Thursday, December 08, 2005
Your Own Personal Lennon
NY1 News had a feature this morning on an exhibit of John Lennon photos. One of the interviewees kept talking about "John's Message." When I hear that, I know what to prepare myself for: John was a man of peace, John was a man of peace. Who was the guy, friggin' Gandhi?
Just like everybody has their own personal Bob, everyone has their own personal Lennon. Mine was the wiseass, the drunk and proto-punk of whom even his friends were a little afraid. The one who could marvel that the Beatles were more popular than God, and then take acid to expand his ego to Godlike proportions. I could imagine this Lennon having a few terse words for that same media fame machine that, in the days following his murder, gave it the treatment of a second JFK assassination, with Sean's "Now Daddy is part of God" standing in for John-John's salute.
This Lennon had been an angry young man who was in the process of mellowing out into a thoughtful middle-aged eccentric when his story was ended...and his legend began. It's a Lennon that many of us who cut our teeth on Beatlemania are emulating now.
Other New Yorkers talk about their personal Lennon here and here.
Just like everybody has their own personal Bob, everyone has their own personal Lennon. Mine was the wiseass, the drunk and proto-punk of whom even his friends were a little afraid. The one who could marvel that the Beatles were more popular than God, and then take acid to expand his ego to Godlike proportions. I could imagine this Lennon having a few terse words for that same media fame machine that, in the days following his murder, gave it the treatment of a second JFK assassination, with Sean's "Now Daddy is part of God" standing in for John-John's salute.
This Lennon had been an angry young man who was in the process of mellowing out into a thoughtful middle-aged eccentric when his story was ended...and his legend began. It's a Lennon that many of us who cut our teeth on Beatlemania are emulating now.
Other New Yorkers talk about their personal Lennon here and here.
