Classical Mystery Tour

My mom has forbidden me to talk about The Beatles today. :(

Last night was amazing. As some of you may know, last year, my mom and I went to see the Beatles tribute band Rain, and that was awesome. Last night, however, was amazing. So good, that I had to close my eyes during part of it, because I felt that I was in one of their concerts in the '60s, just another screaming girl, dying to catch a glimpse of her idols. 

Let me just put it this way. The man who played Paul McCartney looked like Paul. He even SOUNDED like Paul. Even my mother, who was only there because it was only $13.50/seat, admitted that she couldn't believe that it wasn't Paul. 

What do you expect people to do at concerts? Scream and sing, right? Right. However, for one grumpy Scrooge, this was not the case. 

Picture this: An old man who hates The Beatles, dragged along to a tribute concert by his wife, who'd probably leave him for Paul or Ringo if she was given the chance. Sitting in front of the world's biggest Beatles fan, who was shrieking and singing at the top of her lungs. AKA yours truly, Gertrude Shirley. 

For those of you who've ever been to a Beatles tribute concert, when the band sings "Hey Jude", they'll break it down into verses. The women and girls will do the "Na, na, na, nananana, nananana, Hey Jude,", then the boys and men, then people under 30, and so on. However, I didn't sing very loud during this song, because, right before that, the Scrooge in front of me, turned around, and offered his hand. I shook it and smiled, but this was NOT the case. "My name's Bob." he grouched. "It was a pleasure having you scream in my ear all night long." My smile dropped from my face quickly, like mud off of a mountainside. I turned to my mom, but it looked like she hadn't heard. So the band started singing, and I stood there, whispering the lyrics to my favorite song. 

And after "Hey Jude", "Paul" started counting down. "4, 3, 2, 1!" And the opening notes to "Twist and Shout" filled the air. Screams came from all around me, and everyone started twisting. Including myself. Because, come on. Who can resist the awesome power of the twist? Mr. Scrooge-Bob could. While his wife, his friends, and the people in the entire auditorium were singing and twisting, he stood there, crossing his arms, and scowling. 

So on a parting note, "Ba-HUMBUG!, Mr. Grouchy-pants!"


He needs to just suck it up and realize that All You Need is Love.

Random Blah Blah Blah

I've been sick. Since Tuesday. But I'm almost 100% better today, and just in time for... BEATLEMANIA! The world's second-greatest Beatles tribute band. I may say greatest, but I've only ever seen Rain before, so I'll post tomorrow with my results. 

As you may or may not know, depending on how interesting your life is, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, in Chicago. For more information, read "Uprising", by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Gertrude McCartney

Paulie

PAUL!!!!!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3 

I looooooooove Paul. A lot.

Okay, so today I lent Cami Errant my first-ever Beatles photo book for her to review on her blog. I had a little, *ehem*, trouble letting it go. Separation anxiety, Gertrude? 
I was really nervous today to go to school, because I'd heard that our PE activity wasn't exactly fun, but you probably don't wanna hear about my life, so I'll stop that.

Here's a thought-provoking question:

If you go to Hell for killing another human being, then do all of the people in the Marines and the Army and other Armed Forces automatically go to Hell?

My social-studies teacher received that question yesterday on her desk, so we had a lengthy discussion about it. Here's my opinion. If you kill an innocent civilian, be it mistake or not, I believe that's bad and you'll probably go to Hell. But, (yes, parents whom I hope read this blog, I started a sentence with "but". It is correct, no matter what people say.) on the other hand, if you kill a person who wanted to kill people from our country, then that's self-defense and you won't be punished for that, because you probably saved your neighbor's or somebody's life by killing that person.

That's just my opinion, and I know that topic is very controversial. Will you please leave a comment with your opinion in my inbox, because I know at least Nai and ms-i'm-not-gonna-type-your-confusing-name-out, who writes Various Chiz, will have strong thoughts. 

I know that most of you look to my blog for beach reading, not anything meaningful or thought-provoking, but this question sparked something inside of me. It's an interesting topic and I wish my class had had time to further pursue it. 

I'm going to end this rather odd (for me) post with my new favorite quote. It has nothing to do with this topic, but I love it.

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian. ~Paul McCartney

PS-Don't you love my non-assuming title???

Dear the World That I Live In,

I'm posting. To you. Yeah, readers, and Paul McCartney. And I love him. (Did anyone pick up on that? If not, listen to the soundtrack of "A Hard Day's Night".) Aaaaanyway,

1. Paul McCartney consumes my brain most of the time, so if any of y'all are annoyed by my constant chattering, drop a comment, and if I'm not in Pepperland, I'll answer it and try to stop obsessing. 


