The Cat Got your Tongue, Paul?

 

The Cat Got Your Tongue, Paul

By Stan Mieses

Daily News 

May 30, 1976

    At 5pm on the Friday of the Wings concert in Nassau Coliseum, I received a phone call I'd been waiting for all day. "He'll do it tonight. Can you get out here?" Ask the press agent.  I'd been given a chance to interview Paul McCartney, and frankly, I couldn't think of a more exciting prospect. He's the only ex-Beatle I haven't seen in performance on his own, and would be the first I'd interview. 

    Now you must understand, I've always held John Lennon as my favorite Beatle, having made that choice at a time when it was mandatory to do so in order to define your position in the world, along with the decisions like Mantle or Mays or three years of French or Spanish, but I've attached more than a few indelible memories to Beatle songs. Didn't the girls always go for Paul? And having shared sodas with a few of Paul's biggest fans, it was an encouraging sign of progress that this time around, very few still threw tantrums in the name of Paul McCartney.  At the Nassau Coliseum, hardly an adolescent rushed the stage.

     His show was a strong rush of rock and roll that came up a little short winded, but it was still great to see him, and the band was impressive, even if McCartney seemed to lack a distant stage personality.

     Still, I was hopeful to find out how he felt about more than 10 years of attendant hysteria in his life. I should have known better. A few minutes into the interview, I felt as trapped as The Beatles did in the press conference scene in A Hard Day's Night.  Talking to McCartney is like playing tennis with a badminton racket or being sent upriver without a paddle, if you like. He's quite skilled at the game of noninterview, which consists of glib, one or two-word responses that draw planks of wood into deep silence. I long for the Long Island Expressway. 

    The backstage dressing room reserved for Paul and Linda McCartney was a gray cinder block locker room more accustomed to Mets and Islanders than Beatles. Paul and I sat on round back comfortable chairs opposite Linda and a friend named Humphrey Ocean perched on the armrest of a third chair,

     Humphrey was introduced lavishly by Linda as "our friend."  A skinny young man of medium height. He wore pink plastic sunglasses, the drugstore counter kind, which were much too narrow for his narrow face, a seersucker sports jacket with a contrasting plaid shirt, and a further offsetting patterned narrow tie. His pants were too short and his socks didn't match.  All that was missing were shoes with bells on them. 

    The McCartneys had identical little amusing smiles on their faces to match their identical English mod haircuts, low, bangs, short sides,  long in the back. Humphrey sat with his hands folded over a closed sketch pad, and Linda toyed with a Polaroid. 

    Paul looked across to them as he spoke. "Oh yes, I'm quite taken with America," he began with seeming great amusement. "We visit America regularly. I have an American wife, you know, so I keep up with things."  Linda sent us a coquettish smile that vanished quickly. "Winston Churchill had a wife from the United States, too you know. I know about America. I know about pizzas," He said proudly.

     Humphrey and Linda looked positively charmed. There was a long silence. How'd it feel to be an international pop idol for as long as he's been one? "It's fine," he said, "but I never thought of myself as a pop idol. I'm a singer-musician. That's why I got up there in the first place, for the fun of being in a band, whatever anyone may think, that's still why I'm here."

     "Oh, good!" chirped Humphrey. Linda smiled again and lit up a half-smoked cigarette. Paul rolled up the sleeves of his green print silk shirt and sipped on a scotch and coke. "You're not going to ask me the same question. Are you?"  He asked. Did he mean about the rumored $5 million offer to reunite the Beatles? "I'd like to end it as far as people asking about the X million dollars, but I'd like to keep the door open if the other Beatles thought there was something worthwhile in doing it," he said, offering the same answer.

     Again, the conversation died, Linda attempted to pick up the medicine ball with a rap about some obscure British comedian she was dying to see, and blimey, wouldn't it have been great to have him along on the tour too? Humphrey clapped his hands gleefully. I don't know if I've ever heard a speech pattern quite like Linda's. It's a mixture of finishing school, nasal drone, and Scottish colloquialisms pushed by a snappy East Side career girl rhythm that doesn't quite add up in the believability department. 

    I asked Paul if he still had to defend his wife against unhappy critics and fans. "Used to", he corrected me, "and now we just keep smiling through," he replied, mirroring the Mrs. Smirk.  "The whole Johnny Ray thing of getting ripped to pieces never happened to me," said Paul sincerely, his boyish face could make the put on, at least interesting to look at.

     "Hold it!" shouted. Linda cocking the Polaroid (she was once a photographer). W"hat we need here is some balance!" cried Humphrey, leaping to his feet, he ran over to the table at the center of the room and picked up a half filled cup of Coke, placed it on the back of his hand, and walked it around the room until it teetered and fell to the applause of the Mccartneys. "This is the kind of regularity we seek", he said, with a charming grin. "Your time off on a tour is rather important. On days off, we take our shoes off and sit around, kind of like Archie Bunker."

     And where were the children? "They're at home dreaming of a White Christmas," replied Linda.  "Is this going into the paper?"   "Hmm, sort of backstage with Paul?  Interesting. You don't want to know about the Beatles? It's all right, all that stuff, Beatle cartoons, Beatle handbags. " He shifted into second gear and began to sound like a press agent. "The more important angle for most people is the living angle? Yes, the now angle."

     Then, as if he were revealing some secret. "It's all very well these tokens of The Beatles, but it all fades out when you come to play."  What did he mean? "I could have not done anything. I could have lived as a  legend or whatever, but I'm still alive. Contrary to rumors," Why was he keeping Beatle rumors alive then if part of his reason for touring America with the new specially prepared band was to dispell the Beatle memories? 

     "That's a good one," Humphrey said, stuck in lifting his head from a sketchbook. "Tell us a little something about yourself, Stan," said Linda moving over to her husband's left hand armrest.  I quickly told them that I've been born and raised in New York City. I knew that neither of them was looking at me as I spoke. "Is that enough?" I asked." Oh yes, quite." Paul answered politely, "Thank you."

      Was the living legend able to find and keep friends at this stage of the game? I asked. "Well, let's ask the friend here," said Linda, pointing at Humphrey, sprawled on the floor. Humphrey looked at us through his pink, pinched sunglasses. "Oh yes", he gushed. "Oh yes". Long silence.

     "I'm just moving through life," McCartney said, in a philosophical tone, "Do you suppose that's it?" He asked in a voice that intimated that he was uncomfortably close to a cadaver, "Yes, of course", I said relieved. 

    On the way to the door, the McCartneys stopped to show us some from the sketchbook, a mini record of tour scenes. They reviewed each rough drawing as if they were original Damiers. "You know, Captain Kidd used to keep a man on board just to take sketches. This was before photography, of course," McCartney said, holding up Linda's new Polaroid snapshot.

    "It was nice to meet you." We shook hands and Linda called out "Bye Stan!" after me, I walked out into the hall and wondered what the hell it was about this man that pleased me to no end when I was a kid. Then I realized I was humming an old tune.