JFK -- Murder Most Foul and the Debate Goes On

Is the JFK assassination the most controversial event of the past century? It certainly ranks high on the list of unresolved mysteries. I once read that more than 80% of Americans disbelieved the Warren Commission report, and to this day the event appears to be an incubator of more conspiracies than any other event in history.

The question of whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone is just one aspect of the controversy. Once one accepts the possibility that he did not act alone, you open the much larger can of worms as regards who was really behind it all. 

The official investigation, led by the Warren Commission, concluded in 1964 that Oswald acted as the sole gunman in the assassination and that there was no evidence of a conspiracy. Unfortunately, there are plenty of noteworthy unexplained riddles surroundinng this tragedy. Questions about regarding how many shots were fired, the gunman on the grassy knoll, the "magic bullet" theory and unexplained deaths of people who may have expose the truth had they lived.

Here are some stories I shared a few years back:

Why the Public Stopped Believing the Government Narrative
How the CIA Came to Doubt the Official Story (Politico)

And this one, which dropped during Covid, unexpectedly. Dylan delivers a wild ride of an ode called Murder Most Foul (lyrics). And yes, it is original and not like anything I can recall ever hearing. 

It begins....

‘Twas a dark day in Dallas - November ‘63
The day that will live on in infamy
President Kennedy was riding high
A good day to be living and a good day to die
Being led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb

Say wait a minute boys, do you know who I am?

Here's the video from YouTube.

You can listen in full or listen in part, 

and you'll see how he sees it while seeing his art.

The amazing part of Dylan's version is how he switches point of view, including a segment where we're inside JFK's head... 

The Ten Principles of the Georgia Guidestones, America's Strangest Monument

Are you familiar with the Georgia Guidestones? When someone first mentioned it to me I thought it both interesting and strange.

Located 90 miles East of Atlanta, the monument consists of a set of 10 guidelines inscribed on a stone manmade structure in eight modern languages. At the top there's also a short message inscribed in four ancient language scripts. Some people are calling it an "American Stonehenge." The slabs and capstone stand just over 19 feet tall.

The creators of this monument have chosen to remain anonymous and the man who conveyed the instructions to the Eberton Granite Finishing Company 19 miles away used a pseudonym. Obviously it cost a pretty penny to produce and install. Purportedly the group behind this had spent twenty years in planning.

The inscriptions are in the following languages:
English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Traditional Chinese, and Russian.

The ten commandments inscribed there are as follows:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the Earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

A lot of it sounds "nice" but one gets a little concerned about the first two, the first especially. I'm curious how they propose to reduce the earth's population by seven billion in order to fulfill their concept of balance with nature.

Does the second statement refer to a return to eugenicists helping create a more perfect race? Is it Brave New World inspired, as if Huxley's book were a manual, instead of a red flag?

Heres what WIRED wrote about the Guidestones:
The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who created them—and he's not talking.

The strangest monument in America looms over a barren knoll in northeastern Georgia. Five massive slabs of polished granite rise out of the earth in a star pattern. The rocks are each 16 feet tall, with four of them weighing more than 20 tons apiece. Together they support a 25,000-pound capstone. Approaching the edifice, it's hard not to think immediately of England's Stonehenge or possibly the ominous monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Built in 1980, these pale gray rocks are quietly awaiting the end of the world as we know it.

You can find the rest of that story HERE.

In addition to the set of instructions on the stones, there were some very precise astro-physical instructions as regards the layout of the stones. You can read about that here at the Smithsonian magazine website.

A site called Atlas Obscura features the guidestones on this page. It highlights a few of the unique features of the stones in this paragraph:

The guidestones also serve as an astronomical calendar, and every day at noon the sun shines through a narrow hole in the structure and illuminates the day’s date on an engraving. The names of four ancient languages are inscribed on the sides near the top: Babylonian cuneiform, Classical Greek, Sanskrit, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

* * * *

Someone spent some serious time and money creating this thing. It's not hard to see how something of this nature could provoke some serious conspiracy theorizing. Now all we need is are receipts showing who paid for it. Any guesses?

Pros and Cons of the Storytelling Epidemic

If you're in marketing and advertising, you can't help but to have noticed how big the word  "storytelling" has become. It's almost as if it were the word of the year.

There's no question stories have power. Stories connect with people. And you've got to admit that reading the story of Jacob and Esau in Genesis is far more interesting than reading all those lists in the Book of Leviticus.

In the marketing world you might even find people who say that without a good story you can't succeed.

