The Final Love

The music of The Beatles is the earliest music I can remember. It’s the music that lives in my soul. I’ve known this since I was a child. On a field trip to hear the Fab Four’s songs performed by the Honolulu Symphony, I wondered why I was the only one of my classmates that was not only engaged and excited but singing along to all the songs. It was incredible to me that no one else knew all the words to "Help!"

How could a fifth grader born and raised in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, born sixteen months after The Beatles broke up, love their music so much? The answer is further complicated when you consider that he wept during one of the final shows of LOVE by Cirque du Soleil at The Mirage in Las Vegas – over four decades later.

And it almost never happened. But it did. Because, as the song goes, “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make.”

“Complicated” shouldn’t be used to describe one’s devotion to a rock ‘n roll band or their music. It’s not rocket science that as a progressive-minded person/artist would gravitate to a group who were never content to just be a boy band who all the girls screamed at. When the teenyboppers wailing got so loud that they couldn’t even hear if they were in-tune onstage, The Beatles quit touring for good (until their famous rooftop swan song) then hit the studio to transform the entirety of music history. They pushed themselves and music itself, innovating where no musician had gone before. Miles Davis, Prince...and The Beatles. Of course, I would gravitate towards them. But I didn’t discover them on my own and hence the complication.

In a family full of musicians on both sides, my father was probably the most talented. Naturally gifted, he never studied in the traditional sense, playing solely by ear or effortlessly copying what he saw. He fronted all of his bands since youth, even appearing on a popular local television show. I’d sit amazed watching him play his guitar (electric, acoustic, bass), smoothly as if he was the instrument, just channeling the sounds from the ether. Later, I’d learn the only instrument he didn’t seem to master, the drums. I was the son of a musician and his groupie. I didn't want to just be like him; I wanted to play with him.

It wasn’t until after they got divorced (name me a musician and groupie who are still married) that my obsession with John, Paul, George and Ringo began. And I knew who they were – by name AND face – because the LET IT BE album, their faces blazed on four quadrants on the cover, were in my father’s collection along with ABBEY ROAD and HEY JUDE COMPILATION ALBUM on LP and MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR on 8-track. He said he had more albums but didn’t know where they were. It didn’t matter. On the weekends and summers that he had custody, I devoured those four classics, learning every inch of every song, vocals and instrumentals. I’d come to know all the albums in the same manner, but my education began with those. And I had a lot of time to learn them because my father was too busy getting his own shit together, with another wife and another band.

When people find out about my childhood, they think it was so cool. Not only did I learn how to play the piano on my father’s Fender Rhodes electric piano, but I was there when he and his band would have rehearsals – on my weekend. I was also there at their gigs – on my weekend. Eventually, I would roadie (setting up the equipment, doing mic checks) and a handful of times got to play on a jam session or two – on my weekend. I was not even in high school and I was “Check, check, one, two, one two” in a smokey club or at parties. It was cool.

What would have been even cooler was if my father had spent actual time with me, not just as the guy teaching me the correct way to roll up a mic cord so that he could pack it up more efficiently. As I got older, the complication untangled itself, much like the mic cord I set up as an eleven-year-old.

My paternal grandmother once explained to me that my father came home crying to her one day when he was 19 years old, “Pam got me pregnant!” or something to that effect. All he wanted to do was surf, smoke pot and play music. He didn’t want to be a father. Not sure if he even wanted to be a husband. But for ten years, he put away his dreams of being a musician, got a real job and fulfilled his responsibility. Until his groupie wife decided that the non-rockstar life was not for her then broke up the family unit. That was the greenlight he needed to dust off his acoustic Martin and electric Les Paul and get a band together. He would never even attempt to be a real father again.

I thought that, yes, though the divorce would traumatize me beyond recognition, I’d at least get to play music with him. As a young adult, I even bought an acoustic guitar that I couldn’t afford because he said he’d put together a series of tutorials on video tape so I could learn from him (he and my stepmom had been living in California since I was 13 and I was still in Hawaii). But the tapes never came. The reality of the situation came from my grandmother’s early epiphany she (lovingly) laid on me: He never really wanted to be a father to begin with. Through adult eyes I finally de-mystified the myth of the parent and saw him for what he always was: selfish. Unbelievably talented, yes, but selfish. I would come to realize most artists are self-involved if they are worth a damn in their art. Not an excuse, but a shitty reason.

His neglect of me – his biggest fan – left a hole in my heart. By the time he was convicted for sexually assaulting my niece and was sent to prison, I had already detached myself from him emotionally and psychologically, not feeling I ever really had a father.

But I still had The Beatles.