2. Zombieman13: Why won't you ever text me back anymore? I have no one to talk to.

3. Nai Pace: Cool graphic for Cami. I like it. 


4. Mr. My Science Teacher Whom I Hope Does Not Read This Cuz He'd Know Automatically Who I Am: Gee, thanks for telling us TODAY that we have a test TOMORROW! 

5. Gertrude Shirley: Why are you not STUDYING? Oh, yeah. Duh. Paul McCartney!


6. Alex: Why aren't you embracing Paul's hottness? 


7. Japan: I'm sorry that the quake/tsunami hit you. It must, to understate it, suck.


8. James and Mary McCartney (RIP): Why was your oldest son so cute, but your youngest one so...Not?


9. I have to eat dinner in a few minutes... Grilled cheeses!


10. I live in Pepperland, and I ain't coming out. ("Ah! It's the Blue Meanies! Run away, Ringo! Keep going!!!")

Honk for japan! (and check out Nai's blog too)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cciUXpITsu0

Watch this video, and help Japan!

Here's Nai's blog. He writes it better than I do.

http://www.naipace.blogspot.com/

Everywhere

Okay, because my friend just asked me to put up part two, here you go, even if you haven't read part 1 yet! :)

The darkness had dissolved slightly, enough to see within a foot on all sides, but that’s it. No one knew where they were. As far as they could see, which wasn’t far, it was either black or gray. There were no sounds, not unless someone wanted to stress themselves greatly, not unless they wanted to put themselves at great risk. They all knew what happened to little Keisha. After screaming for her mother, she had disappeared further into the darkness. One elderly man tested it out, and spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “Miss you, Keisha.” He didn’t disappear, but he almost fainted from the stress of it. Luckily, a doctor had been in the crowd that day, and had led the man in some deep breathing exercises.

            How long had it been, exactly, since the “magician” had made them disappear? It felt like years, but since they didn’t know where they were, they didn’t know how to calculate time.

            Where were they? One of them, a college student named Anna, had a theory. She claimed that they, in body, had dissolved, yet their souls and brains had stayed with each other and ended up in a place Anna calls Everywhere. That certainly explains why it hurt and caused them so much stress to talk or move about- in essence, they had no bodies! But where is everywhere? Anna believed that Everywhere really is everywhere in the universe, and beyond. They weren’t ghosts, but they certainly weren’t material and solid either.

            Lanicqua Travers, however, hadn’t even made the effort to try to talk or in some way communicate with anyone else. Losing Keisha had been a huge blow to her, and the doctor speculated that she had gone into shock. “We can’t do anything to help her now, She’s going to stay like this, I reckon, until we find her baby girl.”

            Meanwhile, Keisha looked down upon all of them, all one hundred and three people. She saw them as if through a window screen- blurred, distorted, out of focus. She didn’t know where she was, how to contact the others, how to rejoin them. Even being with them in Everywhere would have been better than being alone here, separated from her mother as though by a veil. Seeing her mother so desolate, so miserable, was almost too much for Keisha to bear.

            Luckily, there was a clown-in-training in the audience at “Rocco’s” show, and he saw his opportunity. “Come on people, buck up, cheer up! We’ll get out of here soon enough!”

            While the clown tried (and failed), to cheer everyone up, Keisha watched them and wish with all her heart (or soul, whatever it was), that she could join them, She was cold, so, so cold, and lonely! She hated watching her mother so depressed and alone. “Mama, Mama! Mama, help me!” She beat the screen with her little fists and kicked it with her size 11 feet. “Mama! Help me!” Screaming until she went hoarse, Keisha believed her efforts were futile. However, her mother certainly responded. Bolting upright for the first time since Keisha disappeared further, she screamed. “Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” Everyone looked quizzically at her. “THAT’S KEISHA! THAT’S MY DAUGHTER!” Anne and Dr. Robert exchanged furtive glances. Dr. Robert stood up. “Ma’am,” he whispered. “Keisha is missing. She can’t talk to us.” Lanicqua turned to him, slowly, eyes ablaze. ‘How dare you? How dare you say those things about my daughter? Find her! You think you can’t find her? FIND HER!” she thundered.

            Back on earth, John Townstone, or “Rocco the Magnificent”, as the unfortunate crowd knew him, fretted and agonized over what he had done. “Oh, my God! It’s been three weeks! What have I done? I have no clue where they are! I must have killed them! Those poor little kids! I have to find them!”

            Meanwhile, Keisha had succeeded in kicking a small hole in whatever it was that covered her. She pushed and pushed and pushed at it, and finally, she fell. She fell for what felt like forever, through nothingness. Blacker and blacker it seemed, colder and colder it got. She fell and fell, senseless to the world. She fell and fell but finally landed on something so hard that when she hit, it knocked her out.

