John gave Paul a disgusted look, then asked George, “How about you? Are you on board?”
George sighed, and said, “I suppose so,” then he walked over to Mick’s fallen body, made a fist, stuck his hand into the open stump, and lifted Jagger over his head. He didn’t seem too happy about it, truthfully, but he managed to walk Mick over to John.
And then came another moment that my mind couldn’t quite process: John took Mick’s body from George, licked both Mick’s arm and stump, then jammed the whole mess back together. Almost immediately, Mick’s eyes popped open and, with the biggest smile on his face, he said, “Holy fook! Undead is life! Why didn’t you tell me, John? Why didn’t you say something?”
John wiped the blood from his lips and said, “Would you have listened?”
Mick said, “Probably not, probably not.” He looked around the room, then asked, “So, erm, where does a guy procure some brains around here? That’s what you zombies do, right? Procure brains?”
John said, “It’s not you zombies, Mick. It’s us zombies. Us zombies. You are we, and we are us, and we are all together.”
They gave each other a long hug, and if John’s mouth hadn’t been covered with drying blood and dead skin, and if Mick hadn’t been turning gray before my very eyes, it would’ve been a terribly touching moment.
GEORGE HARRISON: After the BBC fiasco, I needed to get out of the country for a while. The Mania of touring was no longer a problem, but the Mania of living in London with John, Paul, and Ringo was becoming more maniacal than ever, so I shoved off to San Francisco. Why San Fran? Well, it was apparently the place to be if you wanted to experience the Summer of Love. Also, I’d heard that San Francisco was the acid epicenter of the United States. I didn’t particularly enjoy my experiences with the dreaded lysergic, but it’s possible that Eppy didn’t do a good job of mixing the stuff and I was missing out on the real thing. So, as the song says, California, here I come.
I was surprised at how many zombies were wandering around the city—why zombies would migrate to San Francisco, I have no clue—and I was also surprised at how badly they cared for themselves. As a lot, the undead are nasty to begin with—our scent is horrific, and you can’t even imagine what it’s like to live with these insurmountable skin problems—but we’re very meticulous about our personal hygiene, because if we don’t properly groom ourselves, we’d be shunned even more than we already are, and that’s saying something.
Those Bay Area zombies, however, were disgusting. They lived on the streets, and the moist San Francisco climate exacerbated their odor and skin issues. Their clothes were tattered and torn, the kind of clichéd gear you’d see in one of those Hammer Productions movies that John and Paul were always going on about. Worst of all, most of them were missing a limb and/or some digits and didn’t seem concerned about replacing them.
Now, I dunno if this all meant that the acid was really bloody good or really bloody bad, so I didn’t want to take any chances. On the other hand, I couldn’t leave San Francisco without trying some drug, so my second day in town I smoked some terrific weed, farted a few impressive rainbow clouds, then called it a day.
I had an open-ended airline ticket, so I could go back to London whenever I wanted, but if I’d returned after only three days, I’d have looked like a prat. So I went to Oakland in search of the Hell’s Angels.
Every morning when I wake up, I thank whatever force is in charge of the universe that when the late Hunter S. Thompson was trashed, his gun-aiming skills went right into the crapper. You see, when I set foot on his land in Woody Creek, Colorado, in September 2004, Thompson took four potshots at me before I was anywhere near the house.
But it was important I speak with the Gonzo guru, so while he was reloading his Remington, I waved an issue of ESPN The Magazine in the air as if it were a white flag, and said, “I contribute to this! You contribute to this! We’re practically related!” Always a contradictory sort, Hunter told me to fuck off, then invited me in.
Thompson’s 1966 book Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang was a groundbreaking piece of you-are-there journalism that almost got him killed by the hair-trigger bikers, and it was believed that after the book was published, Thompson became persona non grata among the Angels. Not true. Hunter had made nice-nice with a number of high-ranking gang members, and up until he ran for sheriff of Colorado’s Pitkin County in 1970, he had his finger on the pulse of all that was Angel.
