Dreamlife March 20—Leslie

( a little late)

Type: class reunion
People: Linda N., Linda F., and Robin
Featured: a photo of the Beatles

I’m at a Stanford Law School class reunion, and Linda N. (a classmate who is now a high mucky-muck in the LA pop music scene) was giving a talk to us in one of the law school auditoriums. She holds up a photo of the Abbey Road album cover, which has a picture of her superimposed on it. I yell out “Paul is dead!” and several people in the audience chuckle.


Robin looks at me like I’m nuts. “Huh?” she says. “Don’t you remember?” I ask. “Back in the early ’70s, when there was a big brouhaha about Paul supposedly having died and the rest of the Beatles covered it up? There was a big Life magazine story about it, with photos of Paul living on his farm in Scotland to prove he was still alive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robin says. Just then Linda F. walks by, and I ask her about the Paul is dead thing. “Sure,” she says. “Of course: 28IF.”

Annotations:

Linda N. was a SLS classmate and is now indeed a high-powered music attorney in LA. Robin most certainly does know about the “Paul is dead” phenomenon. Our friend Linda F. would not have been at a SLS reunion, but would certainly also know about the “Paul is dead” thing, as she was and is a great Beatles fan (she went to the penultimate Beatles concert at Candlestick Park in 1966). 28IF was on the license plate of the VW beetle in the Abbey Road cover, and folks said at the time that it was a reference to the fact that Paul would be 28 years old if he were still alive.