We begin this tale of horror three days before the Beatles would be on the Ed Sullivan Show. To them the Ed Sullivan show was the beginning of a new life, money, and everything. So how were these three days so horrible if this would be the Beatles big break? How can you ask such a question! Don’t you know that something awful always happens three days before anyone’s big break? Why it’s known as the ground breaking three day curse! Oh the horror of this curse.
It had been a long plane ride and of course those lovely guys from good old Liddypool were tired and jet lagged. So when George crossed the path of a very strangely dressed dotty old lady, it was no surprise that he was a bit rude. After all, running for your life while being chased by millions of young girls can put a strain on anyone. In his flight he’d knocked the poor little lady down and hadn’t even tried to help her up. Little did he know the mistake that he had made by crossing the powerful gypsy’s path!
Madame Cordelia looked up at the gangly foreigner that had so rudely knocked her down and hadn’t even looked back to acknowledge her. Such men deserved punishment she thought evilly to herself, and then she began to weave a spell. She went to the nearest candy shop and brought a pound of jelly babies, and with that final ingredient added, her spell was complete, now to get that young fellow give him the special candy!
The little old woman stalked quickly to the Plaza, knowing that the rude young man was staying there. (Did I mention that the little woman had a knack for mind reading, oh how mind boggling!) She happened upon a woman that worked at the front desk of the sharp hotel, and thrust the jelly babies into her hands, implanting the thought, to get the candy to the one know as George Harrison.
The desk clerk eyes filled with a glassy look as she entered the hotel. She quickly finished registering up her final customer when her break tolled. She had been hastily gazing at her watch ever since she met the strange old lady with the bag of jelly babies. She grabbed the bag that she had kept hidden in her desk and headed up to the seventh floor where the Beatles were staying. She walked like a sleepwalker up to their suite and tapped gingerly on the door. The guy with sharp features and auburn hair answered. The desk clerk hardly acknowledged him as she shoved him aside and headed to George’s room. John, the Beatle that she had so rudely pushed aside, was completely bewildered.
“Bloody American birds! They want respect, but treat us men like shit!” He grumbled under his breath as he slammed the door and headed into Paul’s room.
Meanwhile in George’s room the plot thickened. The desk clerk had just walked into his room while he was in the middle of dressing. When George heard the door shut he quickly spun around to face a very busty brunette with a strange blank look on her face and a bag of jelly babies in her hands. George looked at her for a moment, but when he caught site of the jelly babies his eyes couldn’t leave the bag, oh the yummy goodness of the gooey candy as the taste of each piece burst in his mouth. Just staring at the bag made his mouth water and his knees go weak. He was in complete ecstasy!
Forgetting about his budding nudity and his unzipped pants, he charged forward, attacking the bag of jelly babies and snatching them away from the very busty brunette desk clerk, who was in shock at the half naked young man with his pants at his ankles, not to mention the fact that he was shoving a whole bag of jelly babies down his throat in record time. She screamed and then ran out of the room and didn’t stop her speedy escape until she was safely behind her desk and checking more customers into the hotel.
While John and Paul were in the middle of a gazing at a very striking centerfold in one of Paul’s new girlie magazines they heard the earth shattering scream of a woman coming from George’s room, and let’s just say that scream wasn’t a happy fulfilling one either. As soon as they reached the door they saw the girl running from the room, with a horrified look on her face. They looked at each other in complete confusion.
“George couldn’t be that bad in bed, could he?” John asked.
“What the bloody hell was that?” Ringo, the very irritated and frightened drummer, asked.
“Oh, George just lost another bird, maybe later I can pick her up,” Paul commented nonchalantly.
John and Ringo made a face at Paul and then they headed towards George’s room. When John opened the door Ringo and Paul crowded around behind him and looked down in horror at what laid at their feet. There was George laid flat out on the floor with an empty plastic bag in his hand, with only his boxers in tact and his pants at his ankles. The Beatles would have laughed at the sight had they thought that George was alive.
“Oh, bloody hell not now!” John shrieked as he fell to his knees beside George. “Not fucking now, when we are about to get our break. You can’t die now you little git! You just can’t be gone!” Then John began to pound on George’s still back, and heard him grunt. He jumped back with a start and then began to waltz around the room with Ringo, shouting “The little bastard is alive! I’m gonna kill him for scaring me like that!”
“Well, now that we’ve established that he’s alive, what are we going to do?” Paul asked, as he stared oddly at John waltzing with Ringo. John quickly regained his composure and walked away from Ringo as discreetly as possible. He felt a bit embarrassed by his sudden out burst of joy, and his rosy cheeks didn’t help hide it either.
