“Oh, George?  Don’t forget the trash, please.  And you’ve got mail!”

Nearly fell over when I tripped getting into me trous.  Yeah, they still go on one leg at a time, it wasn’t that!  I was just surprised, that’s all.  I never get any mail.

“Be right there, dear!”

It was probably an advertisement.  Or something for a home mortgage refinance.  Or aluminum siding, ha!

Pulled a shirt on and walked into our newly remodeled computer den.  Couldn’t quite believe the wife had finally convinced me to get one of those things, but once I’d figured out what I was doing, it was fun.  The newsgroups were hilarious, and I was having the time of me life playing about there.

“Good heavens, George, look!  You’ve got four hundred emails!”

“Sorry?” 

I must not have heard right, but she repeated herself.  What did they call that?  Oh, yeah. 

“I must ‘ave been spammed,” I told her.

She glanced up at me as I looked over her shoulder; she was back in her account, I could tell by the frilly pink thingies she’d set as her home page.  I’ve got a manly home page, y’see.  She shook her head.

“No, George, it looked like they were all from different people.”

“Move over, lemme look,” I requested. 

She obediently got up and gave me the chair.  I’ve got her trained well.  Don’t tell her I said that or she’ll flay me.  She doesn’t even have to say a word, she just has to give me the look. 

I remembered to say thank you as I sat down.  The cat immediately jumped into me lap, hadn’t even seen her in the room, she must have been hiding under the desk.  She thinks she owns us.  And the house, and everything in the house.  But I think she’s been a bit lonely, with Dhan away at school so much, and all his after-school activities.  I s’pose I know how she feels.  I know for certain his dogs were pining for him.  Supposed I’d better go out this afternoon and throw the ball about for ‘em, that’d raise their spirits.

Scratched the cat behind the ears as I went to my home page and clicked on my mail box.  Huh, Livy was right, the list went off the page.  All the subjects were the same, too……

Uh-oh.  Oops.  Damn.

Guess I shouldn’t have said anything on that newsgroup yesterday about having a Beatles acetate that had never been booted.  That might have been a mistake.  And I didn’t have four hundred emails.  Now I had four hundred and twenty of the bloody things!  I was in trouble.  And a lot of the emails had that little mark by them, the thingie that says they have an attachment.  Wondered what that meant?

“Errrr, how ‘bout some tea, love?”

“George, what have you done?”

“Nothing, nothing!  I just thought we might have a cuppa, that’s all.”

She shook her head and frowned at me.  Uh-oh, she was starting to get the look.  I’d been hoping to distract her, but it hadn’t worked.

“Whenever you say you’d like to have a cup of tea with me, it’s because you’ve done something bad.  I’ve known you far too long not to know the signs.  Like fidgeting.”

I tried to stop fidgeting.

“And biting your lip.”

Damn!  Stopped biting my lip by sheer force of will.

“And playing with your mustache.”

Sat on me hands and started sweating.  Started to clear me throat.

“And that, too, clearing your throat.”

Stopped and coughed instead.  Livy started to laugh.

“You’re going to turn purple if you hold your breath any longer.”

Forcibly exhaled and took another breath.  How’s she do that???  Am I that bloody easy to see through?

Still laughing, she walked out the door shaking her head and muttering something under her breath.  I can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, and here she is muttering and laughing and shaking her head and walking!  I sighed and turned back to the computer screen, pushing Margarita out of me lap.  She complained.  Loudly.  Just like a woman, innit? 

“Sharrup, cat,” I told ‘er.  She sat down and glared at me, then decided to have a wash.

I looked down at the computer screen.  Five hundred and two emails???? 

Damn. 

I opened the first one.

“Dear eniMeMI, I’d like to know more about your acetate, can you transfer to cd DAO?  My trade list is attached, I’d like to work out a trade.  Sincerely, AAAbsoluteBeatleFan.”

D’ya like my screen name?  Thought it was pretty catchy meself, it’s “I ME MINE” backwards, did ya get that figgered out?  Didn’t think so. 

Hmmmm, back t’ me mail.  Didn’t much like his (or her) name, sounded kinda fanatical to me.  Hmmmm, a download.  That must be this ‘trade list’.  But what’s “DAO”?  Well, that was beside the point, I s’pose, I had to first deal with the attachment.  Didn’t have much to do with those things, they can carry nasty viruses, can’t they? 

Well, maybe not.  The attachment’s a ‘txt’ file, so it’s probably safe.  I think. 

“Ya think it’s safe, Margarita?” I asked.

She looked at me with all knowing eyes and continued her wash.  What was that supposed to mean?  Safe?  Not safe?  Safe?  Not safe?  Damn!

