He Blew His Mind Out in the Oval Office

President Donald Trump struck a blow for Philistines and robber barons today by announcing that the United States of America would withdraw from the Paris Accords on climate change.

Because my God he's bad at this and easily swayed by evil people.

Basically, the USA just ceded its leadership of the free world. That's pretty damn sad, you know?

So I decided to think about something happier, like the fact that The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is 50 years old today. Not only is it an awesome, groundbreaking album, but it will always be older than me, which I appreciate more and more as the years whoosh by.

Anyway, I decided to combine the sublime with the ridiculous and pen this ode to Trump's boneheaded decision, to the tune of probably my favorite Beatles song, "A Day in the Life."

If you don't know "A Day in the Life," shame the hell on you. YouTube it, people.

Enjoy.

*****

A Day in the Life (of a Crazy-Ass POTUS)

So Trump withdrew today, oh boy
He called shenanigans on climate change
And though he blew off the Accords
Well, I still tried to laugh
Because he sounded daft

He said America comes first
Twenty-two Senators backed up his claims
A large majority cried foul
And I just have to add
Forty-five is bad

I'd love to kick...him...out...

Woke up, here's what I read
America's leadership was dead
We are victims of hysteria
With Syria, and Nicaragua, too (gasp, cough, choke, wheeze)

CO2 pollutes the air
But Trump insists there's nothing there
He believes he's more than just a joke
But Bannon spoke, and of course he went along

Aaaaaaaaa....aaashole....
Aaaaaaaaa....aaashole....
Aaaassssss....hole...
Aaasshole...
Aaaaaashhooole...

I watched the news today, oh boy
France's Macron took pity on our souls
And though the world was rather kind
Everybody knows the President has lost his freaking mind

I'd love to kick...him...out...

(Crescendo)

(Long piano chord)

(Silence)

Free Association Thursday. Let's Make That a Thing.

OK, first of all, Miss Othmar wins Comment of the Week for her response to my last post.

I do drink the zombie from the coco shell, thank you very much.

Damn, I love me some Steely Dan.

Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite books, which I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned here and am too lazy to check.

Paperback Writer is a humorous novel by Mark Shipper that was released in 1978 and reissued, like every single book even marginally connected to the Beatles, after John Lennon's death. It's currently out of print, but you can probably find a used copy somewhere.

Here's what my copy looks like.

It is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Laugh out loud funny. Yet filled with love and devotion to the Beatles. Highly recommended.

The reason Steely Dan reminds me of Paperback Writer is that, in the book...

*spoiler alert*

Linda McCartney threatens to quit Wings to go on tour with her favorite band.

Steely Dan.

Believe me, it's hilarious.

And thinking about the Beatles reminds me of a fun fact.

When I was a kid, I heard Elton John's version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" before I ever heard the original.

Let's face it, Elton was that decade's closest thing to the Beatles.

The first time I listened to Sgt. Pepper, I was flabbergasted to hear it. It sounded funny to me.

I also heard the Carpenters' version of "Please Mr. Postman" before I heard either the Beatles' OR the original version by the Marvelettes.

I'm a child of the 70s, OK?

When do you think bands will start re-making grunge songs?

I can't imagine that Nirvana's "About a Girl" or "Jeremy" by Pearl Jam isn't ripe for a 21st-century makeover. Right?

What's the last remake that was a big hit? Honestly, I can't think.

Hm.

OK, this has been my stream-of-consciousness musing for the day.

Feedback welcome.

Beatles Story

I've not said a word about the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. It's hard for me to write about the impact of the Beatles on my life. It's not something I can cover in a blog post, and I'm not actually 100% sure I'm a good enough writer to tell the story of what this band has meant to me. So I've decided to save it for the book. If there's never a book, someday I'll write it down as if there were.

But I'll tell you an anecdote.

In our senior year of high school, Bestest Friend had a poster on her bedroom wall that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.

In fact, it was this poster, and Bestest Friend, this image is from an eBay auction listing it at $149. Just saying.

Back in 1984, 1964 seemed like a very long time in the past. After all, it was before we were born, which automatically denotes ancient history.

Shown here: the dawn of time.

