Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood caught my eye recently. She's directed a film called Nowhere Boy which chronicles the beginnings of John Lennon. 

It premiered at Cannes in May 2009 and it will close the London Film Festival the 29th of October, I believe. No word on when it will show in the States, but when it does, I am SO there. Here's the trailer.



It really looks interesting. It was based on Julia Baird's (John Lennon's half-sister) memoirs or something and I've heard that Paul McCartney has seen it and said that it didn't really happen exactly like that. Although, he seems to say that about everything... And Julia Baird, she didn't really grow up with John and so she wouldn't have known some of this stuff. Regardless, it looks like something I must see. And it looks visually enticing. Truth be told, it also doesn't bother me that Lennon's eyes weren't blue or that McCartney was a bit chubbier than portrayed - things that seem to be bothering Beatle-buffs. It looks to be a more artistic film to the likes of Control anyway, ya know?

It stars:

Aaron Johnson as John Lennon

Thomas Sangster as Paul McCartney

Kristin Scott Thomas as Mimi Smith

and Anne-Marie Duff as Julia Lennon

So YAY!!! On that.

Who knows why I do what it is that I do, but I began obsessively trying to learn more about Sam Taylor-Wood, Director of this film. I found out that she's kind of awesome. I also found out, according to this article in the Telegraph.co.uk, she's also a cancer survivor. Dude, I hate cancer!

Sam is an artist, a conceptual one and she reminds me a lot of Yoko Ono. And she sings! ... That's really true. She's all BFFy with the Pet Shop Boys and sings on "Je t'aime... moi non plus" and "Love To Love You Baby". She also directed that Elton John video with Robert Downey Jr. lip syncing, you know the one.

Here's one of her photos. It's called Bram Stoker's Chair II. Check out more of her work at the White Cube website here and I've also linked to it below.

Sam Taylor-Wood also has some films happening on the YouTubes.

This one is called Breach.



And this is David Beckham Sleeping. (Read the BBC article on it here. Way interesting.)



Oh, you want to see some Pet Shop Boys and singing?.. Okay.



I think I totally want to be her.

Links for you. You're welcome. I accept tips.

Wiki article
White Cube

YOU'RE LUCKY IT'S TUESDAY! (Stupid, bloody Tuesday...)

So there's a movement rollin' down the horizon called Don't Be A Jerk Tuesday. Much like McCartney's Meat-Free Monday, but it's on Tuesday and not really about meat, but more about not bein' a buttface.

The idea is that if for just one day a week everyone on the planet had to play nice or stay home, we may just achieve the ever elusive World Peace! Totally think it could work, too. If for no other reason, wouldn't it be nice to have one day that you could just chillax 'cause you knew people weren't likely to crap all over your day?!

Now I sound like a friggin' hippie. Whatevs. I like it.

"Peace and Love. Peace and Love" - Ringo Starr.

So, if you have the facebooks and you would like to be on the ground floor of this awesomeness, fan it. Love it. Live it. Don't Be A Jerk Tuesday facebook page. Soon there will be shirts available on Cafe Press maybe and they will say funny things like "You're friggin' lucky it's Tuesday" or something equally as side-splitting and other things and proceeds will go to charities that are non-jerk - i.e. battered women's shelters and child-abuse prevention, the ASPCA, things of this nature.




Oh, and speaking of peace and John Lennon and all that, the Imagine Peace Tower is up and going from October 9 through December 8. Read about it here.

Here's a live view of the tower in Iceland and go check out Yoko Ono's www.IMAGINEPEACE.com

And please take a second, or 5 minutes 15 seconds to watch this. It's called "I Met The Walrus" and it's really cool. And remember.





Be nice. It's Tuesday.

"Their manager's name is Mr. Brian Epstein"

Brian Epstein was a beautiful, troubled man, and today, August 27, marks the 42nd anniversary of his death.

He made The Bealtes and they made him and the world would likely be much less wonderful if, as legend has it, a teenager didn't come into his furniture store with a small music department in the corner and ask for a "My Bonnie" record by The Beatles (actually Tony Sheridan and backed by The Beatles).

