the most painful pictures

Is it just me or is it difficult for others to look at pictures of John in the last few years of his life? Knowing he finally had his life together and had found peace only to be shot down senselessly by some whacko is just infuriating to me. To this day I still can't help but think "what if"? What if someone had pushed John out of the way, what if someone had been there to attack the gunmen, what if the bullets had not fatally hit him.....I know I could go on for days but why did it have to be John? He should be enjoying a wonderful right now in his adopted hometown of New York City. God knows what other great music he would have made. Losing John Lennon for me was like losing a member of my family. I don't think I will ever fully get over it. Peter Boyle said it best in a recent interview: "Its just as horrible and painful to this day as it was the day it happened". Sometimes the pain of a tragic event dulls with the passage of time; this one has not and I don't think ever will.

i don't think that anybody that can think who was anywhere near the counter-culture revolution of the sixites will ever get over it. i know that it has made a tremendous impact on me, just as it has many others. But then again i'm sure that John realized that where he choose to live is basically just one big aboveground sewer. i think that i read somewhere that he felt that the people there were more real or down to earth or something along those lines. And perhaps he wasn't shy about his destiny. Unless anyone of us were John or Yoko, then we'll never really know.

But getting back to the OP question. No, any images of John being just John or even John being the frontman for the Beatles doesn't bother me one bit. Mainly because i realize that he was, at that time in his life, as happy as he could possibly humanly be.

Where John lived actually had nothing to do with why he was shot and no New York City is not some above ground sewer; especially where the Dakota Building is located. John loved living in New York and I don't blame him. He had a great mix of many different cultures around him that made it a perfect place for him to be. His killer was actually some idiot from the south who tried to buy ammunition in New York but was denied. He then traveled back to redneckville (Georgia) so he could buy the ammunition. He came all the way from Hawaii to shoot John so he probably would have went anywhere he had to to kill him. New York city had NOTHING to do with Lennon's death. Psychos like that guy are bred in the south all the time. That's why I stay away from that place.

Alright! Enough with the remarks about the south! I'm from the south...Psycho's are everywhere. Don't single the south out...you're doing excatly what you were mad at OFan for. Being from a certain part of the country doesn't have anything to do with your mental state. Ok?

You make it sound like living in the South is a crime itself. CalifTom, don't rush to judgments about a geographic location. I was born in the north, lived along both Pacific and Atlantic coast and currently reside in the South. I think you should rephrase your remark.

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Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page

I agree, CalifTom, that the pain of such a tragedy becomes tolerable, but no less intense with time. I'll never get over it. I don't want to.

i luv john.

I'm 22 years old and it's tough for me to think about the circumstances surrounding Lennon's tragic death. I can only imagine what it must be like for the generations before me; for those who grew up loving the Beatles and continuted on loving them as individuals long after the group disbanded. It's hard for me to watch the TV specials on Lennon, all I do is cry. I try not to think about the bad stuff and remember that though his light was prematurely extinguished, his fire still burns in so many of us even today.

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My role in society, or any artist or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all. Lennon 12.8.80

http://amymichelle.faithweb.com

Since I'm fifteen, John's death has been a part of reality to me (which really sucks, I might add) and I have this weird thing about John and his death. I look at "younger John" (think Rubber Soul and earlier) and that John seems immortal, yet "older John" seems dead. I don't know if this makes sense to anyone, maybe I'm just going crackers..

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- "How did you find America?"
- "Turned left at Greenland."
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That nut could have come from anywhere, and found John no matter where he was.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Miss Winters:
I'm 22 years old and it's tough for me to think about the circumstances surrounding Lennon's tragic death. I can only imagine what it must be like for the generations before me; for those who grew up loving the Beatles and continuted on loving them as individuals long after the group disbanded. It's hard for me to watch the TV specials on Lennon, all I do is cry. I try not to think about the bad stuff and remember that though his light was prematurely extinguished, his fire still burns in so many of us even today.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I, along with a few others here, lived through Beatlemania and the break-up. I thought the world was going to end when the news of their break-up became public knowledge. But realizing that they would all still record new material gave me the reason to continue following their solo careers.
20 years ago, one chapter from their lives ended abrupty, and it was very hard to take. On a personal level, I felt that a part of my life ended that night as well.
But with the ever-growing amount of new fans that "discover" them and spread their music to others, give me the reason to do the same. As long as we keep remembering, they will live forever.

