Highlights From the George Book

Do you have the George book? You know which book I mean. The one where George Harrison's face is emerging from a pool of water. It goes along with the George movie, Living in the Material World, which is inexplicably directed by Martin Scorcese. Don't you think it's extremely weird that Martin Scorcese made a documentary about George Harrison? Nobody saw that one coming. Cheers to Martin Scorcese for pushing himself outside of his comfort zone.

I have the George book. I also have the DVD of the George movie. On the cover it says A MARTIN SCORCESE PICTURE, which is so stupidly pretentious. Take yourself a little less seriously, dude. Just call it a movie like the rest of us and move the hell on. 

Anyway, I'm talking a lot more about Martin Scorcese than I intended to. I had no idea I was going to talk about Martin Scorcese at all. I just Googled him to find out his Zodiac sign. It's Scorpio. I also learned that I have been spelling "Scorsese" wrong this whole time. But I am going to leave in my misspelled previous Scorseses so you can feel more like we're on a journey together.

Anyway, Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian-American identity, Roman-Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption, machismo, modern crime, and violence. Hahaha just kidding! I don't care. George Harrison! I love George Harrison. The point of this post is that I took a zillion pictures of my favorite parts of the George book, so that all the people out there who don't have the George book can see them. There are seriously so fucking many pictures of George Harrison in this post. I did not restrain myself. Let's do this. (PS this post is by LJ in case that isn't completely obvious)

Saying that this picture is the coolest Eric Clapton ever looked kind of misrepresents my relationship with Eric Clapton's coolness. It implies that I think Eric Clapton has looked cool other times. I don't. This is the only time Eric Clapton ever looked cool. 

But he looks very cool! That ninety-pound fur jacket draped across his arm like it ain't no thang... And it's a flattering picture of his slackjaw. His weak chin. You know how it is.

George, on the other hand, always looks cool, but he does look particularly cool here. Don't forget to notice his cardigan! This was a good day for both of them. I wonder if they told each other that. 

He looks hot here but I'm having some trouble with the vest. It's not really a normal length, is it? I mean who am I to say what is or isn't normal. But this vest probably isn't. 

First of all, vests. Who needs 'em? Nobody! Literally nobody. They are functionless, and don't look cool. The only people who are ever allowed to be caught dead in a vest, in my opinion, are the cast of Friends from Season 1. I'm serious! In every single scene of every single episode from Season 1 of the TV show Friends, at least 2 of the Friends are wearing vests. I'm into it! It gives me something to think about. I thought about vests for a really long time the other day. I was wondering if I'd have worn a vest, if I were my age now in 1994. Maybe? Probably? George Harrison's vest looks like something Monica Gellar would wear.

A cool surprise about the George book is that it includes a lot of pictures of "fat face Paul." I fucking love when Paul's face looks fat. The stupid "family portrait" photo of the three of them together is especially cool because it's fat face Paul and fat face John! I don't know why I want the Beatles' faces to be fat so bad. Actually, yes I do. It's because I have a stupid baby face like Paul McCartney's and sometimes it goes fat in pictures and it's nice to know that fat face Paul and I are in it togeths. 

Here's another picture of fat face Paul that I found after I'd already made the Photoshop collage of the three fat face Pauls above but wanted to include in this post anyway because I think it illustrates the concept of fat face Paul so effectively. 

This is kind of a fat face Paul pic but maybe not because it's taken from a really unflattering angle. Look at John's chin. Anyway, my point is, Paul's body looks really hot here. 

I love how George had this phase in the mid-seventies when he was just like, "You know, I'm only going to wear overalls for the next little while," and he stayed true to his word! He only wore overalls, for the next, like, ten months of his life, and then he got over it. He moved on. "Back to regular trousers for me!" So that's cool, that he didn't wear overalls forever. I hope I have a ten month long overalls phase at some point in my life. 

The other point I want to make about George Harrison's overalls is that he always had patches of Om signs on them. And pins of Om signs. And then he sewed more Om signs onto his shirts, his wide-collared yellow button-ups. He looked pretty weird. But he could never not look cool! (Until the Traveling Wilburys happened. In the Traveling Wilburys, he didn't look cool, and he never looked cool again. But it's okay, because his attitude remained cool. He still had a cool soul.)

Ugh, sometimes the sixties seem so lame to me. I'm so happy I don't have to do all this shit! All this wacky shit. "Painting squiggles on a wall"-type business. Everything had to be so groovy. Groovy, man. Far out. It's tiresome. But I love his red socks/moccasins combo. 

Early Beatles George Harrison looked like a chicken wing. Can't you see it? He is everything in the world like a chicken wing. Conceptually, definitely, but even kind of physically. Chicken Wing George only lasted up until A Hard Day's Night. Even in A Hard Day's Night, you can see he's on his way to becoming way less of a chicken wing. By HELP! he has fully transformed into "darkly sexy fawn in the forest"-era George. 

