Imagine

25 years ago tonight, John Lennon was killed. I didn't know much about him when it happened. My Mom had a mono album of "Meet The Beatles" and that was about all I'd heard. She was a teenager when all that happened. That record might be worth something now, but unfortunately, she wrote "Oddone" (her maiden name) on all of her records and covers. Apparently they would have parties where everyone would bring records. Anyway, I think I remember hearing about it from Howard Cosell on Monday Night Football, but I can't be sure now. I do remember my Mom saying that the Beatles were such clean kids but they all became hippies.

I would call this a confession, but I was too young at the time to really be responsible for my own actions. So maybe I was more of a victim. And I can't really blame my parents since my Mom was a good little Catholic girl and my Dad was a cop in San Francisco in the 60's.

Anyway - my first real exposure to the Beatless' music was the 2 record soundtrack album with the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton from the awful Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band movie. It's really cheesy now, but some of it still holds up - Aerosmith doing Come Together, Steve Martin doing Maxwell's Silver Hammer, and Alice Cooper covering Because. Anyway, from then on, when I heard the Beatles on the radio, it never sounded right to me since I was used to the soundtrack album and that was all I knew.

My first real Beatles experience was when Travis played the Beatle's Sgt. Pepper disc for me in his room at the Sanitarium on Ashby after a night of debauchery. There's another story I'll tell some other time. Maybe. Anyway - he put on Sgt. Pepper and I'd say it blew my mind, but my mind was already pretty blown that night. Maybe it put my mind back together. The thing I remember the most is all of the little things on the album going on in the background - the "Hi, there!" and how Ringo lags behind on the beat while Paul is running late on A Day In The Life and then he catches up. Brilliant! And on a 4-track? Are you kidding me? And I remember actually liking Within You Without You - my least favorite song on that album - but the song that I now feel completes the album.

That all happened at Berkeley. That's also where I came across this eccentric nut named Steven Lightfoot who claims to this day that it wasn't Mark David Chapman, but actually the novelist, (and CIA operative?) Stephen King, who killed John. He used to drive around in this wacky white van, but now he has a website.

www.lennonmurdertruth.com If you've got some time to kill, it's a fun read. And it's amazing to me that this guy is out and about and not strapped to a bed somewhere with a Lithium drip. He clings to an incredibly complex and convoluted delusion and supports it with some pretty detailed "evidence."

Now I don't know what to say. So much of what he believed and sang about and spoke about makes so much sense to me now. And there's no one like him today. Nobody. If anyone staged a bed-in today, it just wouldn't fly. And nobody's doing anything even remotely like that. We need someone like him today. Someone with his vision, his beliefs, his conviction, and his talent. I don't like everything he's done, and I can't sit through "Oh, Yoko." But I respect that everything he did was genuine. And, oh, this hurts a little, he certainly wasn't a phony.

The fact that he was murdered makes it hurt more. Mark David Chapman (or Stephen King) killed the man. And this may sound like an editorial in a high school newspaper, but here goes - John Lennon's spirit lives on in a lot of people and through his music. And music aside, I am certain that had he lived, he would have done much more for our nation and the world in the 25 years since his death than he did before it. And I don't think Nike would have used "Revolution" to sell shoes.