December 8, 1980.
John Lennon had been shot.
I do this every December 8th..... I awake to the sad fact that this is the day that the man I perceived to be the very consciousness of music and art was gunned down.
In what was a bloody 17 years preceding this event, starting with JFK, Malcom, Martin, Bobby...... all of whom were transcendent political figures but nebulous figures to the mind of a child. As it turned out, those years and those violent deaths, for me, were an introduction to Cynicism 101.
You see, I wasn't quite able to truly understand the senseless violence that had occurred in those years leading up to this one.
However, when John was killed, I recognized something. Something similar. Something familiar. The killing had an eerie resemblance to the famous violent deaths that I had grown up with. I tried to make sense of it. Tried to cry out the rage. Tried to chalk it up to 'the way of the world'. But that never seemed enough. It still doesn't. I now believe that John Lennon's murder was the last American political assassination of the 20th century. The last gasp of Nixonland.
Every year at this time, as the days grow unbearably short and the sunlight slips away with impersonal ease, just as the years have since slipped away..... I look back and wish we had done better. In many ways we have accomplished astonishing things. In many ways we haven't come far at all.
Goodbye once again, Mr. Lennon.
I miss you.
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12:12 PM PT: Thank you for putting this on the rec list. Not for me, but for Mr. Lennon. His message of peace and sharing deserves this community's respect and honor.
thank you all.
j.