The Lennon/McCartney Pendulum

 Paul is Fab.

                For a while back there (70s and 80s), he wasn’t thought of as especially Fab. He was the uncool one, the irksome one, the one who always seemed to be emotionally guarded and relentlessly on message. He was Macca, thumbs aloft, head in a cheery side bob, campaigning to change the writing credits on the Beatles records to put his name first. Compared to John Lennon – quirky, spiky, difficult, interesting, cool, murdered, sainted – Macca was low-grade fab, the least of the Beatles, including Ringo (sorry, Ringo). It was a sad affair: McCartney hadn’t changed, not really. It’s just that the world had changed its opinion of him for the worse. I must be one of the only people in the world who unironically loved – yes loved -the Rupert Bear song he did. I still rate it as one of his best.

                But then, happily, sometime in the dying days of the millennium and ever since, he got fully Fab again, as we all wised up and realised how great he is. Without hyperbole, he really is a musical genius. On Get Back, we got to witness him pulling that peerless title song out of thin air, to the delight of everyone in the room and the astonishment of everyone in the world. And he did it whilst sporting the best beard in rock history and scoffing jam on toast. He’s once more releasing acclaimed albums and touring with a great show. He headlined Glastonbury. He is loved, he is Fab.

                And that’s how it should be. Paul McCartney is one of history’s most important cultural icons: he is the man who co-wrote or fully wrote some of the greatest songs ever recorded. He is not, however, the best Beatle. He will remain forever in the shadow of John Lennon. And that, too, is how it should be. Because whereas in the 70s and 80s the Lennon-McCartney pendulum was weighted unfairly too far towards Lennon, the pendulum has now swung the other way, and is now weighted too far towards McCartney. All sorts of revisionism is taking place in Beatles scholarship and fandom, with Paul being routinely championed and Lennon (and Harrison and Starr) if not exactly denigrated then certainly downplayed. I heard a podcast the other day in which the hosts argued sincerely that from the very start the Beatles had co-leadership from Lennon and McCartney, which is an absurd claim for a band that Lennon created and which at one point was named Johnny and the Moondogs; it’s a claim which can only be put forward with the aim to flatter McCartney and downplay Lennon. The discussion after Get Back was very favourable to McCartney (rightly so) but did seem to me at least to gloss over the fact that he was occasionally so irksome one of his bandmates walked out and (kinda/maybe) quit the band. And this is a year on from another of his bandmates being so irked by him that he walked out and (kinda/maybe) quit the band. And a year on from when the horn player brought into play on For No One (one of Paul’s most achingly beautiful songs) was so irked/exasperated by McCartney that, according to George Martin, “he nearly exploded!” In the Hamburg Days, Stuart Sutcliffe barely tolerated him, and Astrid said that “In order, I liked Stu, John, George, Pete (Best) and Paul.” George Harrison clearly had major issues with Paul, and only grudgingly agreed to team-up with him and Ringo for the ‘Threatles’ Anthology project because he was in a deep financial hole. It is widely accepted that McCartney is single-minded, belligerent, and often tactless.  McCartney has his faults.

On the other hand, unlike John, Paul was never cruel or petty, nor did he bear grudges like the notoriously curmudgeonly George Harrison. Irksome McCartney was often right on a lot of the big calls (regarding Alen Klein, for example), had a much better business sense than his bandmates and was the one who was at the last the most invested in and appreciative of The Beatles. The Beatles were teens/early tweens when they formed, and they grew apart as they matured into complex individuals with vastly different outlooks and interests, and narcotics regimes; the spaced-out Lennon clearly ceded control of the band, at least nominally, around Magical Mystery Tour, as his interests expanded all over the place and coalesced into the sexual magnetism and intellectual artistry of Yoko Ono, and it’s a miracle that McCartney kept them together for so long after their manager died and things started falling apart. Anyone should get a free pass for that alone. McCartney should have been knighted for it.

                I’ll always favour John Lennon because he was my first love and I think he has a cultural heft even greater than McCartney’s. I’m less irritated by John, even though he was undoubtedly a major league asshole on occasion, than I am by Paul, perhaps because I sense an artistic and personal authenticity with Lennon that I don’t get from McCartney. But I was always rather saddened by the anti-Paul mood that persisted for so long, and I felt (and feel) that John was uncomfortably hero worshipped, with his many flaws whitewashed. They named an airport after him, and that’s quite right. But the Lennon/McCartney pendulum needs balance, so Paul should get one too. A smaller one. Because Paul is Fab. He’s just not as Fab as John.

