Flirting with John

John Nucci meets Ringo in 1995

I am sure you all recall the story I recently posted about Boston area fan, John Nucci meeting John Lennon at his hotel in Boston in 1976.   Well fast forward to 1995 and we find John Nucci again.  Only now he is not waiting for a Beatle outside of his hotel room, instead he is an important person in his city of Boston and still a major fan of the Fabs.   He was fortunate to meet Ringo Starr, in this story that he shares on the "Ringo close Encounters" site.

In 1995, I was a member of the Boston City Council. I got a resolution passed by the Council declaring the day of Ringo's stop in Boston "RINGO STARR DAY"
(Picture of John Nucci and Ringo at right)
Of course, I contacted Ringo's promoter's office and told her that I would like to present it backstage. Amazingly, she said 'yes' right away and arranged for me and a photographer to go backstage minutes before the show.
Ringo came out of his trailer and was great! He thanked me for my resolution and asked me that since it was RINGO STARR DAY, "..does anybody get a holiday?" (Of course they don't) we both had a laugh.
I gave him a copy of my "Sentimental Journey" LP to sign. He wrote "WOW!! Ringo '95" across the cover. He also signed a copy of the resolution and a program for me.
I told him I collected Beatle memorabilia from the '60's and have a pretty big collection. He was real interested in what I had and said he wishes he had "some of that stuff". He said, "Ohh, if we only knew, eh?" about the crazy prices being asked these days.
We shook hands, took a few pictures and off he went.
I also met Preston and got Entwhistle's signature. Great evening!!

In search of posters

I think this story really shows how kind Paul and Linda could be to their fans.   It is from the July 1980 issue of the fanzine, "With a little help from my friends." It was written by Mary Kara and Beth Sanders.

We had left the U.S. on May 17^th, the same day Paul was to be on Saturday Night Live from London.  All of our friends thought that we’d get to see him since we’d be arriving a few hours after the telecast.  However, being pessimists, we doubted we’d see Paul since for 3 years in a row we’d been to England and had no luck.  Seems as if he knew we were coming so he left!  Yet every once in a while I’d look and Beth and say, “Do you think we’ll see him this time?”  Ah!  That thing called hope.  We have both loved the Beatles since we were 14 and 15 and now around 30 years of age, we figured it was about our time.

We were scheduled to leave England on Sunday, June 1^st.   Friday morning, May 30, we decided to do some shopping.  While we were out shopping we saw posters advertising McCartney II.  I thought that a few of those posters would be nice for friends back home.  I asked at a record store and told us that MPL had put up the displays.  We had planned to go to MPL to see the new building and take pictures anyway so we could ask there.  You see, we had given up at seeing Paul at all so no one said or thought, “what if..”

About 1:00 Beth asked me if I wanted to go to MPL and I said, “No, let’s wait a while.”  Finally after shopped we decided to take our packages back to the hotel and then go to MPL.  It took us about an hour to get from our hotel to the nearest subway stop closest to MPL.  From there were our trusty street map in hand, we managed to find Soho Square.  The office’s address is 1 Soho Square and after heading in the wrong direction around the square, Beth spotted the building.  We walked up and tried the door but it was locked.  We could see the people inside though the glass but no one came to the door.  We walked across the street from the building and we talked about what to do.  We took deep breaths and walked back over to the front door and gave it a hard shove.   So hard it rattled.  WE guessed that we scared them inside because some guy opened the door and asked if he could help us.  I told him that we were interested in some of the posters advertising McCartney II.  He told us he couldn’t help us but that we could ask the girls behind the counter.  We stepped inside and told them what we wanted.  While we were standing there the phone rang and one of the girls answered it and then handed it to another girl.  I was thinking that my ears must be deceiving me when the girl on the phone said, “No, I’m sorry, Paul’s out to lunch and won’t be back until quarter after three.”  I thought, okay, don’t faint, don’t panic, keep your cool.  Smile, say thank you, and go outside and wait.

