How's Your State of Mind?

 We all smile in the same language

”If people are going nuts around you there is still a still place inside you.

”However, don’t get to blissed out or someone will come and take your furniture.” –Tony Robbins

I have heard that 80% of our population is depressed.”

And what do we do for a depressed person?

Drug them.

Are they still depressed?

Most. Yes.

Stop using the word depressed. Say pissed off, frustrated, angry, etc. 

What is your flavor of suffering?

Humm…

There are two basic fears that all humans share:

1.    That they aren’t good enough.

2.    That they are not loved.

The idea of a workshop, seminar, whatever you want to call it, is to Play full out. If the presenter is the one doing all the work, he gets all the muscle.

The state in which you learn something is the state in which you will apply it. If you listen passively you will get maybe 10% retention. Notes are 50-55% retention, Listen and take notes 90%.

I don’t know how you take notes without listening, maybe borrow them like in college. Maybe just write and not listen. Oh well.  Here, with no sound or visuals you are stuck with reading.

You remember sitting at a lackluster lecture, fighting sleep, the chair gets hard, your legs go to sleep, your butt turns numb.

And you were paying for it!

Tony Robbins is like the Energizer Bunny on speed. He can go fifteen hours straight, dancing, jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs, and pushing his voice over its limit. (He has damaged it, and takes a day on, a day off.)

When I heard Tony wasn’t going to speak the second day, I thought, Hey, I thought we got Tony for 3 and 1/2 days.

However, Joseph McClendon III won me over. I love him.

His story is that he was homeless for a time sleeping in a box in Lancaster California. You can drive for miles around Lancaster and only see sand and telephone poles—that story comes later.

The reason he was sleeping in a box was that someone tried to kill him because of the color of his skin. He thought, “If someone would do that to me. There must be something wrong with me.”

One day a man gave him a book.

It was Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

He read it and went back to the man who had given it to him with the understanding that when someone gives you a gift you ought to give them something in return.

The man said to pass it on, not the book specifically, but the principles and now McClendon is a neuro-psychologist in L.A. and a presenter at the Tony Robbins event. He says it isn’t the motivation, it’s the “Do.”

While McClendon was urging us to believe we rocked, he suggested that when we approach an automatic door where two doors part like a theater curtain, that we swing wide our arms as though we caused it, stand in the open doorway, blow kisses and bow.

He had been doing that. One day he walked with up to the automatic doors at a grocery store with his little 2- year-old son holding on to his finger. You know how toddlers hold your finger? As they approached the automatic doors he felt his son pull away.

The little boy stood before the doors, waved wide his arms like a magician, and stood there arms spread with a big smile on his face.

There was a Starbucks Coffee shop right inside the doors, and seeing the little boy standing like a composer who had just conducted the Philharmonic orchestra, they applauded.

Strange, isn’t it, how something that means so much to you can be received negatively by someone else?  I just tuned into a long tirade online from an attendee at a San Jose event who took a month to recover! That was in 2012. Holy cow, I was ready to go the next day, and I am twice her age.

I suppose having Tony say if you are a pessimist you are gutless, might shake some up a bit.

Tony says we use softeners in our language, and after reading the book Taboo Language, he uses Adult Language to jolt, to emphasize, to jar people out of their present state. That might bother some people too, although he states up front, that Adult language will be used.

One reason I went to the event was to learn how to change my state. Of late I had been grouchy, irritated and angry a lot of the time.

We practiced going form sad to happy, sad to happy, sad to happy in an instant.

Although there are a million beautiful states, to think you can be happy all the time is ludicrous.

We have a two-million-year-old-brain (evolutionarily speaking) that is wired to look for saber-toothed tigers. Finding no tigers, that beautiful brain of ours looks for something else to scare us.

 It “thinks’ it is looking out for us. Misguided thing that it is.

And so the mastery in life is to control our brain instead of letting it control us. The idea is to notice the fearful thought as it passes through and let it go on past. 

And think of this. We are stupid to fuss over what is predictable,

when we know someone will mess up.

I am used to events. I’ve attended channelers, consciousness raising groups that was something akin to EST, if you remember that. Taboo language doesn’t bother me. I love it when someone goes full out. To me it like Barbra Streisand singing “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”

Hit number two: Why affirmations and presentations such as The Secret that everybody went cuckoo over don’t bring the desired results.

