This blog exists to support liberatory collectivist activism that seeks to uproot patriarchy, colonialism, and capitalism. It also acts to center the experiences, theories, and agendas of radical and feminist women of color.
I haven't written about it lately, but I do love the Beatles. All four. I miss John and George. No, I don't wish Pete Best had remained the drummer because Ringo's love of his three bandmates was some of the glue that held them together as long as they were. I do wish Stu Sutcliffe had lived. To those who know who Pete and Stu are, who also love the Beatles, drop me a note and say hi.
I've heard that half of all Beatles songs were about love. While the Rolling Stones were singing about women as things to be used or put down, John, Paul, and George were writing sensitive songs about women they loved very much, including their mothers who died when they were teenagers, in the case of John and Paul.
I probably believed at one point in time, "All You Need Is Love". And depending on how you understand what love is and what constitutes loving action, I might still agree. As long as it is considered loving to work at radically transforming oppressive systems into humane ones. As long as it is loving to be pro-revolution with the result of change being more love and less hate, more peace and less war, more health and less suffering, more sustainable living and less destructive consumption.
It has been curious to me for some time, as a Jew, that Christians look to a Jew named Jesus for inspiration, support, and healing, but usually forget that his loving actions included challenging a corrupt State, standing with oppressed and denigrated people, including women in prostitution, and rejected any kind of human King or Ruler, instead calling on people to follow something found deep in their hearts. One colleague of mine, who is Christian, Black, and feminist, finds what's radical about his teachings, while most men and whites apparently cannot. Maybe they don't want to do what he's asking them to do because for men and whites, there's a very material and social advantage to maintaining, or at least not interrupting, male and white supremacy.
Jesus sounds like a bit of an anarchist to me.
The Buddha was a rich young man who had to break out of his confined, very privileged life to see how people suffered in ways that never occurred to him. His heart was broken open by what he found out and he spent a great deal of time contemplating what it all meant that some suffer as they do. This led to insights about who we are and can be when we see Samsara for what it is: a realm of human suffering that is not the only realm of Being.
I once heard from a Rabbi that the mystical version of a Jewish G-d isn't one gender, calls on us to bring together the broken pieces of our collective soul, and, with love, heal ourselves and each other.
I don't practice a religion. I'm not atheistic but I'm not exactly a theist either. What I understand to be G-d isn't quite as personified as the Western gods I grew up learning about. Rather than G-d as a being, I think more about G-d as Being and Becoming, showing up in existence and action, and in everything else too.
If love is an action as well as a feeling and experience, then love calls on me to speak out against injustice and systematic harm. Love calls on me to be self-critical, self-compassionate, and critical and compassionate with others also.
I've made mistakes demonstrating a willingness to be critical without showing the compassion. To myself and to others. Mostly to myself.
I am working on bringing more love to the work I do. If I slip up, I hope you'll let me know what I did that wasn't loving so I have a chance to learn from increased awareness of the effects of my actions, to apologise, and to do better in the future.
John Lennon's song "Imagine" spoke to my heart when I was very young. How did I understand what it meant, I wonder? Perhaps that was the gift of his lyrics, strongly influenced by Yoko Ono's work in her book Grapefruit.
Men have organised civilisations in ways that make slavery, genocide, and rape crucial to some men's well-being. Surely many of us can gather our energies and transform what these men have made into something far more humane and sustainable. Can't we?
I know some very kind men, het men and bi men and gay men, who would be on board with this more humane world. I know far more women who have been working for decades to bring this world into our present, against great odds, with so many men calling them horrid names and threatening them in vicious ways.
It's time to wrest corrupt forms of power out of the hands of men who value destruction, oppression, and war more than creativity, humane being, and peace. It's been time for centuries.
The reason I don't think the problem is "men" exactly is because many men, not necessarily people who have called themselves that English term have lived on the Earth for thousands of years never inflicting the horrors on people we've seen in the last five hundred years especially. Whiteness is a new phenomenon and brings with it an especially horrid form of human being that finds slavery and genocide and rape to be politically necessary, sexually pleasurable, and economically profitable.
