#private gripweed

[loonylupin2]

THE PRIVATE

AND HIS MAJOR

A Private Gripweed x Major McCartney Fic Now on Tumblr

Original A03 Link

(The last three chapters are being written

CHAPTER 1:

MARCH 9th DRILLS

Major McCartney stood in his polished brown boots in a grassy mud-covered field. Land was destroyed from the 100s of drills in the past months: another day and another training. The Major had gotten the schedule down meticulously, having done this for a long while. Meet a new regiment- get to know them a bit (preferably not), then they are shipped away, and he usually never sees them again- and if he did, by happenstance. He would no longer be their Major, and they would no longer like his trainee.

He stood there with his arms behind his back, holding his elbows, his back straight, and his chin raised in a show of superiority. Hazel eyes dim and the brim of his hat casting a shadow unto his nose hiding away the blush of his face from the scolding heat. His clothes were neat, clean, and laid out, like a mannequin in the store window—a perfect representation of grace, dominance, and beauty. You would feel ashamed to disappoint him even in the slightest. To get dust on his boot- and let alone his face clean and white as porcelain, the beautiful face of a Barbie yet a cold biting and commanding tone as a cobra though his bite was much worse than that of a snake.

The new regiment stepped in front of him clumsily, walking and chatting among themselves, boys as young as 18 and some as old as 37. It didn’t matter. To the Major, they were trainees. Soldiers are to be sent to the trenches and waters and will most likely never return. It was a cold job, so he tried to keep himself as distant as possible. Damn him if he were to get close and form a bond, only for the lad to get sent away to his demise. He had to be ready and fit for the most possible thing. A human craves connection after so long, but caving the wires bound will come back to choke you in some time.

The regiment saw the Major and stopped on the tracks- just from his cold look and the stiffness of his shoulders- utter perfection. They fixed themselves standing up straight with their chests puffed- except one. A lad stood hunched in the middle, a skinny build. His hair was curly like a vein and red as the dust. His face was pale yet had many sunburned freckles across his thin face and aquiline nose. He was the only one in the regiment to have glasses—round ones that hid his small, triangle-shaped eyes.

He looked like a cartoon character. Like a weed. Funnily enough, when the Major checked his list for roll call, his name was, in fact, Gripweed. He held back a chuckle and instead sneered, looking back up at the regiment, hoping they had straightened up. All except Gripweed again. He played with his calloused hands like a fly and looked up at the significant shyly, his eyes big and his lip bitten- hunched over like a faucet.

“ATTENTION!” He said for the sake of the drill. Gripweed hadn’t gone and stood like the rest of the soldiers. He seemed to make himself smaller, hugging his body as he stared at the Major. He rolled his eyes, pursed his mouth, and continued along with the drill

“PRESENT ARMS!” The trainees put their guns to the front of their bodies, swiftly as a sparrow- except Gripweed. The Major thought he must’ve been deaf- or mentally impaired. He blinked at him before looking around and realizing what his comrades were doing. He pulled his gun from its holster, and it fell to the ground. He blushed deeply and quickly retrieved it, grunting as he did so. He picked it up and held it in front of him, though it was pointed in the wrong direction- he panicked and refixed it.

Major McCartney glared at him. “Sorry!” Gripweed called out. The Major's stare hardened, and his eyebrows scrunched in disgusted pity. He turned on his foot and walked over to the solder hands still healed behind his back. Gripweed looked up at him, his face practically glowing from sweat and blush. He bit his lip nervously as the Major's eyes bore down into him, searching his face.

“Did I command you to talk? Private?” He said sternly, his voice smooth. Gripweed shook his head. “No,” he nodded as he spoke like a toy. He smiled despite himself. The Major bit his cheek. “I just thought it ought to say sorry for being an ass, sir.” Chuckles rose from the Regiment along with Gripweed's mouth.

“I see we have a clown in our midst…” Major McCartney said coldly and looked over Gripweed's head before looking down into his eyes again. “You address me as Major, not sir…I am not your mailman. Private. I am your Major, and you shall address me as such. You will do as I say and only as I say. If I don’t command you to breathe, you damn sure will not breathe,” his voice was cold, and he spoke through his teeth. Gripe's eyes widened, and his face blushed deeply. However, this confused the Major more, if anything.

