Faux Beatles

Sometimes, you just have to break out of the box.

Because of the past two years or so of the lingering Covid pandemic, Kim and I have pretty much stayed around the house. We've gone to the beach just once in that span, and we made a trip to Blowing Rock last fall. We even cancelled going to a Beach Boys concert at the Alabama Theater in Myrtle Beach last year because of Covid. We didn't much like the idea of sitting next to someone who wasn't wearing a mask while bellowing out "Good Vibrations" along with the Mike Love

So for a couple of people who feel like they're sometimes walking on the edge just going to the grocery store, getting out is a big deal.

But we made an exception on Friday. We went to see a Beatles tribute band – "Yesterday - The Las Vegas Beatles Show" – in High Point.

Make believe Beatles. A good time was had by all.

I have my issues with tribute bands. On the one hand, they are paying tribute, after all, and you have to respect that. They know they have an impossible task. And generally speaking, the musicianship is decent and the vocals are recognizable. But on the other hand, there's no way they're going to "be" the artists they're mimicking. A guitar lick might be different, a lyric might be changed, stage presence might be a little off.

Having said that, we went to see these faux Beatles on the recommendation of some friends, as well as the recommendation of one Sir Paul McCartney, who's given his only tribute band endorsement to this particular group. That's what it says in the brochure, anyway.

Plus, they're a Las Vegas act. They have to be good. So I had my expectations.

And, again, I might have expected too much.

But I say that in a kind way. The guys playing the Las Vegas Beatles did not have much of a physical resemblance to the originals. There were times when they had trouble hitting the high notes, possibly because these guys looked like they were in their 50s, at least. The guy playing Paul McCartney did a good job singing "Yesterday" without ever sounding like Paul McCartney.

The guy playing John Lennon, though, was very credible, especially on "Help." And the group did a good job on several Beatles harmonies.

The High Point Theater probably seats about 1,000 people, but I estimated there might have been between 200 and 300 people in the audience. If performers play to the crowd – if they draw their energy from a full house – I wondered if these guys were disappointed in the turnout.

Also, a Beatles audience these days is going to feature a lot of gray hair, if (ironically) any hair at all. Kim said she felt like she was in a nursing home.

But I don't want to be too critical. The idea is to have fun, and we did. The group played video montages on a large screen behind them of the real Beatles, especially in the early years, and that helped with the time-travel experience. The folks in the audience seemed to have a good time, especially the 60-year-oldish guy sitting directly in front of us, who played some emphatic air drums while mirroring Ringo's downbeats. That was entertaining.

Some in the crowd might have gotten a little carried away. When the show was over, and the band members walked past us in the aisle for their meet and greet in the lobby, some yelled "Why did you break up?" and "Get rid of Yoko!" as if these were the real Beatles. Yikes.

The two-hour show incorporated early, mid to late Beatles tunes, giving you a nice sample of the real group's progression and maturation as artists.

In a couple months, "1964 - The Tribute", will be playing in Greensboro, and we're thinking about going. We saw this group before when they played the Barbecue Festival in Lexington about 20 years ago. Those guys were good, right down to the Scouse accents in their stage banter and in their physical resemblance and sound. They do exclusively early Beatles, from 1964 up to, but not including, the Sgt. Pepper era and after. The band's stated mission is to recreate the Beatlemania phenomenon as much as possible.

And then, in October, we're going to the beach to see the faux Eagles. I'm hoping for a peaceful, easy feeling there.

The very Secret Service

 "Worthy of Trust and Confidence"

                                    – Secret Service motto

A couple of weeks ago, when White House aide and insider Cassidy Hutchinson gave her explosive testimony to the bipartisan Congressional Jan. 6 Commission, one of the things she revealed was that President Trump may have physically assaulted the driver of the presidential vehicle when the driver refused to take him to the Capitol.

While Hutchinson was reporting secondhand information that she heard from Secret Service agents who were on the scene, the revelation was shocking.

According to findings of the commission, based almost solely upon the testimony of Republican witnesses, Trump wanted to personally lead a contingent of his followers (some of whom were armed, we learned) to the Capitol to disrupt the Constitutionally mandated certification of votes in the Electoral College.

Within hours, it seemed, two Secret Service agents – Tony Ornato and Bobby Engel – refuted her story. Suddenly, the GOP was jumping for joy, positive Hutchinson perjured herself with her story, and by doing so, cast doubt on the truth of her entire testimony.

Then came some unexpected blowback. It seems the Secret Service deleted all emails, messages and transactions covering the dates of Jan. 5-6 because of a scheduled cellphone information migration.

Imagine that. A government agency supposedly above the squalor of politics deleted potential evidence at a curiously critical moment in the now-apparent coup attempt. Nothing, apparently, was backed up. So it's gone, lost in cyberspace.

This could have been information that either confirmed or denied Hutchinson's testimony. Given that the messages were deleted, it's fair to assume Hutchinson's story is valid. Capitol police, who heard the radio traffic that day, are confirming her story.