(Beth continues)  I thought to myself when she said Paul was out to lunch, “Paul who?”  Then I realized it might be THE Paul.  Mary walked hurriedly toward the door and I followed.  She told me later that she wanted to get out of there to turn left and when I looked up, there was Linda about 5 yards ahead of us.  I knew that Paul had to be there somewhere!  Beth, who was looking down at the sidewalk not paying attention to where she was going, had almost run right into Paul!  I tried to get Mary’s attention and hit her elbow.  When I looked up again I saw him.  Mary told me later that I said, “Uh oh!”  I looked at his face and the gray in his hair caught my eye.  He said hello and asked us if we had gotten what we wanted in there.  Mary started to rattle on about the posters.  Paul and Linda said, “oh! We can get you some of those.”  Paul asked where we were from and neither of us said anything so he asked again, ‘Where in the States are you from?”  We told him Indiana finally and Linda explained that that was in the Midwest.   They started to head for the door and I asked them if I could take their picture, and Paul said, “Yeah.”  Linda told me where to stand so the light would be better.

(Mary Continues)  Paul looked at me and said, “You’ll have to be in this too,” so I started to walk over nearest Linda and then realized, “No you fool, go stand on Paul’s right!”  So I walked over and he lifted his arm and put it around my shoulders.  I don’t’ know what possessed me, but I put my left arm around his waist.   While we were standing there he smiled and said, “No shaking now!”  And then he said, “She’s gonna blow this one.”  After Beth had taken the picture he said to her, Your turn!”  She kept saying that that picture was the last one of the roll but on one paid any attention.  While she was messing with the camera, some young boys came up and Paul turned his back and started teasing those kids.  I noticed the gray in his hair and that he was smaller in stature than I had imagined.  He turned back towards us and I asked him about James, and his eyes let up and he smiled, “He’s beautiful.”  Then he took his fist and gently hit me on my hip.  At the moment I couldn’t believe he’d done that but then realizing he had, I wondered what he was trying to say.  Those kids finally realized that he was someone famous so they asked for an autograph.  I told Beth to hunt up a scrap of paper for him to sign, but before we could find anything he walked into MPL and the door closed.  We could see him through he glass standing by the counter, writing.  Within a few minutes, a man came to the door and he had a couple of post cards with Paul’s autograph on them.  Those kids crowded around and he said, “Uh-uh!  Ladies first.” And handed me two postcards.  I handed one to Beth and thanked him.  Those kids finally left, thank goodness, and we just stood there watching Paul through the glass.  They headed on up the stairs and about halfway up he turned around to us and waved and smiled.  EH started making some kid of motions with his hands and we realize that he was asking us if we had gotten the autographs.  They disappeared out sight and a little of us disappeared too.  We started to walk.  Where to, we had no idea.

(Beth Continues)  I knew I just had to find somewhere to sit down.  I kept saying to Mary, “I’ve got to sit down.  I just have to sit down.”  I think she was afraid I was going to sit down right there in the street!  We walked across to the park and sat down on a bench.  I changed the film in the camera thinking, he who goes in, must come out.  Mary glanced over towards the building and we could see Paul and Linda sitting at a desk on the 2^nd floor talking to someone.  Because they could see us and there was a terrible want to just stare up at them, we decided to walk over to a corner a few doors down from MPL and wait for them to come out.  Every once in a while one of us would walk over to the park to see if they were still there.

While we were standing there waiting, Linda came out with one of the secretaries and she smiled at us and said hello.  I asked her about the children and she said they were all fine.  She walked up the street and we walked over to the park, so that we wouldn’t be on the corner when she came back.  Linda came into the park and we asked if we could take her picture, and she said okay, but hurry.

When they had gone back in the office, we walked back to the corner and waited.  A few minutes went by when a dark green Rolls pulled up and I knew right away that it was Paul’s car.  So they were going to be coming out soon.  The man who had let us in the door had been driving and he got out and started polishing off the chrome.  Mary thanked him for opening the door for us. 

