The Fifth Beatle: Pete Best

The hair that couldn't be tamed into a Beatles cut. Curly girls understand.

What to say about Pete Best? 

Kind of a hottie. 

Apparently, he didn't have much to say while he was a Beatle, known to be silent and kinda grouchy, which is a feat considering George was in the group. 

There was a mild scandal in Liverpool when his mother, Mona, had a baby, Roag, with the Beatles' road manager. (In a fascinating twist, Roag's daughter, Pete's niece, will be playing John's Aunt Mimi in one of the Beatles biopics currently in production.)

He made big bank - about $4 million - in the 90s when Anthology 1 came out, officially giving him 10 recording credits for songs like Searchin', Three Cool Cats (which means he made my 2024 top 25), Sheik of Araby, and yet another version of Love Me Do, which is admittedly terrible. 

He was quite upset with the dismissal and the subsequent crass put-downs by the Fabs in the media, to the extent that he sued them for defamation. While the Anthology money was a soothing balm in the '90s, Pete says the band never really apologized for the way he was fired. Paul and George admit it was awkward and immature.

Yet in interviews, he appears to be a kind and friendly man; he has been married to his wife, Kathy, since 1963 and has been an in-demand performer with the Pete Best Band, finally retiring in 2025. He has taken his moment in history in stride, with movie cameos, fanfest appearances, television commercials, and his name and likeness appearing in films and documentaries about the Beatles. It is also he who provided the only color video of them playing at the Cavern Club for the video Now and Then. 

Not bad for the Silent Beatle. 

LHOTR 2.0: Now We're Getting Somewhere

Siding on! 

Lawn graded!

So what's next? 

We chose a new blue for Will's room. I'll keep to myself that the Jacaranda was a club The Beatles played back in the early days. 

I think we found the floor at Menards after a wild goose chase to Byron Center that was a bust.

Save big money! 

Say yes to flowering bushes and shrubs: say no to trees for landscaping. 

Lipstick on the Mic: Patty Smyth and Patti Smith

She is The Warrior

She is Dancing Barefoot

I hate the compare/contrast method of storytelling because I don't want to give the impression that I prefer one artist over the other. But I am so drawn to the similarity of their name to wonder out loud if there are parallels in their story. 

Patti Smith was born in Chicago, 1946. Patty Smyth was born in New York, 1957.

Patti started her career in the 60s as a teenage poet and performance artist. Patty started as a teenage singer, performing at folk and comedy clubs in the 70s. 

Patti shunned any sort of girly persona and was comfortable adopting an androgynous look as a model for the famous photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. Patty wore prom dresses as costumes for early music videos shown on the fledgling new network MTV. 

Patti tore your heart out in Because the Night. Patty tore it out in Sometimes Love Ain't Enough. 

Patti married Fred from the punk band MC5. Patty married temperamental tennis star John McEnroe. Both of these men said motherfucker, a lot. 

Patti was an indie rock favorite who left her recording career in 1980 to focus on marriage and family, until Fred died in 1994. Patty was asked to lead the band Van Halen after David Lee Roth left; pregnant at the time, she turned down the gig to focus on her marriage and family. 

Essential to any playlist: Patti - Dancing Barefoot; Patty - The Warrior. 

LHOTR 2.0: Windows and Doors and Walls

We went up north to meet with the builder over the weekend, and it's happening; it really looks like a cottage now! This post is mostly photos: 

From the bridge.

DtB found a better-quality siding for around the same price (maybe just a little more; his goal is to stay in budget too) and hung a section to see if we liked it. We loved it. 

It's really taking shape now! 

Our fancy door. It's the main entrance, but it feels odd calling it the front door since it's east-facing. Already, this is rendering the rescued blue sheer curtains obsolete; I don't think I will need them here.

Center swing doors riverside and our rescued picture window. I will need privacy drapes for the swing doors, but I did save the curtains for the picture window. 

This is the great room from the entrance, east side of the house. The kitchen table will be about where the boards are on the floor. 

West side. 

I wanted to get a feel for how the kitchen would be laid out, so I took scrap boards and used them to rough in where it would all go. 

Fridge, cupboards planned to the right. We vote no cupboard above the fridge; they are usually useless and hard to get to. This leaves room for the snack basket.

Sink under the window. Should we get the matching light fixture or a recessed light above? 

Stove to the right of the sink. Small cupboards on either side and above. 

This is the utility room. The circuit breaker, water heater, and washer/dryer will be going in here. It is TINY, so a stackable unit is a must. DtB is also looking to create a narrow pantry as well as install coat hooks and shelving for snowmobile suits. 

Bathroom, also cozy. What we gave up for a utility room is replaced by tight quarters here. However, this is a better use of the space compared to the galley bathroom we had before. The shower/tub combo will fit perfectly along the back wall, then the toilet next to that, and a vanity in the right corner. We talked and decided there's no reason for a door on the linen closet since it's tight and the doors will bump each other. 

DtB is fixing us up with a vanity that didn't work in a previous build. It's very pretty. Reuse, recycle! 

This will be Will's room. He will have to figure out where the headboard will go for his bed. Fit for a queen and not much else. 

View from the closet. I want to move things in and decorate. 

A square-shaped closet that can store random items or just clothes. 

Master from the doorway.

From the closet.

It's a tiny closet, but it will still be useful. 

From the NW corner of the room. 

So now I need to shop for a bed frame with some clever space-saving capabilities that is durable and stable.

See, the chest of drawers is UNDER the bed. I like this. I hope I start getting some Amazon gift cards for judging and earn my bed frame. 