And here's what I think is so awesome about Brian Epstein. He was a genius. An absolute marketing genius. It starts out that his family owns this furniture store. He gets put in charge, flips all the furniture so the backs are to the window and turns the failing store into booming business. He gets put in charge of the music section. It was like three racks in the back corner. He turns it into NEMS (North End Music Store).

So this kid, says Legend, rolls on into this NEMS, asks for this record by this German band called Beatles (we know now that they weren't German) and Brian orders the record, finds out that this band is playing a club called The Cavern during the lunch hour. He figures he must hear this band so, The Cavern being just down the street, Brian strolls on in with his high powered suit to this sweaty, stinking hole. He sees this sweaty, stinky band, clad in leather and charisma and he falls madly in love.

"I was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humour on stage — and, even afterwards, when I met them, I was struck again by their personal charm. And it was there that, really, it all started" -Brian Epstein

He took The Beatles from this:

To this in the matter of a year. Impressive.

Now, to think that Brian Epstein had anything to do with The Bealtes' talent would be wrong. Brian made them marketable. He put them in suits and ties. He had them stop swearing, drinking and smoking on stage. He packaged them. He sold them.

Brian was gay. Brian was theatrical. He brought this to The Beatle image. And whether you want to believe it or not, even on the most sub-conscious level, girls love boys who may love boys. And so do boys. It's win win. But nobody loved "the boys" like Brian did.

Managing The Greatest Band in all of Music History opened the way for Brian to manage a few other bands, none to the heights of mania like his first catch (though no one else has yet to do so either, so you can't hold it against the guy).

His other bands included:

Gerry and the Pacemakers

Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas

The Fourmost

The Cyrkle

(alright, one more The Cyrkle, for Amy <3)

and Cilla Black

To name a few.

Thanks Christine! 

Brian's heart was with The Beatles, though and he worked tirelessly to jump start what we now know as "Beatlemania". Sure, Brian made a couple of mistakes (like, for one, taking 10 cents to the dollar for Beatle merchandise, costing The Beatles millions in revenue. Oops), but he meant well. But when The Beatles decided to stop touring in '66, he felt they didn't need him anymore, and was devastated. Heartbroken. Finished. With that self-imposed feeling of failure, and of being homosexual in a very... illegal time (though it did become legal in Britain, sort of, in '67), Brian fish-tailed out of control.

Sgt. Pepper was released in June of '67. A promotional party was held at Brian's house in May.

Where, incidentally, Paul met Linda who was there as a photographer

Then the Beatles did the All You Need Is Love bit in June.

And went to see the Maharishi in Bangor, Wales in August. And then found out that Brian had died.

And then The Beatles just couldn't get it back together.

Yoko Ono and Linda Eastman (later McCartney) both are remembered and blamed for their roles in "The Break-up of The Beatles!", but August 27, 1967, the day the Brian Epstein was found dead in his bed of an apparent over-dose was the needle that burst the Beatle bubble. Yoko and Linda just crawled in through the cracks.

Brian Epstein. Quite possibly one of the most important cogs in the Rock N Roll History wheel, and he did it all before the age of 32. Look it up if you don't believe me.

Beautiful Boy - Man. And hot. Did I mention hot?

Sean Lennon. *Sigh*

Yes. At first I bought a Sean Lennon album only because of who his parents are. I admit that. But something happened that I wasn't expecting. I enjoyed it.

Being a Beatle fan, it's impossible to not know who Sean Taro Ono Lennon is, who his mother is; "She who broke up the Beatles!" As a Beatle fan or a John Lennon fan, the image of Sean goes something like this.

In the 90s sometime, he reemerged from pop-culture trivia (to my knowledge anyway) looking a little...um...,

“When I was 15, a cabdriver asked me if I was Paul McCartney’s daughter.” -Sean Lennon.

I've read that that is what made him decide to cut his hair. Thank god! Because OMG. So after seeing him looking like the male version of Saffron from AbFab about 15 years ago, I didn't expect to be so overcome by how impossibly COOL he's become.

