rstevie's eGallery

1st disc to feature Beatles name
UK 5 Jan 1962

















First photo ever taken:
Quarrymen at New Clubmoor Hall,
Saturday 23 Nov 1957





Purportedly the last ever group shot taken
(John's Weybridge home)

Dec 8, 2000
R. Stevie Moore
Bloomfield NJ USA

What a gloomy gloomy day. As the hours roll by towards 11 p.m., I feel absolutely numb and dumbfounded. Lennon was...the walrus. Avoid listening to REVO 9 right now. It's like a Hitchcock nightmare. Remember love, www.rsteviemoore.com

Yoko Ono Opens John Lennon Museum in Japan
October 5, 2000 6:13 am EST
By Elaine Lies

YONO, Japan (Reuters) - Yoko Ono, at the opening of a museum about her late husband, John Lennon, in Japan on Thursday, admired the tribute to the Beatles songwriter but was reticent when asked about a decision denying parole to his killer.

Mark David Chapman, who gunned down the music legend outside his New York apartment almost 20 years ago, was denied parole on Tuesday. Chapman, who is serving a life sentence, was ordered held for at least two more years until his next hearing in 2002.

Ono had written a letter to the authorities appealing for Chapman's continued imprisonment, saying that if he were released, she and John's two sons, Sean and Julian, would "not feel safe for the rest of our lives."

Asked if she felt relieved at the decision Ono said only: "Their decision is something I respect. I cannot say anything more than that, as I think you can imagine."

But she was more forthcoming about the museum, the first in the world dedicated solely to Lennon and founded with her blessing.

"John was a multi-faceted person, and I wanted to show this by showing the things he lived with and used," she told a news conference. "As I walked through the museum, I thought it was very expressive."

WHY JAPAN?

It was unclear why Ono had given the go-ahead to build the museum in a corner of a huge sports arena in this unfashionable town, some 25 km (15 miles) north of Tokyo and at the heart of the urban sprawl that forms Japan's biggest metropolis.

The museum's presence in Japan would have been important to her late husband, Ono said. Lennon several times visited Tokyo, as well as the central resort town of Karuizawa.

"John had so much love for this country," she said. "His son Sean is half-Japanese and we somehow felt we were bridging the gap between east and west." Written on a wall as visitors enter are lines from a poem by Lennon: "East is east and west is west/The twain shall meet/East is west and west is east/Let it be complete."

Ono said she had initially been nervous about the decision.

"I worried that if it was in Japan, people would just say, 'There goes Yoko Ono, doing bad things again'," she said.

The museum, along with a store selling Beatles memorabilia, is set to open to the public on what would have been Lennon's 60th birthday on October 9. Entry costs 1,500 yen ($13.74).

Asked if she objected to such a commercialized use of Lennon's name, Ono said: "I think the Beatles were the most commercialized band in history, and I don't think John would deny that. But that wasn't bad -- it allowed him to send his message to the world."

WHITE PIANO, LYRICS, GLASSES

Beatles music plays as visitors view some 130 items that once belonged to Lennon. Most were donated by Ono, including family photos, an old driver's license and a passport, handwritten lyrics for songs and his trademark wire-rimmed spectacles.

In one case rests his first guitar, scratched and battered, purchased via mail order in 1956. He was using this guitar when he and Paul McCartney had their first fateful meeting in 1957 that led to the formation of the Beatles.

Hanako Sugawara, a young member of Japan's Beatles Fan Club, seemed pleased with the displays.

"By seeing his things you get a sense of him as a person and realize how broad his interests were," she said. "It was a terrible waste that he had to die so young."

On the white wall by the exit, in raised white characters, is written the date "December 8, 1980" -- the day of Lennon's murder.

"Celebrating his birthday isn't just celebrating his life but allowing his spirit to live on in us," Ono said.