It's Completely Unconventional!

The events that occurred during the afternoon of Saturday, March 25, 2000 were all the result of a childhood prank that has come back to somewhat haunt my family for the past eleven years. I say this with all seriousness; although this may be one of the most hilarious stories you have ever heard, the underlying truth behind it all is that music is the driving force behind everything, including and not limited to mild insanity.

I suppose some background is necessary. My father, a fifty-four year old man who is proud of his grey hair and how it looks surrounding his babyface (which, incidentally, I have seemingly inherited from him), is just now starting to pack up the contents of the house he has lived in for the past twenty years into boxes in preparation for the big move. The move, a result of an upcoming remarriage and a change of employment, currently has no set destination. He just knows that he has to go.

Naturally, being the creature of habit that I am (another trait inherited from Dad), I have begun to walk the neverending trail of reminiscence and at times, denial. My thoughts are constantly saturated with vivid memories of my childhood in that house; visuals so clear and bright that I tend to lose the working meaning of the present tense. Reality only seeps in slowly when I find myself sifting through the photo albums, looking at younger reflections of myself smiling up at me, the edges yellowed with unstoppable age.

Fondly, I remember a night during the eighth grade that a friend and I stayed up and made about three hours worth of prank phone calls. We would call toll-free numbers, and attempt to come up with seven-letter words or phrases that would fit. I do not remember which one of us suggested to call 1-800-BEATLES...but suddenly we were talking live to some unsuspecting, tired lady, whom we thought mumbled the words "Beatles Fans..."

This was only amusing because the one thing my friend and I had in common was the fact that her mother and my father were avid Beatles fans, and that our respective homes were smothered and covered in Beatles memorabilia: autographs, gold records, photographs, Hirschfeld artwork(1), rare imports, and anything one could possibly imagine. I recall wondering just what the fuss was all about. Sure, the Beatles were highly influential, especially to people in my father's generation. However, that kind of excessive fandom did not sit well with me. My friend agreed. So when the lady on the other end of our silly joke asked us if we wanted a brochure, we giggled and gave her our addresses- in our parents' names, of course. About three weeks later, my father asked if I wanted to join him on a trip to New Jersey that weekend.

It seems as if my friend and I requested a brochure for an annual Beatles convention right outside of Secaucus, New Jersey entitled Beatlefest. My father was elated, and did not seem to mind that I used Ma Bell to its wrongful capacities to get him that brochure. All that mattered was that my father had found yet another outlet to breathe in his favorite band for a few days at a time. "Annual!" he grinned. "That means I can do this year after year!"

Without much thought to the matter, I decided to join my father (and, yes, my friend's mom) and attend Beatlefest '89. I figured that at last I would find out what drove people like my father into spending thousands of dollars in pictures and signatures. I suppose I thought that I would have all my questions about why my father does the things that he does answered in one big forum. Needless to say, the exact opposite happened.

While my father continued to attend these conventions (and even traveled to Los Angeles and Chicago for their annual throwdowns) I opted to remain at home and anxiously await his return to see what new merchandise he purchased. I was relentless in my taunting. "Daddy, it's just a rock band," I'd say, shaking my head. My dad would stare down at me with those small dark blue eyes and smile. "Nope."

As the years naturally progressed, I began getting into bands with a similar fondness as my father had for the Beatles. In 1991, I was first exposed to the music of Queen. Soon to follow would be Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and eventually Phish. Each of these bands influenced me tremendously in both my musical and non-musical endeavors. Although there were times where my musical tastes shifted a great deal, I consistently fell back on my absolute favorites. At times, my father would dig deep within the confines of those conventions and find rare treats from other bands that I enjoyed. He'd bring me back an old copy of Queen's "A Night at the Opera" on vinyl, or a t-shirt from Pink Floyd's 1979 World Tour. My father once offered to purchase a Freddie Mercury autograph for me on my sixteenth birthday. I promptly declined. I just could not understand how my father would want to spend a thousand dollars for a mere signature. Mercury is one of my musical heroes, no doubt about it. But I did not see how having his name scribbled in ink could possibly transcend the tremendous feeling of warmth and comfort I encounter when listening to his incredibly powerful voice sing to me in the eighteen or so records that Queen produced since 1971.

