[UA] Turn me on, dead man

[Rich Ranallo]

The other day, I found a book of general weirdness in Borders, and opened it
up to the chapter about the 1966-69 Paul McCartney death hoax. For those who
don't know, in 1966, some guy called into a dinky college radio station and
reported that Paul McCartney had died in a car crash, and that the Beatles
brought in a lookalike to fill in for him on stage and in records. From
there, Beatles fans pored over articles and albums looking for the "hints"
about Paul's demise. Rumor has it that the Beatles themselves encouraged
this idea after it had spread far and wide enough.

The book, of course, pointed out that this is all BS, since Paul is alive
and touring this year. Never did they think that the fact he's alive and
touring is actually PROOF that some weirdness was going on.

The way I see it, the original phone call was made by Paul himself while on
holiday in the States. He'd already made arrangements to have clues placed
in the next couple albums and photo shoots, just to speed up the rumor
machine. Once it got into full swing, he caused such an emotional outpouring
and convinced enough people that he was dead that he effectively fooled the
universe into believing the same thing. Essentially, he created a fictional
proxy of himself and killed it so that he would never have to die.

There was one unexpected side effect of his ritual, though. Paul created
more death mythology than any other single person in history. The walrus,
sailors calling the ocean bottom "an octopus' garden," the open palm above
Paul's head all of these are false symbols of death-or at least, they were
until this happened. Such myth creation made Paul a symbolic King of the
dead, and he's been absorbing the souls of his bandmates (and possibly all
dead rock musicians) ever since. John had to go first, since he was
beginning to catch on to Paul's newfound occult power. Now Ringo has to run
around seeking whatever magickal mojo he can get his hands on in order to
save his own soul when the time comes.

Now that I've got a core idea, I need to turn this into a campaign...

>From Whom It May Concern,
Rich Ranallo

"Just to put your minds all at ease, I have four words for you that I know
will relieve you greatly.  How does this sound: Vice President Hunter
Thompson?''
-John Kerry