Thompson wasn’t in Oakland when George Harrison and Angels godhead Sonny Barger had their little summit meeting, but Thompson’s sources were impeccable, and as he was one of the great journalists of his era—even when he was whacked out of his gourd on some substance or another—one can take his depiction of the Harrison/Barger get-together as fact.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON: Yeah, yeah, I know George Harrison has the strength of ten mules, but he was a fucking idiot to go meet Barger without any backup. Sure, he could’ve taken that fucker Sonny one-on-one, but Sonny was hardly ever alone, and I think even a hard-strapped zombie would have trouble against fifteen or twenty of those Angel motherfuckers.
There weren’t too many Angels who gave a rat’s ass about the Beatles, so when Harrison showed up at their clubhouse, unannounced and un-goddamn-invited, it could’ve been a clusterfuck. The Angels could’ve opened fire on Harrison or gone after him with tire irons before he even said hello. But before they started pounding on him, one of those assholes recognized him and put the kibosh on the beat-down. Beating up a Beatle would’ve been horrible PR, and no matter what they say, those bastards care about how they’re viewed by the public.
Barger was always a bit of a star-fucker, so he was all into meeting Harrison. My inside man didn’t get close enough to their conversation to find out what they specifically discussed, but from what I know about Sonny, and from what I’ve read about Harrison, my guess is that it was some disjointed fucking discourse.
After they were done chatting, Barger, Harrison, and my inside man went in search of some good shit. See, apparently Harrison told Sonny that the LSD in San Francisco sucked, and Sonny insisted they could track down some good shit in Oak-town, and that was indeed the case. Except that shit was too good, and the only reason Harrison made it back to merry old fucking England with his faculties more or less intact was because my inside man didn’t take a tab, and protected them from reality during their trip. Had they all gotten high, there’s a good chance all three of those motherfuckers would’ve ended up at the bottom of the San Francisco Bay.
Those wasted morons wandered around the city for over forty-eight hours, but it would’ve been a lot less if Harrison’s nose hadn’t have fallen off in fucking East Oakland. I still can’t believe they found that thing. If it happened today, no way he would’ve gotten it back. East Oakland’s a shithole, and those people need bread badly. Imagine how much George Harrison’s schnozz would go for on eBay.
They brought Harrison back to the clubhouse, and, since Barger was Barger and the Angels were the Angels, they got into a fight, and it turned out that three dozen Hell’s Angels couldn’t take down a lone Beatle zombie. My inside man was a smart dude, so he got the fuck out of there when the melee got bad. He found out the next day that five Angels were killed, and every single one of those motherfuckers in the place got hurt … except for Harrison. The moral of the story is, don’t get into the shit with the undead unless you’ve got a fucking werewolf in your crew—and everybody knows that werewolves don’t exist.
GEORGE HARRISON: Almost permanently losing my nose was a wake-up call, so after Oakland, I was done with acid, but I needed something to fill the ever-increasing void in my soul. Music wasn’t getting me excited, nor was murder, so I went on a search that’ll last me the rest of my undeath. My first discovery: the Maharishi.
RINGO STARR: George hipped us to this bloke called Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who apparently had the ability to get us in touch with our inner something-or-other through medit
ation … and my inner something-or-other was in serious need of touching.
I didn’t think or the High Ninja Council would approve of me studying with Maharishi—those Ninjas are very proprietary about spirituality—but they’d denied me an opportunity to reach Level Eight, so, you know, sod ’em.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: If Ringo and George were doing it, I was doing it.
JOHN LENNON: If Ringo, George, and Paul were doing it, I was doing it.
GEORGE HARRISON: One of the great things about being a Liverpool zombie is that we can remove our brains and give them a good cleanse. Some cold water, a drop or two of dish soap, and a quick pat dry with a towel, and voila, your synapses are firing better than ever. But it is a tricky process, and you don’t want to do it all that often, because why take chances? What if your brain slips out of your hand and falls onto the floor? Who’s to say your Alsatian won’t wander over and take a nibble?
That all being the case, the fact that we were able to find a way of cleaning our brains without actually physically cleaning our brains was nothing short of a revelation.
