Avant le déluge

My cultural world has been taken over by 1963. It wasn't planned, it simply became. My recent records, books and DVD watching have made me wish I were alive in the year before the 1960's began. Technically I was among the living, but what does a newborn know in his world of diapers, baby food and cribs. You call that living?




Kookie!, an album of almost music by Edd Byrnes, was actually released in 1959, but Byrnes' show, 77 Sunset Strip, ran until 1964. The entertainment, as it were, of a record like this, filled with anonymous studio rock 'n' roll of the period and the talk-singing of the Kookie character is pure hokum and innocence. Byrnes' street rapping hipster, whose innocence makes The Fonz seem like Tupac, splutters enough "babys," "daddy-os" and "like, wows" that I wondered how this was mistaken for edgy beatnik talk. Songs titled "Kookie's Mad Pad, "The Kookie Cha Cha Cha," and the boffo hit "Kookie, Kookie (Lend Me Your Comb)" are sweet in their faux-cool. All is not as it seems in retrospect, we all know that, but somehow the kind of world that could produce an album like this made me long for a happier time.





That hackneyed time travel sentiment is the subject of many a Twilight Zone. I'd always wanted to see Season 4, the year CBS executives forced the creators into one-hour long episodes. Having now seen all 18, I can say that the doubly long programs have been unfairly maligned over the years. Everything I've read about the January - May 1963 run has damned them as too long and unable to hold the quality of the 30-minute versions. Not so. The weaknesses of the shows are similar to those of all lesser Zones. There are several purported comedies; Rod Serling never did funny very well (though "The Bard" is a hoot, highlighted by Burt Reynolds' spot-on Brando impersonation).





I've been working my way through Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion, published in '64 but set in '63. Similar to Faulkner, Kesey jumps from first-person to first-person without a heads up. That's where the similarity ends. Notion is just alright. It's not particularly difficult, or interesting, but I'm only half way through and, perhaps, there's good stuff ahead. The novel was seen by some critics as a "work of new consciousness" and, perhaps it will be by the time I close the covers. So far, I don't see it. Kesey has his counter-culture cred intact with Cuckoo's Nest and the Merry Pranksters, and with that in mind, his story of The Stamper family's generational conflicts presages what lurks right around the corner, the schism of the second half of the decade.


"Passage on the Lady Anne" is the penultimate show of Twilight Zone Season 4. It centers around a young couple, probably in their late 20's, trying to save a rocky marriage. They're a typical pair of the time, young people who look, dress and act twice their age. What was it about 25-30 year olds of the mid-60's that made them so beaten up and overly mature? Was it the Mantovanni records? The couple is headed to England by cruise ship, a decrepit vessel populated by ancients on their last voyage. You can guess where this one goes.



Would Allan and Eileen even know what was waiting for them in 1963 Swinging London? Would they even guess that a band of four boys from Liverpool was driving the Old Sod insane? How could they know that in a mere few months The Beatles would hit America and change the world? 1963 was the last year before the culture cracked. It's been fun to visit.

Scorsese's Missed Opportunity

George Harrison's eponymous 1979 album has always been a favorite of mine. It's soft, to be sure, but the tunes are all of high quality and show him in his best light: sweet, thoughtful, funny. George Harrison was also my go-to record when I wanted to fall asleep. It's a great listen AND a fine sleeping pill. That's just my personal example of the dichotomy that was George Harrison.

Martin Scorsese's much anticipated documentary on George, Living in the Material World, presented itself as the same mixed bag that was the ex-Beatle. It was sloppy and acute, focused and chaotic, touching and superficial. All like the man himself. Scorsese, or his underlings, couldn't quite grasp the man they chose to exalt. In the early segments of Part 1, the film focused on John Lennon, who is hands down more funny and clever than his younger band mate. Still, that's not why we were all watching. And to have both of George's brothers wasted in a one-off snippet that told the story of John spilling beer on a wedding guest, well that was unforgivable. What a wasted resource.

Why tell the Beatles story at all? Scorsese goes on the assumption that most viewers know the details anyway, otherwise why mention Stu's death, without noting who he was, how he may have died (or did die) and why his demise was so devastating to John? True, Dhani Harrison reading his father's letters was a solid device to show how Hari was, even at the beginning, jaded by the mania. It's unfair to judge the movie on what I think it should have been, instead of what it was, but telling the tale from the breakup onward, with flashbacks to the few pertinent Beatley moments, would have made a more effective and sharply honed narrative of George's quest for spiritual growth in a perverted world.

Part 2, the 1970 and onward period, was better, though still scattered. It bounced from All Things Must Pass, to the ill-fated Dark Horse tour of 1974, to George's creation of Handmade Films, his obsession with racing, the Traveling Wilburys and, ultimately, the outrageous attack in his home and death. The clips from what seemed to be a film made during the tour, which found George with poor voice, bad judgment in song selection (changing lyrics to Beatle songs, putting Ravi Shankar on twice), and happily, for critics, the target of venom after his "do no wrong" run from his debut album, to Concert for Bangladesh and the album which gave Scorsese's film its name, were eye-opening. George sounded horrible at first, though in fine voice a bit later on. The behind the scenes moments with a wise-cracking, throat-gargling George made we wish for a revisit to this period. not a revision, per se, because I've heard the bootlegs and the music is pretty weak, but a deep look at an interesting moment in rock history. Drummer Jim Keltner's take, that George, though struggling, was "loved" by the crowd, was an insightful look from a participant.

But even Keltner's anecdote about George putting a plug for the Jim Keltner fan club on the back cover of Living in the Material World, was missing a key fact. It wasn't a funny poke at Keltner; it was a nasty rebuke of Paul McCartney, who had a tag for a Wings Fan Club in the same spot on Red Rose Speedway. Scorsese's film had room for George as curmudgeonly, but not for George as vicious and nasty, which he could very well be.

There are powerful moments sprinkled throughout. 1976 George watching a 1964 clip of The Fabs singing "This Boy" was worth the price of admission. Tom Petty's eyes-welling account of George's call to tell of the death of Roy Orbison was touching. Eric Clapton provided thoughtful commentary throughout. And when was the last time anyone saw real emotion out of Ringo? With all his "peace and love" superficiality, Ringo has made himself a self-parodying joke, but when he tells of his last visit with George, and begins to cry, well, it was beautiful. McCartney was, as always, a tad inscrutable. His tales of his youth with George, as two young mates, came across as genuine, but at other times, when he explains his late-period dictatorial ways, it was simply another edition of the last decade's "Paul Revisionary Tour." Macca is lucky to be the last one standing who can shape the tale of The Beatles. Ringo was never in the trenches in the same way as the other three.

Olivia Harrison provided depth, the sole person who was willing to delve into her husband's foibles, however briefly. And her account of the knife wielding madman who broke into Friar Park is harrowing. A short take of George mixing a Ringo song at his home studio is made touching by a lovely hug that Dhani gives his dad. There are more wonderful bits scattered over the 3 1/2 hours but, as a friend said "vignettes do not make up a narrative."

So, what are we left with at the end? A jumbled view of an interesting man, a film that felt both too long and too short, and the empty feeling of an underwhelming effort. The hardcover companion book does a much better job of fleshing out the man. Did I like it? I have a hard time criticizing The Beatles and their projects, though I do know when the product is weak. Living in the Material World is mediocre at best, but any time I can spend with George Harrison is time well spent. I'm hoping for really good bonus features when the DVD comes out.