On the third anniversary of George Harrison's passing...

Has it really been three years?

My thoughts of love and peace go out to Olivia and Dhani.

Ah, George. My favorite Beatle.

I was still an amoeba when Beatlemania first erupted in America in February of 1964, but I can say in all honesty that George Harrison was my favorite Beatle. That crooked, sexy smile of his, and the way he called his hairdo "Arthur." Songs like "If I Needed Someone," "I Want To Tell You," "Taxman," "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You," "Think For Yourself," "I Me Mine," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps..." Jesus, need I go on?

My thoughts of love and peace go to Pattie Boyd, too. Wow. If I could go back in time and walk in someone's shoes for a few hours, I'd choose Pattie's. She's the big-eyed Swingin' London blonde once married to George and later Eric Clapton, the one who inspired so many memorable songs like "Something," "Layla," and "Wonderful Tonight." I heard she works a photographer these days, and that people still hold her in high regard because she's never taken the kiss-and-tell route, which totally sucks for a trash culture-vulture like me because if there's one person whose tell-all book I desperately want to read, it's Pattie's. At the same time, her silence shows a lot of class on her part. Who knows? Maybe she's writing her memoir as we speak and it's embargoed until after her death.

And how I wish Anita Pallenberg would write a memoir, too, goddamn it. Marianne Faithfull's written one, so why not Anita?



Gini's Songs of the Week:

Supergrass - Melanie Davis. Christ, is there some kind of subliminal message in this song that keeps telling me to play it over and over again, at ear-splitting decibels? I'm helpless - it's the power trio theory hard at work, along with some hardcore air-guitar moments.

Byrds - Eight Miles High. Still gets me everytime. First time I heard it was on a Sunday morning when I was in the fourth or fifth grade, skipping church and listening to some Westwood One show on Q102.

Buzzcocks - Certain Move. A great song for the road, from the last Buzzcocks album. Supposedly there's a UK tour in the works for the spring and a one-off gig with Ari Up on one of those nights.

Smiths - London. Johnny Marr = Guitar Uber-God.

Ramrods - Ghost Riders In The Sky. I'd only been familiar with the Roy Clark version until I heard this in a recent re-run of "The Sopranos," in a scene where - I believe - Paulie Walnuts is conferring with Tony about how to deal with the out of control Jackie Aprile, Jr. David Chase's (or is it his music supervisor's?) musical taste and timing is so effin' brilliant it makes my eyes well up.

Elis Regina & Antonio Carlos Jobim / Susannah McCorkle - Aguas de Marco (Waters of March) - OK, this is beautiful in either its original Portuguese or the later English re-working, but it's haunting to note that both women who sang this song met untimely endings: Susannah McCorkle's jumping from a window, and Elis Regina's coke O.D.

Ventures - Bumble Bee Rock. Which reminds me, it's almost time to pull out the Ventures' Xmas album...