June 14, 2022 • 37 mins
George Harrison famously survived the dissolution of the Beatles, a bust by London’s drug squad, a potentially bloody visit from the Hell’s Angels, and a few rounds with cancer. But on the final day of the 20th century, his strength and faith were put to the ultimate test. A crazed fan, convinced that the Beatles were evil and George was a sorcerer who had possessed him, broke into George’s Friar Park estate in the dead of night with one goal: to murder George Harrison.
For a full list of contributors, see the show notes at disgracelandpod.com
To listen to Disgraceland ad freeand get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership.
Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER
Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND:
X (formerly Twitter)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis, and the stories
about George Harrison are insane. He was set up and
busted by London's notorious drug squad. He attacked the paparazzo
(00:22):
who leaped from the bushes with his camera flashing. He
diffused a potentially bloody visit from the Hell's Angels, and
on the last day of the twentieth century, after rebounding
from multiple cancer diagnoses, George Harrison was terrorized and violently attacked,
an attack that left him hanging on for life with
a collapsed lung. But before that, George Harrison made great music,
(00:48):
some of the most enduring and soul searching music of
all time. Unlike that music I played for you at
the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That
was a preset loop from my melotron called Gortex Vortex
MK two. I played you that loop because I can't
afford the rights to Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas.
(01:11):
And why would I play you that specific slice of
Spanish Harlem mona Lisa Cheese. Could I afford it? Because
that was the number one song in America On December
thirty one, nineteen ninety nine, and that was the day
that a crazed fan broke into the historic thirty five
acre Friar Park estate and tried to kill George Harrison.
(01:34):
On this episode, paparazzi, drug squads, crazed fans, a home
invasion in George Harrison. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland.
(02:18):
This was his great chant for deliverance, his sacred chant,
his mystical sound, vibration, whatever you choose to call it.
A mantra, has incredible power. It's hypnotic. The more you
repeat your mantra, the more powerful it becomes. Repetition carves
a path deeper to awareness, and with the power of awareness,
(02:42):
one could be prepared.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
For anything, even death.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
At this particular moment, however, on the last day of
the twentieth century, George Harrison was not seeking enlightenment or awareness.
George wasn't repeating Harry Rish Harry Krishna over and over
again in order to communicate directly with God, as many
have done for close to five thousand years. He was
doing it to disorient the other man in the room
(03:12):
because George Harrison was under attack. Hiri Krishna Hari Krishna.
George Harrison was yelling at the man with the blonde
hair running up the stairs towards him. He just wanted
the man to stop. He hoped the mantra would cause
the man to become confused and afraid, just like George
had been confused and afraid when he was awoken by
(03:33):
the sound of breaking glass and knew that someone was
inside his home. But George's mantra didn't have the intended effect.
If anything, it made the man charge faster, angrier. The
man wasn't there to rob anybody. He was bounding up
the steps two at a time because the man was
there to murder George Harrison. The man's eyes were wild,
(03:57):
scraggly blonde hair squirming like Medusa. George stood his ground
up in the gallery that overlooked the first floor. It
was late, not quite three thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Beware of darkness.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
George saw that the man had a stone sword in
one hand that would be from the statue of Saint
George and the Dragon, the one that George's wife had
created and was displayed in the gardens outside. In his
other hand, the man held a knife. George thought of
his wife back in their bedroom, and of his mother
in law, who was sleeping upstairs in one of the
guest rooms Hairi Krishna Harri Krishna. George cried again just
(04:34):
as the man made it to the landing at the
gallery level. That shit wasn't working, so George leaped at
his attacker, But just like the mantra, this plan also backfired.
George and the attacker fell to the ground and the
man was on top of George, straddling him. George squirmed
on the ground and held his hands up in self preservation.
He couldn't let the man get away. He couldn't risk
(04:56):
his wife or mother in law getting injured, so he
fought back. And then the man thrust the knife down
and George fended off the first blow, but subsequent blows
came too fast. The man was too powerful, too determined.
He plunged the knife down into George's chest. George felt
the blade pierce his skin and go deep inside his body.
(05:17):
The man pulled the bloody blade out and stabbed George
a second time, then a third. George was yelling again.
This time it wasn't a mantra, just shrieks of pain,
pain caused, not just by a sharp knife in the chest,
but by the realization that the end of the line
was here and he had not planned for it to
happen like this. George Harrison felt it coming on another headache.
(05:44):
It was right in between his eyes. Sinea Cross Firm
at Twickenham Studios in London, right in front of his eyes,
was the cause of the pain. The other Beatles well, okay,
if George was being completely honest, the problem was Paul
only Paul. Sure John made it a habit to dismiss
George's songs, but right now he was tuning the fuck
(06:07):
out and nodding the fuck off and Ringo, well, Ringo
was ringo. Georgia didn't have beef with Ringo. George's headache
was all because of Paul. He was a dictator. I'm
kind of a dick holier than now, as if George
wasn't a fucking beatle too. By nineteen sixty nine, it
was clear that George wasn't just a sideman for the
(06:28):
esteemed songwriting duo of Lennon and McCartney. He was the
beadle who enriched the band culturally with Indian ragas, with
sitars and tablers and exotic sounds that went within and
without you. He was the most generous member of the band,
the lead guitarist to let Paul play the guitar solo
on his song Taxman. He even tossed the solo on
(06:49):
one of his greatest songs, while my Guitar gently weeps
to Eric Clapton, and Eric wasn't even in the band.
But also by nineteen sixty nine, George wandered a larger role.
He wanted to write more, more than the obligatory one
or two songs per record. He wanted to be as
respected as John and Paul when he came to writing songs.
(07:10):
George had long played the role of the quiet you know,
largely because Paul and John kept him quiet. And right
now at Twickenham, if being stonewalled on the songwriting front
wasn't enough to bear, George, the Beatles lead guitarist, was
being told how to play guitar by the fucking bass player.
(07:31):
I'll play whatever you want me to play, George told
Paul or I won't play at all. Whatever it is
it'll please you, I'll do it. But George didn't really
mean it. George just wanted a bail fuck playing whatever
Paul wanted him to play. It wasn't fun anymore. The
Beatles weren't fun anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What a pity.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The Beatles gave George a headache, so he walked out
of Twickenham, went home to his bungalow and esher and
wrote Wah Wah, which is not song about a guitar pedal.
It's a song about making the decision to leave the Beatles.
George hung in there for most of nineteen sixty nine
until it became unbearable, and once the Beatles did throw
(08:12):
in the towel, George wasted no time. In fact, he
made up for lost time his nineteen seventy one triple
album All Things Must Pass, technically, his third solo album
following two experimental releases, was a fully realized artistic statement
about the temporality of life. Songs like My Sweet Lord
(08:35):
and What Is Life were pop mantras all about change
and transcendence. George Harrison had shed the Beatles and revealed
the real George Harrison, a songwriter who could go toe
to toe with his contemporaries and was just as prolific.
Even better, George finally eclipsed his former bandmates. He stole their.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Spotlight for a change.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
All Things Must Pass spent eight weeks at the top
of the UK charts in seven.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Weeks at number one in the United States.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
This all despite the fact that the record talked about
God more than rock music was usually comfortable with, and
did so across an expensive three LP set. But it
sold man It sold better than Ram Paul's solo album
from that same year, or sold better than John's Plastic
Ono Band and Imagine, both of which happened to be
(09:26):
produced by Phil Spector, the gonzo record producer who also
brought his Wall of sound aesthetic to All Things Must Pass.