He expected him to nod or hold his head in shame. Or another apology… not to stare at him with his mouth in a comical “o,” and the look on his face of admiration- his eyes sparkled though it could have just been his glasses. The Major sneered stepped back into position, and looked across the regiment.

“DETACHMENT! RIGHT TURN!”

The regiment turned on their heels at a 90-degree angle…except for Gripweed…he turned at a 90-degree angle to his left… he realized after a few seconds of unbroken silence that he had made an error and turned again clumsily like a spinning top. And still was out of the line Symmetry by an inch To the Major that was comparable to a mile

Major McCartney gripped his arms, which he held behind his back, and stepped over to Private Gripweed. His grace almost seemed to be falling to shambles; the first time, he had glided, but now he made a muddy footprint against the soil. “Private Gripweed,” he addressed through gritted teeth.

“Uhm uh,” Gripweed quickly looked the Major up and down as if searching for something. “Uh, yes, sir McCartney! I mean Private McCartney! I mean, uh-“

The Major's jaw tightened, and his voice deepened. “Major….McCartney…Private…Major.” He walked closer to him like a tall, intimidating vulture. “Must I spell it out for you… M…A…J…O….R” he settled in front of him, Gripweed having to lean back so their noses would be against each other… Gripweed could smell him, though- roses. He blushed even more profoundly, partly because of embarrassment and the butterflies jumping up and down in his gut.

“Major…” The Major said, his voice cold like ice and sharp like shards. Gripweeds Adam’s apple trembled, and he bit his lip as he watched him snarl. “Repeat it to me private…” Gripweed stared into his eyes before gulping his throat dry and his thoughts spinning. “M-Major”

“Correct.” He said quickly. His eyes didn’t blink. Gripweed wished for him to poke his chest in command, maybe. “When I tell you to turn right…private…you turn right!” He whispered this so no one else could hear…though he said “private” loudly. I want to show how low Gripweed was on the roster compared to him.

“I’m sorry s- I mean Major,” he chuckled shyly, averting his eyes. “I thought y-you meant-“ he played, fingers cracking the bones. The Majors stare was fleeting. “Y-your right!” He smiled, hoping that he had cleaned everything up… but the Major's gaze darkened, and his sneer began to twitch; he looked like he wanted to strangle the private- it seemed almost the private wanted this.

“Did everyone turn to ‘’my right’ private?” he said firmly. “W-well uh- I”

The Major continued and snatched Gripweed's glasses, holding them beside his cheek. “Maybe you need a new pair of glasses…private.” He dropped the glasses to the ground. They didn’t shatter. They landed as gracefully as a flower… Gripweed's heart fluttered. The Major stepped closer, their chests touching. Gripweeds heart hammering. The Majors still. “Or maybe you need to fix your ears.” He tapped Gripweed's red ear. “Or maybe you need a sanitorium-“ he said darkly. He leaned his head forward, whispering into Gripweed's ear as he trembled and closed his eyes, gulping.

“Whatever it is you need…Private Gripweed… I suggest you get it fixed…because if we continue like this, I might not be too kind…I’ve been too friendly already,” he chuckled as if on his last nerve. “And I don't have much else to give….” He leaned his mouth closer- his voice had gone quieter, his hot breath hitting Gripweed's cheek. He tried to hold back his pants

“I recommend you straighten up…private…or I might have to fix those things for you..and you don’t want me to fix you.” Gripweed opened his eyes large and bit his lip hard, his face boiling like a pot in the Sahara. The Major heard his grunt and laughed before stepping back to position, a satisfied grin on his perfect face. Gripweed stared at him…his mouth wet with saliva and his heart hammering, his head splashing like water. The Major snapped his fingers

“Let’s get back to it now, boys!”

Gripweed sighed.

[ludmilachaibemachado]

Beatles At 'How I Won the War' Premiere🌸

The Beatles and their partners in the front row at the London Pavilion for the premiere of Richard Lester's black comedy, 'How I Won the War' 1967, Wednesday 18th October 1967🌺

From front, right to left: John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon, Ringo Starr, Maureen Starkey, Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, Pattie Boyd and George Harrison. The film stars John Lennon as Private Gripweed🌹

Via @janeasherdaily on Instagram🌻

[brackhets]

Let’s take a moment to appreciate John as Private Gripweed in “How I won the war” plus his curly hair asdfghjkl

[strawberrylane]

Private Gripweed, 1966.