This is him at the exact midpoint between "chicken wing" and "darkly sexy fawn in the forest." You know that scene in The Lion King when Simba is dance-walking across a log-bridge singing "Hakuna Matata" with Timon and Pumbaa and over the course of it he ages? This is George Harrison's equivalent of that weird adolescent version of Simba that he is for one second in the middle of the bridge.

Darkly sexy fawn fully realized.

I wish I could see what the Beatles' Instagrams would have looked like if there had been Instagram at the same time as there were Beatles. I hope that's what happens when I die. Eternally scrolling through a feed of constantly-refreshing Beatles Instagrams. 

My other great Beatles-fantasy is to see the 1964 Beatles wearing hoodies. It's not a very complicated fantasy. It's just the 1964 Beatles, standing in a line, wearing hooded sweatshirts, ideally on Instagram but also not on Instagram is fine. This picture of George wearing a hacky-sack player costume is the closest I will ever get to this dream coming true.

If you took his weird hat and replaced it with a snapback, he'd look really 2013. Even his hair/beard-look is of the moment, in a Bushwick-via-RISD sort of way. But aren't you so happy you never had to see George Harrison in a snapback? Who do you think is the Beatle most likely to wear a snapback? If the Beatles were from 2013, would they all be wearing snapbacks? If the Beatles were 2013 I bet Paul would wear a lot of APC and kill it. He'd probably date Emma Stone. 

This is a letter to George from Ravi Shankar. I never thought I'd live to see the day I'd say these words, but: "What the fuck, Ravi Shankar?" 

This is the note Ravi wrote thanking George for putting on the Concert for Bangladesh. Which is a pret-ty big favor George did him. I am willing to bet that you and I will never do anyone a favor that comes even remotely close to being as interesting, generous, or EXTREMELY LARGE-SCALE as George Harrison's putting on the Concert for Bangladesh for Ravi Shankar. I do think his phrasing of "to help the kids to keep away from the drugs!" is really lovely, but don't you think it's a little greedy of him to ask George to set up this new intense and expensive-sounding global campaign, like, a week after he just put on the Concert for Bangladesh? Calm down, Ravi. Give George some time to relax. 

Here is a letter John Lennon wrote to George Harrison's parents. It's so embarrassing. Imagine if your friend wrote this letter to your parents? I'd totally get mad at my friend. I'd be like, "Why the fuck did you do that? Those are my parents, dude. What were you thinking? They don't get your fucking jabberwocky." Like, have you ever seen a picture of George Harrison's parents? They're not cool parents. They're square English old people from a million years ago. They probably hated this letter. "Onglood." 

Cool selfie, George Harrison on Instagram. "Like." 

Here's some hot people being hot at an early Beatles concert. I hate them. I'm jealous. The other night I met a 40+ whose parents met at the Cavern, but he called it the "Cave." I didn't really care. I didn't need to be any more impressed than I already somewhat was. I made out with him. It all worked out in the end. 

The guy on the left has great energy but I'm more into the guy on the right with the killer nose.  That is exactly what I'm after in a nose.  

Of COURSE they did.  
  

Oh my God why are you the flyest bitch ever

This outfit and his kerchief look makes me think of the word commit, like, the way comedians commit to a joke. His sunglasses are a cruel reminder of the material world he wishes he could leave behind. 

Skiffle. 

This girl is my hero. Look at her! She's so cool and beautiful and she's feeling the music really deeply. She's grooving so hard. Her outfit is awesome, almost a little square-looking, but she's not a square, OBVIOUSLY. She gets it. She is so deeply connected to the energy of the Universe right now. I hope she is alive and someone told her that she's in the George book. She deserves to be in every book. 

I left this photo for last because it's my favorite George ever. It's George at Abbey Road on "For You Blue" day, about to sing "For You Blue." That's his "For You Blue" guitar. 

I love his slippies so much. He is so beautiful. Denim and slippies and a mustache. I think I just made up the word "slippies" to describe these shoes of his. These "shoes." Psssh. Fuck that, Laura Jane. They are barely shoes. 

I just got home from work and smoked some pot so I could finish my weird George Harrison post of George Harrison jokes. I was like "I can't believe I actually spend my time doing this!" and then I was like "Oh well, at least I'm looking inward." I'm really stoned. I'm not sure if "These "shoes." Psssh. Fuck that, Laura Jane. They are barely shoes." makes ANY sense!!!!! I seriously have no idea. It's a really funny joke in my head but I don't even know how or why or how to write it. I just want to say that George Harrison is my favorite guy ever and I'm really happy he used his fame to educate people about spirituality and the truth because it worked on me and that's so awesome for us both! Anyway, I want to be done with this post so peace out, everybody, I am going to go watch some episodes of Season 1 of Friends now. I'm really roarin' through that season on DVD.