Slenderfire-blog - A Slender Fire

More thoughts on this: while Norman is blatantly obnoxious, this take isnt too far from what most beatles writers conclude which as well as being stupid is such a missed opportunity, like we have never had a big splash doorstop biography of Ringo and we *should*, bc evidence suggests he was a lot more complex and troubled than everyone assumes.

There's Maureen's reference to his insecurity and suicide attempt (!), his random disappearance on tour after allegedly expressing suicidal feelings, his decades of alcoholism & the toll that took, and also maybe his detachment in GB isn't wisdom but disassociation??

Like he is happy now and got over the worst of his demons but just bc he was the calmest member externally doesnt mean he wasnt troubled, even traumatised. And just bc he didnt write songs doesnt mean he wasnt creative - remember the experimental home movies he was too shy to show ppl? What about his father that Hunter Davies tracked down who never reached out even after fame? How did Richie feel about him? I've never seen this addressed!

His is a unique perspective as a person who genuinely came from nothing, and as a late arrival to JPG, and it makes me mad that hardly any writers seem interested in exploring his psyche in depth.

fuckkkkkkk offffffffffff

THE BEATLES at a hotel in Weston Super Mare, Somerset, by Bruce Leak, an 11 year old boy who was on a family holiday with his parents and sister. 1963.

The News Today, OH BOY!

Phoebe and Daphne discuss the (Beatle) news of the day in this unfiltered, bonus AKOM.

Eyes of the Storm

Paul Mescal

Another Grammy!?

Gettin’ High w/ Paul

Bowery Ballroom

SNL 50

New Paul album?!

Does He Think of Me? Was He Jealous?

John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs

McCartney Legacy Pt.2

Paul’s Money

THE PAUL MCCARTNEY DRAG BALL! Listen HERE

Do you have any big opinions about rpf?

Not sure what we're counting as "big" here.

Aside from the standard "don't harrass the people it's about" take, I guess my opinion on rpf is that it does say something about its authors, readers and the broader fandom. Not in a moralistic "writing about bad things means you endorse them" sense, or even in the sense that you can conclude an author's historical takes from their writing. (I know a fair amount of people who will read or write McLennon without really buying into the theory of it being true)

But I think there's enough parallels between the trends in fic and the trends in analysis to see that these two things aren't neatly separable. As a fellow author, I can understand Cynthia being frequently brushed aside in fic, even if I don't love it – when it comes to analysing the real history though, I am less forgiving. However, because of the seeming link between the decentring of Cynthia in fic and her frequent exclusion from meaningful analysis, I find myself being (perhaps disproportionately) frustrated with her treatment in fic as a result.

Cynthia here is just an example among several, but I think the fact that she's not treated meaningfully better by the wider (generally more heteronormative) Beatles fandom speaks to the fact that what I'm describing isn't just attributable to the largely queer space of Beatles RPF fandom decentring straight relationships. (also any other lesbians fucking tired of people decrying any consideration to women as homophobia??)

I have also noticed that some people's takes on the history have a very literary bent – I'm thinking about times I have seen people call for symmetry between John and Paul, as though their relationship needs to be made up of perfectly mirroring feelings to be beautiful. There's an important distinction to be drawn here between descriptivism and prescriptivism – like, to be clear, there is something inherently literary in observing parallels between their lives, like say losing their mothers young, but I am specifically referring to people saying John and Paul should be analysed with the assumption of this symmetry existing, which feels like a limiting way of looking at real people.

That being said, I'm not sure how much engaging with RPF as such affects this sort of attitude. To some extent, we are all always trying to make sense of reality through narrative, but I'm not sure how aware of it people are.

With all that in mind,

I think RPF is a very cool way to express and explore thoughts related to the history (and, at least in my case, engage in discourse about the history as well as the fandom itself) that don't need to be fact-checked whilst being contained in an explicitly fictional realm. I also think that a lot of speculation people engage in about celebrities is actually kind of akin to fanfic and I sort of prefer the fact that RPF is upfront about its fictionality.

I like thinking about what RPF has in common with things like biopics and how it diverges from them, its strange but existing relationship with the concept of "truth" (which I think is somewhat distinct from the concept of "factualness"). I'm fascinated by adaption in general; I find the process of systematically pruning, supplementing and molding historical reality until it takes the shape of a narrative deeply interesting, and even when I don't love the product, I think there's meaning to be derived in understanding how we got from point A to B.

Beatlemania was fun but now it's time for beatledepression

This line is so funny. Soccer mom that just gave herself a pelvic injury by doing crescent lunge pose too enthusiastically.

Beatsploitation

Here's my unreasonably long Goodreads review of Beatsploitation, a recent Irish novel - unreasonably long in that I didn't even like it all that much. But there was interesting stuff there.

It's good to read a novel about contemporary Ireland as it actually is, and it's a shame that that's still relatively rare. Beatsploitation is the story of Rob, a young secondary school teacher in Balbriggan and member of struggling band The Terrors, and his Angolan immigrant student, John/Kembo (the boy uses an English name alongside his given name in the belief that it'll ease his transition into Irish society). 

Another regular conversational pit stop during our calls was the guests I was interviewing on my radio show on any given week, especially if they were rock stars. Inevitably, John would have some spirited opinions to share about his competition. One time, for instance, I casually mentioned an upcoming booking with Mick Jagger.

“Why are you interviewing him?” John asked.

The truth was, I was interviewing Jagger because he was holding a concert in L.A. to raise money for victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua. (His wife, Bianca, was Nicaraguan.) But for some reason I foolishly blurted out, “Because the Rolling Stones are probably the greatest live touring band in the world.”

“Isn’t that what they used to say about us?” John coolly replied.

“But the Beatles aren’t touring anymore,” I said, stepping on a landmine. “The Beatles as a group don’t exist anymore. And the Rolling Stones are as important a presence as anybody in rock ’n’ roll.”

“The Rolling Stones followed us!” John shouted. “Just look at the albums! Their Satanic gobbledygook came right after Sgt. Pepper. We were there first. The only difference is that we got labeled as the mop tops and they were put out there as revolutionaries. Look, Ellie,” he went on, “I spent a lot of time with Mick. We palled around in London. We go way back. But the Beatles were the revolutionaries, not the Rolling Pebbles!”

Excerpt From, ‘We All Shine On’, Elliot Mintz

John Lennon & Paul McCartney on the set of television special The Music of Lennon & McCartney at Granada Studios in Manchester, England | 1 November 1965

Construction no.128 (1920)

"There are so many interesting things to do in life. And we waste our time emptily and keep dreaming about something...And this dream isn’t worth anything. But what’s been actually done, even poorly – is worthwhile"

Aleksander Rodchenko