We went up to Wales for a few days, and Maharishi taught us about Transcendental Meditation and gave us each a mantra, and it worked. Within hours, I was more relaxed than I’d been since elementary school. The fact that some pink gunk began leaking from my nose when I reached a higher consciousness didn’t even bother me.
JOHN LENNON: After only two hours with Maha, the sky looked bluer, the grass looked greener, the sun and stars shone brighter, and the brains tasted better.
And I didn’t like it one fookin’ bit.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: I was in my hotel room, sitting on my bed, reciting my mantra, contemplating the universe, and, erm, mentally running some sales figures, when John pulled my door off its hinges. Without so much as a hello, he said, “The Maharishi must die.”
JOHN LENNON: If I was relaxed, how was I supposed to maintain my artistic edge? If I was in a positive headspace, how could I defend myself and my band against attacks? If I was at one with the universe, chowing down on a living brain would be practically impossible, zombie nature or no zombie nature. I couldn’t take a chance that I’d get led to a happy place, so I couldn’t take a chance that the Maharishi continue to walk the Earth.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: I told John, “If you’re concerned about him walking the Earth, you don’t need to kill him; all you need to do is cut off his legs, y’know.”
He said, “Paulie, you’re a genius. But just to play it safe, I’m gonna cut off his arms, too.”
JOHN LENNON: I went to his hotel room and told him, “Maha, your teachings are genius. Never in my life have I felt so at peace. The wisdom you exude is an inspiration. But you’re ruining my groove, so you have to suffer, and suffer badly.”
The entire process took about ten minutes, and he never felt a thing, and he couldn’t have been more gracious. He even thanked me when it was done. Let me go on record as saying that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi was the kindest, most gentle person I’d ever had the honor of fully dismembering.
Without limbs, Maha’s authoritative presence wasn’t nearly as compelling—one of his minions had to haul him around in a wicker container, and it’s hard to take a guru too seriously when he has to travel in a picnic basket—so I was able to unrelax. Without arms and legs, Maha was much more fun to be around, and we probably would’ve stayed a few more days if Eppy hadn’t topped himself.
And losing Eppy, man, that broke my unbeating heart.
BRIAN EPSTEIN: Like I told you, I died, and I wanted to stay dead, and now, thanks to John Lennon, I’m undead. Take that as you will.
Back in early 1966, Lennon was recruited by the band’s favorite director, Richard Lester, to take on a co-starring role in the satirical military flick, How I Won the War. For the second time in his otherwise Beatle-worshipping career, Liverpool Herald arts critic Irvine Paris pulled out his Howitzer and took some potshots at Beatle John’s performance in a review that was released three days before the film’s official November 8th London premiere.
HOW I HAD A SNORE
Smart Beatle Misfires in Stupid War Film
By Irvine Paris
November 5, 1967
Director Richard Lester’s How I Won the War is the first collaboration between Lester and John Lennon since the Beatles’ 1965 almost classic Help!, and the twosome should have packed it in after that impressive romp. In this new serio-comedy, Lennon—who is inexplicably wearing a pair of round glasses that no self-respecting undead man should be seen alive in—plays the role of one Musketeer Gripweed, a zombie on a mission to take over first his own unit, then the entire British Army, then the whole world. In other words, Lennon played an exaggerated version of himself. Unfortunately, he did not play it well.
The movie has myriad problems, but the worst offence is that there is no plot to speak of. Time and again, conversational scenes alternate with fight scenes, until the credits roll. A typical transition has Lennon chatting amiably (albeit stupidly) with the film’s leading man Michael Crawford about the lack of zombies in the military, then, two minutes later, Lennon is tossing Crawford across a field, twenty meters in the air. Admittedly, when Lennon flings Crawford—and when he similarly tortures fellow costars Lee Montague and Roy Kinnear—it looks painfully true to life, especially the disconcerting moment when Montague’s shoulder seems to pop out of its socket. But quality stunts and realistic special effects doth not a quality film make.