It takes more that positive thinking or wishing—although having a positive attitude is definitely better than the opposite.

The trick is that is whatever you put out, affirm for, focus on, or pray for must be done in a peak state. (Perhaps desperation works too, for that is highly emotional.) I’ve heard that focus and affirmations must be done with emotion, many guru’s tell us that, but few pump you up like Tony Robbins.

So do whatever it takes to put yourself the in a peak state before you ask for your heart’s desire. Music, walks in nature, whatever floats your boat.

And remember to give thanks, to live in an aura of Gratitude.

One question was: “What amount of uncertainty can you take?

We need a certain amount of certainty in our lives to function well—food, money, love, those sorts of things.

Yet we need uncertainty. The call to adventure. The urge that pulls us toward a goal, those sorts of things. We just need to know where in the spectrum we fit. Remember all passion is in the realm of uncertainty, and remember this: You are more powerful than your dopey moments.  

Watch this orangutan watch a magic trick, it’ll make you fall out of your chair.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLrYzY3jVPY

From Firewalker to Streetwalker all in One Day

 View from my seat

As I looked out over the arena I thought, here are 10,500 people all collected together, wanting more out of life, wanting to heal their hurts, wanting to be happy.

Happy people do not kill others for the fun of it. Happy people do not shoot up schools, or cause war. Happy people want to serve, they want to pass on what they have discovered, they want to uplift.

And because of all us attendees at the Tony Robbins “Unleash the Power Within” event, paying our entrance fee, collecting together on a grand scale, the people of the San Jose area received one million free meals.

This contribution probably comes from Tony’s background of growing up without things like FOOD. One year someone gave the family a Thanksgiving, or some holiday, meal. While his father saw it as evidence that he was not adequately supporting his family, Tony saw it as food. That father was one of three to come--most confusing to a young child.

As I sat down at the railing overlooking the main floor, my seat companion said he was from Grant’s Pass Oregon—another Oregonian, what are the chances? He works for the corporation of #Dutch Brothers—the coffee people. 

Paul was a live-wire, a young man, not one who looked corporate. When they asked him if he wanted to be corporate said, “Do you know who I am?

It must have been his enthusiasm.

The Dutch Brothers company uses many of Robbins’s principals in their business, he said, and he was there because the company sent him and 29 others to this event. They sent them on the company plane and put them up at the Hilton.  My kind of company!

I said that the servers at Dutch Brothers are always so nice and asked if they train them.

No, he said, “You can teach a monkey to make coffee, but you can’t teach him to be nice.”

“Don’t sit together, the manager had told their people. “Spread out. Have your own experience.”

I’m going out of the house in a little while, think I’ll have a Dutch Brother’s coffee. We  have a Keogh within a mile of where we live. I am supporting them royally from now on.  Great coffee too.

I looked online and found this picture "#Dutch love that goes viral."

Thank God for Angels:

Earlier that first morning I took the train from my motel into where I thought I was going, The San Jose Convention Center. There were three fellows on the train also going to the Robbins event, and one, who had registered the night before, knew what he was doing. “Follow me,” he said. “It isn’t the convention Center. It is the SAP, the Hockey Arena.”

The train didn’t go to the Hockey center. Our stop was at the convention Center.

Out came the cell phones as the three fellows searched for directions. “It is about a 20-minute walk to SAP,’ my first angel said. “Are you up for walking? “

“Sure, “ I said, backpack on my back, an easy carry. We were warned to bring jackets as the arena would be cold, and bring snacks and water as well, necessary to keep our energy up. Some days there would be no lunch break.  

And then at the end of the day—hey, I bet you thought I was going to give you the low-down on the event. Uh, uh, uh, first you must throw rocks at the hero.

You know we are the heroes of our own story…

Walking on hot coals is nothing compared with trying to find ground transportation in San Jose California at 2:30 A.M.

We got out of the event at around 2 in the morning, as the firewalk occurred around midnight. I wondered how I would be getting home, for I was not walking downtown to the train stop, besides the train had stopped running.

I figured taxis might be standing in line outside the arena, as they do at the airport.

Nope.

I had a UBER app. “No cars available.” it said.

Okay, I called a taxi.

At this time all 10,497 people of the 10,500 event participants had mysteriously blown away like Mary Poppins ‘competitors for the job as a nanny.

