December 31, 2011
2011 was a completely unscripted year. Major highs, shiny lows.
Discovery
Rebirth of creativity
Incredible new friends
Still loving the existing ones
Learning how to make much better spaghetti
Finally seeing myself 20 years older from a moment of my life. And liking it.
When I was younger I snuck away from school to waste the day. Ditching wasn’t too difficult since forging notes went unnoticed and I had many friends who helped out in the school office. It was a common occurrence.
That day I ventured into a Tower Records (yes I just aged myself) to look at all the music I couldn’t afford. There was a news crew inside. They were not operating at a pace as if someone was shot, just casually talking to consumers about blah blah blah.
The blah was John Lennon’s birthday. Which was… oddly enough… that day. Math is math. They asked if I’d like to be interviewed. I saw 5 other people talk to the camera before me so I figured I’d get in the mix, not as if they’d use it.
I didn’t know much about Lennon. I liked the Beatles and had seen enough of Paul McCartney on television that I had deemed him my favorite. I was easy to please back then. I thought Gallagher was hilarious.
I knew Lennon was dead, hated the war and married an ugly girl. Not much more. But since I was on camera and played it up to the dozen of people who may see it.
“John Lennon changed the way we listen to music, and view the world”
No too shabby for a teenager.
I threw in some keywords like “talented”, “amazing”, “favorite”, “I have all his albums”.
Then I left, got a 44 ounce Dr. Pepper and drove my 1975 Toyota Celica home. A car we all penned “The Silver Bullet”. I drove the 30 miles back and didn’t think much of watching the news that night.
But it was on, and so was I. That geeky kid who ditched school that day was on the evening news. My family got to see it. My friends got to see it.
And apparently all of my school did too.
As I went from class to class the next day and handed my teachers a sick note, they all expressed their excitement of seeing me on television.
And by excitement I mean their “AHA!” moment.
I avoided detention but had to talk to my art teacher about 60’s music for 40 minutes. I learned nothing more than he had spinach for lunch.
Now it’s 2011. Lennon’s birthday. Since then I have developed so much love for the Beatles that it’s in my DNA.
How did I spend that day? Oddly I was driving on the 405 going somewhere, nowhere. They played 5 Lennon songs in a row. By song 3 I was crying. Is this a sign of being a grown up or too many Cafe Mochas? Either way I flet more of an adult than I had in a long time. I felt the love Lennon gave to the world. I felt all warm and fuzzy.
So… all that to get to THIS. Today, the last day of 2011, I found this.
(From the original article)
In 1969, a brave 14-year-old boy named Jerry Levitan armed with a tape-deck snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and charmed the legend into doing an interview about peace, music, the USA, life and the Bee Gees. Thirty-nine years later, Levitan offered the interview to the world.
Only he did it brilliantly.
Happy New Years to you all.
0 Comments