This is one of the reasons so many marketers love the new opportunities generated by social media. You get verbal stories, video stories, visual stories (Infographics) and personal stories. It's in your face everywhere you look these. In fact, "Stories" is the latest technique Facebook is using to keep people engaged. It's not enough to tell stories on your Wall. Now you can almost effortlessly keep "adding" to "your story" in that Stories box.

This past week I brought home a book from the library called The Art of Immersion by Frank Rose. I picked it up because the cover design looked interesting and the title intriguing. When I got home I noticed the subtitle: How the digital generation is remaking Hollywood, Madison Avenue, and the way we tell stories.

The prologue begins by noting how anthropologists have observed that storytelling is a fundamental part of being human. He writes, "Just as the brain perceives patterns in the visual forms of nature--a face, a figure, a flower--and in sound, so it detects patterns in sound."

Then he goes on to share the results of a 1944 study in which 34 college students were shown a short film and asked what was happening. Essentially it was two triangles and a circle moving on a two dimensional surface. There was also a stationary rectangle partially open on one side.

What was striking is how nearly every student began creating a narrative about what they imagined was going on. Two men fighting for a woman? All kinds of storylines emerged, including the emotions of these "characters."

How strange.

So it is that our brain is constantly connecting dots to create narratives.

Another book that I brought home from the library this week is also about stories. It's titled Republic of Lies by Anna Merlan. The subtitle is American Conspiracy Theories and Their Surprising Rise To Power.

The Amazon blurb calls it "riveting tour through the landscape and meaning of modern conspiracy theories, exploring the causes and tenacity of this American malady, from Birthers to Pizzagate and beyond."

I've only just started this one, but the Prologue certainly sets you up to want to read more. Author Anna Merlan begins by telling readers about a Caribbean cruise she went on. The ship's passengers were all members of various conspiracy groups. Because she was not a member of a conspiracy group, some passengers thought she was possibly FBI. Once an idea like that gets planted, it can be hard to dislodge.

Three quarters of the reviews are 5 star, but the one star reviewers are out there, one calling it nothing more than a a rant.

I only mention the book because of the previous illustration above which shows how our minds create stories. How many conspiracy theories are based on connections between events and how many are simply a mental construct in which disparate pieces seem to fit the story?

I think of the constellations in our night sky. Here's a cluster of stars, three of them serving to be the belt, and very lightly a knife sheath. At some point in human history he was given a name, The Hunter, or Orion. There are several stories about Orion in Greek Mythology. How this batch of stars came to be a basket of stories is itself quite intriguing. (You can read more about Orion here.)

The trigger for this blog post, though, was a blog post by Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman. Hoffman acknowledges the power of stories, noting that a good story is memorable. What concerns him, however, is when marketing decisions are made on anecdotal evidence instead of actual data. 

That's a point directed toward the marketers in my audience. Check out Bob Hoffman's The Danger In Storytelling.

* * * *
And with that, I bid adieu.

Dutch Beatles Authority Chantal de Paus Addresses Beatles Conspiracy Theories and How the Fab Four Became So Popular

Chantal (left) w/friends at Abbey Road (photo: Lloyd Durham Photography)

I "met" Chantal de Paus through the social media community Quora. After I began noticing her answers to a few questions about the Beatles I investigated further and found she's done more than her share of homework on the subject. She's modest enough to cringe if called an expert, but her answers to my questions were characteristically (and unsurprisingly) rich and thorough.

I reached out to her via Twitter and invited her to contribute to Ennyman's Territory. She accepted the invitation. I'm confident you will be rewarded.

Because one of my questions had to do with what might have been, Chantal began with this disclaimer: "I usually don't like to go into the 'what ifs' and 'if onlys' because nobody can tell what would have happened, not even the Beatles themselves. However, I'll try to make the best possible prediction based on what I know, and how I see the Beatles as individuals."

EN: What made the Beatles so popular?

Chantal de Paus: Probably the main reason why the Beatles made it and the other groups didn't, was that they wrote their own songs. Paul likes to tell this story about how and why he and John became focused on creating their own material. Basically, they'd share the bill with a number of other groups, who largely played the same songs they did. They'd be waiting backstage and they'd hear another group playing 'Long Tall Sally', or 'Be Bop A Lula', or any of the other tunes they'd played in Hamburg. First, they managed to solve that problem by searching for B-sides and obscure songs on the LP's they heard. But ultimately, they had no choice but to write their own songs just to make sure nobody could upstage them. Paul had been writing songs since he was 14 and apparently, John had been interested in it too, so they started building their catalogue.

