Mark Opsasnick
Mark Opsasnick is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and cultural historian who has authored seven books and more than 70 articles on such subjects as unexplained phenomena, popular culture and rock and roll music.
Opsasnick was born in Washington, D.C., raised in the nearby Prince George’s County city of Greenbelt, Maryland and graduated from Greenbelt’s Eleanor Roosevelt High School in 1980. He attended Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina and Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland before earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in Urban Studies from the University of Maryland in 1984. From 1987 to 2005 he was a writer and contributing editor for Strange Magazine, a Rockville, Maryland, publication devoted to unexplained and paranormal phenomena. Some of the feature articles he wrote for Strange Magazine include “A Field Guide to the Monsters and Mystery Animals of Maryland” (co-authored with Mark Chorvinsky; Number 5, 1990); "On the Trail of the Goatman" (Number 14, Fall 1994); "The Haunted Boy of Cottage City: The Cold Hard Facts behind the Story that Inspired the Exorcist" (Number 20, December 1998); “Crybaby Bridge” (Number 21, Summer 2000); and “The Luzo-Brazilian Black Magic Cult (Number 22, Spring 2002). Other publications that featured his work during this period include Caveat Emptor, Fate, Fortean Times, and the Info Journal.
Articles on Opsasnick’s work and investigative skills have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers including The Baltimore Sun, Omni, the Washington City Paper, The Washington Post, and The Washington Times. Among his many projects that have gained national attention are the books Capitol Rock (a detailed history of rock and roll music in the Washington, D.C. area), The Lizard King Was Here (a biography of Jim Morrison that focuses on his high school years in Alexandria, Virginia), and The Real Story Behind the "The Exorcist".
Living on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. and having a lifelong love of music, Opsasnick was aware that the nation’s capital had been a spawning ground for a large number of excellent rock and rollers who had made it on a national level. In his post-college years he frequented nightclubs throughout the region, converted his large collection of vinyl records to compact discs, and developed a deep appreciation for the work of a number of local musical personalities. However, it was extremely difficult to locate detailed biographical information on the area’s top rock and roll musicians. Historical data on local bars and nightclubs and the legendary entertainers who worked such establishments was nonexistent. There were no existing books that documented Washington, D.C.’s rich rock and roll history. Determined to fill the gap, Opsasnick decided to do the research and write that book himself.
Between January 1993 and January 1996 Opsasnick conducted more than two-hundred interviews with past and present Washington, D.C. rock and roll personalities. His quest for rock culture material saw him spend innumerable hours searching through files and old newspapers at a number of facilities including the Greenbelt Branch Public Library, the Hyattsville Branch Public Library, the Frederick S. DeMarr Library of County History in Glenn Dale, Maryland (the official library of the Prince George’s County Historical Society), and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C. He would often return home after a Saturday or Sunday afternoon of obsessive data gathering and enter the material into computer files, joining the thousands of pages of notes, documents, and magazine articles already pertaining to his research.
In late 1996, the end result was Opsasnick’s first book Capitol Rock, a 25-year (1951–1976) history of Washington, D.C. rock and roll music that included extensive area nightclub and teen club history, detailed chapters on such greats as The Cherry People, The Fallen Angels, Roy Buchanan, Roy Clark, John Fahey Danny Gatton, and Link Wray, and interviews with such notables as bassist Jack Casady and guitarists Nils Lofgren and Punky Meadows. The first edition of Capitol Rock was published in December 1996 and was received with tremendous interest. The Washington City Paper described it as “a feast of arcane, often fascinating detail, conjuring a long-lost world of innocent teen dances and rowdy honky-tonks.” The Washington Post called it “an excellent recent history of Washington’s rock ‘n’ roll scene”.
In 1998 Opsasnick returned to the world of unexplained phenomena when he authored a controversial piece of investigative journalism titled “The Haunted Boy of Cottage City: The Cold, Hard Facts Behind the Story that Inspired the Exorcist”. From October 1997 to October 1998 Opsasnick conducted an in-depth investigation into the real-life 1949 story of a Prince George’s County, Maryland, youth that served as the basis for the 1971 novel The Exorcist. Opsasnick did things that no other investigative journalist had ever done before: he determined who the boy really was, where he attended school, and where he really lived at the time of his “possession” (contrary to popular belief, he never resided in Mount Rainier, Maryland). Opsasnick actually located and interviewed close friends of the boy and his family, many of whom had kept a vow of silence for more than four decades. Ultimately, he conducted a brief interview with the subject himself (now an adult), something that had never been accomplished by any journalist since the story became public in 1949.
