bodhbdearg

Lots of work to do, but this is a start

Please dm/comment/reblog if you have any suggestions. I am especially looking for:

Categories I think the general timeline is going to get too full, what set of events should have its own timeline?

Events If there's an event that's not listed (currently almost everything) please suggest it! The more information you can include with it, the more helpful it will be

Queer Duck: The Movie (2006)

Queer Duck was an early 2000s web series about the misadventures of a group of queer animal friends (who are dressed as The Beatles here): Queer Duck, Openly Gator, Bi-Polar Bear, and Oscar Wildcat. The web series was a cult classic for its time and was broadcasted alongside Queer as Folk (2000-2005). The show is full of gay stereotypes but was also meant to be a love letter to the community at large and often commented on gay life of the early 2000s.

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The Beatles by BOB SPITZ (via sweating-cobwebs)

So what I like about this version is that it’s sympathetic to everyone involved.  Paul’s jealousy isn’t being mocked and treated as something petty and childish.  Paul actually receives credit for enduring Stuart’s incompetence and tolerating his personality for as long as he did.

It also doesn’t paint Stuart as a martyr, like 99% of the books out there.  Instead he’s a real, flawed human being who might’ve actually enjoyed provoking Paul repeatedly.  

And Stuart’s less-than-100%-mature reaction after the fight (insisting Astrid throw Paul’s girlfriend out of the house) is almost never mentioned in other versions of this story.

Considering what we now know about the Let it Be era/sessions, it’s possible that the John-Stuart-Paul triangle was more complicated than people usually paint it.  By almost all accounts, Stuart seems generally well-liked by everyone in the Beatles circle except Paul (this is the main difference between Stu and Yoko, who NO ONE liked).    But due to his premature death I always feel like he’s achieved Saint status that no one (not even a 21 year old) deserves.  It seems pretty clear to me that the animosity between Paul and Stuart ran both ways (see Stuart’s shitty comments about Paul in his letters), but for whatever reason their beef is STILL often portrayed as one-sided.  I guess this is the best way to take power away from Paul, which is important for many Beatle biographers as it fits into the narrative of John being the “powerful leader” and Paul having to deal with the scraps.  Because even though Paul and Stuart literally came to blows onstage and it actually resulted in Stuart leaving the band a few days later, almost no one ever frames this as a WIN for Paul or a power move on Paul’s part.  Think about that. Is it because Paul exerting power disrupts the notion that John called all the shots?

Or maybe it’s just easier to dump on Living! Paul than Martyr Stu.  ?

(via sweating-cobwebs)

I think it’s both of those things and it’s also the fact that by the time researchers started unpacking this, it was fashionable to dump on Paul and propagate the fantasy that he’s a giant intolerable control freak. So Paul potentially “exerting power” quite easily turned into “Paul bullying Stu.”  Then when you add in Stuart being a romantic 21-year-old dead Lord Byron type of figure who does get spoken of in martyrish terms, of course this is the narrative we wound up with. 

Also I’ll point out that Dot and Spitz both have it wrong on the bass thing. Paul was not envious of Stu because of the bass, he at no point actually desired to play the bass, and he and John both in fact considered it (direct quote from Paul here) “the fat guy’s instrument.” 

It continues to be my belief that Paul and Stuart’s issues stemmed from mutual jealousy of John, period - especially given the scattered poorly sourced anecdotes we have that Stu and John were sexual together at times in Hamburg.

“Though utterly self-assured in his work, Stu was full of personal insecurities about his appearance and small stature. And even with so impressive a friend, John could never resist homing in on insecurity and frailty. ‘He generally toyed with people,’ recalls Bill Harry. ‘If you stood up to him, he respected that and wouldn’t try it on again. If he detected any weakness, he took advantage. Stu was very mild and gentle, and John would put him down verbally in a way he never did other people in our circle, especially not Paul.’”

Paul McCartney: The Life, Philip Norman

The Beatles had lots of little arguments amongst themselves, but nothing serious. It was mainly Stu and Pete, the relatively new boys, being picked on by the rest. Stu took it to heart, but Pete didn’t seem to notice. It all passed over his head.

The Beatles, Hunter Davies

They argued as usual amongst themselves, but most of all they picked on Stu, the newest member of the group. John, George and Paul had been with each other long enough to know that rows and arguments and criticism didn’t mean much. If it did, you just argued back. ‘We were terrible,’ says John. ‘We’d tell Stu he couldn’t sit with us, or eat with us. We’d tell him to go away, and he did.’ At one hotel they stayed at, a variety show had just left. There had been a dwarf in the show and they found out which bed he had slept in and said that would have to be Stu’s. They certainly weren’t going to sleep in it. So Stu had to. ‘That was how he learned to be with us,’ says John. ‘It was all stupid, but that was what we were like.’