And now it's been 30 years since the 20th anniversary. And 30 years since my senior year of high school. It feels like nothing. Yet the 20 years between 1964 and 1984 still seem like a tremendous chasm in time to me. Proving that time is nothing less than black magic and you need to have a TARDIS and sonic screwdriver to even begin to understand it.

So happy 50th anniversary, Paul and Ringo. I miss you, John and George.

Also, happy birthday to my big sister, which to me is even more worth celebrating.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Inside a Ping-Pong Ball

Forgive me, Drunkards. The title is a secret message, and this is an inside joke. Bear with me and enjoy an awesome Beatles song.




The next post will be for everyone, I promise.

Slow, Painful Karma

So this week Mark David Chapman is up for parole for the seventh time.

You remember Mark David Chapman. On December 8, 1980, he murdered John Lennon in cold blood.

And had the goddamn nerve to ask for an autograph earlier
in the evening. Bastard.

He's 57 years old now and has been in prison for 31 years. He's growing old behind bars.

But not old enough or fast enough.

Should this now late-middle-aged man be released? Has he served enough time for a crime he committed supposedly while in a psychotic state of mind?

John would be almost 72 today if he had been allowed
to live. But he wasn't.

Most of me wants Chapman to rot in jail until the term of his miserable existence expires. Putrid idiotic Holden Caulfield-bullshit-spouting waste of a soul sick bastard. I hope you live to be 93 and spend every last minute of it in solitary confinement except for rats and bedbugs.

But a part of  me - a small part, a part I'm not particularly proud of but can't deny - would be OK with the parole board deciding Chapman has done his time and no longer poses a threat to society. Let him walk, says that small voice inside me.

Because I know in my heart he wouldn't live long. It wouldn't be me - my anguish over John Lennon's death has always been internal and emotional rather than visceral. But someone out there, someone who, like me, suffered and cried and felt hollow inside when John was murdered, will surely take out his pain on the one who caused it. I give Mark David Chapman three weeks on the outside before someone guns him down the way he gunned down the Smart Beatle.

My spirit of Christian forgiveness withers and dies in the face of this person. I would feel no sorrow for a violent resolution to his existence. No one else on the planet draws that kind of venom from me. Thirty-one years have gone by, and what the world lost that day still feels enormously tragic. It still bites and stings. I can no more provide a rational explanation for my bitter emotions than I can bring John back to life. And I can no more erase them than I can erase the line that was drawn between who I was before he died and who I became after.

So listen to the facts, parole board. Weigh the pros and cons of keeping Mark David Chapman imprisoned vs. turning him loose on a waiting world. Make your decision, and then live with it.

I think justice will continue to be served either way.

I miss you, John.

Video Saturday: When We Was Fab

Happy Birthday, George. You was fab.

I Am the Mother of a Twelve-Year-Old

Today is Precocious Daughter's birthday. The last time her birthday fell on Thanksgiving, we were on the one and only cruise we've ever taken (and may ever take). She turned six that year and was beautiful, smart, funny, and fun to be around.

Now she's turned twelve. No cruise, just a great big Thanksgiving dinner with us and her cousins. But she's still beautiful, smart, funny, and fun to be around. Twice as much, because she's twice as old.

Next year she'll be a teenager. I'm scared of that. I'll miss my little girl. But you know what? I've said that every time she passed some kind of milestone, and every time the new version of PDaughter was a wonder and a delight. And a pain in the ass sometimes, but I expect that given the parents she drew in the cosmic lottery.

Happy Birthday, PDaughter. Mommy and Daddy love you very much. And we're damn lucky to have you.

I don't use names in this blog, of course (and will delete any comments that do - sorry), but I will tell you that PDaughter gets her middle name from a Beatles song. I could offer no higher tribute to my baby girl than that. Yes, her middle name is Sexy Sadie. Kidding! This is for you, darling girl.

I For One Welcome Our New Apple Overlords

Yesterday we finally got OS 5 downloaded to Precocious Daughter's iPod Touch. Because that is the most important thing in the world.


By the way, there was a terrible earthquake in eastern Turkey today.
Please contact the Red Cross/Red Crescent if you want to help.

