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Tag: Russian letters

Episode Twenty Three – John Lennon Séance

In which Young Southpaw proposes a séance to get to the bottom of who in fact John Lennon thought was the best drummer in The Beatles, what we might find out about Live Aid in the process, and are people who wear a number other than two shoes really badasses?

Taking in Lenin, Van Halen, David Lee Roth, David Bowie, The Beat, symbols, Russian letters, Jabba The Hut, Elton John, Phil Collins, Adam Ant, the astral plane, etc.

“You know that John Lennon quote about Ringo, ya know? When Lennon was asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world or something, and Lennon’s reply was ‘he’s not even the best drummer in The Beatles’ BUT I MEAN WHO WAS?! Ya know? I realize it was intended as, as a humorous statement, but it does raise the question – who was the best drummer in The Beatles? And I guess we’ll never know. We’ll certainly never know who John Lennon thought, unless of course he confided it to someone, well WILL THAT PERSON PLEASE COME FORWARD?! I tell ya, if he did tell somebody who he thought was, well, that person is a master at keeping secrets, someone I would very much like to have as my friend. Though that would complicate things because I would know that he had this information that I sought, and he…or she…would be aware that I desperately wanted this information, and not just me, I imagine the whole world at large would like to know too, ya know. And that would make things uncomfortable for the secret bearer, so that we could never truly be great friends, ya know. No matter how well we got along. Or even if like we perfected like some sort of unstoppable give-and-go basketball play that only we could perform, and like all the major teams were trying to sign us, new leagues sprouting up all over the world in the hopes that we’d be on their starting five but eventually I imagine this rift, this being unable to reveal all our deepest darkest knowledge to one another, would crumble even that. A shame really…

I mean I guess we could have a séance. That might even be the purpose of seances, the real deal, ya know find out, find out the facts, ya know. All the ancient mysteries of the universe that the dead are now privy to – like who did John Lennon think was the best drummer in The Beatles. Hmm, I was gonna say could it have been Stuart Sutcliffe, you know, you gotta lock the bass in with the drums? But he wasn’t in The Beatles when John Lennon made that statement, and he didn’t say ‘who’s ever been in The Beatles’ cause I mean that would have been like really unkind. You’d have all these people, ya know like opium addicts who are trying to set records for crashing hot air balloons, and like pyromaniac hairdressers who now operate in more metaphysical spaces ya know once they’d read Barbarella, all them start claiming they had been in The Beatles for like a day and that song Yesterday was actually about that 24 hour period and they’ve got the minidiscs to prove it. But no one knew what minidiscs were back then…

But I mean what else would I like to know from John Lennon if we were to do this thang? Well like, what did he think of Live Aid, ya know as a spectral being? That would certainly be interesting, I mean what would he have thought of it, 1985, what did he think of David Lee Roth leavin’ Van Halen?! Was it too soon for somethin’ like Live Aid after that catastrophe? Y’all, y’all with me on this? I mean, well what about Lenin? The other one ya know, ol’ Vladdy Ilyich. Do they like hang out all the time together? The other souls gettin’ them all confused, especially with that Back In The USSR song – yes I know McCartney wrote that one but McCartney never found himself in circumstances like these, ya know! And then there’s Working Class Heroes too, if you’re gonna be pedantic about it.

Or is there like a language barrier, like they wanna hang out but all the interpreters are busy trying to interpret just what is going on in the afterlife and are unavailable for mere communicatory purposes. I mean I would assume that everyone there has some sorta like ghostly babelfish allowing them to understand everything, but that might be a dangerous assumption. I mean imagine if during the séance I ask Lennon about Lenin, the one with two n’s and not three, the Russian guy, probably easier to say it that way, and the sadness of him saying that the language barrier is too great is just too much for any of us, including the medium, to bear. You need to plan these things ahead of time…

