It’s that Ginsberg mis-spelling thing again! (see here) – but, as with Trent Harris’ Allen interview clip, this brief clip on You Tube of (Barry) Miles “telling the tale” of the infamous 39th-birthday encounter seemed/seems eminently worth re-posting, notwithstanding.
(We’ve actually featured it (the story) on an earlier occasion here).
Miles: “When he was staying with me, he had his 39th birthday and he wanted to have The Beatles come to his birthday-party, so, I knew the address of NEMS [Brian Epstein‘s Company], that was about all, but some friends of Allen’s drew some very beautiful (sort of) invites, and, sure enough, John Lennon and Cynthia (Lennon) and George Harrison with Pattie (Boyd) came along to the birthday party, which was in Chester Square, or somewhere like that. And Allen, by that time, had stripped down to his birthday-suit, since it was his birthday, and he was standing there with his underpants on his head and a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging round his dick! [laughs]. And I must say the two Beatles took it pretty well. First of all, they immediately made sure that there were no photographers present, because clearly that would have been really bad. And they stayed long enough for a drink. And when they left I asked John, you know, “Why are you going so soon?”. And he said [Miles affects Lennon’s Liverpudlian accent], “You don’t do that in front of the birds!” – And then, like, a few years later.. there he was stark naked on the cover of one of his own albums!.”