Three girls were sitting on the curb.

I was one.

A cab came. We three shared it.

“Take us to the closest stop first," we said. I do believe it was me, but the other girl said it was her, so I said ok. This was after the endless debate by the two girls on where they were going. One had two options, the other fussed with the driver telling him where to go, where to turn, although he had a GPS right before his eyes. The other girl hinted about staying with me, but I only had a queen bed, and I wanted to flop on it---alone.

“Is it closer to Milpitas, or Campbell?” the girl asked. “Give me an address, “said the driver.

After the first girl was dropped off, the driver said, “Now we are closer to Campbell.”

“I am not going to ride to Campbell and back,  said the dragon that reared up inside me. “Take me to my hotel.”

He did…but that’s not the end of the story.

It turned out that there were two motels by the same name, and I was dropped off at the wrong one. 

When I walked to what I thought was my room, the taxi was still sitting in the driveway while the girl debated. Nope, I thought. You are not staying with me.

Something didn’t feel right, so I went into the lobby. There was the same man who had checked me in the night before.

However, I was not registered there.

 “You checked me in last night,” I said.

“It was at the other motel. I work at both.”

 “Where’s the other one?’

“Right down the road.”

I knew I was on the right road, just a wrong street number.

“How far?”

“Right down the road.”

That guy wasn’t much help.

“I’m walking,” I said, and took off.

So I walked the five blocks down 1^st street at 2:30 in the morning.

From Firewalker to Streetwalker all in one day.

But I made it home to a hot bath.

To be continued.

Come on Baby Light My Fire

No matter what you think of firewalking or how you explain it. This is the view before you. Now, baby, place your delicate white footsie on that.

The firewalking was easy, although it gets the most attention. It’s the drama.  It isn’t about the firewalking. It’s about taking the first step.

Years ago when I first heard that Tony Robbins’ participants walked on fire, I said, “When someone teaches a seminar on how to walk on water, I’ll take it.” But after listening to Tony Robbins tapes some 20 years ago, after reading Robbin’s book Awaken the Giant Within—that was long ago too. After recently watching  Joe Berlinger’s documentary on Tony, titled, “I am Not Your Guru,” I decided. “I’m going.” A twitter user posted the link, and although I don’t know who it was, I thank them.

I was, of course, concerned about walking on hot coals, no matter how many explanations are put on it. I had a teacher in San Diego who burnt her feet walking on hot coals, so I had that image pecking against my brain.

I didn’t know if I would do it, but thought, this is my opportunity to teach myself to overcome fear, and to think that if I could walk on fire I could do anything.

There were 35 fire strips for 10,500 people, I don’t know how many people walked, the majority did.

Tony prepared us for about 2 hours before the walk while videos of flames burnt around the room, on the monitors, on the digital strip around the San Jose SAP Hockey arena.

When images of flames came up, I thought, Hey wait a minute, you said hot coals, not flames. The images were of the burning wood before they settled into coals.

When the time came, the helper said, “Step on the grass,” (There is a strip before the coals.) I gave my chest a pound, shot my fist in the air, focused on the other side and walked.

Hey, that sounds like going for your dream.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

Trip to San Jose November 9, 2016

It was a beautiful day, clear sky, green fields. I arrived at the airport at 8 p.m. for a 9:20 flight.

Pretty easy huh?

Nine hours later I arrived at my motel in San Jose at 6 o’clock in the evening.

Could I have driven the distance in that time? Maybe. Except I couldn’t have read a novel or napped on the plane.

I felt that I had been dropped into a 3^rd world country.

The plane in Eugene was delayed for about 45 minutes. I had brought my laptop that weighs a ton and placed it atop my roll-on suitcase. The weight of it made that luggage sluggish and hard to pull. No problem, just walk down the jetway and board your plane. Right?

Wrong.

There was no jetway.

The plane was a little puddle jumper to Portland, and I guess it didn’t deserve a jetway. It was parked outside.

Okay. No problem. No rain. Except to my surprise once out of the airport gate,  we entered a long outside corridor that was blocks long. (I’m not exaggerating this time.) We could leave our suitcase at the bottom of the stairs but needed to take electronic devices aboard. I lugged my heavy computer case up the stairs, and all was well.

We were off.

