Saintly Stories

McCartney Show
2001-10-21 - 12:59 a.m.

Watched the Paul McCartney MSG show tonight.

Random Thoughts:

I like watching how the stars interact when pressed into service with each other.

At the end of the show, I saw Billy Crystal push up into Pete Townsend and declare his admiration, I read his lips and body language, and they said it all. 'Always been a big admirer. You've always been a major influence for me'

Townsend flat out fucking ignored him. He stood off, with his customary glassy look, effeminate body language, but no eye contact. He slowly shuffled away in the sort of dance people do when one violates personal space and the other resents it and attempts to restore the space. He couldn't have given one care less than he did whether or not it was Billy Crystal next to him or not, declaring his admiration. To him it might have been a cute jewish man, but how many actors and comics has this guy seen come and go in his time? He's an icon, Billy makes bad movies, and a lot of them at that.

Pete was all about Paul. Probably always has been. He jabbered something at Paul, and someone thrust a microphone into his hands. -This part may have been planned, but I don't think Peter said what he was supposed to, if it was planned-

Paul turned to him, their rapport was evident. You can tell when McCartney either has no real respect, relationship or rapport with someone who is on stage with him. Paul becomes loud and weird. Weirder than normal.

McCartney saw Townsend fumbling with his mic, and went over casually, (one of the coolest guys I've ever seen in situations where millions of people are watching), he seemed to have experience with this sort of treatment of Townsend, not in the sense of covering for a mistake, but in the sense of befriending the quiet guy in a room at a party, your party, really. That quiet stoner who never really spoke up, but did have something to say. Because he's not that assertive, he doesn't get heard a lot, but Paul, being a considerate british lad to another, likely always took the time, especially in the seventies when they were getting insanely high together in a roomful of people, "What's that Peter? (Townsend repeats his interjection to Paul) Well, I never thought of it like that, hey gang Peter thinks..."

And how cool is Paul McCartney. You hear of so many musicians getting robbed blind by their label and exploited. Cast away like used tissue. And McCartney is worth a cool billion.

A billion fucking dollars. He was a part of the game, but he transcended it in fine style. With a billion dollars, things become about actualized visions with an instant gratificatioin feel. I imagine he waltzed in to his boardroom somewhere, and simply said, "I want to do a big benefit concert at MSG for the WTC disaster releif effort as soon as possible, and I want all the biggest stars, and I want it done now, gentlemen. Thanks, I'm off for a spot of tea with my uber-hot girlfriend and kinks you guys could never dream of in your wildest tawdriest wet dreams. Being the biggest act in the world during the sixties era of free love was great, wasn't it? Tah."

Bon Jovi stayed in his 'cool guy' character, which is so stiff and wooden you rub it against 'Lurch' from the adams family and start a four alarm fire. He couldn't bring himself to put his arm around Cheryl Crow while they were singing 'Let It Be' (which was a cool moment). True, I can only guess at Cheryl's reputation, really my only clues being that she's evidentally hard drinking and only writes new tunes after she's been fucking someone with talent for awhile (I think her best stuff was when she was fucking Clapton, who was on the show, as well...), so I can understand the reticience, I guess, but maybe I'm too much of a sentimentalist to think a shared cathartic moment also has an underlying thread of some sort of redemption for all involved, even if its just for that moment. But Its true, his interaction with all the muscians and actors on the stage, except for Sambora, were like he was in some sort of bubble, bouncing around left and to his right, not really with anyone, just there, pointing and mugging, almost like a tuned down version of Martin and Acroyd's 'Wild and Crazy Guys' or almost, except not as feverishly inept as 'the Roxbury Twins'. The guy is as fake as the chic with the hot tits you've been lusting after in every month of 'Playboy'.

I liked watching the musical interaction between Paul and Eric Clapton, with Paul egging him on for more solos. Knowing what that's like being on stage myself, and having someone call for 'one more' is always an interesting feeling. And having it come from one icon of the sixties to another of the seventies, was interesting as well. Clapton threw a slant grin. Kinda' like what I do. And he tore into it. He struggled a little with the encore, McCartneys song "freedom", likely because he'd never heard the fucker before, been there, too, and its refreshing to me to know that nobody's perfect.

Much like when Melissa Ethridge's twelve went out of tune, twelve's are notorious bitches for that, and they went and got her guitar. She only stopped playing for an instant, even demonstrated which string was out of tune to the roadie or stage manager, which was cool, are resumed her song after the start, only a little off of the original rhythm. (rythm? What the fuck, can't spell. Always have trouble with that word. I can spell, say triskadecaphobia, for instance, but not that. Fucking hell.)

I totally loved the guy who came up and said, 'Osama Bin Laden, you can kiss my white, royal irish ass! This is my face, I live in Rockway(?), bitch.' That was about the coolest thing ever.

How long until he gets meat disease in the mail?About a second after, I thought this, thinking in a few months or so, I'll read it in the back of the paper somewhere, maybe on page two or something if its a slow newsday, where he contracted it. 'Police man so-and-so, became the latest casualty, blah blah, blah, Mr. so-an-so main moment of noteriety came in late october, on Paul McCartney's benefit concert, when he told Osama Bin Laden to "kiss my white, royal irish ass" and "this is my face, I live in Rockway, bitch" blah blah blah, litigation is rumored to be forthcoming as the family seeks to recoup its loss of life insurance benefit from McCartney due to providing an opportunity for him to taunt terrorists, tempt fate, and violate the 'dumb-ass' clause in his life insurance plan.

I liked the way McCartney threw his guitar to a roadie, pretty much across the stage. The body of the guitar and the roadie were parallel, and he just chucked it by the base of the neck. That would be a billionare, and a guy who's professionally swapped instruments for most of his adult life.

Richard Gere sounds like a half-bright shallow twit who only gets deeper concepts half right half the time. He tried to passive aggressive the audience a little bit, and they rightly resented him for it. So did I. Stick to gerbils, buddy. They won't complain about your seeming lack of a personality as much as we will when you try to dive behind concepts you don't fully comprehend. Stick with the Bhuddist thing you don't really get, either.

Jim Carrey still makes me laugh. The cops behind him blew his cool, when I wanted to see what he would do to work the crowd. Then after his introductions, he turned and told them 'now get the hell out of here'...man... I just about died. Thing is, he probably wasn't trying to be funny.

Everybody still loves Bill Clinton. Well, mostly, anyway. Some of the audience withheld their applause, a distinct minority, the same people who voted for Bush.