La Bonne Auberge restaurant in Antibes, France July 1972.
(Found on the Beatles Books Podcast X page)
An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Yoko Ono's Films Are Funny Buzz-Ness (1971)
Yoko Ono's Films Are Funny Buzz-Ness
By Les Wedman
The Vancouver Sun
June 4, 1971
(Cannes) John Lennon may be a better singer than Yoko Ono, but she makes better films than he does. His Apotheosis drew catcalls when it was shown at the film festival here, but her offbeat The Fly was greeted with applause.
Yoko claims she makes films in order to"change the world", but it seems hardly likely that The Fly will do that. Lennon obviously has nothing as lofty as that in mind. He says he was happy that the two short films were seen here during the festival, because "otherwise they'd only get shown at home, wouldn't they?"
He admits he doesn't know much about filmmaking, and what he has learned so far he has picked up from Yoko, who, incidentally, looks better in the flesh than she photographs. Her idealism, however, is the same.
She said she doesn't believe that films should cost a lot of money to make, not when there are "so many starving children in the world". And she advises young filmmakers to cut expenses by using "out of date film and out moded equipment." She made The Fly for less than $150.
"We don't all believe in the Hollywood type thing", Lennon said. And then his wife expressed interest in helping others to make movies. Lennon interjected with, " We're not a walking charity, though people should help themselves, and I only help people who appeal to me personally."
Apotheosis describes the ascent of a balloon above an English village, and much of it is nothing but masses of white clouds. Said Lennon, "I couldn't direct it once they got way up there."
Yoko's The Fly, shot mostly in close-ups, explores every-- but every --part of a nude woman asleep on a bed. Finally, the fly is joined by others, and they all take part in a tour of discovery.
How were the flies kept from flying away? And how could the girl remain perfectly immobile throughout what is actually a beautifully done, if meaningless, movie?
Yoko said they tried honey on the girl's body, along with sugar and water, but both were too visible, so they used a tranquilizing gas. "Both the flies and the girl were stoned," Lennon said.
He said he has no plans for another film. The reaction to Apotheosis was what he expected: "half angry, half hysterical, and that's fine." If he ever makes another film, Lennon said he probably won't use actors. "I don't know what actors are; that would be a lot of work, and I like to do things easily."
Accepting a compliment on his own acting and Richard Lester's How I Won the War, Lennon said it was interesting to see how a director works, but having to perform is not rewarding enough. "It wasn't worth it. If Yoko asked me to be in a film, though, I would do it." He said he has a secret wish to be a comedian (actually, there's nothing secret about it), so he would like to do a comedy.
"This is the age of making films without money," said Yoko. "Let's go on making lots of films and changing the world with it," she concluded.
Lennon had the last word. "Yoko made another movie called Bottoms, which had a cast of 200, and that only cost £50 to make." That wasn't a world-shaking film either,
The Thrill of a Lifetime (written in 1976 about 1964 tour)
The Thrill of a Lifetime
By Jack Thomas
The Boston Globe
June 2, 1976
In every life, there are moments of extraordinary pleasure that we cherish above all others. Those few vivid seconds when life seems perfect, and we are lost in a special memory that not even time can tarnish. The Beatles sang sweetly about such moments. "There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed, some for better, some forever, some are gone, and some remain."
Paul McCartney's recent visit to Boston recalled such a moment in the life of an Auburndale teenager who was driven to ecstasy 12 years ago when she kissed Paul McCartney. It is still the happiest moment of her life.
The city was excited on September 11, 1964, because the Beatles were giving their first concert in Boston. Those were happier days. We were still recovering from the shock of John Kennedy's assassination, but the agony of the Vietnam War, the trauma of the race riots, and the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still in the future.
Tickets for the concert had long been sold, and dozens of teenage girls had written to the Globe for help in obtaining tickets. The Globe obtained a ticket and signed me to take 14-year-old Debbie Chase to the concert to write about her experience. The Beatles held a press conference early in the evening at the Madison Hotel, and security was exceptionally tight. Indeed, they made a point that teenage girls were to be excluded, but we were able to fast-talk our way into the press conference with the promise that Debbie would stand quietly and inconspicuously at the back of the room.
