"If intimidation is your game plan, I hope you have a better one." --Colin Kaepernick
'Nuff said.
Say cheese.
2 My cheap experiences with Yelp! cause me to believe that a three-star rating ain't something to brag about.
3 About which to brag.
4 <Shemp stared right past the camera and well into space. "I don't know no grammar," he thought. "Arrrrrr-ARF! Arf!"> It's okay Shemp. Kaep said it all in one sentence. Y'all know what " 'Nuff said' " means?
5 Random. "Arrrrr-ARF! Arf!" I think that's a line from the Stooges' Spooks! Maybe it's because the season has arrived. Read on:
6 Moving on, Part One: Following my stint with the Rolling Stones and Beatles last week, I decided on Friday to search for a high-quality Beatles' concert. I Googled the Candlestick gig. For its time, and considering that nobody thought to make good recordings of the lads, the San Francisco recording sounded better than I thought it would, and trust me, that is nothing to write home about.
7 Paul McCartney froze time with Yesterday. He had to know it might have been his last time ever singing it live. He carried that emotion.
8 It stopped me. When someone bears one's soul in a song, it cuts through scratches, years, and time. Paul's sentiment is that of someone who seems to know something that very few others do.
Here it is in all its scratchy glory. You need to scroll down to get there:
(requires scrolling the songs, or start @ 16:24)
9 I never saw the Beatles final concert at Candlestick. I saw thousands of other moments though. Thousands.
10 Candlestick Park is going into its final year. They blow the thing up after this 49er season. There is a sadness similar to the sweetness of Paul's voice ringing through that ghostly stadium. Yesterday's game will ring for the ages.
10 Am I the only one? I've GREAT Candlestick memories. Which ones?
11 All of them.
12 Right up to and including yesterday's AWESOME game!!!
13 Great memories. It bears repeating. A special day, and hopefully a special season.
14 Moving on, Part One: It occurred to me the other day that anything resembling a good recording of a live Beatles' concert, even as late as 1966, is a rarity. Old teevee shows like Shindig and Hullabaloo had concerts, but there's nothing like an outdoor concert, especially one with high stakes.
15 The Beatles KNEW that the Candlestick performance of 1966 was probably their last real live gig. I documented that last week. Paul knew it when he sang Yesterday at Candlestick that night.
16 This past Friday night I decided to search a bit for a quality recording of a Beatles' concert. I found a couple: one in Atlanta and the other in Japan, but still, nothing exceptionally awesome.
17 In my hunt I stumbled upon a website that contained the old rumor that Paul McCartney died in an auto wreck in November of 1966, and that the Beatles' covered it up using a fake Paul for the remainder of their life as a band.
18 I thought to myself, " 'Ah, the Paul is Dead' conspiracy. Always a bit of a lark!"
19 I have peeked at this rumor periodically, usually for a laugh or three.
20 What adds a semblance of credence to the rumor is the amazing amount of "clues" that the remaining three Beatles purportedly hid on their album covers, in their song lyrics, and even in what is called in the business "backward masking"; that is, planting hidden messages in their music, messages that can be heard if you play their songs backwards. The word "creepy" crawls up your spine and into your temples when you hear it.
21 The Paul is Dead (PID for the REAL nerds) story had circulated for several years, but really took off in October of 1969. If you wish more info on its beginnings, it is easily accessible on Wikipedia, not your best source for anything, but I have no reason to doubt that the basics of how the rumor spread are probably accurate.
22 If you are really deranged enough to want the entire story, you could begin with Wiki and then probably corroborate with old newspaper articles about it. That stuff is mainstream. I'm not concerned with stuff that anyone can access. Let us move the story forward:
23 My musings ran across a little piece called Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison, a film produced and directed by a fellow named Joel Gilbert of Highway 61 Entertainment in Hollywood.
24 Gilbert is clearly a crackpot, even referring to his own film as a "mockumentary." It was amusingly odd, but the concept was fun. In an interview with some reporter, he insisted this story was true. C-R-A-C-K-P-O-T. And STILL...
