I Wish I Could Have Met the Man

It started, as many things at that time did, in the hallway at Aikens Hall back in my Susquehanna days, a year ago (way back when). Aikens 1 was the center of our end of the hallway, where we gathered on the weekends to play PlayStation, BS about things, watch MTV, etc. Almost all of us being underage at the time, it was also naturally where we got our beer. The night of December 8 last year found one of the inhabitants of that room, the one we called "Load", winding up at my door, because he knew I was a big Beatles fan; he had just recently sold me his CD copy of "Sgt. Pepper" for 5 bucks (what was he thinking?) After following along to the room, he reminded me of the significance of the hour and day, it was 10:00 on December 8. It took me a second to figure it out; I had my last finals coming up and a final radio show to prepare for. When I figured it out, though, it made all the sense in the world. It was time to drop all the anxiety of preparing for "the real world" and the exams that preceded it, if only for a little while, because it was that hour on that day 19 years previous that the world lost an icon, a dreamer, a "Working Class Hero" if you will. We wound up on the couch, listening to the Blue Album for the balance of the evening until the night grew late and it was time to crash. An appropriate way, I believe to mark the unfortunate loss so long ago of a man I have truly come to idolize.

I suppose there are more controversial people to idolize in the world than the one I choose to. After all, some people are twisted enough to idolize Hitler or Charles Manson or Marilyn Manson. Me, though, I choose to identify with those who were never understood. They never understood Andy Kaufman. They never understood Roger Waters (unless they were high, supposedly). There are many who didn't understand the Don Imuses and Robert W. Morgans of the radio world.

And then there was John Lennon.

You wanna talk about misunderstood? There were people who couldn't understand why he got together with Yoko Ono (you know, "the woman who broke up the Beatles"). They couldn't understand the bed-ins and the acorns for peace and having a press conference in a bag. They were stunned when he would basically tell people to get over the Beatles and move on. People didn't understand why he suddenly up and left the business for 5 years to take care of his son. Unfortunately, in the end, we all will never understand what would drive a man to kill this person. Misunderstood? Yes, but we all mourned him nonetheless.

I was barely two years old on this day twenty years ago when we lost John Lennon, but after absorbing all of the films and the music and the TV appearances, I feel like I understand him now better than most did when he was alive. There's a lot in common. We're both from blue collar towns, our fathers weren't there for most of our respective childhoods, we strove to break out of the drab blandness of our hometowns by entertaining the masses. At age 22, he was still in Liverpool, playing the Cavern, just getting started on the road to stardom. At age 22, I'm still in Syracuse, working in radio, getting started down that road. I could appreciate the sarcastic tone he adopted, and while humorous he was often stinging. I find myself to be quite that way as well (as you could no doubt tell from my past columns to this point), perhaps that's the way we view the world when your childhood isn't part of the fast track to Wall Street or Madison Avenue or Sunset Boulevard. He was honest and forthright and even if you didn't want to hear it, he was gonna say it, or sing it in some cases. Maybe you laughed, maybe you got angry, but it always made you think. A lot of that comes from me in this column, my aim here is to maybe make you laugh or maybe make you outraged but always to make you think. Thinking is good, maybe if we stopped and thought for a while, messes could be avoided. Maybe not war, maybe not this whole presidential election hooey, but perhaps even down to the personal level of the things that bug us day in and day out.

Around this time every year, we choose to think back on all of this for even just a moment. I know Yoko would prefer that we remember John Lennon's birthday rather than the day he died, but unfortunately, more people are drawn to death dates than birth dates. Consider that nobody observes the day Elvis was born, but some tens of thousands migrate to Memphis every year to mark the day he checked out belly up on the toilet at Graceland. On a more serious note, nobody remembers the day John F. Kennedy was born, but every November 22, we are reminded of that fateful motorcade in Dallas. A sad commentary about our society, I suppose, but if at least through these rather dark observances we still remember these people, then so be it.

Myself, I wonder what he would think of today's world, and that of the past 20 years. Would John Lennon have been a staunch opponent of Reagan's policies toward the Soviets? Would he have outbid Michael Jackson to get his old songs back (and if he failed, could he have smacked Paul on behalf of all of us who think that maybe Paul never should've told Jacko about making money off other people's music?) Would Bill Clinton have invited him to play the first inaugural, along with Fleetwood Mac? What would John have said about Kurt Cobain? About grunge? About corporate sponsorship of big name concert tours? About Woodstock '99? Hell, what would he have said about the Backstreet Boys and all of their ilk?

Most of all, I wish I would have had the opportunity to meet him. Perhaps his downfall was that he was so accessible. Walking through Central Park or crossing 72nd Street, you could have bumped into him and it would be like you ran into an old friend. He was one of us at the end, a Joe Average on the streets of New York who just happened to sell lots of albums and be one of the most recognizable people in the world. I appreciate that, never becoming part of the high and mighty set. He said once he wondered during his "househusband days" why he wasn't down at Studio 54 with Mick Jagger and the glitterati, but he oddly enough would have seemed out of place. That's a good goal to set for yourself if you're like me, a young professional making his way up through the ranks, entertainment or otherwise. Always be true to yourself and if you feel most comfortable being one of the guys, then just be that. If you're comfortable by yourself with a few close friends, then just be that. As for me, it looks like around 10:00 tonight I'll be comfortable throwing a cassette of John Lennon in the stereo and remembering that there's more to the world than the button I forgot to press or the shift I need to get filled.

I need to do more thinking. We all do. Miss ya, John.