Every time I listened to their music (which was more often than not), I’d be reminded of my father. Bittersweet doesn’t even come close to the angst that accompanied hearing George’s ever-positive “Here Comes the Sun”. But I still listened. I still obsessed over them. Not just collecting all of their music, but reading countless books, watching even more documentaries. That horrible cunt of a father would NOT take The Beatles away from me. So I listened, knowing that in doing so, I’d be reminded of a conversation that we had about them, about sheet music he’d given me, about learning the opening to “Let it Be” on his Fender Rhodes while he was in the bathroom getting stoned.

I met the love of my life, Angela, when I was just starting my filmmaking career, living in Los Angeles. Knowing I was the proverbial struggling artist, she eventually convinced me to come live with her and her twins in Las Vegas. My dream of being a filmmaker was about to be put on hold to become a father to a little boy and girl. This sounded too familiar. But my sense of duty would not allow me to take the same path as my father. I hoped.

When Angela found out about my love of The Beatles, she said she’d take me to see LOVE at The Mirage. But then life happened. Being a dad with a real job happened. We eventually moved from Las Vegas to Houston to provide a better life for our family. I had all but forgotten about the Cirque de Soleil show that was waiting for me on The Strip.

After a decade-long detour, I was finally able to resume my dream of being a filmmaker and kicked it into high gear. She supported me in everyway possible; from financing my short films, to putting me in the company of the Gods (Tarantino, Fincher, Soderbergh, etc.). And after the most glorious five days of my life (DeNiro Con 2024 in New York, highlighted with being in the physical presence of the great man himself multiple times), she was convinced that there was nothing she could ever do to top it.

But on our 15th anniversary as a couple, she did it. And then some.

During a visit to Vegas to take our twins to visit their grandmother, Angela surprised me with what she had promised many years ago: we were going to see one of the final showings of The Beatles LOVE. After an epic 18-year run, Cirque du Soleil announced that The Beatles LOVE production would be ending on July 7th, 2024 as The Mirage would be transitioning to yet another Hard Rock Hotel. Ironically, one would think a show featuring the greatest band in music history would be their feature attraction. But it didn’t matter. On July 3rd, as we sat in anticipation for the first show of the night to begin, I uttered the most obvious warning that, “You know I’m going to sing the entire time, right?” at which point Angela just rolled her eyes.

And sing I did! Or at least, I tried. My past had other plans for me. From the opening with “Because” piped at max volume and the silhouettes of the Fab Four emblazoned on humongous transparent cloths hanging from the ceiling, my voice cracked. My heart swelled; my eyes watered. During the next hour and half all I could do was silently lip sync the words, the emotional rollercoaster of classic song after classic song, accompanied by a masterful production by the Cirque performers. It felt blasphemous for me to be belting out songs that – though were a part of me – were perfectly produced by Giles Martin, the son of the legendary Beatles producer, Sir George Martin. Who was I to be THAT fan? Instead, I let the music take me to where it had taken me countless times before. And then it took me someplace I wasn’t expecting.

It has been Beatle folklore that Paul McCartney wrote “Hey Jude” for Julian Lennon, John’s somewhat neglected first son. Years before I learned that tale, I felt Paul wrote it for me. Dealing with a divorce, where I was rejected by one parent and neglected by the other, when he sang to “take a sad song and make it better”, Sir Paul saved me. He went on to console me, “…anytime you feel the pain…refrain…don’t carry the world on your shoulders”. Yes, I get it was also about never giving up on love. But it was first about Julian, the neglected son. And for me. So, when “Hey Jude” began drifting in the air - the only thing existing in that moment - I wept. Uncontrollably. Requiring Angela to hand me tissues. She had witnessed me being emotionally overcome by the most meaningful things in my life before, but this was different. Watching the little boy on stage alone on his bed being consoled by those around him as he lost his mother, with Sir Paul’s voice telling the tale…I couldn’t handle it.

After the show, I explained to her what I had figured out, though still in an out-of-body haze. She didn’t just take me to see a show. Experiencing the show with HER and going through the catharsis of being immersed in my soul's music was a rebirth. This incredible joy replaced the golem of my father that had accompanied every stanza of their music since I was little. From that moment on, I could hear their music, enjoy their music thinking of being at LOVE - with her. For years, she has felt that because I sacrificed a large part of my filmmaking dream to be the best, most reliable and attentive husband and father, the kind I never grew up with, that she would do everything she could to balance it out. And she has. But she never expected this. I never expected this.

John, Paul, George, Ringo…and Angela. The Fab Five. Fixing a hole.

I could use other cliché Beatle titles to paint the picture (“All You Need is Love” is literally playing as I write this) but they’re not needed. Bearing witness to the final LOVE with my Final Love, is all you need.

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