 As you may have read earlier, we had some difficulty with this task. Just plug your iPod Touch into the computer, and it will automatically prompt you to download, said Apple's website in that smug tone it adopts when addressing people who are so uncool that they don't have Steve Jobs' directives beamed straight to their brains and have to do something as gauche as consult a website. I don't really understand my hostility toward Apple.


Except the Beatles had it first, and you didn't have to
buy their equipment to listen to the music.

 Oh, and also this. The culprit ended up being the USB cable. PDaughter has two cables for her iPod Touch. One came with it, and one came with the not-Apple-brand wall charger I bought her. The charger is basically a USB-to-outlet adapter; you plug it in the wall socket, plug the USB end of the iPod Touch cable into the USB port in the adapter, and plug the other end into the device. So simple a PC user can do it.

The charger came with its own cable, and it works great for charging. So when it came time to upgrade the OS, PDaughter grabbed the nearest cable, which happened to be the one manufactured by the fine folks at Dynex and not the Apple one, and plugged it in to the computer. And nothing happened. Except that I got really pissed off and lost half a candy bar to the dog.


This message is brought to you by the dog.

 Yesterday we tried again. And the anger was a-bubblin' up as that goddamned hunk of technology failed to perform. Yes, it was the technology, not the users. You can take your PEBCAK errors and shove them in a free memory slot.


Also, I reject your reality and substitute my own.

 In desperation, I finally told PDaughter to fetch her other, Apple-approved cable. Because it seemed like the least likely thing to work, which is almost always my go-to strategy for solving problems. And it came through for me once again. With the hive-sanctioned cable in place, suddenly the iPod Touch couldn't download its shiny new OS fast enough. I think it was singing a hymn to Steve Jobs as it did so.

So my takeaway is this. Don't try to screw Apple out of its filthy lucre by purchasing off-brand peripherals. The collective knows and will take steps to protect itself from interlopers. In fact, the collective knows everything. While I was writing this, iTunes spontaneously launched and took over my computer. I am totally not making this up. The iPod Touch wasn't even connected. I think it sensed that its overlords were being invoked in a negative light and awoke to seek out the source of the disturbance. I'm very afraid.

If you need me, I'll be in Room 101 being reprogrammed. And playing Scramble on the iPod Touch, thanks to the strong, benevolent, and doubleplusgood innovators at Apple, Inc.

Lazy Sick Post

I'm sick. I feel like crap. Lean in close to your monitor, and I'll breathe my germs on you. Bleah.

So here's a lazy post consisting of a funny video clip from "Pinky and the Brain." That's all I got. I'm going to go drink green tea and shiver now.  Narf!

Paul McCartney Is Engaged

I have two words for Sir Paul.

Wait, is "pre-nup" one word or two?

Happy Birthday, George

Yesterday was Abe Vigoda's 90th birthday, and today would have been the 68th birthday of George Harrison.  It's 10 years this November since he left us, if you can believe that.  Thanks for leaving behind so many pieces of yourself, George.  We need them.

Here's my favorite Harrisong:



Here are George and Paul Simon singing "Here Comes the Sun" on "Saturday Night Live":



This is Paul McCartney singing one of my favorite songs in 2004:



And of course you all know this beautiful tune:



Namaste, George. :)

My Least Favorite Beatles Songs

I said I'd come back to this topic, so I am. Besides, I've been stuck in conference-call hell all day, and I have no brain power for anything remotely cerebral. Beatles scholarship comes from the heart and gut, conveniently bypassing the brain. :)

So, Entertainment Weekly came up with its list of 50 best and five worst Beatles songs. I've already editorialized on their best-of list. I agreed with some of their choices, disagreed with others. But I don't agree with any of their worst-of songs. They were:

1. All You Need Is Love
2. Wild Honey Pie
3. Dig It
4. Don't Pass Me By
5. Flying

OK, so "Wild Honey Pie" and "Dig It" don't count. They're not even songs - they're just fragments. "Flying" is a completely inoffensive instrumental - it's not a work of genius, but at least it's pleasant to listen to. It used to be background music on my answering machine (remember answering machines?). "Don't Pass Me By" is a wonderful tune that Ringo both wrote and sang. It's corny and hokey, but by that standard, why is "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" or "Honey Pie" not on the list? And in which crack-smoking universe is "All You Need Is Love" even a bad song, let alone one of the Beatles' worst songs? Feh.