The cherry on top that was having one of the
album's songs at number one on the Singles chart at
the same time the album was.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
At number one.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
No Beetle had held the top spot of both charts simultaneously,
and no other Beadle would for two more years. Where
once he felt underappreciated and underprepared, George was now feeling ready.
He was becoming the artist he always wanted to be.
He was on the right path to artistic freedom, to enlightenment.
(10:02):
But when the time came, he would be ready to
leave his own legacy behind one that identified George as George,
not as the guy gave up and did what someone
else told him to do. The brass poker made a
dull thud as it hit the back of the head
of the man with the scraggly blonde hair. The man
(10:23):
fell to the floor next to where George was gasping
for air. George tasted blood in his mouth, and every
time he took a breath, his chest hurt like hell.
Blood on his pajamas, blood on the floor. He pressed
his hands to his chest and felt the holes where.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
The knife had gone through.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
He looked up and saw his wife, Olivia standing above him,
holding a brass poker from the fireplace. The end of
the poker was bloody. Her stance was heroic, but the
look on her face was absolute terror. George felt he
was dying at fifty six years old. He began to
repeat the Harry krish Namantra silently in his head, the
(11:02):
very same one he'd first heard from his divine grace,
Swami Prahubada thirty years ago. The mantra gave him purpose, clarity, power.
He repeated the words in his head and thought of
the Yogic paths to enlighten it, but his strength was weak.
Couldn't say the mantra out loud in order to feel
its positive vibration, and thus it couldn't reach his heart
(11:23):
and soul. All it sounded like to him was a
broken record in his head, a needle skipping on a
worn out groove. This wasn't the way he wanted to
leave his body behind, and that thought terrified him. He
had knots left to unravel, a mind to clear, karma
to burn, And as he watched the man with the
(11:43):
bloodied blonde hair slowly climb back to his feet and
chase Olivia into the next room, George had his mind
set on one thing he had to do before anything else.
He had to save his wife before she was killed
by a madman. The place was a fixer rubber That
(12:24):
was the understatement of the decade. In nineteen seventy, the
sprawling Friar Park had fallen into disrepair. The half Victorian Gothic,
half French chateau estate had been neglected for years. With
its grottoes, tunnels, caves, sandstone replica of matterhorn, an assortment
of impish garden gnomes. The place had once been one
(12:46):
of the most extraordinary in all of England, but all
things must pass. Its thirty five acres of gardens were
fading away, Its extensive system of small lakes and waterways
were drying up. Henley on Thames, the small town in
Oxfordshire where Friar Park had stood since its construction in
(13:07):
eighteen eighty nine, slated the property for demolition. However, Friar
Park presented the right challenge to the right person. A
person with money and time on his hands. George Harrison,
newly liberated from the biggest band on the planet, had
both of those things. He bought the place in nineteen seventy,
(13:27):
settled in Derek Taylor, the Beadles press officer called it
a dream on a hill. George invested millions over the
years to make the dream a reality. He planted trees,
brought the gardens and waterways back to life. He even
installed the state of the art recording studio inside the
one hundred and twenty room mansion, which officially served as
(13:49):
the headquarters of his new record label, Dark Horse. The
decision to retreat further into the country had been sealed
the year before. In March nineteen sixty nine, Sergeant Norman
Pilcher and his notorious London drug squad paid a visit
to George's home in Esher. George was arrested for some
(14:10):
hash hidden inside one of his shoes on the day
of Paul's wedding. No less, George fumed the cops were dirty.
They'd been setting up rock stars left and right with
similar trumped up charges. Did George take drugs obviously? Did
he keep drugs in his shoes? George famously said at
the time, I'm a tidy person. I keep my socks
(14:31):
in my sock drawer, in my stash in the stash box.
It's not mine. Didn't matter. The drug squad hauled George outside,
where a photographer for a local newspaper sprung from the bushes,
camera flashing. George took a swing and told the paparazzo
to beat it or he'd get a beat down. The
dude dropped his camera in fear and ran.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
George managed to smash.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It to pieces with his beetle boot before he was
hauled off to jail. He pled guilty to unlawful possession,
paid his two hundred and.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Fifty pounds fine.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
At Friar Park. George didn't fear being under the microscope
of the London drug squad, but that didn't mean that
he was no longer afraid. Since the height of Beatlemania,
George had regularly feared for his life, the hordes of
screaming fans, the crush of an infatuated crowd. It was
like he was constantly being chased by people in a
violent trance. What would the fans have done if they
(15:28):
had actually caught up to them? Years before the Beatles
called it quits, George was already asking himself, what is life?
Is this? It? Does this make me feel happy? Will
this get me to where I want to go?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Am I safe?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
The fear hit a fever pitch in December nineteen eighty
when John Lennon was gunned down outside his apartment at
the Dakota in New York City. That was enough to
make every Beetle paranoid. George dumped another million pounds into
Friar Park, but this time it wasn't to make the
garden's green. This time it was to install razor wire cameras,
(16:05):
alarms guard dogs. Historically, the tolkienesque grounds of Friar Park
were open to the public.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
No more.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The gates were locked. George Harrison was no longer expecting
anyone uninvited to visit cracker Box Palace. But just because
he wasn't expecting anyone didn't mean that they wouldn't seek
him out. Over the years, George and his wife Olivia
received numerous death threats in the mail. Crazed fans attempted
to scale the estate walls and break in, and the
(16:36):
FBI even managed to foil the plants of an American
who intended to burn Friar Park to the ground. While George, Olivia,
and their son were at home, and as the sentry
wound down, George's existential fear ramped up. He'd found a
lump in his neck cancer. The doctors found more in
his law. A few operations and radiation treatments later, and
(16:58):
George was feeling better. The cancer was in remission. George
had found solace in meditation. He focused on his mantra.
Mantras made you feel good. Repeating the words out loud,
over and over again was a bomb. So the more
George used repetition, the better he felt. He became focused, aware, strong, unafraid.
(17:21):
He went to sleep before midnight on the evening of
December thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine. Tomorrow will be a new day,
and soon he would chant in the name of the
Lord to welcome a brand new century. Just hours later,
shortly before the sun rose on the morning of New
Year's Eve, Michael Abram climbed through the shattered window of
(17:42):
George Harrison's Friar Park mansion. He'd broken it with the
stone sword that he'd been able to rip off of
the statue.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Outside.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
The statue was a depiction of Saint George slaying the dragon.
Abram thought it fitting, seeing as he was on a
mission to do a little slaying of his own. He
also thought it humorous because the George on the inside
of this house he was no saint, despite what the
world said to the contrary. Abram brushed his scraggly blonde
(18:10):
hair away from his eyes with the blade of the
knife he held in his other hand. A lit cigarette
burned between his lips. He scanned the room. It was dark,
but he could tell he was in the kitchen. He
listened for voices, but the voices inside his own head
were making it difficult. They wouldn't shut up. Sometimes he
would drown the voices out with his Walkman, the volume
(18:31):
cranked up all the way to ten. Oasis cassettes were
the best. They were mastered for maximum sonic impact, and
Oasis was the best period That song Wonderwall. Abram believed
that the Gallagher brothers had written that song about the
walls of his flat. People complained that Oasis just ripped
off the Beatles, but Abram knew better. Oasis were better
(18:52):
than the Beatles. Abram used to listen to the Beatles,
and that was before the voices escalated in his head
and showed him the light and inner light. Perhaps the Beatles, well,
they were just pure evil. All you need is love,
patently untrue. That was just a manufactured sentiment to shroud
one of their spells. Because the Beatles were actually witches.
