Typing Out Loud: Pen Pals

The agency we got pen pal names from - I remember the newsletters! 

In this digital age, it's easy to keep tabs on friends using social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat - and those are just the old people apps, as the kids are using TikTok and lord knows what else to keep in touch. 

But once upon a time, we used pen and paper to forge a connection.

I feel like I've told Nancy's story here before, but it bears repeating. 

I met Nancy at the Holiday Inn Holidome in Sandusky, Ohio when our day at Cedar Point was canceled due to major thunderstorms. I think I was probably about 8 years old. Our parents decided to cash in our tickets for rolls of quarters and all of us kids played video games, putt golf, and swam in the pool while they ordered pizzas and drank beer poolside. Nancy and I forged a deep friendship at that time and promised to write or call. 

And that we did. Faithfully, for years, we would trade letters monthly and be allowed the occasional phone call. Our correspondence died out when I went to college and she was engaged to a guy in the service. I wasn't invited to her wedding, but I invited her to mine, and she sent a picture frame. I called her parents' house once while we were driving through Buffalo, and her brother excitedly said I had just missed her by a day. I left my number with him but I never heard from her again. I looked her up on Facebook again just now and think I found her and extended a friend request. 

Sacha is a little different. I found her through one of those pen pal services they had for grade school kids to forge a better and bigger world in maybe seventh grade, which seems right since that's the kind of thing Mrs. Hanna would have done. IPF was the agency. I want to say I paid fifty cents and got three - a boy from Italy, a girl from France or Brazil (I don't remember), and Sacha from England. 

Sacha and I wrote a little less frequently than Nancy and I, but we bonded over music, (Madonna, Culture Club, Wham!, Def Leppard), boys, school, and learning about each other's families, sports, and activities. We too kept writing up until the end of high school. 

Did I do a pop-in on her? Well, while in England on our honeymoon we traveled through Huddersfield and fate had us turn on her street. Having no way of understanding how to find her house since she didn't have a street number, I stopped at the corner shop to ask. The shop owner knew who I was! Mail was delivered to the post boxes in their shop and Sacha and her sister would walk down to pick the mail up. When she got letters from me, she couldn't wait and would open them up and share pictures and news about me and that is how they recognized me. 

Sadly, her mother had died and since the girls were grown, her father had sold the house and had moved... the week prior. I asked if there was a forwarding address or if I could leave her a note to post, but I never heard from her again. 

A name like Sacha Kelly is fairly common, and chances are she's since married and hasn't been known by the last name Kelly for years. Still, I may trot that box out and see if there are clues - her school maybe? - in tracking her down. I'm suddenly bashful, wondering if I've lived an interesting enough life to track her down to say what's up. 

Why Art Matters: Now and Then

 

Truly Now and Then, digital editing was the only way to create this magic in the video. 

Why the cassette? The demo was recorded in this format on a boom box, with "for Paul" written in John's handwriting on the label. The feels. 

Why the three shadowy triangles? Ah, this goes back to the re-releases of the Beatles' red and blue greatest hits albums and the corners in the stairwell from those covers. Does the single represent the third installment? 

See?

I've seen the triangles turned vertically, with four, which also calls back to the With the Beatles album cover. Am I also seeing something in the pixelation? I think there's more there than meets the eye.

And what's with the clock? Apparently, it was an art piece George owned. Olivia was looking at it in their home when Paul called to say he wanted to start work on the song, with her and Dhani's blessing. Startled, she looked at the phone in one hand and the clock in the other. Her reply was "This has to be George's way of saying yes." 

Beatles fans are having a field day with the new single, both for and against. My take? It's not on par with Here There and Everywhere or While My Guitar Gently Weeps but I love it; of the three post-Lennon singles, it is my favorite. 

Detractors are complaining that it's a John solo, and should have been credited as such. My argument against this lies in the fact it was written, in his handwriting, that it was for Paul. It was given to him by Yoko. The remaining three worked on it back in the 90s with the intention of it being a Beatles record. There was intent by all four. 

Detractors are also complaining that in real life, George hated the song and refused to work on it. In fact, he hated the poor quality of the audio, which is what Peter Jackson fixed. I also think that Olivia, Dhani, and Jeff Lynne, well aware of who George was as a person, would not have been on board with this project if that was the case. 

George's veto is why it is unlikely we will ever see Carnival of Light released under the Beatles name. 

What is my take? It is wistful, melancholy nostalgia. I love how it ends, it's beautiful. The harmony is especially poignant, John's youthful voice frozen in the 70s, accompanied by Paul's aged voice. I wish Paul would have written some of the lyrics, but as I understand it, the song is credited to all four. 

And special grace to Pete Best, who contributes a look back: within the video, as the timeline starts to go backward, he provides the only color footage of the band from their time in Germany. Who would have thought Pete would be a secret weapon in all of this? Makes me wish there was a touch of Klaus, Astrid, and Stu in there too. 

One of the vlogger critics sums it up nicely, saying that it was a classic Beatles collaboration in that Paul is the only one who could take John's sad song and make it better. 

There you go.