Finally about 10 after 5, Paul and Linda came out of the door.  He looked up the sidewalk and he frowned and he spotted us and smiled.  He said, “Hello again!” and walked towards us.  He said, “We have a little something for you.”  And then Linda handed us each a McCartney II t-shirt.  We kept saying thank you.  Then I asked him if we could take another picture and he said, “Okay.”  Mary walked over and asked about a tour and Paul replied, “Maybe next summer.  If we do, I’m sure you’ll hear about it.” I proceeded to snap two more pictures of him before Alan Crowder said, “No more pictures, girls.” After he had climbed in the back seat of the car, he rolled the window down some and Mary told him to take care of himself, and he said to us to keep smiling and to have a safe trip home.  The car pulled away from the curb.  He waved and winked and smiled, and Linda turned and waved out the back window.

After they were gone there was a great urge to run after the car, but instead we attempted to find our way back to McDonald’s to sit down for a while.  I was shaking so bad, and Mary was in tears, that it is amazing that we found our way there without getting run over.

Almost two months have passed since all this happened and every once in a while that feeling comes back of looking up and seeing his face right in front of me, and something almost snaps inside of me.

January 1977

This is one of the photos I was referring to in relation to the mystery photo of John surrounded by people.   Plus I wanted to post this because the John and Yoko buying cows story always is good for a chuckle.

A fan club secretary

It appears to be Valentine's Day at Beatles headquarters and this secretary is swamped with cards!

Decorations on the Cavendish door

Back in February of this year, long time friend of this blog, Bruno sent me this photo of Paul after I had posted the photo of George.   Someone I overlooked posting it and just remembered it.  Oops.  Anyhow, Bruno thinks that the 1968 photo of George is of him standing outside of Paul's London home at #7 Cavendish Avenue.   His proof is in the Paul photo you can clearly see that there were some butterfly decorations on the front gates.   Anyone else have photos that show these decorations?

Reporter

Paul gives his famous thumbs up to this reporter from the 1980's.

An evening out with Lennon 1977

This photo appeared recently on the Beatles solo photo forum as an unknown date photo.  It is new to me!  It looks like it could have been taken the same day in January 1977 when John and Yoko went to the Plaza hotel in New York and signed legal papers.  There are many Bob Gruen photos taken that day as well as a photo I recently posted of John in a car from that day.   He seems to be wearing this shirt, so I wonder if it was taken afterwards?    Anyone know who the people with John happen to be?

I sneaked into the N.Y. Teen Conference

Here is one of those "Girls who met the Beatles" stories that were often published in Datebook magazine.  This one is from 1966 and was written by Paula Reiner who at the time was 16 years old and was from Brooklyn New York.   Basically Paula lied to get herself into the teen press conference.  I have read for years that the Beatles enjoyed this press conference because the questions that were asked by the fans were must better than the ones typcially asked by reporters.   I have heard bits and pieces of this press conference, but I had never read or heard most of these questions.  I have to agree, most of the questions were about the Beatles music and such and not about their hair.   I also find it interesting that when asked the Jane Asher question, Paul states that he will probably marry her that year.   When asked this question other times during the tour, he would answer no.  I wonder if Paul had intentions of marrying Jane and did not what to lie in person to the fans?   Hmmm...Interesting press conference for sure!

I sneaked into the Beatles Junior Press Conference in New York!  This is how I did it.  By some kind of fate, I talked police officers into letting me stand in line with the fans that had invitations to the conference, even though I didn’t have one myself.  As the line moved to the final checkpoint, I found that the officers there wouldn’t’ let me through.  I was told to go across the street and two blocks away from the hotel but I waited by the final checkpoint hoping for something to develop – and it did!

Just before the conference was about to begin, a group of ten girls walked over to the officer in change and demanded entrance to the conference.  These girls had letters notifying them they had won invitations which had to be picked up before the conference at the Beatles USA Ltd.  They didn’t know where this was and therefore had only the letters which weren’t supposed to be used for admission to the conference.