(19:14):
They traveled on brooms. They had spoken in mantras ever
since their return from Rishikesh, and Abram knew that mantras
like Hari Krishno were really the Devil's tom. Of course,
none of this was actually true, but Abram believed it was.
His belief was unwavering. He was in the middle of
a full blown psychotic episode from which there was no escape.
(19:35):
He didn't know why he believed the things he did.
The voice is told in these things, and he took
them as gospel things like George Harrison was the most
evil beetle of all, that he was the cause of
the voices in Abram's head, that Georgia cast a spell,
taken possession of Abram's mind and tortured him from three
hundred kilometers away from Oxfordshire to Liverpool, where Abram called home.
(19:57):
Abram believed it wasn't a coincidence that he lived in
the city where the Beatles had famously got their start,
and the voices further told him that the only way
that he could break that spell and thus to be
free of the voices in his head, was to find
George Harrison and kill him. Now enveloped within the darkness
of Friar Park, Abram was surprised that an alarm had
(20:21):
yet to sound, or that he had been able to
make it over the exterior fence of the estate unseen.
All that money spent on security wasted, and where were
the guard dogs that had supposedly started their watch nineteen
years ago. Old senile probably buried on the grounds among
the garden gnomes. George Harrison, on the other hand, despite
(20:41):
all the threats and the fears, and the recent treatments
for cancer. He was very much alive, and he was
somewhere inside this enormous house, maybe behind that locked door.
Abram slowly made his way through the kitchen into the
main hallway, the stone sword in one hand and his
knife in the other. He heard noises coming from upstairs, footsteps.
(21:03):
They were getting closer and louder. Abram approached a set
of stairs.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It led up to the.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Gallery overlooking the main floor. He braced himself for a
beatle to come shooting out into the open, riding a
wooden broom with a long flowing cape, transfiguring spells at
the ready, and then from out of the shadows, he
appeared at the top of the stairs, George Harrison.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
He had no broom, no cape.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
He was unarmed, He appeared unafraid, and he was reciting
unspeakable incantations of evil. And the louder George spoke, the
more it's steadied, Abrams resolve. It was sorcery, all of it.
There was no turning back. This was the moment, here
in the darkness. It wouldn't last all day. George Harrison
(21:49):
had better be prepared to die. We'll be right back
after this word word word. The Hell's Angels had taken
over three Savo Row and they were loud, rude, drunk,
(22:11):
They smelled like shit, and they were everywhere. They had
muscled their way past Jimmy the doorman. Now they're making
a racket inside the offices of Apple Core. Their black
leather MC jackets and unruly, windswept hair were a sharp
contrast to the clean green carpets and white walls. It
was nineteen sixty eight Christmas party at the swinging headquarters
(22:34):
of the Beatles' burgeoning media company. But the dozen or
so angels who had crashed the party were fucking up
the peace and love vibe. They exuded, not goodwill towards
their fellow man, but menace, intimidation, terror. Two angels from
the San Francisco chapter, Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete, were wasted
(22:54):
on Scotch and cokes, and now they wanted food, and
they could smell the turkey in the kitchen, all forty
three pounds of it. They were Apple's guests and they
wanted to eat now. John and Yoko, festively dressed as
Sanna and Missus Klaus, tried to calm the bikers down,
but even a woody bloke like John was no match.
(23:15):
Chrisco Pete looked John dead in the eye and said,
without a hint of humor.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What the fuck is going on in this place? We
want to eat.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Neil Astminhall and Peter Brown tried to subdue them. They
managed people for a living, after all, and they've gotten
the Beatles out of many a dicey scrap in the past.
And the Angels could give two fucks. They weren't listening.
There was only one person they'd listened to, and that
was George. George Harrison was the one who had extended
(23:45):
and opened invitation to the Hell's Angels in the first place.
The hippies and the hate seen beyond burnout to George
when he paid a visit to San Francisco back in
the summer, but the Angels were all right in his eyes.
He even sent a memo to Apple staffers ahead of
the MC's visit, which Warren quote, there will be twelve
in number, complete with black leather jackets and motorcycles. They
(24:05):
may look as if they're going to do you in,
but are very straight and do good things, so don't
fear them or uptight them. Try to assist them without
neglecting your apple business and without letting them take control
of Savile Row. It was easier said than done.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The situation was officially out of control.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
George Harrison was a Pisces, the zodiac sign with the fish.
You know, one fish goes one way or the other
fish goes the other way, And George is saying, so
what do you offered me? It was duality right. It
would explain George's dual fascinations with quiet ukuleles and loud
Formula one race cars, or why in one moment he'd
be practicing transcendental meditation and the next he'd indulge in
(24:45):
a Savoy truffle sized line of cocaine. And it would
also explain why he saw only the best in people,
even a group as polarizing as the Hell's Angels, because
on some days George himself acted like a Hell's Angel,
on other days he was the guy who uninvited the
Hell's Angels from the party. George arrived at Savile Row
(25:06):
as the bikers were tearing the Christmas turkey apart and
continuing to harass anyone.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Who dared get in their way.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
George was quiet, as was his reputation, and although he
spoke softly, the bikers listened up, yin and yang. George said,
heads and tails, yes, and no one moment you hear
the next moment you're not. Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete weren't following.
George cut to the chase. You know, bug her off.
(25:33):
The angels got on their bikes and left. Michael Abram
was no angel. He wasn't going anywhere, and no amount
of screaming from George or Olivia Harrison was going to
change his mind. After Olivia had gone full Sammy Sosa
on his head with the brass poker, Abram rebounded and
(25:55):
chased her into a meditation room nearby. Olivia stumbled, grabbed
her by the neck, both hands grasped tight. He squeezed
her throat tight. He hadn't intended to kill anyone else,
but so helping the fucking god. If the she devil
was going to stand in his way, he would do
what he believed he had to do. The voices in
his head were getting louder, now elongated bowels, hard consonants.
(26:19):
They weren't speaking the King's English. They wouldn't stop, so
he kept going. He kept his grip tighter. Olivia struggled
to breathe. She dug her hands at Abram's face, and
George managed to get off the ground and was also
struggling to breathe. Every time he exhaled, he felt more
blood empty into his mouth. He stumbled into the meditation area,
the wounds and his chest bleeding, his legs nearly.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Giving out on him.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
He reached out and grabbed Abram and struggled to pull
him off Olivia. The three of them fell to the floor.
George and Abram wrestled on the ground. George felt the
energy draining from his body. Even in his weak state.
The fact that the attack was happening on that particular
day was not lost on him. It was all too mutch.
(27:06):
Just one week prior, a zealous fan had broken into
George's house, not this house at Friar Park, but another
house George owned and Maui along the Hannah Highway on
a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Local police found an intruder
in the kitchen after they've been ticked off by neighbors.