“Let’s wake him up and rag him on his lousy love life!” John shouted and got a cup and filled it with cold water. He grinned wickedly as he tiptoed over to George, then tipped the glass, allowing the freezing contents to fall on his comatose mate. George, didn’t roll over, or even so much as flinch! That was very strange indeedy! Sure he was a heavy sleeper, but how could ANYONE sleep through that? The situation was beginning to look bleak as John saw Ringo brushing a red jelly baby off on his jacket. John plucked the gummy delight from a very stricken Ringo and examined it thoroughly. He began to hmm, and grunt as he stalked around the room doing his best Sherlock Holmes impression. He then picked up the plastic bag and inhaled deeply. A fit of coughing followed his strange method of examination. By that time Paul had his arms crossed over his broad chest a scowl on his face, as he tapped his foot in annoyance. He was giving John that, ‘one of us is comatose and you are acting like a bloody nit” look.
John just stuck his tongue out at his band mate and then answered the question that was on everyone’s mind, “George ate poisoned jelly babies!”
Ringo inhaled a sharp breath and Paul gave John another annoyed look. “What don’t believe me? Fine then you try this last jelly baby and me and Richie will watch and see what happens to you, but before you try it I have dibs on that centerfold!” John said smugly, because he knew that he was right, after all it was the only thing that made even remote sense, and lets face it, George loved his jelly babies. John had been quite surprised to find that even one of the gooey treats had been left by the now comatose Geo.
Although Paul wanted to prove John wrong he didn’t want to take the chance of losing that lovely centerfold, and there was always that small possibility that John could be right in all of his insanity. Paul gave in to John’s theory and Ringo just looked dazed from all the excitement of the day. This was definitely going to be some trip. How would they play on the Ed Sullivan show without their lead guitarist and back up singer, and what would Brian say?
Now a few hours later the boys were set to the task of finding ways to wake up George without risking serious injury. The boys were still a bit shaken from Brian’s outburst earlier and wanted to wake George up as soon as possible. George in all of his comatose glory was laid out on his bed, wearing only his favorite jelly baby boxers while his mates tried to decide on how to wake up their poor sleeping lead guitarist.
“I say we give him the worst beating till he wakes up!” John suggested as he balled up a fist.
“We don’t won’t t’ kill him, we still need him for the Ed Sullivan show!” Paul whined.
“I didn’t say kill him, I meant MUTILATE him!” John continued in his irrational manner.
“Isn’t there a medical condition for what George has?” Ringo asked.
“Yeah, Richie,” John growled, “Or there will be when I’m done with him. How could the fucking bastard do this to us right before the Ed Sullivan Show!”
“I’m serious! It’s Narco something. Narcosleepy I think,” Ringo answered with a wide grin as he realized that he could have very well solved their problems!
“It’s Narcolepsy you nit!” John shouted, with his biting temper, turning Ringo into a sniveling mess heading toward a corner to pull himself together.
“Now, look at what you’ve gone and done Lennon! You and your bloody temper is going to be the downfall of you someday if you keep it up at this rate!” Paul snapped in Ringo’s defense, and this was rare indeed because Paul only snapped at Jane when he was in one of those horrible moods he was sometimes in, or after they got into a fight.
John took that blow with shock, surprise, and the dawning realization that he was being an asshole! He turned guiltily to face the usually happy drummer, wailing and sobbing in the corner of the room, and guilt filled every bone in his body. ‘Damn it, all I want is a chance to be successful and take the world by storm, now I have a lead guitarist who can’t wake up, a sad drummer sobbing in the fucking corner of a hotel room, and a very important show to do in three bloody days! Well, Lennon, how’re you gonna pull this one off?’ He thought to himself as he went over to Ringo, knelt down beside him, put a hand on his shoulder and handed him a handkerchief.
Ringo blew his rather large nose into the hankie and handed it back to John. John held his hand up, made a face, and told Ringo to keep it. Ringo thanked him, got up, composed himself, and was back to his cheery little self moments later. The boys went into George’s room in hopes that something had changed and George would wake up in his usual stupor and ask for some jelly babies, but unfortunately their hopes fell as they were greeted by George still in his comatose state. The boys left the room with a heavy sigh and sat down in what could only be described as the living room of the hotel suite. They sat in various places with Ringo stretching out languidly on the red loveseat, Paul finding a comfortable position on a plush red chair, and John plopping down on the lovely red couch. Paul began to fidget and then sighed, “Damn, leave it to George to ruin me first trip to America! I wanted to sample some of these American birds and here I am stuck with you two and baby sitting sleeping beauty in there!”
