Jorie Gracen

If you think the name Jorie Gracen looks familiar it is because you most likely have seen it before. Jorie is a big time Paul McCartney fan. She has a book called "I Saw Him standing there..." which is full of photographs of Paul that she has taken over the years. She runs a great website for Paul fans.

I have heard Ms. Gracen speak at Chicago Beatlefest and I have to say that she is one die hard McCartney fan! Here is a story that she shared in the Winter 2001 issue of DayTrippin' magazine that I found to be really funny. It takes place in 1984 during the Broadstreet promotions.

One of my friends won through the Paul McCartney Fun Club, an opportunity to meet Paul up in his hotel room. She was one of five lucky people. We waited outside the elevators for her to come down and tell us every detail that happened up in the hotel room. So when she came down, we sat down a couch in the lobby and she sat down on the floor facing us, and told us her story. There were three of us on the couch--huddled together listening intently to every world she said. We were totally engrossed in the conversation, drooling over our favorite subject, and very envious of her being up in HIS hotel room. After awhile, I noticed that within our little huddle of girls talking about Paul, there was another head that was now among us that wasn't in the original group. I looked up and to my horror, I saw Paul--Paul's head--in our little huddle listening to my friend's conversation with us. I thought "Oh my God! How long has he been standing here, listening to what we've been saying about him?" We were totally mortified to know that Paul was listening to our private conversation about him. Paul stood up and pointed to my friend, who was on the floor falling over at this point, since she couldn't believe he was standing there and then pointed to each one of us as he said with his Liverpool accent, "Don't believe a werd she says!"