She was eating a frozen pizza and drinking root beer.
(27:27):
Turns out she'd been stalking George for months. Georgie had
been so thankful that they were not in Maui when
had happened, and he knew he dodged a bullet, maybe
even an actual bullet.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Hear me, Lord, thank you Lord. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One week later, at Friar Park, George felt like he
had no voice to ask for help or give banks.
He did wonder if being a pisce he's had something
to do with it. One week he was safe, the
next week he was in mortal danger. He used every
last bit of strength to keep abrahmat where the two
of them were tossing around on the floor. Olivia stood
(28:03):
up and grabbed a table lamp that was nearby. She
swung it at Abram's head.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
It missed.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
She swung it again another miss. Abram reached out and
grabbed the lamp's cord. He pulled hard. The force yanked
Olivia towards him. She pulled back, but it did little
to move Abram. Abram pulled again, like he was reeling
in a big fish from a little pond. Olivia felt
she was losing ground. Suddenly, there was more commotion downstairs.
The sound of the front door being ripped open. More
(28:29):
voices beams of light shot out into the darkness. Police
Olivia remembered she had phoned both the police and some
of the Friar Park's staff when George had initially gone
downstairs to investigate the sound of breaking glass that had
woken them up. She threw the lamp at Abram's head
and ran out to the stairs to get their attention.
The cops beelined to the meditation room, pounced, subdued Abram,
(28:51):
and stopped the attack. George had lost a lot of
blood by the time the authorities brought the melee to
an end. Michael Abe was put in handcuffs and led
away as the first rays of the sun struggled to
peek out over the horizon. The medics took George's vitals.
They tended to the numerous knife wounds on his chest.
They placed him on a stretcher. One of his lungs
(29:13):
had collapsed, Abram's knife had narrowly missed his heart. He
needed to get to a hospital immediately.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
George knew that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
The next few minutes and hours were incredibly important. Anything
could happen. All things do pass, it's just a matter
of when they pass. He needed to focus his mind
and prepare for the day that he did leave the
physical realm, whether that day was tomorrow or ten years
down the road. That's the art of dying, to consciously
(29:41):
leave one's body at death. No reincarnation meant that there
was no loose ends to take care of, no knots
to unravel. The liberation of the soul. The first thing
George had to do was not lose his wits or
his sense of humor. As he was carried out to
the ambulance, George passed a new staff member who had
(30:01):
only been at the estate for a few days. So
George asked, without missing a beat, how are you liking
the new job so far? Some things you just couldn't
(30:29):
plan for. Some things just happened. Maybe you willed them
into existence, but planning was out of the question. You
just went with the flow. George Harrison was at a
dinner in Los Angeles with Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynn
when the unplanned happened. It was nineteen eighty eight. Jeff
(30:51):
Lynn was cool. Sure. His band Elo were obviously indebted
to the Beatles, and he had even produced George's latest
solo album, Cloud Nine, but Roy Orbison was cool on
another level. The voice, the big Oh. He was a legend.
He was what the Beatles aspired to be when they
were banging around clubs in Hamburg almost thirty years earlier.
(31:13):
George realized that a massive opportunity was sitting across the
table from him. He asked Roy and Jeff if they
wanted to head into the studio the next day to
sing on a song George was working on accelerate through
the curve, just like the best F one drivers, or
rather through life's curves. George figured in that moment, when's
the next time he was going to be having dinner
(31:34):
with Roy Orbison. Roy smiled behind his trademark dark sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Sure he would.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
So George rang up Bob Dylan because Bob was in
town and he'd come and clutch when it came to
sniffing out a studio to record him. George and Bob
went way back back to even before Bob agreed to
appear in the concert for Bangladesh that George organized in
nineteen seventy one, the first of its kind, a star
studded bee fit to raise money.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
To help refugees.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Speaking of refugees, Georgia left his guitar at Tom Petty's house,
so he had to stop and pick it up on
the way to the studio. It wouldn't be polite to
not invite Tom along, seeing as he was tight with Bob,
having backed him up on that True Confessions tour just
a few years prior, and just like George and Bob
and Jeff, Tom would do anything to record with the
Great Roy Orgison. Within a matter of hours, the least
(32:25):
expected supergroup of the nineteen eighties had been formed. And
after a few weeks of collectively strumming acoustic guitars and
writing new songs during the day, and then singing those
songs around the same microphone together each evening, the Traveling
Wilbury's had an album. The Traveling Wilbury's Volume One was
released in October of nineteen eighty eight. It unexpectedly put
(32:47):
classic rock icons on the pop charts. It even made
Roy Orbison seem cool to gen xers. Roy got to
see the album go platinum before he died not even
two months later, at the age of fifty two. George
hadn't planned for that to happen either, for Roy to
be gone so soon after they had become so close.
(33:08):
Was Roy ready to die? Had he properly prepared to
leave his body behind? George could only hope only Roy
knew the answer. After Roy's death, the rest of the
Wilbury shot the music video for the single End of
the Line. In it, the band sits in a train
car in trades versus. When it comes time for Roy's verse,
(33:29):
the spotlight is on a solitary guitar rocking in a
rocking chair. The band thought it was the perfect tribute.
Roy's body was gone, but his voice carried on well.
George thought it is all right. He'd meet Roy at
the end of the line. But George wasn't quite ready
for the journey to end just yet. Even more than
(33:50):
a decade after Roy's death in the year two thousand,
George didn't want the ride to be over. He had
gardens to tend to, tunnels and caves left un cover,
and the great expanse of his thirty five acre estate.
Restoring the grounds at Friar Park was a major undertaking
that required both time and patience. He was the estate
(34:11):
steward now and he had to get it ready for
the next century. Like its original owner, Sir Francis Crisp
had done one hundred years ago, and just like Sir
Francis Crisp or Sir Frankie Crisp, as George immortalized him
in song on All Things Must Pass, George would never
see the fruits of his many labors. The saplings he planted,
He would never see them mature into full grown trees.
(34:33):
He really wanted to see them, but take so long.
And George also knew that he had no control over
when or how he would reach the end of the line.
The attack that he had suffered at the hands of
Michael Abram made that crystal clear, so he cleared his mind.
He focused on what he'd been able to accomplish in
the gardens at Friar Park, not the parts he'd yet
(34:55):
to get to.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
He didn't look back.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
In anger at the final days of the Beatles and
the frustration he felt towards Paul in particular, he forgave
Michael Abram for that night of absolute terror. Abram had
been found not guilty by reason of insanity. It was
being sent to his psychiatric hospital for further treatment. George
hoped to get the help he so desperately needed. George
(35:19):
didn't want to get to the end of the line.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
No one did.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
But when he did, if he was hit by a car,
or fell down the stairs, or god forbid, that cancer
came back, then he would be ready. From that moment on,
there were no more surprises, not even when he died
from lung cancer in November of two thousand and one
and a Beverly Hills home owned by Paul McCartney, with
(35:43):
family and Harry Krishna devotees by his bedside, chanting a
beautifully orchestrated exit from this.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
World with grace.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I'm Jake Brennan in this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
(36:33):
by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Credits for this episode can be found on the show
notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become
a member right now by going to disgracelamppod dot com.
