The Beatles
Love

THE REVIEW

LOVE or LEVO?

I got up this morning to go to work. On the little radio, they were playing "Because" from this latest Beatles Christmas gift package that's reigning in all the MegaStores across half of Europe. Yellow badges, yellow windows, yellow display stands. In response, my little guy started peeing clear. A coincidence?
Once again, we're dealing with the same old story - as I've already extensively discussed in previous reviews/rambles: once you've found the right teat, everyone goes down to milk the Golden Bug/Cow. For how much longer?! Years?! Centuries?! Millennia?! And I'm still here getting scandalized by well-known and repeatedly-discussed things in various situations?!? I go down to the lobby, and the doorman is whistling "Get Back", and I'm surprised by the ability of certain songs to stick in the public's mind, but after all, being an ICON and IMMORTAL means this as well. In retaliation, I leave without saying goodbye and slam the glass door shut, shattering it into a thousand pieces (a thousand pieces?!).
On the scooter, at the first traffic light, a Smart pulls up next to me, and the driver's Nokia buzzes with "Eleanor Rigby." As soon as the green light hits, it speeds off, unaware of the mark I left on its side with the key.

Have the Beatles already become part of the DNA of All Humanity?! I'm starting to wonder... could it be an extraterrestrial plan by the Bitolsian civilization?! If there are Venusians, Martians, and Visitors, couldn't there also be Bitolsians ready to invade Planet Earth?!
I'd like to shout "help," but on second thought, I'd still be quoting a track from the 4 bugs, and I don't want to give them that satisfaction, so I proceed in silence but instead of heading to work, I detour towards Fiumicino airport. Damn the world and this damn Bitolsian virus!
At check-in, the hostess is holding a little radio blaring "Strawberry Fields Forever" in mono... this Bitolsian thing and the secret plan to conquer Earth is slightly obsessing me. We're talking about an album ('this Love) that's basically 70% IDENTICAL to the already edited material in numerous versions, apart from a few remixes and a few different intro pieces. There's some reverb, some overdubs to "dirty" here and there, a few out-take chuckles, scattered choruses here and there... essentially, half a mockery reeking of cheap & shady marketing from a Thousand Miles away (and Alitalia has nothing to do with it!).

On the blindly-taken plane, I'm heading to ANY PART OF THE GLOBULAR EARTH that hasn't been contaminated by the Beatles Morbo: Zimbabwe or Cape Horn, I suppose, though I have reservations about Cape Horn.
Damn, is it possible: after almost 40 years, we're still begging for chords and melodies from these four?! 40 years of damning our souls with about a dozen official albums and truckloads of best-ofs, collections, Gold albums, No.1s, Gritistits, Bitolsmania, ScaraFOUR, and countless these-cubes... I was born in '64 listening to the Beatles in the cradle, and now you want to tell me that I'll take them to the grave?! IS THAT WHAT THEY WANT?!?!
On the airplane's small TV, predictably, they're showing a Portuguese film with the DVD of the same LOVE, just a slightly longer version (81 minutes versus the CD's 78... nice remastered images but nothing groundbreaking) included with the CD, created specifically for the Cirque Du Soleil show (these French too... goddamn... never once do they mind their own business!!). And there I imagine the scene: WELL DONE, WELL COME, the whole staff of the "other" Circus revolving around the Fab Four, namely Paul, Ringo, Yoko, George's widow, John Martin & son, grandchildren and leeches of all types with the whole entourage complete would have said, rubbing their hands.

"Los Beatles... but what a very beautiful ballast we have to hold, eh?!" I say to a diamond-jewelled Maghrebi woman sitting next to me, improvising a completely invented Chicano "What's your name?!"
"Lucy" she replies... of course, I bite my tongue for the easy joke I would have made citing another evergreen bug tune and move on, no longer speaking to her as a sign of disdain.
The airplane suddenly begins doing whatever it wants, and in 10 minutes, to cut it short, it crashes headlong.
"Help!" the Black woman exclaims as an elderly passenger protects his granddaughter "Hey Jude... Please don't cry" as if on purpose: DYING WITH THE BEATLES IN MY EARS NO, EH?!?! I hurl a Lady Madonna and 4 uncopyrighted curses while we splatter into the not-so-Pacific ocean.
I swim, swear, no survivors... I struggle swimming frog-style until I reach a godforsaken islet with 11 palm trees.
I am exhausted.
Little Jude who survived with me is crying desperately for the loss of her grandfather on the plane. I tell her: "Come on Jude, you're done crying now."

A week has passed, and there's almost nothing left of little Jude: just two menisci and a calf, and at this rate, I don't know how I'll make it since my stomach is starting to growl again.
There is a positive aspect: there are no longer any of these damned bugs to plague my days. No more Ringo, no more Paul, no more "no way" even with the other two.
Only sounds of seagulls, waves, wind, and a few monkeys mimicking me.
But what peace... AHHH what silence...

Only on the 8th day do I spot footprints in the sand. Rounding the cove, I see this pale young man with locks over his eyes playing the guitar in front of a bonfire.
"Damn... you too survived?! You too on my same plane!!"
"Oh yes..." he replies with typical English enthusiasm.
"But it's splendid... do you think... here alone, just you and me, a guitar, and especially NO BEATLES anywhere you look... would you ever have said so?!"
"Oh yeah... it's incredible"
"Well... shouldn't we celebrate? Sorry... but we haven't even introduced ourselves... I am Lesto... Lesto Bang... you know?!"
"Noel... Noel Gallagher."

Now it's been 4 weeks and nothing remains of the English singer: just the sacrum bone I use as a fishhook holder and the spine that I use as a baseball bat in my long lazy afternoons.
How long will I be able to survive without the ghost of the Beatles?! Will I be able to hold on for much longer? Eh... AND FOR HOW LONG THEN? Is it possible to even remotely imagine a future without this sonic boulder?! "Well, but they're the Beatles damn it, you're talking about God, not nonsense!" some will say... but I say: would a life without God or religions even be conceivable, I wonder?!
I swear... I say I SWEAR that if a yellow submarine comes to rescue me, I'll sink it with my own hands!!!!!