            Lanicqua was pacing back and forth, along the black expanse of Everywhere. “I heard her, I know I heard her! Where can she be? Why is she quiet now? Can’t she hear us?” The clown, Anna, and the others backed away from her, lest they be verbally attacked like Dr. Robert.

            Bright. Why was it bright? It shouldn’t be, not where she was. But there was light! It surrounded Keisha, warmed her, comforted her. Was she…? Keisha didn’t dare to hope, but she opened her eyes slowly. Very slowly. She was back! Hardly daring to believe her eyes, she stood up and looked down. She had a real body again! “Keisha, Keisha! I am Keisha!” She was overjoyed. She could walk and talk, really walk and talk again! As she looked around, she saw chairs. A stage. She was back at the fairgrounds. And there was her mother’s purse! But where was her cell phone? Lanicqua must have had it in her pocket! Keisha knew what she had to try to do. She dug thought purse after purse until she found a cell phone. She flipped it open and typed in her mother’s number. And waited.

            In Everywhere, a ringing startled everyone. Hardly daring to believe her ears, Lanicqua pulled out her buzzing cellular. “Hello?” she asked tentatively. “Mama!” It was Keisha.

Find Him

Paul is the hot one. If you can't find him just based on that, don't MAKE me come to your house!

At the end, for those of you who either a) don't know me AT ALL or b) live under a rock with no contact to the outside world, I'll add a pic or two of Paul solo. (Okay, I lied. I won't add it for you numbskulls. I'll add it cuz, uh, I love looking at his face. DUH!!! Who doesn't??)

Tricked you! For those of you that realized that the fourth picture I uploaded was in fact of The Who and not The Beatles, comment on this post and eat a brownie. *Shoves brownie towards your face*. Metaphorically, of course.Adios, Beatles fans everywhere.

I have no clue what to call this yet, or even if it's any good. Whataya think?

Skye was dreadfully bored. This party had been a bust, and now she was just standing with her back against a wall, trying not to yawn. The music was really bad, played by some old band that she had never heard about, called Bon Jovi. Her boyfriend had brought her there, saw this one girl from school, Emma, and disappeared. “Oh, Ace,” she thought, “You really were never that great, anyway.” Just then, she saw Ace reenter the room, dragging a very tousle-haired Emma behind him. Skye ducked as she saw Ace’s searching glance probe the room. When he saw no sign of her, he started right back to at kissing Emma, full on. Skye felt a baby-barf coming up. She looked around for her best friend, Cally. “Cally, would you look at that. I’m leaving. Come with me? Please?” Cally saw the look of hurt flit across Skye’s face and without a word, put an arm around Skye’s shoulders and towed her out to her car. When they got to the car, Skye finally let it out. Sobbing, she managed to choke out, “Tha-tha-tha-that JERK!!! How could he?!? I thought he loved me, and then Emma-in-your-face-Smith just HAD to come along and TAKE him!! I’m never talking to either of them ever again! I-he-blah-blah-blah-I wanna go ho-ho-home!!!!!!!!”

Everywhere

Okay, here's the first part of my latest story. I also have part two, if you guys like part one.

“Come on, come on!” Keisha tugged on her mother’s sleeve. “We’re gonna be late!” With a sigh of exasperation at her six-year-old daughter, Lanicqua Travers, Keisha’s mom, checked her watch. “Keish, we have fifteen minutes until we can go! You don’t want to be early and have to wait in line for ten minutes, do you?”

            The Travers family of two was going to see a magician today. Magic endlessly fascinated young Keisha, who got easily frustrated with her no-nonsense mother, who was a very busy lawyer.

            “I guess not… Can I at least go put on my shoes?” “Yes, I suppose you can.” “Yay!” And with that, Keisha scampered off to find her plastic Dora sandals. When she had run back to Lanicqua, they hopped in their car and drove to the fairgrounds.

            As soon as Lanicqua stopped the car, Keisha bounced out of the car, looking quite like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh. Through the loudspeakers positioned throughout the parking lot, they could hear strains of music, cheers from the crowds, and someone’s voice, yelling about cotton candy and popcorn. The pair started walking toward the ticket book, and Lanicqua couldn’t help but catch a little of her young daughter’s enthusiasm. Even though Mrs. Travers knew that all the “magic tricks” were just special effects, and that she was only here to humor Keisha, it was nice to be away from the office for a change, to relax, to let her hair down.