[ceofjohnlennon]

John Lennon as Private Gripweed in the "How I Won The War" movie (1967) l "Green, green, green" scene.

[aion-rsa]

That Time Ringo Starr Played Frank Zappa in 200 Motels

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

With Peter Jackson’s re-cut of The Beatles: Get Back coming at the end of November, we are reminded the Beatles were cinematic stars as well as musical artists. Beyond the group’s films, John Lennon played Private Gripweed in Richard Lester’s How I Won the War, and Ringo Starr acted in quite a few films. His choices were far more in keeping with the underground and independent air of the time. Starr starred with Peter Sellars in the anti-capitalist satire The Magic Christian, as the villain in the Spaghetti Western Blindman, and the voyeuristic Mexican gardener Emmanuel in the sex farce Candy. But his most counterculture and independent nod was as Frank Zappa in the film 200 Motels (1971). A special edition of its soundtrack, Frank Zappa 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition, is coming out on Nov.19.

Written by Zappa, who co-directed with Tony Palmer, 200 Motels is a musical film which sought to project the surrealistic reality of being a pop musician on the road in 1971. The film stands in history as the first full-length feature where the action was shot directly onto videotape and transferred onto 35mm film for cinema release. To do this, they used the old 3-strip Technicolor method of negative and print to isolate the three color signals – red, blue and green – and transfer them to 3-strip 35mm film. Shot in just 10 days at London’s Pinewood Studios, with a budget of around $650,000 from distributor United Artists, Zappa showed what the new medium could do with spectacular state-of-the-art visual effects.

Zappa first started shooting homemade 8mm movies in 1958, and his interest in filmmaking led to cinematic innovations. His onramp to the intersection between music and film led him to unleash Bruce Bickford’s clay-mation into the 1979 concert film Baby Snakes. Palmer directed the 1968 BBC music documentary series All My Loving, which featured Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Zappa.

“Touring makes you crazy,” Zappa explains at the start of the musical motion picture. The band in the film and on the soundtrack consisted of Frank on guitar and occasional bass, the Turtles’ Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan – who called themselves Flo and Eddie – on vocals, Ian Underwood on woodwinds and keyboards, drummers Aynsley Dunbar and Jimmy Carl Black (who also sings lead on “Lonesome Cowboy Burt”), George Duke on keyboards & trombone, Ruth Underwood on percussion, and ultimately, Ringo’s chauffer Martin Lickert on bass.

Ringo plays Larry the Dwarf, who is actually a sinister trout mask replica of a renowned bandleader. “It was very strange actually,” Ringo explains on a track from Frank Zappa 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition. “A call came from the Apple office that Frank Zappa had this idea, and he wanted to present it to me. I thought, oh great, cos I’d heard Frank’s music. In a very musical way, it was very whacky actually. So, I invited Frank to my house. He laid this huge score out and said ‘I’ve got an idea to make this movie, and here’s the score.’ I said, ‘Why are you showing me the score? I can’t read music. But because of that I will do the movie.’”

It wasn’t just any part. “He told me he wanted me to play him, because he just wanted to be a musician in it,” Ringo remembers on Frank Zappa 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition. The ex-Beatle wasn’t just any acting musician. “You couldn’t get a bigger pop star than me at the time,” Ringo humbly admits on the CD. “Also, it was strange, the Ringo-playing-Frank. It was a nice premise and I got to hang out with musicians, which is always a good deal.”

The veteran drummer was known for keeping time with other kit players. He would play The Concert for Bangladesh side-by-side with Jim Keltner, which by the look of the footage, was done so Ringo could joke around with someone between, and during, songs. For 200 Motels, Ringo brought along one of his best mates, Keith Moon, the pyrotechnically endowed beat-keeper for The Who. Moonie plays a Hot Nun. “[Zappa] wants me to fuck the girl with the harp,” Ringo, as Larry, says in the film upon seeing the habit-clad basher banging his way through the orchestra pit. “The magic lamp, he wants me to stuff it up her and rub it.”

Renowned rock groupie and author, Pamela Des Barres, who also sang in the all-girl band The GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), makes her acting debut in 200 Motels. She would go on to play a recurring role on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow, as well as act in Sylvester Stallone’s 1978 film Paradise Alley. But Des Barres’ biggest contribution to cinema is inspiring Cameron Crowe to add the musical muse Penny Lane to the mix of his rocking movie memoir Almost Famous.