Paul had taken his over used gesturing left hand and stabbed the air with his left index finger through the air in the direction of George’s room. Just as Paul was finishing up his small tantrum a light over Johns head suddenly popped on. A grin began to work its way over his sharp features as it all fell into place! It made perfect sense. Now all he needed was for someone to kiss George!
“I’m a genius, a bloody genius!” John shouted as he pranced around the room, doing a victory dance.
After two long hours of explaining his genius plan to Paul and Ringo he still got the same answer. Ringo just looked on in his usual bewildered state, but Paul wasn’t too happy with the idea that John had come up with.
“No, I’m not doing it. I don’t care if it does mean canceling the Ed Sullivan Show! Hell no!” Paul repeated fiercely again for the twentieth time in five minutes.
“Oh, come on Paulie. You’re perfect. Every girl who’s ever met you would agree. You’d make a perfect prince. Now do your duties and awaken Sleeping Beauty. You said it yourself! You’d rather be out with the American birds, than baby sitting Sleeping Beauty in there. Well now here’s your chance,” John smiled smugly as he twisted Paul’s words around to fit his devious purpose.
“It’s your idea, why don’t you kiss him and wake him up?” Paul whined.
“That’s simple, you are more the princely type. Now Macca get your ass in there and wake up our mate!” John ordered.
“I don’t wanna!” Paul was really beginning to sound like a toddler now with his incessant whining.
"He might not be sleeping BEAUTY, maybe sleeping ugly, but hell we're talking about our big break! The Ed Sully SHOW! You are going in there, kissing him, and waking him up, even if I have to shove yer bloody face right up to his lips!" John growled.
“Why’s it always me doing all the dirty work?” Paul grumbled under his breath.
“What was that Macca!” John snapped, as Paul trudged past him and into George’s room.
After hours of trying to pull of John’s experiment Paul finally threatened to quit the group. Of course the only reason he was threatening something so outrageous was because by ‘Sleeping Beauty’s’ third kiss both John and Ringo were in hysterics. Besides Paul being really tightlipped, dry mouthed, grumpy, frustrated tired and all puckered out, he was ready to kill John.
“Oh, come on then, Paul. You still have yet to give ‘im a bit o’ tongue. I’m sure that tongue of yours has been in worse places, and George would be drinking mouth was far longer than you!” John shrieked with laughter and ended up falling onto his back. He had been clutching at his poor aching stomach, waiting for it to explode, because he hadn’t been laughing for two hours. Ringo was also suffering from another fit of giggles. Paul looked down at them, his face full of disgust, shot them the finger (which got more laughter from his two semi-conscious band mates on the floor), and headed toward the bathroom where he gargled mouthwash for the remainder of the night. He ended up calling room service several times requesting for more mouthwash.
Eventually John and Ringo’s laughter began to subside and they ended up in the living room of their suite with Ringo once again lying on the couch and John somehow arranged on the couch. His current position was indescribable considering its complexity. When Paul eventually left the bathroom they looked up with grins.
“Ah, don’t worry mate, we won’t tell anyone you were saving that wicked tongue of yours for Brian!” John said nonchalantly and his face exploded in a wicked grin.
That sent Paul over the edge and he dove for an unsuspecting John. Ringo had been about to laugh at John’s comment as Paul swan dived for John, but thought better of it. As he scampered away from the fighting pair, he heard a lot of shouting and grunting, “I’ll show you whose queer you bloody bastard! At least I didn’t go off to Spain with him!”
He hurried into George’s room and quickly shut the door behind him. He looked down on George and noticed that he’d turned to his favorite sleeping position (lying flat out on his stomach). That was a considerable change since he hadn’t moved since John and Paul had tossed him onto the bed. He also noticed how George was twitching and moaning. ‘Must be some dream!’ Ringo thought to himself as he hurried out of the room in time to find Paul lying in a crumpled unconscious heap on the floor as a very proud John (with a black eye) had his foot on the back of the defeated Paul. John was grinning over his victory when he noticed the drummers very anxious manner of behavior. Forgetting about his stunning victory he asked a very antsy Ringo what was wrong.
“He’s moving! George is in there lying on his stomach and he’s moving!” Ringo shouted the happy news. John shoved him out of the way as he bolted into the lead guitarist’s room.
“Bloody hell Rich, you’re right! He has moved! Well maybe Macca was on the right track with the kissing why don’t you try Ring! Be sure and give him some tongue,” John’s voice rang with the authority of leader of this operation, and he puffed his chest out with pride over his new found authority.
