How can you laugh when you know I’m down?

I like the Beatles a lot. 

I own most of their 45s, EPs, LPs and CDs. I even own a few cassettes. So I have their official musical library covered, but I want more!

Circa summer of 1970, I discovered bootlegs in, of all places, the army-navy surplus shop on Commercial Street in Provincetown.* I had read about bootlegs in Rolling Stone, but this was my first encounter of illegal vinyl in the flesh. I did not buy any because there were no Beatles’ bootlegs for sale. But arriving on the UCONN campus the following autumn, what was the first thing I checked out after moving into my dorm? 

The library? No.

The classrooms? No

The football stadium? No.

The local record store? Yes!

The store had Beatles’ bootlegs and I bought every one that they sold during my two-year stint in Storrs (my first two years at UCONN were spent at the Waterbury branch).

After Storrs, I continued to purchase bootlegs via mail order, switching from LPs to CDs and over the years, I amassed a large collection. I probably own more Beatles’ bootlegs than legitimate recordings.

But I still want more!

Don’t know how they get away with it, but Amazon sells bootlegs. Perusing their Beatles’ bootlegs, I found something new: an 8 CD set of Beatles’ bootlegs for only $21 (typical Amazon, the price fluctuates and as I write this, it’s now $25). Anyway, I probably have half the contents of those eight CDs already, but not the other half, so I made the purchase and the CDs arrived the next day and I have been enjoying “new” Beatles’ tunes the past few days.

* What was I doing in Provincetown in 1970? Going on a fishing charter boat, believe it or not.

Wearing New York & Company

Wing Han taking a break while shopping in Singapore

Someday Funnies

Jonna, Georgia, Paula and Rene

Wearing Tibi top, Veda skirt and Alexandre Birman boots (Source: Intermix)

Robert Wagner femulates in a 1982 episode of television's Hart to Hart.

Beatlemania

I loved The Beach Boys' music first, then I fell in love with The Beatles' music. I have been a Beatlemaniac ever since.

During the height of Beatlemania, I acted indifferently towards The Fab Four. My indifference was part of my disguise.

I worried that if I showed any interest in The Beatles, people would perceive that as a girly thing. Next thing you know, they would put two and two together and figure out that if I was doing girly things, then I must be girly. The fact that I had feminine speech and mannerisms would just confirm their conclusion.

In my late teens, I abandoned my disguise (because it was not working) and was completely open about my Beatlemania. I bought all their LPs, 45s, EPs, tapes, CDs, DVDs and as many bootlegs as I could find. When I visited the UK in the mid-1980s, I found Abbey Road and had my photo taken crossing the famous crosswalk. And on and on and on.

Anyway, I finally saw The Beatles in person on Saturday night! Well, more like one-quarter of The Beatles or one-half of the surviving Beatles.

Ringo Starr performed at a local concert hall and I had almost a front row seat to see the show. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed the show immensely.

Two things stuck out in my mind about the show.

• Ringo is petite. He is short and amazingly thin. When he came out on the stage, I thought that he looked more like a college kid than a 72-year-old.
• Although most of the audience were my peers, there were a lot of younger people in the crowd who seemed to be big fans. For example, in the row in front of me there were three girls in their late teens or early 20s who twisted and shouted throughout the show and knew all the words to all the songs --- not just the words of The Beatles' tunes that Ringo sang, but his solo hits and non-hits as well!

So, goo goo g'joob.

 

 

 

Wearing Brahmin.

 

 

 

 

Femulate reader Fiona femulating at Royal Ascot.

The Fabulous Four

I am a big fan of The Beatles, so I am enjoying all the nostalgia about the group's first visit to the USA 50 years ago.

After seeing The Beatles first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show replayed countless times over the past week, I am surprised no one mentioned that John's microphone was dead during the performance. You never hear him sing that night. You only hear the voices of Paul and George. John mouths the lyrics, but you can't hear him!

Anyway, two things are stuck in my memory about those days.

--- Being a budding radio hobbyist, I had a transistor radio by my side 24/7 and I remember being impressed that The Beatles had taken over rock radio. It seemed as if all the rock stations were playing wall-to-wall music by the Fab Four for weeks, perhaps months on end back in 1964. I had heard nothing like that before (and nothing like that since).

--- Being a novice femulator, I was impressed that the Beatles wore "long" hair and high-heeled footwear... just like girls wore! Were skirts and makeup next? Will boys be dressing like girls real soon now? 

I had high hopes and thought, "Don't let me down." But I should have known better.

Prisoners of war femulating on stage during World War I.

Wearing Ali Ro.

Saturday Night Trans

Last night, Paul Rudd hosted Saturday Night Live bra-less. Paul McCartney was the musical guest and performed a Beatles' transgender number, Get Back.

