http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hVqORXrWOw
Grey In L.A. by Loudon Wainwright III
I want to see but I don't want to be seen.
Last night I managed to stay awake until shortly after midnight. This is rare for a Friday night but I was up shortly after six. I once again realized there is not very much to do at that time of the morning. I get bored quickly at home and decided to go out, I had some breakfast and spent much of the morning reading while drinking my tea.
I finished Memories of John Lennon and The Secret River. The Lennon book was a very good read and much different compared to my usual serious novels. The short pieces written by those with some intimate knowledge of John was fascinating. I really found the piece written by Richie Yorke describing Lennon's trips to Canada interesting and in particular his nervousness about meeting Trudeau. It was conveyed by Yorke and echoed by Lennon a very important moment for the music legend. The fact that Lennon was nervous about meeting Trudeau was because he knew how important his support would be to his message of peace. Lennon was seen as a God but he would say he was only a man, but he was a man rarely intimidated, this nervousness was an example along with his feet kissing upon meeting Jerry Lee Lewis. In a perfect pairing of fate, the champion of the peace movement would return to Toronto from his Ottawa meeting on the same plane as Lester B. Pearson. The Canadian Prime Minister responsible for creating the modern concept of Peacekeeping, though peacekeeping is no longer possible, it is peacekeeping.
Speaking of keeping the peace, in doing so in Afghanistan, Canada lost another 3 soldiers today. The country is not getting any more stable and it seems like a waste of our young men and women. This is hard for me to admit, considering I feel there is a legitimate enemy there but perhaps one Canadians should not be fighting and being killed by.
There is a passage by Loudon Wainwright III about Lennon and included is the following piece about John's death.
Oh No, Not John
The limousine was waiting outside the studio
In stepped poor John Lennon and his wife Yoko
Oh no, not John
On up 44th Street, left at 8th Avenue
Up to the Dakota; a man waits there for you
Oh no, yes John
The man's name it is Chapman, come from Honolulu
He really loved your music, John, got a Japanese wife, too
Oh no, poor Sean
Five bullets in your body, that's what the experts say
They say you signed an autograph for him on that very day
Oh no, not John
There was a vigil at the Roosevelt, at the Dakota too
Silence in Central Park, they had a riot in Liverpool
Now Chapman's in the jailhouse - what's he doing there?
He went and he shot John Lennon. All you heroes best beware
Oh no, not John
The limousine was waiting outside the studio
In stepped poor John Lennon and his wife Yoko
Oh no, not John
Loudon Wainwright III
On a side note below is an article comparing their sons Rufus and Julian.
http://crawdaddy.wolfgangsvault.com/Article/Sons-of-Rock-Rufus-Wainwright-vs-Julian-Lennon.html
The rest of my day was spent doing some shopping until I couldn't stand the crowds and the inability of people to walk in any form of a straight line. Then I went to my grandparents for dinner, macaroni with cheese and tomatoes, along with fresh bread and banana cream pie for dessert.
Back to Loudon Wainwright, his song Grey In L.A. has been stuck in my head for the last couple of days. The link to the song is at the start of the entry.
"It seems like the daylight is coming, no one is watching but me, but I don't mind the dark discovering the day....." (Or the day discovering the dark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzw00CvYuDg
I guess sticking with the L.A. theme, above is Counting Crows Goodnight L.A., a very underrated song. The song is rarely played live, the version above is from 2003 @ the Pinkpop festival in Holland, it is followed seamlessly in the soft rain by A Long December.
Observations should be made without reservations.
jr.
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