I have to believe that everyone who follows this blog believes the world can be better than it is, and that girls-in-slavery, Indigenous people being threatened with genocide worldwide, and white supremacy and capitalist patriarchy are not good for us, if "us" means "all life on Earth".
Please write in to say you agree that the world needs to be radically different than it is. And that Indigenous people ought not be threatened by non-Indigenous people; that women and girls ought not be threatened, exploited, and assaulted by het men; and that life on Earth can be in harmony. Not a bliss-only kind of harmony; but a harmony that doesn't make room for gross atrocities perpetrated by oppressive humans, in groups, against other groups seen and treated as inferior.
Dream strong and bring this dream to life. And if possible, stop harming people who are not the enemy. Stop abusing and exploiting people who are female. Stop threatening and scaring people who are oppressed. Stop using terms that make women into evil things, like b*tch or wh*re. All women are fully human. There's no such thing as a "b*tch" or a "wh*re", even while so many men and women believe there is.
To all men:
Treat all girls and women with respect and regard. If a woman has harmed you harshly, get out of her life and leave her alone. Treat all oppressed people as if your life was dependent on their well-being, because it is.
One day the Sun and the Earth will work together to turn everything we know into dust. The Earth, before that time, will find ways to regain balance and make itself a far more heavenly place than the hellish one it is currently. No matter how much cancer-causing radioactive elements, diseases, conditions of preventable suffering, and other forms of pain men unleash on the Earth, it will emerge healthy--but probably not with lots of people living here. But we don't all have to perish for Life to thrive on this planet. And the most humane beings and those of us who are caring of the Earth shouldn't be the first to go.
We just need to replace the powerfully corrupt anti-woman, anti-Indigenous people with caring, compassionate people who are able to challenge and change every social, economic, religious, and political system that requires organised harm. We have to be those people. We have to work together. Now.
photo taken on Dec. 8, 2010, at Strawberry Fields in Central Park, NYC, across from the Dakota, Yoko's home
Original captions reads: Cards, candles and pictures adorned a John Lennon memorial in Central Park, New York
[This A.R.P. post is a companion post to one done earlier in the day. You may link to it *here*. See also the post of fellow Beatle fan and feminist blogger, Cara, *here* on her blog, The Curvature.]
Above is a BBC News photo which appears the article on the source website, may be linked to by clicking on the title which appears later in this post ["John Lennon celebrated on anniversary"]. But first a story from feminist and artist, Yoko Ono, published in Wednesday's New York Times. You may link back by clicking on the title. The photo just below is also from that NYT piece and is credited to its photographer in the caption.
photography courtesy of Kishin Shinoyam. For more by her, on her amazing images of Yoko and John, please see *here*.
JOHN and I are in our Dakota kitchen in the middle of the night. Three cats — Sasha, Micha and Charo — are looking up at John, who is making tea for us two.
Sasha is all white, Micha is all black. They are both gorgeous, classy Persian cats. Charo, on the other hand, is a mutt. John used to have a special love for Charo. “You’ve got a funny face, Charo!” he would say, and pat her.
“Yoko, Yoko, you’re supposed to first put the tea bags in, and then the hot water.” John took the role of the tea maker, for being English. So I gave up doing it.
It was nice to be up in the middle of the night, when there was no sound in the house, and sip the tea John would make. One night, however, John said: “I was talking to Aunt Mimi this afternoon and she says you are supposed to put the hot water in first. Then the tea bag. I could swear she taught me to put the tea bag in first, but ...”
“So all this time, we were doing it wrong?”
“Yeah ...”
We both cracked up. That was in 1980. Neither of us knew that it was to be the last year of our life together.
This would have been the 70th birthday year for John if only he was here. But people are not questioning if he is here or not. They just love him and are keeping him alive with their love. I’ve received notes from people in all corners of the world letting me know that they were celebrating this year to thank John for having given us so much in his 40 short years on earth.
