Stuart Sutcliffe

Happy Thursday! What on earth am I going to tell you about today?

I am sitting in incensey darkness, listening to the Beatles Anthology 2 on these monster new headphones I bought for free and which block out even the sound of me typing. I'm eating lemonheads from a bag labeled Old Fashioned Penny Candy that I purchased for 99 cents a week ago, and I think the price discrepancy is just fine given how long they've lasted.

What sort of careers can be found that combine history and entertainment? As in, entertainment history? As in, I freakin' love reading the Beatles story over and over, and about the 40s-60s in general, and I love film as well as music.

Give me a topic along those lines, and I'll present you with an essay. Really. I will. I love researching when the subject is interesting.

Maybe not even just, what, critical writing (which I did come to like, in my late college years), but maybe nonfiction, uh, narrative. I just wrote a Beatles fic--epitome of dorkdom, I'm full aware--based on several accounts of true events. Maybe I could write the next Nowhere Boy.

Writing about real people, which I'm pretty sure I've never done before--hold up, unless you count the one featuring my roommates and Sylar--is similar to regular fanfiction in that there are still distinct personalities and types of events you need to understand how to present accurately. With regular fanfiction you have a lot more leeway because those characters aren't going to come after you for getting it wrong; not to mention the fact that they were designed to be characters with specific recognizable (and repeatable) quirks.

But I've always been pretty intense about "getting it right," and not being, as we say, "out of character." For a lot of anime, I refused to write anything until I finished the show, just out of fear that any idea I might have in the meantime would end up being proven non-canonical by events I hadn't seen yet.

That's right, fanfiction requires research! You can't just plop down and write whatever you want! If you're just going to make up whatever you want, why not just use your own characters specifically suited to the purpose? There has to be a reason you're choosing that world and those people to play with.

The scene from Beatles history I chose to represent was the day Stu Sutcliffe handed off his bass to Paul McCartney, effectively quitting the Beatles in order to pursue his art studies. A lot of things led up to this, historically--his decreasing interest in music for his increasing interest in his girlfriend Astrid and the art world she represented; his non-improving bass skills while everyone else was jumping ahead exponentially; the way he and Paul were butting heads over the limelight and John's approval.

See, Paul was dead serious about hitting the big time. So were George and John. Paul saw Stu as a hindrance to this goal, was certain that he could do it better. (Paul also was one of three guitarists at the time and his ego was itching to have a more useful spot in the band, too) Paul also saw Stu as a threat, being John's New Best Friend, edging him out of that coveted position. John was, for a long time, willfully blind of Stu's lack of musical ability, too much in awe of Stu's artsy vibes to acknowledge the truth.

Stu was also strikingly beautiful, and this was particularly abhorrent to Paul, "the cute one."

So one day, Paul gets up from the piano and tackles Stu to the floor! There they viciously tussle until the song ends, when the other three finally make time to pull them apart.

A few days later, Stu mans up and literally hands Paul his bass. Matter-o-factly, resources say, at peace with the decision, I say. Then he goes off to art school in Hamburg, is on the brink of being wildly successful, gets engaged to the love of his life....and then dies of a brain hemorrhage within the year. SAD DAY STU.

So my trickle of story inspiration was the thought that, after this exchange, Paul would have to sit down and re-string the guitar in order to play it left handed (the wikipedia article says that he in fact did not, but the footnote is to the book I was looking at for this express purpose, and I'm sure the quote to which they refer is Paul's, "It was a loan, he didn't want me turning the strings around." Whether he respected this request is open to interpretation, surely.)

So Paul sits down to do this, and everyone else gives him the cold shoulder for being such a jerk to Stu, who I'm sure was very likable. But Paul has on his side the future that will one day be put in history books--Paul McCartney will be the bassist for the Beatles, and the Beatles will take over the world.

Drama, kids. The Beatles are full of untapped drama.

Here's a mini gallery of Astrid Kirchherr's photographs of the early Beatles, because she rocks at that.

Okay, I'm not sure what relevance Stu has with Thursday, but I'm just going to go for it. One bassist's tribute to another, we'll call it.

-Steph