Slash Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland
(36:57):
ad free, plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode
every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and
early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgrayslampod dot com
slash membership for details, Rate and review the show, and
follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelampod
(37:17):
and on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at Disgraceslampod
Rock a Roller, He the bed Don Man
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis, and the stories
about George Harrison are insane. He was set up and
busted by London's notorious drug squad. He attacked the paparazzo
(00:22):
who leaped from the bushes with his camera flashing. He
diffused a potentially bloody visit from the Hell's Angels, and
on the last day of the twentieth century, after rebounding
from multiple cancer diagnoses, George Harrison was terrorized and violently attacked,
an attack that left him hanging on for life with
a collapsed lung. But before that, George Harrison made great music,
(00:48):
some of the most enduring and soul searching music of
all time. Unlike that music I played for you at
the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That
was a preset loop from my melotron called Gortex Vortex
MK two. I played you that loop because I can't
afford the rights to Smooth by Santana and Rob Thomas.
(01:11):
And why would I play you that specific slice of
Spanish Harlem mona Lisa Cheese. Could I afford it? Because
that was the number one song in America On December
thirty one, nineteen ninety nine, and that was the day
that a crazed fan broke into the historic thirty five
acre Friar Park estate and tried to kill George Harrison.
(01:34):
On this episode, paparazzi, drug squads, crazed fans, a home
invasion in George Harrison. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland.
(02:18):
This was his great chant for deliverance, his sacred chant,
his mystical sound, vibration, whatever you choose to call it.
A mantra, has incredible power. It's hypnotic. The more you
repeat your mantra, the more powerful it becomes. Repetition carves
a path deeper to awareness, and with the power of awareness,
(02:42):
one could be prepared.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
For anything, even death.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
At this particular moment, however, on the last day of
the twentieth century, George Harrison was not seeking enlightenment or awareness.
George wasn't repeating Harry Rish Harry Krishna over and over
again in order to communicate directly with God, as many
have done for close to five thousand years. He was
doing it to disorient the other man in the room
(03:12):
because George Harrison was under attack. Hiri Krishna Hari Krishna.
George Harrison was yelling at the man with the blonde
hair running up the stairs towards him. He just wanted
the man to stop. He hoped the mantra would cause
the man to become confused and afraid, just like George
had been confused and afraid when he was awoken by
(03:33):
the sound of breaking glass and knew that someone was
inside his home. But George's mantra didn't have the intended effect.
If anything, it made the man charge faster, angrier. The
man wasn't there to rob anybody. He was bounding up
the steps two at a time because the man was
there to murder George Harrison. The man's eyes were wild,
(03:57):
scraggly blonde hair squirming like Medusa. George stood his ground
up in the gallery that overlooked the first floor. It
was late, not quite three thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Beware of darkness.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
George saw that the man had a stone sword in
one hand that would be from the statue of Saint
George and the Dragon, the one that George's wife had
created and was displayed in the gardens outside. In his
other hand, the man held a knife. George thought of
his wife back in their bedroom, and of his mother
in law, who was sleeping upstairs in one of the
guest rooms Hairi Krishna Harri Krishna. George cried again just
(04:34):
as the man made it to the landing at the
gallery level. That shit wasn't working, so George leaped at
his attacker, But just like the mantra, this plan also backfired.
George and the attacker fell to the ground and the
man was on top of George, straddling him. George squirmed
on the ground and held his hands up in self preservation.
He couldn't let the man get away. He couldn't risk
(04:56):
his wife or mother in law getting injured, so he
fought back. And then the man thrust the knife down
and George fended off the first blow, but subsequent blows
came too fast. The man was too powerful, too determined.
He plunged the knife down into George's chest. George felt
the blade pierce his skin and go deep inside his body.
(05:17):
The man pulled the bloody blade out and stabbed George
a second time, then a third. George was yelling again.
This time it wasn't a mantra, just shrieks of pain,
pain caused, not just by a sharp knife in the chest,
but by the realization that the end of the line
was here and he had not planned for it to
happen like this. George Harrison felt it coming on another headache.
(05:44):
It was right in between his eyes. Sinea Cross Firm
at Twickenham Studios in London, right in front of his eyes,
was the cause of the pain. The other Beatles well, okay,
if George was being completely honest, the problem was Paul
only Paul. Sure John made it a habit to dismiss
George's songs, but right now he was tuning the fuck
(06:07):
out and nodding the fuck off and Ringo, well, Ringo
was ringo. Georgia didn't have beef with Ringo. George's headache
was all because of Paul. He was a dictator. I'm
kind of a dick holier than now, as if George
wasn't a fucking beatle too. By nineteen sixty nine, it
was clear that George wasn't just a sideman for the
(06:28):
esteemed songwriting duo of Lennon and McCartney. He was the
beadle who enriched the band culturally with Indian ragas, with
sitars and tablers and exotic sounds that went within and
without you. He was the most generous member of the band,
the lead guitarist to let Paul play the guitar solo
on his song Taxman. He even tossed the solo on
(06:49):
one of his greatest songs, while my Guitar gently weeps
to Eric Clapton, and Eric wasn't even in the band.
But also by nineteen sixty nine, George wandered a larger role.
He wanted to write more, more than the obligatory one
or two songs per record. He wanted to be as
respected as John and Paul when he came to writing songs.
(07:10):
George had long played the role of the quiet you know,
largely because Paul and John kept him quiet. And right
now at Twickenham, if being stonewalled on the songwriting front
wasn't enough to bear, George, the Beatles lead guitarist, was
being told how to play guitar by the fucking bass player.
(07:31):
I'll play whatever you want me to play, George told
Paul or I won't play at all. Whatever it is
it'll please you, I'll do it. But George didn't really
mean it. George just wanted a bail fuck playing whatever
Paul wanted him to play. It wasn't fun anymore. The
Beatles weren't fun anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
What a pity.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
The Beatles gave George a headache, so he walked out
of Twickenham, went home to his bungalow and esher and
wrote Wah Wah, which is not song about a guitar pedal.
It's a song about making the decision to leave the Beatles.
George hung in there for most of nineteen sixty nine
until it became unbearable, and once the Beatles did throw
(08:12):
in the towel, George wasted no time. In fact, he
made up for lost time his nineteen seventy one triple
album All Things Must Pass, technically, his third solo album
following two experimental releases, was a fully realized artistic statement
about the temporality of life. Songs like My Sweet Lord
(08:35):
and What Is Life were pop mantras all about change
and transcendence. George Harrison had shed the Beatles and revealed
the real George Harrison, a songwriter who could go toe
to toe with his contemporaries and was just as prolific.
Even better, George finally eclipsed his former bandmates. He stole their.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Spotlight for a change.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
All Things Must Pass spent eight weeks at the top
of the UK charts in seven.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Weeks at number one in the United States.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
This all despite the fact that the record talked about
God more than rock music was usually comfortable with, and
did so across an expensive three LP set. But it
sold man It sold better than Ram Paul's solo album
from that same year, or sold better than John's Plastic
Ono Band and Imagine, both of which happened to be
(09:26):
produced by Phil Spector, the gonzo record producer who also
brought his Wall of sound aesthetic to All Things Must Pass.
The cherry on top that was having one of the
album's songs at number one on the Singles chart at
the same time the album was.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
At number one.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
No Beetle had held the top spot of both charts simultaneously,
and no other Beadle would for two more years. Where
once he felt underappreciated and underprepared, George was now feeling ready.
