Monday, October 28, 2024

John and Yoko's Love for San Francisco



 

A Death in the Life

By Herb Caen

December 9, 1980

The San Francisco Examiner 

    I met John Lennon and Yoko only once here in July of 1972. We ate at the Mandarin and then sat at a table outside Enrico's Coffee House. John and Yoko were dressed in black, generous with their eye contact as a crowd swiftly gathered. A not-at-all-young stockbroker grabbed Lennon's arm and said, unexpectedly, "You're a great guy!" Panhandlers edged forward and rewarded at $5 a crack "rich tax." Lennon smiled. Young girls offered flowers, joints themselves.

     In a quieter corner, Lennon peered out a window through his bottle-thick glasses and said, "We're crazy about this city. First time we came here, we walked the streets all day, all over town, and nobody hassled us. People smiled, friendly-like and we knew we could live here. In Los Angeles, that's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco. The food in this city is fantastic! Better than London! More variety and the strange lights. We've never been in a city with light like this. We sit in our hotel room at the Myako for hours watching the fog come in and the light change."

     John and Yoko had arrived here in a beat-up Volkswagen. "We drove from New York," he said, "Yoko and I have probably seen more of the United States than most Americans. Unitedstatians? When I was a Beatle, I didn't see anything. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. In Nevada, we got out of the car and rolled in the sand. We've never seen a desert before. We want to live here permanently. There's violence, sure, and it's scary sometimes, but there are so many good people, so many chances for change." John and Yoko nodded together when he said that their eyes bright.


1 comment:

  1. They were planning to go to Frisco in 1981 to a demonstration for Japanese workers rights. So John was going politically active again…

    ReplyDelete