John Lennon. It 30 years ago today...

I've said many times how much of a music fan I am. I love music. Many forms, many styles, extremely varied. Hard to narrow me down. But some are special. They hold the deepest parts of my love of music and can never be matched. One of these is my extreme love of the Beatles. I love the Beatles. If anyone out there ever says to me that they don't like em, well, I just can't ever get along with you. We're just not meant to hang out man. Cause Beatles people get it. They are unique in a way. Its unspoken, and cannot even really be defined. To sit here and explain what the Beatles are, what they meant and what they mean to me... well, I couldn't do it. I just couldn't. So special they are, that when I recently got rid of all my cds, I kept the Beatles ones. All of them. Cause I need every photo. Every song lyric and liner note. I need it all. The Beatles are deified on my Top Ten list of life, love and music. They don't even deserve a list because its like breathing, its a given thing.

I realize that today marks 30 years since that mother fucking piece of shit shot down John Lennon. I get ill just thinking about it. I was two years old. I remember when my mother would cry early on when listening to The Beatles records. Maybe thats why I started to love them, because of her. Maybe listening to them brings me closer to my mom. I don't know.

I've went over the details of how and "why" he was killed that night. I still have no answers and no comfort in it. Shoot to 2002. I went to the Rock Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH with two of my closest friends. Surprisingly, there was a Lennon exhibit going on there. I saw his Sgt. Peppers outfit. I saw early Beatles outfits, guitars, handwritten lyrics, rare photos, the drumhead from the Ed Sullivan show appearance, Lennon's Oscar and much more. But one display, off to the side, by itself captured my attention. It was a standalone kiosk that was square. On one side it had a circular glass which you could see through. The side of it had a square window which you could look into as well. In the square window was a bag, dried with crimson blood soaked clothing. It had the clothes that John was wearing the night he was killed. Never opened since the hospital sealed them. In the front of this kiosk, in the circular window, was a pair of glasses. Blood caked on them. The ones he wore when he was shot. They stared back at me and I kept staring into them. I was moved to tears. There was a letter from Yoko, explaining that she wanted people to see this to raise awareness of gun control and all that. But I was focused on these glasses. I can never get that visual out of my head for as long as I live.

I often fantasize that time travel is possible. And if I had one trip to take, just one... I wouldn't go back and see my mother. I wouldn't go and try to find out if say, Jesus existed, or if Noah's Ark was real. No. I always fantasize about going back and stopping Lennon from dying that night. What would have happened if that were possible? Would he reunite with the Beatles again? Would he do more great solo works? Would he keep raising awareness about ourselves and the need for peace? Who knows. At the least, he wouldn't have been robbed of his right to live out his life, be a father to Sean and live with the love of his life. He was denied that, they were denied that. Nevermind what we lost out on. I feel their loss as though he were my own family. The thoughts of a life ripped or pulled away in an instant is devastating to think about. I hope we as one race, can grow beyond those things. Just as I hope that I never have to feel that same thing if someone I love goes suddenly.

A while back, I found an interview disc with John, recorded mere hours before he died. I still haven't been able to bring myself to listen to it. Even though I never met him, never knew him... I still feel for him. Odd isn't it? That we feel something like this for someone who we have never or will never meet. He was more than just a musician. So very very very much more.

In actuality, Paul McCartney was always my favorite Beatle. But Lennon was equally as great for different reasons. Below is an in store performance of a song McCartney wrote about John called "HERE TODAY." I tear up when I watch this. Its hard to watch Paul break down about it, remembering his friend. I share it with all of you...



There's no positive note to end on. John is gone and even thirty years later, it still hurts. Sometimes in life, you meet someone, or find someone special. Sometimes people are given to us and they come and kick our ass and show us how it was done. Sometimes indeed, we are blessed with such a person. And we always remember them, and thus they will never pass away. John Lennon was such a person. And he is here with us today. The soul, the spirit of him, his music, his life.. all of it. And we can feel it now.

RIP John. We love you and still miss you. We sure could use you right now.