Hair Yesterday and Today

If you still have any doubts, take a close
look at the cover photograph of their first
major album -- MEET THE BEATLES. This is
the one that started Beatlemania.

They had an earlier album on VeeJay Records,
but it was this first Capitol Records album
that launched their career.

Take a look at their hair.

Notice how short it is compared to what you've
seen in pictures of hippies. It is just long
enough in front to comb over their foreheads
as bangs. It's sort of shaggy in the back and
on the sides, though not by much.

Unless you remember, you may find it hard to
believe that this was the hair that changed
men's hair to this decade. If you've got a
mohawk or your hair is green or longer than
a crewcut or styled in any way . . . you're
following a trend that The Beatles began
either directly or by veering off in a new
direction -- to be somehow new and
shocking and different.

That hair created a world-wide controversy
that eclipsed the issue of their music.

"They look like girls." was what everybody
over 21 said.

Yes, by the time they played Ed Sullivan
their hair was longer overall than on that
album cover, giving rise to the "mop top"
label. But today it would pass as conservative.

But in those days most guys had either crew
cuts (and they weren't waved or permed or
decorated in any way. That would have seemed
extremely homosexual (("Gay" had not yet
been assigned as the acceptable slang for
male homosexual)) -- to put it in polite
terms. Most people would not have used the
polite terminology.)

Or guys had hair long enough in front to
comb to one side.

That was it.

The hair on the back of your head was NOT
supposed to touch your neck. And the hair on
the sides was NOT supposed to touch your
ears. That standard was enforced at my
junior high and high schools until at least
1970.

Look at junior and senior high yearbooks from
1964 through 1970 or so. You'll see that most
guys have long hair in front combed over their
foreheads as bangs. But their hair is short
on the sides.

That's why. We were allowed to grow the front
long enough to be bangs, but had to keep the
sides off our ears. If I had a dollar for
every time in the 1960s use his fingers and
a flip of his head to brush his hair out of
his eyes, I'd be a multimillionaire today.

Long hair became socially acceptable among
young people at the exact same rate that
The Beatles's hair follicles kept growing
their hair.

The longer their hair grew, the more tolerant
we became of it.

And the less certain we became that long
hair equalled homosexuality. I don't recall
ever doubting their heterosexuality.

There was the strong evidence of their music --
not that gays can't make sexy music -- but
the way they sang to FEMALE lovers was
undoubtedly genuine. They obviously knew how
much girls could twist up a guy's feelings -- to
make them feel good and break their hearts.

They had public wives and girlfriends.

Also, there was the screaming. I don't recall
thinking about this consciously, until stories
of rock groupies began coming out years later, but
I'm sure I knew instinctively that when four
guys can make every girl from 8 to 28 scream
nonstop at a concert, some of those girls
would be willing to do anything else those
4 guys wanted them to. And there were
millions of such girls around the world.

(Don't get me started on gay rock stars who
write songs romanticizing woman sex symbols --
stressing they're something "more than physical"
since they don't respond to women physically --
when said sex symbol (undoubtedly a nice person
and underrated comedic actress) would never
have become a star at all without said super-sex
appeal to heterosexual men.) Stick to singing
about your love for Daniel. I don't identify
but I respect the sincerity.

(Also, don't even get me started on comparing
women who had nothing in common besides being
blonde, beautiful, famous and dying too
young.)

Antiques Travel

What Brian Epstein had managed the 1967 Beatles?

I just remembered something I thought about
that is another angle that may help you
younguns and olduns who've forgotten what
the pre-Beatles era was like to understand
what I'm saying.

Let's say you're a disk jockey or someone
else working for a major radio station in
London England in 1963, and you're approached
by a young agent named Brian Epstein.

Brian is excited to tell you that he's just
signed up the hottest band in England.
Not only that, he tells you, they're
going to go down as the greatest band in
rock HISTORY!

He assures you that hundreds of millions of
teenagers and preteens are hungry for their
music. They're going to go ape for The Beatles,
he tells you. Every girl from 8 to 18 will
not be able to contain her excitement --
they will all spend every second of a
Beatles concert -- SCREAMING.

The world tours will break all records. Their
singles and albums will dominate the charts.
They will put the music industry into a
growth phase that will last over 40 years.
They will inspire a host of imitators and
truly creative musicians.

Their hair will change the way men around
the world grow their hair for over 40 years.
Their interest in Indian music will turn
an unknown sitar player into a pop star.

(What the hell's a sitar? you think.)

Their interest in Indian meditation will
introduce an entire generation to mysticism
and in the guise of being a New Age that will
continue to be big business for over 40 years.

