I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say. I
don't know what to think. I don't know what to write. I don't know why I write.
As futile as life seems, it has never been more so than now. December 8, 1980
was the worst day of my life. A light, bright, deep, insightful, enlightening,
was snuffed out forever that day. Tears will flow later, I hope.
John Lennon died last night. 11 PM, New York time. Shot
seven times in front of his apartment with Yoko right beside him. No mercy. A
monster named Mark David Chapman, age 25, a town "screwball,”
"cuckoo,” did it. "Mr. Lennon." Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!
Pow! “I know I've been shot.” “I’ve just shot John Lennon.” Cranberry sauce.
John Lennon, 1940 – 1980. Requiescat in pace.
I was at mom's place to watch on PBS a Munich production
of Der Rosenkavalier (which was the intended subject of this entry). While we
were watching, Howard telephoned Mom. "John Lennon was shot," he
said. No. God, no. What could we do? It's not serious, I told myself, hardly
watching the telecast by now. It will just be another phase of his life that he
will write about for his next album. Then, my brother Mark called from San
Diego. "Sit down," he said. "I know he's been shot," I
said. "How bad?" "He’s dead," he answered. Dead. I nodded
to mom. "Is he dead?" She asked. I nodded again. She muttered,
"Oh God!" and collapsed toward the kitchen. Mark and I bullshitted on
the phone. He was very despondent, almost crying. Cathy have been reading him
the Lennon interview in Playboy magazine (which I had read it over
Thanksgiving), when their friend Karen called them with the news. He
immediately phoned me at school, where I wasn't, and then at Mom's, where I
was. He was devastated. He said he hadn't felt this bad since Martin Luther
King was assassinated. That's nearly 13 years ago. Now I know how it feels to
lose someone you believe in. I was too young to remember JFK's murder, too
young to comprehend the impact of King’s and RFK's murders. No other
celebrity’s death meant this much to me except maybe when Groucho Marx died in
1977 (just three days, incidentally, after the death of Lennon's only
non-Beatle rival for the public's affections-Elvis Presley), but perhaps the
Marx Brothers spell was already off for me for as bad as I felt then he didn't
really touch me losing Groucho. Also, Groucho was 86 when he died, having lived
a full long life. But this. John Lennon dead at 40. Life begins at 40. Perhaps
it does, but not for John on this planet. Poor Yoko. Poor Sean. What do misters
McCartney, Harrison, and Starkey have to say? I don't want to see the headlines
tomorrow, but I will not be able to help reading them. So much work to be done.
What else can I say? I cannot ever listen to Beatle music
again the same way as before. I'll probably still play my records as much but
the light entertainment and life-escaping aspect is gone forever. Beatles music
sort of eclipsed Opera in my life for the past year-since October of 1979 to be
exact. I've used Beatles music is my narcotic; my doldrums-lifting high he.
Now, it will probably never be that way again. It's great music, using that
will live forever as they say, long after the last of them is gone. But it's
not soul-pleasing music anymore for me. Beatles music will never again propel
me above the harshness of life. Now it is part of the harshness, the violence,
the senseless tragedies that mark this world. The cheerful voice, distinctively
hard, the dynamic energetic performing, the timeless and priceless songs of
John Lennon are marked. Are MARKed. Oh yeah, John Lennon, the Beatle that was
shot. Trivia question, in the year 2018. Of the four members of the 1960s rock
group the Beatles, which one was shot to death in 1980? Yes, number 216? John
Lennon. Full name please? John Winston (later Ono) Lennon, born October 9,
1940, Liverpool England. Father: Fred Lennon-deserted family in 1941, deceased.
Mother: Julia Stanley Lennon, died in car crash in 1958; her sister Mimi raised
young John. Married Cynthia Powell, August 23, 1962. Baby son Julian born eight
months later. Divorced in 1968, married Yoko Ono March 20, 1969, on the island
Gibraltar. Baby son Sean born October 9, 1975. Died December 8, 1980, New York,
New York, USA. The gun capital of the world.
It's past three in the morning, and time to go to bed.
I'll write more later. I've spent the last three hours in a study room here in
Verducci Hall, in front of the radio, flipping through the stations, anxious
for any news at all. John is dead, man. Miss him. Miss him. Miss him.
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