It's truly beautiful, magnificent and very moving, and you really must see it because it isn't just nostalgia that makes it so great. Gosh, those Beatles were such beautiful, beautiful men, weren't they, and how strange is it that we didn't realise how much so until now?
So forget anything to do with nostalgia because it's so much more than this. In fact, it's still relevant and important and what makes it particularly so is that, given the distance of years, you realise that, yes, each Beatle is a beautiful man in his own right, but together ...
Mmmmm mmm!
Perfection!
It's like the George Harrison joke in this doco: Q: "How many Beatles does it take to change a lightbulb?" A: "Four."
OK, he means it because, for years, they were seldom able to take breaks from each other - Brian only let them have one day a month off from work - but watching this doco you realise it's particularly funny because it's true; you really NEED the four of them in one place because nothing can match the sheer joy you feel looking at them all together.
But it isn't just their faces that do it for you because it's also how on-stage and even moreso off-stage they have a way of moving in and out of sync with each other that is so lyrical and just-like-poetry. "Something in the way they move attracts you like no other." as George almost sang and let me tell you that it STILL gives you enormous pleasure to watch.
As do the old interviews. There's something in the rhythm of their voices that makes your ear hunger to hear them talk, and how hearing one speak you can't wait for the next one to jump in as a kind of aural counterpoint and it's truly shocking at how often they get it right and each different cutting-in voice is exactly the one your ear wants to hear speak next.
And let's not forget their charisma. In all those old photos even Eric Clapton vanishes into a background non-entity when he's next to any Beatle. In fact, everyone vanishes into background non-entities in photos with any of them individually and no one else exists in any photo when they're all together. Yup, each of them was truly beautiful in his own right, but it's when the four of them get together that it suddenly becomes sublime and tickles all your senses. No wonder the whole world went crazy for them.
And this doco makes you see it all over again and you really understand WHY you loved them so much and how no one today, really, can come close.
So "George Harrison: Living in a Material World" is great stuff, however must warn you that it's three hours long and that's just cruel for we smokers, however there was a section on George Harrison's love of ukuleles and since I detest ukuleles with a passion I was able to nip out without missing much.
Although maybe I did because I probably missed the bit where it said that George Harrison's last public performance was back in November 1999 playing ukulele with the Lomalagi Boys in a small village called Nasinu in the outer islands of Fiji, because that's indeed his swansong because he never performed in public again. And if you want something for the record, I have it on good authority that they played lots of old Beatles numbers and that they performed this one as the finale of their impromptu show:
Since this was also George's first recording, isn't it strange and wonderful that he ended his public career with the same song. And given who he was I think he'd love it that his swansong was for a small audience of villagers in the middle of nowhere.
Just realised since it's probably not in the doco and there probably isn't any record of this concert already out there, let me tell you how this event came about: at the end of November 1999 George and Olivia were flying around the outer islands of Fiji in Nick's helicopter when they saw a small village on a small outlying island and decided they wanted to visit a real Fijian village so Nick landed and that's when Fiji's natural hospitality kicked in and so they were invited to afternoon tea with the chief. Then, as they ate and drank with the chief, the Lomalagi Boys, the village band, came in to serenade the visitors, but the minute they started playing George jumped up and joined in on a borrowed ukelele ... and the minute he began to play he was immediately recognised so ... well, the entire village came running and thus it turned into a three hour concert where the magic kicked in and everyone agreed that it was absolutely incredible.
And I should also tell you that six weeks after this impromptu gig a huge crate arrived at Nasinu village full of high quality guitars, ukuleles, school supplies and old Beatles CDs. It arrived anonymously but no one doubted who it was from and everyone took it to mean George thought their instruments were crap, which any of the Lomalagi Boys could tell you was no less than the truth.
And I probably shouldn't tell you this, but when George died a coconut fell from a tree and smashed the uke that George had been playing, so naturally Nasinu Village thinks this must have been his way of saying goodbye. That smashed uke, I hear, now has pride of place on the chief's wall, undoubtedly an art installation piece called "George's Moci Muda Levu". (And for those who don't speak Fijian, that's "George's Big Farewell".)
Hey, look at that. I did talk about Fiji afterall.
Anyway, I've been sidetracked once again in this review ... but let's not stop doing that. Let me sidetrack again:
At the end of this excellent doco, they naturally talked about the Horror Night on December 30th 1999, wherein George was attacked and stabbed almost to death in his home at Friar's Court outside London. It was horrible, yes, but then it showed a photo of the attacker ...
The damage done
with poker and table lamp.
Yayyy! Go Olivia!
... and the instant I saw that photo, I flinched and the hair rose on the back of my neck. Yup, it immediately freaked me out and that was because of the white-blonde hair. Lately, ever since Julian Assange hit the news in such a big way, we've all been talking about Anne Hamilton-Byrne and her "The Family" Cult and how all those kiddies she got her hands on - some donated by cult members and others kidnapped by midwives at birth - at least 14 of them including Julian - had their hair dyed white-blonde because Anne Hamilton-Byrne believes that Archangel Michael works on earth through people with white-blonde hair, and she inculcated this belief in the kiddies she raised ... raised on a diet of starvation, muscle-relaxants, tranquilizers and LSD, by the way, so they could learn to better channel the Archangel Michael's wishes.
Mmmm, what's the bet you'd find most of this Angel Army these days as permanent residents of obscure and secure mental facilities?