 

Love Me Tinder

 

Follow the yellow brick road.

Millennium (The Series) Was Barking Mad

 

Barking Mad

By Vince Stadon

 Millennium Season 2, Episode 2: Beware of the Dog

 

First published in Outside In Wants to Believe

Editor: Stacey Smith

Sometimes in the dark lonely night, Frank Black calls me.  It may be 2am, or it may be 11pm, or it may be as the dawn is breaking.  My phone will ring, and I know it is Frank Black, and I know that he is in pain, and I know that he is barking mad.

            “Hello?”

            “Hey, it’s Frank.”

            That low rumble of a voice, like far distant thunder. 

            “It’s late,” I say. 

            “It’s never too late,” says Frank.  “Never too late to start caring.”

            He’s always saying these frustratingly cryptic things that seem designed to passive aggressively guilt trip me, like a mid-70s John Lennon lyric.

            “What do you want, Frank?”

            “I just want to talk.  I just want to make some sense of it all.”

            “Make some sense of what?”

            “The case I’m working.  The Group.  People.  The world.”

            Jesus, he’s hard work.  “What case, Frank?  And be specific - I’m tired of your enigmatic bullshit.”

            “We’re all tired.  The world is tired.  Everybody’s tired of it, except maybe the dogs.”

            “Dogs?”

            “The case.  Wild dogs attacking people.  Packs of dogs.”

            “I thought you did serial killers and stuff?”

            “Watts got me chasing these dogs.  There’s something in this.”

            I hear dogs barking on the phone.  “Frank?”

            “They’re at my door.  I think they’ve always been at my door, and I just didn’t realise it.”

            “Where are you, Frank?”

            “Nowhere.”

Sigh.  What is it with this guy?  “You gotta be somewhere, Frank!  Are you home with Catherine, your wife, and Jordan, your daughter?” I think it’s best to spell things out to Frank. 

“No, we’re separated.”

“Oh, sorry.”  I’m not surprised.

“Perhaps we were always separated, and I just didn’t realise it.”

“Yeah, whatever.  So where are you right now?”

“Some crummy hotel in Bucksnort.”

“Bucksnort?”  Who names a place Bucksnort?

“It’s dark, and I can feel more darkness coming.”

“Maybe you need some sleep, Frank.  Or watch a comedy, or something.  Have you seen Ace Ventura: Pet Detective?”

There’s more barking on the phone.  “The dogs are a sign.  The dogs are avatars of the coming darkness.”

Frank sounds worried.  His voice is the sound of the world in pain.  Jesus, now he’s got me doing it.

“Get out of Ducksnort, Frank.  Go home.”

“Bucksnort.”

“Whatever.”

“I can’t go home.  The dogs are out there.  The dogs are always out there.”

And suddenly I hear more dogs.  But they’re not coming from over the phone.  They’re outside my door. 

“I hear the dogs, Frank!”

“I hear them, too.”

“Are we mad, Frank?  Is that what this is - a kind of shared delusion?”

“It’s just the world.  It’s just the darkness at the end of the world.”

I think about this.  The rain, the dark, the blood.  Frank sees it.  Frank always sees it, and tries to do something about it.  I’ve misjudged him.  We need Frank.  The world needs Frank Black.

“I’m sorry, Frank,” I say.  But there’s no reply.  I can only hear the dogs barking down the phone and outside my door.

“Frank?  Frank, are you there?”

But Frank is gone and I am alone and the night is dark and lonely.

Captain Kirk Gets Laid at Woodstock

 
Star Trek: Metamorphosis
 
Loved Up!

by Vince Stadon

First published in Outside In Boldly Goes

Editor: Stacey Smith

 

I'd like to think that Kirk was at Woodstock.  

Not William Shatner (though I'd hope he was there too), but Star Trek's Captain James T Kirk, somehow right there in the blissed-out gathering of flower children, with the sun on his face and his phaser on stun, waiting for The Jefferson Airplane.   And I like to think that he would be there, at Woodstock, on a mission to tell the young people all about love in the 23^rd Century.  And also, to watch Love, the band.  Kirk would be at Woodstock in the guise of a Love Guru, and he would speak eloquently (if eccentrically, with odd pauses) of love flourishing in wild and beautiful forms out there in space, the final frontier.  And with the events of Metamorphosis fresh in his heart, Kirk would perhaps use as an example the touching ménage à trois between Zefram Cochrane, Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, and the mysterious alien entity known as The Companion.  For theirs' is a love story well worth telling, and it is a tale that only takes fifty minutes, including ad breaks.