Of course, that's just one element. There were other factors involved, such as the unique hierarchy of the group. Most groups had one leader: usually the lead guitarist, who did all or most of the singing as well. The other members would be his backup. You can see this reflected in the way many of the band's names were constructed: Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Cliff Richard and the Shadows. The Beatles themselves used this format for a little while, when they toured with Johnny Gentle as 'Long John and the Silver Beatles', which later became 'the Silver Beatles' and ultimately, 'the Beatles'. The Beatles never had this classic hierarchy. Even though John considered himself the leader, he accepted Paul as his equal from day 1. What's more, their musical contributions were far more equal than most other groups. They had not one, but two brilliant lead singers and a third lead singer who was much better than most backup players. Even the drummer received his moment in the spotlights, something no other band ever really did. Where most bands either had other people writing songs for them or one group member doing all the writing, the Beatles all wrote songs, even if the Lennon-McCartney catalogue was their main meal ticket. Add to that the fact that they were good-looking, witty, a bit cheeky at times, and you'll begin to understand what set them apart.

EN: How much of their music was the Beatles, and how much was George Martin?

CDP: Hmm. Tricky question, that. It's safe to say George Martin had little to no influence on the songs they wrote, or the lyrics they put in there. He may have rejected things that were a little too risky, or he may have had suggestions, but the basis of the songs is 95-99% the boys themselves. When it comes to the actual music, things become more complex and more difficult to assess.

There are some famous examples of Sir George's influence. It was he who suggested they speed up 'Please Please Me', and that turned out to be the decision that meant their breakthrough. He did the same to Help!, which John wrote as a slow song as well. He's responsible for the iconic string arrangement on 'Yesterday', something Paul absolutely didn't want at first. He also helped figure out the triple harmony on 'Because', wrote the score for 'She's Leaving Home', and even played on some of the songs. It's safe to say his musical influence was instrumental (no pun intended) to their success.

And then, of course, there's the technical side of things. It isn't clear to me how much of the experimentation came from the Beatles, how much was done by George Martin, and how much was done by Geoff Emerick, Norman Smith, Ken Scott, or the other engineers who worked at EMI at the time. If we are to take Emerick's word for it, he was solely responsible for creating the 'Pepper' sound which, to me, sounds rather improbable. It's obvious the Beatles themselves had a very clear idea of what they wanted, and often helped achieve that sound by making suggestions and coming up with outlandish ideas.

Of course, there's no doubt that in many cases, they would know what they wanted, but not how to get it. Good examples are John's request to make something 'sound orange', to express the desire to sound like 'a thousand Tibetan monks chanting on a mountain top', or to somehow turn two different takes of 'Strawberry Fields', which were recorded in different keys and at different speeds, into one song. Nobody had ever suggested that before and it took a lot of effort to do, but we all know how incredible the result is. It wasn't just John, either. Paul had his own ideas, such as the tape loops used for 'Tomorrow Never Knows', which he made himself. Paul didn't invent the tape loop, but he certainly helped popularize them. It was also his idea to have the orchestral crescendo on 'A Day In The Life', but we have George Martin to thank for the fact that this idea was actually put into action. So, long story short, the Beatles sound as we know it relied heavily on George Martin's suggestions, contributions, and willingness to indulge in the Beatles' outlandish ideas. Or, as Paul McCartney said: "If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was George Martin."

EN: Some conspiracy theorists have claimed the Communists produced their later albums because the recordings were so sophisticated. What are some other theories about their music that you've heard?

CDP: Thankfully, only very few, and all of them as ridiculous as the communist idea. Some people claim there were subliminal messages hidden in the songs which were either satanic in nature, meant to get kids into drugs, or made to brainwash the listeners to do...? I don't know and apparently, neither do the people who think of these things. I do remember an anecdote from my own teenage years. I went to a Christian school and one time, I received some sort of pamphlet warning me not to listen to 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' because apparently, when it was played backwards, it contained a message about worshipping satan. Mind you, the same people also said that the peace sign (the icon, not the hand signal) had some sort of sinister meaning and should not be used. For a little while, I was very much impressed by these warnings but then I grew up and decided to make up my own mind. I think it's clear that I didn't heed that warning!

Another thing I've been hearing is that apparently, the Beatles didn't write their own music. People will point to the Tavistock Institute which, by the way, is a British not-for-profit organization which specializes in studying human behavior, particularly group behavior and organizational behavior. It focuses on such things as the elimination of social anxiety. According to some, this institute has been conducting psychological experiments on a grand scale, and the Beatles are supposedly one of their experiments. If we are to believe the myth, the Tavistock Institute has written all of the songs and the Beatles themselves are just puppets in this nefarious plan to indoctrinate American teenagers with.... something, I suppose. Again, it's never clear what this big scheme entails and whether or not it was a success. Apparently, the Illuminati are involved too, somehow, but I haven't a clue as to how or why. It's very difficult to get straight answers from the people who make these claims.