The most important gift we received from him was not words, but deeds. He believed in Truth, and had dared to speak up. We all knew that he upset certain powerful people with it. But that was John. He couldn’t have been any other way. If he were here now, I think he would still be shouting the truth. Without the truth, there would be no way to achieve world peace.
On this day, the day he was assassinated, what I remember is the night we both cracked up drinking tea.
They say teenagers laugh at the drop of a hat. Nowadays I see many teenagers sad and angry with each other. John and I were hardly teenagers. But my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed.
Yoko Ono is an artist.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 8, 2010, on page A35 of the New York edition.
John Lennon fans have sung his songs, laid flowers and lit candles on the 30th anniversary of the Beatle's death.
Vigils have been held in New York, where the music legend was shot dead, and his home city of Liverpool.
"I really do feel like I got a sense of peace here tonight," said Adam Byrne, 34, from Liverpool. "I think his message is still as strong as ever."
His widow Yoko Ono played a concert in Tokyo, while gatherings have also taken place in cities from Prague to Havana.
The musician was 40 years old when he was killed by crazed fan M*** C****** [edited by Julian] outside the Dakota Building in Manhattan.
In Liverpool, several hundred people with candles and glowsticks braved cold temperatures to sing Lennon songs and listen to poetry inspired by the late Beatle.
The vigil was held next to a peace monument that was unveiled by his first wife Cynthia and son Julian in October and has been dedicated to John Lennon.
A giant photograph of John with Julian watched over the crowd, alongside a banner bearing the name of one of John's signature songs, Give Peace A Chance.
Crowds gathered around a peace monument (right) dedicated to Lennon in Liverpool
"That message is still loud and clear today as much now as it was then," said Mr Byrne.
"It's nice to see that people still remember John and we still carry a piece of John with us. Peace is possible."
Chris McIver, from the Wirral, said it was a "very nice, peaceful, happy evening".
"We're here just to remember John and to reflect on the night that we heard the news ourselves, to think of John and to celebrate."
Mr McIver recalled hearing the news of Lennon's death on TV. "I just couldn't believe it," he said.
"I remember just going into the lounge, sitting on a chair and I couldn't move for about an hour. I was in complete shock."
Phil Hanson, another fan in Liverpool's Chavasse Park, described the atmosphere as "lovely, warm and loving".
"He's one of my idols," he said. "John Lennon saved my life. I've even got a tattoo of him on my arm."
We still learn so much from him today. John, I love you!” End Quote Yoko Ono
In New York, hundreds of fans gathered in Central Park, near the spot where Lennon was shot.
Flowers were laid in the Strawberry Fields area, which was converted to a memorial garden after his death.
Ono performed at a charity concert in Japan called Dream Power John Lennon Super Live, which raises money for schools for deprived children all over the world.
"On this tragic anniversary please join me in remembering John with deep love and respect," she said in a statement.
"In his short lived life of 40 years, he has given so much to the world. The world was lucky to have known him.
"We still learn so much from him today. John, I love you!"
Their son Sean, now a musician, used Twitter to respond to the tributes to his father.
"Thank you for all the kind words," he said. "Let's all just pray for peace on earth. That's what he cared about most."
This was a favorite photograph of John Lennon's of himself with his partner in art and life, Yoko Ono. It was taken by famed Rock n' Roll photographer, Bob Gruen. Thanks Bob, for taking such wonderful portraits of the Ono Lennons. For more, please see www.bobgruen.com and also here.
[There is a companion A.R.P. post that accompanies this one, posted later the same day, which may be found *here*.]
We are both sensitive people and we were hurt a lot by it. I mean, we couldn't understand it. When you're in love, when somebody says something like, 'How can you be with that woman?' you say, 'What do you mean? I am with this goddess of love, the fulfillment of my whole life. Why are you saying this? Why do you want to throw a rock at her or punish me for being in love with her?' Our love helped us survive it, but some of it was pretty violent. There were a few times when we nearly went under, but we managed to survive it and here we are.
