Tag: Beatles

The Day I Met Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

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lucy

 

Life in 1966 was so damn Norman Rockwell I feared the entire year would be featured in The Saturday Evening Post. But ‘67 arrived and the cold winter ushered in an ugly escalation in the Vietnam war combined with continued civil rights issues including segregation and more riots. Thankfully ‘67 also ushered in the Summer of Love, a glimmer of hope for humankind through the youthful exuberance of believing life can be great. A time of free love, free thought, and free minds. The long hair freaky hippies had taken hold in Haight-Ashbury and The Greenwich Village scene offered up drugs sex and rock and roll to all who dared to try. Dangling candy in front of so many impressionable naïve children. And I had one Helluva sweet tooth.

 

Having already been introduced to hops and malts and ready something more the promise of mind altering alternatives sounded far too attractive to pass up. “Here man, smoke this. It won’t make your stomach all bloated, no puking in the woods, no head spinning frenzy. Just a nice calm mellow high.” Why not? After all, its all natural. Hey if God didn’t want us smoking the stuff why did he grow it? Funny I thought about God because I would later find out that the summer of love would end my nagging sense of spiritual emptiness. It would fill needs I hadn’t even realized existed. It would also be the summer I met Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

 

There was a lot of great things about growing up on Long Island but perhaps one of the best and certainly the most game changing was the fact that we could scrape together a few bucks and take the train into New York City. It opened up a whole new world free of judgments where we were actually encouraged to let our “Freak Flags” fly. Turn on and tune in. Timothy Leary, Ken Kesey, Stanly Owsley, and The Grateful Dead. They took over the roles formerly held by Roy Rodgers, Ward Clever, and the Kingston Trio. From Captain Kangaroo to Captain Trips at the roll of a joint. “Hey little man, you think that pot is making you feel good, get ready to grow up and go on a real trip. Just put this little dot on your tongue and let it melt your mind.” Mmm-mmm good!

 

My first venture into the drug netherworld was in Washington Square Park. What a cool place, jam packed with hippies singing songs, doing some sort of floaty dances, or just hanging out and smiling. A lot of smiling. My big brother had gotten us tickets for us to a place called the Bottom Line to see some dude named John Mayall. At the time I didn‘t know much about him other than hearing my brothers bluesy records by The USA Union and The Bluesbreakers. He also bought a tab of LSD for me to try. Even if I thought it was a bad idea, which I didn’t, I would have had to trip just to save face. We were with his three best friends who would be merciless when we got home if I wimped out. But I wasn’t bullied into taking it, I took it willingly. I wanted to see for myself what all the hype about mind bending sugar cubes the hippies were tripping out on. Didn’t realize I would be on a crazy ride without a seatbelt.

The park was a trip in itself. While I waited for the tab to kick in we wandered through the paths. A couple of dudes singing around a few guitar playing longhaired dudes with smiles glued to their faces. Not singing like Cumbaya, more like some folkie shit, some Dylan guy or something. Street actors, comedians, and plain flat out weirdo’s roamed the paths of the park and after about forty five minutes I broke out laughing. “What’s so funny little brother?” What’s so funny? How the hell did I know? What just because I saw some guy walk by carrying his head in his hands? Because the head was laughing even though it wasn’t attached? Well…..yea, so I laughed too. How am I gonna explain that, anyway? Some dude is walking around inside a Dali painting? Besides, when I looked back at the guy he was normal again “Fucking everything man. That dude over there just dropped his head on the ground and the fucking thing bounced back up. That’s what‘s funny!” The four of us started laughing with nary a one of us knowing why. Didn’t matter, the LSD runway was clear and we had taken off. Humor would be the fuel that drove our trip ship.