That was naive of me. I should have known that the kind of girl who wore her hair long and loose because McCartney liked it that way would never stand quietly and inconspicuously at the back of the room, no matter how sternly I admonished her. Surely enough, midway through the press conference, when I wasn't looking, she stepped over the television cables and headed for the front of the room, where the four Beatles sat behind a table.
"God", I thought, "we're both going to be thrown out on our ears, and the story will fall apart." But before the security guards could stop her, she was standing in the bright lights between George Harrison and Paul McCartney. Her eyes were wide, her face was flushed, and her hands were shaking.
McCartney turned, offered his hand graciously, and said, "I'm pleased to meet you." He must have felt the coldness of her hand and realized she was shaking because he touched her arm assuringly and said, "Hey, you'll be all right then." With the television cameras whirling and me scribbling madly in my notebook, she leaned down slowly and kissed him on his right cheek. There were about 40 reporters and photographers in the room, and they watched silently, choosing not to interrupt a tender moment.
When she arrived at her seat in Boston Garden, a preliminary rock group was singing. Debbie sat down and screamed as loudly as she could, "I just kissed Paul McCartney!" That threw two sections on the south side of the lower level of Boston Garden into a dither. Dozens of teenage girls yelled, leaped in the air, pounded their chairs, and lunged at Debbie to touch her. It took two plainclothes Boston police officers and a state trooper to restore order.
Debbie sent a thank-you letter a few days later. "You have made my fondest dream come true," she wrote, "and I don't know how I will ever be able to repay you. At school on Monday, the kids came up to me and congratulated me, and either shook my hand, so they could say they shook the hand that shook the hand of Paul and George, or they kissed my lips, so they could say they kissed the lips that kissed Paul McCartney. I can hardly stand to hear one of their songs or see a picture of them, because I get this really weird feeling inside, and I almost start crying for no reason at all. "
The incident happened a long time ago, as the Beatles said, "Yesterday, when all our troubles seemed so far away." Today, Debbie Chase is 26, single, living in Cambridge, happy, in love, and working as a box office manager for a rock music promoter.
"How long ago was that?" She asked yesterday. "Wow, 12 years ago. Well, I still love the Beatles, but it's not nearly the way it was. No one could have been more excited than I was that night. I was really shaking. If it happened today, it wouldn't be the same. I had laryngitis from telling that story, over and over. "You know, that was the happiest moment of my life," she said, "and it probably always will be."
Monday, June 1, 2026
How Ringo ended up wearing a Sgt. Pepper suit on stage
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| A pat on the head from Ringo |
I am sure many of you have seen the video of Ringo singing "With a Little Help From My Friends" while wearing a pink Sgt. Pepper jacket. Many people are asking -- "where did he get that?" Well -- I found the Ringo fan who owns the jacket that Ringo is wearing and have her story straight from her on how Ringo came to wear it for this now iconic moment.
From crawlerr on X:
BEST MOMENT OF MY LIFE! I brought a pen for Ringo to sign my coat (even though I'm sure he doesn't do autographs anymore) And nearing the end of the show, I ran up to the barricade/rope-thing and waved my pen in the air for his attention. This kind lady behind me told me I HAD to get closer to the stage, so she pushed me under the rope, and Ringo prompted me to come closer to the stage, so I jumped up and down waving my pen more, and he leaned down and said, "I'll do ya somethin betta! Hand me your coat." SO I DID
I started crying SO hard, and all I could muster to say was "RINGO I LOVE YOU!" AND HE REPLIED, "I love you, babe!" SO, NATURALLY, I SOBBED EVEN MORE. That's when he told me to stay where I was as he performed A Little Help From My Friends
After that, he noticed me absolutely bawling my eyes out, so he patted my head and told me everything's alright. SO YEAH, I CRIED EVEN MORE. I stayed after the show til they kicked me out, but SECURITY GAVE ME HIS DRUM STICKS! I'M BLESSED.
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| Ringo's drumsticks! |
Thank you crawlerr for sharing your amazing story! What a great "Meet the Beatles...For Real" encounter!
Busy times
Paul has really been hitting the ground running to promote The Boys of Dungeon Lane. The Tik Tok live he did last week was interesting. He was in a building in London where the carpet, curtains and uhh..wall paper all have the same design. Is this MPL? And shockingly he is NOT WEARING SOCKS!