-- John Lennon
Thirty years ago. It was a Monday night. I was watching TV. A special announcement came on with a very sober-looking newsperson stating that John Lennon had been brought to the Roosevelt Hospital after being shot and was pronounced dead on arrival.
Shock. What???!!! No. Can't be. No.
But it was the case. I spent the next hours in grief, having two radios on, each one broadcasting various memorial programming, mostly airing Beatles and John Lennon/Yoko Ono songs. Double Fantasy had been released weeks earlier and had brought their music back into the lives of the public. The whole album was a love song in the form of a musical conversation between Yoko and John.
And it was off to school in the morning, with my eyes only wanting to find the eyes of one other person: a classmate who I knew would be mourning too. She came in looking so sad. The way I felt. So very sad. We hugged. Everyone else, for most part, seemed oblivious. It was just another day. Hardly. John Lennon was gone. It was inconceivable, yet true. Grief and mourning is the soul's process of coming to terms with great loss, however personal or social.
Three decades have passed since that night. In those years there have been many wars by the U.S. against the rest of the world--both military and economic. In that time many millions of women have been brutalised by men who believe they have the right to do so.
What has struck me most in the remembrances of John since what would have been his 70th birthday on 9 October 2010 and since, through to this day, is how little mention has been made about his feminism, his attraction to Yoko Ono as a romantic/idealistic/artistic/creative/intellectual/political equal. When media folks remember his activism, it is focused on him being against the Vietnam war (which he was, at least since 1966), and for peace. But John understood that being for peace means being against men's control and brutality of women. He understood that being pro-feminist is the principled, honorable stance for any man to take. If they're humane, that is. If they wish to be fully human. I am hoping more men will get the message and take it to heart, and to other men.
John Lennon always had a deep connection to several women. His love of specific women he knew was a force, directing him lyrically and in life. John admitted his propensity for violence against women (and also towards other men). He understood it was no way to be a man, and he figuring out how to stop it, even while so much of his earlier socialisation had promoted him being a brute, misdirecting his own feelings of grief and anger and hurt and frustration through his male supremacist entitlement to harm others. He learned how to not be violent against women, which shows us that every man can. He missed out on raising his first child, Julian. He was sure not to make that mistake with his second son, Sean, who he stayed home with during Sean's first five years, until John was murdered in front of their home in The Dakota apartment building, across from Central Park in NYC.
I remember seeing live footage of tons of fans gathering there that night, December 8, 1980, singing his songs, tears streaming down their faces. I wished I could have been with them. I found out many years later how difficult that was for Yoko, to hear her deceased husband's songs all night long. But she understood their need to gather.
Sean picks up John's love of Yoko in singing this track of his father's, written by John to his mother, Julia, about his love for his spiritual-intellectual-political-creative life-partner Yoko Ono, who aside from being a great visual, conceptual, and musical artist, is also John's widow and Sean's mom:
When you think of John Lennon today, please remember the man who learned how to stop being violent to women in his life. Remember the man who chose to spend time with a woman who sparked his imagination more than three guys he'd spent the prior several years with and how this choice of his outraged so many men, who believe there is nothing more sacred than male bonding and that women "get in the way". Remember the quote that begins this post, about how hurt they each were that so many people said such ignorant and insensitive things about their love for one another, and about Yoko Ono specifically. Remember the man who understood that Yoko Ono was not beneath him or above him--she was with him, as an equal: a partner in love and life. And please don't forget that he was her love too. The love story isn't just about what she gave to him.
From The Scotsman. After the short article is one more video by John Lennon about his love for Yoko Ono. Please click on the title to link back.
John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono gave a heartfelt plea for the former Beatle to be remembered "with deep love and respect" on 30th anniversary of his murder today.
As she spoke yesterday of her continued love for the star, she said: "On this tragic anniversary, please join me in remembering John with deep love and respect.
"In his short-lived life of 40 years, he has given so much to the world.
"The world was lucky to have known him. We still learn so much from him today. John, I love you."
Ono, who was beside Lennon when he was gunned down in New York 30 years ago today, will lead the tributes as millions of people pay their respects to the Imagine singer.