They'll be so loved by teenagers in the Soviet
bloc that they'll be an influence leading to
the downfall of communism.

By this time, you're rolling your eyes, but
this Brian Epstein is certainly enthusiastic
about his new group, so you tell him,
"Enough already, let me hear one of their
songs."

"Sure. By the way, all the songs they record
are so great, both sides of their records
are A sides. Radio stations will play both
songs."

Yeah, right, you think as a disk jockey.
Wouldn't it be confusing not to know which
side of a record is the A side? Probably
means they're both crap.

But Brian Epstein pulls out a .45, puts in on
the turntable, drops the needle onto it and
out comes . . .

"Strawberry Fields."

What would you have done back then in -- remember--
1963?

Probably called security to throw the bum out.

Would kind of idiot would think teenagers
wanted to listen to a bunch of weird sounds
and words. "Nothing is real" ? -- give me a
break.

"But Lennon-McCartney are going to go down in
music history as one of the greatest songwriting
teams of the century," Epstein insists.

Where was the love? The broken heart? The
buried sex appeal? How could they dance to
it?

"Wait!" Brian Epstein pleads as he pulls out
a PR still.

You look at the photograph of The Beatles,
amazed at how weird they look.

Beards and mustaches. Hair down to the middle
of their backs. Wild, colorful clothes too
fancy even for a mod like you.

This just convinces you even more that this
Brian Epstein is a maniac. He had "Beatle"
mania all right -- of a possibly dangerous,
psychotic kind.

Only a deranged person would think that 4
guys with beards and hair longer that many
women could be teenage idols.

"OK, if you don't like that, I'll just flip
it over." Epstein starts playing "Penny
Lane."

It's as weird to you as the other one.

You start backing away, wondering how long
it will take the security guards to arrive.
And that Brian Epstein had seemed like a
cool guy at first.

He pulls out another photograph, a vast
collage of The Beatles in bright band
uniforms surrounded by cut out pictures of
celebrities and fruit.

"Here's the jacket for their first album."
Epstein tries to shove it into your face
as you keep backing away.

"It's uses the fictional frame of an old
band called Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts
and they plan to have the London Philharmonic
Orchestra play backwards at the end. It'll
revolutionize music."

Finally security arrives and escorts Mr.
Epstein out to the street. You leave orders
that he's never to be allowed into the
station again.

Whew, that was a close one. Lots of crazies
out there.

That's how much music and the world and
us teenagers changed between 1963 when The
Beatles started recording and
1967 when Sgt Pepper was released to
vast popular and critical acclaim and
revolutionized music.

There's no way that 1963 or 1964 could have
handled The Beatles of 1967 -- their music
or their appearance.

Anthropology Travel

Historic timing

So I want to try to make clear my original
point regarding the pivotal importance of
The Beatles.

Part of it was the extremely high quality
and appeal of their music. Yet it's true
that other groups have produced and
will produce great music.

Part of it was their incredible ability to
be so much in touch with their times.

It was all that, but more -- it was their
timing. No other group will ever duplicate
what they did -- because they've already
done it.

If the young John, Paul, George and Ringo
were to get together today they might still
make great music, but they couldn't achieve
the historic importance they held by doing
what they did in 1964.

In 1964 the music industry and especially
the "teenage" (rock and roll) part of it was
still small and basically unified yet in
the doldrums.

Whether because the first "Day the Music
Died" (the plane crash in February 1958)
killed the remaining great rock and rollers,
there was a conspiracy to repress rock and
roll or whatever the reason -- by the
early mid-60s it just wasn't the same,
although it had some bright spots.

Those 4 lads from Liverpool seemed to come
out of nowhere. Until that first broadcast
on Ed Sullivan, nobody knew that the
spirit of real rock and roll was
being kept alive and well in England.

They brought it back to us, just long enough
after President Kennedy was assassinated that
we appreciated feeling good again and could
without feeling guilty.

They paved the way for a burst of new talent --
first from the unexpectedly large pool of
English bands that became known as the
British Invasion. Then for the best of
the British Invasion and a new wave of
American talent that was unexpectedly
waiting in the wings and may never have
gotten so successful so fast -- or at all --
without the success of The Beatles.

They were not the whole story, but they
were the point of the wedge -- they
brought a fresh way of looking at the
world that was just what a huge mass of
baby boomers were waiting for.

Youth, good humor, sarcastic humor,
sexuality, a willingness to question and
shake up the powers that be. Yes, they
paved the way for the revolution that was
the 60s.

Great Highway travel book