Of course, there's that one massive conspiracy theory everybody's heard of, which leads me to your next question.

EN: Yes, why do people still believe in "Paul Is Dead"? 

CDP: In a word: cognitive dissonance. Also, paranoia plays a massive role in this. The psychology behind it is something I plan on studying, actually. I have a fairly good idea of the many factors involved, and I am intent on flexing my armchair-psychologist-muscles on that one. So far, I have come up with a theory why some people even feel the need to believe Paul was replaced by a different person: childhood sentiment.

When Brian Epstein became the Beatles' manager, his first order of business was to clean them up, literally and figuratively. He made them abandon their leathers and put them into suits. He told them not to smoke, eat, or curse on stage anymore. He taught them that signature bow. And, perhaps most tellingly, he went out of his way to cover up the lads' indiscretions. When a girl ended up pregnant, Brian didn't try to figure out if any of the Beatles could actually be the father; he simply paid that girl off. When the boys did something that would give them bad publicity, Brian made sure it got swept under the rug. All of this polishing resulted in the image of the four mop tops: sweet, amiable boys, perhaps a bit cheeky sometimes, who could charm anyone effortlessly.

Of course, that was just their exterior. Underneath, they were still the same rowdy lads from the streets of Liverpool, each of them complicated individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses. You can't change that by dressing them up in nice suits but eventually, people did start to think they could be summed up in one word each and so, John became the smart Beatle, George the quiet Beatle, Ringo the funny Beatle, and Paul, unfortunately, ended up with the questionable honor of being the cute Beatle. He's always hated that title. Not just because he didn't consider himself cute, but also because it didn't say anything about him. The other three nicknames were very shallow as well but, at least, those said something about the lads' personalities rather than just their appearance. Paul just as easily could have been named the charming Beatle, the friendly Beatle, the talented Beatle, et cetera. This cute Beatle moniker must have played a big part in the reason the hoax was about him, and not any of the others. His personality undoubtedly also had a lot to do with it.

It didn't take long for the other three to grow tired of the polished image. We can see it in interviews, where George and Ringo become quiet or morose, and John becomes sarcastic. The task of keeping the fans and the media happy shifted more and more to Paul, who'd always had the most outgoing and affable personality of the four. He was, and still is, a natural charmer and his looks certainly helped a lot in that regard. He even confessed to using his appearance to get out of trouble as a child, stating that he'd exploit his big eyes to mollify his father. Jim McCartney has confirmed this. He knew Paul was playing him like a fiddle and let it happen anyway. So, all these things together gave him the image of a very sweet, likeable lad who wouldn't hurt a fly. Nobody could have ever guessed that behind that cute smile, a completely different person resided. And then... they stopped touring.

All four Beatles changed after the summer of 1966. They all made drastic changes to their style of clothing, their hair, and their behavior. For the first time, we were really given a glimpse into their true personalities. This must have been the biggest shock for those who thought Paul was this cute little cherub. After all, John, George, and Ringo had already dropped a big part of their facades, so their transformation came as less of a surprise. Paul, however, turned out to be infinitely more complex than people thought. He was also a lot less charming than people had previously assumed. People struggled with that, and I think that's how he became the target of this silly hoax. People were unable to come to terms with the idea of Beatle Paul, the cute Beatle, being a flawed man who used drugs, cheated on his girlfriend, could be moody, didn't always want to entertain the fans. On top of that, he lost a lot of weight in 1967 due to his cocaine use, and then gained a stone or two in 1968/1969 when the band started falling apart and Paul spiraled into a depression.

He wasn't the only one to go through changes, but somehow, people had the hardest time accepting it from him. Eventually, some fans found it too big a pill to swallow and must have decided that this couldn't be 'their' Paul. It had to be somebody else, because the Paul they knew would never do those things, say those things, or behave like that. But if the real Paul, or what they perceived the real Paul to be, were dead and this other Paul was a different person, then they could preserve that image of the cute Beatle. If Beatle Paul was dead, then he could never disappoint his fans by being a human being.

