QUALITY STILL LIVES
6th June 2010
Well, I am sitting here 40 odd years later watching Paul Mcartney on TV playing in New York, old songs still well remembered. It's astonishing how quickly so many of those hits transport me back to circa 1964, when the Beatles first hit the scene. The passion that Paul Mcartney puts into his music, is still extraordinary. It seems as though he is singing the song for the first time. That's what makes him a great star.
I was with David Hemmings at the time and we went to see this new group, the Beatles, on the set of their film "A Hard Days Night", when they reckoned David was a bigger star than they were. And maybe he was. He and Mcartney looked a bit alike and had similar outgoing personalities. The thing is that the bigger the star and more genuine a star they are, the more normal they appear. I have always found this to be true. Those lesser people who fancied them to be "lahdees", as in "lahdee de dah"- rhyming slang for star, (Hemmings' terminology), the lesser they were and they were certainly less interesting.
I used to show off by driving a white sports car in the 1960's and was absolutely David's favourite "lahdee". We took the work very seriously, but not ourselves. They were indeed good times. Of course we lived in the world's hippest city, with extraordinary things going on and frankly life just wasn't that serious to us. Now I think young people do have to be more serious about issues in our world, either that or they are just plain cynical and defeatist and apparently dont give a damn.
However my views about those really talented people hold true. I watched a tribute to Matt Damon on TV the other night and a more normal, nice, humorous person you couldn't wish for, surrounded by his peers, who seem to be cut out of the same cloth. Well done all of them. It seems that those that reach the top of the profession are still the same - good people. Not perfect, just good people.
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I am nearly at the end of this sojourn to the US, I leave Wednesday. It's been a terrific time and I have met all sorts of interesting people, not the least the people in the film world in Idaho, of which there are quite a few. It's quite an extraordinary city with all sorts of talented people and a thriving artistic community. The only thing to moan about has been the weather, which has been truly disappointing and largely wet. No more to be said about that. Please, please let the weather be better in the UK when I return.
I always think of interesting snippets and humour to share on this blog and when it comes to it, everything flies out of my head. I think I just got comfortable in domesticity this last week, gardening and planting plants; putting up my first set of blinds, I now know how to put a screw into a wooden frame - hammer it ! There are some beautiful birds here, big brown birds with red breasts, but much bigger than our robins and a stunning yellow and black bird, that really looks like a parrot flying free, could be an American goldfinch. I have a lovely oak tree here in my garden in Boise and I can sit on a old park bench under it, read a book, drink a glass of wine and listen to the mourning doves. See how domesticated I am becoming. Must get back to reality next week and get our series moving forward.
Imagine my astonishment when I turned on the Televison last night and saw a slightly older looking Geoffrey Hughes promoting "Keeping Up Appearances" on a fund raising drive for Public television in Boise, on which channel, the show is still highly popular. It has loads of fans here, I think some people in the US think we are still that same population of slightly dotty, lovable, middle class people living in the UK. If only----- Still - I doubt Mr Hughes lives here, but you never know. The world is so small now, it doesn't really matter where you live.
 I am not really in a backward looking, work that I have done, mood at the moment, so this will have to be shorter, less reminiscing blog this time........even though Paul is keeping me in nostalgic mood with a vengeance. We're into "Hey Jude" right now. The Beatles songs are so distinctive and absolutely no-one has managed to emulate their sound successfully. How astonishing they are, were as a group, I am sort of proud that I came up with them, even though they did rather overtake me!!!
That's all my dear readers.
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