Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Sunday, October 09, 2005
John Lennon would have been 65 today
Morning Mickey…
Growing up, I lived about ten blocks from John Lennon’s apartment building where he was shot. I never saw him in person (though my wife and I sat a few tables away from Yoko Ono while we had lunch at Da Silvano’s once).
I grew up on the Beatles (and Elvis, Dylan, the Stones) through my mother’s influence and rap music through my own (back when rap was good).
Anyway, my mom was a huge fan of Lennon’s. When he died it effected her deeply and she took my brother and I to his memorial in Central Park. I remember be amazed by the people I saw there and how peaceful the gathering was.
I think Working Class Hero is my new favorite Lennon song. Thanks, Mick.
Posted by JOS on from PR 10/09 at 09:33 AMHow’s it going, JOS? It might be lost a little now, but Lennon was quite a controversial figure in his time. Like Ali, Che, and others, he has been commodified...but decades ago, the FBI was lurking: http://www.lennonfbifiles.com/fbi.html.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 11:33 AMHey, Mick. Yeah, the NEW YORK CITY t-shirts...imagine, used in commercials, etc...hopefully, it doesn’t all nullify the good things he said and did.
I actually know some FBI agents, if you can believe it...well, maybe you do too, through your dad.
The ones I know make me laugh when I imagine them trying to do some “undercover” work, or actually catch a “bad guy.” For me, they seem like the Federal Bureau of Impersonation rather than of Intimidation.
Posted by JOS on from PR 10/09 at 12:13 PMMy favorite has always been “The Ballad of John and Yoko”
Some interesting background on the song.
http://www.iamthebeatles.com/article1316.htmlPosted by Luna_C on from the Delta 10/09 at 12:21 PM“Ballad” is in my top 5, Luna. I remember how much the press hated Yoko...going as far as calling her ugly. As a couple, they were the lightning rods of their time.
JOS: Yeah, when you meet a real-life Federal agent, you realize how much of a joke the movies and TV shows are.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 12:29 PMHi Mickey, JOS and Luna -
Wonderful, wonderful front page, Mickey. It brought tears to my eyes.Two towering men, both assassinated.
I was teaching English in a Montessori school in Mexico City, when Lennon was killed. A little girl, 11 years old I think, came into my room, looked me in the eye, and said: “They shot John Lennon.”
Months later, back in San Francisco, I was prevented from boarding a bus to get home, because there was a sniper up in a building, somewhere along Market Street, shooting at people with a high-powered rifle. There were cops and SWAT people everywhere. It was like a war zone.
I detoured back into a section of town called “The Tenderloin,” filled with poor, desperate people, seedy bars, sleazy peep shows and run-down buildings. From an open window, above me somewhere, I heard “Give Peace a Chance.” I remembered the little girl saying “They” shot John Lennon. And I thought - yes, “THEY” did - the whole psychotic, dollar obsessed, ####-everybody-always culture shot him.
*
Just as “THEY” shot Che.
I’m trembling with indignation, right now.
Thanks very much for this post, Mickey.Posted by joe on from Oregon 10/09 at 01:29 PMGood to “hear” your voice, Joe. Thanks.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 02:12 PMWCH was always a powerful one for me, and no surprise that you chose it for the post today. I’ve never been able to fully choose between that one and Instant Karma, Watching the Wheels, and Starting Over.
Also, I bought new glasses last week, and couldn’t resist these official John Lennon frames. I felt awkward, literally buying into the commodification of him… but they’re just such cool frames.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/09 at 02:35 PMJames, wear those glasses in the spirit of radical change...and you’ll never feel awkward.
Lots of excellent Lennon songs from his Beatles days (besides “Ballad” mentioned above): Julia, I’m So Tired, Yer Blues, I’m Only Sleeping, etc.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 02:39 PMI’ll make them improve my vision in all sorts of ways… kinda wonder where the money goes, does Yoko license the name and give money to charity or something like that?
