So, I'm kind of a giant Beatles nerd. The kind of Beatles nerd that like, spent four hours with his newfound college friends frehsman year recording a never-to-be-broadcast-to-anyone-besides-us-podcast discussing our twenty favorite Fab Four tunes. The kind of Beatles nerd that spent weekend nights in high school pouring over "Paul is Dead" clues instead of, you know, getting some. The kind of Beatles nerd that's read Bob Spitz's authoritative 992 page tome (The Beatles: The Biography) a few times over. The kind of Beatles nerd who...Well. You get the point.
It should be no surprise, then that when I first booked my tickets to Europe, I made sure to tell my friend Dylan that no matter what the rest of our group did, I was at least taking a day trip into Liverpool. In retrospect (but a few days later), I feel bad about forcing our five strong band to schlep our asses all the way to Liverpool, especially since my London based cousin has labeled the place "absolute shit," but there's a list of things in my life that I need to take care of before I make it to that big sop hop in the sky, and one of them is taking a pilgrimage to the birthplace of my heroes.
I guess you can say it's off my bucket list now - a list that includes (stereotypically enough) skydiving and (stupidly enough) finishing Rob Reiner's The Bucket List, a movie I made 80% of my way through on the trip up to Canada before connecting to London (thanks a lot, the first third of The Wedding Singer).
Anyway. Some thoughts about Liverpool:
Magical Mystery Tour: So here's the thing about taking a "Beatles tour" around Liverpool. If you want to avoid disappointment, you should really 1) make sure there isn't a major cultural festival that is sure to import a shit ton of tourists to town and 2) book a tour way in advance, lest you get stuck walking/taking buses/waiting for cabs in the rain that will never come around town.
We kind of got screwed from taking the actual tour, but thankfully Liverpool has plenty of maps that lead you around so you can take a tour yourself. Being the nerd that I am, I was able to play impromptu guide to the rest of my party, although I did have to piggyback another private tour once we got to St. Peter's (where Paul and John met) to actually find the spot they met/Eleanore Rigby's grave (yeah, she was a real person). Needless to say, the whole day got me pretty verklemped.
Amazingly enough, Macca himself was in town headlining the festival that night at the local football stadium (that's British for soccer), but serendipity was only partly on our side because by the time we realized the opportunity we had, tickets had skyrocketed to the number of cash I'd allotted for my entire trip. Maybe it's for the best. I probably wouldn't have recovered from hearing the dude yell out "Hello Liverpooollllll." They'd still be picking up pieces of my brain that would have exploded all over Merseyside.
The Jury's Inn, Liverpool: I give the place four stars, mostly because they didn't even bother to stop us from sleeping five in a two bed room, but also because the TV they had there had an unstoppable so-bad-it's-good movie marathon featuring The Girl Next Door, Coyote Ugly, and Rock Star. By the end of nine hours, I felt like my brain had been cleared of everything I'd learned in film school. Which is okay really, since pretty much the only things I'd learned in film school were 1) the audience is a stupid, stupid bunch we should pander to and that 2) college chicks think it's really deck when you like Francois Truffaut.
* Quick note about The Girl Next Door: The movie features one of most egregious cases of those "I'm going to film school" characters that always end up being the biggest ass clown in the movie. What is it about filmmakers that make us so self effacing/defeating/deprecating? Note to self: Being self aware is only the first step to recovery.
On Weather in England: I don't think I've seen the sun in a half a week, by the way, which explains the whole pasty complexion thing. It's no excuse however, for the bad teeth thing. ZING.
Some local flavor: At one point, we were at a pub waiting for a cab and an affable, elderly dude (think Seymour Cassel) came over to us and told us a joke. I don't know if it was the liquid lunch of locally brewed Carling beer I was having or just the generally jovial mood I was in, but I thought it was fucking Nene Hilarious.
What follows is, to the best of my memory, the joke in it's entirety. It's important that you imagine a dude with the thickest Scouse accent you've ever heard doing this, or else it won't work at all. You've been warned.
"So there's this bloke (Bloggers Note: that's British for 'dude'), and he can't decide which of three girls to marry. He decides to go to his dear old dad for some advice.
'Dad,' he says. 'I don't know what to do.' He shows him all three girls' pictures.
Their all bloody gorgeous!' his dad says. After a pause, he tells him what he has to do. 'Give them each 100 pounds for a month. At the end of the month, go to each one of them and ask what they spent their money on.'
'Brilliant!' the son says. He goes off and does just that. At the end of the month, he goes to each girl and asks what they spent the thousand quid on (Bloggers Note: Quid = Pound).
The first girls says: 'Well, I know you love steak, so I spent it on a state of the art grill and five hundred pounds of the best steak there is. And I'm gonna cook it for you everyday because I love you so much.'
The second girl says: 'I invested it and it's matured to twice as much. I think we should spend the money and go on Holiday to the Bahamas."
The third girl says: 'I took the money and took care of everything so that we can take the month off, go to this sleepy bread and breakfast and fuck all day.'
He takes a bit to give it a thought and then marries one of the girls. Which of these girls did he marry?"
At this point, all of my party gives widely disparate answers. The old man then says, very simply, as he's walking away, pint in hand: "No no no, it's simple really."
"He married the one with the biggest boobs."
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1 comment:
My dad would LOVE that joke. Not to mention, I still can't believe that Colonel Pickering and Henry Higgins reunited at a London hostel. Your blog is brilliant. Keep on truckin' and tellin' jokes and I can't wait to see you when you return.
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