She will perform at a charity concert she has organised in Japan called Dream Power John Lennon Super Live.
Jerry Goldman from the Beatles Story, a museum dedicated to the band, was behind the European Peace Monument coming to Liverpool.
He said: "Although the European Peace Monument has only been on public display for just over a month, it's already taken on a global significance of its own.
"People from all over the world are coming to the city to pay their respects and consider Lennon's message of peace through his music.
"The city is very excited that we finally have a focal point at which to remember Lennon and look forward to a vigil that will reach out to people the world over."
The vigil of remembrance will last from 8pm to 9:30pm.
Lennon was shot dead outside the Dakota building where the couple lived in Manhattan on 8 December, 1980, two months after his 40th birthday.
Fans on the other side of the Atlantic are expected to pay their respects at the Strawberry Fields memorial garden in Central Park, directly opposite the spot where he was shot by crazed fan M*** C******. [edited by Julian]
Julian here, before getting to Cerien's latest guest post. Some herstory/history here on the matter of "what is feminist sex?" It ought to go without say that radical feminists have been having sex for a long time. Like, for decades and longer. And many have "played hard" to figure out how to not engage in the same OLD CRAPpy sexual dynamics that racist heteropatriarchy endlessly, relentlessly sells to us as "good sex"--which, if we're going to call it like it is, is really boring, dull, inhumane sex. Even when it produces orgasms. The idea that sex can suck doesn't really register in the minds of many liberals. "Sex" by definition, is "good". If it produces sexual sensation, arousal, and orgasm, it is "good" without question or qualification. This makes for a very sexually illiterate and erotically ignorant society; one that takes what CRAP offers as "the best we can do and be".
Radical feminist women have described feminist sexuality and eroticism in their writings. In prose, poetry, plays, and non-fiction. The problem is that by the late 1980s in the West, "pro-sex" became fused to being "pro-pornography" because--note the logic here: being anti-pornography got equated with being "anti-sex". And as anyone who sees enough pornography knows, there's not a lot that's "pro-sex" about it. The industry doesn't exist to teach us what's good about sex, after all; it exists to profit off of racism, misogyny, and heterosexism and to repackage shame-as-sex, sex-as-dirty-and-disgusting, this time without a parentified authority telling us "you're bad if you like it". What the pornographers already worked out is that people will be degraded and dehumanised in the production of it, or will feel bad for using it because it's so degrading and dehumanising. (Patriarchal capitalism demands that we love CRAP and call it GRRRRRRRREAT!)
Why people think industrially mass produced sexualised white het male supremacy = good sex is one of the many issues before us. One answer is, "It's the only sex that is visibly out there." So we take what we know and call it good. If all you've ever eaten is McDonalds, you're likely to say, if asked what good food is, "McDonalds". But there is non-commercially grown organic food, and there is non-commercially produced sex too. And societies existed way before pornography did, and some of those folks had good sex. So the idea that we need the pornography industry to know what good sex is, is a preposterous and pro-pimp notion. And corporate pimps and pornographers work damn hard to get us to believe we can't live without their fucked up products, and without them. The first thing pimps do when they find a runaway teen is to convince her--usually a her--that she needs him. She needs him like she needs to be raped. For those of you who are confused, what I mean is this: SHE DOESN'T NEED HIM. He's got nothing good to offer her at all. Pornography is BAD SEX. Pornography is ANTI-SEX. And the sooner we collectively realise that, the better sex and society will be.
Here's the latest from A.R.P.'s guest blogger, Cerien:
I was re-reading that bit about the "pro-sex" advice list and wondered briefly why radical feminists don't have any "sex advice" lists, so I came up with my own. I thought you might like to see it.
Sex advice nowadays is dumb and creepy. Sometimes it can even be dumb, creepy and triggering. So, in fact, you could argue I am anti-sex, as long as you point out that I am anti-dumb, creepy, triggering sex.