Surprised/relieved there’s not more comments about conspiracy theories about Chapman being a pawn and all that. There’s so much of that all over the web; still not sure what to make of it after all this time.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/09 at 02:48 PMI read a book called “The Murder of John Lennon” (or something like that) many years ago. Plenty of “Cather in the Rye"/CIA connections, etc...but I’ll stick to Joe’s theory above: “They” shot John Lennon. And I thought - yes, “THEY” did - the whole psychotic, dollar obsessed, ####-everybody-always culture shot him.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 02:53 PMDamn, now I’m going to be fixated on Lennon all day. Reagan’s would be assasin used Salinger as an excuse, too, right? How many times through the years have friends remarked how wrong it is that Reagan was just about bullet-proof that day but it went with Lennon as it did.
I would have enjoyed the last story more if the ‘gator had survived as he clawed his way out.
Posted by James on from Hell's Kitchen 10/09 at 03:23 PMNot sure about a Salinger connection to Hinkley. The press played up Jodie Foster and “Taxi Driver.” Also, his family knew Bush’s family.
Every time I hear a Rod Stewart song, I think: Lennon’s dead and this guy’s still around?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 03:28 PMP.S. There’s a metaphor in that gator/snake story, isn’t there?
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 03:37 PMHi Mickey & James -
Lennon has taken over my head, too, guyz.
Well, my head is frequently occupied by far less savory tenants.
WCH always reminds me of Junior/Senior high school. Amazing, isn’t it, that I’m 55, and I still hate school like it all took place yesterday?
I’ve never gotten over the horror I so often felt, as I wandered about the hallways. I simply could not believe that seemingly intelligent adults had contrived to create such a venomous, violent, sadistic, anti-human setting, and then make it illegal for us to try to escape. Lennon must have felt something similar: He has, to some extent, recreated the whole nightmarish experience with but a couple dozen lines. Only genius could accomplish such a thing.
Still trembling with indignation… - joePosted by joe on from Oregon 10/09 at 04:33 PMI guess the power of the song is for us to not feel alone...and to create change.
More Lennon:
http://tinyurl.com/cgyywPosted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 04:51 PMGreat read, thanks, Mickey.
In a way, we here have a form of bagism - perhaps we might call it screenism. Hell, I could be a fairly well read, 20 something girl from Rowayton, Conneticut, posing as a grumpy old guy. James could be a 4’10” Finnish dude living in Kenosha, Wisconson; you could be a burly dock worker from Baltimore who saw a picture of a young guy named Mickey, and decided to hop into a MickeyZ bag… If we play our parts well enough, none of us would know…
There’s a liberating sort of anonymity here on the screen.
Well, I’ve got to iron my dress…
No, I mean, I’ve got to go have dinner with my wife and son…Posted by joe on from Oregon 10/09 at 05:54 PMExcuse me, while I go call every female I find in the Rowayton, Connecticut phone book.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 05:57 PMyeah, imagine 20 year old CT girl with the mind of Joe from Oregon...I think I might feel intimidated.
Posted by JOSilene on from Moosonee, Ontario, uh, I mean Puerto Rico 10/09 at 06:18 PMI’m always excited to meet young people with awareness and commitment. I truly wish I would’ve woken up sooner.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 07:00 PMWhen I saw that story, it depressed me terribly. It’s a loss for the python, a loss for the alligator. A stark example of the trouble sent out to the rest of the conscious world when we see the rest as ours to dispose of as we wish, or without any real thought at all, not wondering who survives under the wreckage, and what they are left to find. The situation with most of our pets is not so obvious.
I read, a long time ago (but everyone else recalls it too, whenever I mention it) that Einstein said there is and always will be a certain amount of energy in the universe. If so, then is it all moving between here and other planets? Because if it isn’t, wouldn’t the loss of free species logically mean the transformation of free animals into domesticated lives? For every dog in a house or a pound, would there have been a wolf? Does every parrot in a pet shop mean someone’s cutting eucalyptus trees from blue mountains somewhere in the world?
And as the human population grows, taking up energy, would the non-human populations logically shrink?
Habitat is being cut up for roads and fast food. I heard from a researcher who thinks that people who experiment on chimpanzees represent the only viable incentive for the chimpanzees’ survival and in a few years all of them will live in confinement. Then I heard from a person who works with bonobo apes—a person with a PhD, mind you—that to live into the next generation, bonobos’ only chance would be to join human culture. Peter Gabriel sang about how wonderful it was to see a bonobo playing keyboards. Before that, sang Gabriel, “the only apes I’d seen were at the zoo.” Jane Goodall thinks an ape in a Japanese lab is displaying a chimpanzee’s full potential, having learnt to count money.