I guess that must be what happens to you when you come from a Beatle and a conceptual artist. And you grow up in Central Park. And someone calls you Paul McCartney's daughter.

His last album was "Friendly Fire." Buy it. It is amazing and still finds daily play on my ipod.

The coolest part about this album, the genius part is that he did a short film to go along with the album. Like videos, but they tell the story of the album as a whole. Here's a little snippy snips.

After obsessing over Friendly Fire, I saw Sean Lennon in concert. He blew my mind. So I came home and wrote this.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Sean Lennon makes me swoon... Tonight I came to a realization. I am that fan. I am her. I am the one I always laughed at when I'd watch A Hard Day's Night with my friends. You know the one. The one that would grab her ears and scream until she passed out. This one. I always thought that I MIGHT be that girl. But it had never happened exactly like that. I have seen weezer more times than I can count, I met Rivers Cuomo a couple of those times. And I'm in love with Rivers Cuomo. It was awesome. But I never once got dizzy, blacked-out and tried to hold back that feeling of vomit. I didn't think it existed. At least not on Earth. Perhaps, though, Disneyland no longer counts as Earth... Even though it is its happiest place. For me anyway. After tonight. April 27th, 2007 will be the day that I became her. I became the fan. Sean Lennon played the House of Blues in Anaheim. Downtown Disney. There was an opening band called Women and Children". They were alright, but for their last song, they brought out a "friend" and as Sean Lennon stepped out and tossed a guitar onto his shoulder, it happened. I tried shifting my weight because I thought that I was locking my knees or something. I kept trying to swallow the mass amounts of saliva that were now pooling under my tongue. I was very uncomfortable. And I could not take my eyes from him. I was mesmorized. And all I could think of was that little boy craddled by JOHN LENNON that I'd seen in pictures a million times. A million times I'd seen these pictures and believed they didn't exist. They weren't real. There was no way that any of it could be real. But it is real. And he looks like him. Just like him. And I became that girl. I regained composure between acts, and I could see him as I had before, as a hot guy who played awesome music, but for that one moment..... This and this became this and this which lead to this

So he's in this new band with an impossibly beautiful, and dumb girl, girlfriend, whatevs. And they're hot together and they make real good music and it just makes me, it makes me hate her and love her all at once. Anyway. They are called Ghost of a Saber Toothed Tiger

I think they are making an album right now. That will definitely be mine. So in the mean time, you can stalk him here on YouTube and at seanonolennon.com - which is a super rad site, by the way, and you can see some really great photos by older (half)bro, Julian.

Oh, also enjoy this little viddy that I cannot stop watching.

"The world isn't big enough for John Lennon" - Stu Sutcliffe, 'Backbeat'

I just finished watching 'Backbeat'. I must have subconsciously figured it might be a good idea to watch a movie about brain aneurysm while nursing my own, though hopefully not as serious head pain. If you haven't seen it, HIGHLY recommended, even if not a Beatle fan.

'Backbeat' is, yes, technically a movie about The Beatles. But the leather-clad, not yet famous, not even yet mop-top, tearing up Hamburg, Germany with prostitutes Beatles. And yet, it's not really even about that. It's more about the relationship complexities of John Lennon, Stuart Sutcliffe, Astrid Kirschher, art and Rock 'N Roll. If you want to read up more on it, here's the imdb bits.

There was a line in the movie, Stuart (Stephen Dorff) says to Astrid (Sheryl Lee) something like "The world isn't big enough for John Lennon"which, is probably a true statement, as seen from "the world". However, it got me thinking that John Lennon as seen in 'Backbeat' and the John Lennon portrayed by just about everyone who knew him seems a very fragile child, almost always the second fiddle to someone else- completely opposite of the above quote.

John Lennon played sidekick to his mother, Julia.

John Lennon played sidekick to Stuart Sutcliffe.

John Lennon played sidekick to Paul McCartney.

and finally, John Lennon played sidekick to Yoko Ono.

And that is how I believe he viewed himself. A sidekick.

Yet, to the world, he might just be...

"More popular than Jesus."