The Long and Winding Road and River
Two unrelated yet somehow timely stories of events long past
The Long and Winding Road
Some wounds never heal. I am still recovering from the Beatles’ breakup, not to mention the untimely deaths of two of the bands’ members. Now, more than forty years after they shut the band down, I marvel at the way Paul McCartney keeps rolling out “new” Beatles material in this not-so-new millennium. Why does he do it? The cynic in me says it must be greed or ego, but he is a billionaire and doesn’t need the money, and how much stroking can one ego really crave? A better explanation might be that he realizes the Beatles years were his most creative, that millions of people still enjoy hearing about them, and that he is loath to let the band’s fans down.
I enjoyed McCartney’s recent series of “interviews” with Rick Rubin on Hulu, although they could just as well have been a monologue. Rubin’s principal role seemed to be that of potted plant, but a plant McCartney could talk to and who knew how to pull the levers on a giant sound mixer to reveal previously subdued tracks.
This week, I also enjoyed David Remnick’s excellent piece in the October 18th issue of The New Yorker. It, too, features McCartney, who reveals new (to me) details about the Beatles, from cradle to grave and beyond. It’s a great read and includes stories from McCartney as well as Ringo Starr. One of my favorites is this from McCartney:
People said to me when [John Lennon] said those things on his record about me, you must hate him, but I didn’t. I don’t. We were once having a right slagging session and I remember how he took off his granny glasses. I can still see him. He put them down and said, “It’s only me, Paul.” Then he put them back on again and we continued slagging. . . . That phrase keeps coming back to me all the time. “It’s only me.”
(“Slagging,” in case you were wondering, seems to be U.K. slang for “insulting.”)
Although the Beatles years were easily McCartney’s best, he did record some memorable music from time-to-time in the post-Beatles decades. The first, of course, was “Maybe I’m Amazed,” followed by other now-classics like “My Love,” “Live and Let Die,” and “Jet,” to name a few early standouts. McCartney also has collaborated with other great artists, like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, and Elvis Costello, and other superstars sing their praises of him in Remnick’s piece, ranging from McCartney’s contemporary, Bob Dylan, to Taylor Swift, born twenty years after the Beatles recorded their last song. According to Remnick, McCartney’s 2021 remix of his latest album, “McCartney III Imagined,” was No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Rock Albums Chart. Still crazy after all these years. (Oops. Wrong Paul.)
Of greater interest, to me at least, is that there is now a three-part documentary called “The Beatles: Get Back,” covering the band’s final creative weeks together making their last recording and giving their last live performance. It will be released on Disney+ during Thanksgiving weekend. The series was made by Peter Jackson, director of the “Lord of the Rings” films. I just watched the trailer and can’t wait to see it, mostly because of my love for the Beatles, but also because of my respect for Jackson.
That respect comes mainly from having seen Jackson’s 2018 documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old.” In that film, Jackson took hundreds of hours of old, worn out footage from the trenches in World War I and transformed them into a film that made you feel like you were there. It also made you recognize the British soldiers from a century ago as real, relatable human beings, not just faceless, abstract soldiers. If Jackson can do that with what he had to work with then, I can only imagine what he has done with the Beatles film.
I also wonder: if Jackson’s first documentary looked back 100 years, and the Beatles film looks back 50 years, what will he do for his next trick? A documentary about events 25 years ago? Well, if he’s interested, I have a candidate for him.
Love That Dirty Water
This weekend marked the 56th Head of the Charles Regatta. The Charles, of course, is the Charles River, separating Boston from Cambridge. Some may know it best as the subject of that classic Standells’ song, “Dirty Water,” a favorite of Boston sports fans.
The Regatta’s website explains: “Since its origin in 1965, the Head of the Charles Regatta has welcomed the world’s best crew teams to the banks of the Charles River for the ultimate two-day rowing competition.” The site says the Regatta attracts 11,000 athletes and tens of thousands of spectators. I recall many a Saturday in October driving into Boston on the Massachusetts Turnpike and seeing some of the rowing shells gliding over the Charles, though I never actually stopped anywhere to watch them race. Since its beginning in 1965, there have only been two years when the Regatta has not occurred – 2020 (cancelled on account of COVID) and 1996, 25 years ago last week.
News accounts say that the 1996 cancellation was due to “heavy rains,” but that makes it sound as if the weather event was just a rainstorm. In fact, it was a deluge.