Attempting to break that theoretical fourth wall, Lester often has Lennon speaking directly to the audience. The technique is legitimate, certainly, but when Lennon tells the camera that, “Zombies eat brains while riding trains in the rain, and they never leave stains, merely much pain,” and, “Bombs kill people, but nothing kills me. You’ll be dead, and alive I’ll be,” one can imagine poor Luigi Pirandello spinning in his grave and thanking his lucky stars he will never be reanimated to see this drivel in a theater.
Lester uses Lennon’s/Gripweed’s undeadness as a clumsy metaphor for the pointlessness of war—a fair conceit, granted—but both gentlemen depict the numerous zombie attacks in such a ham-fisted manner that one wishes for a deus ex machina moment (for instance, a hail of well-aimed diamond bullets shot from behind enemy lines) to put an end to this dreary picture.
NEIL ASPINALL: That Herald review threw John for a loop. He stayed with me at my flat for the two days leading up to the premiere, and all he did was moan, “They’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill me. They’re gonna kill me.” I wasn’t sure whether he meant the critics, the general public, or some cheesed-off undead bastards. I dunno if he knew who he meant, either.
GEORGE HARRISON: John forbade any of us from attending the premiere. After what that bloke in the Herald said, I was fine with that. If John got too upset, he’d go on a rampage, and if he went on a rampage, I’d get sucked into it, and frankly, I wasn’t in the mood.
RINGO STARR: Irvine Paris was a pretty sharp guy, and if he said something was shit, it was probably shit. Now I don’t know if Richard Lester made any changes to the film between the day the Herald article hit the street and the night of the premiere, but the reviews that were published the next day were a helluva lot more generous.
PAUL MCCARTNEY: When the Herald ran that goofy retraction, my first thought was, Irvine Paris must have found himself the best blotter in Liverpool, because the cut of the film I saw last week was awful. My second thought was, Lester must have reedited the movie in record time. My third thought was, Wait a sec, I thought Johnny said he’d never hypnotize anybody into liking him.
HOW I WON THE WAR IS HELL, NO MORE!
Genius, Thy Names Are Lennon And Lester
By Irvine Paris
November 9, 1967
One of the most wonderful things about my job is that my editors give me the opportunity to right any of my wrongs, and right here, right now, I would like to right the wrongest wrong of my career. After I finish typing this article, I will climb to the top of Scafell
Pike and scream to the heavens above, “HOW I WON THE WAR IS BLOODY BRILLIANT!!!” The characterizations are wrenchingly realistic, the dialogue is snappy, and the cinematography is beyond lovely. It makes for a magical filmgoing experience, and I can honestly say that a better movie has not been released this decade … or possibly ever.
I still do not know where my mind was on November 5. For that less-than-flattering, off-base article, I offer heartfelt, sincere apologies to Richard Lester, United Artists, and especially the genius that is John Winston Lennon.
JOHN LENNON: I would never, ever, ever use my zombie powers to influence a writer’s opinion of me. And for any of you reading this fookin’ book who ever questioned those good reviews of Life with the Lions, you can fook right the hell off.
Showbiz hyphenate Steven Spielberg is best known for such family fare as E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, and yet he claims the 1967 UK television film Magical Mystery Tour to be an indelible influence on his own art. Today’s film experts probably find Spielberg’s stance odd, because immediately after its release, this patently nonfamily movie became a punching bag for critics throughout England.
It took me five-plus years and a whole lot of palm grease to get an audience with Spielberg, but when I sat down with him in September 2009, he explained why he had such affection for this universally reviled piece of celluloid.
STEVEN SPIELBERG: What happened was, the best Magical Mystery Tour stuff never made it onto the screen. If I could get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to sit down and put together a full-length director’s cut, you’d understand why I find this film so brilliant. But when I purchased the hours and hours of unused footage from Paul back in 1976—right after I got my first Jaws royalty check—I signed an agreement barring me from releasing any of the material. However, the agreement didn’t say anything about discussing the movie, so here goes:
Paul Is Undead: The British Zombie Invasion Page 21