To lend the film cinematic credibility, Zappa also cast noted actors. Our Master of Ceremonies, Rance Muhammitz, was played by Austrian-American actor Theodore Bikel, who was also a folk singer and political activist. Bikel played Captain Von Trapp in the original Broadway production of The Sound of Music. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for playing Sheriff Max Muller in The Defiant Ones (1958), and appeared in such films as The African Queen (1951), Moulin Rouge (1952), The Enemy Below (1957), My Fair Lady (1964), and The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966). He also guest-starred on an episode of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone.

200 Motels also features players from the serious world of music, like classical guitarist John Williams, the Monteverdi Choir, and the Royal Philharmonic, which is seen throughout the film in a prison camp called “The Centerville Recreational Facility,” with the percussionists dressed as Nazi guards. The film was “at once a reportage of real events and an extrapolation of them,” according to the press kit. “Granting the fact that [the Mothers] tend to operate somewhere on the outermost fringes of your real-life Rock & Roll Consciousness, the film is an extension and a projection of the group’s specialized view of and participation in this intriguing area of contemporary human experience. Groupies, Life on the Road, Relationship to Audience, Group Personality-Chemistry, Macrobiotic Food & Tie-Die Shirts.”

Zappa makes no attempt at a documentarian’s cinema verité accuracy. The cities merge into one town called Centerville, “a real nice place to raise your kids up.” Unless they grow up to be musicians who hang out at cowboy bars. The surrealistic documentary explores the kinds of things that happen to a band on the road, the hustle, boredom, burnout, and paranoia. Directly derived from Zappa’s own experience, the story is told in short comic bits, interspersed with performances by the Mothers of Invention and the Royal Symphony Orchestra. The Mother of Invention band members’ primary motivations are the search for groupies and the desire to get paid.

“I was the devil Frank, and I would tape the band, talking. Then Frank would write a song about it and force them to play it and sing it,” Starr says in an audio clip on the Box set, before breaking into appreciative laughter.  

One of these eavesdroppings would land in the space between art imitating life mimicking art. Frank’s microphone caught Mothers of Invention bass player Jeff Simmons moaning about playing “Zappa’s comedy music,” and wanting to start his own group. Zappa wrote it into the script and cast Simmons as the character Jeff. But the bassist wound up forming that band and leaving the Mothers of Invention right before shooting was set to begin. This left Zappa without an actor or a bass player.

“From the point that Jeff Simmons quit the group we’ve had a bunch of adventures trying to find somebody to replace him, not only for the bass parts in the music, but to play the role that he was supposed to play in the film, which is a pretty large part,” Zappa says in one of the clips from the CD.

“Our first candidate for the role was Wilfrid Brambell, who played the grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night,” Zappa says on the track “A Bunch of Adventures” from the album Playground Psychotics. “Wilfrid came over, tried out for the part, everything was set, he rehearsed with us for about a week, and then one day came to the studio here, and completely freaked out, and said that he couldn’t handle it anymore. So, we went into the dressing room, sat around with the guys in the band, and tried to figure out what we were gonna do about replacing the replacement. And the first person that walked through the door was Martin Lickert, who happened to be Ringo’s driver, and everybody just turned and looked at him and went, ‘You.’”

The 22-year-old chauffeur read the script, sounded good to Frank, and because so much of music is a happy accident, it turned out Lickert was a musician. “I think he’s good for the part, is quite professional on screen and, as a bass player he’s not astonishing but, he can make the parts.”

200 Motels marked the end of Lickert’s stint as Ringo’s driver. He gave his notice and joined The Mothers of Invention on bass for a tour of America.

In a clip from the CD Box set, Zappa doesn’t guess whether Ringo had a good time on the film. “Well, it’s hard to tell, I never bother to ask people whether they enjoy working for me,” Zappa says. “But he still talks to me, so I guess it wasn’t too bad.”

“It was great, from day one,” Ringo told Uncut magazine. “I did like Frank. I’d met him several times. He was a beautiful human being. As far as I was concerned, his music was crazy – but that’s one man’s opinion. He was a lot of fun.”