The “heavy rains” were what was known at the time as a “100 year storm.” (Climate change is expected to shorten that interval.) How bad was it? A rowing website recalling the event says that “the winds were of epic proportions,” and compares the 5.66 inches of rain on October 20th (the scheduled day for the race) to the 6.67 inches of “total precipitation for all days of Regatta’s remaining history,” which at that time exceeded 30 years.
Worse, but less well known, because so much water was saturating the soils and getting into the drainage channels that led from the higher elevations west of Boston to the sea level discharge points in Boston Harbor, the Charles River itself had reached flood levels. Water that infiltrated ancient, deteriorating sewer pipes overwhelmed the system’s capacity. In one especially low-lying, low-income, and racially diverse residential neighborhood, the sewer had been laid so close to ground level that the inundation of the system caused geysers of raw sewage to shoot up out of some manholes several feet into the air for extended periods of time. Sewage mixed with water is, after all, still sewage. It flowed from the manholes down the residential streets and into the basements of nearby homes, filling the basements from floor-to-ceiling, contaminating the walls and floors, and effectively destroying all of the furniture and other possessions the homes’ owners kept there.
The homeowners did not have the financial means to replace the possessions they had lost, and insurance companies did not immediately accept coverage. Some of the homeowners contacted an advocacy organization dedicated to environmental justice. That group considered the overflowing of sewage coming from more affluent and mostly white upstream cities and towns into a relatively poor, racially mixed neighborhood as an environmental injustice that included an element of environmental racism. Seeking to help the victims of the sewage floods, the organization contacted a Boston environmental lawyer they knew who had recently left state government to start her own private law practice. She, in turn, contacted a partner in the law firm where I worked, and my partner, knowing of my background in environmental litigation, contacted me.
On behalf of more than 100 residents of the devastated neighborhood, the environmental lawyer, my associates, and I spent nearly three years investigating whether the two sewer agencies that had operational responsibility for the over-taxed system might also have legal responsibility for the sewage overflows and the damage that they caused. When we became satisfied that the agencies could be held liable for the devastation inflicted on the neighborhood, but that they intended to stand by their defenses, we brought suit in Massachusetts Superior Court, alleging negligence in the agencies’ management of the two sewer systems that caused the problem. We litigated the case for about six years until its ultimate conclusion.
I no longer have access to the case records and am not sure how much I can say publicly about the outcome of the case, but I can say this: the hundreds of pro bono hours that I worked on it -- visiting our clients in their homes, walking in their neighborhood with them, attending neighborhood meetings at the local union headquarters, putting the case together, and battling in court -- were among the most rewarding hours I have ever spent as a lawyer. And I was not alone. What we were able to accomplish required the outstanding contributions of the lawyer who brought the matter to my firm, the associates and paralegal who worked on the matter with us, and the leadership of the neighborhood group, who worked diligently to organize the community and gather the information we needed to assert their claims.
My purpose in this is not to toot my own horn, especially since there are so many other lawyers and non-lawyers alike who have done far, far more than I ever have done to help people in need. Nor am I really suggesting that Peter Jackson or anyone else make a film about these 25-year-old events (although we did have some pretty good footage of sewage spewing from manholes). My real purpose is to say that using our abilities and resources not only to make a living, but also to make a difference, can provide us with lasting rewards that cannot be measured in dollars and cents. And, although the good works of good people often go unnoticed, I am finding more and more that there are countless examples of people quietly giving their time and talents to help others, with no wish of recognition. They are lights in the darkness, showing the rest of us the way.
Some bands, like the Beatles, we wish had never ended. Others will not be missed. The Standells were one-hit wonders. As uninspiring as the band may have been, however, their one hit remains a cherished anthem for us Bostonians.
Here is the official trailer for upcoming Disney+ film: The Beatles: Get Back
Here is a link to the Hulu documentary featuring Paul McCartney and Rick Rubin: McCartney 3, 2, 1
Here is the Wikipedia entry for The Standells: The Standells
Here is a video of the Standells live tv performance of the song: Dirty Water
Here is some information about the Head of the Charles Regatta: Regatta History
I am informed that there has not been another sewage overflow in the neighborhood that was impacted in 1996. Assuming that to be true, there are probably at least two explanations. First, there may not yet have been another storm of the same magnitude as the 100 year storm of that year. Also, to their credit, the agencies have taken measures that have safeguarded the area from recurring events.