Things snap into focus when you’re 29 and a cultural icon is suddenly taken.
On that day, the herd was thinned and a powerful voice of a generation was lost. Real New Yorkers remember that day as if it was yesterday. Most of us guys were watching football — Dolphins – Patriots — when we got the news from an unexpected source: Howard Cosell.
Some moron, some NOBODY, shot John Lennon in the back, outside his Upper West Side home in The Dakota. We were aghast. Poleaxed.
At 29 and in career ascendancy, I took much for granted. I suppose I expected John and his mates to grow old gracefully, having passed the early death age of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.
In a sense, The Beatles were our wiser, worldlier, older siblings. My wife and her suburban childhood friends were true Beatlemaniacs, and had seen the Fab Four live in venues throughout NYC. Even in my blue-collar/working class section of The Bronx, where Schaefer Beer was the “hallucinogenic” of choice, The Beatles were acknowledged champions, having dethroned The King, Elvis Presley, back in the 60s.
After hearing the news, I made a round of calls to my friends. DJs at radio stations such as WNEW-FM talked us all down from the ledge and kept us sane.
I made the mistake of calling my parents, lifelong Bronxites who had finally decamped to a safe, if sterile, New Jersey suburb a few years earlier. My father was non-plussed. “I heard. I never was much of a fan,” was all my dad could muster. His response only served to underscore our arthritic relationship, which clearly had deteriorated to bone-on-bone.
I worked in the marketing communications department of a major international photo news agency at the time. In the week that followed, paparazzi descended upon The Dakota and environs, to get images of celebs who came to pay respects.
One of the agency’s shooters, trying hard to make it to the agency’s top tier, called our boss, who put him on speaker. Breathless, the photographer screamed: “I got Ringo! I got Ringo!”
The call made me sick. The buzzards were circling to pick apart the carrion. In the days that followed, it got worse. I did my usual Pisces thing. I retreated from the temporal and dove far under water, only coming up to play my favorites. I especially liked “Working Class Hero.”
But some months later, one of his new songs was released. I loved “Watching the Wheels.” Why? Because that was me! He was my big brother, writing that song for ME! Me, intent on writing, when everyone around me shook their heads.
John wrote: “People say I’m lazy, dreaming my life away. Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me. When I tell them that I’m doing fine watching shadows on the wall; Don’t you miss the big time boy, you’re no longer on the ball? I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round. I really love to watch them roll No longer riding on the merry-go-round, I just had to let it go.”
Remember Amadeus? Salieri, that hack, hated his guts.
RIP John Lennon, dead 39 years today. Keep dreaming. Keep striving. Don’t stop. Fuck all the naysayers. Pigs can and DO fly.