And that, I think, is what causes people to believe in 'Faul'. Once a person decides that Paul post-1966 can't be the real Paul, cognitive dissonance does the rest. Suddenly, they'll start to find clues in the music. They'll see differences in his appearance. Never mind that those clues only exist in their own minds, and never mind that his face, height, ears, et cetera didn't change. They'll dismiss the countless images which clearly show it's the same man. They'll go to channels such as 'Macca Lives' which does a good job at showing Paul is the same person before and after 1966 and they'll downvote those videos or post negative comments simply because they are upset that someone would try to make them see reason. They'll twist and contort everything they see and hear to fit their narrative. They'll look at the 1960's through 21st century glasses. never mind that colored contacts didn't exist, or that cosmetic surgery like the kind they say 'Faul' underwent to become Paul didn't exist in those days. They don't even care that the best surgeons in the world still can't make somebody look exactly like somebody else today, medio 2017. It has to be possible, because their cognitive dissonance doesn't allow them to accept anything else.

The countless variations to the myth only show how little merit there is to it. You can talk to 100 PID believers and they'll each have their own theory about what happened, and how, and why. They rarely agree. Over the past five decades, the story has grown into something utterly preposterous and it keeps expanding. Some say Paul is a twin even though his birth records clearly refute that. Those same people will say that the Paul we see today is actually Mike, and that Mike 'McGear' McCartney is a hired actor. Some say Paul was so overwhelmed by their first American tour that he decided to retire. Those same people will say the former custodian of 20 Forthlin Road, John Halliday, is the real Paul even though this man only bears a fleeting resemblance to Paul.

I've heard people claim Paul's parents are high-level Freemasons. I've heard people suggest that the role of Paul McCartney has been played by numerous people, and that they continued replacing him for decades after the Beatles split. Nobody can ever explain where 'they' found all those lookalikes, who they were, and what happened to them and their families. People have even said that Paul was cloned, but they never stop to think that even if human cloning was possible, it'd have to be done in 1942, the moment Paul was born. They seem to think that you can take some DNA from an adult, and then create another adult in a few weeks time. Science, logic, and reason are a few things these people haven't heard of and yet, they are convinced that they are the reasonable ones, the ones with the best eye for detail, and the ones who really understand the truth. It makes me feel sorry for them.

EN: Yoko Ono took a lot of heat for helping John break out of the Beatles. What would have happened if Yoko hadn't come along?

CDP: Probably the most difficult one to answer. The band definitely would have broken up, either way. Yoko did not break up the Beatles. She did help speed up the process, and I am convinced her presence made the whole ordeal a lot more acrimonious than it otherwise would have been.

Yoko was never the reason for John's desire to leave the Beatles. He'd been contemplating it as early as 1965-66. She did, however, become a useful tool to end his marriage, not just the legal one he shared with Cynthia, but also the artistic one he shared with Paul, George, and Ringo. It was John's idea to break the 'no women in the studio' agreement. However, I feel Yoko should have known better. She was several years older than the Beatles, had already been married twice, and must have been aware of the tension her presence caused. She could have elected to sit in the control room. She could have kept quiet. Instead, she happily sat right next to John 'in the pit' and didn't hesitate to offer her opinion on the songs they were recording. It was one thing to do that when John's songs were being fleshed out, it was another thing entirely to offer her opinion on the others' songs. No wonder tensions began to rise.

If this was the worst she did, people still could have forgiven Yoko. However, she seemed to consciously try and become the biggest nuisance she could possibly be. There's some grating footage of the Get Back sessions in which John is talking to the producer (Michael Lindsay-Hogg) about replacing George, who had walked out earlier that day, with Eric Clapton. Paul is practicing 'Martha My Dear' on the piano, and Yoko is wailing. John! John! Joooooohn! JOOOOOOOOHN! She keeps screaming, moaning, howling into the microphone for a staggering 19 minutes. A few days later, George is back with a new song: 'I Me Mine'. He plays it for Paul and Ringo, but John isn't interested. Whilst the other three start working on the song, he prefers waltzing through the studio with Yoko over actually listening to, and working on George's song. In the end, 'I Me Mine' is completed after the Beatles finish recording 'Abbey Road. John isn't there, and George sarcastically comments on the new status quo: "You all will have read that Dave Dee is no longer with us. But Mickey and Tich and I would just like to carry on the good work that's always gone down in [studio] number two."

There's a lot to be said about Yoko and her influence on John. It was she who introduced John to heroin, a drug he quickly became addicted to, and which effectively silenced his muse. People have noticed how John seemed to have lost his sense of humor the moment Yoko came into his life. Julian Lennon blames Yoko for the fact that he didn't see his father for years. Nobody can tell what's true and what's conjecture. Personally, I think the breakup might have been less acrimonious if Yoko hadn't been involved. Without Yoko, John wouldn't have signed with Allen Klein. Without Allen Klein, the business rift between John, George, and Ringo on one side and Paul on the other would not have existed. The group would have continued to be represented by the Eastmans until they could agree on a more neutral party. Let's not forget that the whole Allen Klein debacle played a major role in the way the band split up.

