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Why Don’t We Do it in the Road?

joh

Thanks to the essential weekly newsletter, The Sunday Long Read (compiled with taste and care by Don Van Natta Jr. and Jacob Feldman), I found Alex Bilmes’ excellent British Esquire  interview with Paul McCartney:

ESQ: Was fame all it was cracked up to be, when you found it?

PM: It sort of was really, yeah. Because part of what it’s cracked up to be is difficult as well as great. They’d warned that. I remember making a very conscious choice: “OK, we’re getting really famous now, you’ve got to decide, whether or not to go for it.” For some reason Marilyn Monroe came into my mind. Like: this could be horrible. It was actually after a trip to Greece. We weren’t famous in Greece, and I’d hung out with the hotel band and was chatting to them: “I’m in a band, too, you know? We’re called The Beatles.” And I got a glazed look from them. I thought, “This is OK, if the fame gets too much we can always come to Greece.” Then, of course, the next year it was like, “Oh, no, you’re famous in Greece, too. Oh, God.” And I remember thinking, “Do you want to do this or don’t you?” And it was, “I like it too much to stop.”

ESQ: Some people struggle greatly with being famous. It screws them up. You seem to have taken to fame with a certain amount of ease. You embraced it.

PM: I think to some degree that’s true. What happens is, if your life goes wrong, like with the breakup of The Beatles, then fame is a nightmare because you can’t escape it, and you’ve created it. That’s when the difficulty kicks in. But what you’re saying is, some people it kicks in anyway, even if they’re doing all right.

ESQ: They can’t handle the attention.

PM: I don’t mind that. I have a joke with my daughter Mary: sometimes I won’t be in a great mood and we’ll go somewhere and the people will be all over me and she’ll turn to Nancy and say, “He likes a bit of adulation. It cheers him up,” and the thing is, yep, that is true. All my life I’ve been trying to win a school prize or trying to do OK in an exam or trying to get a good job. I’ve always been trying to do something where people go: you’re good. When you get it, it seems a shame to me to go, oh, shit. To me it’s like, this is what I wanted. I do like it, I must say. The attention’s never really bothered me. I’ve always thought, “OK, you’re famous, you’ve chosen that path. You can’t blame anyone else.” As long as you’re enjoying it that’s good. And when it goes wrong you’re just going to have to deal with it.

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[Photo Credit: Linda McCartney via Everyday I Show]

6 comments

1 thelarmis   ~  Jul 20, 2015 10:49 am

Asheville is cool. And I've been listening to the White Album a lot lately.

I've also been mentioning the title on this post to my wife all weekend! ; )

2 Alex Belth   ~  Jul 20, 2015 11:12 am

2) That's what he said. That's what I said!

3 Evil Empire   ~  Jul 20, 2015 2:36 pm

Question. Which rookie second baseman would you rather run out there when you have a lousy guy manning the hub?

Player A: .296 / .388 / .437 / .826 (4 Minor league seasons)
Player B: .278 / .331 / .425 / .756 (6 Minor league seasons)

Player A, of course, is our own Rob Refsnyder. Player B is Robbie Cano. I am not saying Refsnyder is better than Cano. He's not. I am not saying he's a better hitter or a better fielder or better at anything than Cano. Again, he's not. But, if you only had the numbers above, and nothing else, you might just take Player A.

And, so, I have to think whether it's Tony Womack in 2005 or Stephen Drew in 2015 that anyone would at least want to give Refsnyder 2-3 weeks and see if his OPS+ is anywhere north of 72, which is Stephen Drew's 2015 OPS+.

4 Evil Empire   ~  Jul 20, 2015 2:37 pm

[1] Love the White Album. thelarmis - when Birmingham's Black Jacket Symphony plays the White Album again (and they will) I'll try to remember to let you know. I saw them play Rubber Soul and Revolver, note for note, last Fall; it was great.

5 thelarmis   ~  Jul 20, 2015 4:06 pm

[4] nice.

Dude. We were in Virginia yesterday, on a road called Jeb Stuart. Spelled wrong, but, damn! Been sooo many things like that happening all weekend...

6 Evil Empire   ~  Jul 20, 2015 4:17 pm

[5] That's hilarious. That one is actually spelled for the General who was James Ewell Brown Stuart. I am actually not named for the general, although my name is also an acronym. My first name is "Joseph" for my Dad's best friend in the Army during WWII, Joseph Stickey, who was from Cambridge, Mass. Stickney's nickname for my Dad was Jeb.

I need to get home to Virginia this Summer.

I also need to a regular again on Bronx Banter!

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"This ain't football. We do this every day."
--Earl Weaver