As election day approaches, it’s important for a political candidate like myself to line up celebrity endorsements. One of my opponents, David Byrne, has the support of famous people-slash-political activists like Jane Fonda and Danny Glover, while another opponent, Bob Marley, has lined up a bunch of dead celebrity endorsements, including Robert Palmer, Nina Simone, Mickey Rooney, and John Lennon, who would’ve turned 69 today. How am I supposed to compete with—
… My sources have just informed me that Mr. Rooney is still alive. I’m sure they’re wrong, but I don’t want to embarrass them, so I’ll check Wikipedia after I get home.
So far the only endorsement I’ve gotten is from Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson, who made the trip to Bootleg City only after I convinced him that I’d gotten my hands on the world’s oldest instrument, a 35,000-year-old flute discovered by archaeologists in Germany last year. Once he arrived, I explained that my e-mail contained a few extra zeros, not to mention a gratuitous three and five.
Mr. Anderson wasn’t thrilled about traveling thousands of miles to receive a brand-new flute made in the Little Germany neighborhood of Bootleg City, but he did seem to enjoy the flute whipping he gave me, which was apparently a first. I was inspired to create a new tourism campaign with the following tag line: “Bootleg City: Experience the Unexpected (Just Be Prepared for Some Violence).”
I convinced Mr. Anderson to stay and give a talk to all the children of our city about the consequences a rock musician faces when he continues to play flute solos into his 60s. I left the City Auditorium during his speech so I could send my condolences to all the former Mrs. Mickey Rooneys of the world, but when I returned, the children were gone.
Some of these kids’ parents are still waking up from that disastrous Wizard of Oz screening. What am I going to tell them? “Sorry, folks, but a modern-day Pied Piper whose band won a Grammy in 1989 for Best Hard Rock/Metal Performance, Vocal or Instrumental, has run off and taken every child in the city with him. It’s a mystery as to why. I mean, everybody knows that award should’ve gone to Metallica.”
Yesterday was a special day in Bootleg City. Every September 10 — or “One After 909,” as some folks call it — we celebrate Beatle Day, which kicks off early in the morning with one of the fabled creatures emerging from beneath a stack of old records to poke his head into the sunlight. (”Good day, sunshine,” the Beatle always says. It’s so freakin’ adorable.) If he doesn’t see his shadow, his group’s music will finally be made available online. The problem is, he always sees his shadow. Bootleg City could really use some overcast days this time of the year.
As you might have heard, the Beatles albums have been remastered, in a format called “CD.” (“Compact disc,” right? I owned some of those back when I had hair.) Not that you would know from this site—Popdose has done a lousy job covering this.
Here at Popdose and throughout the Western world, this week’s (admittedly consumerist) Beatlemania revival has offered plenty of opportunities to reflect on their music, their influence … the astounding greed of their record label over a 45-year period … (Did EMI really have to sell the stereo and mono mixes separately, particularly considering that every album from Please Please Me to Revolver was short enough that they could have easily crammed both versions onto a single CD?) But as long as we’re sitting around dissecting the effects of the remastering process on “Happiness is a Warm Gun,” or tapping colored buttons in time to the scrolling visuals on the Rock Band version of “Revolution,” we may as well pause to marvel at the historical import of the Beatles’ efforts – and John’s in particular – to use their stardom to advance causes and engage in social commentary. In this, as in their music, they created a template that has been imitated and amended by generations of celebrities in their wake, for better and for worse. 
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During the summer of 1990, I entered the Record Exchange, my hometown indie store, to buy my first Beatles album. Hard to believe that an audiophile like myself didn’t own a single Beatles LP at all. At one time I copied a friend’s parent’s scratched up White Album on to cassette, and I once recorded the second side of 
Cocktail Slippers, Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (2009, Wicked Cool)