Yesterday Yesterday Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away.

Appropriate, that line, considering it was a song recorded by the Beatles. I thought it was a Lennon/McCartney collaboration, but apparently not.

Just some thoughts. I meant to post this Friday, but fell asleep at the keyboard. Pretend it was posted on Friday.

Regardless, yesterday was the day John Lennon was murdered. I was thinking about it, but I didn't post about it. I thought about the Annie Leibovitz poster of a naked John curled fetal around Yoko which was taken in the morning before his death. I loved John, and so, had that poster hanging eye level in my dorm room beside my bed at university. It took a couple years (because I'm slow) to match up the date on my poster's corner with the date of John Lennon's death.

Joe, in New York, over at Joe.My.God speaks about how he heard the news. I know how I heard it.

It was in the same realm as how I heard Elvis had died. We returned to our apartment to find the day's newspaper still sitting at the door. "The King Is Dead," read the headline. I asked my mom who the king was, totally expecting it to be the King of Some Far Away Land. Nope. It was the "King of Rock and Roll." Oh. My mother seemed not to really care, so I didn't either.

When John Lennon died, I was 3 years older. I was worldly. I was conscious. Or not.

I woke up that morning before the sun came up. I went to the door to retrieve the Globe & Mail from the doorstep and walked into the livingroom where I remember my mother was leaning over to plug in the Christmas tree's lights. I asked her "Hey mom, do you know who John Lennon is?" (I didn't)

She said, "Yeah why?" I told her the newspaper I was holding said he had died. She was surprised and looked shocked, coming over to take the newspaper from my hands, asking "Why? How?"

I don't think she cried, but over my bowl of Golden Grahams I asked her what the deal was. Who was he? When she said he was a part of the Beatles I said "Oh! I know them! Yellow Submarine!" She told me a bit about him and his life. We listened, in the months to come, to Double Fantasy, over and over. John's part, anyhow.

In googling Annie Leibovitz's portrait of John and Yoko, I came across this:

Mick Jagger in 1975.

It kind of reminds me of the scary guy in bed in that room full of those little green smelly pine trees in the movie "Se7en." The Sloth-Man.

That's all I have to say about that.