The Beatles, Hunter Davies

George and Paul appear to have been slightly jealous of Stu and his influence with John, not that outsiders could see how much John admired Stu. John picked on Stu all the time and hurt him when he could. Paul, following John’s lead, also began to pick on Stu, even though he was interested in art and, like John, was getting from Stu a lot of new ideas and fashions.

The Beatles, Hunter Davies

PAUL: It wasn’t just me. Legend so often divides these things neatly down the middle: John was hard, I was soft; John loved Stuart, I didn’t. But John was perfectly aware that Stuart couldn’t play and it wasn’t just me telling Stu to turn his back to the camera, it would often be John saying that. We used to ask him to turn away and do a moody thing looking over his shoulder so no one could see that his fingers weren’t in the same key as the rest of us. It wasn’t a good thing for a group to have someone who was such an obviously weak link. I think John felt a sense of relief when Stuart stayed in Hamburg. In a way, it was actually very convenient. Nobody wanted to sack him; it would not have got to that because of his personal friendship with John. But nobody was that sad to see him stay in Hamburg. It seemed right that we all had to move on and I quite easily got into bass.

Many Years From Now

You can’t help it, if there’s somebody in the group who doesn’t click. Like Stu. Stu was a great guy, a lovely guy, and I didn’t understand him, it’s true. There’s a lot of people in my life I haven’t understood; I’m not the world’s most psychic person. I make a lot of mistakes, and I misread people, I’ve read a lot of stuff about Stu since that I didn’t know about; I was taking him all wrongly. But it certainly wasn’t just me who was getting at him, everyone had their little goes. But I suddenly come out as the ‘go-getter’ and the ambitious one in the group. And John’s portrayed as the kind of nice guy who always falls into situations.

Paul McCartney

Plus the previous quote from above:

Sutcliffe realized the situation was untenable. There was no place for him on that stage anymore; Paul - and even John, by his neutrality - had made that absolutely clear. Stuart moped around for a few days, disillusioned with the band and with himself. The constant insults, the humiliation - he’d had enough.

The Beatles, Bob Spitz

If Stu could feel that humiliated and affected by only Paul insulting him, then that would indicate that Paul did have a lot more power than is typically assumed. Or, more likely imo, is that it was John + Paul bullying him together that made Stu feel humiliated (just check out my other quotes about them being a nightmare duo). As Mick Fleetwood said:

They were a team, a rhetoric team to say the least. As you can well imagine, John Lennon on form, in form, and Paul as well, it was catastrophic. I mean if they wanted to rip you apart, you were a dead duck… I thought, I would never want to get caught between those two, ever. You know, count me out, they were on top, sharp as tacks.

That’s about how they treated GEORGE btw so imagine how bad they could have been to Stu, who Paul actively disliked and while John was in his peak schoolyard bully phase.

(Shirley MacLaine was campaigning for McGovern in the elections but she couldn't say his name on the ABC, so she had pins about him instead)

Introduction

Hey everyone!

I had an idea for a new project. It all started when I thought that it would be really useful to have a mclennon timeline to have an idea of what things happened in what order.

At first I wanted to make a physical one, but then I thought "why not make it online, like I did with the archive?"

So I found this page you can create timelines with, and I think it's a very useful tool.

Page link

So I registered with the McLennon Files google account and created a timeline. I already added an event, which is the official first meeting, but I didn't even add the description or tags.

This is the link to the timeline, right now it's a bit naked but I hope that soon it will be full of colourful events!

How it works

Like with the archive, anyone can add events to the timeline. The events have to be relant in the context of the history of the relationship between John and Paul.

If you want to collaborate, you can log into the account, create an event and write some information about it as indicated in this document, whose link I also put in the "about me" of the account, which you can read here, which contains some info and rules.

Account credentials

The account credentials are the same as for the archive, please don't use them maliciously:

Email: [email protected]

Password: the-mclennon-files

⚠️ Log in just if you want to add events, you don't need to be logged in if you just want to access the timeline!

Final words

Please don't go share these credentials all over the internet but just with people who are interested and reliable. But you can share the link of the timeline with whoever might be interested.

I really appreciated the support the mclennon archive received, I hope this project will kick off just the same :)

Paul McCartney with artist Brian Clarke and art dealer Robert Fraser at Peasmarsh in 1982, with four-year-old James McCartney. The crate reads 'GLASS DO NOT LAY FLAT', and presumably contains the stained glass panels Brian Clarke created based on the 'Tug of War' album art that briefly feature in the 'Take it Away' music video.