Tag: John Lennon

Of Tik-Tok & John Lennon’s Problematic Legacy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. Where to begin with this one. This is such a difficult, problematic thing to address, that I probably should just say nothing at all. And, yet, I can’t help myself. I have to get some things off my chest.

I’m reading a biography of John Lennon and being reminded of how difficult and problematic he was in life has been a real eye-opener. The difference between how fondly he is remembered by our collective memories and what an asshole he could be in his private life is quite jarring.

As such, when Gen Z discovers things like how Lennon sang a song — that should not have been produced called “Woman is (blank) of The World” that are aghast. And, in all honesty, I don’t blame them. I can’t defend the song and that’s pretty much that.

But my quibble with the outrage on Tik-Tik by Gen Z is more a generational one. It reminds me of how young people seem to think they have everything figured out and they make superficial, knee-jerk pronouncements with total disregard to the deeper context.

While I freely admit and acknowledge that the song is indefensible, it was *meant* to be a radical feminist statement on Lennon’s part, rather than a racist one. In fact, according to the biography, John and Yoko appeared in African American publicans like Jet at the time of the song’s release.

I think I must be showing my age. Any honest reflection on Lennon’s legacy requires a willingness to see the man who he really was, warts and all. And it also requires an understand of nuance and context, something that modern cultural discourse is totally devoid of.

I have even pondered if maybe I’m falling into Trump-like cult of personality by even quibbling with the effort to “cancel” Lennon on Tik-Tok. I’ve come to believe this is not the case. Lennon is long dead and he’s not running for president. He was human and not some sort of musical demigod that was above screwing up and making — a lot — of mistakes.

Anyway. I just had to get that out of my system.

Having My Heroine Obsessed With John Lennon Is Adding Significant Richness To Her Character

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After years of my heroine being a fluid “idea” or “mood’ I’ve finally begun to get a handle on who she is. She a little younger than I thought she would be and she’s also a lot more colorful and interesting. She definitely is no longer just an female, Amerasian version of me, but rather her whole different thing.

A lot of this has come from reading a biography of John Lennon. I should have done a lot of this research some time ago, lulz. Anyway, I still think having her obsessed with Lennon will really be a useful hook for not just audiences, but any eventual marketing of the novel.

I’m really leaning into every possible element of John Lennon I can when it comes to the nature of my heroine’s personality and worldview. Given that the more I read about Lennon, the more I’m reminded of how problematic he is, my heroine’s obsession with him definitely provides some much-needed distance between her personality and mine.

The additional ~20,000 words I’m adding to the novel are dealing a lot with onboarding, world building and character development. I’m trying my hardest to actually show things on the page to the reader so they can center themselves and actually care about the characters when shit goes down later in the story. That’s the vision, at least .

Anyway. Because I’m writing the third draft from scratch, I have a lot of opportunities to flesh out the heroine’s personality in ways I did not before. And I continue to find the idea that she is obsessed with Lennon very intriguing and a way to make her really unique in a way that the audience will find appealing.

I’m Making My Heroine Obsessed With John Lennon

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone randomly, out of the blue, contacted me on Tik-Tok and asked me something like, “Do you think your characters are interesting enough?” This really gave me pause for thought. I told the person that they must be, given that I’m willing to spend years working on them.

But with my heroine, specifically, I’ve decided to have her be obsessed with John Lennon. I’m reading his biography and…oh boy. While I still consider Lennon a personal hero of mine, he definitely was problematic in his personal life.

It’s not like I didn’t know any of this already, but reading about it again really hits home how cultural norms have changed over the last 60 years. And, maybe, that’s one of the reasons why rock music has died? The type of person who would be an over-the-top rocker just can’t reach the type of creative critical mass they could in the past because of the dark side of that personality type?

Anyway, the idea of having my heroine obsessed with Lennon is very intriguing to me and opens up a lot of different ways to pull in readers. At least, I hope so. I think having my heroine obsessed with Lennon could be just the type of “hook” I need on both the audience front and marketing front.

But I’m being delusional, still. The idea that I can actually querying this novel and it be a success is very, very delusional at the moment. But I need some sort of hope, you know?

A Curious John Lennon Counter-Factual


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a huge fan of John Lennon. And, yet, it’s easy to imagine him as something of a British Trump had he lived. Right before he died, there are rumors he was a fan of Ronald Reagan.