Except that we arrived in Portland 45 minutes late, and by the time I dragged that suitcase with the computer down a ten-mile long corridor and arrived at the gate it was closed. Bye, plane. I watched as it pulled pull away from its jetway.

They reassigned me. The next plane would leave in two hours. They told me to go to gate C 9. And where was gate C 9? Back down that ten-mile long corridor, with me schlepping that suitcase while my back swore at me.

And where was the plane?

Parked outside.

To conserve space they offered to check my bag for free, so I did, and we flew to San Jose while I read and napped and told my back all was well.  It could relax.

We arrived around 4:30.

I decided since time was not a problem this evening, to try out my UBER app, and through it arranged for a car. (Only $5,16 they said.) I had planned on registering for the Tony Robbins event at the convention center this evening, but due to the late hour and my exhaustion, changed my mind.  In the morning I would join the great throng of other contestants also registering. (My consultant warned me.)

The UBER site said a car would arrive around 5 p.m., then they said 5:30. I waited and waited, and the phone kept saying they would arrive in 2 minutes, then 3, then 4, then 2. And the phone was down to a 5% charge.

Finally, I gave up and took a shuttle ($25.00) to my motel—not a hotel, a MOTEL.

Usually one has a car when arriving at a “MOTOR lodge.” I had switched from a hotel to save money.  That meant I had to walk to my room, number 183, down a pathway, over a bridge, through the woods, no, but it felt like a mile with me feeling I was pulling a cement truck.

I arrived at my room and decided not to leave it until morning. Among the many food items, packed in my suitcase is power-shake makings, so that will have to do for dinner.  They warned us to bring snacks for there will be no lunch break tomorrow.

At the Motel I had to pay for WiFi, and yes I did need to sign a document from back home, which was one reason I bought the computer.

I’m on the computer now, figuring I should use it since I paid for it.

I’m not complaining, just the facts, and I got in a day of reading, and up there in the sky, I marveled again how exquisite it is to fly. Can you believe people can fly? They can pour themselves into a big heavy bird and sail away. It is incredible, even if ground duty makes it take all day.

And speaking of birds, this morning on the way to the airport husband dear and I saw a flotilla of geese, floating down like eiderdown feathers, and landing in a tight puddle of brown the size of a football field in an immense field of green. And behind them, another group ebbed and flowed in slow motion until they gradually joined the dark sea of Canadian geese sitting down for a feed or a rest.

Tomorrow the event.

To be continued.

The Tigers are Circling

"Writing is like hugging a tiger you don't know if he will hug you back or eat you."

The Tigers circled again last night. I thought they were worries or concerns of the mind or plagues of the psyche. Daughter dear said those are “Tigers that turn our dreams into remorse.”

So I let the tigers have their way for a little while, just so they could air their grievances, and then I turned to #Joseph Campbell’s admonition: “Follow You Bliss,” did an about face, decided that everything would work out, and went to sleep.

Tomorrow I'm off to see the wizard.

#Tony Robbins

"Wherever you go you meet part of your story."

It's a Beautiful Day in Our Neighborhood

View from my window.

The leaves are red, the sun is shining, the air is crisp, we bought a house.

I slept last night.

This morning as I wiped bacon grease from our microwave and encountered that ring of rust around its turn style, I thought, We had to buy a house to get a new microwave.

That’s not really the reason, but I am tickled to have our offer accepted. We haven’t really bought it yet, you know, the loan process and all that.

The house was on the market one day. We viewed it the next, began filling out acceptance forms that night, placed the offer the following day—that was after 40 pages of forms, plus a loan pre-acceptance letter, and numerous docu-signs.

The next day the listing broker said there was another offer on the house.

I sent an addendum upping the price to cover the closing costs we had asked for. They were showing the house twice that day.

I couldn’t sleep that night.

I tried various thought patterns, seeing the house as ours, trying to keep fear out of the equation, knowing the house was our’s, relaxing.  I really believed that house was for us. It doesn’t look like a Davis house, but it hugged me when I went inside, it's cute, upgraded, and immaculately kept.

The house is in a neighborhood, but as it turns out, it is right on the edge of the city—the city boundaries are wiggly, and this house landed in one of the outside wiggles.

 I can legally have chickens!

The owners have chickens, and their beautiful secure chicken coop  comes with the property, and it has a well.  I like well water. It has a separate building my husband can use for a shop. Perfect.

