Any Road'll Take You There.

Before I get on with tonight's post, I'd like to say a big thanks to everyone who's had a little look at this blog thing so far. Its nice to know one is not talking to oneself.

There's so much to cover in this post that I started writing it then fell asleep drooling on the keyboard. As a result, my z key is now a little sticky and my pride a little wounded. So, what will you blog gourmets be guzzling down today? An entree of Thanksgiving, a few low calorie thoughts about Blink's new tour and a (semi-serious) main course look at the spirituality of the Beatles. No dessert for you, you're getting tubby.

So, that strangest of American holidays is upon us; Thanksgiving. Or as it is better described, 'Turkey Day'. Now, in English schools, they don't teach us diddly-squat about early American history. This is a bit like how an embarrassed parent never tells their dinner guests about how their eldest teenage son went out the night before, drank an entire crate of Lambrini and got "Balls to Authority" tattooed on their balls. I guess we're just a little ashamed. (Disclaimer: The purpose of that last comment was humour alone. Since a large proportion of my readership is from the States, I can't afford to lose you. ) So, all I really know about Thanksgiving is from The Simpsons. Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic day, eat plenty of yams and get your stomachs prepped for Christmas Dinner, which is also just a few short weeks away. And they wonder why there's an obesity problem over there.

Above: Artists rendition of what we think 'Thanksgiving" may have looked like.

Yup, Blink 182 are touring again. After a couple of years hiatus, and side projects of...well... varying quality, the three foul mouthed pop punks who never grew up are back. Excited? I know lots of people who are. And I really hope that their excitement is warranted. When I saw them before their break up, on the back of the Self Titled Album tour, I was sorely disappointed. I expected an all singing, all dancing, obscenity filled roller coaster of a show. What I got was three middle aged men shuffling around an arena stage about half an hour's drive from where I was sitting, who looked like they couldn't stand the sight of each other. In hindsight, they actually probably couldn't stand the sight of each other... A week or so ago, I reviewed a Less Than Jake show I was at; this was full of the energy and humour I expected from the Blink show all those years before. Here's hoping that we can get back to the days of The Mark, Tom and Travis Show, and not those creepy sermon-like Angels and Airwaves shows we've been treated to in recent years.

Mark and Tom had just broken Travis' arm before the show. The tension was becoming unbearable.

Now, there are some questions that just weren't meant to be answered. How did the dinosaurs die out? Does the Loch Ness Monster really exist? Is Gary Glitter actually a real person, or just someone we made up to scare kids? But all of these pale to insignificance when someone  drops the big one: Who was the best Beatle? I've had pretty strong views on this matter for a while, but now isn't the time to bring all that up. What I will say though, is that I'd never really considered George. Sure, he wrote Here Comes The Sun, and that's pretty nifty, and he had the best cheekbones out of the Fab Four, but admittedly, I didn't really pay him much attention. He wasn't a bassist, (in fact, he was a dreaded lead guitarist) and as the so called 'quiet Beatle' he was often overshadowed by the monkey-shines of the others.  Thanks to the valiant efforts of a friend, however, I thawed a little on the matter and it seems that me and George just might have something in common after all.

So, some of you might know that when I'm not serving circular cheese-topped Italian foodstuffs, I'm a student of theology. My big interest is how religion shapes the culture we live in, especially its relationship to music and to books. Aside from the somewhat over-sentimental  Catholicism of McCartney's Let it Be, spiritual matters don't feature too highly on the Beatles' list of priorities, and that's fine. Not every piece of Pop Culture needs to also contain a brooding meditation on the Beyond. And if we look a little further into our pool of material, one only finds a nihilistic pessimism in the likes of Lennon's solo works God and Imagine. But again, that's fine. It was part of Lennon's worldview to be anti-authoritarian, anti-confessional and at the end of the day, a bit of an arsehole.

But what about George?

I started with some Harrison staples; Got My Mind Set on You, Cheer Down and of course, My Sweet Lord. What surprised me most about the latter was that, although it was obviously a deeply personal song about his faith, it never came off as being uncomfortable, weird or obtrusive. I guess this might have something to do with George's calm, non offensive nature. And its a bloody good tune, too! Which, at the end of the day, might be all that matters. But it got me thinking. In the song, Harrison blends together two, apparently hugely different world religions- Hinduism and Christianity. And he didn't seem to have a problem with it. And isn't that refreshing? Being born in Liverpool, George was Irish Catholic from the word go. But rather than rebel, reject and replace this belief with another, like so many angry adolescents do, he found a way to fuse what worked for him. Just take a look at the cover to the posthumous Brainwashed album- there's a little Harrison signature on the front, complete with a little Christian cross doodle and a Hindu 'Om'. And its not just My Sweet Lord, with its dual refrains of Hare, Hare and Hallelujah that exhibits George's approach to faith. His very style of songwriting often incorporates a sort of Hindu-esque mantra feel, and he employs it to great effect. The eponymous track on Brainwashed is a rallying call to escape the constant material media bombardment we experience day to day for a more thought way of life, whilst one detects a very sensitive, wise philosophy in All Things Must Pass. He's even able to have a good old laugh at some of the sillier Christian beliefs in P2 Vatican Blues.

George with Ravi Shankar

Whilst scholars will argue until they're blue in the face over whether we can truly exist is a religiously plural society, along comes a pop musician with a genuine interest in his spirituality and quietly does what works for him. There's something to learn from all this; tolerance and open mindedness. When he learned of George's conversion, a local Liverpool priest was quoted as saying, "Im so pleased George has found God. Such a pity its the wrong one." A view like that is about as balanced as a fat man on a see saw.

Just to make it clear though, George still isn't my favourite Beatle. Lennon and McCartney still battle on for that particular award. After all, people who choose George as their favourite tend to be pretty maladjusted. Until next time, Internet munchkins!