They always would have gone their separate ways. Even before Brian died, there was tension in the group. Once Brian was gone and they discovered the financial mess he'd left them, somebody had to step up. That somebody ended up being Paul, aided by Neil Aspinall. Thing was, Paul was too much of a perfectionist. He became too overbearing in the eyes of the others. Ringo later offered some perspective, saying that if it hadn't been for Paul, the last (and best) records never would have been made. Ringo also said that they'd sometimes tell Paul to stop pushing which he then promptly did. Since nothing got done the moment Paul stopped leading them, they'd then turn to him again and expect him to tell them what to do. He still wasn't the right person for the job. There simply wasn't anyone else to do it after John mentally removed himself from that leadership position.

But without Yoko... I think they might have been able to part on slightly more friendly terms. Who knows? I wasn't there.

EN: What's the most-asked Beatles question on Quora? 

CDP: I haven't the faintest. Some topics will come up regularly. Many things that get asked can easily be answered with a Google search. Many questions don't have objective answers. But which one question gets asked the most, I honestly wouldn't know.

EN: Where are you from and how did you become a fan of the Beatles? 

Chantal with Mother
Photo: Michael Lahmann

CDP: I'm from the Netherlands. That will also explain the errors in my English: I'm not a native English speaker.

I was born in the seventies, when Beatles music was still played a lot on the radio. However, I was a Paul McCartney fan years before I became a Beatles fan. I was very young when 'We All Stand Together' was a hit. I loved that song. Being Dutch, I didn't know any English other than a handful of words I'd been taught, but I didn't need to understand the lyrics to love them. Before long, I did learn what they meant and they just felt as if they were written for me specifically. This song, which many people hate, had a profound personal meaning to me, and after seeing Paul in a TV interview, I couldn't help but feel very warmly about him. So, I knew his face, voice, and music from a very early age.

We didn't listen to a lot of pop music at home. The vast majority of music played in our house was classical. I did have an older sister who started shaping my musical taste, though. She'd make mixed cassette tapes for me, or we'd listen to LP's in her room together. We'd sing all kinds of songs whilst washing the dishes, and we'd discuss music together. But still, 80% of the music I was subjected to was classical: Mozart, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Chopin, et cetera. This changed when I advanced from Primary School to Grammar School at the age of 12. The new curriculum included music class, and my school's music teacher turned out to be a massive Beatles fan. In fact, it was one of the first things he told us about himself. We were taught to play the recorder and within days, I knew how to play 'Yesterday' by ear. We were taught to analyze song structure and were given 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' as one of the songs to study. We learnt about recording techniques and, in the style of 'We Are The World,' recorded 'Hey Jude,' each student singing one line and then passing the microphone to the person to their right. We did actually touch on other artists too. We were taught to play 'The Rose' by Bette Midler, we analyzed 'Hello' by Lionel Richie and watched the music video in class, we touched on the music of Stevie Wonder, and the list goes on. But there's no denying that half of the things we did in that year had something to do with the Beatles.

Funnily enough, whilst I certainly appreciated the music, it took me another 20 years to really discover the Beatles. I don't know the exact moment and I certainly can't remember what triggered it, but it just feels as if from one day to the next, a switch was flicked in my head and I became obsessed with the Beatles. I remember searching for a torrent of their catalogue -- I have long since purchased all of their records and I haven't downloaded any torrents in years -- and listening to all of those songs. To my astonishment, I discovered I already knew 80-90% of those tunes. I definitely didn't know all of the lyrics, and I couldn't tell who was singing lead on half of them, although I could identify Paul nearly always, and John most of the time, but even though I hadn't consciously listened to their music before, it found its way into my memories anyway. The more I listened, the more fascinated I became. It didn't take long to start recognizing the subtle differences in voices and style, and I gradually found myself becoming increasingly intrigued by the people behind the music. I like to think I've gathered quite a lot of information on them over the years, and I keep discovering new things about them every day. I'm hoping my upcoming holiday to Liverpool, which is set for October, will add an entirely new level of depth to my Beatlemania.

EN: This seems like a required question and a good way to close. Which Beatles album is your favorite, and why? 