He was becoming the artist he always wanted to be.
He was on the right path to artistic freedom, to enlightenment.
(10:02):
But when the time came, he would be ready to
leave his own legacy behind one that identified George as George,
not as the guy gave up and did what someone
else told him to do. The brass poker made a
dull thud as it hit the back of the head
of the man with the scraggly blonde hair. The man
(10:23):
fell to the floor next to where George was gasping
for air. George tasted blood in his mouth, and every
time he took a breath, his chest hurt like hell.
Blood on his pajamas, blood on the floor. He pressed
his hands to his chest and felt the holes where.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
The knife had gone through.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
He looked up and saw his wife, Olivia standing above him,
holding a brass poker from the fireplace. The end of
the poker was bloody. Her stance was heroic, but the
look on her face was absolute terror. George felt he
was dying at fifty six years old. He began to
repeat the Harry krish Namantra silently in his head, the
(11:02):
very same one he'd first heard from his divine grace,
Swami Prahubada thirty years ago. The mantra gave him purpose, clarity, power.
He repeated the words in his head and thought of
the Yogic paths to enlighten it, but his strength was weak.
Couldn't say the mantra out loud in order to feel
its positive vibration, and thus it couldn't reach his heart
(11:23):
and soul. All it sounded like to him was a
broken record in his head, a needle skipping on a
worn out groove. This wasn't the way he wanted to
leave his body behind, and that thought terrified him. He
had knots left to unravel, a mind to clear, karma
to burn, And as he watched the man with the
(11:43):
bloodied blonde hair slowly climb back to his feet and
chase Olivia into the next room, George had his mind
set on one thing he had to do before anything else.
He had to save his wife before she was killed
by a madman. The place was a fixer rubber That
(12:24):
was the understatement of the decade. In nineteen seventy, the
sprawling Friar Park had fallen into disrepair. The half Victorian Gothic,
half French chateau estate had been neglected for years. With
its grottoes, tunnels, caves, sandstone replica of matterhorn, an assortment
of impish garden gnomes. The place had once been one
(12:46):
of the most extraordinary in all of England, but all
things must pass. Its thirty five acres of gardens were
fading away, Its extensive system of small lakes and waterways
were drying up. Henley on Thames, the small town in
Oxfordshire where Friar Park had stood since its construction in
(13:07):
eighteen eighty nine, slated the property for demolition. However, Friar
Park presented the right challenge to the right person. A
person with money and time on his hands. George Harrison,
newly liberated from the biggest band on the planet, had
both of those things. He bought the place in nineteen seventy,
(13:27):
settled in Derek Taylor, the Beadles press officer called it
a dream on a hill. George invested millions over the
years to make the dream a reality. He planted trees,
brought the gardens and waterways back to life. He even
installed the state of the art recording studio inside the
one hundred and twenty room mansion, which officially served as
(13:49):
the headquarters of his new record label, Dark Horse. The
decision to retreat further into the country had been sealed
the year before. In March nineteen sixty nine, Sergeant Norman
Pilcher and his notorious London drug squad paid a visit
to George's home in Esher. George was arrested for some
(14:10):
hash hidden inside one of his shoes on the day
of Paul's wedding. No less, George fumed the cops were dirty.
They'd been setting up rock stars left and right with
similar trumped up charges. Did George take drugs obviously? Did
he keep drugs in his shoes? George famously said at
the time, I'm a tidy person. I keep my socks
(14:31):
in my sock drawer, in my stash in the stash box.
It's not mine. Didn't matter. The drug squad hauled George outside,
where a photographer for a local newspaper sprung from the bushes,
camera flashing. George took a swing and told the paparazzo
to beat it or he'd get a beat down. The
dude dropped his camera in fear and ran.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
George managed to smash.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
It to pieces with his beetle boot before he was
hauled off to jail. He pled guilty to unlawful possession,
paid his two hundred and.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Fifty pounds fine.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
At Friar Park. George didn't fear being under the microscope
of the London drug squad, but that didn't mean that
he was no longer afraid. Since the height of Beatlemania,
George had regularly feared for his life, the hordes of
screaming fans, the crush of an infatuated crowd. It was
like he was constantly being chased by people in a
violent trance. What would the fans have done if they
(15:28):
had actually caught up to them? Years before the Beatles
called it quits, George was already asking himself, what is life?
Is this? It? Does this make me feel happy? Will
this get me to where I want to go?
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Am I safe?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
The fear hit a fever pitch in December nineteen eighty
when John Lennon was gunned down outside his apartment at
the Dakota in New York City. That was enough to
make every Beetle paranoid. George dumped another million pounds into
Friar Park, but this time it wasn't to make the
garden's green. This time it was to install razor wire cameras,
(16:05):
alarms guard dogs. Historically, the tolkienesque grounds of Friar Park
were open to the public.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
No more.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
The gates were locked. George Harrison was no longer expecting
anyone uninvited to visit cracker Box Palace. But just because
he wasn't expecting anyone didn't mean that they wouldn't seek
him out. Over the years, George and his wife Olivia
received numerous death threats in the mail. Crazed fans attempted
to scale the estate walls and break in, and the
(16:36):
FBI even managed to foil the plants of an American
who intended to burn Friar Park to the ground. While George, Olivia,
and their son were at home, and as the sentry
wound down, George's existential fear ramped up. He'd found a
lump in his neck cancer. The doctors found more in
his law. A few operations and radiation treatments later, and
(16:58):
George was feeling better. The cancer was in remission. George
had found solace in meditation. He focused on his mantra.
Mantras made you feel good. Repeating the words out loud,
over and over again was a bomb. So the more
George used repetition, the better he felt. He became focused, aware, strong, unafraid.
(17:21):
He went to sleep before midnight on the evening of
December thirtieth, nineteen ninety nine. Tomorrow will be a new day,
and soon he would chant in the name of the
Lord to welcome a brand new century. Just hours later,
shortly before the sun rose on the morning of New
Year's Eve, Michael Abram climbed through the shattered window of
(17:42):
George Harrison's Friar Park mansion. He'd broken it with the
stone sword that he'd been able to rip off of
the statue.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Outside.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
The statue was a depiction of Saint George slaying the dragon.
Abram thought it fitting, seeing as he was on a
mission to do a little slaying of his own. He
also thought it humorous because the George on the inside
of this house he was no saint, despite what the
world said to the contrary. Abram brushed his scraggly blonde
(18:10):
hair away from his eyes with the blade of the
knife he held in his other hand. A lit cigarette
burned between his lips. He scanned the room. It was dark,
but he could tell he was in the kitchen. He
listened for voices, but the voices inside his own head
were making it difficult. They wouldn't shut up. Sometimes he
would drown the voices out with his Walkman, the volume
(18:31):
cranked up all the way to ten. Oasis cassettes were
the best. They were mastered for maximum sonic impact, and
Oasis was the best period That song Wonderwall. Abram believed
that the Gallagher brothers had written that song about the
walls of his flat. People complained that Oasis just ripped
off the Beatles, but Abram knew better. Oasis were better
(18:52):
than the Beatles. Abram used to listen to the Beatles,
and that was before the voices escalated in his head
and showed him the light and inner light. Perhaps the Beatles, well,
they were just pure evil. All you need is love,
patently untrue. That was just a manufactured sentiment to shroud
one of their spells. Because the Beatles were actually witches.
