Timid Reporter Interviews Paul McCartney

Coffee Club Newsletter ©
Volume 18, No. 41 - June 17, 2008

Any similarity to persons actually living or events actually happening is coincidental.

TR: Good afternoon. Are you Sir Paul McCartney?
PM: Hey, hey, hey, hey, are you the only one who doesn't recognize me? That's too funny.
TR: I do recognize you.
PM: Then, why the question? Are you a poet?
TR: No, I'm no poet, I just don't know how else to start an interview.
PM: Maybe after today you will, no? Have you had a hard day?
TR: I don't know. I had a very hard time finding you.
PM: Was it the heavy security?
TR: No sir, I lost the map to your house yesterday.
PM: All the tourist shops have those.
TR: Yes, but I ran out of money - I couldn't even get a beer.
PM: I have plenty here.
TR: Beer?
PM: No, maps.
TR: And beer? Do you have Corona Light?
PM: I should have some. Let me get the butler to go down to the cellar.
TR: This is the biggest house I have ever seen in my life.
PM: Yes, and to think she almost took it.
TR: Who?
PM: The woman.
TR: Oh, your ex wife? Heather?
PM: Please, please - don't say her name. It seems like it all happened just yesterday.
TR: How did all that happen anyway?
PM: I fell for her leg. I took pity and it bit me in the rear. Emotions can make you lots of money, but they can also get you in trouble. I should have known better - prepared a prenup, you know?
TR: Did the amount of the settlement hurt you?
PM: Not really. I am a pretty rich man now after all. The main trouble was that she wanted all the money yesterday. We settled on 48 million, but it will be paid out over seventy five years.
TR: There's a rumor that you're working on an opera.
PM: With Tim, yes.
TR: Tim Rice or Tiny Tim?
PM: Rice, of course - it will be about treachery and deceit and injustice and cruelty and murder.
TR: Couldn't you have done the libretto yourself?
PM: We had a lengthy conversation about that yesterday and we both agreed that he could do a better job with it. I am too close to the pain.
TR: What pain?
PM: Don't say her name, please, please.
TR: Oh.
PM: Haven't you ever been divorced?
TR: No, all my wives have died on me.
PM: That's all mighty strange. How have they died?
TR: ...they got up in years.
PM: Really? How many?
TR: They've usually gone at 75.
PM: No, how many wives?
TR: Twelve.
PM: Here's your beer.
TR: Just in time. Thanks.
PM: Actually, that might be a good premise to base an opera on. Maybe we can work it in somehow.
TR: You are writing the music?
PM: Yes, with a little help from my friends.
TR: And the plot?
PM: The plot will involve a mutiny on a submarine on the high seas, led by a woman disguised as a man with a peg leg.
TR: That's very original.
PM: That's not all - the entire opera takes place inside the submarine, with very, very low lighting. At the beginning, a piece of iceberg that breaks off due to global warming strikes the ship and disables it, leading to the mutiny by vegetarian sailors and the woman.
TR: Will the audience be able to see the singers?
PM: No, hardly at all - unless they bring night vision goggles. They will have to identify them by their voices only.
TR: It will be challenging.
PM: I'm afraid so - the only one they won't have trouble with is the woman. There are seven male leads and they are all tenors.
TR: Why so many tenors?
PM: We couldn't find seven good baritones.
TR: Oh my.
PM: I can't give too much of the plot away yet, but at the end of the opera, after going here, there, and everywhere, the submarine finally surfaces in the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Navy mistakes it for an enemy ship and blows it out of the water. Only the woman survives.
TR: It figures.
PM: She is saved by her wooden leg.
TR: Will the production be expensive?
PM: Not by today's standards - it won't cost more than four hundred million.
TR: Is there a new woman in your life?
PM: Yes, Michelle.
TR: You also have a birthday coming up.
PM: Yes, tomorrow, June 18th.
TR: Well, happy birthday.
PM: Thank you sir.
TR: Thank you Sir Paul.