One man's hero is another mans pariah

John Lennon, From Wicipedia

I hope that I’ve waited a respectable time away from the anniversary of Lennon’s death to do this post, December 8th, 1980. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Lennon’s death was a great tragedy. It was once said that “any man’s death diminishes me”, that always seems to be true.

Lennon was the quintessential dreamer. There is nothing like dreaming. Nothing like lighting up a fatty and wishing that the whole world was like him. Unfortunately if we all sat around and smoked a doobie and sang, nobody would have been able to afford to buy Lennon’s recordings. Oh well, it takes all kinds to make a world, "drags" and producers. I see Lennon as a person that the rest of the world dragged to the top.

I’m probably a little bit older than most of the members of Lennon’s fan club, so I see him differently. I graduated high school in 1963. When I was growing up we had no drugs in Southern Humboldt, other than the ones that the doctor gave you. The only illegal drugs that we even knew about was used by the Mexican people that worked on the railroad. We just assumed that they couldn’t afford tobacco. Nobody would lower themselves to smoke marijuana as long as they could afford tobacco.

I was in college in San Francisco when the Beatles became popular. They seemed overly pretentious to me. Everything that they did back then would be called “In your face” today. Back then, the adults didn’t like them at all. They were impudent, arrogant, and they wore their hair long like girls. The sight of them made most adults shudder. That was a sure recipe for the kids to adore them. The Beatles were a way to tell the parents: “Screw you, I’m all grown up now, I’ll like who I want", and "the Beatles reflect all that I’m feeling about my parents and the world right now".

To the children of the sixties, the Beatles were the picture of their rebellion. The name “BEAT”les… get it? The “beat” generation and the “beat”nics were the rebellious group in vogue at the time. Of course, they named themselves for some other reason, but all the kids knew that it was really about the BEAT, and the teenage rebellion.

It wasn’t long before the Beatles were openly experimenting with drugs. The song “Sweet Mary” was about Marijuana. The very-sophisticated Beatles claimed that the song was actually about Sweet Mary and had nothing to do with Marijuana. That gave the children of the day one more thing to laugh behind their hands about; how stupid the grown-ups were… Ha, ha, ha. “They think that Sweet Mary is about Marijuana… Ha, ha, ha. But, all the time they knew, or at least suspected, that it really was about Marijuana.

By the time that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” came out, they had the plausible deniability thing down pat. The Beatles must have been laughing uproariously behind closed doors. The more that they denied that the songs had anything to do with drugs, the more the kids knew that the the songs really did, and the more popular the songs became. Every kid joined in denying that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was about L.S.D. The song was actually about a little girl named “Lucy”. That was often proclaimed, dripping with self-righteous indignation. Ah… but secretly they knew, and parents were easy to fool, because they are dumb.

I learned to drive on the ranch when I was 9 years old. I was driving a water truck watering logging roads when I was 15 years old. Driving was nothing to clown around about on the steep dirt roads in the logging woods. One little mistake and you would most likely die. Needless to say, I took driving very seriously.

I used to race go-carts on a dirt track, My cousin Oregon and I built a water cooled go-cart that had a large outboard motor stripped down to the motor that was tucked neatly behind the drivers seat. It would do 0-80 mph in the same gear. It would literally tear up a dirt track. It would smoke a paved track. The only problem is that we were forced to go fast to get air over the radiator. We got our thrills driving the darn thing. Soon nobody would race us because they didn’t like being humiliated. So, I knew about go-fast racing and skidding around on dirt.

By the time that other kids were just learning to drive, I had all of the danger-danger out of my system, and was only concerned about getting somewhere safely. I didn’t feel the need to test my skills, or experiment on the highway.

I started smoking when I was ten. I got a few lectures from adults about how stupid it was, and if they had one wish it would be that they would NOT be addicted to nicotine. I was unaware of what an addiction was at the time. They assured me that if I kept screwing around with smoking that I would become addicted. I would lose my ability to run, jump, and hike, and all the things that I loved to do. I knew these people well, I trusted them, I believed them, and I quit. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I had continued to smoke tobacco.

When the other kids started to smoke at thirteen and fourteen, they would invite me to go with them and hide somewhere and smoke cigarettes. I would simply say, “been there done that, have fun”. Smoking always seemed a little childish to me, having quit at ten years old. I always have to chuckle when I see a kid smoking a cigarette, boy does it seem dumb. But, you can’t tell some kids anything… It’s part of their rebellion.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I might have grown up a little faster that most kids around me. The fact that I stayed very busy in my youth gave me less time to be bored and get into trouble. My perspective may have been different than my peers.

When we were kids growing up, we were told the things that we couldn’t do because we were too young. “Nope can’t do that, you’re too young”. It seemed like we were too young to do anything that adults liked to do. It was the “do as I say and not as I do generation of parents”. As soon as a kid could sneak a can of beer out of the fridge, they would try it. Some kids thought; “wow that was good”. So kids wondered what else parents were keeping for themselves.  Kids were told that they couldn’t drink alcohol because “it was bad for them”. They were told never to have sex out of marriage because they could get syphilis or worse yet get pregnant.

It seemed like everything that the kids of the sixties were told was “bad for them” was great fun. The sixties turned out to be about “Free Love” because kids found out that sex was fun. They soon learned that drinking alcohol was fun. Then they had the Beatles telling them, wink-nod, that smoking marijuana was great fun. Then the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” was implying that LSD was also great fun, and their parents told then that it wasn‘t good for them. So making love, smoking marijuana, and dropping acid turned out to be fabulous fun. The best part is was it was rebellion, and in-their-parents-face. The sixties child was free!

Sadly, some of my friends got caught up in the thrill of the sex drugs and rock and roll way too deeply. I have a few friends that went clear off the deep end. They got tangled up in cocaine. they discovered that they were addicted. Most found their way from cocaine to heroin, to come down softer. Some died laying on the floor in their own puke, unconscious and gasping for breath. Somewhere the fun left the sex drugs and rock and roll.

Many of the big time performers of the sixties got way past their ability to cope. Most people can think of many names of the celebrities that they knew that died of drug O.D.’s… The sad finale of the chapter of fun of using drugs that the Beatles glorified.

It just seemed to me that John Lennon never grew up. He never tired of trying to shock people with his drug use or sexual escapades. He sang songs about how screwed up the world was, and how wonderful it would be if everybody could just get stoned like him. He never followed through to tried to imagine what the world would really be like if everybody was stoned.

So when people all join hands, stand in a circle, and sing the praises of John Lennon, forgive me, but I watch with a certain amount of incredulity. I feel like an Indian on Columbus day. I don’t see John Lennon's life work as anything to celebrate.

I’ve seen the aftermath of the thrill of drugs just to damn many times, someone laying in their own vomit is nothing to be happy about. Some live to do it all over again, and some go back to their maker. I wish that there was some way to connect the young person starting to play with drugs to the pathetic shell of a human dying in their own puke. “Imagine” if young people could do that.

I’m sorry about my cynicism. But, I got to see the whole story. From not knowing a thing about drug use, to the finale episode. Many of you, that came in the middle, may have had enough information to know how to use drugs recreationally and not go too far. I know that most people don’t die from drug use, but many do. Those few that die, remind me that I was told that this would be the result of the Beatles glorification of drugs. Even if it is wrong to think that way, I’m reminded of that every time I see the poor people that got beyond their control. I see the dying shell in the puke, and how damn sad it is. Imagine that.