(19:14):
They traveled on brooms. They had spoken in mantras ever
since their return from Rishikesh, and Abram knew that mantras
like Hari Krishno were really the Devil's tom. Of course,
none of this was actually true, but Abram believed it was.
His belief was unwavering. He was in the middle of
a full blown psychotic episode from which there was no escape.
(19:35):
He didn't know why he believed the things he did.
The voice is told in these things, and he took
them as gospel things like George Harrison was the most
evil beetle of all, that he was the cause of
the voices in Abram's head, that Georgia cast a spell,
taken possession of Abram's mind and tortured him from three
hundred kilometers away from Oxfordshire to Liverpool, where Abram called home.
(19:57):
Abram believed it wasn't a coincidence that he lived in
the city where the Beatles had famously got their start,
and the voices further told him that the only way
that he could break that spell and thus to be
free of the voices in his head, was to find
George Harrison and kill him. Now enveloped within the darkness
of Friar Park, Abram was surprised that an alarm had
(20:21):
yet to sound, or that he had been able to
make it over the exterior fence of the estate unseen.
All that money spent on security wasted, and where were
the guard dogs that had supposedly started their watch nineteen
years ago. Old senile probably buried on the grounds among
the garden gnomes. George Harrison, on the other hand, despite
(20:41):
all the threats and the fears, and the recent treatments
for cancer. He was very much alive, and he was
somewhere inside this enormous house, maybe behind that locked door.
Abram slowly made his way through the kitchen into the
main hallway, the stone sword in one hand and his
knife in the other. He heard noises coming from upstairs, footsteps.
(21:03):
They were getting closer and louder. Abram approached a set
of stairs.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
It led up to the.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Gallery overlooking the main floor. He braced himself for a
beatle to come shooting out into the open, riding a
wooden broom with a long flowing cape, transfiguring spells at
the ready, and then from out of the shadows, he
appeared at the top of the stairs, George Harrison.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
He had no broom, no cape.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
He was unarmed, He appeared unafraid, and he was reciting
unspeakable incantations of evil. And the louder George spoke, the
more it's steadied, Abrams resolve. It was sorcery, all of it.
There was no turning back. This was the moment, here
in the darkness. It wouldn't last all day. George Harrison
(21:49):
had better be prepared to die. We'll be right back
after this word word word. The Hell's Angels had taken
over three Savo Row and they were loud, rude, drunk,
(22:11):
They smelled like shit, and they were everywhere. They had
muscled their way past Jimmy the doorman. Now they're making
a racket inside the offices of Apple Core. Their black
leather MC jackets and unruly, windswept hair were a sharp
contrast to the clean green carpets and white walls. It
was nineteen sixty eight Christmas party at the swinging headquarters
(22:34):
of the Beatles' burgeoning media company. But the dozen or
so angels who had crashed the party were fucking up
the peace and love vibe. They exuded, not goodwill towards
their fellow man, but menace, intimidation, terror. Two angels from
the San Francisco chapter, Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete, were wasted
(22:54):
on Scotch and cokes, and now they wanted food, and
they could smell the turkey in the kitchen, all forty
three pounds of it. They were Apple's guests and they
wanted to eat now. John and Yoko, festively dressed as
Sanna and Missus Klaus, tried to calm the bikers down,
but even a woody bloke like John was no match.
(23:15):
Chrisco Pete looked John dead in the eye and said,
without a hint of humor.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
What the fuck is going on in this place? We
want to eat.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Neil Astminhall and Peter Brown tried to subdue them. They
managed people for a living, after all, and they've gotten
the Beatles out of many a dicey scrap in the past.
And the Angels could give two fucks. They weren't listening.
There was only one person they'd listened to, and that
was George. George Harrison was the one who had extended
(23:45):
and opened invitation to the Hell's Angels in the first place.
The hippies and the hate seen beyond burnout to George
when he paid a visit to San Francisco back in
the summer, but the Angels were all right in his eyes.
He even sent a memo to Apple staffers ahead of
the MC's visit, which Warren quote, there will be twelve
in number, complete with black leather jackets and motorcycles. They
(24:05):
may look as if they're going to do you in,
but are very straight and do good things, so don't
fear them or uptight them. Try to assist them without
neglecting your apple business and without letting them take control
of Savile Row. It was easier said than done.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
The situation was officially out of control.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
George Harrison was a Pisces, the zodiac sign with the fish.
You know, one fish goes one way or the other
fish goes the other way, And George is saying, so
what do you offered me? It was duality right. It
would explain George's dual fascinations with quiet ukuleles and loud
Formula one race cars, or why in one moment he'd
be practicing transcendental meditation and the next he'd indulge in
(24:45):
a Savoy truffle sized line of cocaine. And it would
also explain why he saw only the best in people,
even a group as polarizing as the Hell's Angels, because
on some days George himself acted like a Hell's Angel,
on other days he was the guy who uninvited the
Hell's Angels from the party. George arrived at Savile Row
(25:06):
as the bikers were tearing the Christmas turkey apart and
continuing to harass anyone.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Who dared get in their way.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
George was quiet, as was his reputation, and although he
spoke softly, the bikers listened up, yin and yang. George said,
heads and tails, yes, and no one moment you hear
the next moment you're not. Tumbleweed and Frisco Pete weren't following.
George cut to the chase. You know, bug her off.
(25:33):
The angels got on their bikes and left. Michael Abram
was no angel. He wasn't going anywhere, and no amount
of screaming from George or Olivia Harrison was going to
change his mind. After Olivia had gone full Sammy Sosa
on his head with the brass poker, Abram rebounded and
(25:55):
chased her into a meditation room nearby. Olivia stumbled, grabbed
her by the neck, both hands grasped tight. He squeezed
her throat tight. He hadn't intended to kill anyone else,
but so helping the fucking god. If the she devil
was going to stand in his way, he would do
what he believed he had to do. The voices in
his head were getting louder, now elongated bowels, hard consonants.
(26:19):
They weren't speaking the King's English. They wouldn't stop, so
he kept going. He kept his grip tighter. Olivia struggled
to breathe. She dug her hands at Abram's face, and
George managed to get off the ground and was also
struggling to breathe. Every time he exhaled, he felt more
blood empty into his mouth. He stumbled into the meditation area,
the wounds and his chest bleeding, his legs nearly.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
Giving out on him.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
He reached out and grabbed Abram and struggled to pull
him off Olivia. The three of them fell to the floor.
George and Abram wrestled on the ground. George felt the
energy draining from his body. Even in his weak state.
The fact that the attack was happening on that particular
day was not lost on him. It was all too mutch.
(27:06):
Just one week prior, a zealous fan had broken into
George's house, not this house at Friar Park, but another
house George owned and Maui along the Hannah Highway on
a bluff overlooking the Pacific. Local police found an intruder
in the kitchen after they've been ticked off by neighbors.
She was eating a frozen pizza and drinking root beer.
(27:27):
Turns out she'd been stalking George for months. Georgie had
been so thankful that they were not in Maui when
had happened, and he knew he dodged a bullet, maybe
even an actual bullet.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Hear me, Lord, thank you Lord. Now.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
One week later, at Friar Park, George felt like he
had no voice to ask for help or give banks.