My ground rules are simple: Only real, complete songs count. That's right, "Revolution 9" doesn't make the list, because although it's truly painful to listen to, it's an "aural collage." And those little hacked-up bits of songs on Let It Be ("Dig It," "Maggie Mae") don't qualify, either. Oh, and finally, these are all songs I personally don't like very much. On this list, my opinion trumps all. 'Cause it's my blog. Dissenting opinions are welcome, but they probably won't change my mind.

Here are the songs, in no order except the order I thought of them, and the albums they're on:

1. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You." Mediocre lyrics, lackluster vocals by George. At least it's short, clocking in at just under two minutes. (A Hard Day's Night)
2. "Blue Jay Way." Plodding psychedelia, with gimmicky production. And it's just boring to listen to. (Magical Mystery Tour)
3. "Drive My Car." A lot of people love this song, but I find it simple, plodding, and discordant. Not horrible, just far down the list in terms of Beatle quality. (Rubber Soul)
4. "Honey Pie." A derivative, throwaway novelty song that should have been farmed out to some up-and-coming band looking for a quick Top Ten song before falling into obscurity. (The White Album)
5. "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." George Harrison said it best: "God, 'Maxwell's Silver Hammmer' was so fruity.'" Amen, George. (Abbey Road)

For the record: I love "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)."

Here's What I'm Not Writing About Today

Some days you just can't get the ideas out. There's a bottleneck in your brain that stops the thought process in its tracks. In my case, that bottleneck takes the form of Precocious Daughter, whose misbehavior at school has crowded out all the interesting insights and pithy observations I otherwise might have made in today's post. I've got nothing except little drips and drops of thought, like rivulets of wax crying down a burning candle. (See, even my metaphors stink today.)

Here's what I could be writing about, if I weren't having to deal with the adventures of my fourth-grade delinquent:

1. Obama's speech. I know, I said I wouldn't write about politics. And on this topic I probably shouldn't. So I actually have to thank PDaughter in this case for keeping my vitriol under wraps.

2. HB1287. Otherwise known as the "Texas Makes Its Schoolchildren Study the Bible" law. I'll have to revisit this one at a later date, to explain why I'm actually in favor of the Texas Legislature's latest attempt to drag Christianity into our schools.

3. More on the Beatles. When I earlier dissected Entertainment Weekly's "50 Best Beatles Songs" list, I only briefly alluded to its much shorter list of worst Fab Four tunes. I may also come back to this one, if only to defend "Don't Pass Me By."

4. Farkle. It wasn't bad enough that Facebook got me hooked on cultivating an imaginary farm. Now it's got me playing a dice game that's part Yahtzee, part Pig, and apparently part crack. How am I supposed to devote my precious spare moments to blogging when I keep trying to score high enough to see the next annoying little bug-eyed cartoon character?

5. PDaughter herself. If anybody out there has a prayer for mothers of brilliant, charismatic divas, I'd love to hear it.

OK, time to have a come-to-Jesus with the child. In the immortal words of Lloyd Bridges, looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. :)

Entertainment Weekly Puts Head on Chopping Block, Names 50 Best Beatles Songs

Entertainment Weekly is one of my favorite magazines. It tells me which TV shows, movies, and bands are hot this week so that I don't have to spend time and money actually following them myself. I keep one toe in the jacuzzi of popular culture, but I don't get all wet and pruny worrying about who's getting voted off "American Idol" this week. I consider this a valuable public service and well worth the price of the subscription I've carried for the better part of the last 20 years.

So this week EW has hopped on the Beatles bandwagon. With both "The Beatles: Rock Band" and the remastered CD catalog being released on September 9, the latest issue is stuffed with Beatles-related content. Which means that I'm not learning much this week. I love reading about the Beatles, but in the same way that I love watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail, even though I know every line by heart. I sit at no one's feet when it comes to the Fab Four. I am that tiresome person who knows how the album version of "Let It Be" differs from the single version, and why John Lennon's solo hit "Instant Karma" is credited to Lennon-McCartney even though it's not a Beatles song. Because I really and truly believe these things are important, dammit. This is the Beatles, after all. In case you haven't heard, they're bigger than Jesus.

