Why George didn't curr for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"

The only Beatle who didn't put down "Pepper" in later years was Paul.

Ringo said it wasn’t his favorite album because of the hours, hours, hours waiting for the guys to get their ideas together. He said he learned to play chess during the Pepper sessions.

John was quoted as saying "Sgt. Pepper was Paul's baby,” and that a lot of his songs on the albums were "throwaways."

George said he, too, got tired of the new studio approach where basic tracks would be recorded, followed by niggly-wiggly parts being added.

But as it turns out, even George's niggly-wigglys fell short.

Last night I came across this isolated lead guitar on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” on YouTube.com:

I listened with natural fascination…then heard something. A little trembling vibrato at 0:07. “Hey,” I says to the self. “That sounds like Paul playing, not George.”

Paul plays lead guitar on "Taxman", "Good Morning, Good Morning", "Another Girl", "Ticket To Ride", "Drive My Car" and many other Beatles tracks the public assumes George played on. You can tell it's Paul by his nervous right middle finger.

I did my research and sure enough, yeah, that's Macca at the top of "Pepper".

No wonder George didn't tout up the album, then or afterwards. The most famous album of all time, millions and millions of records sold, universal accolades. Wherever George went, it was "Love your work, man!"

It probably bugged him no end, despite the fame, wealth and all the trappings of sparkling success. Similar to an executive being held back in a job simply because he’s always had that job and the boys above aren’t really willing to let the guy advance, Georgie had to leave the Fabs to really blossom as a songwriter and slide guitarist.

Yet George's tracks are some of my favorites, especially the early material. I'll always listen to "Don't Bother Me", "I Need You", "You Like Me Too Much" and "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You", and may skip over "Til There Was You", "Dizzy Miss Lizzy", "I'm Down" and "Mr. Moonlight".


George's true talent in the Beatles was his presence, his intelligence, his similarity in height and appearance to John and Paul---and his singular, guttural, deeply accented and instantly recognizable singing voice. Next came the songs he wrote and finally, his actual guitar playing.

So thurr.

James Gandolfini gets married to Al Hoffman's "The Hawaiian Wedding Song"

Elvis recorded it; so did Andy Williams. Click this line for Yahoo.com coverage of wedding

Actually, Al and his 1950's partner Dick Manning did not entirely write it; "The Hawaiian Wedding Song" was written in 1926 by Charles King for his operetta, "Prince of Hawaii."


Al and Dick gave it new lyrics, something they had also done to their hit "There's No Tomorrow", translated from "O Solo Mio", the results of which ended up a hit for Tony Martin.

Click here to see why the above should mean sumpin' to ya

In the vegan world, sometimes the vegetables bite back

I bought one of these, figuring I'd jazz up dinner.

Hot Yellow Scotch Bonnet peppers

Cut up some veggies for quick meal---broc, squash, mush, onion, a veggie burger. Included the above pepper. Didn't think nuttin' of it.

While waiting for the water to boil, to steam it all along with rice, I went onto other things.

I touched my right eye, casually.

It happened instantly.

Oh. Oh. Oh! OH! Like I'd been sprayed with mace. Splashed water from the bathroom sink into it. It got worse. I staggered around the apartment in agonizing, burning pain. The pain spread to my left eye. Now I was blind.

Filled the bathroom sink with cold water. Waited, waited, waited, then---

PLUNGE

Steam billowed. I held the snoot underwater, eyes open, looking left to right.

It worked.

"I can see! I can see!"

I threw the pepper in the garbage, violent little @#$@#$ that it was.

Go sear the earthworms!

The Phelps effect

I'm as passionate about pro sports as I am about waterbugs, furballs and chicken bones. If every sports team in America disbanded, it would take me a few weeks to notice.

But say "Phelps!" and I step a little faster, go the extra mile, do what it takes.

Phelps helps, and I'll tell you how.

I swim several times a week at Lasker Pool in Central Park.

It's an enormous blue heaven and is often near-empty for the "adult lap swim" I do early in the morning or at 8 PM. All worries are jettisoned to some unseen hell when you dive into the cool blue drink, cooler still after a rainstorm.

The pool is in Harlem and I like Harlem, its architecture, its cleanliness, its turnaround from its 80s nadir of violence and hopelessness.

It's not always easy to go to the pool. The park pool people, a staff of about 8 at any given time, are frequently as nasty, uncaring, dull, humorless and obsessed with their little slices of power over the public as anyone you may meet at a government agency in New York City.

It's a Phelps-like challenge not to answer back when one particularly unpleasant mustachioed attendant adopts a cop-like attitude when questioning you or someone else about some petty subject, like coming through the open gate when it's available instead of walking up two flights of stairs to another entrance far out of the way.

"$250 fine for coming through that gate," he says.

"Ok, Groucho," I respond.

Another swimmer has a folding bike with him, and asks if he can lock it up within the gate.

