A December article in the The Amerian Conservative reports on some startling revelations from John Lennon himself in a number of interviews that took place near the end of his life. Obviously, the MSM and their co-conspirators in the entertainment media shoved all of this down the memory-hole.

American Conservative’s Jordan Micheal Smith:  

In the last major interview Lennon gave, to Playboy in late 1980 (and later released unedited as a book, All We Are Saying), he and Yoko Ono offered opinions that can fairly be described as chastened, jaded, even provincial. …

When it was pointed out that a Beatles reunion could possibly raise $200 million for a poverty-stricken country in South America, Lennon had no time for it. “You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn’t mean a damn thing. After they’ve eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles.” It’s a critique of foreign aid readers of P.T. Bauer would be familiar with. “You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I’m not ready for it.”

This was not the ’60s revolutionary who hung out with Yippies and Black Panthers. Not only did Lennon dismiss his earlier efforts, he rejected the entire idea of social change through political action. “I have never voted for anybody, anytime, ever,” he said. “Even at my most so-called political. I have never registered and I never will. It’s going to make a lot of people upset, but that’s too bad.”

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Okay.  First of all let me start off  by saying that I have been a musician (piano and more recently guitar – and the spoons) since I was a youngster.  And very few bands influenced me more than the Fab Four.  And of said mop-tops from Liverpool,  Paul was my favorite but I always thought John Lennon was a little cooler in his edginess and willingness to explore musically…sometimes brilliantly (“She Said, She Said”) other times embarrassingly (“number 9?…number 9?…number 9?)

It was with great sadness this thirteen year old heard the news from Howard Cosell, thirty years ago today in fact, on Monday Night Football, that he’d been murdered by that scumbag Mark David Chapman.  Actually, if I may borrow from Dennis Miller, I take that back for that would be an insult to bags of scum.  

Fact: John Lennon changed the music scene for the better and enriched rock-and-roll and all off-shoots from the Sixties onward in a profound way that only a truly gifted artist could.  Still, like his partner Paul, John’s music was never quite so there after the Beatles broke up, showing that a unique synergy did exist, even if by the end they were writing by themselves and for themselves.

That last observation is just a hint of honesty that I think is necessary to remember him properly.  To eulogize Lennon the man rather than just the music takes some frank talk.  And no Lennon song so instills in me the urge to have an adult discussion with the legions of fans who see not just a musician but rather a  mystically enlightened figure than his anthem of the hippy pacifist culture:  “Imagine.”  It is a beautiful piece, elegant in its simplicity of melody.  But the lyrics, quite frankly, irk me.

“Imagine no possessions.  I wonder if you can.”   What I wonder more is whether those who sing this modern-day kumbaya, an homage to an equalitarian society that Orwell would scoff at, are aware that the man who penned these words was worth an estimated $150 million when he died – much if it in real estate, including five apartments claimed in the Dakota co-op on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Three units just for storage—for all those possessions he couldn’t imagine … I guess.  It sort of deflates the message, does it not?  At least it reveals that, for all his talent, Lennon was at his core a textbook limousine liberal who bounced from four-star hotels, to luxury private jets, to castles in the country and posh penthouses in the glitziest of cities to pontificate his world without class, borders, countries, God or, of course, possessions.  (more…)

”What it comes down to for me is this: Will the technologies of communication in our culture, serve to enlighten us and help us to understand one another better, or will they deceive us and keep us apart?”  - Roger Waters

Roger Waters’ presentation of Pink Floyd’s seminal rock opera The Wall, which I saw at Staples Center in Los Angeles, is nothing short of a total triumph at all levels.  More than just an outstanding rock n’ roll concert, the addition of story-driven spectacle and anti-authoritarian thematics elevate this experience far above any other live music experience one is likely to see.

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Waters’ work, and for those who need a reminder, The Wall charts the autobiographical tale of Mr. Waters, whose father dies in WWII, and how a series of subsequent traumas forces him into a self-imposed isolation behind a metaphorical wall.  This alienation drives him mad, eventually forcing him to face an internal trial, in which his inner judge tears down his wall.

Heady stuff for a rock album, much less a concert.  Yet Mr. Waters succeeds in transcending his personal story, delivering a moving allegory, calling for each of us to tear down the walls we have erected to separate ourselves from the proverbial “Other.”

The work presented is utterly faithful to the original, complete with sound effects and background voices familiar to Pink Floyd fans, played with passion as well as technical sophistication.  It is also apparent that Mr. Waters’ voice is as fit as ever, complete with varying foreign accents, hisses, groans, and whispers. (more…)

“Relax, it’s just a movie.”

You often hear that when you step up to point out the lefty assumptions, biases and what John Nolte calls the “liberal tells” within popular entertainment.  You are allowed to praise the technical achievements of an Avatar – such as they are, since many of us think it looks freakin’ stupid – but heaven forbid that you dare question the hackneyed liberal noble savage clichés that James Cameron offers up instead of a story.  The message is clear – our proper role as pop culture consumers is to sit back, open our eyes, slacken our jaws and swallow Hollywood’s agenda.

But what is remarkable – and crucial – is that we are no longer passively accepting whatever Hollywood dumps on us.  The backlash to Avatar’s flabby thinking and tired ideology is the new paradigm, with even reviewers outside the conservative movement slagging it for its staggering intellectual hypocrisy, cardboard military/corporate villains and sophomoric Mother Earth enviro-babblings.

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In a world of Starland Vocal Bands, Lady GaGas, Bon Jovis, Snoop Doggs and 1910 Fruitgum Companies, it takes real talent to write a song so unbelievably horrible that it transcends mere awfulness and crosses the frontier into a whole new realm of sheer crappiness.  An artistic, musical and philosophical failure of staggering proportions, John Lennon’s “Imagine” is the worst song of all time.

Many feel this ballad is a touching hymn that gives voice to man’s yearning for a better world.  They are wrong.  “Imagine” is a cloying, boggy, sonic swamp of numb-skulled sentiments that sound like they were recycled from a bong-fueled, 2 a.m. bull session between a couple of pampered, credulous UC Berkeley lit majors.  It’s the national anthem of the hopey/changey crowd — all at once pretentious, smug, tiresome and intellectually bankrupt.  (more…)