In that same irksome, know-it-all spirit, I approached EW's take on "The 50 Best Songs." First of all, this kind of list has appeared in dozens, probably hundreds of forms since 1970. Every last one is no more or less than somebody's opinion. My educated guess is that you won't find "Revolution 9" on the top of anybody's best-of list. Beyond that, it's a free-for-all. EW admits that its list was compiled by committee, which guarantees that there were all kinds of arguments over personal favorites and little discussion of what might objectively make the individual songs great. Which is exactly how such a list should be compiled. The Beatles' official output numbered somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 songs; any 50 of those songs chosen at random are likely to be superior to the same number of songs by just about any other group in rock history. A Beatles best-of list, no matter who puts it together, is by definition something of an academic exercise - Which of these awesome songs is the awesomest? It depends on where you're coming from.

I thought EW's list had some glaring omissions. No "Please Please Me." No "Hello Goodbye." Five songs from Revolver, but not "For No One" or "Got to Get You Into My Life." "Lovely Rita," a virtual novelty number from Sgt. Pepper, made the cut, but not "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"? Sacrilege.

I could make a case for chunking the entire list in the trash because it doesn't include "Twist and Shout." Just because the band didn't write it doesn't mean it's not one of their greatest recordings. In fact, there are no covers on EW's list from a band that did some amazing versions of other people's tunes. Paul McCartney's vocals on "Long Tall Sally" give Little Richard a run for his money. I daresay that more people know Ringo Starr's lovably goofy version of "Act Naturally" than have ever heard the Buck Owens original. And how could any credible list exclude the band's cover of "Besame Mucho"? (OK, just kidding on that last one - sometimes even a personal favorite can't be justified as a great record.)

Then there are my nitpicks with some of the songs that did make the list. "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" is a lovely song with cool Dylan-influenced lyrics by John Lennon. But I think that "I've Just Seen a Face" is a much better track from Help! (even though I grew up knowing it as the opening song on the US version of Rubber Soul). And speaking of Rubber Soul, I'd swap out EW's choice of "You Won't See Me" from that album in favor of "I'm Looking Through You."

The White Album presents an entire set of challenges. Personally, I might be inclined to dump every track onto my best-of list, then pad out the remaining slots with songs from other albums. OK, except for "Revolution 9." The White Album happens to be my favorite album of all time, by any artist, period. There's a dash of bias there. So I'll limit my critique to the slots on the list that EW gave it. "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" is a great song, but I'd replace it with "Glass Onion." "Dear Prudence" just might make the cut, but the album contains so many other wonderful ballads, too, including "I Will," "Julia," and "Long Long Long." I completely agree with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Helter Skelter," by the way. Naming "Don't Pass Me By" as one of the Beatles' five worst songs, however? I've mentioned "Revolution 9" twice in this post, EW - get a clue.

Finally, let's talk Number One. EW chose "A Hard Day's Night." Love the song, adore the movie. But it's not the Beatles' best song. So what is? I don't know. It's up to you to decide. That's not copping out, that's a conciliatory gesture to those who might otherwise tear me apart for daring to name the "best" Beatles tune. They may do so anyway, because that's what people do on the Internet. But let the record show that I threw out the conciliatory gesture.

OK. Best Beatles' song. For aural impact, I'd say "A Day in the Life." For inventiveness, "Strawberry Fields Forever" is as great a lesson in recording technology as it is a composition. For harmonies and poignancy, "Nowhere Man" does it for me. For rocking out, it's a tie between "Twist and Shout" and "Helter Skelter." And for being timeless, ageless, and endlessly recordable, I could choose from "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," "Something," and "Let It Be."

You see, it depends on where you're coming from. But you can't go wrong by spending five minutes or an hour or a weekend listening to any of them. Oh, and if you don't have a frame of reference for a Beatles best-of list because you don't know all the songs, do what I did this morning with Precocious Daughter: Listen to them. Listen to them all. And sing along, of course.