The Subject of the Sideburns Again
The Prince of Total Grooviness
Um, yeah, for a very short time in June of 1967 our Brian Epstein found the time to grow himself some extraneous facial hair. It's my contention -- I don't know for certain, but -- I think by its looks that Brian's hair grew very fast and lush. There's a chance he would have gone bald early, though, judging from pics of his father and brother!
HARRY EPSTEIN
CLIVE EPSTEIN IN 1978
(only 42 years old) But I digress.
As for waiting for it to grow out, ahh, the 3 months or so at the end of his life were the main ones where he would either disappear for days seeking out rough trade ... or he'd do the Howard Hughes bit and lock himself in his bedroom at Chapel Street for days, pushing notes and instructions, etc under the door for his secretary. So yeah, I'm sure he had plenty of times where nobody of consequence monitored him! In fact, the last press photos taken of him were in mid-July ("All You Need Is Love" rehearsal), and he became living-impaired (a.k.a. dead) near the end of August, so that's more than a month without being photographed/seen. That man could be dead drunk and seem perfectly sober; however, he did not handle drugs well, although he was obsessed with them.
What nobody seemed to catch on to is that he just needed to be taught/shown how to love HIMSELF. That was his whole problem. He really hated what and who he was as a person, and tried to reinvent himself through his boys. I've noticed that his worst times usually came during the fall. The high holidays. Sadly, it looks to me as if he equated the high holidays with mental self-flagellation, because he was indoctrinated by family to over-identify with that time of the year -- he was the eldest son, actually born on Yom Kippur, and family would proudly allude to that fact all the time.
I'm assuming you know a little about Judaism, sorry for yammering on about it if you don't.
The following article was from the MONKEE PARTIES WEBSITE "Brian Epstein/Beatle Party:
Brian Epstein and NEMS Enterprises sponsored the Monkees' Wembley Arena concerts in June of 1967, so naturally, Eppy and the Beatles threw the Monkees a smashing party.
This is the infamous party where Micky got really high and tripped out until 6am and started wandering around Hyde Park, talking to trees and eventually singing and hanging out with 700 Monkees fans. Cool.
Here's who attended: The Monkees and the Beatles (but not Ringo because Maureen was having a baby), Pattie Harrison, Jane Asher, Samantha Juste, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Eric Clapton, The Who, Procul Harum, Manfred Mann, Barry Miles, Jeff Beck and others."
Here is the picture provided with the article:
And here's another pic I nicked from an old eBay auction many moons ago:
In the Eppylover's (not-as-vast-as-she'd-like) Eppi-knowledge,
this would be the only publicly-seen photo of Brian's chest hair: YAY!
This was the caption for the above photos, in Ray Coleman's exquisitely wonderful book,
The Man Who Made The Beatles: Brian sent these two pictures, taken a few days before his death, to Nat Weiss.
He looks debilitated and uncharacteristically unkempt, lying in the sun on the roof
of his house at 24 Chapel Street, Belgravia, London. (Nat Weiss)
What do you make of that ghostly hand on Eppy's leg ... ?
Sooo ... this coming Saturday night is when Brian bit the big one ...
... errm, bad example, as he was known to nibble at many big (and little) ones ...
... what I meant is, hey, 'tis the week to start making depressing posts because he beamed up to that Big Shea in the sky! Yes!
BTW, I thoroughly dislike the phrase, "passed away."
WTF is that supposed to mean...???
If one wishes to employ an anachronism, one at least can make it amusing.
Death is hilarious. After all -- as I am much too fond of stating --
"LIFE IS A JOKE ... AND DEATH IS THE PUNCHLINE."
I sit here with hopefully 30-plus years to go, watching everyone scrambling around on this planet, knowing full well they're all just gonna die anyway. It's f*ing hysterical, it is.
Laugh? I thought I'd die!