“Yer a big help, cat,” I complained.

She didn’t even bother looking at me this time.

I clicked the little arrow thingie on the ‘download now’ and waited for the machine to blow up.  It didn’t blow up.  A little box showed up on the screen and wanted to know where the file should be stored.  How should I know?  I gingerly accepted the ‘default’ (you’re impressed, admit it, aren’t you?) and waited as the computer did whatever it was supposed to do and put the file wherever it was supposed to put it. 

“So…..what now?” I asked Margarita.  Rotten cat wasn’t any help, she just ignored me after a cursory glance.  She’s got that ‘look’ that just seems so common to women, you know.  They all know how to use it, even in just a glance.

I finally figured out how to click on the file name from ‘my computer’ and it brought up a bunch of columns and rows.  The first column had a name, the second had some words and the third had a description of sorts, the fourth had some other stuff.  Let’s see if I couldn’t figure this out.  Looked at the first row.

First column, “30 Days”.

Second column “cdr from vigo, trade (17 cds)”

Third column “Let It Be sessions”

Fourth column “2^nd generation from original”

“Oh, I’ve got it, I’m not dense!” I announced, and Margarita meowed.  Was she agreeing with me?  Or was she telling me I was dense?  “Stupid cat,” I muttered.

Anyway, this ‘trade list’ thingie was a bootleg list!  But this had to be wrong, why’d this say it was 17 cd’s?  Did they put just one song on each cd or something?  Oh, Lord, the Let It Be sessions, what a pain in the arse.  Brought back a lot of bad memories, although some of ‘em kinda made me laugh nowadays.  Water under the bridge and all that, you know.  Well, for the most part, I suppose.

Scrolled down the list, stopping every once in a while and looking up something here or there.

Hmmm, what was this?  GH: Hari & the Hijack Band.

“Lookit this, Margarita, that’s me!”

AAAbsoluteBeatleFan had a separate section devoted entirely to me! 

Oh, look at that, “Cloud 9 Rough Mixes”!  How’d anybody get a hold of that?  Scrolled back up to the beginning of the GH section.  “Apple Scruffs”?  Looked over at the description.  “28 tracks, warm up, takes 1-18 w/ master edit, overdubs, etc..” 

Good Lord!  Who could sit through an entire cd of Apple Scruffs?  The harmonica would drive me nutters in less than three takes!

Started scrolling again, it was simply amazing how many interviews there were, I didn’t think I’d done that many!  This person was a fanatic, for certain!!  Innerview, Rockline ’88 and Rockline ‘92, In the Studio with Redbeard for Live in Japan......

“Thur’s five bloody entries for that show!” I told the cat. 

She jumped back into me lap and looked at the screen.  I let her stay this time.  I pointed to the screen and she looked interested. 

“And each one’s got different bonus tracks of some songs or other interview!”

This collector was a loony to have so many of one thing!  Kept me finger pressed on the ‘arrow down’ key whilst gritting my teeth as I got to the JPM section, this person must be a b-i-g Sir CuteFace fan.  Shoulda known there’d be a million boots of Paulie’s stuff, he’s probably the one who leaked ‘em out! 

Y’know, I’d been trying t’ think up all sorts of names t’ call Paulie, ever since the rumour started going ‘round that he’s gonna be knighted.  I read in the papers that it’s gonna happen in the spring, we’ll see if the rags have it right this time!

Page after page after page after page.  Ad nauseum.  Ad infinitum.  Petted the cat and tried to keep a grip on my irritation.  Felt better once I’d passed the JPM section and scrolled down again.

Well, it was nice to see that John had a big section, too! 

“Hmmmm, Brandy Alexanders an’ the Wall of Sound….. must be some stuff with Phil,” I told Margarita.  She just flicked her tail and looked the other way.  Guess she didn’t much like th’ whole wall of sound thing.

Hey, Ritch even had a big section, mainly live concert stuff with his All Starr Band.  That was pretty good, don’t think many people collect Ritch’s stuff, and he’d been out there with some damned fine bands! 

Oh, fantastic, Wilburys stuff, too!  Pointed ‘em out to Margarita, but was a bit surprised at a few of the entries.

“What’s this, volume 2?  We didn’t do a volume 2!  And 4, and 4 and a half?” 

I started laughing, ‘membered what I’d said to me brother Wilburys when we’d put Volume 1 in the can.  I think I’d told ‘em we should make th’ second album Volume 3, ‘cause the bootlegs of Volume 1 would turn up somewhere as Volume 2!  I’d been right!  Chuckled ‘bout that as I continued scrolling.