But more importantly, the missing info could shed light on what was going on at the Capitol during the insurrection. The Secret Service wanted to whisk Vice President Mike Pence to a secure location. The trouble with that is Pence, as president of the Senate, needed to be on hand to certify the votes. The count couldn't continue without him. Pence demanded that he stay on site, and to his democracy-saving credit, he did.

Does that suggest the Secret Service was implicit in Trump's now apparent plan to delay the vote count and insert alternate electors? The missing information could clear that up. But, no, the information is missing. It all sounds incredibly specious, if not suspicious. Secret Service agents are now lawyering up, another indication that all is not what it should be.

It also seems that the agency has been politicized to the point of its credulity being damaged. This is a hallmark of the Trump administration, which values loyalty over constitutionality.

In a perfect world, we long for transparency from our government agencies. They are, in fact, employees of the people. Weak excuses and weak apologies make us weak as a nation. How vulnerable can we be when a president is derelict in his duties and spends three hours cheering on "his people" in an attempted coup?

It's repulsive. This is not government. It's fascism. It's anarchy. It's certainly not transparency.

And I doubt it's worthy of our trust and confidence.

Abigail Adams is my hero

I think Abigail Adams got it right when she wrote to her husband, John, about the plight of women in this nascent nation back in 1776.

John, of course, was busy trying to put a country together. She was running their farm in Braintree, MA, while he was irritating his fellow delegates in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia about something as revolutionary as independence from England.

Abigail Adams

 Between the two of them, they wrote more than 1,000 letters to each other. But none seems more relevant now than the one she wrote John dated March 31,1776. In it, she pleaded with John and his cohorts to famously "remember the Ladies" as they give birth to the Declaration of Independence.

Here is the excerpt:

 "I long to hear that you have declared an independency—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

"That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity. Men of Sense in all Ages abhor those customs which treat us only as the vassals of your Sex. Regard us then as Beings placed by providence under your protection and in immitation of the Supreem Being make use of that power only for our happiness."

On the surface, it's not a particularly easy document to read. It is, after all, written in the King's English, complete with typos and phonetic misspellings. Proper English tends to throw a lot of people off, which explains why the language is now dotted with colloquialisms and Southern idioms. It's doubtful even the King would recognize his own speech these days.

But the content was dead serious.

John, being "naturally tyrannical", thought Abigail was joking. He probably never shared Abby's sentiments with the rest of the guys in Congress, which goes a long way in explaining why women didn't get the right to vote until 1920, 131 shameful years after the Constitution was adopted. Fully half the nation could only stand on the sidelines and watch rich white men screw things up (think Dred Scott, for one).

Abby might have been this country's original feminist, predating the likes of Susan B. Anthony, Sojourner Truth, Amelia Bloomer, among others, up to modern contemporaries like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem.

Imagine, if you will, the trajectory American history could have taken if John and his buddies had remembered the ladies and given them the right to vote. If women were given the vote in 1789 perhaps the logic of giving other minorities the vote could have taken hold. Perhaps there would have been no Civil War, but Civil Rights instead. Healthcare might be universal and abortion rights might be codified. The Supreme Court might actually be the viable third branch of government instead of a rogue panel of lifetime appointments out of step with women's rights – no, everybody's rights.

But that's not the road the nation followed, so here we are in a male dominated right-wing miasma where women are still second stringers all these years removed from Abigail's now seemingly empty plea. In the end, it's all about control. And who owns that control.

So here we are, in post Roe v. Wade world, stripped of a Constitutional right for the first time in 246 years. Worse, there is a threat, if not a promise, of more rights to fall from a check-and-balance branch of government that desperately needs a check and balance of its own.

If only...

 

Elvis

Right off the top, you need to know that I've never been much of an Elvis Presley fan.

I guess part of that is because I was just so young when Elvis first hit the scene. My first memory of anything Elvis probably came around 1956 when, as a 5-year-old, I heard "Hound Dog" on the radio. I suppose I ought to add here, in full disclosure, that Mom was the one listening to the radio that day. I can't say with any certainty that she was caught up in the burgeoning Elvis phenomenon because her taste in music, as I recall, was wide-ranging, from Broadway to popular to the classics. She didn't swoon when Elvis sang.

I think for me, I was just too young for anything musical to stick. That didn't happen until the Beatles arrived about a half-decade later.

Ironically, the Beatles turned out to be the motivation I needed to appreciate other artists – including Elvis, simply because the Lads regarded him as one of their primary influences.

Anyway, I did eventually come to appreciate Elvis's contribution to rock and roll, especially in his early years. While I never became a serious fan, he lingered ghost-like in the periphery.

Fast forward to Monday. Kim and I went to see "Elvis," the current movie biopic starring Austin Butler as Elvis and Tom Hanks as Col. Tom Parker, Elvis's controversial manager.

Because of Covid, this was our first theater experience in more than two years. We went to the 9 a.m. showing of the flick at Tinseltown in Salisbury, which meant we were just two of only 10 people in the entire room. I didn't know anybody showed movies that early in the morning. Plus, it was senior discount day, which was an added surprise. We didn't buy popcorn or Pepsi at that hour, but I have to say that some coffee would have been nice.

