With Apologies to John Lennon

After a weekend of stewing over unrelated crises, real and imagined, I opted out of the first half of the NFL offering this morning (please hurry back NHRA), and decided to watch a 2 hour documentary on the life of John Lennon.

Thanks to the influence of my rock-n-roll grandma, and the subtle guidance of my mother, I grew up with a lot of Beatles music. Always enjoyed it, never put much thought into it. The early face of pop rock was just that, and with those bowl haircuts, well, they just ain't Shakira...

I tried, once, as a teenager to understand the Sgt Pepper album, but I never had access to any illicit pharmacology. I never really got it, and it just kinda scared me. (Truth is, that was the first compact disc I ever purchased, while my friends were discovering Guns N Roses, Bon Jovi and Poison. I wrote a post-mortem review of Sgt. Peppers, trying to be avant grade, thereby justifying the purchase in the first place).

Beyond that, I truly never understood anything that any of the former Beatles wrote or performed post-Bad haircut days. Paul McCartney especially was lost on me.

Still, I do remember when Lennon died. My father, who never gave a damn for anything other than Merle Haggard or other crooning cowboys that wound up as embarrassing lounge acts in dumpy little country bars in Amarillo, my father, who condemned most music I listened to, he was the first to break the news to me. At the ripe age of 10, I didn't really have a clue who Lennon was, but I knew the Beatles. The fact that the shooting even registered with dear old Dad meant that something was up.

That morning, our aging music teacher was visibly moved and distressed by Lennon's murder. So much so that he interrupted whatever song we had been slaughtering the prior two weeks, and spent the morning teaching us "I Want to Hold Your Hand". That song found its way into the next school program, which always surprised me a little more than it should have. Despite the fact that we lived each day under the watchful eyes of the blessed sisters of the only Catholic school in town, they never curtailed our daily KISS air guitar concerts at recess...

Julian Lennon had a hit, and faded back into the recesses. From time to time, I would hear someone take a potshot at Yoko, but that was it. There was also the scene in "Mr. Holland's Opus" when Dreyfuss portrays the affable Mr. Holland as getting his artistic knickers in a twist after the shooting. This event segues into the eventual reconciliation between Holland and his deaf son. Holland is also portrayed as singing one of Lennon's songs, dedicating it to his own son. Dreyfuss sounded like hell, but then again, I think Phil Spector may have been some of the brilliance behind Lennon's soulful sounds... In any event, the scene from Holland's Opus always intrigued me a little, especially in the context of the relationship between a man and his son.

So, open to any source of redemption and hope, I invested 2 hours into the Lennon docudrama. I still don't get the music (which oddly, did not seem to really be the focus of the movie), but I found a new appreciation for the man behind the music.

Even though the movie seemed to soft-sell the ingratiating presence of Yoko, it is pretty clear from the footage that she was indeed a lightning rod for conflict. Publicly, Lennon never flinched from his devotion to her. (Apparently, there was a brief separation marked by some self-destructive activities, but I was feeding children or changing diapers, or something...). I have found, in many ways, and am fortunate enough to actually be married to, my own Yoko. I gotta make damn sure she always knows how she keeps me ticking. I have two of my own versions of Julian Lennon, and the guilt I have for what I have wrought on them I will undoubtedly carry into the grave...

Late in his all too short life, and early in Sean's life, Lennon walked away from music for almost five years, so that he could spend time with his son. He traded his creative passion, the engine that made him a beloved cultural icon, gave him a podium, and provided financial security, he traded all of that for time with his son. I have enough kids to field a basketball team, and with each I have too easily traded their time in exchange for a job I increasingly cannot abide, with no palpable sense of financial security, with a product that so rarely provides any tangible benefit to society it cannot justify itself in any terms other than dollar bills.

This weekend, Judge Eldon Mahon passed away. Judge Mahon was one of the pre-imminent federal judges in this region. He spent 19 years desegregating the schools of Tarrant County. There are no great battles like that to be fought today, the scorecard is measured solely in dollars and billable hours. Free agency will sanitize the practice of law much the same way it will hobble baseball.

Most days I, like far too many of my colleagues, feel that choices are narrowing and alternatives are quickly fading away. I realize now that, if someone can walk away from something they love for the benefit of their kids, I have to find the strength to walk away from the that thing that stalks my dreams, drains my conscience, and steals my energy. Of all the talk about peace and love, this it seems is the lesson I take away from John Lennon.

Make no mistake, I gotta go find out about the music. Maybe I can get enough severance to buy one of those fancy disc changers for my car, load it down with CD's from Lennon and from...Formerly Living.