The Tears
I was 24, almost 25, when John Lennon was murdered on December 8th, 1980. It was the suckerpunch felt around the world.
It was that day that I purchased a new record player and two albums (what the hell are those?) one of which was John's "Double Fantasy" with Yoko Ono. I got home about 11:30pm, after work, and turned on Monday Night Football to hear Howard Cosell talking about John being shot. And then within minutes came the confirmation that he was dead.
I looked directly at the television and said "fuck you"! Fuck you, you Goddamn bastard. It is impossible, unearthly, that John Lennon could be dead. I felt, for a moment, that I was dead too. That I might as well be dead, in a world without John Lennon.
I continued to watch, until the man on tv made it official. That John Lennon was dead of gunshot wounds. It was the only time I ever cried over the death of someone I didn't know. A world without John? A world without John? I believed that nothing would ever be the same, that everything would change and I was no longer young. I don't know what those feelings really meant. I just understood that I was mad, helpless, and heaving with grief. This thing, that had never entered my mind, that a Beatle could be assassinated, was true. It was true and the world was fucked.
Perhaps you've forgotten that John Lennon, besides being an authentic hero, a promoter for peace and love when all he really had to do was go to the mail box now and then to pick up royalty checks, was at last, a human being. And sometimes a real bastard. He could be bad, and he could be difficult. Ask his family. They knew the everyday man, who like us all, carries around the weight we all must. John was that.
When I was a kid, guys would ask; "who's your favorite group? Besides the Beatles?" The scales of eternal justice ride heavy on the side of John Lennon. His promotion of peace, of controversial causes, and peace, peace, peace, was not a good career move. But he understood that he was in a unique position to place the cause center square, to make enough noise and use his influence, that of a man who helped change the face of modern music, to work for peace, unceasingly, unstintingly, until it came.
But violence came to him first. And God Almightly, I miss you John. The world was thrown off it's moral axis, and there is no one like you today.
War Is Over; If You Want It.
Joe Postove
It was that day that I purchased a new record player and two albums (what the hell are those?) one of which was John's "Double Fantasy" with Yoko Ono. I got home about 11:30pm, after work, and turned on Monday Night Football to hear Howard Cosell talking about John being shot. And then within minutes came the confirmation that he was dead.
I looked directly at the television and said "fuck you"! Fuck you, you Goddamn bastard. It is impossible, unearthly, that John Lennon could be dead. I felt, for a moment, that I was dead too. That I might as well be dead, in a world without John Lennon.
I continued to watch, until the man on tv made it official. That John Lennon was dead of gunshot wounds. It was the only time I ever cried over the death of someone I didn't know. A world without John? A world without John? I believed that nothing would ever be the same, that everything would change and I was no longer young. I don't know what those feelings really meant. I just understood that I was mad, helpless, and heaving with grief. This thing, that had never entered my mind, that a Beatle could be assassinated, was true. It was true and the world was fucked.
Perhaps you've forgotten that John Lennon, besides being an authentic hero, a promoter for peace and love when all he really had to do was go to the mail box now and then to pick up royalty checks, was at last, a human being. And sometimes a real bastard. He could be bad, and he could be difficult. Ask his family. They knew the everyday man, who like us all, carries around the weight we all must. John was that.
When I was a kid, guys would ask; "who's your favorite group? Besides the Beatles?" The scales of eternal justice ride heavy on the side of John Lennon. His promotion of peace, of controversial causes, and peace, peace, peace, was not a good career move. But he understood that he was in a unique position to place the cause center square, to make enough noise and use his influence, that of a man who helped change the face of modern music, to work for peace, unceasingly, unstintingly, until it came.
But violence came to him first. And God Almightly, I miss you John. The world was thrown off it's moral axis, and there is no one like you today.
War Is Over; If You Want It.
Joe Postove
posted by Mr. Liberty at 11:04 AM
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