Questions are flooding in! If this deluge continues, I might have to outsource the answers to India. If you have a question and you’re not too picky about an answer, leave it in the comments. From there on, it’s clobberin’ time.
Dear Run-DMSteve,
Here is a question that I have often pondered. Everyone goes on and on about how brilliant John Lennon was and how thought-provoking and brilliant his solo music was. Has it ever occurred to others that John wouldn’t have been so “out there” if it hadn’t been for his partner in life and crime, Yoko Ono. It’s so interesting that people are quick to joke that Mark David Chapman would have been a hero if he had aimed a little more to the left and shot Yoko, but I truly believe it is because of Yoko that John became the critical darling he was so admired for. Your thoughts?
– Orin
Dear Orin,
John had two partners in life and crime, Paul and Yoko. John and Paul came of age together, worked together, and together achieved results they never would’ve seen on their own. After they became adults, they needed to get away from each other. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have been together for 50 years, but they should’ve divorced 30 years ago. John and Paul had the sense to go their separate ways while they were still on top.
John found a new muse in Yoko, and so we have Imagine, Some Time in New York City, and Mind Games. Double Fantasy bored me, but by then John was supremely happy with Yoko, and I can’t knock happiness.
Yoko never had a fair chance. She faced a public relations attack from the first day her name was linked with John’s. Even today, when the clue in the crossword puzzle is “Lennon’s love,” I laugh to myself as I write in “Ono.” Why do we laugh at her? What was her crime? The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the only thing she was guilty of was not being Caucasian.
(John had another girlfriend, May Pang, while he and Yoko were estranged, but I can’t say what influence she had on his work.)
Four things I always remember: Where I was and what I was doing the day Ruby killed Oswald, the day Nixon left office, the night Chapman killed Lennon, the afternoon Challenger exploded. Just to lighten the mood here: When Nixon walked out of the White House for the last time, my Grandma Bella, who was in her 70s and glued to her TV, cried because “they’re throwing the poor man out of his house and he has a wife and two children to feed.”
Keep watching the wheels go round and round, Orin.
– Run-DMSteve
Dear Mr. Run-DMSteve/AKA mrlonelyhearts,
Since you asked, I will lay just a very few of the multitude of burning questions which I’ve been carrying around for far too long on you:
Am I the walrus?
How can heroin be “my wife” and “my life”?
How can I live a normal life if I only have eyes for you?
How can Mick get satisfaction?
How can Rhonda help ME?
If it’s my life…what am I doing here?
Is this love or confusion?
What happened to the “Eve of Destruction”? Did the “Dawn of Correction” cancel it out?
What IS new pussycat?
Who did put the bop in the bop shoo bop?
Who did write the Book of Love?
Why can’t you roller skate in a buffalo herd?
Why do fools fall in love?
Why do you keep me hanging on?
Why does no one call me Mellow Yellow?
Why must I be a teenager in love (even at age 60)??
Why won’t my boomerang come back?
Why’s everybody always putting me down?
Your sage answer(s) will be appreciated.
– Mr. Jones
Dear Mr. Jones,
Your questions require answers from sagier pundits than Run-DMSteve. Have you considered Dan Savage, Dear Prudie, or Rick Santorum?
Alas, all I can do is add more questions to your burning multitude:
If I relax too much, won’t I slip out?
If she blinded you with science, did she deafen you with metal shop?
If you put a ring on it, do you buy it from the Shane Company or Good Vibrations?
That’s the way? That’s what way?
Who let the dogs out?
Who’s next?
Why haven’t you found what you’re looking for? You’ve been looking for it since 1987!
You may ask yourself, where is that large automobile?
You may ask yourself, what is that beautiful house?
You may ask yourself, where does that highway lead to?
You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?
You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?
Thank you for the most excellent laugh, and good luck on your lifelong quest for enlightenment, you love-struck teenager!
–Run-DMSteve
(PS: Speak up. Tommy can’t hear you.)
QUOTE OF THE DAY
I believe my music is the healin’ music. I believe my music can make the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf and dumb hear and talk, because it inspires and uplifts people. It regenerates the heart, makes the liver quiver, the bladder splatter, and the knees freeze. I’m not conceited, either. (Little Richard)
Run-DMSteve 
For what it’s worth, I agree with Orin about Ono. If you’ve ever read her writings, listened to her being interviewed, or listen to the lyrics of her music, then it is quite obvious the political, social, and spiritual connection she contributed. Maybe not so much the actual music.
Great questions Mr. Jones & Mr. Run.
I didn’t know I didn’t know so much.
Good points about Yoko’s probable contributions to John’s life, Mr. FBB!
For another what it’s worth, Yoko is a great friend of chess in the schools in NYC. Chess Life had her on the cover once. That more than makes up for the movie she once made of a fly crawling over a woman’s body. A very long film, I’m told.
I learn every day how much I don’t know. I’m learning a lot just writing this blog.
I watched “Backbeat” again last weekend and was struck by Astrid’s comments that John loved Stuart Sutcliffe and that John loved what Astrid and Stuart had together. Makes me wonder if he was trying to create that same kind of magic with Yoko? … And for all you Harry Potter fans, a bit of trivia here … Ian Hart, who played John Lennon in Backbeat, also was Professor Quirrell in Sorcerer’s Stone… the face facing forward under the turban, that is!
Stevie, I LOL’d throughout this particular post! I know where you can outsource these questions to India, just dial x8355…ug!