CDP: I never really thought of one LP as my favorite. I think they all have their strengths, weaknesses, and unique charm. However, I did want to be able to answer your question so I decided to give each song a rating and calculate the average grade for each album, based on how I enjoy each individual song. This is what came out, and I must say I'm surprised at the list:

1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. Help!
3. Abbey Road / Rubber Soul (tied)
4. Revolver
5. Beatles For Sale / A Hard Day's Night (tied)
6. Past Masters (the singles that weren't released on the UK records)
7. The Beatles
8. Please Please Me / Magical Mystery Tour (tied)
9. Yellow Submarine
10. Let It Be

I half expected the top-3 to be Abbey Road, Revolver, and Pepper. I can see why some of the records I really enjoy ended lower than expected: I gave some tunes a very low score. If you look at my top-10 favorite songs, they are in no particular order:

• Because (Abbey Road)
• Something (Abbey Road)
• If I Fell (A Hard Day's Night)
• Fixing A Hole (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
• She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
• Eleanor Rigby (Revolver)
• For No One (Revolver)
• Here, There And Everywhere (Revolver)
• In My Life (Rubber Soul)
• Back in the USSR (The Beatles)

As you can see, I do tend to favor the later records, though I probably appreciate the early ones more than most Beatles fans. I think you just have to see them in context. It isn't fair to compare Beatles For Sale to Abbey Road, simply because the lads changed so much in the five years between those records. They grew up, their skills developed, and the technology available to them evolved. So, I prefer to see each record as its own entity and maybe that's why I enjoy an early song such as I'm Down or Eight Days A Week just as much as Happiness Is A Warm Gun or While My Guitar Gently Weeps. When I look at my list, the vast majority receive a good grade and only a few songs are scored very low (ahem.... Revolution 9...) because those four cheeky lads simply produced an incredibly strong musical catalogue the likes of which we'll never see again.

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Thank you, Chantal. This was a rewarding read for all of us.
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Do you have a favorite Beatles album? Feel free to leave a comment, and tell us why.

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

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The Abbey Road photo was made by Lloyd Durham Photography.
The photo of Chantal and her mother was taken by Michael Lahmann.

Did a Post-Modernist Philosopher Write Songs for the Beatles?

"People who are sentimental about the Beatles will find it hard to believe that they were pumped up and used by the Illuminati to introduce soft drugs among middle class American youth. They were also a vehicle for the introduction of mind control 'trigger words' into everyday jargon."
--Preface to The Beatles and the Aquarian Conspiracy

I've previously shared how I came across a book (probably produced by John Birchers) that proposed that the Beatles were puppets for Communism, in the service of the Kremlin. The argument was put forth that considering how primitive their early recordings were, their later sophistication could only have been achieved with the aid of masterminds behind the Iron Curtain.

This past week a friend shared with me a variation of this theory. The Beatles did not write their own songs. Rather the Beatles were manufactured by a secret Jesuit corporation known as the Tavistock Institute. Their aim: the degeneration of our generation.

The actual author of the Beatles' songs, according to the conspiracy theorists, was a philosopher named Theo Adorno.

Adorno was familiar to me, a post-modern European philosopher born in 1903 who died before 1970. In many respects he was a very interesting guy. Here's a brief (probably too lengthy) excerpt from his Wikipedia bio that touches on his ideas and background.

Amidst the vogue enjoyed by existentialism and positivism in early 20th century Europe, Adorno advanced a dialectical conception of natural history that critiqued the twin temptations of ontology and empiricism through studies of Kierkegaard and Husserl. As a classically trained pianist whose sympathies with the twelve-tone technique of Arnold Schoenberg resulted in his studying composition with Alban Berg of the Second Viennese School, Adorno's commitment to avant-garde music formed the backdrop of his subsequent writings and led to his collaboration with Thomas Mann on the latter's novel Doctor Faustus, while the two men lived in California as exiles during the Second World War. Working for the newly relocated Institute for Social Research, Adorno collaborated on influential studies of authoritarianism, anti-semitism and propaganda that would later serve as models for sociological studies the Institute carried out in post-war Germany. Upon his return to Frankfurt, Adorno was influential to the reconstitution of German intellectual life through debates with Karl Popper on the limitations of positivist science, critiques of Heidegger's jargon of authenticity, writings on German responsibility for the Holocaust, and continued interventions into matters of public policy. As a writer of polemics in the tradition of Nietzsche and Karl Kraus, Adorno delivered scathing critiques of contemporary Western culture. Adorno's posthumously published Aesthetic Theory, which he planned on dedicating to Samuel Beckett, is the culmination of a lifelong commitment to modern art which attempts to revoke the "fatal separation" of feeling and understanding long demanded by the history of philosophy and explode the privilege aesthetics accords to content over form and contemplation over immersion.

His chief work centered on the theory of Positivism, which is essentially an a priori rejection of Divine Revelation.

The source of this theory that Adorno wrote the songs that made the Beatles famous is a man named John Coleman who claims to have been a secret agent in British Intelligence.

