I'll be the first to admit it...

...I may have been a bit tough on Paul McCartney all these years.

You see, as a Beatles fan, I fall more in to the "John" group than the "Weenie Paul" group.  John was always the rocker of the two; Paul always seemed more rigid, more structured.  Even when Paul was trying to rock, it always seemed like he was doing just that: trying, and just a little too hard.  Rocking came naturally for John. 

But I have to give credit where credit is due:  Paul is pretty good.  And that hurts to say.

As my loyal readership of 9 can attest, I hold silly grudges for ridiculous amounts of time.  Like when that stoner sandwich artist yelled at me at Jimmy Johns 6 years ago...that whole organization can go to hell.  I'm not entirely sure when my grudge against Paul took hold but I do know that it was some point in my childhood.  I guess it all comes back to the grade school lunchroom mentality: you have to pick an absolute favorite and stick with it through hell and back.  It's why I can still convince myself that Carlton Fisk was a better baseball player than Ryne Sandberg even though my brain tells me otherwise.

To be clear, Paul McCartney is not better than John Lennon.  I am willing, however, to say that Paul was a fairly important member of The Beatles.  I will even go as far to say that he is one of the top two most important members of The Beatles.  He may have even been more talented.  Whatever.  He'll just never be as cool.

All of this soul searching happened because I was lucky enough to attend the Paul McCartney concert last night at Wrigley Field with my wife and my...let me get this right: Step-Mother-in-Law?  Is that a thing?  Krishni's step-mother.  Holly Hannah was that a good show! 

He ripped through 5 decades of music, sticking mostly to the Beatles (Yay!) while mixing in some Wings songs (Boooo!) and some more recent stuff (Meh).  His 37 (!) song set list, by the numbers:

Beatles Songs:  23
Good Beatles Songs:  18
Wings Songs:  8
Good Wings Songs:  1
Middle-aged, shrieking women in attendance:  2,456,890 (citation needed)

It was an excellent show.  He paid nice tributes to John, George and Jimi Hendrix and, oddly, he never once mentioned the name "Ringo".  He looked good for his age (69):

And was ably backed by a pretty good touring band.  Also, I'm pretty sure his guitarist was named "Larry Busey":

Incidentally, that drummer you see in the background is named Abe Laboriel, Jr. and he is awesome.  I never thought you could find a drummer goofier than Ringo but that guy did it all.  Super-fun drummer with unique fills, made orgasm faces while he, uh, beat the skins, and at one point, during the "Dance Tonight" number, stood up behind Paul and did the Macarena.  I want to get hammered with this guy. 

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I've always thought that John was the more important Beatle at the beginning but Paul was the dominant one at the end.  Yoko gets an unfair amount of blame for breaking up The Beatles because what it really came down to was two otherworldly talents and egos colliding, each trying to mold and shape the band into wildly different forms.  When the Beatles broke up, there was so much animosity within the band I figured everyone just kind of hated each other for a long time afterwards.  I was shocked to learn only recently that John and Paul jammed quite a bit together after the break-up.  In fact, they were watching Saturday Night Live together in 1976 when Lorne Michaels famously offered The Beatles a check for $3,000 to get back together on the show ("You divide it up any way you want. If you want to give less to Ringo, that's up to you.")

Obviously, time heals all wounds.  Last night at Wrigley, Paul mugged for the crowd an awful lot.  Krishni called it some serious "Rex Manning-Style" preening.

 Paul's Brother from another Mother

Maybe Paul has earned that type of mugging.  He is the only living Beatle that, you know, wrote songs and stuff*.  And last night his tributes to John and George were lovely.  I can confidently say that Paul's public persona is no longer that of the micromanaging asshole. 

That's a compliment, right?

*Yes, yes, I know Ringo wrote two songs.  But one was Octopus's Garden and the other can only be described as a "ho-down" song.  Yee-ha. 

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If you care, you can find the entire set list here. 

I always knew Sam Adams was the right beer for me...

My wife is wildly entertained by the random grudges I hold.  Sometimes--even with the tiniest of slights--I have trouble letting go of the grudge I manage to create.  I am also willing to admit that sometimes I hold onto the silly grudges just because they are fun.

For instance, I haven't eaten at a Jimmy Johns since a stoner "sandwich artist" yelled "WE DON'T HAVE MEATBALLS AT JIMMY JOHNS!" at me a little too loudly for my liking.  Granted, this occurred sometime after 2 am after the bars had closed in Milwaukee, we were drunk as sin and--in retrospect--he may not have yelled at all.  He may have just loudly exclaimed his anti-meatball manifesto when I slurred a request for a meatball sandwich after closing out a bar with 2 of my buddies.

Whatever.  Jimmy Johns will never get my business again.

Another example:  to this day I hate a former White Sox player named Jermaine Dye.  Why?  Because he once dropped a fly ball in Oakland during the eighth inning of this game that contributed to an early season loss.  Seriously.  Never mind that the loss only "dropped" the Sox to a 16-5 record during a season where they didn't play a single game out of 1st place and eventually won the World Series.  My hatred also ignores the fact that Jermaine Dye was named MVP of that very same World Series, driving in the only run of the deciding game 4. 

None of this matters.  Jermaine Dye sucks.

Which brings me to Boston.  These friggin' guys...

Where do I begin?  Do I hate Boston because of the Red Sox?  Because of Kevin Garnett?  Because of Rajon Rondo?  Mitt Romney?  Because Fenway Park is over-priced, has terrible sightlines and was 1st runner up in the category of "Most Urine Smelling Stadium", 2nd only to Wrigley?  Is it because of a palpable  east coast arrogance that I hate?  Because I think clam chowder is gross?  Is it because ESPN sucks at the teat of the Red Sox and Yankees?  Is it because Boston College has caused my Fightin' Irish so much pain over the years?  Could it be Bill Belicheck?  Tom Brady?

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Can't it be all of the above?

Whatever the reason, hating on Boston is super-fun.  I feel that everyone needs a villain and sometimes it's important to have a better villain than Jimmy Johns.