BEING FOR THE BENEFIT OF MR KITE!

The boys had just played their last gig in Hamburg, Germany. Harrison was being deported. It seemed George was infatuated with a Fraulein beauty, a local named Lucy Robert, her father being a well know cardiologist. She was employed as a stewardess by Sky airlines. Harrison would extol her tasty marmalade kisses. She was always dressed as a hippy, in cellophane flowers, towering over her head. But what really drove George wild was her crazy eyes, and how they would change colors like a kaleidoscope. 

Unfortunately for George Harrison, Lucy Robert was arrested in Antwerp, Belgian, along with three other cohorts, Maxwell Edison, Eleanor Rigby and John Alexander Mustard (codename Condiment). It appeared Lucy was a courier for the terrorist Baader-Meinhof Gang and was carry coordinating instructions on the Red Brigade’s next mission. Harrison was detained, questions for 72 hours and then promptly deported. Lucy was sentence to 15 years in prison. George Harrison would never see his first love again, and sunk into a period of depression while his guitar gently weeps.   

Lennon and McCartney were kick out of the country on arson charges. The manager of Kaiserkeller Club refused to pay the group the agreed upon sum. In retribution, Paul and John tacked a condom to club’s hallway door and set it on fire. A fire truck was called, police were summoned and Lennon and McCartney were transported back to Liverpool, escorted by two Interpol agents. Stuart Sutcliff was homesick, Pest Best was just sick of the band. Without a band, the two were on the next ferry bound for England. 

Taking a break, the boys rallied at a popular watering hole in Liverpool called The Cavern Club.  The band was deciding what to do next. Elgoods Black Dog lager was flowing freely and often. The Beatles had been a group for three years and hadn’t made a dent in the music scene. 

Pete Best opened the conversation referencing the groups sound, noting it wasn’t hard driving rock and roll. He thought the drums and bass guitar should be the focal point of the band’s sound, with Best hitting a heavy downbeat on the bass drum. 

McCartney pushed back, wanting a more pop sound saying “We don’t want to be the Rolling Stones do we?” McCartney then added “When we opened up for the Searchers, the girls loved Needles and Pins. They said the song was heaven.” Lennon scratch his chin and blurted out a prophetic omen of a harbinger to come “Image there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try” and then sat amused at the whole debate with an occasional “kookookachoo.” Pete sarcastically threw a “What the fuck does that mean” at Lennon. John would retort “Slave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse.” John Lennon was too “artsy fartsy” for Pete Best’s taste. The two bandmates had friction from the beginning of their musical journey. This meeting would become the beginning of dismantling of the Beatles. 

The group finished their pale ale, and decided to reconvene in two weeks. Fourteen days came without a redux of a group meeting. The two weeks turned into two months, turn into 12 months, turned into three years, turned into never. The music moved on. 

Richard Starkey never meet John, Paul, George or Pete. He worked as a session drummer in RCA’s studio in downtown London.  One day in the studio, a movie producer notice his facial features and cool demeanor. The producer was looking for a character to cast into his remake of the 1936 movie, Reefer Madness.  Richard Starkey was perfect for the part of the unscrupulous drug dealer Jack Perry. The part of Mae Coleman, Perry’s cohabiting partner, would be played by another new comer, Marilyn Ann Taylor.  

The movie producer began the conversation about the industry’s culture. The idea fascinated Richard. The movie producer only had one caveat, Starkey needed to change his name. Three months later, Richard Starkey legally changed his nom de plume to Ringo Starr. Side note: before the release of the blockbuster remake movie, Marilyn Taylor changed her name to Marilyn Chambers and would go on to have a very successful career in the film industry. 

After getting some high paying gigs as an actor, Ringo’s agent updated his clients acting portfolio. The praise was over the top and amplified, the tabloids applauded his youthful success and fans adored the superficial persona Ringo Starr’s agent curated. Seeing and reading the self-aggrandizing resume, to include pictures, Ringo was said to lament “I read the news today, about a lucky man who made the grade. I thought the news was rather sad, well I just had to laugh, I saw the photograph.”