Happened to look over at the “row counter” after the Wilbury section passed by.  One bloody thousand, four bloody hundred, fifty bloody two!!  And it went on beyond that!  I don’t think the bloody thing had an end, it was like a bottomless pit!

AAAbsoluteBeatleFan had a serious problem.

OK, enough was enough.  Exited that program and typed out a reply.  I was still on line, see, I’d learnt I could do things on the computer and still stay on line and not have to get off whilst I was…… oh, never mind.

“Dear AAAbsoluteBeatleFan, sorry, but I’m not making the acetate available for trading.  Cheers, but don’t bother me.”

Did ya like how I put me song title in there?  It was actually one of my worst songs, but I guess I’m a bit nostalgic about it, ‘specially after seeing the reception it got in Japan when I did the tour with Eric.  They’d loved it over there.

I deleted the trade list and the email, then looked at a few more of the emails I had in my box.  Six hundred and eighty three now!  After looking at a few and seeing they basically said the same thing, I started deleting ‘em unread.  Sorry to have been a tease and all that, folks, but this is one little ditty that’s not going to go on the circuit.

Don’t know why I’d mentioned it to begin with.  Guess it had been that one person bragging that he had all the Beatles boots ever made.  

Come to think of it, hadn’t it been that same person who’s email I’d just read, good ol’ triple A?  Couldn’t remember, but it was a distinct possibility, especially after seeing the loon’s list.

Whilst I was deleting messages, I got the bright idea to block future emails from these people, and started doing that; was pretty impressed with the idea and with being able to follow through with it!  Didn’t take me long, and I was shortly down towards the end of the list.  That’s when I saw another message from AAAbsoluteBeatleFan.  The loon must be on line right now!  It didn’t have an attachment, so I didn’t think he (or she) had sent me a Trojan Warrior, or whatever the latest virus was, so I opened it, just for fun.

“Dear eniMeMI, I’m really, seriously interested in your acetate.  I need it for my collection, it’s very important.  Can’t we come to some sort of agreement?  I’ll do a 2 for 1 or even 3 for 1 if you like.  Your friend, AAAbsoluteBeatleFan.”

“He’s gotta lotta nerve, doncha think?” I asked the cat.  She agreed with me.  She didn’t say anything, but I could tell.  It’s all in the way she blinks.

Typed a reply.

“Sorry, AAAbsolute, but you’re not a friend of mine, you’ve never been by for tea and we don’t have a thing in common.  Forget it, this isn’t going to happen.  Bye bye love.”

Well, it might not have been all that polite, but I put one of those little smiley face symbols at the end.  Didn’t really want to agitate the person, but at the same time, I was going to stand firm.  I knew this acetate was a one-of-a-kind, and I planned on keeping it that way. 

Y’ see, I’d got if off Paul in a card game back in the 60’s, and the only other copy had gone up in flames when Ritch’s house burned down back in the 80’s.  Or whenever it was, and don’t ask me why Ritch had it to begin with, I think he won it off John in the same poker game. 

The Holy Grail of collecting, I s’pose you’d call it. 

Y’ see, the acetate’s me and Paul and John and Pete and Stu goofing around in the old Akustic Studio in Hamburg on our first trip there.  It’s actually kinda embarrassing, part of the reason I didn’t want to let it out of my possession.  You see, we’d done this version of “Falling in Love Again”, the one that Marlene Dietrich had made popular back in 1930, and it was really awful. 

Have you ever seen that movie “Young Frankenstein”?  If not, you should go rent it, it’s hilarious.  And with that in mind, picture me and Paul up at the microphone crooning it the same way the lady in the show sings, you know, all vampy and campy and really hamming it up.

“Falling in love again
Never wanted to
What am I to do?
Can't help it

Love's always been my game
Play it how I may
I was made that way
Can't help it

Men cluster to me like moths around a flame
And if their wings burn, I know I'm not to blame”

Pretty embarrassing, actually, come to think of it, nearly as bad as poor Ritch having to sing about ‘boys, what a bundle of joy’, God, talk ‘bout shucking the song we didn’t dare sing onto the new lad!  He’d been really good natured ‘bout it, though, and it went over pretty well.  Good old Ritch!

Well, now that I was thinking about the damned thing, I had to go pull the acetate out and play it, and it sounded just like I remembered.  You know how some things never fade over time?  This was one of those things, it was as awful as I’d remembered.  Made me cringe, and Margarita took off down the hallway like something was chasing her.  If I was smart, I’d break the damned thing and have done with it.  But I couldn’t bring meself to do that, it still had some historical significance, I suppose.  Maybe Dhani’ll want it or something.  Something t’ make the great-great-great grandkids laugh about, maybe.