Finally, one of the officers went into the hotel to ask the Beatles fan club people what to do about the girls.  Realizing that all the invitations had not been picked up, they told the officers to let the girls in.  The officer in charge told the ten girls to line up and follow him into the hotel.  Instead of taking ten girls, he took eleven.  I was the extra girl!

While climbing the stairs to the conference room, I made friends with one of the girls who had a letter.  I told her to do me a favor by swearing to anyone who stopped me upstairs that I had given my letter to the officer.  We got upstairs and I was stopped.  We told the guard he was crazy and that I had given him the letter.

So after all that maneuvering, I finally entered the press conference.  The rest of my story follows.  As all of the fans impatiently waited for the press conference to begin, they were introduced to Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall and the Cyrkle.  Finally the Beatles entered, screams filled the air and when we were quieted down, the questioning began.  Here are the highlights:

Q:  George, I’ve heard that your ambition is to design your own guitar.  Did you ever start to design the Harrison guitar?

G:  No actually, I never said that, it must have been somebody else.

Q: John, did you start to write your third book yet?

J:  Yes, but I’ve only finished about 20 pages.

Q:  Ringo, who sings the background in Yellow Submarine?

R:  John

Q:  Ringo, do you recognize this leaf?

R:  No.

Q:  It’s from your front yard.

R:  It is?

P:  It’s mine, I recognize it.

Q:  Why don’t you make the same “Help” and “Hard Day’s Night” movies in the United States as you do I England?

G:  It’s United Artists that’s cutting the pieces out of it, it’s not us.  Anything like that has nothing to do with us.  Other people do that, cut it, we just make it.

Q:  Have you seen the Beatles’ cartoon show?

R:  Yes.

Q:  What do you think of it?

R:  It’s okay.

Q:  do you think it’s a good portrayal of your characters?

P:  It’s not really like an artist produced it.  It’s fun really.

Q:  Paul do you like chocolate candy?

P:  Yes please.

Q:  Is this press conference your own idea?

Beatles:  It’s ours.

R:  Everybody’s having a good time.

Q:  Paul, do you think girls in England are better than girls in America?

P:  Oh no, no, no.  This thing is girls are the same everywhere; it’s that there are differences but that doesn’t make girls in England better.

Q:  How do you decide who’s going to sing lead on any of your songs?

J:  Whoever knows most of the words.

Q:  Ringo, where do you get all of your rings?

R:  People buy them for me.

Q:  How do you get an inspiration for any of your songs?

J:  Like this (he makes a face).

Q: Ringo what kind of clothes do you like to wear?

R:  Oh, I just like any style as long as they keep me warm.

Q:  I’ve heard Jane Asher is engaged to her producer, is she?

P:  Well if she is, I don’t know about it.

Q:  Paul McCartney, are you going to marry Jane Asher this year?  (Somebody cried out “oh no!” then there was a long pause)

P:  probably.

Q:  Paul when is the whole group going to make their next picture?

P:  The next picture, we’ll probably make it early next year.  At the moment the man’s writing and it depends on the script when we make it.

Q:  John, is it true that you went around London in a gorilla suit?

J:  No, that was a film called Morgan.  I’ve got a gorilla suit which I’ve worn about twice to frighten people and it’s too hot

Q:  Do you mean all the lyrics you write or are they  just funny?

P:  We mean them as lyrics, but when we write “We all live in a Yellow Submarine” we don’t reallyl mean that.

Q:  Is Eleanor Rigby cryptic, has it got a hidden meaning?

P:  Sorry?

Q:  Is Eleanor Rigby cryptic?

J:  Not if she can help it.

P:  No, it’s just a straight song.

J:  There ain’t no hidden meaning, baby.

Q:  Being in a group of four people and becoming famous so young, how do you manage to evolve as separate personalities?

J:  It’s easy.

G:  The main thing is, it’s true that we’re a group and, sort of, four people together with an image but we don’t believe that, we don’t take that bit of us too seriously.  We’re still individuals.

Q:  Paul do you think Keith Allison looks a lot like you?