The first sex tip I have is that consent can actually be pretty fucking sexy, but it can be awkward to try to discuss and hash out everything you're going to do before you start having sex, especially since sex is amazingly spontaneous if you're not working off a porn script. So discuss sex while having sex. Say, "Would you like me to touch you here?" Or, "I want to see what you do if I stroke here..." Maybe even, "Can you get up on my stomach?" Wait for a response before actually doing it.
Do it even if you blush. Especially if you blush. Do you know why people react with cooing and giggles when someone blushes? It's because you're fucking cute when you blush. Wanting to hug someone who's blushing is actual human nature.
With time, it will get easier.
The second, and other huge sex tip I have, is to temporarily scratch penetrative sex off the possibilities list. Positions for sex, despite what certain untested 365-day peel-off calendars will tell you, are actually really limited when you focus them around penetration. And society's penetration fetish really limits our sexual imagination.
Another really awesome part of non-penetrative sex is that you have a greater possibility of sex for hours. The idea of holding off or abstaining from orgasm for greater satiation is pretty much the only Tantric concept I agree with.
Again, these are sex tips, so there's no suggestion here that you're uptight for not being interested in or not wanting to try any of them. I chose them specifically because I've found with my lovers that they teach me more about them and the way we function together. That's what's best about sex for me: intimacy with my partner. Not a predefined list of what is "hot" or not.
Here's the rest of the list:
Experiment with parts of your body and your partner's body that you've never thought could be sensitive, and ways to stimulate those areas.
There's more than just sucking, kissing, biting, et al.: there's "blfrrt"ing (you know, vibrating your lips? Razzberries? Fart noises?); tickling; stroking (especially with different textures); even making a whole lot of weird noises against! Or towards!
Find out where sex feels best for you and your partner: in small enclosed spaces? Wide open spaces with lots of rolling-around room? Linoleum floors?
Incorporate sex as a normal part of your life - it doesn't have to end in orgasm. It doesn't have to do more than make you and your partner feel good. Take breaks. Feed each other. Watch a movie. Sex can be present during or around all of these things; it doesn't have to be a defined, orgasm-oriented activity. It can just be messing around.
Avant-garde the role-play: go to the shower; you be the plant, your partner gets to be a gardener. Or you get to be Voltaire and your partner gets to be, I dunno, Victoria Woodhull. If it doesn't end up being sexy, it is inevitably fun: the entire point of sex!
Play with positioning. Instead of aligning your genitals or faces, one of you gets to be held from the back by your partner while you do whatever with each other's bodies: stroking, fingering, etc. Or try "grinding" differently: vulvas and penises can be rubbed against more than fingers, genitals... One incredibly fun thing was my girlfriend getting off by grinding against my chest, where I could touch her and help. And it doesn't have to be with clothes on!
Horizontal yourself: experiment in giving each other pleasure where neither of you is placed vertically above the other.
Come up with new compliments for each other. Instead of, "you're so hot," you can try, "You are like a shining, emerald-eyed flower glittering in the moonlight." Or, not so elaborate, "You look like pumpkin bread. Soft, fluffy, exquisitely spiced, and best eaten with a hot cup of peppermint tea."
And, of course, the #1 sex tip ever is always going to be: the things that make sex consistently awesome have nothing to do with sex. They have to do with getting along, consideration for each other, willingness to change your behavior, curiosity about each other as people and wanting to make that time fun for both of you, regardless of how long or short that time will last.
One of the best things I ever did for my sex life was to fuse sex with play. One of the things that concerns me about pornography is the image of sex it presents - it's not funny, messy, accidental, divine, adventurous, spirited, kooky, casually generous, or... shared. Pornsex is specifically SRS BSNZ. It cannot stop and be caught up again later, it can't be easily regained, it has to go all the way through to the end (male orgasm). It is VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU NOT SCREW SEX UP. WE DON'T KNOW WHY. IT JUST IS.