I’m thrilled.

I’d stop writing so much about me if you would tell me about you.

What would you like to see on this blog?

For me to shut up? (If you felt that way, you wouldn’t be here.)

For me to tell you something you didn’t know? (What do you want to know? I probably don’t know either, but I’ll give an opinion.)

Yes, I know blogs are supposed to give information or instructions, be funny, or entertaining. I don’t have expert advice on know how to be a master in any field, how to be an expert blogger, gardener, farmer, scientist, and regarding technology-- forget that.

No expert advice is coming from me.

But the value of a blog is that you can talk about anything you want. People can read you or not. We can connect, have a discussion, we can talk about life and its idiosyncrasies. 

#Life. That is the reason we came to this planet.

So, I think that’s what we ought to talk about.

To learn its mysteries.

To find value in the little things.

To encourage each other.

To find ways of #coping, of getting along, of overcoming traumas.

To see with new eyes the world outside our window.

I have used that analogy often, the view out the window. It depends on which window we are looking through as to what we see. I see the beautiful red tree in the yard. We could look out and see garbage cans.

Choose which.

Don’t you think that is true with life,that we have a choice as to where to look?We can let others choose for us, see pictures the media puts before us, of murder and mayhem, or look out our own window, and watch the kids throwing leaves, laughing, falling into great piles off red, yellow amber, rust, tan?

Leaves I raked.

You know how little we know another person. They have a right to their privacy, that’s a given, but I’m thinking of someone I met who said they didn’t care much for social media, that they would rather sit and talk. I thought, great, tell me about yourself. The trouble was, I didn’t get much.

I wonder why we are so separate from each other.

In The Life and Death of American Cities, Jane Jacob’s describes what happened when urban renewal built superb, monolithic brick and glass towers for the city’s poor.  There were burglaries, rapes, assaults, and hallway muggings. 

On the other hand, some of the tattiest neighborhoods remained stable. Their crime rate was low. What was the difference?

Community.

The shopkeepers worked at their windows watching the neighborhood, the butcher knew everyone on the block. Little could pass their watchful eyes, besides, people are less apt to harm those they know.

It appears now that people are so busy, so overworked that they go home, crawl into their houses and pull the sidewalk in behind them.

Do you want more historical facts? (Ha, ha, hee, hee…somebody said that history is a lie we have all agreed with. Another said, “History is HIS STORY.”

Who wrote the story? Do you want a conservative telling the story or a liberal? Whose story would you believe? Is anyone unbiased?

I love trying to unravel ancient history, myths, legends, ancient civilizations, those sorts of things, and we must glean from whatever information we can find. We must be discriminating; we must go where no man has gone before. What feels right? Now they say that dinosaurs had feathers, would you have believed that 20 years ago?

How did we get to be the peoples we are? Many savages or semi-savage peoples had tales of a Golden age where people had better weapons, better boats, better towns, and higher forms of religion.

What happened to those people? Did they succumb to wars, natural disasters, comets, aliens, internal decadence, or a lack of concern for the planet?

The dark ages did happen. And then came the Renaissance-- derived from the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras.  Wow.

We are led to believe that it was a linear line from cavemen to now. What happened to the cave dwellers? Did little people of Hawaii called Menehunes exist? And did they one day walk into the jungle never to be seen again?  Who built the pyramids, and how?

Science is now talking about a holographic Universe, and that our brains, as well, have holographic qualities. #Quantum physics postulates that there are black holes that will not crush people but are portals to another place or dimension and that space travelers can use those black holes, and wormholes, as well, to travel and even create their own.

Some even suppose that space travel can be faster than light.

Scientists have found that atoms once together, then separated long distances, still communicate instantaneously with one another—like lovers feeling what the other feels.

Some may scoff at this, but remember, people scoffed at Copernicus for saying that the sun, not the earth was the center of our solar system and that neither earth nor sun, was the center of the Universe.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”  -- Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

I turned around from raking leaves, and there she was:

Contemplations of the Week

Well, it’s been an active week in Davis land.

Between searching for houses, researching manufactured homes, finding a Loft I like, (single-wide module) having the loan officer say he would not loan on a single-wide, placing an offer on a piece of property with an old loan pre-approval letter, thinking, of course, that if I got one loan preapproval it would show them I was capable of getting another.