Anyway, the movie was engrossing. Although it's nearly three hours long (2:40), director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby, to name a couple of his films) typically moves it along at mostly a racehorse tempo. Time and sequences both fly.

Butler pretty much nails his performance as Elvis, especially the early years. He does most of his own singing and you appreciate the physicality he needed to play such a high octane stage performer like Elvis. Several times in the flick, Butler nearly breaks his ankles standing on his toes in a signature Elvis move. It occurred to me then that Elvis might have been Michael Jackson long before there was a Michael Jackson. What goes around comes around, I guess.

But the best performance in the film belongs to Hanks who, fitted in body and facial prostheses to make him appear as the overweight and double chinned Col. Parker, is almost unrecognizable. The Dutch accent he assumes (Parker was born in the Netherlands Andreas Cornelis van Kujik) also tends to throw you off. But Hanks is compelling. We expect nothing less from this versatile icon. He is our endearing Jimmy Stewart, capable of almost any role.

The film takes Parker's point of view as he tries to explain his management – or mismanagement – of Elvis's life and career. And that means, ultimately, this is a sad tale.

As the movie winds down, the last few minutes flip to actual Elvis footage in one of the last performances of his career. Elvis is overweight. He can hardly walk. His breathing is labored. Then he sits down at the piano and belts out "Unchained Melody" in a voice filled with a familiar power and passion that reminds us of his youth. You can Google it.

He was dead just a few weeks later. It's a touching and emotional moment.

And it made me a fan.

It's MY blog

Apparently, my blog last Sunday decrying the horrific Supreme Court decision to revoke Roe v. Wade ruffled a few conservative feathers, as I suspected that it would.

In my opposition to the ruling, which overturned a Constitutional right for the first time ever in this nation's history, I wrote "What is this country?" It seems at least one reader obliquely questioned my patriotism, then gave me a civics lesson on the First Amendment of this "beautiful country" that allows me the freedom of speech to "cheerlead" for my "team."

This reader also stated that I was too dramatic, too emotional and not factual enough.

Another reader defended the Justices who, during their confirmation hearings, promised to abide by stare decisis (long-standing legal precedent), then seemingly perjured themselves as they voted to rescind the nearly 50-year-old Roe decision anyway. This reader suggested that last Sunday's blog was "an opinion piece and not a peer reviewed article" and also claimed there was too much emotion and not enough facts.

Say what?

Okay, here we go. It seems I need to write yet another clarification on exactly what a blog is, how I resource my material, why I write it in the first place.

The easiest way to explain the purpose of my blog is to compare it to a letter to the editor. In my 30-plus-year career as a journalist, I've seen enough such letters to know that they are often emotional, sometimes flawed, but almost always legitimate in bringing a different or new perspective to the argument.

My blog is my opinion. It can be emotional. Some blogs that I've written have brought tears to my eyes as I type, others have released the steam out of my ears. So what? Thomas Paine was pretty emotional when he wrote Common Sense. Thomas Jefferson got emotional writing The Declaration of Independence. And while I hardly compare myself to their greatness, as a writer, I can appreciate their emotion. 

My blogs are not "articles" in the journalistic sense of the word. They are hardly ever breaking news. They are hardly ever in-depth investigations. But they are opinion pieces.

My blogs don't need peer review. I am not writing for a medical journal or a law society. I'm writing for myself. In last Sunday's blog, I consider my "peer review" to be the 50 years of precedent set by Roe; the polling that shows 65-70 percent of Americans wanted to keep Roe, and, most importantly, my readers who support my views in my blog. I get peer reviewed by my readers every time I publish my blog – even from those who disagree with me.

My sources are the mainstream media, including NBC, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and several others. Those institutions are where I gather my facts, because they are in whom I trust. I consider anything that is not mainstream to be either propaganda or, worse, conspiracy theory. But that's me. Believe what you will.

I write my blog for free. It is not monetized. There are no ads. I make no money from it. I am beholden to no one.

•   •   •

Now that you are acquainted with what my blog is, let's try this little exercise:

I believe the current Supreme Court is illegitimate (opinion) and radically extremist (opinion). Five of its members are leaning to the right, with four of them – Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – having been nominated to the bench by Republican presidents (George W. Bush and Donald Trump) who lost the popular vote (fact). Another, Clarence Thomas, was nominated by George H. W. Bush (fact).

The Electoral College is responsible for this injustice (opinion and fact) because this antiquated system erodes our democracy, allowing for minority rule (fact). The voting system needs to become one man, one vote (opinion) for it to be truly a democratic form of government (fact). Judges also need staggered term limits (opinion) to eliminate super majorities on the bench and render opinions that reflect the will of the people (opinion).

Or we can expand the Court, as Lincoln did during the Civil War (fact).

I could go on. The current conservative lean by the court results in a strict interpretation of the Constitution (fact). That's how we get opinions based on the founders 240 years ago that have no relevance in a modern world of AR-15s and, well, abortion rights (opinion). We need a Court that interprets a living, breathing Constitution (opinion).

There is it. If you disagree with me, that's fine. That's what America is all about. If you don't agree, then write your own damn blog (emotional fact and opinion).