Opsasnick published the results of his investigation in Strange Magazine, No. 20, December 1998. The article has since garnered rave reviews from publications worldwide (including The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun), was the subject of senior-level investigative journalism classes at both Georgetown University and the University of Virginia, and resulted in Opsasnick’s appearance on the February 4, 2000 “Real Exorcist” episode of television show Inside Edition. In an effort to reach a wider audience, this article was grouped with several others Opsasnick had written for Strange Magazine and offered in book form in 2006 as The Real Story Behind the Exorcist: A Study of the Haunted Boy and Other True-Life Horror Legends from Around the Nation’s Capital.
To date, Opsasnick’s best-selling work is the book The Lizard King Was Here: The Life and Times of Jim Morrison in Alexandria, Virginia which was published in 2006. This detailed biography is an in-depth study of a greatly overlooked period in the mercurial life of Jim Morrison. Examining Morrison’s life from January 1959 to August 1961 – the years he resided in Alexandria, Virginia and attended George Washington High School – Opsasnick reveals a wealth of experiences that served to influence the singer’s poetry, lyrics, and work as a performing artist with the Doors. The end result is a fresh look at a formative period in the life of one of rock and roll’s greatest superstars.
Currently, Mark Opsasnick resides in Greenbelt, Maryland and is hard at work on a history of popular music in the Washington D.C. area from the 1800s to the late 1960s. He spends his time conducting research in local libraries, developing files on the Washington, D.C. area rock and roll scene, and hanging out in his hometown at the New Deal Café.
Books authored by Mark Opsasnick
Capitol Rock (1996)
Washington Rock and Roll (1998)
Miscellaneous and Unknown (2000)
The Cultural Badlands Tour Y2K (2001)
The Maryland Bigfoot Digest (2004)
The Lizard King Was Here (2006)
The Real Story Behind the Exorcist (2006)
Film and television appearances
STRANGE WORLD (Strange World Productions, 1994)
Produced and directed by Mark Chorvinsky. This is a 30-minute commercially issued video that investigates several fascinating cases of unexplained phenomena. The contents include: “The Selbyville (Delaware) Swamp Monster Investigation;” “Strange News/UFO Report;” and “In Search of the Thunderbird Photograph.” Mark Opsasnick appears as part of the field investigation team that travels to Delaware and searches for the Selbyville Swamp Monster and is also featured as an interview subject for the Thunderbird Photograph segment. This program aired throughout the nineties on cable television stations all over the United States.
INSIDE EDITION (2000)
“Real Exorcist” (Television program; Friday, February 4, 2000)
“Nearly 30 years ago, ‘The Exorcist’ captured the nation’s attention. The harrowing story of a young girl under demonic possession became a best-selling book and then one of the biggest blockbuster movies of all-time. For years, rumors persisted that the story was based on an actual case. Now, the sensational secret is revealed, as Inside Edition examines the real life inspiration behind the incredible story.” The “Inside Edition” team goes on-location with Mark Opsasnick to Cottage City, Maryland to investigate the real story that inspired the best-selling book and legendary movie.
LED ZEPPELIN PLAYED HERE (Jeff Krulik, 2013)
Produced and edited by Jeff Krulik, John Heyn and Brad Dismukes. Mark Opsasnick is an on-camera subject in this feature-length independent documentary that examines the story of Led Zeppelin’s mysterious and now-legendary concert at the Wheaton Youth Center (Montgomery County, Maryland) which allegedly took place on January 20, 1969 during their first United States tour.
References
Ignoreland (Opsasnick featured in the Washington City Paper) http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/12673/ignoreland
Homer’s Odyssey (Opsasnick featured in the Washington Post) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/23/AR2006082302080.html
Greenbelt Live http://greenbeltlive.com/mark-opsasnick-local-rock-historian-on-greenbelts-famous-rockers/
External links
Mark Opsasnick Interviewed Regarding Jim Morrison
Coffee, Confusion and Jim Morrison