click for larger view

SAM (6): I was wearing my Fancy-Schmancy Ultra Limited Edition Secret Stash In-house Promo Venture Bros shirt today, which attracted Sam's interest.

SAM: Who's that?
DAD: This? This is -- [dramatic voice] -- The Monarch!

(no response)

DAD: He's a bad guy.
SAM: I can see that!

Meanwhile, KIT (4), has taken it upon herself to put together a new lineup of The Beatles:



To those who believe that Ringo is irreplaceable, here is your answer: Ringo is replaceable, if he is replaced with BATMAN FROM THE FUTURE and A SHARK ON A POSTAL DELIVERY TRUCK.

I can't find the reference for this, it's in one of these books I have but I can't find it, so maybe I have the details wrong, but this is one of the things that drives me completely crazy about McCartney and, after everything else is sorted out, my feelings about his music, the shape of his career, his professionalism, his lack of inspiration, etc, after all that is sorted out, this is the thing that still gets to me.

Morbid curiosity brought me to watch this move -- slack-jawed astonishment kept me watching.

It's awful, a train wreck, but not in the way I thought it would be.

It's utterly wrong-headed, flat-footed and depressing -- but again, not in the way I thought it would be.

Last time, I attempted to pin down what makes the Beatles' recordings work, or at least what makes them so appealing and deathless to me. I came up with a handful of terms which I would now like to apply to McCartney's post-Beatle work. These terms are: urgency, immediacy, drama, complexity, joyfulness and experimentalism, coupled to a faultless melodic sense and set to unique, indelible arrangements. How does McCartney's post-Beatles work compare?

If you will bear with me a moment, I'm going to attempt a syllogism, or at least a mathematical formula:

IF we say that the recordings of the Beatles represent a certain extremely-high standard of professionalism, creativity and musical success,

AND Paul McCartney was one-fourth of the personnel of the Beatles,

AND said McCartney was one-half of the writing team responsible for most of the Beatles songs, that gives us SIX PARTS of responsibility, of which McCartney may reasonably lay claim to TWO, or ONE THIRD.

THEREFORE, ONE THIRD of solo McCartney material, post-Beatles, and absent other Beatles, may reasonably be expected to reach the same level of professionalism, creativity and musical success.

Does McCartney meet the demands of this (arbitrary, unfair) formulation? Do the other Beatles?  Could anyone?

My response to the life and work of Paul McCartney is complex and contridictory. Where to begin?

Perhaps the thing to do is to find an orientation point. Where did I begin?