How many of you watched the Lennon in NYC documentary on PBS last night? I saw it and thought it was great! I totally bawled my eyes out from the "house husband" years until his death, but still really enjoyed the show. I saw some photos and footage that was new to me along with a few new stories. Good stuff!
Like any good Lennon fan, I can't watch something and not find some issues with it. LOL. I guess the biggest thing I had problems with is the whole "Lost Weekend" myth. Now I know that May Pang herself said that she was not happy with how that time in John's life was shown on this program. I always thought that Yoko set John up with May but did not know that they were leaving for L.A. until after the fact. Maybe I am incorrect on thinking that. Once again, the photos and the story of the "Kotex" incident made it look like it happened the same night as the "Smother's Brother's" incident. Not a huge deal, but it is just historically inaccurate. And lastly the myth that John and Yoko got back together the night of John's performance at the Elton John concert. Not just this documentary, but many of them, make it sound like John saw Yoko after this concert and the two of them went back to the Dakota that night and started to conceive Sean. Now I do not doubt that seeing each other that night might not have started something in both of their minds and hearts about getting back together. But they did not physically get back together for another few months.
OK....off my high horse about that junk. Really it was a top-notch documentary. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it!
Like any good Lennon fan, I can't watch something and not find some issues with it. LOL. I guess the biggest thing I had problems with is the whole "Lost Weekend" myth. Now I know that May Pang herself said that she was not happy with how that time in John's life was shown on this program. I always thought that Yoko set John up with May but did not know that they were leaving for L.A. until after the fact. Maybe I am incorrect on thinking that. Once again, the photos and the story of the "Kotex" incident made it look like it happened the same night as the "Smother's Brother's" incident. Not a huge deal, but it is just historically inaccurate. And lastly the myth that John and Yoko got back together the night of John's performance at the Elton John concert. Not just this documentary, but many of them, make it sound like John saw Yoko after this concert and the two of them went back to the Dakota that night and started to conceive Sean. Now I do not doubt that seeing each other that night might not have started something in both of their minds and hearts about getting back together. But they did not physically get back together for another few months.
OK....off my high horse about that junk. Really it was a top-notch documentary. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it!
Yeah, I don't like how the Lost Weekend and the reunion are usually protrayed either. Have you read May's book? It's pretty interesting.
ReplyDeleteJohn and Yoko "reunited" after this concert by connecting with each other and that was the beginning of the end of the seperation. He did not move back that night he moved back two months later.
ReplyDeleteI do not see why May makes such a fuss about all this. Is it really so important that he spent an extra two months with her when in his heart he was already back with Yoko?
I think May's problem is that she's never really gotten over her association with John and is kind of trapped in that time. Don't get me wrong, she seems like a lovely person. I enjoyed "Instamatic Karma" for showing that "The Lost Weekend" wasn't all hell. And who can blame her for valuing her time with JOHN LENNON so highly?!?
ReplyDeleteHowever, it's unfortunate that May has never been able to publicly accept that John clearly went back to Yoko because he wanted to.
Regardless of what people think of Yoko, at the end of the day John was married to her for 12 years- even then, only 'til death did they part- and compared to that, his relationship with May was just a fling. Doesn't mean he didn't care a great deal for her, but that's not the same as a life partner.
After the LennoNYC screening, May criticised Elton John for making a minor factual error about who got the tickets for the Madison Square Garden show, & also Bob Gruen about how John ended up wearing his famous "New York City" T-Shirt. May made this sound like they were all part of some bizarre "Pro-Yoko" conspiracy. In reality, why would they remember such trivial things almost 40 years later? But for May, such details are hard-wired into her memory & she can't seem to understand why they aren’t for everyone else.