 

We walked around with what felt like surgically implanted smiles on our faces, so intense were those near creepy smiles that the next day my smiling cheek muscles would ache all day long. We laughed and watched. Peoples faces began melting, tree’s bent over to kiss the horizon and the blowing leaves made weird shapes that took to breathing. It was hard to walk because the ground kept moving. I was watching and laughing when suddenly I felt a hand of on my ass. A tiny little palm giving it a light squeeze. I cocked my head slightly not wanting to seem obvious which must have looked really obvious, but what I saw sent a rush of adrenaline from my toes upward stopping at the groin for a few teasing seconds. The hand belonged to a five foot two smiling young lass about three or four years my senior. That may not seem like very much older now but when your thirteen going on fourteen its an entire era. The amount of cred you got being with a sixteen year old at that age is astronomical. She had very long tightly curled jet black hair and was wearing a sort of gypsy dress. A flood of emotions fluttered through my body, passion, lust, sexual tension and awkward nervousness highlighted by the nagging sense that one false statement or move will reveal my junior status and negate all of those other electric plugged in and turned on sensations. She giggled softly so I looked her right in the eyes, smiled back and whispered into her ear something along the lines of “Gliddy gloop glooppy, nibba nappy noopie la la la low low” Startled she stopped in her tracks, looked up at me for four seconds before breaking out into an uncontrollable laughing jag. At first I was embarrassed, then slightly angered, until I suddenly realized she was tripping too and laughing with me not at me. An instant friendship was born. We were sharing the same bizarre plane in some alternate universe and frankly I forgot about my brother and his friends. I talked to her excitedly about the book “Siddhartha” and she shared the name of a new prophet named Carlos Castaneda. She opened my eyes by opening my mind and over the next year I would study a variety of spiritual alternatives. It was just tangerine trees, marmalade skies, me and the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

 

Her name wasn’t really Lucy of course, and the Lucy in the Sky was more reference to LSD than anything else but suffice to say both Lucy’s and I had one of the most unforgettable evenings of our lives. Or at least I did. I gave away my ticket and told my brother I would meet him later. Lucy and I found ourselves laughing and crying and in some compromising positions. And smiling. A Lot of smiling. I called her Moss because we rolled around…..I called her Moss and that’s the name I’ll remember her by. It was a once in a lifetime meeting, a two ships in the night beautiful moment meant to share and enjoy before releasing the moment and returning to our previously scheduled lives. I had cancelled my subscription to Saturday Evening Post and graduated to Rolling Stone that night thanks to Moss. I mumbled something stupid like can I see you again but Moss had no intention of remaining in contact, she was just a traveler in time and space, another fucked up teen trying to make sense of a turbulent and confusion world. But I gotta admit, every once in a while I think about the night I met Moss and wonder, for a brief moment, what ever became of Lucy In The Sky.

 