Add 40 years and him becoming far, far more conservative, and it’s pretty easy to imagine him getting into British politics and, well, destroying the UK. On a personal level, Lennon was a very difficult person. He could be so deranged that I could imagine a 74 year old John Lennon being elected PM and overthrowing the monarchy to establish some sort of neo-fascist state.

So, I guess, in a sense, we can just be grateful for the legacy that we have in reality. God speed, John.

V-Log: #Megxit As An Existential ‘Constitutional Crisis’ For The British Royal Family

Shelton Bumgarner

An observation.

Harry Windsor & Meghan Markle As Modern Day John & Yoko

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has occurred to me that Harry Windsor and Meghan Markle should announce their new life in New York City by having a Bed In. Harry Windsor should get a picture taken of him replicating John Lennon’s iconic rooftop shot of him with a “New York City” shirt on.

The couple should decide to have minimal security and simply walk around New York City like “normal” people. They should start speaking out against Trump. Right now, I don’t even know what Harry Windsor sounds like.

Or, really, if they REALLY wanted rock the world — post an Instagram photo of Harry Windsor naked next to Meghan Markle like the iconic shot of John doing this to Yoko Ono that was on the cover of Rolling Stone soon after his death.

God, Part 3: ‘Spooky’

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I don’t really believe in a God, but this evening something really fucking spooky happened — just casually looking up something small — but important — for the novel, I found a crucial conceit-defining plot point that would make any Beatles aficionado sit up and take notice. It was an eerie “ah-ha!” moment that made me look around to see if I wasn’t in like, the fucking Matrix or something.

I think some of it has to do with once you establish the core of one of your two “main” characters, then the rest takes care of itself. Or, put another way, I’m well on my way to having a “canon,” rather than simply a series of plot points created out of thin air for expediency sake.

But let me be absolutely clear — I have been here before many, many, many times. The next milestone is what happens when I push my Hero and Heroine into the “special world” of the second act. If the whole thing doesn’t collapse at that point, then, well, we’re rockin.

In a sense, this novel is what would happen if you poured Nick Hornby’s “High Fidelity” into a Stieg Larsson novel that was having a Vulcan mind-meld with Network, Columbiana, Gone Girl, All The President’s Men, Fargo and maybe a little bit of Once Upon A Time…In Hollywood. But that’s simply some of the influences I see on my side as I develop the novel. Should anyone actually ever read this thing, that might not be as clear.

And, remember, I’m a pretty good storyteller, while generally my writing is generally derided as piss-poor for various reasons. I would temper your expectations until you actually held some semblance of the finished product in your hands and could make your own judgement.

The whole thing could collapse pretty easily. But, for the moment, I’m cautiously optimistic.

V-Log: John Lennon, #Brexit & Mulling What Happens Next In The UK #StopTheCoup

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

If Trump has taught me anything, it’s that in the modern era the bad guys always win. So I’m generally rather pessimistic about what might happen in the UK in the next few days. But it is fun to daydream. Besides, no one listens to me anyway.

Regardless, here are some great protest songs for Remainers to use should the mood strike them.

Idle Mulling of John Lennon & Trump

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

I sometimes find myself thinking about how John Lennon would have reacted to Donald Trump. Would he have been on the front lines of The Resistance, or more darkly, would he have been a supporter for no other reason than he would be in his 70s now and maybe his more irascible qualities would have finally taken over his personality.

Despite all of his 1970s “househusband” views, John Lennon was something of a dick.

If you wanted to get really sadistic, you could even say Lennon might have gone into British politics himself, but not as his “give peace a chance” self, but a more populist “power to the people” version. It would not take too much for one to believe the Lennon of 2018 would be a British version of Trump who wanted to give power to the people by ending the tyranny of the European Union.

And, in passing, one might note that rumor has it that Lennon was a secret Reagan supporter right before his death in 1980. Any belief that he would be a big old Leftist hippie in his 70s assumes he would still be with Yoko and would not have grown more conservative along with the rest of the Baby Boomers.

Of all The Beatles to turn his back on his youthful ideals, John Lennon seems to be it. He was the most political of The Beatles and as an iconoclast he could very well have surprised us all by turning into the UK’s very own Trump. And, unfortunately for the UK, they don’t have a written Constitution, so if you really wanted to dark, PM John Lennon could have become something of a populist tyrant.

But we’ll never know. Lennon’s legacy is safely escond in his martyrdom.