I spent some time running around getting paint colors. Mike, the drywall guy, is talking us out of Regatta since it's so dark. Will has agreed to pick another color. I was also talked out of a tile backsplash for the kitchen; DtB says it's just not needed. 

YA Book Club: A Walk to Remember

I'm a sucker for this movie

I am one of those snobs who will snark that the book is, as a rule, always better than the movie. I have two exceptions; the first is The Witches of Eastwick, the second is this. 

Nicholas Sparks leans heavily on sap, and he dishes it out in spades for this book, complete with bible passages and virginal child brides dying of cancer. And the writing is not that good. I'm no Margaret Atwood, but I had my mental red pen out to edit as I read, which of course distracted me from fully enjoying the story. 

The movie, on the other hand, modernizes the story by placing Jamie and Landon in the 90s. The movie versions of Jamie and Landon are more complex, more human, and far more interesting. This may be due to the talents of the scriptwriters as well as Mandy Moore and Shane West. 

The movie also gives Reverend Sullivan more warmth and empathy, acting as a tragic but wise father figure for Jamie and then the widowed Landon. We also see Landon grow from his relationship with Jamie to become a strong and capable adult. And we get to hear Mandy Moore sing. 

I wasn't expecting to be negative; this may be the only one that gets a less-than-glowing review. I loved the movie, just not the book. 

Typing Out Loud: Y'all Need a Time Out

Sorority sisters protecting each other, many years later

Boys - may I call them boys? - are y'all doing ok? 

Because you are NOT representing yourselves well these days. 

As I've said repeatedly this year, Jesus fucking Christ. 

First, let us discuss the golf club situation. Good Good and Calloway released a commercial where the punch line was a man angrily shoving a female golfer to the ground because she almost touched his golf club. The good ol' boys countered with the usual "can't ya take a joke?", effectively gaslighting anyone who had a problem with it as the unfun, humorless, blue-haired liberals.

Calloway blamed Good Good, and Good Good blamed the fact that we didn't see the whole commercial, because "he got his in the end." I saw it; all it shows is that the antagonist is a bad golfer. Are we to accept this as his comeuppance for being a shitty human? Yeah, your joke failed to land on many different levels. 

So then it was explained away as the newest in viral advertising- rage engagement. Now I know about Good Good golf... but did I want to? 

THEN, there was the Ohio State/Texas game, where Texas pulled off a stunning upset over the Buckeyes. Holly Rowe, an award-winning sideline reporter for ESPN, attempted to engage the head coach in a quick interview. Chaos ensued; the coach shouted something about "Texas fight, hook 'em!" and was pulled away. Holly ended the interview as the crowd swirled around her. 

Should have been the end of it. 

Oh no.

Some jackass takes the footage and generates an AI alternate take on the interview where the head coach backhands Holly to send her sprawling. 

The knuckleheads guffaw, the pick-me girls laugh nervously while sipping their pumpkin spice lattes, and Texas QB Arch Manning brings it up in a press conference and asks the male reporters in the audience if they saw it and "wasn't it hilarious?!" 

Oh, but he's a BOY, you know... a 22-year-old boy who failed his media training. He apologizes two days later, to which all the boys are now insisting he shouldn't have to. In her grace, Holly accepts the apology, but she shouldn't have to. 

So what now? 

Oh, boys will be boys... apparently 57 of them, to be exact. Members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell are now under fire for an incident that happened in 2024. One member of the fraternity brought his female friend to a party, then slipped something into her drink. He proceeded to take her to an upstairs bedroom and advertised his friend as "free pussy!" in a group chat. Seven men took advantage of her, while 49 other boys in the chat cheered it on.  The lone exception was one who was not at the party, woke up to the thread, and took a screenshot of the communication and shared it with the girl to be used as evidence against the fraternity.

Result? Some boys were suspended; others were asked to write a paper on the incident. She, however, had to leave school in shame. 

Oh, fuck you - fuck all of you. 

This shit isn't new; I'm not surprised, I'm just disappointed we have yet to evolve. The reason for my sorority picture up top? Want to know what my nicknames were in college? I was "mom" to the sororities and "cock block' by the fraternities. Fun, huh?

I was older than most of the girls in my pledge class, and then was elected pledge director. That meant I was responsible for the education and initiation of each class of pledges coming into Phi Gamma Nu. I took that role seriously, and since attendance at parties was mandatory, as we were a professional sorority acting as a social one, I had to look after a lot of girls with high GPAs and low tolerance. Plus, I had a car. 

So, in addition to watching what they were drinking, I was chauffeuring around a lot of girls to make sure they got where they needed to be safely. Did I want to be their chaperone as well? No - I would have preferred to nurse my beer while looking at the DJ's record collection. But there were a lot of guys grabbing girls by the elbow to lead them upstairs. Girl code meant saying no thanks, getting them Taco Bell, and getting them home to sleep it off. 

Do I feel like a hero? Or am I, to use one of my most hated derogatory phrases, virtue signaling? No, it was exhausting, and no one wants to be the unfun one. But someone had to be, back in the 90s and even now. 

Do better, boys. Hard to call you men right now. 

Raised on Country Sunshine: Family Tradition

Family tradition includes colorful drinks

Kind of winging it on this theme, these are songs I remember from my childhood, especially when we had Coal Miner's Daughter playing on a loop off HBO: 

Hank Williams Jr., Family Tradition

Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys

Tanya Tucker, Delta Dawn

Alabama, Mountain Music

Johnny Paycheck, Take This Job and Shove It

Randy Travis, Forever and Ever Amen

Loretta Lynn, Coal Miner's Daughter

Kenny Rogers, Coward of the County

Buck Owens, Act Naturally

Dolly Parton, Here You Come Again