Tag: strawberry fields

John, we miss you.

Today is the anniversary of John Lennon’s assassination in front of the Dakota. After an hour of protest at the Barclays Center, I stopped by Strawberry Fields to sing a few songs and send some love to where ever Joh is now. 

If John were around, I think he’d protesting with people in the street too. After all, he did write Power to the People. He just said it was a song that came too late. 

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Something new. (Sort of.)

Am I the only one that has been out on first dates where the guy has at least 4 drinks? I can’t be the only one. I think New York is swimming with guys who have drinking problems simply because we don’t have to worry about driving. Anyways, I went on a date today with a guy who does everything in his power not to go anywhere for drinks or food on first dates. He’s not in AA, but he just likes to lift the alcohol blinders off his dates. Which I can totally understand and appreciate. 

We met in Central Park, in Strawberry Fields, with our DSLRs in hand, ready to take pictures and wander the paths. He was really nice. But slightly odd. We never took a single picture, but we wandered the paths for a couple of hours and talked. When I asked him how his experience dating in New York has been, he replied, “I don’t know. I haven’t given it much thought.” As though, why would you ever think about that instead of just going on with your day? 

It was an odd experience. At one point he said, “Can I be honest with you for a second? You seem defensive,” which I definitely was because I had no idea what to make of this guy. I wasn’t really expecting anything, but he was unlike any guy I’ve met recently.

That said: I don’t really think he was a spark so I most likely will not be seeing him again.

That said, part deux: I’d like to try this Dating Sans the Alcohol Blinders thing again soon. 

Strawberry Fields, October 9th, 2013, 8am

The anniversary of John Lennon’s birthday is a day I always celebrate. I got to Strawberry Fields a couple of times, I sing some songs, I blast it through my iPhone. This year was even better because I played DJ at work today and my colleagues very graciously humored me while I played through the 6.5 hours of John Lennon and Beatles music that I’d packed onto an iTunes playlist on my work computer (because you wouldn’t believe how impossible it is to find John Lennon’s actual albums on Spotify).

I burned Mind Games Sessions (Disc 1 and 2), John Lennon (acoustic), Wasuponatime, Imagine, Abbey Road, and The White Album (discs 1 and 2) onto my computer. 

And after that was over, I played the Across the Universe soundtrack which, thankfully, was on Spotify. (And yesterday we listened to Instant Karma all day.)

I stopped by Strawberry Fields on my way to work this morning (the above photo was taken at 8am) and then I stopped by again after my yoga class ended at 9pm. At 9, there were dozens of people there and many musicians set up, all happily playing, and singing, their hearts out.

John Lennon is tied in first place with a certain Billie Joe Armstrong for favorite musician ever. And why not? Lennon was one of Armstrong’s inspirations growing up so it make perfect sense. Taking a few hours out of my day (and my colleagues’ day) is the least I can do to celebrate him.

I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.

Happy Birthday, Paul.

If it weren’t for a musicians status update on my Facebook this morning, I probably wouldn’t have remembered it was Paul McCartney’s 69th birthday today.  But I did and I ended up wandering down to Strawberry Fields twice, once before my guitar lesson and once after.  The Mayor [of Strawberry Fields] was giving a quick lecture on the history of Strawberry Fields to a group of tourists my first walk-thru.  It was really interesting to listen to (Yoko sold 4-6ksq feet of her apartment(s) in the Dakota recently!).  It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Strawberry Fields would be busy for McCartney’s birthday.  I usually only go for anniversaries relating to John Lennon.

I saw McCartney in concert at Citifield in 2009, and next month will mark my second concert of his, this time at Yankee Stadium.  I bought tickets last week for my dad for Father’s Day and they’re pretty good seats (Section 210 – for those of you who know Yankee Stadium).  Admittedly I was a John Lennon fan before I was a Beatles fan but I grew up listening [against my will] to the Beatles, thanks to my parents, but now I’m equally a fan of both (my favorite Beatle will always be John Lennon though).

Musicians were plentiful as is usually the case on any important date in Strawberry Fields.  The stuffed version of Lennon himself even came out for the occasion.  

Happy Birthday, Sir Paul.  See you next month.  

Here are a few pictures that I took at Strawberry Fields on Saturday.  It was a complete madhouse.  It was probably the busiest I’ve seen it in six years.  I couldn’t get anywhere near the Imagine mosaic in the center, so these are most of the people who came out to sing.  I’m happy to say that the spirit there was happy and peaceful.  People weren’t starting fights with people who were trying to get through the crowd, etc.  Guitars were seen in numbers.  It was nice.  I’ll post the entire album when I can upload them to Flickr.  Enjoy!