Tales of the Ancient Rocker -- John Lennon

'Imagine no reporters
(I wonder if
you can)'

I wasn't with Janis the night she died, no matter what would-be Janis biographers said. But I did get John Lennon mad enough to accuse me of conspiring with the CIA to have

him throw out of the country. I did this by writing that he was working -- at a recording session in Manhattan, backed by the band Elephant's Memory -- at a time, February 1972, when he only had a visitor's visa. He should have asked me to keep his secret, but didn't. I would have clammed up for him.

After all, I didn't print a word about the rock legend who asked me to hold the spoon while he cooked his heroin. He was sitting backstage by himself when I was brought in and introduced. He said, "hold this," and handed me the spoon to hold while he applied the tourniquet to his upper arm. I mean, I understood. The poor man needed help. He had everything a guy needed to ease his way onto the stage -- a packet of heroin, a candle, a tourniquet, a spoon, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a pack of cigarettes. All he needed was someone to hold the spoon while he cooked his juice.

I did it, of course, being a gentleman. And that moment became, for me, the legal definition of not giving a shit -- when you ask the man from The New York Times to hold the spoon while you cook your heroin. I gave his performance a pretty damn good review, too. I never wrote about what happened backstage until now, and I still won't give up his name. He's out there as you read this, still producing great music, he remains one of my favorite artists, and for several years has been drug-free.

While, I might add, all those rock legends who took pains to hide the heroin are pushing up petunias.

Those were the pre-Watergate years, when gentlemen reporters didn't write about gentlemen celebrities' pecadillos. The guys who knew that JFK was giving Marilyn Monroe skinny-dipping lessons -- come to think of it, the other way around is more likely -- didn't report the fact. The guys who knew that LBJ was holding high-level meetings while on the throne said not a word. And I sure wouldn't have revealed John Lennon's visa limitations, had he winked and said "hey, pal, this ain't happening, right?"

I'm reluctant to generalize in this case, ... but .. usually when a guy is introduced to you as being from The New York Times and is carrying a camera and notepad, you get a clue that a story may be written. Look, the CIA should have packed him back to Heathrow; he'd still be alive, tooling around London in that psychedelic Rolls with Yoko -- who was wonderful, by the way; charming and charismatic on top of gorgeous, in that regard clearly the least photogenic person I have ever known. I had the same reaction as John to meeting her -- yes! ...I would have broken up the Beatles for her, too. I suppose that reaction places me in the ranks of those New York and London art types who felt that she lowered herself to marry him, not the other way around, as popularly believed.

I found her open and generous. I found him defensive and suspicious. I suppose he had the right. After all, the CIA was trying to get him deported. Or so I was told later.

"Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can ..."

Um, ah, well, no, not any more. And while we're on the subject, at that recording session I took the photos of John seen on Tales of the Ancient Rocker and, yes, they're copyrighted.

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