Part of making sex always fun for me was getting rid of the "kinkiness," too. You can argue that my sex life is kinky, if not always traditionally (that is to say, in the ways of BDSM or power dynamics). But I've made a lot of effort to get rid of the "fetish" aspect I (and, I suspect, many others) was taught by porn. As I've observed, having a "kink" is more about having a script for sex than actually liking certain things within a sexual situation, and my definition of "fetish" is where you are sexually aroused by an action not by doing it with any given person, but by the action itself. So, if you have a fetish about "whipping," for example, you don't enjoy doing it with someone else; the act and object are primary, the person secondary. When the person is interchangeable, there's not really much point in sex; you could fantasize and masturbate and be doing essentially the same thing. Fetishism ruined a couple relationships because I wasn't having sex with a person: I was doing it for the fetish. And, as much as it seems dumb to pontificate about the healthiness of a particular kind of sex, it's true, and not just for sex - if you are doing something for a reason other than someone, it's unhealthy.
Relationships are about our interaction with that person, right now, whether or not we are being sexual. Getting absorbed in the matters society overlays on our relationships (capitalism, fetishism, materialism, religion, etc...) is a death knell for those relationships. Part of a radical redefinition of relationships is to make ourselves horizontal: person-to-person, as equals, regardless of whatever measure of "worthiness" is in vogue - size, shape, appearance, genitalia, sexuality, age, just... whatever.
This is one of the central tenets of anarchism: freedom of association. We associate with people, not because we need to get money or power or validation, but because we like them and want to be around them.
And anyway, aren't we supposed to be liberating sex? What's "liberating" supposed to be if not choosing to interact with someone based on them rather than a predefined kink or script, whether from society or inside our heads?
(See YouTube for over 80 tribute videos by musicians and fans)
(Check out Google's mainpage for this)
See IMAGINE *here*, featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono. I'm wishing you joy and peace, Yoko!
I'd kind of like to think, even with the Italian version, that I was named after Julian Lennon. But as I was born over two months before he was, that's unlikely. Julian is now 47. He's lived seven years longer than his father did. I'm wishing you joy and peace, Julian! Joy and peace also to your mum, Cynthia, who wrote a great book about John.
And a very happy, joyful, peaceful 35th birthday to you, Sean!
What follows is from CBS Sunday Morning. Click on title below to Get Back to the original website.
Having Grown Up Separately in the Shadow of a Beatle, the Half-Brothers Discuss Their Careers and Their Close Bond
Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono and Julian Lennon at the opening of an exhibition of Julian's photographs in New York City. (CBS)
Play CBS Video Video The Lennons Come Together John Lennon's two sons grew up living completely different lives raised by two different people. And who would have thought his two long estranged families would ever come together in peace and harmony. But as Anthony Mason now shows us, they have.
(CBS) Fans of John Lennon plan to COME TOGETHER at events around the world next Saturday to mark the anniversary of his birth. Hard to believe, but that's the day Lennon would have turned 70. And who would have thought Lennon's two long estranged families would ever come together in peace and harmony. But as Anthony Mason now shows us . . . they have:
In the often-bitter history of the Beatles family . . . it was a surprising moment of unity.
John Lennon's first wife Cynthia and the woman he left her for, Yoko Ono, embracing.
On the eve of what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, his two wives and their two sons . . . all together now.
"That was most curious how that came together," said Julian Lennon. "I did tell everybody that everybody was going to be there - and wasn't quite sure if everybody was going to turn up!" he laughed.
The occasion was the opening of Julian Lennon's first exhibition of photographs.
At 47, John Lennon's first-born son is already 7 years older than his father was when he was killed in 1980.
"If millions of people weren't coming up and asking you about your father's 70th birthday, is it something you would be marking in any way?" Mason asked.
"I'm actually looking at my age and his age, going, Jesus, what happened?" Julian laughed. "You know, time has flown. And now more than ever look back with a great deal of respect for him as a man, and his work, but not necessarily as a father. There's a lot of forgiveness now."
It's been the paradox of Julian Lennon's life that he spent his childhood chasing after his father's love, and the years since running from his father's shadow.
He scored a series of his own hits in the Eighties, but was always being measured against his father's almost mythological image:
But earlier this year Julian suddenly set out in a new direction . . . considering a career as a photographer.