25 Gilbert claims in all sincerity that on July 1, 2005 a mysterious package appeared at their Hollywood offices. It contained a series of cassette tapes along with a small tape recorder. The tapes were labeled "The Last Testiment [sik] of George Harrison," a collection purportedly made by George after a knife attack by a crazed fan in the wee hours of the morning of December 30,1999.
26 Gilbert listened to the tapes, and was goofy enough to gather everything on them and make a film of the nonsense.
27 Of course, once I saw that this was a full-length film, I had to have a look. Within four seconds I knew that the voice on the tape was not that of George, although it did sound like a deeper version of his voice.
28 The first thing I noticed was the voice on the tape carefully made the schwa sound (upside-down "e" that is our pronunciation "uh") a long "u" sound, so that the word "but" was pronounced "boot."
29
30 Fake. I've heard George over the years. Keep in mind that my own name is officially "George," which sounds similar to George Harrison enough that I get fun jokes about me having been a Beatle all the time.
30 Sidebar One: I got permission for this next bit: when Caitlin was but a wee child, she thought I WAS in the Beatles. She confirmed that last night, putting up her hand saying, "I mean come on Dad! George Harrison? George Harrington?"
31 She used to always say, "Play yah yah Dah-ee," an obvious reference to and request for She Loves You.
32 Sidebar Two: I found out last night in direct conversation with Caitlin that she ALSO thought I played for the Giants AND for the 49ers.
33 I said to her just last night," Wait, wait, wait!You thought I played for both the Giants AND the 49ers?"
34 "Yeah. You were always going off to 'the ballpark' so I thought you did. I thought you were stupid to play for the 49ers because it looked dangerous."
35
36 <crumpling up all Paul is Dead notes...>
37 Gotta love it. Let's get back to the PID stuff...
38 Moving on, Part Two: I naturally watched the video, even though all of it was BS. Parts of it sounded almost credible: Here is a capsuled summary:
In the early days The Beates' popularity looked like it wasn't going to slow down. People mobbed them everywhere they went; girls shrieked, shaken out of their minds by the Fab Four, and with no end in sight. This carried on for several years, prompting John Lennon to state in 1966 that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus.
People became outraged. Church groups had public Beatles' record burnings, Klan members threatened the boys publicly, and the media fired questions at them everywhere they went. Touring became unbearable. They jilted the Marcos' in the Philippines causing more rage. They knew they were moving closer and closer to climbing into the studio and never touring again. Candlestick was their last public show.
On the evening of November 9, 1966 Paul and John argued about where the tune Girl was headed. Artistic differences led to a huge argument that caused Paul to storm out the door of the Abbey Road studios. He hopped in his white Austin-Healey and took off. The night stormed as well, so the remaining three Beatles waited in the studio for Paul's return.
At six a.m. they tired of waiting and decided to leave the studio, but were stopped by a military vehicle. A military officer named Maxwell stepped out. He told the boys that there had been a terrible accident involving Paul McCartney. They hopped into the vehicle where they learned that Maxwell was an officer of the British MI5, British intelligence. There were phone calls, and eventually Maxwell told the Beatles that they feared if word got out about Paul's demise, young girls caught up in the frenzy of Beatlemania might begin a surge of suicides. This potential national tragedy had to be stopped.
They suggested that the band keep Paul's death a secret, and that they could create a fake Paul through plastic surgery and other means in order to keep the band going.
They later found that what may have caused the car crash was a girl Paul had picked up that evening, a girl named Rita, who climbed all over Paul during the ride, causing the crash.
The Beatles fell out of the public's eye. Creatively they were at the top of their game. John said that he had a backlog of over fifty songs written by him and Paul, and that they could stay out of the public limelight and that they could create in the studio.