            As dusk falls, and Jerry Garcia moves into the final hour of his guitar solo, Kirk would light a small camp fire with his phaser, and he would sit near the flickering flames, and the hippies would gather round him, sharing food and drink and chemically-induced grins.  Kirk would make eye contact with each of them in turn, and then he would begin, raising his voice to drown out the bum notes in Jerry Garcia's epic guitar solo drifting down from the far-away main stage.

            In the telling of this love story, Kirk would concentrate on the three lovers, omitting entirely the peripheral players (Spock, Bones, Scott, etc), and judiciously editing out his own blunders of command (there are many because Kirk is impulsive and aggressive; when faced with an amorphous alien blob of frightening power – a frequent occurrence in his line of work – his instinctive reaction is to shoot at it... which proves to never, ever, be a smart decision).  He would begin with beautiful Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, for all good love stories (or at least those suitable for prime-time television in the 60's) begin with a beautiful woman.  Nancy, a passenger aboard the shuttle craft Galileo, is headed for Epsillon Canaris III (coincidentally, the working title of a Grateful Dead song) on a diplomatic mission to broker a peace accord between two warring factions.  But much more importantly for the purposes of the love story, Nancy is beautiful.  A little distant and career-focussed, perhaps, but undeniably beautiful, with very lovely hair.  Alas, Nancy's crucial mission is put on hold because she's fallen ill with Sakuro's disease (coincidentally, another working title of a Grateful Dead song), and Kirk is piloting the Galileo back to the USS Enterprise, where she can receive medical treatment and touch up her hair.  But an amorphous alien blob of frightening power drags the shuttle off course and pulls it down to an unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks. 

            Living there on this unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks is the tall and handsome Zefram Cochrane, a man seemingly devoid of any personality whatsoever.  Because he is such a blank state, Kirk muses, as he prods the fire with a stick, Zefram perhaps represents every man: every square-jawed hero in every story ever told –  or at least those who graced the narratives on prime-time television in the 60's.  Yes, rather than being a disastrous combination of poor scripting and wretched acting, Zefram Cochrane is in fact an inspired artistic choice: his very lack of definition stands as a powerful statement on masculinity.  (Kirk's brilliant anagnorisis has the hippies nodding in admiration, though those hippies closest to the fire wish that Kirk would stop showering them in burning embers, a few at the back have no idea what 'anagnorisis' means because they dropped out of college, and at least one of them suspects that Kirk is using the word 'anagnorisis' incorrectly.)

            Also on the unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks, continues Kirk, is an amorphous alien blob of frightening power.  The very same amorphous alien blob of frightening power that dragged Galileo off course and dumped it on the unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks.  This thing has been Cochrane's only companion for decades, and because he has about as much imagination as a primary coloured rock, he has named it Companion.  Companion has brought the crew of Galileo to the unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks because it has an empathetic bond with Cochrane, and senses that he is lonely.  He is a man with needs, after all. 

            Oddly, Cochrane barely looks at the beautiful Nancy, even though her condition is worsening and she has awesome hair (though, admittedly, her hair needs a good wash and a brush after she's spent so much time lying down, expecting to die) for his attention is fully on Companion, who soon speaks with a seductive female voice.  Companion has been keeping Cochrane alive and virile, providing all he needs to survive, but now he hungers for a woman, and it seems Nancy just isn't for him because she isn't an amorphous alien blob of frightening power.  (Finally, Cochrane demonstrates some personality: he's incredibly choosy when it comes to dating.)  

            The solution, of course, is for Companion to merge with Nancy, curing her of her illness and restoring her hair, and providing Cochrane with someone to love.  The merging of Nancy and Companion into Cochrane's One True Love is a love metamorphosis, two souls becoming one, unified in unconditional devotion to a man with zero charisma.  This is, says Kirk, as he stands and looks up at the stars, a very beautiful thing.  Love in the 23^rd Century is wild and strange and enduring; for it is a time when women with beautiful hair, and amorphous alien blobs of frightening power can work together to stop a man from being lonely in his bed.  Men, announces Kirk, you need not fear: the future is going to take care of you.

            The hippies applaud and Jerry Garcia finally ends his guitar solo, and Kirk walks away, into the beguiling night.  He has spoken of love, and now he's off to find some, because he too has needs and he isn't choosy.  It's a beautiful thing.

Sizzling Hot Coincidences

  

Sizzling Hot Coincidences 

By Vince Stadon 

 

Night Stalker: Episode 4: Burning Man 

First published in Inside Out Trusts No One

Editor Stacey Smith

 

 

Every word of what follows is true. Well, sorta/kinda.  

