Very
few people know about the Beatles' Hotdog phase. It happened right
after their India Phase, and before their Book Burning Phase, which
even fewer people know about. Here's how the phases went: Birth Phase,
Simultaneous Childhood Phase, Discovery of Talent Phase, Woodshedding
Phase, Adolescent Phase, Church Social Phase, Random Meeting Phase,
Buddy-Buddy Phase, Mutual Admiration Phase, Beatlemania Phase,
Disenchanted Phase, Marijuana Phase, First Great Phase, Touring Phase,
Boredom Phase, Depression Phase, Money Phase, Reenchantment Phase,
Second Great Phase, Threatening To Break Up Phase, India Phase, Hotdog
Phase...
"I'm really into hotdogs right now," George said.
"Tell
us about it, George," they said. They all knew, including George, that
George was better than anyone else at coming up with phases. They
wouldn't hear from him for a couple of weeks, and then all of a sudden
he'd show up one day, really tired, with weird scratches and stuff on
his body, but with a gleam in his eye.
"I just had an idea for pretty much singlehandedly creating music videos," he'd say.
"What are music videos?" Ringo would say.
"Exactly," he'd say.
"Hey guys, remember how we were all talking about bringing London's Avant-Garde Music Scene into a pop format?" He'd say.
"Wow, you just gave me a great idea!" Paul would say.
"Hey,
do you guys know anything about Trans-dental Mediation?" He'd say. And
it wouldn't even matter that he said "trans-dental mediation" instead
of "transcendental meditation," firstly because none of them knew about
it anyway, except for Ringo and he didn't say anything, and second
because George was such a sweet guy, and third because George was on to
a new phase every couple of weeks and there just wasn't time to wait
for him to learn all about it, and besides they wanted to be brought
along and learn at the same time. They were leaders, not experts.
People didn't look to them to tell the absolute facts about things,
they looked to them to point the way over the next mountain of
interest, where no one had been, and then they'd all rush forward with
love in their hearts and the grass under their feet.
"I'm really into hotdogs right now," George said.
"Tell us about it George," they said.
"I don't really know what it all means right now," he said, "I've just been thinking that hotdogs are really fantastic."
So
they called their manager and said "We've been thinking about hotdogs.
Who's doing interesting things with hotdogs?" And their manager took
them to Wienerschnitzel. They sat all day at Wienerschnitzel, trying
every hotdog on the menu. John had a chili dog. Ringo had a mustard
dog. Paul had some bite size corndog things that Wienerschnitzel sells.
John had some of those too, and then Paul and Ringo shared a kraut dog.
Slowly they made their way through the menu, but not the fries or sodas
or sandwiches, because they were going through a Hotdog Phase, not a
Wienerschnitzel Phase.
George
ordered one of every hotdog on the menu, but then he didn't eat any of
them, he just looked at them. He was really looking intently and
everything, and being really quiet, even so much that he was ignoring
the other Beatles, especially Ringo. But Ringo was used to it because
most of them ignored him most of the time. It didn't mean they didn't
love him, and wouldn't miss him if he was gone, it just meant that they
didn't find him very interesting. He was a little older than the
others, and sometimes those few years between them felt as great as the
distance between them and their parents, a very great distance indeed
because they were young in the 1960s when distance between generations
was popular.
When Paul went to the bathroom John excused himself as well, and before Paul got to the restroom John cornered him.
"What
are we going to do about this hotdog fiasco?" John said. "I don't know
if maybe I'm not getting it or what. I mean, when George said he was
into hotdogs I thought he meant EATING hotdogs, but now he's just
sitting there looking at the hotdogs, ignoring Ringo, and I feel like a
fool having shoved all those hotdogs down in front of him. He probably
thinks we don't get it at all. And I really tried. Sometimes I feel
like George is way out in front of us and sometimes I feel like he's
way behind us, but I'll tell you one thing is I never feel like he's on
the same bloody page."
Paul
didn't say anything, because he still really had to go and John had
cornered him. John did that sometimes, but it wasn't because he didn't
think of it or because he thought he was more important than you, it
was because he wanted to think of you as a person with grand passions
who he could relate to, being a person of grand passions himself, and
if he couldn't see that in you he'd wait until he could, like for
example if you really had to go to the bathroom, and that's when he'd
approach you. He felt that it made your conversation together more
immediate, more meaningful, more intimate. He felt equal to you,
standing there outside of the bathroom. Paul knew this and tried not to
take it the wrong way, but sometimes, whether you're taking it the
right or wrong way, you've just got to go to the bathroom.
When
Paul came out he saw that John was speaking quietly into a payphone,
and when John saw Paul he hung up abruptly and approached expectantly.
"I was thinking," said Paul, "that maybe we should each just experience
hotdogs in our own way. Like, we can share in George's Hotdog Phase,
but we don't all have to experience it in the same way. Maybe if we
bring our own viewpoints, our individual personalities and experiences
into our exploration of hotdogs, it will make it that much richer. And
then we'll have something we couldn't have if we all just followed
George."
"Yes!
That's genious! John said. "Paul McCartney you are the most brilliant
mind of our century! You're my best friend! I love you!" And then John
kissed Paul on the lips, not an open mouth kiss, just a closed one,
which was another thing John did a lot, again with the intimacy.
Sometimes it could really take you off guard, like when John would be
so mad at you he wouldn't talk to you for weeks, and then one day you'd
turn a corner in the grocery store and he'd jump out and kiss you on
the lips and say "I'm sorry" and then skip out to write another song
about being a person of grand passions and longing for intimacy.
Sometimes Paul didn't like it very much, but this time Paul tasted a
little bit of chili off of John's lips from the chili dog, which he
thought tasted pretty good and so forgot about the kiss and went over
to order one.