"No," says Javert. "If you did that, I'd throw it in the pool."

We do not want to be asked to leave and barred from coming back, so we swallow the urge to push this man in the pool.

There are also those who are mellow, sweet, easygoing, nice to see and chat with. If I forget my card, they let me in anyway. I think they can see I won't steal any water. And everyone says hello and goodbye, which I like.

The pool is also currently surrounded by raccoons, who emerge at dusk and pick through the garbage. Last night one was drinking from the pool itself; a lifeguard shooed (shoe'd) him/her with a flip-flop, which the animal took no real notice of.

The coons get a pass by the staff and swimmers; rats would be a different story.

The pool closes this Friday for the winter. Between Phelps' win and the imminent close of summer, everyone swims a little faster. I'm serious. There are no more lollers.

Last night I left the pool after a delicious 10-lap dunk. It was a gorgeous evening and it was my last night test-driving this tiny, zippy BMW M Coupe.


Where to go? What to do? Where's the wife? At the gym, I remembered. I opened my cell phone and discovered it was out of order, so I found a pay phone and left her a message saying I would come to the gym and look for her.

It was the same thing I did during the blackout of 2004. You've got to Find Julie.

I parked near her gym in midtown Manhattan and saw the place was closed. I didn't want to go home; it was so beautiful out. So I sat on some steps and watched a group of tourists stop and do chin-ups on some scaffolding. None made it past one chinup. An older tourist was admonished by his wife, who feared for his immediate health, but he had to go for it.

Phelps' effect? Maybe.

I got up and saw my beloved coming toward me, and we fell into each others' arms. She'd seen my car and was looking for me.

I drove her home, dropped her and went out looking for a Salvation Army-type clothes drop for this bag of apparel I don't wear anymore. I ended up driving through the Bronx on Broadway, and noticed the streets there are as beat-up as when I moved to my neighborhood 5 years ago. In my little car, the potholes and bumps are like cannons, and it's easy to get pissed off.

Phelps, though, would overcome a bad street, a busted cell phone, a surly pool guy. He'd do what it takes.

I ended up driving to Yonkers before I found a box to put my Goodwill clothes in. I wasn't about to bring that big bag back into my apartment when they came and took the BMW back.

Phelps would have found a box, too.

A few minutes ago, my toilet overflowed with twice the amount of water it usually floods the bathroom with. A serious mess, first thing in the morning. I got angrier than I've been in forever, the speech reduced to grunts and epithets as I moved my now-dripping "Idiots Guide To World War 1" off the floor, realized the futility of avoiding sewage on my feet and hands, and just did what it took to address the mess.

Phelps, Josh Max. Phelps.

Or, barring that, Johnny Cash.

"I don't like it but I guess things happen that way."

The short end of the stick (shift)

I had just pulled into a Hawthorne parking lot adjacent to the Saw Mill Parkway and was getting out of my car when I heard the sound of an angry voice coming over a police loudspeaker. I looked and saw a female cop ordering someone in a BMW 3-series to pull into a space near me, and shut off the car. The driver jerk-jerk-jerked to a stop.

I parked a book on top of my roof and pretended to read while I saw a very angry cop get out of her cruiser and approach the driver of the BMW.

I couldn’t hear what was said, but whatever the driver of the BMW had done was serious enough for an extended chew-out. On and on the cop went.

I kind of like when female cops yell at me. It doesn’t happen too often, but it happens. I like to see if I can talk my way out of it. Female cops are sexy, anyway. Guns. Batons. Pony tails.

I got bored listening to this copper spew, so I went and got a cup of iced coffee before going into the gym---that’s why I was in Hawthorne. When I came out of the shop, two girls were circling the BMW, obviously rattled, and obviously the ones who’d been yelled at.

“Hey!” I called. They looked.

“What did you do make that cop yell at you like that?”

“Neither of us can drive a stick shift,” said one. “So I was practicing on a side street.”

“Nothing wrong with that. “

“Somehow we ended up on the highway, and I panicked.”

“Crap.”

“I kept stalling out. So finally we just parked with the flashers on, and called 911---on ourselves.”

“So the cop showed up and was pissed off?”

“Yes, and we didn’t even DO anything.”

There ought to be different-colored belts for drivers, parents, musicians and writers, just like in Karate.

And another belt for "I'm on a highway and I can't drive a stick."

My vegan heart went out to this young lady, however, both for her pluck and her willingness to talk to a stranger. I told her what I did for a living, that I'd driven her car and that BMW's aren't always easy---their clutch-shift-accelerator combinations are tight tight, making them one of the easiest cars to stall, and it happens even to an expert like me.

(The easiest cars I've ever shifted? Saturns and Volkswagens.)