Desmond, she's a singer with the band

As I mentioned before, I am a huge Beatles fan.

I have all their LPs, most of their 45s, some of their EPs, some of their cassettes, all their CDs, some foreign LPs, lots of bootleg LPs, lots of bootleg CDs, stuff you never heard of, common stuff, and rare stuff, lots of stuff. (That's one advantage of being an old lady like me: I was able to buy all the stuff when it was new and just released, not after it became rare.)

In case you missed it, they remastered all the Beatles' LPs and released the new remastered LPs on CD last month. In addition to individual CD LPs, they also released two boxed sets. One set collects all the individual CD LPs, whereas the other box set is completely different.

According to Amazon, "The Beatles Mono Box Set was compiled as a special interest package for the hard-core fan. It presents the first ten albums in re-mastered mono (the final 3 albums made their debuts in stereo only), and a double album of singles and EPs, called Mono Masters.

"Why would anyone want a newly minted mono collection? The final mono songs were sometimes different. Stereo mixes were usually done days, if not weeks after the original mono mix, and could include different takes when the engineers made the overdubs. Stereo mixes, particularly for the first five albums, did not include as much critical listening from George Martin, and almost none from the Fab Four."

Yes, way back when the Beatles started recording, mono was king and stereo was something that only audio aficianados dabbled in. So recording artists of the era put all their effort into their mono recordings; the stereo recordings were an afterthought.

Although I am definitely a hard-core fan, in these economically-challenged days, I was not in a rush to go out and buy both boxed sets. I figured I would wait until the feeding frenzy ended and the prices dropped a bit, but then I learned that the mono set was a limited edition and was selling out at a lot of retailers.

I hightailed it to Amazon and discovered that they were sold out, but they indicated that the demand for the mono set was so high that a second limited run was in the works, so I anted up and ordered a set on September 9.

October 23 was the day USPS delivered my mono boxed set.

The boxed set is very nice. Each CD LP replicates the cover of the original British version of the LPs including any extraneous contents. For example, the White Album has "The Beatles" embossed in raised letters on the white cover just like the original and includes miniature versions of the poster and Beatles portraits that accompanied the original LP. There is also a nicely done booklet packaged with the boxed set.

So far, the music is disappointing. I am working my way backwards and have listened to the two Mono Masters CDs and the White Album and to tell you the truth, I have not noticed much difference between the original recordings and the new remasters.

Maybe that is due to the fact that I am used to listening to the old stereo versions and not the mono versions. The songs on the greatest hits CD, One, released back in 2000, were the first Beatles' songs to be remastered and those stereo remasters blew me away, so I have a feeling that when I hear the new stereo remasters, I will notice a big difference.

Anyway, during all the hubbub concerning the release of the remasters, I learned something new about one of the trans references in the Beatles' music.

In one verse of Obladi Oblada, Paul sings,

"Molly stays at home and does her pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band"

Two verses later, Paul sings,

"Desmond stays at home and does her pretty face
And in the evening she's a singer with the band"

I always thought the Desmond reference was an intentional trans reference just like the "Sweet Loretta Martin" reference in Get Back, but in a recent interview, Paul claims that it was just a flub during the recording of the song that they decided to not fix.

I dunno. I prefer my take on Desmond and I am going to stick with it.

the girly ways of The Fab Four

I am a huge Beatles fan and this has been a huge week for us fans with the release of their remastered CDs and their new video game. I don't play video games, so I have no interest in the new game, but I will likely purchase all the remastered CDs sooner or later.

In the midst of this new surge of Beatlemania, I recalled my first impressions of the group back in the winter of 1963-1964 before their first US television appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. My first encounter with The Beatles back then was not with their music, but with their appearance in a photo in a local newspaper.

My first impression was that The Beatles wore their hair like girls!!!

At that time, I was just beginning my first experiments in femulation. I knew I liked femulating, but I was very confused as to why I liked it, why I was doing it, and if I would go to hell for doing it.

The Beatles added to my confusion. Was their long hair the wave of the future? Would all boys start wearing their hair like girls? When I discovered that The Beatles also wore high-heeled boots, I wondered if skirts and dresses would soon be in the offing, too.

Part of me hoped and prayed that boys would dress like girls real soon now, but part of me was scared silly about the prospect of actually dressing like a girl in public. It might ruin my image as an all-American boy, although, I was not what anyone would consider an "all-American boy."

Nevertheless, I was so concerned that showing any interest in The Beatles would ruin my image (whatever that may have been) that I pretended to dislike The Beatles, their music, and their girly ways.

Eventually, I overcame my fears, embraced their music, and journeyed far beyond the "girly ways" of The Fab Four.

P.S. Being a huge Beatles fan, I almost took "Loretta Martin" as my name when I was selecting a femme nome de plume.