It went deeper. Maxwell warned that if anyone leaked the truth about Paul, that they or their families might suffer as a result. This caused John to think that if they couldn't tell the public, they needed to inform them in secret ways: through clues in their lyrics, their album jackets, their pictures, etc.
The rest of the film goes into a startling amount of these clues. I had always heard a few, but some of them are remarkable on a second glance. Here is a quick sample:
- The cover of Sgt. Pepper is clearly a funeral scene.
- The yellow flowers are a left-handed bass guitar.
- It has three strings rather than four, indicating there are only three real Beatles left.
- The doll on the right has a white Austin-Healey on her right leg, and a bloody glove next to her left arm.
...and on and on. The film includes SO many song lyrics and backwards masks that it ALMOST begins to make the story credible.
39 I won't spend any more time on the clues, although I do think any Beatle's fan should at least give this garbage a look, because some of it does get pretty creepy.
40 Very creepy in fact.
41 For me, last night went late. I wanted to bring the mirror/ Sgt. Pepper drum to you. Most of these PID things feature this. If you put a mirror up to the drum, it does this:
41 For me, last night went late. I wanted to bring the mirror/ Sgt. Pepper drum to you. Most of these PID things feature this. If you put a mirror up to the drum, it does this:
The drum has a series of ones, a roman numeral nine, and the words "HE DIE." The PID's say this is a direct reference to the night Paul died. Spelled out it goes like this: 11/9 HE DIE with the little diamond between the words "HE" and "DIE" pointing up to Paul.
42 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay there are bazillions of gory and creepy clues that Paul died and that the old geezer playing Paul is an imposter they affectionately call Faul (fake Paul, not the least bit clever if you ask me.). The remaining Beatles spent their careers throwing clues at us. They lived and continue to live tortured lives. That would be Ringo. He always looks pretty chill to me. Just sayin'.
43 Long-time DN readers might see this differently. It is no secret that once Halloween season arrives (this is now determined by the amount of Spirit stores you see appearing) that it is officially Heidi season.
44 The Heidi stories involve the constant and mysterious appearances of ones and nines, often followed by a mention of the name Heidi, the purported ghost of the YB Theatre. Heidi is a HUGE part of the lore. Even the janitors reported weird things.
45 Take another look at the Pepper's drum:
46 I saw this one years ago. It isn't quite as well determined as the PID's stuff, but if you are me, and you see that at midnight, you might get a bit of a fright. I just see the middle part: One IX Heidi = 1, 9 Heidi.
47 I think I may have told people about my very first day at EV. I drove up Quimby road when a car cut in front of me. It wasn't an Audi (an old spell check that became another name for Heidi). It was a Mazda, just so you know that the coincidences aren't ALL crazy.
48 My first day ever at my new school a Mazda cut in front of me. At first I was mad: no signal, the usual. Then I looked at the license plate.
49 It said this: "High T 2." I had JUST arrived at my first day on the job at EV. Sound that one out.
50 If you say it at a normal speed, it should SOUND like "Heidi Two" or, if we get Roman-numerical, Heidi II.
51 For the record, Heidi has always been friendly, if she even exists, which is a WAY better bet than trying to prove that that guy playing left-handed guitar isn't Paul McCartney.
52 I just thought the Pepper drum was one of the more interesting Heidi coincidences. And you must admit, it IS a bit scary.
53 Crazy story. It is not yet September 9, but it would appear that Halloween has indeed arrived in an interesting fashion.
54 As always, I'll report things as they come in. It should be a banner year for it. I ride this wave every year; it happens every year, and it usually calms itself, but it never goes away.
55 And it is often quite public.
56 I'll try to dig up some of my lost Xanga's from over the years and see if I could at least get you a link. One coincidence is a coincidence, but the sheer numbers over the years becomes astounding to me.
57 It's a good sort of astounding, because it all gives me faith in something bigger.
58 Well, I gottago. I get pretty tired playing baseball, football, and guitar.
59 You try it.
60 See you again.
61 Peace.
~H~
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