Yoko O No "In My Life"

Sunday Tink and I visited Long Branch. It is a short drive up from Spring Lake. The sky was clear, after morning showers, and the beach was white. The people were abundant. 

The afternoon begged for us to walk the boards. The temperature was hot enough to leave no ponds behind on the shore or puddles on the roads. Walking, you really appreciate the intermittent breeze, as a caress ten degrees cooler than stolid air. 
Tink encouraged the SOG (Sick Old Guy) within me to take a leave of absence for an hour, and we walked. Long Branch's boardwalk is unique, as it goes up and down over the undulating roadway of Ocean Avenue. 

The mix of people made for a gallery of anthropological proportions from the Orthodox Jewish family with five kids - one pushed in a stroller, pregnant-mother, father, and grandparents all in shydels and yarmulkes to the Russian speaking couple, of whom the lady's large silver East Orthodox crucifix tilted upwards from her protruding belly with a pierced popped navel. 
We watched a mother and two young daughters sneaking under the railing onto the beach while a police car sit not thirty feet away. The police man stared at his in-vehicle computer screen as if he were on the Internet looking at porn while the women sans beach badge stole their space on the beach. Life is good, if not great.   

When we finished the walk, I had both a secret agenda and a plan. My plan drew us to 78 Ocean Avenue – the former? site of Atlantic Books – for an exhibit of John Lennon’s lithographs. Although Lennon’s zenith as a performer pre-dates Tink’s musical awareness, she had interest in the show. I remember rock n roll prior to the Beatles, but that is another story that we will get to later. I serve as Tink's pre-historic knowledge reservoir. Yes, I am her personal dinosaur.     

The showing presented 30 to 40 of Lennon’s sketches most of which involved pictures of his family or himself or both. (I didn't remember he went to art school in London.) Family means Yoko and Sean. Julian Lennon was disowned by this collection, as might be expected since Yoko is involved with the production. The lithographs were for sale as well, although some of the selection was already sold out. 

We wandered the exhibit with each litho having a caption. You did not realize the propaganda behind the captions until you used both your brains and your eyes to appreciate his work. Lennon is a good sketch artist. His best works do not involve subjects that are related to him or his family. Yet a majority of the showing was just that. Was this because his works usually involved himself - artist's ego? Or was the selection process biased towards these drawings that might be more saleable? 

I realize that an artist, song-writer, author, and sculpture must have an ego the size of the earthly atmosphere to succeed. So I ask again, did he mainly draw self-portraits or did Yoko select his auto-biographical works disproportionately? 
Even those lithographs that were of animals and other things non-Lennon were put into the Lennon-esque perspective by their captioning. One was meant to show Sean this philosophy or attitude, and this drawing was meant to teach Sean that. Everything Lennon and nothing separate as pure art. Yoko please remember that the essence of Lennon's Philosophy is simple, All You Need is Love. Not singularly self-love, but love of everyone.   
You don't need captions to control the viewer's mind. What does it says about the artist and his work if it has to be explained? If the art requires an explanation, then it is not communicating. 
How much of a control freak does that make the captioner, Yoko? 

Who the hell am I to make these insights? I am the audience, the one being manipulated. I mean the one being communicated with. 

Most of the "drawings" that weren't involving John directly were etching of lyrics he wrote. How amazing that he composed the lyrics for his songs using the lithographic-etching process. No note pad, and no corrections, and no doubt more money earned by the reproduction. I know, this is Dr. R. Cynic poisoner of thoughts talking. Even more amazing were the lack of strike throughs and cross outs in that material. Don't you want to own a lithograph of lyrics as written by John and reproduced by ?? I can write them out on parchment and sell them to you too. All You Need is . . . Guile. 

As to the propaganda, several of the later drawings show John with Sean walking through Central Park, and associated with them is a third person. The caption says, that is the ghost of a younger John. They intimate that Lennon had a premonition that he was going to die soon after drawing these sketches. If John knew that wouldn't the ghost be an ethereal presentation of his older self, the man walking with the child, not the teenager gesticulating at the "old man."

John more than likely drew the young-self ghost, because as all parents do, he saw his youth in the presentation of his son, Sean. He missed the days of his youth. He relived his days through his son, when life was simpler and maybe happier for him. I can't believe he knew he was going to be shot. Here I choose to ignore the untimely death of his mother when he was age nine. Or maybe he thought he was doomed for the same ending? That isn't explained because Yoko probably does it want it that way. Another woman competing for John's love, impossible for her to allow. She wants us to remember the clairvoyant, poet, who meditated and wrote song. The only person alive who really knows the depth of John's talent and ego is the Walrus, Paul McCartney. He won't talk because it will take away from him, so . . . 

As we walked the exhibit, Tink viewed the lithograph from when John and Yoko spent a week in bed for world peace. It started her talking about children and babies, which she knew would only exacerbate our debate as her biological clock is ticking. I placed an arm around her shoulder and cautioned her that an old man like me would be in my seventies when the kids hit college age. I warned her a week in bed might leave her widowed before she was married. While none of this deters her, she was interrupted by a Margaret Dumont like matron, "You should be ashamed of yourself. She no more than a child. You should stay to your own age." She paused and smiled. "Some one like me." She placed a hand on her hip and threw it up and down. Because of her bearing she bumped two men who were holding hands as they studied one of John's lithograph.  

Tink stared daggers. "I'm 49 years old (a bald-faced lie, she added more than 15 years), you just don't know how to take care of yourself, and probably don't know how to take care of a man either." 

I leaned down and kissed the Pixie's cheek. It felt warm and looked pink.    

The lady huffed once, but could think of no retort. 

But Tink wasn't finished yet. "Doc, let go home and try to make a baby now." She slid her hand into the vacant back pocket of my Bermuda shorts, and directed me out the door. 

Matron Dumont took out her cell phone no doubt dialing Jerry Falwell or Rush Limbaugh for advice. She couldn't call the police because they were too busy watching the computer screen on their cruiser. Even the Moral Majority enjoys John Lennon's art. 

It was 4:30 and the sky remained clear. I thought about the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth but I liked Lookin' at Lucky and at 4 to 5, I'd do better blind investing in the stock market using the Wall Street Journal and a pin. He won easily as I watched it on television later that evening. 
My secret agenda was next. I strolled Tink down Ocean Blvd to Avenue. No, not Ocean Avenue, but the restaurant Avenue, which is top rated by New Jersey Magazine. We had never tried it before although Pam had dined their with Alex and said it was as good as any restaurant in New York City.

Here is the menu for Dinner.

Tink loved the meal and then we went home. We turned on Night at the Opera and laughed at Margaret Dumont while lying together in our pj's on the couch. 

This is the Mad Mutt substituting for Dr. M.T. Skull. Saying, it Shore was a great day.