How does this all relate to a few weekends ago, you ask? I am getting there. My father had decided to introduce his fiancée to the wonderful world of Beatles fandom, and invited her to attend Beatlefest '99. The highlight of the convention for her was the car ride home. Needless to say, she would not be returning as his Beatles-loving companion to Beatlefest 2K. (I just had to jump in on the millennial bandwagon this once. Had to. '00 still looks rather unsettling to this freak of nature. Pardon my pet peeves, if you please.) After a bit of convincing (my father is a successful salesman, you see), I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of his car on the way to my first Beatlefest in ten years. I was curious, after all. I am a music-loving, tour-taking, setlist-drooling, must-know-everything-as-it's-happening-or-else-I-go-berzerk adult(2) now! Things had to have changed...

The Crowne Plaza was brimming with thousands of people, who covered two floors in loving tribute to the Fab Four. I made my way around each little nook and cranny, watching in awe as one middle aged lady squealed in delight after purchasing a backstage pass from Paul McCartney's 1989 Flowers in the Dirt tour. Parents pushed carriages that held babies with mini-t's that said I Love The Beatles. It was endearing, but visually frightening. I watched as my father considered purchasing an autograph of all four Beatles on one page. ("Those are actually very rare," he had told me back at my first convention. "That's the big bucks, though.") I suppose it was just then when it dawned on me that I was highly against the entire business aspect behind this otherwise adoring fanbase. It became unclear to me what even came first, exactly. So many people think so very fondly of this band, and they were willing to pay large amounts of money for just a small momento. I realized that although I personally did not hold those ideals, it was unfair of me to judge these large masses of Beatles fans who took over North Jersey for a weekend.

When my father and I left for the day, I asked him to stop walking and to just look around him at the people who were surrounding us. He smiled when he saw whom I was laughing at. One woman was wearing a Beatles shirt, a pair of pants with the Beatles logo on it, a hat that said - you guessed it - I Love The Beatles, and was even carrying a tote bag with an enlarged picture of Paul McCartney on it. "Do these people know that the Beatles broke up?" I asked my father in jest. "Well," came his response, "what do you think you Phish heads will do in twenty years when there are no more Phish concerts?"

Of course, my mind wandered some. I pictured that each and every person at the Crowne Plaza were there to celebrate the life and work of the Phab Phour, and almost lost my marbles. I shook my head emphatically. It was simple, really. I just could not picture thousands upon thousands of old Phish fans selling memorabilia to the point where it is just a business for them. I figured that if any other Phish fans were like me, they'd find a field to play around in for a weekend; the sounds of old tapes coming through some speakers. We would indeed celebrate Phish, and the impact it had on each of us - all of us - as we live our lives knowing we had been forever touched by music.

We would celebrate life as we could continually experience it through newer music, and through the music of our pasts- the very sounds that brought us the unmistakable serenity that calms our otherwise intense struggles that we endure. I realized that we do this now, really, and that there was no reason for that to cease to exist even after a Phish tour is just a memory; a picture or twenty-seven sitting lovingly in a box ready to be moved to another destination.

Although I never will quite understand Beatles conventions, (and hurriedly flock to the non-conventional way of tribute) the mere thought of them brings a smile to my face. I am glad that there are so many, because I cannot help but be reminded of my father- a wonderful, gentle, kind and loving person who put huge headphones to my ears when I was two and let me listen to Donna Summer.

In a few months, I will return to my childhood home and perhaps there will be a new family residing there, making a bit of history of their own. I will carry my memories with me always, not forgetting the day I discovered a piece of happiness a few weekends a year for my father simply by being a silly little kid.

(1) Al Hirschfeld (b. 1903) has created many incredible caricatures of The Beatles, which are sold at conventions worldwide. He has also created caricatures of the cast of Seinfeld, Jerry Garcia, Leonard Bernstein, among hundreds more. A film, entitled "The Line King" was also produced as a tribute to the artist in 1996.

(2) I was only kidding about the adult part.