"It's kind of unexpected, isn't it?"
"Listen," Lennon replied, "six months ago, I had no idea."
Urged on by celebrity photographer Timothy White, who admired his work, Julian began to put together a show based around a series of landsacpes and skyscapes:
"It sort of became a bizarre hobby. But I can't help myself for taking pictures of clouds," Lennon said.
"I guess also, the other side of the coin is, Dad wasn't necessarily known for his photography. Not that that's the reason I'm doing this by any means."
"But you don't have to suffer the comparison," Mason said.
"Yes, in that respect. So there's a joy in this and a freedom to this."
But Julian has also tried to hold onto him. For years he has been buying up Beatles memorabilia at auctions around the world.
He's collected the Afghan coat John wore on the set of "Magical Mystery Tour."
"How did you feel about having to do that?" Mason asked.
"Well, I mean, it does suck, doesn't it? But if that's the only way I can get them back, then that's what I'm going to have to do."
"What means the most to you?"
"I guess the postcards," Julian said. "It means that he was thinking about me at a time he wasn't around."
After the divorce, Julian often went years without seeing his father, who later doted on his half-brother Sean:
"When I saw the fact that, you know, he'd basically given up music for a couple of years to look after Sean, you know, that was - it was hurtful. I thought, 'Well, why didn't he do that for me?'
"But then in retrospect, and [seeing] what duress he was under at the time when the Beatles hit, I mean, they hit as big as it got. I started to grasp, Well, he couldn't have stopped. You have to let go and sort of say, Well, I get it. I understand. I really do."
The day before the opening of his photography show, his mother Cynthia arrived from Spain where she now lives:
"We've never seen my son so happy as he is now," she said.
When asked if he was nervous, Julian Lennon said, "Yeah. I do get incredibly anxious. Almost borderline panic attacks."
On opening night at New York's Morrison Hotel Gallery, Julian's show packed the house:
"I think it was more insane than backstage after a gig," he said.
The crowd included George Harrison's first wife, Pattie Boyd.
(CBS)
And then Yoko arrived with Sean.
Julian and his younger brother, who is now 34, grew up in different homes, in different countries, but they're very close:
"Julian is the reason I started playing music, actually," said Sean. "Because when I was a kid I remember when his record came out. And he was, you know, the biggest thing that existed in the world."
"Biggest thing in our family," said Yoko.
For the first time together, they talked about their relationship:
"Actually he taught me how to play guitar," Sean said. "I remember him teaching me the song, 'Faith' by George Michael."
"Oh, jeez," Julian exclaimed.
"But the truth is Julian was like my hero. He still is," said Sean.
The show included photographs Julian had taken of Sean, when he surprised him on tour in Eastern Europe a few years ago.
For two weeks, Julian rode the tour bus with his brother:
"So he was your roadie?" Mason asked.
"I actually became the sort of assistant tour manager for restaurants."
Sean said, "He's much better at organizing than I am."
"Just experience, my dear boy," Julian said. "Just experience."
"You're the organized one! Anyway, it was the most touching thing."
Julian's relationship with Sean's mother has been far more difficult.
For years he fought bitterly with Yoko for a share of his father's estate, before they finally reached a settlement.
"You've had your differences in the past," Mason said. "Forgive me, but you've decided to 'give peace a chance.'"
"Jeez!" Julian said. "It's just not worth the stress. It really isn't. The stresses and the strains. I think the key point to all this, for me at least, has been Sean. If I hurt Sean's mother, then I hurt Sean. It's a roundabout way of thinking about things. But because I love Sean so much, I just don't want to hurt him. I can get over it. Have gotten over it."
"And thank you for doing that," Sean said.
"Thank you for being here tonight," Julian said.
In the end, Julian Lennon's show of photographs produced its own remarkable picture, that of John Lennon's family together.
Sean Lennon, Yoko Ono and Julian Lennon at the opening of an exhibition of Julian's photographs in New York City. (CBS)
