Saturday, May 30, 2009

Like More Wizards



After a long time with a simple black screen, iamaphoney.com now has some content. The tortoise has blinked.

Spoiler Alert: The video contains the words "Like More Wizards" and the letters "XKFKUFYDHZHZQ".

MikeNL1038 captured the website in its current form and uploaded it to YouTube.



The first one to crack the code gets a cookie. Due to domestic and professional obligations, it probably won't be me.

I also heard through the grapevine that the Iamaphoney organization is still hiring. Send resumes to either Hell(sinki, Finland) or Copenhagen, Denmark.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Berlin Goody Bag Revisited

I have been asked to take another look at the Berlin suitcase. Just to recap, the suitcase component of the Iamaphoney plot had been considered by fans and foes alike to be the biggest miscalculation in the history of YouTube videos (at least those that suggest that Paul McCartney died and was replaced by the beast in order to bring on the apocalypse).



Of the five suitcases dropped by Iamaphoney, three are supposedly still out there and two were found with rather unspectacular results.

The Berlin suitcase was retrieved in early October, 2008. In late October, MikeyNL1038 produced a video called "Paul Is Dead - Nothing is Real 333", announcing that the Berlin suitcase had been retrieved by this guy:



The finder's hand gesture provoked quite a bit of criticism here, but in all fairness, Mike's video used backward masks from the song "Golden Slumbers" that suggested that he "walk out naked." I don't know how the conclusion was drawn, but some people here said that the person who found the suitcase was someone named Yenz, who would occasionally leave comments on this blog. Someone calling himself Yenz made one attempt to deny it, but identities around here are as fluid as characters in a dream. Yenz was pretty much run out of town in the comments community.

The video announced that the contents of what was now called the Berlin Goody Bag would be revealed soon. Dictionary.com states that the word "soon" means "within a short period of time" or "in the near future." The one thing that we were told early on was that the suitcase contained a copy of the Beatles 1966 Christmas Record called "Pantomime."



An original copy of "Pantomime" would certainly exceed the value of any of the items that were in the first LA Suitcase. Surprisingly, that particular item has not been mentioned since the original find, even though the person who claimed possession of the suitcase has written about the contents in several personal correspondences to different individuals including myself.

It was in late October when YouTube user sdofik contacted a few people about his find at the Brandenburg Gate. As is often the case, I was not in this loop, but others have said that he retrieved the case and filmed its contents. Then according to what he eventually told me when I inquired, he put the items on a shelf and waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

Is this another case of a suitcase finder not responding the way Iamaphoney had expected? Maybe. The suitcase contained some items that the finder described as a random assortment of Beatles-related memorabilia, such as newspaper articles, a Double Fantasy cover with the name "Paul" written on it, Xerox copies of tickets, some unidentified 45 RPM records and a bootleg DVD of "Magical Mystery Tour." For some reason, despite the fact that the owner repeatedly has said that he would like to sell the items to the highest bidder, he apparently does not want to take the time to make a specific list of the items.

Interestingly, the finder, as well as a member of the Rotten Apple Army, and some of Iamaphoney's biggest fans believe that the key items in the suitcase are two sleeveless vinyl copies of the Sgt. Pepper album with a Parlophone label. The "Twin Peppers" have only been talked about in Iamaphoney-related conversations. There is no document that I know of that suggests that there were two special vinyl pressings of the album in existence. If these were actual acetates, I don't think they would have the Parlophone label on them.

In a message I received in late November, Iamaphoney wrote: I can confirm the existence of the twin peppers in the Berlin suitcase.

In a correspondence to me on April 29, 2009, sdofik wrote: two parlephone (sic) sgt. pepper records <- that might be the only real item of value, if any...

The "Twin Peppers" came up again when somebody attempted to pull former McCartney press agent Geoff Baker into the Iamaphoney experience. See previous post.

YouTube user sdofik added that he no longer watches the Rotten Apple video installments. He wrote, "I think he got himself into something he can't get out of now."

I really don't see any reason why Iamaphoney couldn't "get out" of this if he really wanted to. It's those of us who have been fascinated and entertained by the videos that would like him to continue to tell his story.

I think that there are some people who would like to see images of the contents of the Berlin Goody Bag. Come to think of it, I wonder if the finder of the bag ever played those two Sgt. Pepper albums. Wouldn't it be ironic if that was the hold up?

In other news, a new artifact has surfaced that relates to the late Mal Evans, who has been a focus speculation about the Rotten Apple series. The Beatles Examiner posted a handwritten lyric allegedly penned by Mal and given to Shaun Weiss.



And finally there was an article in the news recently that provided some evidence against the claim that Paul McCartney is the devil, unless of course, the woman was driving a VW Beetle.

Chivalrous Macca ‘helps woman with wedged car’

Thursday, May 14, 2009

POV Waltz

With apologies to Nilsson fans who saw the title of this post and were expecting something about Harry, I wanted to write about another one of those interesting characters that is part of this planetary theater project in which we all seem to be involved. The character in question calls himself A Pinch of Vermouth or POV.

I should begin by dispelling one misunderstanding. A Pinch of Vermouth has never claimed to be Apollo C. Vermouth, a person I have written about previously. Apollo first appeared on TKIN. Then in 2004, he started posting, usually via personal communication at Nothing Is Real. Apollo actually said that he had been banned from TKIN, but had no idea why. He wondered if it was a case a mistaken identity and then cleverly added, "If they only knew..."