George Harrison left the Beatles and replaced Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds. He had a few good years with the group recording hits like “I’m a Man” and “For Your Love”. Jimmy Page was a casual associate of Harrison, having taken guitar lessons from George. He would hang around the studio, hoping to pick up guitar licks from his teacher. Page never joined the Yardbirds and became a studio musician nurturing his avant-garde guitar virtuosity. A band like Led Zeppelin would always be a daydream of Jimmy Page. 

When the Yardbirds broke up, George disappeared from the public. In early 1983, People Magazine did an expose on the Maharishi Yogi. The magazines hybrid layout was a picture spread, photographed in the city Rajim, in India’s north central Gariaband District. One photo appeared to show a bearded, long hair George Harrison. Patty Boyd-Harrison, George’s estrange wife saw the photo and immediately set an investigative team to India to find George and collect eight years of past child support. The investigators could not find George Harrison amongst millions of transcendental meditators. In the 1990’s George Harrison would reappear as a self-help guru on late night TV, doing commercials with Tony Robbins. Patty Boyd-Harrison-Clapton never received her back-child support payments. 

John went back to art school, frustrated by his unrequited bisexual attraction toward Pete Best. It was later discovered, Lennon was the ghost cartoonist for the Doonesbury comic strip. John said the characters of Mike Doonesbury and Zonker Harris were inspired by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. Lennon would move to Okinawa and develop a fetish for eating yakisoba entrées, haiku poetry and Godzilla movies. 
 
Paul became a music producer, wrote songs for Engelbert Humperdinck and Ann Murry. He would occasional play bass with the Lawrence Welk band, the Hotsy Totsy Boys. His song Yesterday, was frequently heard in elevators and became a moderate instrumental hit on the smooth jazz station. 

Yellow Submarine became a kiddy favorite launching McCartney into a career of children songs and commercial jingles. Strawberry Fields Forever became the anthem for Smuckers Jam and Ticket to Ride was frequently heard on AM radio, advertising public transportation in downtown London. The song, Happiness is a Warm Gun was a popular commercial for Tampons and other feminine products.  

I am the Walrus became a favorite commercial ditty for Captains Johns Sea Food restaurant and a focal point of second year pseudo intellectual English students pontificating on the lyrics, attempting to find in the song the meaning of life and who invented liquid soap and why. Lennon would later say the Walrus was just a regurgitated “word salad” he wrote while tripping on mescaline. 

Paul McCartney found success as the head writer in the children’s TV series The Wiggles. The albums from the show earned multiple Gold and Platinum status. McCartney earned three Emmys, a Grammy and a Space-Time Continuum Award for his work on the project. 

Pete Best left the Beatles in 1963 and had a long successful music career as a drummer for Paul Roger’s band FREE, killing the drums on the massive FM radio hit “All Right Now.” Rodgers and Best would later form the classic rock group BAD COMPANY, providing great music to a rock generation.

Stuart Sutcliffe had a brain aneurism, successful surgery and a somewhat unremarkable recovery. Unfortunately, the ailment affected his motor cortex and cerebellum. Because of this ailment, Stu lost his sense of rhythm and tempo. To adapt, and continue his music career, Sutcliffe joined The Monkees as their bass player where his inability to master 4/4 timing was not an issue.

Brian Epstein went on to manage and promote Johnny Mathis, contracted HIV before the virus was heard of and died of COVID-19 in 1982, before Omnicron was heard of.

George Martin never met the Beatles but did have moderate success in theater and films. His most noteworthy production was music arranger for the cult movie Rocky Horror Picture Show. His contribution to the production was overshadowed by his stormy, racy, over the top relationship with the movies star, Susan Sarandon. Ms Sarandon would later say in a Merv Griffith interview “George was without a doubt, an animal in the rack.” The CBS executives censored the Sarandon interview. 

The sound Pete Best was looking for was later captured and perfected by the group Badfinger, hailed as the next great rock and roll band. 

Whenever McCartney was asked if the Beatles would ever record again Paul would exclaimed "No, Let it be.”