Re: My thoughts on John & Yoko

On Jan 19, 3:21 pm, palejewel...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Jan 19, 9:20 am, F Parella <f_pare...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Jan 17, 9:17 pm, Fattuchus <fattuc...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jan 17, 3:43 pm, UsurperTom <Usurper...@xxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jan 17, 12:26 pm, "I Love Dhani's Chest Hair"

<aeriewinds...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
John loved Japan.

No, he didn't. John suffered a nervous breakdown in Japan in 1978.

Exactly.

Reports of John's trips to Japan are conflicting; Elliot Mintz, the
spin doctor, would have the world believe John loved Japan. The
Goldman book and Green's book say otherwise.

Yeah, the main sources for the state of Lennon's mind during his trips
to Japan in the late 70s seem to be Mintz (quoted in the Rolling Stone
"Private Years" article), Goldman, and Green.  Goldman (who quotes a
letter Lennon wrote to himself during one of the Japan stays) and
Green say Lennon was generally pretty miserable, going for extended
periods without leaving his room (Green claims he urged Ono get Lennon
to a doctor); while Mintz goes on floridly about how joyful Lennon's
life was in Japan.  Maybe JL *was* miserable - until Mintz showed up!
There are pictures of Lennon, Ono, and Mintz in Japan in an edition of
Coleman's book.

It seemed ironic and very one sided to me that Yoko would drag John
around Japan to meet her family and they would stay there for weeks at
a time; yet once John left England, he never went back, not even to
see Mimi or Julian.

At least some of these travels were undertaken according to the
instructions of Ono's numerologist...who was, FWIW, Japanese.

I read the Green book. It may be even more hilarious than Fred's.
Fred's personal take is more amusing while Green's seems to be mostly
reiterated or directly quoted conversations of John and Yoko
separately with Green as a droll narrator. (He is said to have taped
their phone conversations.)  Since they are very amusing people, it's
hilarious, like a game of telephone. I read it in the library a few
years ago and truly had to stifle open and non-derisive laughter at
points.

Anyway, my impression from his direct quotes was that Yoko was
overreacting to John's "nervous breakdown."  He got sick of being
ignored and left out of the daily interaction as husbands often are
when the wife goes home to visit her family - much less a family with
a language barrier.  So since no one was acknowledging him anyway,  he
stood in a corner and pretended to be dead, a ghost, a spirit. He'd
moan occasionally in a ghostly manner. If he had had chains he would
have rattled them. He did this for days.

Yoko didn't get it and naturally thought he was going insane. <g>
Maybe it's a western thing and you need to be raised with jokes about
spooks and shades, but to me, this was a hilarious, very Lennonesque
piece of performance art - done only for an audience of one -
himself.

Another hilarious part of DD, I thought, was where Lennon left his
hotel and greeted an older Japanese man, perhaps to test his
Japanese. The man began to mime guitar playing, and asked, "Beatle,
Beatle? Yes?" And Lennon responded, "No. Rolling Stone." Then
walked away.

IIRC, Yoko called Mintz over so Lennon could have a white person to
hang out with.

That was what she said, at least. Yoko originally proposed bringing
"Dan G." (John Green's alias for Sam Green) over - and he did in fact
visit Japan -, but JG told her that these men did not have much in
common with Lennon ("These are the people *you* like to spend time
with, Yoko").

It wasn't a nervous breakdown - even though Yoko apparently thought it
was.

.

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