I put it away, carefully, and went back to the computer.  The flag was up, which meant I had another mail.

Deleted about a hundred new mails, wishing I’d kept me damned mouth shut, then I saw another mail from AAAbsoluteBeatleFan.

“Look, do you have an Instant Chat?  I’d like to discuss this.”

I wrote, “There’s nothing to discuss, and what’s Instant Chat?”

Ding, that annoying little voice announced “you’ve got mail”.  Triple A was fast.

“Look in the upper right corner, click on the little mouth.”

Didn’t look like it would do any harm, so I clicked.  A window popped up.  “If you just clicked the mouth, click here.”

Bloody hell, if I hadn’t just clicked on the mouth, the window to click here wouldn’t have appeared asking me to click here, now would it?  Followed the directions anyway.  I was kinda curious by now.

Another window popped open.

“Hello!  It’s me, AAAbsoluteBeatleFan.  Now let’s talk about this acetate.”

I cautiously typed “hello” and clicked on the ‘send’ key.  My ‘hello’ appeared in the upper half of the window, just below Mister (or Missus) ABF’s greeting!

“Nice to meet you, what can I call you?  I’d like to be friends.”

Quite blatant, and this chap (or chappette) wanted my acetate pretty badly!  Oh, well, it might be good for a laugh, and I didn’t really have anything planned today.

“You can call me Paul.”  I laughed as I typed and hit send.

“Seriously?  That’s dead easy, then,” ABF replied. 

There was a pause, then he sent another message. 

“Why don’t you call me George?  Now let’s talk about the acetate, I’m desperate for it.”

Interesting, this was pretty bizarre!  “How desperate?”

“Well, depends on how good a copy you have.”

“Original,” I replied.

“No!  Seriously?  How’d you get it?”

I smirked as I typed.  “Sorry, I can say no more.”

“Have you listened to it lately?”

“Yeah, just a few minutes ago.”

“No!  Seriously?” 

This chap repeated himself, didn’t he?  Dunno why, but I kinda figgered it was a ‘he’ by now (not just by him telling me to call him George, either), seems like most of the people who like bootlegs are guys, ya know.  Sorry to all you lady bootleg fanciers out there, but it’s the truth and you know it.

“Yeah, seriously, it still sounds the same,” I replied.

“When did you first hear it?” he wrote.

“Long time ago.”

“Please, Paul,” he wrote, “I really want that, it’s something I’ve been looking for, forever.  A friend of mine had one once, but I’ve never been able to get it off him.”

“Too bad, you’re not getting this one either, George,” I typed in reply.

Felt really weird typing me name.  Felt even weirder to have him calling me Paul.

“You don’t understand, it’s eating me up, I’ve been searching for it.  You see, I had a copy once and lost it.”

“That’s a shame, George Triple A or whatever your name is, but you’ll just have to keep searching.  Maybe your friend will eventually part with it.”

“No chance!  He’s a stubborn old goat and he’ll never give it up,” he wrote.  “Last time I asked him, he said he didn’t have it anymore.”

“Huh.  Shame, that.  How’d your friend get his copy, maybe you can get one from his source?” 

I really didn’t believe his friend ever had a copy, he was just trying to butter me up, make it seem like he’d almost had one so I’d feel sorry for him and maybe let him in on the treasure.

“No, there were only ever two made, and one burned up.”

I sat up straight.  Nah, couldn’t be.  Could it?

“Paul?” I typed.

“No, you’re Paul, I’m George,” he replied

“IS YOUR NAME PAUL?” I typed and hit send. 

I knew it wasn’t polite to shout, I’ve got a bit of ‘netiquite’, Dhani told me all about that.  But I had to know, I just had a sneaking suspicion……

“Why do you ask?”

It was him!  Call me an old goat, will you, soon-to-be-Sir Faker?  I’m still younger than you!  I typed as quick as I could (I can only type with two fingers, you know) and then hit send.

“Paul, you rat bastard, what the hell are you doing on the newsgroups?”

There wasn’t a reply for a long time.  I started fidgeting, maybe I was wrong.

“George, is that you?” he sent.

Ha, I was right, it was th’ lord of th’ manor, Sir Paulie with the bootleg list as long as my lake was deep!

Uh-oh.

Oh no, I’d just admitted I still had the acetate.  I’d been telling him for years that it had been lost when Pattie and I’d moved into Friar Park.

“No, I’m Ritchie,” I typed and hit send, starting to sweat.

“Ringo?  Your copy burned up in your house fire!”

Errr…… 

Damn. 