P:  I don’t think so, but I’ve only seen pictures of him, I’ve never met him.

Q:  Paul, who is Eleanor Rigby?  I read that she’s a real person.  Who is she?

P:   It’s just a name, it was either going to be Daisy Hawkins or her.

Q:  In the beginning of your album, before Taxman, there’s all squeeking and noise, did you make another goof?

G:  That’s a bit before we recorded it that happened to be on the tape.

J:  That’s what usually gets cut off because none of you like to hear it.

Q:  Who is your favorite American group?

P:  There are quite a few of them.  The Beach Boys, The  Lovin’ Spoonful, The Byrds, The Mamas and Papas.

The end of the press conference was announced and John was presented with a gold guitar.  During the presentation, I made my way to the platform where Paul was seated.  I was stopped, just before I could reach Paul, but a duty-conscious guard, who grabbed me by the neck and tried to drag me out of the room.  While struggling with the guard, I begged Paul to let me have his cigarette butt, which a hotel waiter was about to empty into the trash.  He looked at me with doubt.

“You’re only going to throw it away, why can’t I have it to remember you by?”  I pleaded.  Upon hearing this, Paul reached into the ash tray and handed the cigarette butt to the waiter, who, in turn, handed it to me.  With on hand I firmly grasped the cigarette butt and with the other hand I managed to touch Paul’s hand for a few moments.

The cigarette butt is now placed, safely, in a plastic vial to constantly remind me of Paul and my most treasured moments.

Paul in New Orleans 1975 (part 2)

Here is the 2nd part of Gina Fontana's story of hanging around the studio where Wings was recording the Venus and Mars album in New Orleans in Jan and Feb 1975.  I can't help but think how neater this story could have ended up if John went down to N.O. and recorded a song with Paul as originally planned. 

For the next three weeks every spare minute I had was spent waiting outside that studio.  I cut so many classes I flunked my math and science courses.  I had to go to summer school because of it (it was worth it).  There was a group of about 12 (including me) of us who were there all the time.  Allen Crowder really got aggravated with us.  He kicked us out of the hotel so many times I think he lost count.  The roadies, Stave and Mike, really hated us too.  Sometimes they were really rough when it wasn’t necessary.

Every once in a while there was something out of the ordinary to amuse the group of regulars.  Like one day this cab drives up and this girl gets out.  All she had on was a dirty white t-shirt.  All of a sudden the girl takes off this t-shirt and she’s standing there naked.  Allen Crowder came outside and got her.  Someone heard that she used to go out with Jimmy and she followed him down to New Orleans.  That was just one of the crazy things that happened while Paul was there.

Every day we’d stare down the same street (we renamed it McCartney drive) just waiting to see that white Delta 98.  You’d be sitting on the ground talking about the Beatles and you’d hear somebody say, “Here comes Denny.”  That meant within the next five minutes, Paul would come zooming down the street.  We always had about a five minute warning before Denny and the others were coming because the two roadies would come outside and wait for them to arrive.  The roadies were so mean.  Paul even told them sometimes to leave us alone.  He was always really nice to the fans.  Paul would go out of this way to be nice.  Linda would usually go straight in.  Almost every day Paul was asked the same question, “Can we kiss you?”  He’d always answer with something like, “You don’t want me wife to get mad at me,” or “Do you want Linda to be jealous?”  But one day Linda was sick so she didn’t come into the studio.  It was their second-to-last-day at the studio.  I had never asked Paul if I could kiss him but I decided this was the best time to ask.  After he got out of the car I said, “Can I please kiss you Paul?”  and to my surprise and delight he answered, “Sure.”  After I kissed him, he was swamped by kisses.  You could tell he loved every minute.  He was bubbling all over.

