I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [10]
Like my trek downtown to get the double White Album, I did the same for Two Virgins. I called Capitol Records and found out the delivery date, and I called that same day to find out when the truck was leaving for Sam’s. There I was again, within a week, in the alley watching the truck pull up and unload the box. I knew that John and Yoko were naked on the cover. I knew that the album featured their all-night recording session, which had culminated in their making love for the first time at dawn. The box was carried into the store and put on the floor. It was opened with the usual sight of me peering over the shoulder of one of Sam’s employee. I saw the cover for the first time. WOW! I got the first album and raced to the cash register, too excited and distracted to be bothered by the sound of the police confiscating the rest of the albums.
The back cover of a rare copy of the Two Virgins album. I was one of the first in North America to buy this album before it was confiscated by the police at customs. It surprised John that I had it.
Immediately upon its release, controversy ensued. Capitol Records and EMI would not distribute it. Instead, John managed to get a small label in the States, Tetragrammaton Records, to sign on. Labeled pornographic throughout the UK and North America, police and customs authorities were grabbing copies as soon as they arrived. I managed to get one of the first copies before they were taken off the market. Sometime later, the two virgins were covered in brown paper with only their faces showing through a cutout.
I now had two major releases to be enthralled with and they were as divergent as could be. Two Virgins made clear to me what was going on with John and Yoko. It was a romp of experimentation, fun, tenderness, and insanity. Everyone I knew hated it. Not me. It did not take long for this album too to get dirty. In fact it was easier because the cover was absorbent white paper whereas the double White Album was glossy. I walked around with—and played—this album constantly.
I lost myself in the music the way I lost myself in many of the heroes I idolized at the time, who included great actors like Richard Burton, Peter Sellers, Peter O’Toole, and Marlon Brando. Each of my heroes projected strong and daring personas that I tried to emulate. But there were three specifically that I worshipped above all others. Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau was brilliant, principled, and contrary. He showed young people the different cultures of the world and the promise each of us had to fulfill. Jerry Lewis was the opposite: outlandish, desperate, and gutsy. But of course, no one could touch the Beatles, and especially John.
In the late summer of 1968, I was watching a promo for the upcoming Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon. So captivated was I by that in-your-face funny man that my parents sometimes had to stop me from watching television because I would get an asthma attack from laughing so hard. The telethon was coming up that Labor Day. I had a brainstorm. I called New York City information and asked for the Americana Hotel where the show was broadcast from in those days. I asked for the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s pressroom. I was instantly connected, and amidst the sound of typing and talking, a man with a thick accent answered, “Moose Delgado here.” I put on my deepest voice and said, “Hi. I’m from Canadian News and want to cover the telethon for Canada.” “What’s your name?” he asked abruptly. “There’ll be a press pass for you at the front desk.”
I booked a flight with American Airlines with the money I had saved, and on the afternoon of the telethon I matter-of-factly told my parents that I was going to New York to see Jerry Lewis. A taxi pulled into our driveway and beeped.