ONE REALLY BIG SPECIAL NIGHT IN ‘64

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beatles #1

It was 20 years ago today, Sergeant Peppers taught his band to play. I doubt there is anyone in America of my generation that’s not familiar with that line. But on February 9th, 2014 it was 50 years ago today that counted. That was the day America was ready to….Meet The Beatles. After that night came a plethora of new albums, Magical Mystery Tour, Rubber Soul, Revolver, The White Album and more. Help, Its Been a Hard Days Night here on Abbey Road. 50 years ago! Yea, a lot has been made of the recent 50 year anniversary of the Beatles conquering America. But nothing really caught any of the energy that one special evening created. Five songs transformed a generation, gave it something to identify with. The Beatles merely changed the way we spoke, the way we dressed, the way we listened to music, the way we viewed our politics, and in general the way we lived our lives. And it all started on one night all across America in households of families huddled around a Sunday night ritual. The Ed Sullivan show, an institution in the days when most families had only one TV set and the whole family sat and watched it together. Back in those days dinner was served at the same time everyday, an you couldn’t leave the table until you finished everything. Yea, even the vegetables! After dinner the family gathered around the TV set to watch whatever Dad decided we could watch. Saturday mornings we had cartoons and the television belonged to us (so long as our chores were done) but at night there was no democracy. Fascist Pops was in control of what we viewed and we were the remote controls. “JT, go put on channel four. JT, turn this up. JT, fix that horizontal bar.” Pretty much the same in every house, and Sundays were family night. For us it was the same every Sunday, Lassie, followed by My Favorite Martian, followed by The Ed Sullivan Show all on CBS. If I was allowed to stay up after that I had to change to NBC and we watched Bonanza. February 9th 1964 started out just like any other Sunday night, I had no clue what would occur on that special night.
IMHO the Grammy tribute fell way short of recreating any of that energy, not focusing on what that special night really created but instead used it as a promo for Grammy winning acts, popular actors, and an audience that never got a chance to understand the importance that night held to my generation. So I’ve taken it on myself to attempt to capture a slice of the energy released on that special night 50 year ago. For me and my classmates way back in February 1964 that performance was a game changer. A life changer! The moment the first set was over I understood intuitively that something had changed profoundly. For the first time I had my own music, a music made just for me and all I wanted to do was be like The Beatles and listen to more of their music. First I had to wash the Brylcreem out of my hair, remove the slicked back greaser wave and grow my hair. I would have bangs starting the next morning. I wanted to be like The Beatles, those dudes were fucking COOL!
Before that evening like most of my friends I was a follower, a sheep spinning my older brothers 45’s. Not that it wasn’t good music, it was great, but it wasn’t mine and it didn’t have the oomph I would come to know and love. The year before that special night I got my first record player for Christmas. It was a cheap record player that could only handle one record at a time and had one cheesy speaker built in its self contained carrying case that couldn’t go more than four feet away from an electric outlet without an extension cord. My record library consisted of Oh My Darlin’ by Huckleberry Hound, The Theme to Mr. Ed (of course of course) The Chipmunks Christmas song, a searing rendition of The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, and Sherry by the Four Seasons (That one I stole from my brother, hope he doesn’t read this). But that Sunday night changed all that. In my pajamas with spacemen in spacesuits all over it I sat right in front of the TV. I heard that some Beetles were coming to America, and all I knew at that point was they played music and made girls scream. I was prepared to hear something like The Everly Brothers, or The Beach Boys, or maybe even Bobby Darrin. My parents played Frank Sinatra, Al Hirt, and Andy Williams on the family console but I knew it would be nothing like that. Maybe its four British Elvis Presley’s? But when that first song began, a song called “All My Lovin” my mouth dropped. It was the most amazing thing I had ever heard. And the four guys, long hair shaking as they sang, were just about the coolest things in the universe. I watched and memorized their names, on drums some guy