Beatlemania

A week ago CBS aired a television show celebrating the anniversary of the Beatles appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show. Last Friday I finally squeezed it in between The Walking Dead and Girls. That's the bad thing about the DVR, I seem to watch even more television because of it. I end up trying to watch everything. I'm glad I was able to see that Beatles show, it brought back so many memories. Such as the fact that once the Beatles became famous in the U.S., the radio became inundated with British rock groups. The Beatles were like a high speed train that sucked peripheral British rock bands along in their wake. Without the Beatles we probably wouldn't have had The Rolling Stones, The Who, Eric Clapton, or dozens of other British groups that grabbed onto the Beatles coat tails.

In 1964 I was a nerd trying to be one of the cool kids. On the Monday following that historic Ed Sullivan Show, I began my four year battle to grow my hair long. Between our High School's rule that hair must not touch your collar, and my dad bellowing "You look like a fucking broad. Get your hair cut!", it was difficult. And then there was the fashion. Within a month of the Beatles, every boy in school was sporting tight fitting, iridescent, shark skin pants. Because I was forced to shop with my mom at Sears, my iridescent pants weren't quite as tight fitting as the cool kids pants were. To complete your Beatles look, you needed Beatle boots. These were low rise boots with Cuban heels, and very pointy toes. The version I bought one Saturday at the Park Forest Mall, weren't quite so much a boot as a wingtip shoe with somewhat pointy toes and a Cuban heel. Leave it to Sears to make Beatle boots into wingtip shoes. I learned something the day I bought those shoes. I learned not to wear the things I buy, in front of my dad. The moment he saw me proudly clunking around the house in my Sears version of Beatle boots, he bellowed "You look like a fucking broad in those. Take them back... right now!"  Well, at least I got to wear them for a couple of hours.