Thought frantically.  Couldn’t come up with anything.  Then a light bulb went on in me head and I typed as fast as I could.

“Nah, didn’t really.  I had it in the safety deposit box.”

Oh, that was brilliant!  What was I doing?  It wasn’t as if Ritchie could back me up on this!  I sighed and typed very slowly.  Felt like young George Washington and the stupid cherry tree.  Or was it an apple tree?  No, that was Johnny Appleseed, wasn’t it?  I dunno, that’s all American stuff......

“No, I can’t lie to you, it’s not Ritchie, it’s George.  But you still can’t have it!”

Hit ‘send’ and then closed the window, shut down the computer and the damned thing wouldn’t turn off. 

Maybe he’d sent me a virus along with his text file.  The cd drawer popped out and then back in, and the little flying window thingies started going at warp speed on the screen.

“Damn you, Sir Virus!” I muttered to the screen, and placed my fingers in the most awkward position known to man, holding them above the control, the alt and the delete keys at the same time, then pressing on the blasted things.  Nothing!  The flying window thingies were fighting with themselves now, and there were weird firework thingies going on at the same time, really pretty, but I was in a sweat by now, this was technically Livy’s computer, and if she found out I’d ruined it, I’d be in serious trouble.  Tried the control and alt and delete thing again, still nothing.  I pushed in the power button on the front of the computer, and it didn’t stay pushed in like it should have.  Or rather, it didn’t pop back out like it normally does.  So I pushed it again, still nothing.

I was in serious trouble.  The flying window things were going so fast now that they were just blurs on the screen and the explosions were happening with astounding frequency, they were even getting bigger and you could hear the noise in the speakers.  I took a breath and did the only thing I could do, something that they always tell you not to do.  I turned off the power at the plug strip.

Blessed silence, no flying anything.  I heaved a sigh of relief and wondered what I should do now.  Livy picked that moment to come back in the room with a tea tray.  Margarita peeked ‘round the corner cautiously as if to make sure the acetate wasn’t playing.

“Hullo, love,” I exclaimed cheerily, trying to avoid fidgeting, but I had a trickle of sweat running straight down my back and it was annoying.

“Oh, you shut down, that’s too bad.  I wanted to see if there was anything on CNN.com about the earthquake in Russia.”

“Sorry, love, didn’t realize, errr, ya know, we’ve been spending too much time indoors, what say we take a picnic down to th’ lake today and enjoy the lovely weather?”

“George?  Are you feeling all right?”

“Errrr, yeah, why d’ya ask?”

“It’s raining cats and dogs outside.  It’s not a good day to go outside.”

“Errr, we could put on galoshes and rain coats and go play in the rain?”

She gave me a minor version of the look.  Margarita sat at her feet and similarly glared at me.  I was really sweating by now.  It’s really bad when ya have two females glaring at you!

“What have you done, George?”

“Nothing, nothing, dear!  Well, not much, really, nothing much.  Errr, just, nothing much, just turned the computer off by accident, really.” 

I couldn’t even take a minor version of the look, it was so deadly that I’d cave under the pressure whenever it was turned on me.

“You shut the power off while it was still running?  Oh, George!  I thought I’d finally broken you of that habit!” 

She switched the computer on, giving me a withering glare when it came up and wanted to do some sort of thing that usually takes hours and scans the hard drive looking for problems I might have caused by shutting it off like I had.  It went pretty fast this time, thank Krsna, or she’d have had my head on a platter.  I guess I’d done the right thing, because the windows went at normal speed and there weren’t any explosions.  And no Instant Chat window appeared, either.

Livy’d brewed the tea pretty strong, that’s what happens when you’re American, you know, you’ve got to keep the tea bag in the pot only so long, or else it gets bitter.  I gotta make allowances for her, but I needed a splash more milk to cut the bitterness, so I went downstairs.  Was coming back up to the den when I heard Livy answer the phone.

“Oh, George?”

“Yes, dear?”  She knows how I hate to talk on the bloody phone.

“That was Paul, he says you and he have something to discuss.  I asked him over for tea on Saturday, how’s that sound?”

I gritted me teeth into a smile.  “Fine, dear, just…..fine.”

Damn.

Cheryl Mortensen has been a Beatle fanatic since the 1960s, but somehow went on to other things in the late 1960s, only rediscovering her passion for "all things Beatle" in the late 1990s (and on into the new century).  She is a computer programmer and an avid photographer. (Concert photos of bands and performers is her favorite area -- ask her about her Ringo pictures!!)  Cheryl lives with her husband of many years (Mike), her German Shepherd (Sorsha), and a bunch of fish in the tank and the pond that they've never bothered to name.