October 9

Today would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday.

When I look back on my life, I realize that I have already lived most of it. Yet in all these years nothing impacted my life more than the Beatles. And I know no happenstance in the future will equal it.

I still remember the cover photo of the first Beatle magazine I bought. McCartney was my favorite Beatle. According to the Beatle magazines, Paul McCartney had black hair, hazel eyes, was 5'11, his favorite color was blue (which then became my favorite color) and his ideal woman was Brigitte Bardot. I slept with a photo of Paul McCartney next to me in bed during the whole of Beatlemania.

So it puzzles me. What did the Beatles do to deserve what happened to them -- John Lennon shot and killed; George Harrison stabbed 10 times and developing lung cancer? They gave pleasure to the world and their celebrity attracted the weirdos and the right-wingers.

One thing I don't think people know: John Lennon loved Ringo. He said he would help Ringo, should he need it, and see that he wants for nothing. After Lennon's death, I saw Ringo on TV giving 3 different interviews. In all these newsclips he is visibly drunk. Who could blame him? (He is now a recovering alcoholic.)

John Lennon at 70. What would he be like? Would he use Botox? Would he be reed-thin, as he was when he died? Would he still be composing?

Are people aware there's a statue of John Lennon in a little park in Cuba because of the song "Imagine"? The Utopia sounds like communism and is my least favorite song of his. But I remember John as courageous and funny and sharp and good-looking; and a great song writer, dancer and poet. This next anecdote makes me laugh when I think of it. He's in an elevator with the rest of the Beatles and their wives/girlfriends and Brian Epstein. Epstein asks, "I finished writing my memoir but I don't know what to call it," and John says, "How about 'Queer Jew'"? It does sum up Brian Epstein, though in a negative way. Without batting an eyelash.