A Bad Dream

Today is one of those "Do you remember where you were when ...?" days.

I don't want to remember, but I know that forgetting brings more days like these.

I was living with my parents, having tacked on an extra semester of school so I could take advantage of my dad's medical and dental insurance. Wisdom teeth, don'tcha know?

I had no job, but I did have a little transistor radio my dad had scrounged up. It was my habit, right before I turned out the lights, to switch my radio on, and turn the dial until I'd heard a couple of favorite songs to cool me out.

And so, I turned the radio on.

Beatles. Cool. I turned the dial. More Beatles. All Beatles. Only Beatles. And John Lennon.

Just a few years before, someone had offered the former Beatles an outrageous sum of money to reunite.

They said no at the time, but maybe, it was that.

Or, it was bad.

My mother knocked. Have you heard?

Heard what?

John Lennon was shot.

Is he dead?

She nodded.

I had a huge, cozy, pile bathrobe the color of a swimming pool, of Indian turquoise. The pile was flattened along the seam of the tie belt. I kept looking at it, how wrong it was, not remembering that it had always been that way.

It couldn't be real. They'd say it was a mistake, that John -- what an outrageous liberty to even think of him on a first-name basis -- had pulled through.

Eventually, someone in the radio spoke. They had facts, times, a press conference with a doctor.

The doctor.

I had a class -- History of Rock 'n Roll. I'd been assigned an oral report as a final project -- The History of The Who. It was to last three days, include audio and video.

In the afternoons, I'd go to the music library, check out a set of headphones, put a homemade Who cassette into the deck, and write. On December ninth, the music played dead, and the words refused to come.

I sat outside on the patio, listening to the DJ spin Beatles tunes on the campus radio station. In the days following, I bought every commemorative magazine I could get my hands on.

The irony is that John Lennon wasn't that awesome. Shunted off to a humorless aunt by feckless, self-centered parents, Lennon was an outlier in a society that hated them, and does to this day.

He was angry, and stayed that way. He hit women, said ugly things about his ex-BFF for the whole world to hear. He helped break up The Beatles for the sake of a sleazebag manager. And, when he got curious about Christianity, he called on Jerry Falwell -- one of the most vile professing Christians who ever lived.

The further irony is, unlike some with similar histories, he kept trying to be a better man. His words and music are a living record of that struggle.

In his place, we have some guy who talks shit, and says he knows Jesus.

We'll see about that, but I digress.

We have a below-average, allegedly-schizophrenic nothingburger who decided that John Lennon had something he wanted, and the only way to get it was by murdering an ex-Beatle (Hey, hey, NRA!).

So, he bought a gun. Because, if you're the one holding the gun, you're the expert.

You're the superstar.

John Lennon spent his life looking for some light, so I'd be remiss if, while remembering him, I didn't look for some, too.

So, I see Yoko Ono, who, in the crone phase of life, has surely become the hippest crone whoever lived.

I see a piece of Central Park, where beautiful things grow. Its name is Strawberry Fields.

A living record of John Lennon's struggle. Of ours.

It might not be good to remember all that, but it is necessary. In these times, when the powers that be insist that we can't, shouldn't, don't, and had better not remember, it is an act of defiance.

Johnny would have liked that.

And so, in memory of good dreams and bad, in memory of him, here's a song from the first John Lennon record I ever had.

This is "#9 Dream".