Turn Me On Dead Man

For whatever reason, maybe no particular reason at all, this one is going to be about John Lennon. Like so many of us, I had my life change in that one evening. I have been more cynical, more negative in so many ways since he was killed. I felt that all idealism was really weak after that, that it would be blown up somehow or another. And so I moved from innocent hope into the forefront of the wisecracking nigilisti movement that was possibly growing thanks to the Sex Pistols and Ronald Reagan. I remember talking with a friend sometime before the election of Ron about this dense mediocre actor becoming president. We thought that it was funny- that there was no real way the knucklehead could get elected. We were not the only ones at that time. Carter's apparent "loss" in the debate so close to the election turned things around fast for plain folks Ron.

I have always disliked plain folks. I have never been one, and never been friends with one. They are the kind of people who can say " Obama will take all our guns away" and earnestly mean it and feel that that would be like cutting out a section of their soul. There have been comments that Obama is hypnotizing people, and I hope that he is. Clinton did so and we had briefly the best economy this country has ever had. I hope people vote for Obama because he is left handed, because he looks like Kennedy, for any and all possible reasons, just so these 98-102 iq fools vote for him and then retrograde realize that he has helped them find work.

See Lennon's death has ultimately forced me to confront my virulent hostility towards the masses. They will never be as bright as I am , so the only thing we can have in common is simple things, like love. But how can I have it when the society gets dumber and dumber and economic upheaval actually forces me to LIVE with these idiots? I would rather be Rousseau and live in beautiful rural France sipping no alcohol champagne and extolling the virtues of the noble savage redneck, then to actually have to ever have to SEE one of the ghastly creatures. John's music was a vehicle to bring us together, and the stuff afterwards, however "exciting" and "creative" it might be up til the death of Kurdt, just cultivates more and more negativity. The whole world does that, not just music The very few current advocates of "goodness" these days are very untalented, self-serving, plain wrong and boring.

It was Monday. December 8, 1980, about 11:30 pm. The phone rang, it was my ex-roommate. I hadn't talked to him in about a year. With his ever-present nervous giggle, he asked "did you hear?" "Hear what?" " John Lennon was shot" Yeah, right." No really" more giggling. I hung up and looked at the tv that my then current roommate and I had been watching. Howard Cosell announced the facts about Lennon. Lennon had just been getting excited about his music again. I collapsed to the floor and laid on my back. I didn't cry. I stared at the ceiling for an hour or so, and then I turned on my stereo and kept it on low all night, listening to people calling in and grieving and all the Beatles and Lennon music they played. Something was turning in me. I was already becoming a colder and harder person fairly rapidly. To hell with everything would soon become my silent mantra.