The last day that Wings came to Sea-Saint was Friday, Feb. 21, 1975.  There were about a hundred fans there that day.  The TV stations did an interview with Paul the day before and they gave all the information out, so there were a lot of people that day.  It was so crowded, you could hardly get near him, but after most of the crowd left; Allen O’Duffy (the engineer Paul had brought with him) came outside.  He told us they weren’t leaving town until Monday night.  He wasn’t sure what time so he told us to give him a ring Monday and he’d let us know.  He was so nice.  Sunday, the TV news said that Paul had left earlier that day so that eliminated a lot of people showing up at the airport.

We talked to O’Duffy Monday and he gave us the flight number and the time the plane was leaving or L.A. We went to the airport not knowing what to expect.  One of the girls that was with me called her father from the airport and he told her to go talk to some man because he might be able to help us get into the room where you could wait for your plane to leave.  Well, this man got us into the room.  We sat there with all the passengers.  We didn’t know what to do.  We decided we’d try and act like we were just normal people but that didn’t’ go off too well.  We were so excited – my mind was gone.  I had two flowers, one for Paul and the other for Allen O’Duffy.  I wanted to thank Allen for being so nice.  After five minutes passed and we were still sitting there scared stiff.  I thought Linda or Allen might kill us when they saw us waiting to attack Paul.  Anyway, they all came in the room and sat down right across from us.  Allen O’Duffy didn’t even sit down – he came straight to u and brought Paul and Lidna over to us!

I was just about to hand Paul the flower I had for him when Linda grabbed it out of my hands (and I mean grabbed!) and said, “Is this for the lady?”  I didn’t know what to do.  I was so shocked I couldn’t believe she actually did it.  She knew the flower was for Paul.  I mean it only had a big card on it that said PAUL.  Paul looked like he was embarrassed when she did that.  My mouth just flew open.  Paul tried to help the situation out by asking me my name and where I went to school.  He was so sweet.  He took the flower from Linda and he told me it was really nice to give them a going away present.  He kept asking us how we got past all the people without a ticket.  I think he thought we were flying on the same plane as they were at first.  We told him we had connections all over the place!  We also said we had a lot of good photos from the studio, and Linda said she’d really like to have a  few.  So Paul told Brian Brolly to give us their address in London and the address of the hotel they would be staying at in L.A.  Then some man from the airline asked if they’d like to go across the hall to a private room while the other passengers boarded the plane.  We waited outside in the hall.  A few minutes later Mike (one of the roadies) came out with the three girls.  He was taking them to the bathroom.  On the way down the hall to the bathrooms there were some candy machines.  Stella started saying she wanted some candy, and then Heather and Mary said they wanted some too.  Mike told them there was no time and they had to hurry up.  Stella started screaming, “I want some candy!”  Mike told her no again but Stella wouldn’t’ take no for an answer.  She hauled off and kicked Mike smack in the shin.  I never laughed so loud in all my life – Mike was so mean to all the fans; he deserved a good swift kick!  He ended up getting the girls candy.

A few minutes later they all came out and started to board the plane.  Paul kept winking at us and making all these cute faces.  I loved it and I loved him.  We kissed Denny, Jimmy and Joe goodbye.  Linda wouldn’t let us touch Paul.  A man from the airline asked us if we’d like to go on the plane and say goodbye again because the plane wasn’t leaving for a few minutes, so we all went on the plane.  I was too scared to go near Paul and Linda so I went and told Denny and Jimmy goodbye.  I talked to them for a little white and kissed them goodbye again.  Allen Crowder looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown when he saw us walk on the plane.  I asked Allen if I could kiss him goodbye and he said yes (I knew Allen had a heart under all those dirty looks he gave us).  We each kissed him about 4 times.  He kept saying, “Now stop that, you’re holding up our plane.  You have to leave.”  We just laughed at him.

We finally thanked them once more and got off the plane.  As we were leaving the plane Paul winked at us.  I knew that was probably the last time I’d ever get to see that wink.  We left the plane and as it took off all I could do was cry.  The dream was over.  I knew he wouldn’t be back for a very long time.

The months of January and February will always bring back happy memories  I’ll never forget the look on his face the first time I saw him   He was so beautiful.  I know that memory will never fade away.