He did wonder if being a pisce he's had something
to do with it. One week he was safe, the
next week he was in mortal danger. He used every
last bit of strength to keep abrahmat where the two
of them were tossing around on the floor. Olivia stood
(28:03):
up and grabbed a table lamp that was nearby. She
swung it at Abram's head.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
It missed.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
She swung it again another miss. Abram reached out and
grabbed the lamp's cord. He pulled hard. The force yanked
Olivia towards him. She pulled back, but it did little
to move Abram. Abram pulled again, like he was reeling
in a big fish from a little pond. Olivia felt
she was losing ground. Suddenly, there was more commotion downstairs.
The sound of the front door being ripped open. More
(28:29):
voices beams of light shot out into the darkness. Police
Olivia remembered she had phoned both the police and some
of the Friar Park's staff when George had initially gone
downstairs to investigate the sound of breaking glass that had
woken them up. She threw the lamp at Abram's head
and ran out to the stairs to get their attention.
The cops beelined to the meditation room, pounced, subdued Abram,
(28:51):
and stopped the attack. George had lost a lot of
blood by the time the authorities brought the melee to
an end. Michael Abe was put in handcuffs and led
away as the first rays of the sun struggled to
peek out over the horizon. The medics took George's vitals.
They tended to the numerous knife wounds on his chest.
They placed him on a stretcher. One of his lungs
(29:13):
had collapsed, Abram's knife had narrowly missed his heart. He
needed to get to a hospital immediately.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
George knew that.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
The next few minutes and hours were incredibly important. Anything
could happen. All things do pass, it's just a matter
of when they pass. He needed to focus his mind
and prepare for the day that he did leave the
physical realm, whether that day was tomorrow or ten years
down the road. That's the art of dying, to consciously
(29:41):
leave one's body at death. No reincarnation meant that there
was no loose ends to take care of, no knots
to unravel. The liberation of the soul. The first thing
George had to do was not lose his wits or
his sense of humor. As he was carried out to
the ambulance, George passed a new staff member who had
(30:01):
only been at the estate for a few days. So
George asked, without missing a beat, how are you liking
the new job so far? Some things you just couldn't
(30:29):
plan for. Some things just happened. Maybe you willed them
into existence, but planning was out of the question. You
just went with the flow. George Harrison was at a
dinner in Los Angeles with Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynn
when the unplanned happened. It was nineteen eighty eight. Jeff
(30:51):
Lynn was cool. Sure. His band Elo were obviously indebted
to the Beatles, and he had even produced George's latest
solo album, Cloud Nine, but Roy Orbison was cool on
another level. The voice, the big Oh. He was a legend.
He was what the Beatles aspired to be when they
were banging around clubs in Hamburg almost thirty years earlier.
(31:13):
George realized that a massive opportunity was sitting across the
table from him. He asked Roy and Jeff if they
wanted to head into the studio the next day to
sing on a song George was working on accelerate through
the curve, just like the best F one drivers, or
rather through life's curves. George figured in that moment, when's
the next time he was going to be having dinner
(31:34):
with Roy Orbison. Roy smiled behind his trademark dark sunglasses.
Speaker 2 (31:40):
Sure he would.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
So George rang up Bob Dylan because Bob was in
town and he'd come and clutch when it came to
sniffing out a studio to record him. George and Bob
went way back back to even before Bob agreed to
appear in the concert for Bangladesh that George organized in
nineteen seventy one, the first of its kind, a star
studded bee fit to raise money.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
To help refugees.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Speaking of refugees, Georgia left his guitar at Tom Petty's house,
so he had to stop and pick it up on
the way to the studio. It wouldn't be polite to
not invite Tom along, seeing as he was tight with Bob,
having backed him up on that True Confessions tour just
a few years prior, and just like George and Bob
and Jeff, Tom would do anything to record with the
Great Roy Orgison. Within a matter of hours, the least
(32:25):
expected supergroup of the nineteen eighties had been formed. And
after a few weeks of collectively strumming acoustic guitars and
writing new songs during the day, and then singing those
songs around the same microphone together each evening, the Traveling
Wilbury's had an album. The Traveling Wilbury's Volume One was
released in October of nineteen eighty eight. It unexpectedly put
(32:47):
classic rock icons on the pop charts. It even made
Roy Orbison seem cool to gen xers. Roy got to
see the album go platinum before he died not even
two months later, at the age of fifty two. George
hadn't planned for that to happen either, for Roy to
be gone so soon after they had become so close.
(33:08):
Was Roy ready to die? Had he properly prepared to
leave his body behind? George could only hope only Roy
knew the answer. After Roy's death, the rest of the
Wilbury shot the music video for the single End of
the Line. In it, the band sits in a train
car in trades versus. When it comes time for Roy's verse,
(33:29):
the spotlight is on a solitary guitar rocking in a
rocking chair. The band thought it was the perfect tribute.
Roy's body was gone, but his voice carried on well.
George thought it is all right. He'd meet Roy at
the end of the line. But George wasn't quite ready
for the journey to end just yet. Even more than
(33:50):
a decade after Roy's death in the year two thousand,
George didn't want the ride to be over. He had
gardens to tend to, tunnels and caves left un cover,
and the great expanse of his thirty five acre estate.
Restoring the grounds at Friar Park was a major undertaking
that required both time and patience. He was the estate
(34:11):
steward now and he had to get it ready for
the next century. Like its original owner, Sir Francis Crisp
had done one hundred years ago, and just like Sir
Francis Crisp or Sir Frankie Crisp, as George immortalized him
in song on All Things Must Pass, George would never
see the fruits of his many labors. The saplings he planted,
He would never see them mature into full grown trees.
(34:33):
He really wanted to see them, but take so long.
And George also knew that he had no control over
when or how he would reach the end of the line.
The attack that he had suffered at the hands of
Michael Abram made that crystal clear, so he cleared his mind.
He focused on what he'd been able to accomplish in
the gardens at Friar Park, not the parts he'd yet
(34:55):
to get to.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
He didn't look back.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
In anger at the final days of the Beatles and
the frustration he felt towards Paul in particular, he forgave
Michael Abram for that night of absolute terror. Abram had
been found not guilty by reason of insanity. It was
being sent to his psychiatric hospital for further treatment. George
hoped to get the help he so desperately needed. George
(35:19):
didn't want to get to the end of the line.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
No one did.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
But when he did, if he was hit by a car,
or fell down the stairs, or god forbid, that cancer
came back, then he would be ready. From that moment on,
there were no more surprises, not even when he died
from lung cancer in November of two thousand and one
and a Beverly Hills home owned by Paul McCartney, with
(35:43):
family and Harry Krishna devotees by his bedside, chanting a
beautifully orchestrated exit from this.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
World with grace.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
I'm Jake Brennan in this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created
(36:33):
by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis.
Credits for this episode can be found on the show
notes page at disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as
a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show.
We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become
a member right now by going to disgracelamppod dot com.
Slash Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland
(36:57):
ad free, plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode
every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and
early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgrayslampod dot com
slash membership for details, Rate and review the show, and
follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at disgracelampod
(37:17):
and on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at Disgraceslampod
Rock a Roller, He the bed Don Man
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.