“Hell NO! Are you kidding me? Paul was at that for hours, oh no! I might not be the smartest apple of the bunch, but I know when to draw the line and my line is strictly drawn. You do it!” Ringo said as he spasmodically jerked his head in a very powerful “HELL NO” gesture.
After long hours of fighting over who would be the next ‘Prince Charming’ to give waking up a George a go, they decided they’d drag Paul to his room, then head off to their own rooms to wander off into dreamland and propose the idea of the whole kissing thing working to Paul, yet again in the morning, and hopefully by then they’d be well stocked on the mouth wash. After all they were going to need it, if Paul went along with it.
It was now the morning of the day when the Beatles would be appearing on the Ed Sullivan show and by now our lovely heroes were pacing the floor and chain smoking like chimneys! How could they perform without George? He hadn’t woken up not once since three days ago after the guys had found him. How were they going to explain this to Ed? How could they cancel on their big break in America!
All of the attempts of waking the ‘Sleeping Beatle’ had failed! Oh the horror of having to go up on stage as a trio rather than the four scants from good ol’ Liddypool! The guys were getting really desperate by now, and well Brian was just, to put it lightly going INSANE. They had to give him a tranquilizer every four to six hours to keep him asleep so that he wouldn’t rant, rave, and pace holes in the floor.
Over the past two days the guys had tried everything to wake up the hibernating Beatle, but all attempts had failed. They even asked the doctor that had treated Brian for smelling salts! What the guys failed to notice was the strangely dressed old maid that had come to make up their beds and clean their rooms. She sure had lingered in George’s room. She’d noted her victim with a sly grin playing about her lips.
The batty old maid had finally creeped the guys out so they showed her out and then went about their mission on waking up George. Although Ringo and John had tried to talk Paul into puckering up just once more, their attempts had failed and Paul was still gargling mouthwash about fifteen minutes before the show. The Beatles had brought George with them, in hopes that they could wake him up. Unfortunately they still weren’t having much luck.
Paul was in the loo when he jumped. Someone was about to beat the door down. Paul spat out the mouthwash he was gargling and then shouted, “Piss off Lennon!”
“I’m not Lennon, now get the hell outta there I gotta PISS!” George yelled through the door, as he clutched at his crotch. His bladder was going to explode!
The two stunned Beatles on the side of the door with the finally awakened George turned to face him, and the sight of George pounding on the door was enough to make their jaws drop to the floor. They were completely ecstatic. John threw his arms around Ringo in a relieved hug and soon they were waltzing about the room in complete bliss. A shocked Paul walked out of the loo, and a very desperate George dashed in to the bathroom for the longest piss recorded in history!
By the time George was through relieving himself the other guys were ready for the show, and George only had five minutes to get dressed! George also set a record for the quickest Beatle to get dressed! They had exactly thirty seconds to go before having to go on stage as he finished tying and straightening his tie!
Paul, John, and Ringo were so full of joy and relief over George being awake for the show that they weren’t even worried about stage fright! Of course three full days of sleep had its toll on George, he was full of energy! He practically bounced on stage, and when they did individual camera shots of each of the guys George did an amazing solo on his guitar that shocked his band mates and pumped up the audience! Yes the baby Beatle was definitely wired up, by then. He was having a ball with playing on stage, and while the other Beatles were breaking a sweat trying keep up with his energetic playing he just basked in the glow of falling into the music. Paul was actually running short on breath after ‘She Loves you’!
When they got a short break to go back stage poor John, Paul, and Ringo looked like war victims from all of their hard playing! When Paul finally caught his breath he resumed his gargling of mouthwash in the loo. When George came back to the dressing room, John gave him a lecture to keep up with the band or his over abundance of energy would kill them all! After John’s lecture of toning it down a bit George noticed Ringo rubbing his sore arms. He’d been beating the drums like there was no tomorrow to keep up with George. Poor George looked at his mates (towards the loo in Paul’s case) and blushed sheepishly. He had no idea how he’d ended up in the dressing room after only arriving in America that day and he certainly didn’t know where all that energy was coming from. Last thing he remembered was some lady and a big bag of jelly babies. Obviously the others had yet to explain the events of the past three horror filled days to George.
Eventually the band’s stint on the Ed Sullivan show had come to an end, and the boys found themselves relaxing in the limo after a mad dash from tons of screaming fans. Of course George was still a bit high strung from all of the energy he had and he couldn’t keep still. He looked like he would burst at any given moment. He was beginning to get to Ringo, because he kept fidgeting so much.