Nope.

It sent the listing broker into a tailspin. Hey, they don’t want someone to buy property--whoops get a loan on it--until those people know what they are going to do with it. However, for us, it was a catch 22. We wanted to know we had the property—and they are flying out of here faster than the ducks migrating—so we can decide what to do with it.

Guess I listen to a different drummer.

I have noticed that if we decide we want something, that decision spreads through the air like pollen tinkling someone else's nose, and they decide they want it too. So, I figure we ought to jump on a decision as soon as we make it. My scenario is I place an offer, secure the property, use a 60-day escrow period to obtain a loan, if something goes awry, and I drop out they have just made $1,000 from our earnest money.

Seemed simple to me.

Nope, not simple.

Guess they were afraid to risk taking something off the market for a flake like me. (It’s been on the market for months already, and the owner didn’t get a chance to decide.)

The Listing Broker wouldn’t present it.

We withdrew our offer.

The Universe has something better for us.

This experience sent me thinking…about how important it is for bureaucracy to cross the t's and dot the i's.

I read a quote recently that went something like this: “If we stop telling stories the culture will die.”

I began thinking about this comment, that metaphor is important, “He was the black sheep of the family.” He was not a sheep. He was not black, but he was different and stood apart from the group, as does a black sheep. It works. It is colorful.

Similies work. Hey “Cool as a cucumber,” tells us a lot.

Images stretch our mind. Jesus often taught in parable. He said he was using a parable. Bible scholars called one story, “The parable of the prodigal son.” It was a story to teach. Did people take it as fact?  Don't know. Probably some. Yes, it is reasonable given the story. But to forgive, wasn't that the bottom line?

Something God didn't get with the Adam and Eve story. And so we have had an excuse to put down women for millennia. Good old inquisitive Eve had guts. She had the courage to want to be as wise as God. 

The African's say they don't know what God is, but His highest attribute is Imagination.

I have noticed that people have trouble with analogies and allegories. Remember Plato and his, "The Allegory of the Cave?” In Plato's story, the shadows of statues are reflected on a wall from the fire behind them. The shadows, according to Plato, represent what we see of life. We see only shadows, not the real thing.

Lose stories and we lose something as old as time and as important as breathing.

People read non-fiction more than fiction. People like reality shows.

Jump into the cold water. Read some fiction. Let someone like Ray Bradbury fill you head with fancy. It’s like running away to the circus.

I guess my experience with the Real Estate Agent—not my daughter, but another, sent me into this mode.  She was a teacher sent to say, “Don’t lose vision no matter the results or what people say.”

Imagine

It's wonderful to be here
It's certainly a thrill
You're such a lovely audience
We'd like to take you home with us
We'd love to take you home

--John Lennon and Paul McCartney

From Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band

At 8 o’clock on February 9th, 1964, 73 million people gathered in front their TV sets to watch The Ed Sullivan Show.

I was one.

That was the night the Beatles appeared on television in the U.S.

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

-- John Lennon

I watched the movie presently in the theater,  Eight Days a Week, a documentary by Robert Redford last week and watched and listened to the Beatles again. The mania that ran rampant was incredible, and then because of an off-handed remark by John Lennon, much of the world turned against them.  His remark was not meant to be insulting, nor was it in any way against religion. He was only stating facts. They were more popular than Jesus.

Jesus probably laughed. The people didn’t.

From Imagine to Help where John Lennon poured out his soul with his discouragement:

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round
Help me, get my feet back on the ground
Won't you please, please help me.

—John Lennon

When I heard them sing Help, however, the sound was so upbeat, that it didn’t seem like a cry for help until I looked up the lyrics.

I understand how a person doing their art, loving what they do, wanting to be successful, practicing their hearts out, and then not really understanding the hoopla if they do become successful, especially WILDLY successful as the Beatles were.  Crazed mobs could have crushed them. That’s plain stupid.

They considered not calling themselves The Beatles anymore, and that’s when Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was created.

This was an alter-ego group that would allow the group to experiment musically.

One astounding thing about the Beatles is that they really liked each other, and that releasing any work required the complete agreement of all four.

An effort where the players get along and are happy in their work shows in that work.

I’ll get By with a Little Help From my Friends.

“What would you think if I sang out of tune,

Would you stand up and walk out on me?”

 --John Lennon and Paul McCartney