In the mid-1960s, Britain’s pound sterling had been under sustained downward pressure from a persistently adverse trade balance. Then The Beatles came along, posting world-record dollar-denominated concert receipts from their American tours in 1964, 1965, and 1966, earning $650 a second in modern dollars. Their 1966 concert tours of Germany and Japan raked in truckloads of deutschemarks and yen at exactly the moment the pound's value was most tenuous due to a British consumption boom. This may be the most boring paragraph I have ever written, or that you have ever read, but things get better below the wee chasm.
Having noted The Beatles' importance to maintaining a favourable exchange rate for the pound sterling, the UK government wasn’t tickled pink with manager Brian Epstein’s handling of their visit to the Philippines in mid-1966. The group had been greeted by thousands of screaming fans when they arrived at Manila Airport on 3rd July, but was whisked away by military police to a private yacht party with well-heeled locals almost before said fans could catch a glimpse of their heroes. By the time they finally got to their rooms at the Hotel Manila in the early hours of July 4, they were exhausted, and eager to enjoy a rejuvenating nap before their afternoon and evening shows at the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium.
Little did they realise that the shows’ promoter had promised their attendance at a breakfast reception with First Lady Imelda Marcos, she of the 1000 pairs of shoes, hubby Ferdinand Marcos, top government officials, and 300 top government officials’ kiddies. The boys realised someone had dropped the ball only when, waiting for room service that never arrived, they saw Madame Marcos screaming on television, 'They've let me down!'"
The next day, on their way back to the airport, were spat on and poked with sharp sticks while the policemen charged with protecting them just sneered hatefully, dropped pianos on their heads, or burned them with cigarettes.
In London, Queen Elizabeth II huddled with Brian Wilson, the Prime Minister at the time, and it was decided that The Beatles were too valuable to be left in the care of Brian Epstein. The Queen is said to have believed that they should be entrusted to the Royal Air Force, but PM Wilson, who had been a drinking buddy of John Lennon back in Liverpool before the group’s commercial breakthrough, felt sure the boys would rebel at this suggestion. One of his aides noted that he notoriously brutish Don Arden, known to have held a rival manager out of a third-storey window by his ankles to discourage him from poaching one of Arden’s acts, was likely to intimidate anyone intent on burning our boys with cigarettes or poking them with sharp sticks. When one of Her Majesty's toadies phoned Arden's office, though, the great man revealed that he was too busy bilking The Small Faces to take on new clients.
Peter Grant, later to manage the Led Zeppelins, but at the time an intimidator for producer Mickie Most, briefly seemed an inspired choice, but the cabal eventually agreed instead on Snuffy Schulberg, earlier the manager of Chirpy & The Ginghams. Whereas Arden had held rivals out of third-storey windows by their ankles, Schulberg, a one-time cantor in his native Australia, actually dropped them out of fourth-storey windows. But hardly had his release from HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs, which has a really cool name, but is thought less horrific than, for instance, HM Prison Wakefield, been arranged, than The Beatles announced they would no longer tour, the danger of being burned with cigarettes and poked with sharp sticks being minimal in Abbey Road Studios. George Harrison wore bedroom slippers at the group’s final official concert appearance, at Candlestick Park, near San Francisco.
Rodrigo Duterte, the Phillippines’ present president, turns out to have been one of the children who didn’t get to meet The Beatles at Madame Marcos’s gala breakfast, but has nonetheless remained a huge fan of the group. He is said to enjoy listening to their albums Rubber Soul and Dark Side of the Moon between recruiting death squads to assassinate suspected drug dealers, and having steamy conversations on Skype with Donald J. Trump, who is known to think it very unfair that he doesn’t get death squads of his own. Duterte has apparently offered Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr £1 billion and 22 of the 7107 Philippines islands of their choice — except Luzon, on which Manila is located — to perform a reunion show in the Philippines. A spokesman for Sir Paul has said, “No fookin’ way,” but it’s possible he was being snide. Many Americans mistakenly believe that all Brits pronounce the first vowel sound in fucking like that in spook, but it isn’t the case. It’s a northern thing. The Beatles were of course from the British northwest, but Sir Paul hasn’t lived there since 1931, and uses the referenced vowel sound only when being coy, as in "When I’m Sixty-Four", in which he pronounces the name Chuck with the vowel sound of his native city.
No comments:
Post a Comment