For some reason, the song made me reflect on my fandom, which started in the early to mid-70s, making it, sadly, impossible for me to have ever seen John in concert. Fittingly, Peter Jackson was going for that too. What would my timeline look like? 

Sing along children...

1973 - I start watching the Beatles cartoons after school, learning the lyrics from Paul and Ringo singalongs

1977 - buying the red album on 8-track 

1978 - The Bee Gees Sgt Pepper movie musical turning me towards watching Help! and A Hard Days Night. 

1979 - jamming to McCartney and Wings

1980 - a bright snowy morning, learning of the actions of the devil's best friend

1981 - Lennon memorial recordings, listening to Double Fantasy

1985 - First real after-school job, start buying Beatles on cassette

1986 - Singing Spies Like Us with the gang on the way to our Christmas party

1987 - bonding with friend Maria and having Beatles sleepovers that included Let it Be and Yellow Submarine on picture disc and tubes of cookie dough, McCartney's All the Best on cassette

1988 - Revolver on repeat, Travelling Wilburys, scoring the Lennon documentary poster from a video store as a birthday gift from my sister

1989 - Relishing the WRKX Beatles catalog, including a dirty copy of the White Album

1992 - First Beatle live, Paul McCartney at the Silverdome, McCartney on MTV Unplugged

1993 - graduating from college and buying the Beatles box set for myself as a graduation present

1994 - Live at the BBC is released, including rarities recorded live on the program

1995 - Anthology on A-Beatles-C

2001 - Heartbroken, I call in sick to watch VH-1 coverage... IYKYK

2002 - Macca in STL

2003 - Let it Be... Naked is released, and Paul's animosity toward Phil Spector justified

2004 - Ringo and Sheila E at the Fabulous Fox

2005 - "We aren't buying a Blue Ray player until Yellow Submarine comes out"

2007 - Ringo at Soaring Eagle with friends from Norway

2011 - free Fab Four album from iTunes, I skate to My Sweet Lord

2015 to 2018 - I skate to Within You Without You 

2016 - Macca at the Van Andel, up there with the best show ever

2017 to 2019 - I skate to Here There and Everywhere

2018 - Purchase my first remaster box set, the White Album, obsession with the Love soundtrack

2021 - OBSESSED with McCartney's remix of Find My Way and I watched Get Back four times before it was taken off The Disney Channel

2022 - Love at the Mirage for our anniversary, Ringo at Soaring Eagle, Revolver remaster

2023 - Abbey Road remaster, I skate to I'm Only Sleeping, Ringo at DeVos, I'm featured DJ on Sirius/XM Beatles Channel, and contribute to Now and Then making it to #1 

2024? I'm debating skating to Long Long Long or Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight. I've been a fan for 50 years, I think I'm in it for life. 

Typing Out Loud: Dad’s Final Spot

Mom sprung a surprise on me in August. I was going to visit with the intention to sign some legal papers and then she added that we were going to finally bury my dad. 

As it was noted here years ago, he passed in April 2012 and was cremated, but she couldn’t decide on a burial spot. She was dealing with some stuff with his memory and the task lagged. She says she was talking to his urn when my sister showed up to take her to her eye appointment and said "Since I'm early, should we finally go find him a plot?"

Paperwork had to be done before he could be buried, and then finally the time happened. She was just going to drop him off but realized the urn was too heavy. And I don't think just dropping him in the office and calling it a day was what was supposed to happen. 

We made it into a ceremony of sorts, I carried him out to the car, and Will carried him to his plot. It was a beautiful morning, the kind of morning where he would have played a quick nine, gotten a haircut, and had an early lunch. 

Will was three when he died, too young to realize what was going on. Maybe the length of time was meant to be so that he was old enough and mature enough to do what was needed. The above picture was too intimate for me to share on a wider platform, but it means a lot to me; so much so, it's taken me a couple of months to write about it. 

His birthday is August 18, we missed his 81st by two days. It was far overdue.

November Song: Say a Prayer

 

Only Madonna could get away with turning The Act of Contrition into an argument with a hotel desk clerk.

Goal: write a song a month, with the resolve to not self-edit or worry if it’s crap. My thoughts are wandering with this one, and I'm indeed worried it's crap -  I've been working on this last song for about six months and wondering if I should have scrapped it for something easier. 

Does prayer work? Which are the most effective, rote recitation or an honest conversation with a deity? Are we putting good vibes out when we pray, leading to healing on a base level or is there a higher power? Who indeed is doing the healing? And what if He says no, how do we know?

With this post, I will have an even dozen songs under my belt, the great artistic endeavor of 2023. I have new themes planned for 2024.

There's a crisis in our town,

Say a little prayer.

A storm came through, trees came down,

Say a little prayer. 

Say a little prayer.

Kate found a shadow in a picture, 

Did I say a little prayer? 

I put my intentions in a box, 

Care in place of prayer. 

Say a little prayer.

Say a little prayer.

I'm not asking for a bended knee,

Just a bit of intention. 

I don't need any piety, 

Just a thought, a tear, an inflection. 

There's a cause for celebration,

Say a little prayer.

A grace, a gift, a time to rejoice,

Say a little prayer.