Of course, this kind of proposed theory may simply be a device -- like a fishing lure -- to attract readers to a blog like this one which appears to be a catch-all conglomeration of conspiracy theories ad infinitum.

What's curious to me is that these conspiracy proponents make the Beatles, Stones and Grateful Dead out to be the puppet influencers of Western culture. One argument to support the idea is how the boys from Liverpool were from workingclass families and there's no way they could have that much talent.

As if the only way to write hit songs is to be a Ph.D.?

My primary argument against the notion of Adorno writing their songs would be to then ask who wrote all the articles in the magazines like Rolling Stone and Creem that hid Adorno's tracks? I recently finished reading The Letters of John Lennon and one would be hard pressed to find any suggestion of a cranky philosopher helping him write songs that made him famous. When he explains the story behind Sexy Sadie it sure sounds believable to me.

One final thought, while we're here: who wrote Bob Dylan's songs? Hard Rain, It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleedin'), Visions of Johanna.... He was just a kid, a college dropout after one semester. The answer is quite transparent: it was the a secret society of former CIA agents known as The Wind. (Hence, Donovan's secret code message to youth: Catch The Wind.) They were the only ones capable of creating such influential material so that Hollywood keeps including his songs in all their movies and all these hundreds of other musicians do cover versions.

Meantime, life goes on all around you.

EdNote: Beatles photo borrowed without permission. Original painting by ennyman.

Flat-Footed Flatheads

Part of my evening reading the past few weeks has included Ron Brotherton's Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories. So I found the following email from a friend more than a little intriguing.

We live in an interesting period of human history. One of the ruling philosophies of the Boomer generation has been "Question Authority." And because of our knowledge of history, of propaganda and the media (cf. Edward Bernays and Marshall McLuhan) we're not without foundation to take this stance, up to a point. It's the age of suspicion.

Being suspicious is one thing, but when we distrust everything it can put people into some pretty precarious places. Advances in modern medicine have eliminated many of the diseases that ravaged communities in olden days. In earlier times there were reasons families were large. Many of those children were never going to reach adulthood. But now, with conspiracy theories surrounding the very vaccinations that have made us safe from polio, small pox and other deadly diseases we're seeing a rise in some of these diseases that had been nearly eradicated.

Brotherton doesn't mock and dismiss people who believe conspiracy theories. His book's aim is not to catalog all those rabbit holes. Rather, he attempts to present new research on how the brain works and why we tend to be so susceptible.

This past week I once again watched Woody Allen's Zelig, a fictional documentary about a "chameleon man" who becomes like whoever he is around. It's a clever psychological study about our efforts to fit in. While serving as a masterful piece of entertainment it simultaneously affirmed one of the basic reasons the masses are susceptible to many of the most absurd assertions.

Here's a portion of yesterday's  email, which the writer titled, Flat-Footed Flatheads.

There's this growing phenomenon occurring on YouTube promoting a flat earth theory. They believe the Earth is a flat disk with a dome over the top they call the "firmament" that is described in Genesis of the Bible... separating the waters above from the waters below. On this dome the universe is projected to us including the sun and all the stars. Another claim about Antarctica is it's a wall of ice that goes around the entire edge of the disk. Underneath are the usual layers of earth, crust, mantle, core, etc. They also claim that the UN logo is an actual map of flat Earth.

As creative as it sounds, it's laughable how serious the followers are. I'm not going to explain why the earth is a sphere. Anyone with a couple of thumbs can Google it. What I am going to discuss is the nature of conspiracy theories and the people who follow them. I can be charged as guilty for being amongst this crowd for a sizable portion of my 37 years. The reason I fell into this stuff was I felt hopelessly disenfranchised as a disabled person. There was a theory and explanation for every injustice and corruption present in the world. It's almost a religious experience, the level of catharsis these theories bring to a lonely tortured person. So I get it. I understand why people fall into this tomfoolery.

This is where I have to turn my back on these people. There's definitely something bizarre going on in a possibly sinister way. 

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Some of my friend's observations here and Brotherton's assessment of conspiracy followers dovetails with Eric Hoffer's invetigative analysis and conclusions regarding people swept up in mass movements. His book The True Believer is a classic. Here are a few quotes.

"When our individual interests an prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to live for." p. 24

"When people are ripe for mass movement, they are usually ripe for any effective movement, and not solely one with a particular doctrine or program." p. 25

"A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from the anxieties, barrenness and meaninglessness of an individual existence." p. 44

"The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning, but from its certitude." p. 76

This should be enough to chew on for today. Let's see what happens next.