At least to a certain extent, it seems unquestionable that more and more of the space here is taken, and no longer suitable for free beings.
And, as David Byrne suggested, you may ask yourself: Am I right? Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My God, what have I done?Posted by Lee Hall on from 10/09 at 07:30 PMA bit off topic -
My wife tells me the game is on. I was just remembering going to a Mariner’s - Sox game, years ago. Clemens was pitching. In honor of his visit, there was a booth downstairs where, for $5.00, you could throw a baseball and have the speed clocked with one of those speed-guns. I watched three pretty big guys wind up and grunt and fling three baseballs each: None of them got up out of the low 40’s (mph). I was amazed. Professional pitchers are from some other planet, you know?Posted by joe on from Hey - I didn't know there was so much space here, 10/09 at 07:52 PMPowerful comment, Lee. To stick with Byrne, it’s “life during wartime”...everywhere, every day. “Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway/A place where nobody knows.”
Joe: I had a close friend in high school who got drafted into pro baseball. Let me tell you, you did not want to be against him in a snowball fight.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 08:12 PMHi Lee - I didn’t see you, I apologize.
Before we moved here, we were in a post WWII development, in Schenectady, NY. When we first moved there, the kids used to go off to play in some woods which bordered the NYS Thruway. It was probably 40 or 50 acres. About two years before we left, they cut it all back, and developed it. Suddenly, there were deer wandering in the streets and sick-looking foxes in people’s back yards… It’s not just the rainforests which are being destroyed every moment, it’s the entire earth being, literally, disemboweled for profit…Mickey, my father was a high-school pitcher. He got a baseball scholarship to Brown. He didn’t go, however, as he felt he needed to work to help his family.
He grew up in South Providence. He was having a “feud,” he said, with a gangster named “Puddinhead.” Puddinhead worked as a bouncer, thug, muscle-head, even in high school. My father was crossing a vacant lot one day when he saw Puddinhead on the sidewalk. They saw each other at the same time, and Puddinhead came right at him. My father said he bent down, grabbed up some chunks of concrete, picked the one closest to baseball size, and began to wind up. Puddinhead, like all the kids at school, had seen him pitch. He started to yell and curse and threaten, but he did so while backing away - quickly. A few days later, my father was talking to someone at school when someone slammed him into the wall, from behind. It was Puddinhead. He said to my father: “Truce, Carpenter. OK?”Posted by joe on from Oregon 10/09 at 09:02 PMI second that...powerful comment, Lee. Speaking of apes and overpopulation, have you read Daniel Quinn?
Posted by JOS on from Puerto Rico 10/09 at 09:04 PMHey Joe...great story about your dad.
Posted by JOS on from Puerto Rico 10/09 at 09:37 PMJust like lots of people remember exactly where they were when JFK was killed, quite a few remember where they were and what they were doing when they first heard John had been killed. An ex boss of mine at a university minimum wage job many years ago described how his parents were shouting at each other (apparently a regular occurence) in the middle of a game and someone (Howard Cossell?) came on and made the announcement. Just to catch all that he was saying, my ex boss said he had to shout louder still at his parents to interrupt them. He remembered every detail with great clarity.
btw, I was a bit disappointed when I went to NY 2 years ago and found that there was nothing to mark the actual spot of the shooting outside the Dakota , instead the memorial had been moved across the street to Central Park. Wouldn’t want a memorial sign to interfere with real estate values…
Posted by sk on from 10/09 at 09:44 PMYeah, it was Cosell, SK. I was watching Monday Night Football with a friend when Cosell made the announcement. When I heard Lennon was murdered, I assumed it was a crime...a mugging. It didn’t seem possible to me that someone did it on purpose.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/09 at 10:02 PMThanks, JOS - I was afraid I’d told it, before. I blab so much, I’m not at all sure what I’ve already said. (Do not get old, my friends.)
I once read some excerpts from David Crosby’s autobiography. He talked about buying a gun to defend himself against all the crazies. If I remember correctly, it got him into trouble of some sort. He said something like: “Someone actually decided to murder John Lennon. John Lennon! I figured, if there are people THAT crazy, out there, we’re all in danger...”
