I Met the Walrus_ How One Day With John Lennon Changed My Life Forever - Jerry Levitan [32]
I had no idea what to expect when I played John and Yoko’s gift to me. The album started with a live performance by Yoko. “This is a piece called ‘Cambridge 1969,’” she says softly in front of an attentive crowd before they witness her remarkable vocal display and accompanying feedback from John’s guitar. That went on for twenty-six and a half minutes. Listening to that album over and over again, the record player on repeat, it was as though I had taken a crash course in the abstract, the bizarre, and the experimental. John and Yoko’s gift to me played all night long and was still playing when I woke up, reminding me that this was not a fantasy. It was real.
The next morning I told my brother everything that had happened. He alternated between laughing and staring. Was I telling the truth? I was always given to hyperbole, even outright fantasy. He inspected the albums with the eye of a physician. “The cameras!” I shouted out. “Is there film in the cameras?” Steve checked out the Kodak Brownie. “There’s film in here,” he said as he rewound it and took the cartridge out. Then he looked at his Super 8. “Film here.” This was all too good to be true. There was a chance I would have pictures and a film of John and Yoko! In those days it could take a couple of weeks to get still pictures developed and longer for film. “The tape! The tape!” And then I remembered, “CHUM has the tape and they will use it on the news!”
We tuned onto 1050 on the AM dial and waited for the news. It was almost 8:00 A.M. Then news came on with this announcement right off the top:
JOHN LENNON
IN AN EXCLUSIVE WITH CHUM HAD THIS TO SAY ABOUT WHAT YOUNG PEOPLE SHOULD DO FOR PEACE:
“There are many ways of promoting peace. Do everything for peace. Piss for peace or smile for peace or go to school for peace or don’t go to school for peace. Whatever you do, just do it for peace.”
Steve laughed, and I was outraged. “It’s not you,” he said. “It is me! I swear it is! They cut my voice out!” I was fuming when Steve drove me to the Kodak lab to have the film developed. I couldn’t pay the rush price and had to make do with waiting a few weeks. We then went to school. Every fifteen minutes, CHUM played excerpts of my interview, all the time cutting out my voice and not giving me credit. Part of me started wondering if it really happened. It was all so crazy. “Wait! If you see Mary Hopkin tonight will you believe me?” It dawned on me that I had a date with her and that if Steve drove me downtown, he would see that she recognized me.
I walked onto the schoolyard greeted by a crowd of kids. Word had spread that I was seen at the King Edward in the evening and had gone past the police blockade. I had the two albums—one, Life With the Lions, no one had seen before. But that’s all I had and no clear proof. “Again with the album,” one nasty boy shouted. “He is full of shit.”
After school I called CHUM and spoke to someone at the news desk. He hung up on me before I could finish my sentence. I called back. He hung up again. Finally he let me finish what I had to say. “Oh, you’re the kid! No problem, call back tomorrow and we’ll see what we can do.” The fact that I had to wait to get my tape disheartened me. My mother was just coming home from work when Steve and I were heading off. I could see the look of worry in her eyes. “Where are you going now?” she asked. “I told you, Ma, I have a date with Mary Hopkin. Steve is taking me.” Steve shrugged and off we went to pick up our cousin Larry who wanted to witness the event too.
Larry got in the car, and I told the story all over again for his benefit. The more I told it, the more I wondered if it really happened. They wanted to believe me but it was too incredible a story to accept wholeheartedly. We stood outside the Electric Circus