200 Motels premiered at the Plaza Theatre, 627 Madison Avenue, New York City, on Oct. 29, 1971. Consisting of a series of episodes without an overall plot, critics blasted everything, from the story to the music, except the visual works, which combined frenetic cuts, animation and a virtual light show. The film employs all the special effects available: speed changes, false colors, double and triple exposures, and solarization. Many felt the film’s multidimensional approach was overbearing, unrelenting, and incomprehensible. “If there is more that can be done with videotape, I do not want to be there when they do it,” Roger Ebert wrote in his 1971 review.

Director Palmer later called 200 Motels “the worst film I’ve done.” Though when he later met David Lean, the director of Lawrence of Arabia, “All he wanted to talk about was 200 Motels and how it had been done,” Palmer wrote in Talkhouse.com.

200 Motels was mind-blowing in a way traditional rock docs like Don’t Look Back, Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and the Woodstock and Monterey rock festival movies avoided. It is actually closer to the fantasy-comedy of The Beatles’ films like A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, and, like Magical Mystery Tour, 200 Motels set a new standard for experimental musical, independent films. It also influenced the art of music videos. It is a must-see for Zappa fans, as is the soundtrack, but also for lovers of innovative cinema.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The Frank Zappa 200 Motels 50th Anniversary Edition release date is Nov. 19.

The post That Time Ringo Starr Played Frank Zappa in 200 Motels appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3qH04sx

[sirmefeetswet]

One of [photographer Gabrielle Crawford’s] most joyful encounters with [John Lennon] was in 1966 when he had a part in one of [her husband Michael Crawford]’s movies.

“Michael and I shared a house in Germany with him while they were filming How I Won The War,” she recalls.

The black comedy starred Crawford as a bungling Army officer and Lennon in his only non-musical role as Musketeer Gripweed. It was for this character that he first wore the round glasses for which he became known.

Gabrielle says: “John wasn’t in very much of the film and Michael was, so I had hours and hours with him wasting time.

“We led a very private life in a field behind the villa where we were staying. We talked about life – he was interested in mine and I was interested in his.”

She adds: “We also spent time on a beach in Almeria, in the south of Spain, where he worked on the song [”Strawberry Fields Forever.”]

“I was experimenting with a fish-eye lens and captured John playing his guitar.”

The stunning image of Lennon, sitting on a beach strumming away, is from Gabrielle’s personal collection and has never before been published.

“The tall guy is Antony, the chauffeur/bodyguard, and Maureen, Ringo’s wife, is in the frame too,” she says.

During their time as housemates, Gabrielle would join the Beatle on trips to his favourite record shop in Hamburg, where their biggest challenge was avoiding being mobbed by his fans.

“You would have to lie in the back of his great big Rolls-Royce with blacked out windows,” Gabrielle recalls.

“He would leap out with his security man and me, and rush into this shop – which had been closed for his arrival. We would then spend hours looking at new artists.”

[Source: Express]

[woodstock-in-my-mind]

John Lennon as Private Gripweed in How I Won The War (1966).

[kunstmull]

Who *IS* the mysterious Third Shamen in the UK version of Make It Mine?

The shaven-head bloke on the left, who is not Colin in his Private Gripweed hair phase, or ~Will with newly shaped and well-defined dreads~?

[marcorelli]

private gripweed.

John Lennon in How I Won The War (1967) dir. Richard Lester 

[loonylupin2]

So I made a 13 Chapter Fanfiction about Private Gripweed and Major McCartney!!!

I write in a style similar to older literature (my favorite books are the great Gatsby and Peter Pan) though I try to make my dialogue and realistic and gut wrenching as possible :) 

There are a lot of references to old actors and films as well as internalized homophobia and of course ✨TRUAMA✨

Be warned there is major character death

(The end of Chapter six has NSFW though it copies 1920′s erotica but still)

Everyone on my Twitter adored it so I though I’d share it with you

You don’t have to be a Beatles fan or familiar with these films to read 

It’s entirely a story on its own ❤️

AUF WIEDERSEH’N MY LOVES 

[privategripweed]

[ceofjohnlennon]

John Lennon as Private Gripweed in the "How I Won The War" movie (1967) l "My feet wet" scene.

[ceofjohnlennon]

John Lennon as the Private Gripweed in the "How I Won The War" movie (1967) l "My faithful batman" scene.