            After they had bought two tickets from the quite pimply teenager at the booth, Keisha and Lanicqua nabbed two seats in the middle of a rather crowded field. After sitting and waiting for about ten minutes, Rocco the Magnificent walked onstage to cheers and screams, most of which came from Keisha. “Thank you, thank you.” said the magician in a lilting Italian accent. “For my first trick, I will make a rabbit fall from the sky.” All of the little kids in the crowd gasped. “Alacazam!” Rocco screamed and pointed his hands toward the sky. With a bang and a blast of purple smoke, a rabbit fell, seemingly out of nowhere! The crowd erupted in cheers. “For my next trick, I will make myself disappear!” This time, the entire crowd cheered. “Obfuscate!”

            One minute, the crowd of maybe one hundred people was cheering its head off, the next moment, silence.

            Darkness so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Cold so chilling your very blood seemed to freeze in your veins. A feeling of weightlessness, a sense of floating, yet a feeling of being totally grounded, as well.

            Back at the fairgrounds, Rocco the Magnificent, who really was an American farmer names John Townstone, inhaled sharply. The audience was gone. The chairs were there. The women’s purses were there. But where were the people? “Oh, no!” mourned John. “What have I done?”

            And suddenly, a scream echoed throughout the magician’s field. Started in the darkness, yet so powerful, so terrible that only a very young, extremely terrified little girl could make. It carried, breaking the barriers of the darkness traveling to the ends of the Earth. “MAMA!” It was Keisha.

That Poor Kid Never Knew What Hit Him

Okay, so all of you that know me, know that I'm obsessed/in love with The Beatles, see above. So when a random kid comes up to me in the hallway at school and goes, "Hey, weird girl. Who are The Beatles?" I fly off of the handle. 

"Hey. Weird girl. Who are The Beatles?"
"Excuse me? How do you NOT know who The Beatles are?? They're, they're, they're classic! They're gods, geniuses, musical masterminds, prodigies! And you have the guts to tell me, ME, Gertrude Shirley, Paul McCartney's "girlfriend", that you don't know who THE BEATLES are???" 
(By this time, I'm in full freak-out mode, the whole jumping-up-and-down-wringing-my-hands kind of thing.)
 "God. I'm sorry, ok?" 
(This kid is that kinda kid who spells "okay" like "ok" and probably has never said anything but "Me and ma friends iz goin to da park on Satirdayz." in his life. He also takes the Lord's name in vain and enjoys profanity.)
"No, don't be sorry! Let me tell you about them!"

Right now, the poor kid decides, quite smartly, to back away from me slowly, as if I were a bear that was about to eat him, as I stood there talking my head off about the glory of John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

I hope that poor kid isn't mentally scarred, but I'm still furious that he doesn't know who The Beatles are. He walked away before I could finish enlightening him on the joys of classic pop/rock. His only hope is that his parents are, like, in their 20s or 30s, and therefore too young to have listened to good music while growing up. Thanks to my friend Nai Pace, whose blog you might also read, I'm in love with The Beatles, and have been since third grade. So if you hate how obsessive I am, blame Nai. You can find him at (xxx)-867-5309. :)

STUDENT OF THE SEASON!

Okay. Here goes my rant on loving myself after today.

I rocked my solo. I was sooo channeling Paul McCartney.

I am the 5 Star Winter 2011 Student of the Season! Such a big accomplishment. I'm so proud.

Sorry if y'all brains are a-hurtin'. Gotta go corral the goats! (haha I love having Southern roots. It allows me to make fun of that without honestly hurting someone.)

Paul McCartney is a Flower

Paul McCartney is a flower.
Blooming in the darkness, 
Bringing light to our lives,
Filling us up with happiness.
We want to spend all our days with him,
This beautiful flower of joy.

Rant on Paul McCartney

I love Paul McCartney. He is, in my opinion, one of the best people to walk this earth. I mean, look at what he's done for people everywhere. And the music he makes??? BEAUTIFUL! Have y'all ever seen his face? Obviously not, because if you had, you'd have realized how beautiful he is. Look:

I got the first and last pics from an awesome blog, which you can read here at www.paulmccartney-thenandnow.blogspot.com

Once Again...

Once again, it's the weekend. Once again, I'll be doing laundry later.

I had a disappointing day yesterday. I'm not going to blog about, I'm only gonna say that the book which was tearstained on Tuesday is now completely tearstained. Sigh.

I've lately been reading two insanely awesome blogs. One is

http://www.paulmccartney-thenandnow.blogspot.com/ 

And the other is going through some copyright issues right now, so I'm not gonna put the link right now. In a month, when the author is back, I'll put the link.

Grief

I was crying, crying because I felt like my world was crashing around my ears.

It was a book, beautiful and new, mahogany-colored. It told of sorrow, sickness, pain, and death, and everyone in it is dead now.


It was a tear, shed because of two words.

It was a book cover, not yet stained, dirtied, or ugly.


As tear met book cover, the book seemed to sigh, and I knew that of all books, this was the book that could understand grief.

I don't really mind that the cover is stained.


Do you?