named Ringo. Who has a name like that?! Cool! George, Paul, and sorry girls he’s married John. I knew in an instant this was something I had been waiting for without knowing I was waiting for it. The next tune was called “Till There Was You” sung by the cute guy Paul. In the house next door I heard a blood curdling scream. I looked up startled and my Dad and Mom were chuckling, “Mollie, can you hear Christine next door?” laughter, “Yes I can Joe, listen to her screaming like a banshee for these kids” Christine was my 13 year old next door neighbor who sounded like she was being tortured by the boogey man when in fact in her mind she was asking Paul to marry her. Very loudly and in an eerie shrieking kind of way. Mom an Dad got a good laugh from those cute mop top boys from England. Not quite as funny the next morning when I came downstairs with my hair combed over my forehead in an attempt to copy the look. “You march right upstairs and fix your hair young man!” …..“But Mom!! I wanna………Yes Mom.” That was the first of many years of arguments I would have regarding the length and style of my hair. And it all started on that one magical special night. They finished the first set with a fast rocking tune “She Loves You”, which had all of the kids in school singing yea, yea, yea on the playground the rest of the year.
After another act or two the boys came back for two more songs but it wouldn’t have mattered, the die was cast they had already conquered the youth of America. We were in hook line and sinker. They played “I saw her Standing There” and “I wanna Hold your Hand” what would become two more love anthems of the young. In one special night I had five new favorite songs. I got rid of my 45’s and began swearing a collection of nothing but Beatle songs after that. I had MY music now, not my brothers, not the kid up the blocks, MINE! I bought teen magazines to read about them, had Beatle trading cards, bought many of their 45’s, and a Beatles poster, all of which would make me a bazillionaire if I had them now. As the years passed I could follow my social development by what album came out next. My hair, my politics, my view of love, my global presence all coincided with what the Beatles did on their next album. I didn’t realize it at the time, but every Beatle album I ever listened to could be called a greatest hits album. It was as though they couldn’t make a shit record if they tried.
Whatever The Beatles did I tried to do. As they grew their hair longer so did I, when they dressed more colorful so did I, they talked slang, I talked their slang too, they smoked pot I tried it. I couldn’t get enough information about them. I followed their trip to India in the magazines and adjusted my life around the Fab Four. I especially tried to be like John. Whatever The Beatles said or did validated my doing the same. Not so much for Mom and Dad though, the chuckling over the cute mop tops morphed into a major bone of contention with the generation gap battles. No longer cute and funny lads they were viewed as destroyers of youth, the antichrists. What they really did was to give a voice to a generation and let us know its not only okay to question authority, its a responsibility when authority is being misused. Protest against wrongness, against war, evil and hatred, share love and peace and harmony. What a horrible message to send to kids. Joe McCarthy would have been incensed. With music as their only weapon they conquered us and spread the concept of peace, love, and togetherness to the masses. The Flower Children, The 60’s fashions, The protests, the outdoor concerts, all the positive aspects of the era can be traced back to The Beatles. The Beatles were the truth and the truth set us free. It all began one special night.
I truly hope that another generation of youth will have a perfect storm, a perfect harmony of lives that can reset perfect balance in the Universe the way the Beatles did for mine. Four guys, strangers, all from the same area meet in another country and become a rock and roll band and set the world on its head. Why those specific four? Why that specific area? Why that specific time? Four guys, all with extreme talent that compliments each other forming an unstoppable force. When the world needs it the Universe has a way of supplying the perfect storm like The Beatles. We need a perfect storm now, we need another Beatles. But I just can’t see that happening, the good karma, the positive energy, the light through the darkness coming together at the exact moment, the exact time, for the exact reason. I just can’t! But Hell, I’ve been wrong before, and if it can happen I’ll be glad to be wrong again. C’mon Universe, now more than ever, we need some Beatle magic. Give us just one more “One Really Big Special Night”……PEACE