Much to Ringo’s relief the guys finally arrived at the Plaza. They hurried through the hall of police protection into the hallowed and safe walls of the Plaza and soon they were back on the seventh floor, where a party was beginning to take full swing in their suite! John ended up collapsing on the couch and soon he was surrounded by a group of birds as thick as the ocean. The same happened with the other three Beatles too, until George began to burn some of that excess energy by jumping on the bar and singing along with an Elvis record that was playing. Soon all of the girls had flocked over to him, but only one girl caught his attention.
George found himself spellbound by the lovely green eyed girl with short blond hair standing towards the right of him. Once the song ended he jumped from the bar and was magnetically drawn to her. His five foot eleven inch frame towered high over her five foot three frame, but that didn’t matter to him. He didn’t care about her height. She was quite a lovely bird. After a few moments of staring into her deep beautiful green eyes he heard a shout from John.
“Hey mate, are you going to be taking in all the action? I do believe I see Paul about to whine about the loss of his oh so dedicated following!”
George’s cheeks flooded with color and the wondrous green eyed beauty gave a little laugh that sounded like a fresh stream flowing over rocks. As the other girls noted that George was taken for the evening they scowled and then went in search for one of the three remaining Beatles.
“So, luv, what’s your name, and how did such a profound bird like yerself manage to find your way into this party?” George asked as he tried to put on some charm, but he felt like a fool as the words tumbled from his mouth.
She giggled a bit at his shyness, and then replied, “It’s Tara Mackenzie, and my dad works as the manager here. I didn’t know about the party until the last minute and it took me forever to convince my dad to let me come.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad that he did! You are a very lovely bird, How would you feel about getting a drink and then talking in a bit more of a secluded spot?” George suggested.
So with that suggestion in mind they went to the bar and ordered a couple of rum and cokes then headed over to George’s room, for a bit of a private chat. All the while John had been watching his little mate scoring the good looking bird with the tight ass and felt a bit jealous, but of course he had a few girls to keep him company, there were already a couple of girls fighting over John’s lap! Eventually the Beatles latched onto a girl and the party ended, although not for the very happy couples…
The next morning John, Paul, and Ringo woke up in bed with strange women and hangovers, but George woke up to the wonderful Tara Mackenzie sleeping soundly beside him, her soft breathing pattern leaving him completely intrigued. He gently climbed out of the bed and slipped on a pair of pants and headed out into the main area of the suite to find Ringo sitting down and eating some cornflakes, and he could hear the faint sounds of gargling coming from the bathroom.
“Hey why is Paul gargling so much?” George asked Ringo.
“Maybe John should tell you that,” Ringo mumbled as he nearly fell face first in his cornflakes, luckily he’d awoken himself in the nick of time.
Eventually Paul came out of the loo and sat down to eat some cornflakes, and a while later John joined them. George didn’t waste any time in his interrogation of the past few days that he’d spent sleeping. John even told him of the suspicious bag of jelly babies!
Once George found out about John and Paul’s methods of waking him up he ran to the bathroom and spent an hour of gargling the rest of Paul’s supply of mouthwash and by that time Tara and the other birds had wandered out of their rooms and were now eating breaky. George was feeling a bit better after gargling, but he gave Paul the occasional funny look. The girls eventually left, except for Tara, because George rather fancied her company, and eventually Brian awoke from his unnatural sedative induced sleep to the pleasant surprise of the boys success on the Ed Sullivan show.
The conversation soon turned back to George’s three days of slumber yet again, and they all got a good laugh out of it, even George and Paul. Tara couldn’t resist the humor in which John told the story. All in all the day finished in a good light hearted manner. Until Ringo asked the question that was popping up in everyone’s mind…
“Hey, John, whatever did you do with that last jelly baby that you found, the one that George had apparently missed in his mad fit of hunger?”
A strange look appeared on John’s face as he remembered setting in down on the dressing room table in Ed Sullivan’s dressing room when the boys had all gone into his room after the show before leaving. John’s face twisted into a look of wicked humor as he answered, “I wonder who would be willing to play Prince Charming to good ol’ Mr. Sully.”
They all got a good laugh out of that and Brian got a bit excited at the suggestion of playing Prince Charming. “Down Boy,” was John’s piece of advice to him and that finished out their day with a good laugh.
Now the only remaining question is who woke up Mr. Sullivan? Was it a crew manager, or some really important ad exec? Well who knows and who cares just as long as the Beatles were okay!
It’s all to much for me to explain…
Copyright ©Cassandra K. Blake, 2001-04. All rights reserved.