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Bearkat77's Beatlemaniac Page

[This message has been edited by bearkat77 (edited December 13, 2000 at 07:24 PM).]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Tahoma, Arial, Sans-Serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by CalifTom:
Where John lived actually had nothing to do with why he was shot and no New York City is not some above ground sewer; especially where the Dakota Building is located. John loved living in New York and I don't blame him. He had a great mix of many different cultures around him that made it a perfect place for him to be. His killer was actually some idiot... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Point well taken. I can't even count how many times I've wondered why he didn't exercise more caution or restraint or for that matter just had a couple of bodyguards. Well I guess that wasn't John the human being. That was John the Beatle. And he said constantly that he was tired of being John the Beatle.

I've talked to people that have either lived in New York or visited there. And without exception I always ask them is it really like the images conjured up on television shows and the news. The answer is invariably yes. Not an aboveground sewer? Have you already forgot about the wildings in Central Park, the subway stories (yes they are true) as portrayed in the mass media? In all fairness I have never been to New York or even strayed far from my upper-middle class origins. I know it is not exactly safe for me to stroll down the streets of Compton for example and all that. But a whole city where hardly no body is even remotely safe? Where evidently you take your life in your hands just going down to the corner store? No thank you.

His killer was an idiot. But don't be so quick to portray him as a simple minded idiot and nothing more than that. That is a quick and convenient media misperception/deception, enforced by endless television ads, an impotent government and lost dreams. And only in America is there a price tag on everything. Everything it seems including yourdreams. Peace.

I wish i had a time machine. Then, I could go back in time, and push John out of the way. I love John so. His death is tragic to all of us. I don't want our other Beatles to die...


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I Love Ringo Starr! Goo Goo 'Ga Joob! We all live in a Yellow Submarine! I love The Beatles!!!!! Let it Be.

I'm not defending NY City at all. I live in NJ. But John was just going from his limo to the apt entrance. Should the bodyguards have checked every fan who was standing there (rhetorically speaking)?
It was a great loss for sure. For those of us who grew up with the Beatles, John was certainly a part of our lives. When he was killed, the landscape had changed.It was like a family member had died and we all felt it.

I live in New York! Believe me, John lived in a beautiful, safe part of the City. He loved strolling around. My husband saw him many times in the Rockefeller Center area and he was always cordial, but kept moving. I personally thought that he was too visible, too accessible; but he didn't want to live like a prisoner. On that tragic night, however, he was already at his home. That maniac was determined to take John's life. Nothing was going to stop him. I know N.Y. has its flaws, but you certainly can't blame this City for John's death. I AM, however, terribly sorry that it happened here -- a place that John loved.

I don't for one second blame the City of New York or any one of it's inhabitants for John's death at the hands of a madman. I know that it wasn't a matter of when, why or where, instead it was a matter of who. Basically, I'm upset because he was trying to be himself, which he already was, and instead was constantly being crucified in the press for his beliefs. That's what I'm really referring to, in the general sense that is.

Since when is it are people not even remotely safe to walk to the corner store in New York City? You HAVE been watching too much television. According to recent crime studies, New York is actually one of the safer cities to live in these days with a crime and murder rate well below those of cities like New Orleans, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Atlanta and Chicago. Crime happens everywhere, nobody is totally safe. And for the second time: Where John Lennon lived had NOTHING to do with why he was killed. His killer was NOT a New Yorker. He lived in Hawaii at the time of John's murder and was originally from Georgia. Please get the facts straight.