Michael Gerber • Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

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By Michael Gerber|2015-10-19T14:49:06-07:00October 19, 2015|comedy|

The big, beautiful beast that is the rest of my life. Hey Dullblog wouldn't be what it is today without my dayjob, The American Bystander. For the past several years, I've been working with a team to create the next great print humor magazine. Issue #1, a big and beautiful softcover book, is finally done -- or it would be, if you guys would stop distracting me! ("Were John and Paul Lovers?" I still have no idea, but I predict the comments will hit 250.) Both John and George were involved with projects like this; John hung around National Lampoon [...]

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Hello Goodbye: The first crack?

By Michael Gerber|2015-10-17T14:29:38-07:00October 17, 2015|1967|

Linda S. got in touch with the ol' Dullblog this morning with a thought too interesting not to share. "I was startled the first time I viewed the video piece for "Hello Goodbye," Linda wrote. "John seemed strangely subdued. I wasn't sure what I was sensing, only that it made me feel very uneasy. Still does. There is the coda, of course, the jokey dancing, where John seems more himself. Was it all in my head? Has anyone else ever been given pause by that video?" Actually, I've felt the same thing, but always assumed it was caused by John's many disparaging [...]

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Were John and Paul Lovers?

By Michael Gerber|2020-04-07T22:44:12-07:00October 14, 2015|John and Paul|

Two heads are better than one, 1965. There's a topic simmering in a few comment threads at once, and so I thought I'd surface the topic as a post. Basically, it's the old question of John's attraction to Paul, and whether it was sexual in nature; and furthermore, whether the friendship of these two men -- undeniably close in every other way between 1957-68 -- ever became sexual in nature as well. (This just in, courtesy of commenter @Karen: according to a new interview with Yoko Ono, John "had a desire to have sex with men." If this is true, [...]

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The Beatles and Drugs: the best books?

By Michael Gerber|2016-03-08T09:58:24-08:00October 12, 2015|biography, books|

Yes, this is a bong. I don't even smoke and I want one. Folks, someone in the Beatle fan community told me recently that he's writing a book about the Beatles and drugs. It's a fascinating, underconsidered topic -- well, underconsidered by all but right-wing nutjobs, more about that later. Any weary perusal of our comments will attest that it's one I have a lot of interest in, and opinions about. (This post and thread is but one of many.) This fellow asked me a question about John's drug use in the 1979-80 period, and I immediately thought of several [...]

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A slight present, on John Lennon’s 75th birthday: Interview self-interview, 1974

By Michael Gerber|2015-10-09T13:12:32-07:00October 9, 2015|1974|

Sun's out, guns out, eh John? There's something interesting making the rounds during this, John Lennon's 75th Birthday Week -- and by "making the rounds," I mean that commenter Karen and Kim from JohnHeartPaul contacted me about it within 48 hours of each other. Who am I to resist the Collective Unconscious? So here's a self-interview typed out by the late great Johnny Ace, conducted in 1974 for Andy Warhol's Interview. (Getting celebrities to interview themselves, and even type it up for you? Now that's capitalist thinking.) It's a prime cut of Walls and Bridges-era Lennon -- which, if I [...]

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Jack Douglas in Beatlefan, 1999

By Michael Gerber|2015-10-07T12:53:56-07:00October 7, 2015|1980, Double Fantasy|

In the run-up to John Lennon's 75th birthday this week, this old post of ours is getting a lot of traffic. If you haven't read it, it's great -- and an example of the wonderfulness of Bill King's magazine Beatlefan. And after you read it, you might head over to this thread on The Beatles Bible. [Originally posted July 20, 2010; reposted October 7, 2015.] * * * (Folks, in the process of answering a comment from stalwart commenter Nancy, I stumbled across this excerpted Beatlefan interview with Jack Douglas, the producer on "Double Fantasy." I found it interesting--perhaps you will, too.--MG) [...]

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Lennon in the 80s

By Michael Gerber|2015-10-05T12:21:47-07:00October 4, 2015|1980|

"Someday, son, this will all be yours. If you have Garage Band." I am always trying to figure out a non-obnoxious way to spotlight some of our great old posts. (There are over 600.) Today, commenter Damon F. solved that problem for me by finding this impassioned burbling on "Harry Nilsson: The Shadow Beatle", which spurred him to burble the following in response: "I think it’s a bit unfair to say Lennon squandered his gifts considering he was shot dead at age 40. He worked five years post Beatles yet is compared to the others who worked much longer. All [...]

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The General Erection

By Michael Gerber|2015-09-27T23:13:41-07:00September 27, 2015|1965|

Here's that interview with John Lennon on the occasion of "A Spaniard In the Works" I alluded to in the Beatles and the Aristocracy comment thread. From the June 18th, 1965 edition of the BBC programme "Tonight" hosted by Kenneth Allsop, it's a real reminder of why Britain needed the Beatles. And how the world will always need them. "Do you think you'd be published, uh, were you not a Beatle?" "The pop business is a young man's world...Do you think that perhaps, uh, writing a book like this, and writing at all, might be an unconscious attempt to win recognition in [...]

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Best Beatles Magazine Covers

By Michael Gerber|2015-09-26T15:38:17-07:00September 27, 2015|Photos|

In the course of researching my post on the Beatles and the aristocracy, I came across the SatEvePost cover from 1964 which is the featured image. The Beatles as City gents is one of the few really iconic Beatles magazine covers -- given how many photos were taken of the Fabs, you'd think the shelves would be groaning with truly memorable shots, but that's not the case. If Rolling Stone had only started five years later, right? These are my personal nominations; put yours in the comments, and I'll move our most popular Beatle magazine covers up to the post. Saturday [...]

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The Beatles and the Aristocracy

By Michael Gerber|2015-09-27T23:15:20-07:00September 26, 2015|British culture/politics|

City gents, 1964. After watching a tantalizing but toothless BBC documentary on the English aristocracy, my musing mind wondered: what was the relationship between the Beatles and the aristocracy? I'm not talking about professional contact -- not "rattle your jewelry" or the MBE -- but what John, Paul, George and Ringo felt personally. The more I think about it, the more I'm surprised at how little public contact there seems to have been between the Beatles and the aristocracy, especially given the high/low mixing that Swinging London was known for. I know that Seltaeb was run by Horse Guards' own [...]

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