To Sir, With love

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JJ

I Know What Its Like To Be Dead

A lyric from one of my fave Fab four tunes penned by John Lennon. The Fab Four, the boys of Liverpool, The Beatles. In retrospect I use the Beatle as a barometer of the status of my coming of age. When they took the US by storm I watched them on The Ed Sullivan Show. Back then we had only one TV and after the family deliberated we watched whatever we decided my Mom an Dad had chosen to watch. It was my introduction to a one sided democracy, but I was too little to engage in politics at that time. No matter, it was cool, the times were different then and that’s how most families viewed this high tech medium we called the idiot box. The family gathered and watched one of three channels, and The Ed Sullivan Show dominated Sunday evening prime time in most homes. I was excited because there was some new band from England on the show that night and they had girls screaming their names. I have four older brothers so my introduction to rock and roll was their 45 record collections of acts like The Everly Brothers, The Four Seasons, and a slew of others including Elvis the Pelvis Presley. I sat on the floor transfixed as The Beatles played a few way cool tunes! Mesmerized! When they finished I knew I had my own music now, The Beatles. The next day I decided I was gonna take the greasy kid stuff out of my hair and try and sneak some bangs past Mom.
Growing my hair proved to be much more difficult than I believed it would, but I kept at it. For years! Through tears, arguments, fights, and a few times being physically dragged up to Frankie The barber for a nice crew cut I did everything within my limited power to have a Beatle haircut. Eventually I prevailed, but that one night of Ed Sullivan changed my life. I rocked out to the hard driving love song of the boys and other acts like them for the next two years. In December of 65 is when Rubber Soul came out. Game changer!!! I was all of ten years old and suddenly my music world expanded immensely. Unusual instruments and sounds and their hair went from cute mop tops with bangs to a longer cut, like a girl. That’s what I wanted. I read every teen magazine article on the Beatles, bought whatever 45’s came out, and was changing along with whatever The Beatles did. The next album was “Yesterday and Today” which is when I learned what controversy meant. The cover of the album was described by Paul as “Our comment on The Vietnam War” , sometimes refered to as “the butcher cover.“ The boy were dressed in butchers smock with meats and plastic oll parts on them. It pissed off my Mom and Dad, sso I knew it was important and I embraced the Beatles even more. Now at age eleven, I was learning about politics while listening to even newer sounds by my hero’s.
Toward the end of that year is when Revolver came out, and it had the song I spoke of in the beginning,. “She Said She Said” which grabbed me instantly, along with many other psychedelic sounding songs. I went out to Spencer Gifts and bought black lights, lava lamps, strobes, and Day-Glo posters. I was dressing according to what they wore, or what the “Mods” were wearing on Barnaby Street. I attempted to part my hair in the center and grow it longer. That led to out and out battles, in which I did some profound personal growing. I began fully understanding politics, and in two years I would understand what Timothy Leary meant by “Turned On”
After Yesterday and Today, it was Sergeant Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine and by 1969 I was on my way from being a “Mod” kid wearing the latest fashion, Nehru jackets, love beads, granny glasses, and balloon sleeve shirts to becoming a hippie. As the Beatles changed, so did I. John Lennon had more influence on me than anyone else in the world, including teachers and family, and I had never even met him. But I listened to every interview, read every story, and followed all the escapades involving The Beatles in general, and John in particular. My devotion to peace, my devotion to equality, and my coming to understand hypocrisy was all due to following John Lennon’s philosophies.
I remember when Kennedy was shot but didn’t fully understand the implications.But I got that it was a profound moment in all our lives. I was much more aware when King, and Robert Kennedy were shot, fully aware of the implications. I followed the happenings of the Chicago Eight, or Seven if you forget Bobby Seale, became involved in protests, sit ins, attended peace rallies and was far more in tune to life than ever before all due to growing emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and politically along with The Beatles. I was fortunate to grow up in that era an I took full advantage of what they offered, way beyond merely their music.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened December 8th, 1980. Now another cog in the working class with a family. I was paining my kids playroom and listening to the radio when the music was interrupted to tell us that John Lennon had been shot an killed. It was a deeply felt emotional punch to the solar plexus. I put the paint brush down, sat on the step ladder and wept. The collective shock and sorrow felt by fans was like Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes. They call me on an on…..Across the Universe.
A friend who taught me right from wrong, and weak from strong that a lot to learn. What can I give you in return? To Sir, with love…Peace
IMAGINE .

Looking Through A Glass Onion

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The misunderstood onion is the multiple personality disorder victim of the culinary universe. Is it yellow, red, or white? Spanish, pearl, or cocktail? One minute a flavor enhancer and then quickly a breath altering son of a bitch. Sometimes a taste bud joy bringer and oft times a tear jerker this mood changing bulbous veggie staple is a well known in kitchens throughout the world. People are often compared to these versatile ever popular  alliums. “He is a complicated Person, with as many layers as an onion.” Indeed concentric in nature the royal onion is as complicated as a vegetable can be. “An onion a day keeps everyone away” That man was so ugly he could make an onion cry.” “ A cat has nine lives but an onion has seven skins.“ “An onion by any other name will never be a rose.” Okay, I made that last one up but you dig what I‘m saying.

