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Thomas Campbell's avatar

That isn't Billy trying to take the photo of his daughter. That is the same person who is on the cover of I Want To Hold Your Hand. That person is Michael McCartney, not Mike McGear.

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Don't drink the Kool-Aid's avatar

C.T., thank you so much for this very fascinating and timely post. Discussion of Billy's eye is increasing now. We have so many questions. I appreciate how this post brings this discussion together.

The film "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) by Luis Buñuel and surrealist Dadaist Salvador Dali has been resurfacing lately in my thoughts about Billy's prosthetic eye, especially the scene with the razor cutting the eye juxtaposed with the moon shot (at approx the 1min 18sec mark):

https://ok.ru/video/36943170146

Billy is now OK with bringing his one "good eye" out in the open.

~

(1) His admission "It's my left one" in the interview about the "Paul McCartney" photograph exhibit here from Mike Williams' channel:

"Sage of Quay™ - Paul McCartney (Billy Shears) - Right Eye Blind 👁️ Masterfully Speaking of Course"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhcBons7HMU

(48 seconds)

~

(2) The many references, which you have documented for us readers in this post, concerning the prosthetic right eye ... and the connection to the prosthetic leg of Heather Mills are CLEAR indications that Billy wishes to have this discussion now. I really appreciate the detailed work you have done which helps us make sense of "Memoirs."

~

(3) Note also the title of the recent "Paul McCartney" photo exhibit "EYES of the Storm”:

It is titled “Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64 Eyes of the Storm,” currently displayed at the National Portrait Gallery, London. https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2023/paul-mccartney-photographs-1963%E2%80%9364-eyes-of-the-storm/

EYES? Coincidence!?!? I think not.

~

(4) Are Billy's Paintings imitating the style of Dadaist Salvador Dali?

If it turns out that Billy has in fact some connection to the "Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band" via the first Viv Stanshall, the fact that some Bonzo band members were art students in the late 1950s/early1960s makes it quite likely that Billy and the Bonzos would have seen the film "Un Chien Andalou" as part of their art courses, or in art theatres. Billy's paintings have a very STRONG Salvador Dali vibe. IMHO Billy is imitating Salvador Dali ... or to be kinder to Billy, Billy is inspired by Dali. 😅 For examples:

https://www.google.com/search?q=salvador+dali+eye&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwje14vQs8eAAxUjEWIAHY83DDsQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=salvador+dali+eye&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgUIABCABDIFCAAQgARQ3gxY3gxg1g5oAHAAeACAAS6IAVySAQEymAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=Wz3PZJ6-NKOiiLMPj--w2AM&bih=899&biw=1920&client=firefox-b-1-d

There is the story that the name "Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band" may have been chosen partly because of the Dada art movement of which Salvador Dali was an instigator:

~

"... Stanshall would become the band's next recruit after that day in 1962, when he and Slater rechristened the existing group The Bonzo Dog Dada Band. In the 2004 BBC Four documentary Vivian Stanshall: The Canyons of His Mind [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ymcdUA6g4], Slater claims that the name was inspired by playing a Dadaist word game using cut-up technique, which involves writing words or phrases on paper, tearing the paper into strips and then randomly re-assembling the strips to form new phrases. One of the phrases created was "Bonzo Dog Dada Band": Bonzo Dog after Bonzo the dog, a popular British cartoon character created by artist George Studdy in the 1920s, and Dada after the early 20th-century art movement. ..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonzo_Dog_Doo-Dah_Band#Formation_and_early_years_(1962%E2%80%931966)

[my apologies for citing to Wikipedia fwiw]

(5) If Billy's right eye was taken in an occult ritual and/or ritual murder, that is truly frightening to most of us. https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/do-stars-fake-their-deaths-if-so/comment/20979958

(6) P.S. Have you come across this (crazy?) conspiracy that attempts to link Britain's serial killer Fred West to Heather Mills and to the British band "The Tremeloes"? I know it sounds quite mad but then again the world is proven again and again to be quite a mad place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acOm2WjdX0Y

(8 min)

Thanks again C.T. 🐱

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