I probably shouldn't tell you that I know Anne Hamilton-Byrne but I will because I do. In respect for her privacy, I won't tell you how and why I know her, nor where she is these days, nor what she's calling herself, but I will tell you that I've had many talks with her and so can tell you that she's not a con-artist like most cult leaders because she entirely believes in her crap and, yes, she still genuinely believes that she did the right thing getting her hands on these children in order to raise them as Michael the Archangel's "Earth-Angel-Army". And no, she's not completely bonkers, again like most cult leaders ... well, OK, she may indeed be entirely bonkers but it all makes sense when you're with her, surrounded by her warmth, charm and charisma, so it isn't until about a day later when your rational mind switches back on and you become all "Say wot?"
Anyway, since there are "at least 13" OTHER of Anne Hamilton-Byrnes "Angel-Army" out there, all now adults with white-blonde hair, all believing they are agents for Archangel Michael, all doing his bidding, and seeing that creepy hair in this doco definitely freaked me out and had me wondering if this loonie (Yoko Ono requests that you don't name these guys because it only gives them power.) was perhaps one of hers.
But then it got worse and I freaked out even more because Olivia started talking about the motivation for the attack. Yup, she said that This Straw-Haired Loon said he was hearing the voice of Archangel Michael in his head telling him to rid the world of George Harrison, and she pointed out that he was carrying the spear he'd broken off George's St Michael the Archangel's garden statue so to deliver the coup de grace, much like St Michael the Archangel did to the dragon.
Thus, deeply horrified and more than a little curious and since this is me we're talking about, I spent the entire yesterday in cyberspace trying to find a link between This Straw-Haired Loonie and Anne Hamilton-Byrne but without any success. Undoubtedly kudos are due to Yoko Ono because there's practically nothing out there (and the police in Tasmania request that the 10th Anniversary of the Port Arthur Massacre passes without notice for the same reason.) ...
... except for The Cyberspace Crazyworld Loonies all trying to find a connection between Straw-Haired Loonie and that mental hospital in Hawaii that is supposed to have created all those Manchurian Candidate Assassins for the C.I.A.
Naturally, since I too was looking for connections, that made me feel like yet another Cyberspace Crazyworld Loonie so I gave up the search, but not before being totally sickened by the nonsense surrounding The Beatles these days.
Gosh, there's such rubbish out there, like a Fundamentalist Christian website that claims the song "Sexy Sadie" was about the Manson Murders and showing that The Beatles were behind it and supported it.
Let's have a listen to it again:
Mmmm, maybe you have to listen to it backwards!
All we relatively sane folks know that this song is actually about John becoming disillusioned with the Maharisi but even if you don't know that surely anyone can check out that it was released in November '68 and the Manson Murders were committed in August '69 and thus it simply isn't possible.
When I said this to Jason his comment was "The term 'fundamentalist' should tip you off that nothing is going to be checked." and, yes, I have to agree. Stupid beyond anything, yes?
And here's an interesting story on this subject: Several years ago, I was on a train up in Mainland China when a weird-looking American family came aboard; patriarch-style father, timid "beaten wife" little mother, and a dozen identically dressed kids, all gingham, aprons, blonde, plaited-up hair, looking not unlike a latter-day Von Trappe Family. Since it's rare to find folks who speak your own language up in China, I was about to talk to them when one of the boys said "Daddy, why was John Lennon evil?" to which the father replied "He thought he was greater than Jesus and that's why we had to kill him."
Things that make you go "Mmmmm?', right?
But it isn't just Fundamentalist Christians who are lunatics in dire need of a fact-checker. There's a site out there that claims that the Beatles were fellow devil-worshippers and that the song Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a Satanist Anthem and the line "It was 20 years ago today Sergeant Pepper taught the band" is a reference to the death of Satanist Aleister Crowley.
Another song that needs another listen:
Mmmm, yup, another one you have to listen to backwards to understand what they're on about.
And there's even a site that claims that the Beatles were put together as a mind-control experiment at a place called Tavistock, which I googled and discovered does exist - HERE - but certainly DIDN'T put the Beatles together.
For those Cyber-loons out there, the answer to "Who put the Beatles together?" is The Beatles, although John and Paul would undoubtedly have squabbled loudly as to which of them was the actual driving force.
And neither is there any mystery to that wonderful synthesis between them. It is definitely NOT because they were put
together in some mind-control clinic like those lunatidiots claim, but
because they grew up virtually together, going to the same schools and having almost identical houses and lives and parents (apart from John that is, but his more complicated life led to a winsy little fissure in the pattern of their perfect harmony that just made them more interesting) ...
... and then never let us forget that John, Paul and George spent an entire year working 17 hour days at the Rathskeller in
Hamburg (and Ringo was doing the same in another band several clubs along) and living together in a space that was more usually used as a broom closet, so of course there was no way that they didn't know each other inside out, both on stage and in life.
And, more importantly, it meant they
were very young when they'd reached their "10,000 hours" required for
true greatness and thus hit the world at the end of that year ready to
go!
JUST ADD RINGO!
However, "George Harrison: Living in a Material World" will undoubtedly answer a lot of these ridiculous questions ... although I sadly feel that it will bring even more lunatidiots into the game.
And if you want to know the worst thing about it? The bit at the end when it told how, in the December of 1999, George drove around to friends places to drop off ukuleles saying "Everyone needs on of these around the house." and since Keith and I are currently at war because he wants a ukulele and I am equally determined he WON'T have one, naturally that's when Keith elbowed me in the ribs and said "See, even George Harrison says so."
NO KEITH! That doesn't mean you must get one, besides my take on this is that George dropped a coconut on a ukulele in Nasinu Village and so THAT is absolutely his final word on this subject.
But don't let that all that nonsense about ukuleles stop you going to see a truly great, timeless and timely film. Kudos, Scorsese.
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