And I was talking about the Russian Ramones earlier, what about the Russian Beatles, what would they be called? Cause you know they got that rad letter the zheh, they call it the zhaba, I’m assuming that’s where Jabba The Hut comes from, look at all these assumptions today like I’m some sorta hep cat with nine lives and nothing to fear. But it could just be a strange coincidence, but I mean the letter looks like a frog which is why they call it that, and that’s what zhaba means in Russian. But it could also look like a beetle! It’s just a line drawing, a two-dimensional representation of a sound, ya know, but oh man – don’t frogs eat beetles? That’s scary as hell! This thing represents itself and the animal it feeds on. But maybe Lennon and Lenin have a band together that is just this almighty symbol. And Prince is there too. They tour together and it’s, it’s just symbols ya know! WOAH! Maybe it’s conceptual and they’re all just playin’ cymbals… Like the percussion, oh man… Would that then prove that John Lennon himself was the best drummer in The Beatles? Maybe he was referring to himself, the intrigue deepens, man. And ya know, what did he think of David Bowie & Bing Crosby’s version of The Little Drummer Boy? He musta talked about that with Bowie, well maybe, I’m not taking a hat trick of assumptions here, I’m not even wearing a hat! But I mean speakin’ of hats, he and Bowie wrote Fashion together, around the time of Young Americans. Despite neither of them being young Americans. Though they’re both in the B section at record stores. Not the same thing I know but it’s somethin’. And ya know, just to clarify, B as in the letter, not the insect. Though that’d be cool if they kept live bees at record stores. Near the ABBA and Jesus & Mary Chain singles. Walkin’ out with some new cds and a fresh batch of honey, sounds amazin’. Personally I’ve always wanted to name a band Elton John & The Beetles, spelt with two E’s of course so you don’t get sued. I just think that’s a great band name, you know like all those punk bands, the ones who did fight on Saturday nights – not that I’m condoning violence, even for the bees with their stingers ya know – but the Beetles, there’s that English band The Beat too. Their gigs on the Lower East Side, I wonder if that ever confused anybody with the whole LES abbreviation. Fans showin’ up, traveling thousands of miles to see what this Beatles reunion at a club in New York City is all about, and then The Beat, unaware of any possible misunderstanding, still for some reason chose to – for the first time ever – do a set of all Beatles covers? And maybe they do it like playin behind a screen like that PiL riot show, so that everyone leaves still havin’ no idea of what actually went on. Now I’m all confused myself, did this ever actually happen?

And ya know John Lennon imagine there’s no heaven or hell, well a séance would have to include some hard-hitting questions about that. In fact it would kind of back him into a corner…

And come to think of it, what did the whole spectral world think of Live Aid, ya know? And like what happened in the astral plane, you know, when David Lee Roth left Van Halen?! I mean that must have been insane. Atomic Punk, can barely begin to describe what was happenin’ there… Wow….wow…….wow……. I mean did like the whole spectral world like boycott Live Aid because of the name? Hmmm….Undead Aid…was that what wasgoin’ on? Did they have like their own superstar line-up that like far outdid Madonna ya know swearin’ and like throwin’ her shoe or whatever she did ya know? Aw, that woulda been hilarious if like Undead Aid happened the very next day and was just a parody of the whole Live Aid thing. Ya had like millions of undead souls just pretendin’ to be Phil Collins, teleporting from one place to another instead of flyin’ the Concord ya know. And people formed bands called The Shoes as like a dig at Madonna’s whole thang. That woulda been amazin’. Did Adam Ant play Live Aid, ya know Goody Two-Shoes? And what about Goody Two-Shoes? Does that phrase imply that like, the most badasses are like…people who only wear one shoe? OR MORE THAN A PAIR?! I mean that would be insane, you know. How do you wear more than two shoes?! That just seems complicated and uncomfortable. Then again, phrases like Goody Two-Shoes don’t come up for no reason. But everyone’s wearing two sh-, well no, it would be more correct to say everyone who is wearing shoes…is most likely wearing two shoes… Unless they’re in the act of putting one on, or taking one off, can’t rule that out. This whole phrase is a minefield. But I could always ask John Lennon about this at the séance”

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