When
he came back to the table John was reading an encyclopedia entry on
hotdogs and his face had gone a sickly green. At first he was turning
to Ringo and saying "Did you know this?" but then after a while he
didn't say anything and then he started looking really uncomfortable,
looking around at the hotdogs on the table just a little too fast, not
angry, but more like panicked. And then he leaned sideways and was
sick, and he stood up and turned to George and said "I'm done with this
Hotdog Phase! Do you know what these bloody things are made of? Do you
know how they kill those animals?" (This was the beginning of John's
Lennon-Vegetarian Phase.) But George didn't say anything, he just kept
looking at the hotdogs. Paul stopped eating to watch because these were
two of his closest friends and he hoped this wouldn't turn into a
fight. Ringo was quiet, but not because he was scared or timid, it was
just that he was a little older than them and he'd already been through
his own Hotdog Phase so he knew how this would all turn out. He knew it
the moment George stood before them, tired and scratched and casually
saying the word "hotdogs." He knew it when they called their manager,
and he knew it the whole time they were driving to Wienerschnitzel, and
he knew it the whole time they were ordering their hotdogs and eating
them, he knew each one they ate was like a clock ticking down to what
must happen. He knew it when he saw John and Paul talking intimately by
the bathrooms, Paul dancing a little bit from side-to-side like he did
when he was thinking up a new song. He knew it when he saw John make
the secret phone call. And when John came back and asked their manager
for an encyclopedia for the letter "H," Ringo felt a sharp pain of
sadness, just for a moment, that he hadn't been able to share the
wisdom of his years and help his younger friends avoid this rift. But
what could he do? He respected them too much to try and preempt their
experience by telling the story of his own, so he just decided he would
be there if they needed him. He had learned to see the beauty of their
youth, and their curiosity, and to think of them as reminders of the
lessons he had learned.
Paul
hung up his cell phone and said "Bob's in the area, and I've told him
about our Hotdog Phase, and what's happened to it, and he's going to
stop by because he said he has something really important to tell us."
And then Bob Dylan entered. Businesslike, he nodded to each of them
warmly and then squatted down and gently removed his sunglasses and
spoke in a low voice and said "Friends, I know what you're going
through. I've been there. I've had my own Hotdog Phase. It wasn't
hotdogs, it was... well, what it was doesn't matter." (John thought
that nothing could matter more, but didn't say anything because he
still felt sick). Dylan continued, "Man, I've been through every kind
of phase. I've been through my Fictional Hobo Child Phase, my
On-the-Run-From-The-Law Phase, my Classic 4th-Street Phase, my Black
Leather Phase, my Protest Song Phase, my Electric Phase, my Marijuana
Phase, my Uppers Phase... man, I been through so many phases you guys.
And you know what?"
"Today
in India some little Indian farm family is sitting down, opening up
their hotdogs and enjoying them, and they say a simple prayer of thanks
to God for their hotdogs, and to them, man, it's no phase. They're just
living their life, and hotdogs are a part of it. Their whole life will
be one long phase, it's just their Living Phase. They don't need a new
phase. They aren't bored like we are all the time. Maybe you guys
should stop worrying about pot and TM and Wienerschnitzel and just get
down to your BEATLES Phase, you know what I mean? I mean the
John-Paul-George-Ringo Phase. That's the phase you need. That's what
I'm trying to get to, my Dylan Phase. And I haven't found it yet. Well,
I mean I have, but only for a couple seconds at a time, but when I
have, it's like a beautiful shot of precious peace. A moment of pure
living. Do you guys know what I mean?"
They
all said "Yeah, we do know, you've given us a lot to think about," even
George, who looked up from his hotdogs for the first time since they
sat down. And then Dylan joined them at the table and they all had a
chili dog, except John, who had some carrots that their manager had
brought him when he told him about the Lennon-Vegetarian phase,
inbetween being sick. Paul called up their wives and kids, who all
joined them, Yoko too. And because they were feeling so good they
called their parents and brothers and sisters, and they all came over.
And then they realized the Rolling Stones were sitting at the next
table, and that the Velvet Underground were looking for some needles
they had lost in the alley behind the Wienerschnitzel. Dylan's band
walked in with Eric Clapton and Joan Baez, and they all sat down too.
And Paul got the Beach Boys on speakerphone from California. Everyone
was so happy, and they opened their hotdogs, and they said a simple
prayer of thanks to God for their hotdogs, even the Beach Boys who had
some hotdogs that the Beatles manager had delivered to them, and then
there were guitars, and then there were bongos, and tambourines and
kazoos and recorders, and there were new songs and old songs and silly
songs and sad songs. They all felt so happy, and outside there were a
million people who would give anything to sit at the next table but
didn't even know it was going on. The employees of the Wienerschnitzel
hung the "closed" sign and came over and sang songs with them while
they mopped up the area where John had been sick. Then the gray-haired
Wienerschnitzel manager asked a young college girl who had just started
there if she'd like to dance with him, and she said yes. Then everyone
was on their feet dancing and singing. And the old man asked the girl
if she would marry him and she said yes and Ringo married them right
there because he had just finished his Secret Priest Phase and everyone
cheered and toasted with Cokes and Sprites. And then during one loud
singalong, Dylan turned to John quietly and said "I'm sorry about our
call earlier, man, I think we must have gotten disconnected or
something. Anyway, I've still got that pot if you want to buy it." But
John smiled and said "Thank you very much Bob, but I don't ever want to
do that stuff again" and kissed Dylan on the lips, and Dylan tasted
chili and vomit and carrots, and then John looked at the other Beatles
and they all walked out into the night together, arm in arm, singing a
new song they would record the next day, a song that I guarantee you've
sung in your life, and it made you really happy.
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