I told her, also, that many times when I get a new motorcycle, the first journey is the most harrowing. I always make a point of going somewhere, getting off the bike, leaving it for a bit while I wander or shop or such. When I get on the second time, it's always easier. The body says, "Ah, this again. Ok, I've been here."

"You'll be fine. Just relax."

She thanked me with a big smile and I went upstairs to the gym. When I looked out the window ten minutes later, her car was gone.

I-wonder-if-they-made-it-HOME-jerking-all-the-way

Heeeeeere's Al!

I signed a two-year contract with Music Sales Group yesterday, to plug, push and shove the new CD I executive produced over the last 7 months titled "The Maxes Sing Al Hoffman".


Al Hoffman was my great Uncle. He died before I was born, and I knew nothing about him growing up other than he co-wrote "Mairzy Doats" and "I Apologize".

Five days after 9-11, Mrs. M and I were driving over the Brooklyn-Queens expressway. You could see the smoke over the burning pit in Manhattan. Two men on our block had been killed in the Twin Tower attacks.

We tuned the car radio to WFUV-FM and heard deejay Rich Conaty announce an evening of Hoffman music on his Big Broadcast show. That was a surprise and a shock. I'd never heard Al's name spoken by anyone except members of my family.

I tuned in the following Sunday and heard happy, happy tunes, a stark contrast to the death and destruction that was in the air during that time. I learned that Al had written hundreds of songs, among them standards recorded by Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Django Reinhardt, Chet Baker and literally dozens of others beginning with his first hit, "That's What I Call Sweet Music" recorded by Sophie Tucker in 1929, right up to "La plume de ma tante" by Homer and Jethro in 1959.

I contacted Conaty, explained who I was, and he graciously sent me three cassettes containing his Hoffman broadcast. After repeated listening, I decided hat I'd agressively pursue information about Hoffman. I discovered a Seattle cousin had two boxes of Al's personal papers, magazine articles, correspondence and such as well as 300 78 and 45 RPM records.

The boxes were sent and I found some eyeball-shattering family dirt as well as much about Al. I sat on the floor and gaped at his photo for the first time, one of dozens documenting Al's life in New York City from 1928 to the year of his death, 1960---and beyond.

Al Hoffman and his mother Rose, 1932

With the help of Nick Max, I had the records transferred to MP3, boiled it down to 12, and decided to record.

Through phone calls to ASCAP, I discovered Music Sales Group, a world-wide publishing company with offices in Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Berlin and elsewhere had bought most of Al's copyrights in recent years. (I also discovered Paul McCartney's MPL owns 3---none hits.)

I called Music Sales and asked to speak to whoever handled Hoffman. Got the right guy, introduced myself, and asked if the company would be interested in a new full-length CD if and when.

To my surprise, he didn't yea yea me---they took me quite seriously, and said sure.

It did not hurt that the man I spoke to likes cars.

Took me a while but I raised the dough to hire the best musicians, arranger, producer and studio I could afford.

I finished the disc, brought it to Music Sales and left it there. Within a day, they called offering to sign us to an exclusive publishing deal, aggressively seeking to place the songs in film, television, radio, videogaming and "new media", whatever that means.

The disc is called "The Maxes Sing Al Hoffman".

You can't buy it---yet---but you will, soon, as soon as we plot the next move. We're also in the process of planning a series of videos in conjunction with last year's "The Maxes" and this year's "The Maxes Sing Al Hoffman".

Now, about the signing. Obviously, it was a sweet day, 7 years in the making.

I put on my signin' clothes---tight black jeans, bright blue Armani shirt, black polished loafers, and up I went to the Office.

I thought the final version of the contract would be on parchment, printed in italics, and a gold seal affixed. It was not--it was printed on Staples paper.

Three copies were offered, three were signed, three of us stood and said, "Here's to a long and prosperous relationship." Ok, I said it. But they smiled and said, "Yes!"

Welcome to the music biz, kid, I sez to the mirror later on.

You might want to check out some of the musicians who played on the sessions:

J.Walter Hawkes, arranger/trombone

Jon-Erik Kellso, trumpet

Dan Levinson, clarinet

Sean Smith, bass

Jon Dryden, piano

The Smash Shack

CNN's report on Smash Shack--you'll have to watch a commercial first

Have you ever wanted to break something? I have. The Smash Shack lets you bust plates, dishes, photos of your ex, for a price.

At first I thought, dumb people flushing money. Just deal with your problems, for Fred's sake.

Then I remembered the Frustration Pile, created by N. Max when we were children. It was a hole the boy had dug and lined with large stones. When pissed, an empty wine bottle would be taken to this hole and smashed against the sides of the rocks.

I didn't really use it, and he didn't really use it after a couple of times.

Like soft drugs leading to harder stuff, the Frustration Pile led to, or contributed to, the overall atmosphere of Destroying Objects, some tiny, some quite large.

He doesn't like it when I talk about this stuff, so I won't. I'll save it for the book.