They had a small gathering in Mexico City, that night. I read that there were gatherings even in Moscow and throughout the Soviet Bloc, where such things were illegal.
Nobody could believe it.Posted by joe on from Oregon 10/09 at 11:25 PMYour work keeps me going here in “garden city” China. I am one of the rare ones that hates China, course I’m a sociologist - go figure. My absolutely favorite Lennon song, of all time is I am the Walrus. To this day it trips me out! Keep up the good work! I’d support ya if I wasn’t so fucking destitute here.
Posted by Scholr on from Fuzhou, China 10/10 at 05:27 AMHi all, I expect you´re keeping well. My favourite Lennon song is Crippled Inside. Last night out with my guitar I met a Californian clawpicker and we played till 5am I´m just out of bed now, that was one of the songs we played. Here´s my favourite George Harrison song:
Brainwashed in our childhood
Brainwashed by the school
Brainwashed by our teachers
And brainwashed by all their rules
Brainwashed by our leaders
By our Kings and Queens
Brainwashed in the open
And brainwashed behind the scenesGod God God
A voice cries in the wilderness
God God God
It was on the longest night
God God God
An eternity of darkness
God God God
Someone turned out the spiritual lightBrainwashed by the Nikkei
Brainwashed by Dow Jones
Brainwashed by the FTSE
Nasdaq and secure loans
Brainwashed us from Brussels
Brainwashed us in Bonn
Brainwashed us in Washington
Westminster in LondonGod God God
You are the wisdom that we seek
God God God
The lover that we miss
God God God
Your nature is eternity
God God God
Your are Existence, Knowledge, BlissThe soul does not love, it is love itself
It does not exist, it is existence itself
It does not know, it is knowledge itself
How to Know God, pag 130They brainwashed my great uncle
Brainwashed my cousin Bob
They even got my grandma
When she was working for the mob
Brainwash you while you’re sleeping
While in your traffic jam
Brainwash you while you’re weeping
While still a baby in your pram
Brainwashed by the military
Brainwashed under duress
Brainwashed by the media
You’re brainwashed by the press
Brainwashed by computer
Brainwashed by mobile phones
Brainwashed by the satellite
Brainwashed to the boneGod God God
Won’t you lead us through this mess
God God God
From the places of concrete
God God God
Nothing’s worse than ignorance
God God God
I just won’t accept defeatGod God God
Must be something I forgot
God God God
Down on Bullshit Avenue
God God God
If we can only stop the rot
God God God
Wish that you’d brainwash us tooNamah Parvarti Pataye Hare Hare Mahadev
Namah Parvarti Pataye Hare Hare
Namah Parvarti Pataye Hare HareShiva Shiva Shankara Mahadeva
Hare Hare Hare Hare Mahadeva
Shiva Shiva Shankara Mahadeva
Shiva Shiva Shankara MahadevaNamah Parvarti Pataye Hare Hare
Namah Parvarti Pataye Hare Hare
Shiva Shiva Shankara Mahadeva
Shiva Shiva Shankara MahadevaPosted by Owen on from Barcelona 10/10 at 05:32 AMJoe, I mean it when I say; Please keep “blabbing.” Your stories are great and your spirit is strong.
Owen: I also love “Crippled Inside” and I’ve never even heard of the Harrison song you presented above. I remember being in Central Park the day after Harrison died. Hundreds of us just singing together.
Scholr: Thanks for your kind words. Hope to hear more from you.
Posted by Mickey Z. on from Astoria 10/10 at 06:59 AMJOS, I’ve just read excerpts from Quinn; perhaps I should look further. I have wondered a few times about those hybrids they’re creating in the labs—mice with human brain cells and that sort of thing, and I wonder if these scientific fanatics are going to accidentally put some cells into some animal who will figure out the situation, take over the university and proceed from there.
Posted by Lee Hall on from 10/11 at 10:08 PMLee Wrote: “I wonder if these scientific fanatics are going to accidentally put some cells into some animal who will figure out the situation, take over the university and proceed from there.”
One can only hope…
Posted by Sunil Sharma on from 10/14 at 02:00 AM
Next entry: Have no fear, Homeland Security is here...
Previous entry: Sundays in Hicksville...plus: hockey, Debord, and Marshall
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