Perhaps the most destructive aspect of the kind of overwhelming fame John Lennon had is the way it ruins everyone on the periphery of it. For instance, Cynthia ends her book “John” by stating that if she could have known all that lay ahead in advance, she would never have gone out with John in the first place. Yet all these years (and several marriages) later she still uses “Lennon” as her surname and is forever on talk shows, etc, talking about the terrible time that she had with John. I hope both she and May can one day truly leave all this behind them, but it seems increasingly unlikely.
Wow, that turned into a bit of a rant, sorry! :)
Great points, Mark. I agree with you 100% that Cyn and May need to get over all the hurt and disappointment. However, in their defense, I can also say that, from personal experience, falling in love with a very charismatic (and narcissistic) man can leave pretty deep emotional scars... kinda messes a girl up for a while. But, yeah... get over it already!
ReplyDeleteJohn's personality was based on being abandoned by his parents. This was brought out in depth in this documentary. It changed him, as did becoming a Beatle.
ReplyDeleteYet, he did the same to Julian, Cynthia and May.
Why wouldn't they feel hurt? They never had closure as to why John left them for Yoko, just as he never had closure from his parents. It is a deep wound that doesn't heal.
i totally agree with mark (i know those comments were written like 10 months nos, but)
ReplyDeletei do see what John saw in Cyn and May... they have kind of the same "gentile" personality... but at the end, its kind of boring, its not a challenge to satisfy those people nor they stimulate you (in an intellectual and relationship level).
Yoko was attractive to John as a strong, challenging woman, able to say to him is his writings were "lame".
And so, i think is just pathetic from May (as she says on the book "Lennon Revealed") that even her young kids know about her relationship with John...
Can you imagine being her child, and your mom is always talking of a guy she dated and it isnt your dad,(it came to be John Lennon). And she says her kids are proud... this is hyllarious and pathetic all at once
There was even books written on even after Lennon began his House husband years even to the last week of his death that he was still secretly seeing May Pang on the side. True or not true? Not sure. Only may Pang can answer that.
ReplyDeleteYa just gotta love when people just say 'Get over it' when it comes to matters of heart and soul. Since Yoko is the all powerful woman with the famous last name of LENNON, she has a terrible habit of tossing important people that were in John's life before, during, after they hooked up. Yoko has some set of gonads pointing fingers to anyone, since she was targeting John from the moment she set eyes on him. It was so far from that bullcrap story about meeting at the gallery.Yoko was knocking on the Beatles money door back in 1966, Brian Epstein remembered meeting her! Yoko would like to have erased everyone that mattered to John, his family back in Liverpool, his first wife, his first son, Paul, George & Ringo...Yoko is if nothing else, cunning and manipulative.She knew how to charm the pants off of John and worm her way into his pants pocket...it surely wasn't a sexual thing, cos if you look at photos of John & Yoko kissing OMG it's like a brother and sister kissing hello @ an airport! There is NO passion there.Look at early photos of Ringo/Maureen,George/Pattie and even Paul/Jane.The kiss that John planted on May 12 March 1974 that was blown out on every newspaper was a KISS of passion! Geezus his cheeks were sucked into that puckerup!!! The ONLY reason Yoko got pissed is that photo was blasted all over the place..yet she was hot and heavy with David Spinozza back in NYC...no one cared about who she was boinking.Yoko worked her way into John's head way back when he was zonked out taking way toooo many acid trips...Regardless of how Cynthia's personality is/was whatever, admit that John is a complete wuss in the way he let his wife know he was cheating on her..Luckily for both J&Y that Cynthia is always a LADY with class and grace and didn't just smack the F*CK outta Yoko at HER kitchen table in HER house with HER husband! Yoko has a big set of gonads for sure...really now, does anyone really believe that she never heard of 'Beatles' back then?? Chanting monks in caves in the Tibetan mountains knew who the Beatles were...gimme a damn break..:)
ReplyDeletep.s. Lennon was a house-husband like Donald Trump has a good hair style LOL If you believe that crap, I have a couple of used bridges I can sell to ya...
ReplyDeletethanks for printing all these comments as they are very interesting!
ReplyDelete