon make for eerie reading, as he re-enacted scenes from Catcher in the Rye around New York.

He then got Lennon’s autograph on the copy of (the then) new LP, Double Fantasy. Chapman said of the event:

“I waited until he came back. He knew where the ducks went in winter, and I needed to know this” (a reference to The Catcher in the Rye). Chapman shot Lennon five times, before taking out his copy of Catcher in the Rye and read it until the police arrived.

Chapman stated, “I’m sure the large part of me is Holden Caulfield, who is the main person in the book. The small part of me must be the Devil.”

Brrr.

Ono has consistently stated that, away from her personal feelings toward Chapman, she also feels that he should remain in prison for his own safety.

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As websites go, hecklerspray is one particularly bent on justice.

For instance, we think Charles Manson should get another life sentence or two tacked on to that which he was already given. We’d like to see Ted Bundy get executed again, and for the love of Pete we think it high time Rachel Ray finally gets what’s coming to her.

What’s coming to her is cookies or something. As far as we know she has never killed people on a mass scale, and deserves very little incarceration if any.

Another piece of undeniable justice that deserves to be held high pertains to one Mark David Chapman. We think he killed Marilyn Monroe or something. Anyway, he was up for parole for the fifth time recently – and once again got denied.

Probably because even seventy years later, people still really, really like Marilyn Monroe.

In 1980 Mark David Chapman, in a move he has since said was ‘wrong,’ stood in front of a good man and trigger-pulled five times. He eventually plead guilty to second degree murder and was convicted to a sentence of 20 years to life.

Well the twenty years is long-since up. He’s put in for parole four times in the past, and has been shot down every time. Fitting.

He just put in for it again – and the parole board came to the same decision. We couldn’t find a transcript for his most recent hearing, but we did come across one from 2000. Here’s an excerpt [sic]:

“Q. This involves an incident occurring in December of 1980 whereby you were in possession of a .38-caliber revolver. You apparently had some premeditated thought with regard to this incident. You waited for the victim in question, Mr. John Lennon, and at an opportune time, you apparently shot him a number of times, maybe as many as four or five. The record indicates that perhaps the revolver discharged five times. You hit him four times with the hollow-point bullets, and indeed you caused his death. Is that an accurate depiction of what happened, sir?

A. Yes, sir, it is.

Q. Can you please tell us what you were thinking about at the time and why you would do something so horrible?

A. I, um, flew to New York a few months before that to do that crime with full meditation in my heart. I then was able to somehow turn myself around and came back to Hawaii, and I told my wife that all was fine. And then the urges started building in me again to do this crime, and I flew back to New York on December 6th and checked into a hotel, and then on the day of December 8th, stayed outside the Dakota waiting for him with intent to shoot him and kill him….

“Q. And, Mr. Chapman, have you given thought in those long twenty years as to what’s behind all of this and why you were so possessed with doing such harm to this person who, for all of us having read about this, was doing no harm to whatsoever on your life or your you at all, had no livelihood; have you given thought to that —

A.Yes, I have.

Q. — why you had to single this guy out?

A. I was feeling like I was worthless, and maybe the root of it is a self-esteem issue. I felt like nothing, and I felt if I shot him, I would become something, which is not true at all.

Q. Mm hmm.

A. But that’s why I shot Mr. Lennon.

Q. And him in particular because he was someone that you admired, or you locked at him and his stature, and you thought this would have some impact on your life, sir?

A. Well, I originally — what happened was I was in the library, and I was looking through some books, and I came across a book called One Day at a Time, and I saw him there with photographs in front of his residence, the Dakota, and I was full of anger and resentment, you know. I took it upon myself to judge him falsely for — for, you know, being something other than, you know, in a lotus position with a flower, and I got angry in my stupidity. So it started with anger, but I wasn’t angry the night I shot him.”

To read more of that hearing, click right here. Its lengthy and interesting.

That’s a little farther into Chapman’s head than you ever wanted to get, right? Us too – unless its with an ice cream scoop.

But then violence using ice cream related hardware never solved anything now, did it?