By the time Apollo stopped posting at NIR, he had convinced a committee of group members that he was in fact Neil Aspinall. As far as I know, he did this without actually coming out and saying his identity. Apollo's correspondences ceased not long before the death of Aspinall on March 24, 2008.

One curious thing about NIR member Apollo was that he needed special technical help to be able to participate in the discussion group. In addition, he apparently required an assistant to type his messages. That assistant continued to communicate periodically at NIR under the name A Pinch of Vermouth.

The most recent post by POV was most likely misunderstood by many readers. On top of that, despite some initial "glad to hear from you" comments, the thread jumped the track, jumped the shark and veered completely off course.

That is why I would like to waltz back to where it started and offer my own observations about the post.

On April 26, 2009, NIR member GN posted this picture:


The title of the thread was "Tell Me What You See." It was set up as a poll offering three rather uninteresting choices of what the picture represented. There were not many takers on the poll. "GN," I think refers to Gnik Nus, the backward title from the Beatles "Love" soundtrack and the person formerly known as Sun King. Sun King (GN) is blamed for all kinds of things in the PID/PWR community that preceded my entry. So, this thread is an ironic choice to attract the likes of POV.

With no apparent reference to the picture, POV wrote the following play on the title of the thread utilizing lyrics from Beatles songs:

To see without looking...They don't know. They can't see. Are you one of them?...Never glimpse the truth...What do you see when they turn out the light? I can't tell you...What did you see while you were there? Nothing that doesn't show...Nothing you can see that isn't shown...The more I go inside, the more there is to see...You layed it down for all to see...Take these sunken eyes and learn to see...In their eyes there's something lacking...Take a good look you're bound to see...That you may see the meaning of within...Looking glass ties...Looking through a glass onion...Won't you open up your eyes. Look around round, round, round...He's so hard to see...POV


The post was so nice, he posted it twice. He made two identical consecutive posts, I think. It is curious that the first one is dated May 2, 2009 at 10:39 pm, the second one is dated May 2, 2009 at 10:43, and the first one says "Last Edit: May 2, 2009, 10:49pm by A Pinch of Vermouth." I'm not sure what the edit was, but both posts are now identical, including a lyrical error from "With A Little Help From My Friends" and a misspelling of the word "laid."

A couple of wrong responses followed, including one by me. I wrote: The one you wanted to be is now the one you see. That's a line from the song "Be What You See" on Paul's "Tug of War" album. You see, it has the word "see" in it and seems to relate to the others in terms of content. Nope. Square peg in a round hole I'm afraid. Sometimes wrong answers teach you more than right ones.

But it was 65if2007 who came up with a better wrong answer when he wrote: By the way, Pinch, you forgot "there is still a chance that they may see". Nope. A line from "Let It Be" does not count.

There has always been some ambiguity about the entry points of the Beatles' Mystery. The Beatles "Yesterday and Today" cover with the butchers or the replacement with the trunk, must be part of it, right? Grandfather Aleister had us looking back at "Help" for clues. And the "Let It Be" album with Paul's blood red background and "Two of Us Sunday driving, not arriving" etc. must be a clue-filled album, correct? I don't think so.

I have always felt that Apollo was trying to tell us that the real clues began at "Sgt Pepper" (including the "Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane" single, which did appear on a subsequent album) and ended with "Abbey Road." All things before are either coincidence or preliminary hints and all things after are pointers back. Most of those backward glances go to Sgt. Pepper, but there are many that address the other releases as well. "Sexy Sadie" for example is mentioned in Ringo's "Devil Woman" and George's "Simply Shady."

Therefore, my theory is that POV was telling us that if we want to see, we must focus on the releases from "Sgt. Pepper," to "Abbey Road."



"There is nothing you can see that isn't shown."

In other news....

F spotted a ghost on YouTube.



This channel, which uses the old trick of substituting a lookalike letter, does not appear to be the real grandfatheraleister. However the YouTuber in question is one of the cast of characters that we all know and love. Well, some of you at least know him...

And finally, for those Harry Nilsson fans who made it through the whole post, here is the POV Waltz.

Friday, May 8, 2009

Come On, My See-Saw Grandpa

As many of you have noticed, Grandfather Aleister has disappeared from YouTube. You all should know my mantra by now of "Nobody has ever been harmed by walking away from conspiracy theories," but I don't think that this was a planned exit.

In a previous exchange via YouTube, Grandfather did suggest that he was finishing up, however he hinted at some subject areas that had not yet been explored in his videos. He also wrote to me on May 3rd to thank me for mentioning his video #36 on the blog. At that time he gave no hint about this subsequent departure.

Grandfather Aleister had commented along the line that his use of scenes from films had caused some of his videos to be removed from YouTube. He didn't seem to be bothered by this, but maybe YouTube intensified its response to his liberal use of copyrighted material. When I see engaging clips from movies in YouTube, I often go out and rent or purchase the movie. I guess the Entertainment industry doesn't want people to purchase its products. That's a pity, because some of them are good.

I hope that Grandfather Aleister is able to regroup and complete his video project. I really believe that he was leading up to something worthwhile.

In the meantime, I offer these vids as a tribute to a good friend.







Somebody suggested that I was Grandfather Aleister, which is incorrect. I feel like I know him, but sometimes my arms bend back.