Ya Gotta Know Something To Be A Know-It-All...

ALTERNATE TITLE: "...but I'm not gonna let that stop me from posting..."
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The more I know, it seems the Less I know. Although in looking at the big picture, it seems that everything just seems to repeat itself. That doesn't mean that I actually know what's going on, but when what "goes around" comes around", I can look back and think, "I should have seen this coming", after which I slap myself on the back of the head in best Mark Harmon "NCIS" style. "WHACK!!!" "OOF!" That said, here goes another posting...
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REPUBLICAN PARTY: IS THIS THE BEST THEY'VE GOT? Mitt Romney, the Eternal Millionaire (if not Billionaire) and Newt Gingrich, that philandering so-and-so who couldn't wait until one of his sick ex-wives was dead before dating someone else, are the GOP Elephant's front-runners. And the Newt (not to be confused with the Gecko) is losing some of his party faithful cos he couldn't quit his low-down ways. But this information didn't really be dirty-laundried because most people don't really like him anyway. Meantime, Romney makes more in a week than lots of people make in a year. Well, good. If he eventually is elected to the Oval Office, he'll be able to keep his mind on his work, since he doesn't have to worry about running out of money anytime soon.
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IT'S TIME TO DONATE TO THE CAMPAIGN ONCE AGAIN: No, not the Political Campaign. The campaign to insure that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr don't become destitute anytime soon. Paul McCartney (who might just have more $$$ than Mitt Romney) and Ringo Starr (who really needs to stop flipping the Peace Sign every waking moment) are coming out with new albums. Paul's is full of old jazz-vocal standards. He's written a couple of new songs for that album, but the whole thing is chock-full of 1940's type music. Just the thing for the listener who's always wondered what an ex-Beatle would sound like if he stepped into Frank Sinatra's shoes. Ringo's new album is gonna be another collection of new mundane minor songs, plus some cover versions of '50s music. It will be unremarkable. Ringo really has not cut a great record since 1973 (The "Ringo" album with "Photograph", "You're Sixteen" and "Oh My My" (Whoa, 3 hit singles!)

Why am I so sure his new album will be a dud? Because I've purchased All of His Music over the years since the Beatles' breakup, and over the years, it's all been unremarkable. Not Atrocious by any means. But unremarkable. One of his records wasn't released at all in the USA...the record company didn't like it. That album, "Old Wave" (which came out in the early '80s, I think) was released Only in Canada. It too, is, well, unremarkable. Color-by-numbers music. Count the song in, insert words in the appropriate places, sing the chorus, allow for an instrumental, then one more verse and chorus and yer done. As Queen once sang, "all we hear is...Radio Ga-Ga...Radio Boo-Boo...Radio Blah-Blah..." (Radio Ca-Ca, perhaps?)...except this music will never get anywhere close to the radio.
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FROM DECREPID TO HALF-WAY PASSABLE: Sometimes a person finds him/herself in the situation where anything he/she does is an improvement over what was done before. That's the situation I was in. I recently bought, for just over a hundred bucks, a stereo copy the Beatles' famous (infamous?) "Butcher Cover" that their record company covered up in haste so many years ago when the album was first released in 1966. When I bought it, here's what I got:
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Rough Indeed. And yes, I saw this before I bought it. But rather than seeing things as they are and asking 'why'; I decided to see the possibilities and ask 'why not'. (No, I'm not running for office.) The previous owner tried to peel the "Trunk" cover off, and in doing so, tore huge bits off the cover, totally eradicating John and obscuring Paul's pretty face. But the wickedly-smiling George and the out-of-it Ringo were left mostly intact. I stuck the cover in a plastic sleeve and marked out the areas in the worst disrepair. For a picture of what was used to cover up this cover, scroll down to the end of the blog...
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I've got a Mono "Butcher Cover" that's in good shape. The only difference between Mono and Stereo is, the Mono doesn't have the gray 'stereo bar' at the top. Stereo Butcher Covers are also worth up to twice as much as a Mono covers.  Otherwise, all images are the same size. So...off to the print shop I went, having color copies made of my good cover, to overlay the bad portions of the shot-to-hell cover. The color copier somehow added a bluish tint to the background, so it wasn't an exact match, but as Stan Freberg once said, "it's close enough for jazz"...
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Here's the result I ended up with. John has been brought back to life, Paul's face has been restored, and I drew in the piece of meat held in place under Ringo's left armpit. I also drew in his left knee with a marker. It became obvious that I wasn't going to have a perfect color match, so I colored in the background above the group with a gray "Sharpie" marker. But then I had a metallic finish to deal with. So I sprayed some Elmer's Glue onto the finish, which eliminated the reflection. I filled in the gray bar at top with a black Bic Pen. and overall I'm happy with the way things turned out. There's almost 50% of the original cover showing through, so I can prove to anyone that this is an Original Cover. I'm also hoping I enhanced its value a bit. As far as the end result goes, I've seen covers in worse condition going for more than the $110 I paid for this one. Unblemished Stereo Butcher Covers are Priced Out Of This World, but at least I have a "stereo butcher", ha ha ha ha Ha Ha Ha HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!
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Here's the Mono Butcher-Peel that I bought almost a decade ago. The "Trunk" cover was pasted over the Butcher Cover,  This is the original "Trunk" cover that was laid over this "Butcher" cover. The "Trunk" cover continued to be issued long after the "Butcher" covers had all been covered up. Ringo's black shirt in the Butcher photo can be seen through the white area at the left of the "Trunk" cover when laid on top of the "Butcher".  The cover I bought had some water damage at the bottom center; I paid $1,000 for it. Not the kind of purchase one makes every day. Notice at the top of this Mono butcher-peel that there is no gray bar, indicating "Stereo" at the top. Judging from the care and patience it takes to peel a Trunk Cover off the Butcher cover, the only advice I can give is "don't try this at home". The copy I have was too far-gone to save totally, so I overlaid new images on it instead and saved at least some of the original images.
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So what goes around comes around. You might recall I mentioned Ultra-Rich Mitt Romney earlier in this post. He can buy all the Butcher Covers he wants. As a voter, I can be bought. Mitt, send me a pristine Stereo Beatles-Butcher cover and I'll vote for ya...