         Ranging in size from tiny pearls to giant softballs the onion can in fact be peeled one layer after another. A staple in nearly every culture despite having an essence so peculiarly strong and venomous it rivals the skunks ability to cause one to pinch their nose shut tight. It can turn ones breath into a date breaking whiff of “please don’t call me ever again.”  Alfalfa was turned away by Darla on occasions when he had recently indulged in scallion chewing. It has a unique ability to coax salty droplets of liquid from our tear ducts which are normally saved for more emotional occurrences.  Only the slightest provocation of cutlery piercing its flesh brings teardrops scampering down our cheeks in a sometimes uncontrollable frenzy. This audacious vegetable permeates our olfactory senses in an all out assault that challenges the garlic’s long standing reign as king of tasty but offensive vegetables.

       The reason these bulbous alliums make tears come to our eyes is because of a chemical reaction that is much too scientific for me to memorize.  Suffice to say the onion contains amino acids in the sulfur family that gets released into the air. These guilty gasses travel up into the air and rub their irritants into our eyeballs prompting the tear ducts to come to our aid and flush out the acrid acid with a tear or two. I have heard many methods that “really work”. Keeping your mouth open will indeed work for a while because you will inhale the noxious fumes into your lungs via your oral cavity, but eventually so much gas will enter the atmosphere you will still tear up and have onion breath on top of it. Other methods such as running water, cutting near a flame or on the back burner of a stove produce even less successful results. Keeping something in your mouth is the same principle of an open mouth but for the less disciplined of us. The only real advice I have on this is to keep the onion as cold as possible or keep a small fan blowing away the fumes as you slice, dice, mince, or chop.

       Once past the tear inducing cut up stage the onion performs its intended task, the enhancement of flavor to almost any dish. In Cajun cuisine they call the onion and its often present partners peppers and celery the Holy Trinity of cooking.  It is the basis of nearly every soup an stew in the world, it adds umpf to pilaf, zing to zucchini and pop to popcorn shrimp. Its in sauces and sides, dressings and dinner entrees, salads. In appetizers and entrees, starches and sides, veggies and meat combos. Fried in rings or just  bloomin it makes solo appearances and it even has a starring role in cocktails. Yes the onion has a many faceted personality and it brings tremendous flavor enhancement to just about any dish. With a presence so pronounced in the culinary world you may think it deserves a birthday celebration all its own. Only problem is, we have no idea exactly when that would be.

       Some botanists say it was born in Iran and Pakistan, others argue it is originally from Central America, but the omnipotent onion seems to have been around forever.  Many anthropologists believe it was used by our cave dwelling ancestors, so a birthday would be next to impossible. They have seen evidence of onions in ancient Egypt where they believed it potent aroma could bring the dead back to life. Perhaps until the first unfortunates soul tried shredding the much more aggressive horseradish which may very well have the ability to awaken the non living. The onion made its way into Bible passages as well. The book of Numbers has the Israelite children lamenting of a diet filled with leeks and onions as they traveled the desert. The Romans, Greeks, and Indians all recognized the healing power of the vitamin rich veggie. The Olympians of ancient Greece fortified themselves with onions before their grueling events. Even the Middle Ages showered glory on these globes of culinary prominence. The three main foodstuffs of that era were cabbage, beans, and onions. Sounds more like weapons of mass stinkation. The magnificent onion was believed to have incredible medicinal properties curing everything from mouth sores to insomnia. I can only assume the happy sleeper was in bed alone! These special kitchen necessities were even taken on board the Mayflower, adding a special flavor enjoyment to the first Thanksgiving. It was one of the very first botanical treasures planted by the pilgrims on American soil.

       Yet with all of this, still no mention of a birthday celebration for the used and abused reigning king of culinary staple foods. This then has become my New Years resolution for 2013. I will do everything in my power to raise awareness of the injustice we have bestowed upon this essential aid in recipes around the world So I am asking you to join me in wishing the fabulous culinary workhorse, this noxious bulb, this fortune bringing, tear coaxing stench maker of the vegetable kingdom a very happy birthday the very second after the ball drops in NYC. Don’t cry for me Argentina, just slice me a few of those birthday onions to have with my champagne. Happy Birthday you many layered edible gem you……PEACE