Burning Man, the fourth episode of Night Stalker, is the single most astonishing thing I’ve ever seen. It is not just the fourth episode of a rather dreary short-lived US television show - it is, for me at least, a mind-blowing, life-altering experience. Because everything that happens in Burning Man happened to me. Only sexier. And with better special effects. 

Let me explain. And bear in mind, please, that my hands are trembling as I write this, and that Scully - the sleepy old ginger cat flopped out on my lap - is snoring so loudly that my brain is rattling in my skull. I’m not in good shape.  

When I say that everything in Burning Man happened to me, I should clarify that I don’t mean absolutely every single thing. For instance, seventeen minutes into the episode, a wealthy and happy man climbs out of his luxury swimming pool, kisses his swimwear model girlfriend, and then eats Mexican takeaway food. At eighteen and a half minutes, in an abrupt turn of events, the man is burning to death in his swimming pool, and it’s highly doubtful that he’s still happy. Clearly this has never happened to me because I’ve never been happy, and I don’t eat Mexican food. Not that I don’t like Mexican cuisine - on the contrary, I find it delicious; it’s more that my doctor has advised me against noshing down spicy foodstuffs because it raises my blood pressure and makes me grumpy. But I digress. 

Let me lay out the key facts. 

Burning Man: A dogged reporter investigates a series of murders. My Life: When I was thirteen, I contributed to the Lockleaze Gazette - Lockleaze Comprehensive School’s hard-hitting quarterly journal. I wasn’t a reporter, I was a cartoonist (my cruel yet accurate caricature of the headmaster as Mussolini was the hot topic of many a school dinner), and though I didn’t technically investigate a series of murders I’ve never lost a game of Cluedo (it’s pretty much always Mrs White, in the study, with the candlestick: trust me on this). And I’ve never been described as dogged, but I did have a dog… named Bernie. Burning Man, Bernie the mastiff. Coincidence?  

The victims are burned to death. My Star Wars action figures - including the rare Han Solo variant with the small head - were melted into a gooey pool of stinky plastic by a vindictive school bully named Ash for reasons he never disclosed. Coincidence? 

The victims were sent tiny red wax figurines. Two days ago, I awoke at noon to a hammering on my door - an insistent courier wanted me to sign for a mysterious Amazon Prime parcel. I scribbled a fake name (Carl Bernstein - I’m cycling through famous reporters, and last week it was Clark Kent), and was puzzled and unnerved to discover that the box contained several packets of coloured wax crayons! How strange, I thought. How unsettling. Was this some kind of message? A warning? From whom? Then I remembered that my wife had ordered them as a present for our niece. Her name? Blaze. Coincidence? 

Kolchak refuses to rule out supernatural forces. I daily place the blame for all the things that annoy me on terrifying uncanny manifestations. Netflix doesn’t have the film I want to see? Gremlins at work. Can’t find my good pair of socks? Malevolent Poltergeists have thrown them into the gates of Hell. Salad again for lunch? My wife hates me.  

Kolchak seeks help from a retired FBI Agent. A week ago, I asked a random Welsh stranger for directions, and he kindly supplied them… along with reams of information about himself (which frankly I didn’t have time to listen to, but I was being polite, and there was something haunting about his eyes), including the fact that he used to be a temp cleaner at the BFI (British Film Institute) before he retired with a dodgy knee.  FBI, BFI. Don’t tell me this is all just coincidence. 

There are other examples. In Burning Man, Kolchak has a habit of saying something moodily pretentious, and then leaving the room. I used to do that, until someone threatened to punch me in the face if I didn’t cut it out. Burning Man is forty-two minutes long: precisely the time it takes me to take all my anti-anxiety medication. Night Stalker co-stars a charismatic actress named Gabrielle Union-Wade, who was in Bad Boys II - a film I watched by mistake last year. Kolchak’s editor is named Vincenzo - I am named Vince, and my wife calls me Vincenzo in moments of high passion (coincidentally, her ex-boyfriend is named Vincenzo).

I could go on (I have several file cases filled with documentary evidence and unopened divorce papers), but I think I’ve done more than enough to convince you all. And judging from the ferocity of the bites on my leg, my cat is clearly very hungry. I will, though, leave you all with one final thing. My wife has left me for a man named Carl, and they are planning on attending a summer festival… called Burning Man. 

 

 

 

 

Vince Stadon lives anxiously in England… coincidentally the very same tiny island that Kolchak actor Stuart Townsend comes from. What are the chances of that?