Blogger: The Missing Year

Yikes. I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but a whole year?! I am shocked, yes, shocked! that it's been so long since I wrote. I had a hard time even finding myself, so to speak.

I've been writing, but not blogging; thinking, but not doing. Gotta do. So I'm back. With a vengeance . And a bad haircut.

I went in for a trim and shaping and got the Marsha's Haircut Massacree. Still, I didn't cry. I know hair grows. Two days later, a little local newspaper I write for called and said they wanted to take a photo of me -- for the cover.

I'm too old for this shit. 

It's all so high school/old school. But bad haircuts never die...they just kill.

The reason for the photo is an article on The Beatles that I wrote last year about their 50th anniversary, just now making it to print. Actually, the focus of the article is Karen Kosinski, a woman who went to Liverpool and got a master's degree in The Beatles. But I'm in there, too, with a personal part about 1964 and what the lads meant to me as a teenager.

1964. I remember getting a similar bad haircut back then, compliments of my dad, who thought cutting girls' hair was like cutting boys' hair. Since then, I've mostly gone with the "Give me lots of hair, long beautiful hair" philosophy of the Age of Aquarius. Damn the torpedoes and trends -- full hair ahead! Teach me for forgetting my roots.

So, you may see me tonight with an illegal smile...and also on the full-color cover of the Beacon Senior Newspaper for March, with distribution far beyond my wildest nightmares on a bad hair...day? I wish I were a dream for a day or even just the cover girl of the month.  

But some things last forever, as in newsprint. And the Internet. And the apparently everlasting sagas of bad haircuts. (Don't these people get training?)

O h, well. Next up on the playlist: David Crosby's "Almost Cut My Hair." I'm listening.

Paul McCartney, Part 2 — The Show

"Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomorrow I'll miss you..."

A Beatle. Living legend. The cute one.

Yep, Paul is still all of that...although I think they were ALL cute as hell, and he wasn't my favorite. Still, it was fun to see him in concert and hear a lot of songs I have loved for so many years. And "All My Loving" is one of my old faves, so when that came shortly into the first set, I was a happy girl.

Jim thought the concert in Denver was truly and totally fantastic, and the greatest show he's ever seen. So I'm sure he'll have an extensive, well-written, more informative, kinder and gentler review than this short, lukewarm thing I'm writing. Just go to to MessinWithTheKid.blogspot.com. If it's not there yet, it will be.

I'm a huge Beatles fan. You have to love the group who changed your life as a teenager! But only John and George had what I consider great solo careers afterward. Mainly John. I'm a die-hard Lennon loyalist. A staunch Lennonist.

So Paul's songs from his Wings days were sorta lost on me, although I recognized many of them from radio airplay. He did a slew of Beatles tunes, though, which was a treat. He also had a streaming video of clips from the Beatles days, his time with Linda, and his kids. Very nice.

He sang a song for Linda and one for John, which made me cry. But a highlight was a long, gorgeous tribute to George Harrison while singing "Something"...terrific stuff. Very generous of him. Although I don't think he mentioned Ringo, and he only said "Beatles" once, commenting that kids in Russia tell him they learned to speak English by listening to Beatles records. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He played well to the crowd and the ubiquitous camera. Shook his mop top in gentle Beatles fashion a couple of times -- not hard enough or blatantly enough to make the girls scream, though heh heh. His band was remarkable; the show well staged.

He tore it up with a searing rendition of "Helter Skelter," a surprising delight. The big show-stopper was a thunder-boomer fireworks-type display during "Live and Let Die." The sounds scared the shit out of me -- twice. The boy can still rock out, that's for sure.

Two long encores, one headed by "Day Tripper" -- which I found ironically appropriate, considering my "day trip" on the way there. He was onstage the entire time, except when he left briefly before the encore sets. Lots of stamina, and you can tell he just loves the crowd.

And he's a charming, energetic performer and masterful musician, still with a great voice. I love him, admire him, respect him, and salute him. After all, he was a Beatle.

But he's no John Lennon.

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Paul McCartney, Part 1 — Day Tripper

We went to see the Walrus
(The Walrus was Paul).
But on our way there
I took a bad fall.

Paul who?

Jim and I were walking to the Pepsi Center from our hotel...less than a mile. There was a nice, wide sidewalk all the way there, smooth and flat. Not. Instead of looking where I was going, I assumed the ground would stay beneath my feet, not rush up and smack me in the head. Wrong again.

I tripped on an asphalt patch in the sidewalk and skidded head first into the concrete. It happened so fast I could only watch it coming. I must have tried to break the fall with my left hand, because it bore a big brunt of the crash. My glasses went flying. My lip swelled up immediately; I could feel it and Jim yanked out his hankie to stem some bleeding.

And that seemed like the extent of it. I put my glasses back on -- they hadn't cracked or anything -- and I got up, and we went on our way to stand in line. (The Walrus was late.)

The line was a mile long, we were a mile high, it was at least 100 degrees, and I was hurt more than I had thought. There was but one thing to do.

I fainted.

Jim said it was a good thing there was a split-rail fence in front of me, or I would have pitched face first -- again -- onto parking lot pavement. This time, unconscious and unable to break my fall. As it was, I crumpled a bit backward, and he was able to sorta ease me down.

So he says. I knew nothing until I came to on the ground, looking up at a circle of concerned faces, one with a walkie-talkie calling for the medics. Just like in a movie. And I said, "Did I faint?" Duh.

So I checked out okay; they asked for my name and other info; I told them I had tripped on the sidealk and joked that I wasn't going to sue them. They insisted I get in a wheelchair and go to a first-aid station. I resisted at first, saying it wasn't fair, but they won. If they hadn't, I probably wouldn't have made it to the concert at all.

As it was, we were the first ones in! They took us to the station closest to our seats, and I sat with ice and water and recovered in about half an hour. During that time, my left eye began to swell up. Jim noticed a piece of plastic stuck under my eye and removed it. The swelling stopped, and he could see a tiny slice in my skin and could also tell that my lip hadn't split, just been scraped. Still fat as a sausage, and my eye was turning black.

Got to our seats and decided to clean my glasses. Then I saw the chunk out of the bottom of the left lens and realized the plastic was from my glasses. The stem on the right side had popped loose. Still, I was able to wear them to see everything.

During the concert, my left hand and shoulder, which had saved me from more horrible things, both began to swell and bruise. The hand eventually grew to twice its normal size and was immovable without serious pain.

But I'm fine. Feel like I've been hit hard all over by Maxwell's Silver Hammer, but I'm healing fast. A little puffily lopsided, but it'll resolve. All in all, I was PDL -- pretty damn lucky. Nothing broken to send me to the hospital. No chipped teeth to make me wear dentures. No plastic in my eye to make me blind. Nothing that kept us from the concert. PTL.

But I may have just book-ended my long concert-going career with Beatles. The first in 1964 with the Lads in Kansas City; the last with Paul in Denver. Not a bad run...for an old broad!

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