McCartney and Wings: A Soaring Sound of Celebration (Chicago 1976)
McCartney and Wings: A Soaring Sound of Celebration
By Lynn Van Matre
Chicago Tribune
June 2, 1976
Paul McCartney and Wings touched down in Chicago Monday night at the stadium, coming on in a swirl of fog, a flash of light, and a burst from a bubble machine, and leaving two hours later, tasting triumph.
The group's three-day tour here ends Wednesday night. The reception accorded to McCartney, who hasn't played Chicago since his Beatles days a decade ago, was nothing less than expected, of course. But the concert was far better than I anticipated. A bang-up celebration of rock and roll that included several old Beatles songs and some fairly striking and well-done special effects.
For McCartney, now 33, the road from the Beatles to his current flight with Wings has been, as the song goes, a long and winding one. When the Beatles broke up, he was already at work on his first solo album, "McCartney", a Paul and Linda fair released in 1970, with Mr. McCartney handling all the songs and instruments and Mrs. McCartney chiming in on background vocals.
It was soon followed by the best-selling "Ram" album, then came "Wildlife" with Denny Laine on guitars and Denny Seiwell on drums, in addition to the McCartneys. And in 1973, Wings toured Britain for the first time. Later, the band produced several more albums, "Band on the Run", "Venus and Mars", and the latest Wings release, " At the Speed of Sound ". By this time, the Wings lineup had evolved into the current crew: Paul on his famous left-handed bass, lead vocals, and keyboards, Linda McCartney on keyboards, Joe English on drums, and Laine and Jimmy McCulloch on guitars, with a four-man horn section added for the United States tour.
So much for the academics. Monday night at the stadium, all that musical history came to life with McCartney's set, including songs from nearly every album and a few tunes from years back. The crowd anticipated a bit of the Beatles and went wild. "Well", McCartney said, "I don't think this is from that far back", but the band swung into "Lady Madonna" and for the first time during the evening, the audience started stamping and clapping along. Clowning a bit at the keyboard, McCartney waited for the applause to die down, then started in on "The Long and Winding Road", a beautiful old Beatles number, while the crowd breathed a collective sigh. Memories, you know.
But the Beatles are gone, and for my money, McCartney has emerged as the best of the bunch. While many of his pleasant-enough recorded songs have been criticized for their unfortunate tendency to go in one ear and out the other, his live performance of them is something else. Again on stage, the tunes took on a real rock-and-roll edge, and his showmanship was competent and compelling enough. If he has a tendency to mug and camp it up a bit, posing at the piano, well, it goes over big. And what did you expect?
Besides the rock and roll, the set also featured a nifty change of pace in the way of an acoustic interlude with McCulloch, Laine, and Paul playing acoustic guitars and Linda chiming in on a couple of songs, including "Drink to Me", "Blue Bird", and an old Paul Simon tune, "Richard Cory". Then the band disappeared, except for Paul, who sang "Blackbird" from those long ago days, and "Let's see if you remember this one," he mused. By that time, though, the crowd had already recognized the opening chords of "Yesterday."
The acoustic break followed Wings' big visual thriller of the evening, a rendition of "Live and Let Die", accompanied by a burst of flame from fire pots on stage, laser beams, and strobe lights -- gimmicky, yes, but smashing in effect. The song was introduced by Linda, whom McCartney referred to as "my friend and Mrs." Up until then, she stayed pretty much in the background.
Linda, of course, has come in for a good deal of flak from the critics for her less-than-virtuoso playing and being generally all around unnecessary in the scheme of things. Monday night, she fit in well enough, although she still seems ill at ease when she's not behind the keyboards. When Paul traded his bass once again for keyboards, and Linda stood down front at the mic for "My Love", she looked uncomfortable, like a woman in search of something to do with her hands.
The capacity crowd, of course, had no such problem. As the concert drew to an end, closing with "Band on the Run", an accompanying grainy film of that particular album cover, a bunch of people, including Wings, looking as though they were in the midst of a jailbreak, the audience turned deafening, matches were struck, sparklers were hauled out, Bicks flicked, and then finally McCartney and the band came back for more, choosing to end at last with "Hi, hi, hi", and the unrecorded song "Soily." It had been a long, long set, overly so, perhaps by some standards, but then McCartney has been a long time coming.
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