{"id":7778,"date":"2020-12-09T12:05:19","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T01:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/?p=7778"},"modified":"2020-12-10T17:21:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T06:21:07","slug":"tuesday-december-9th-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/?p=7778","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday December 9th 1980."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"RR09_011_lg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

An addendum.<\/p>\n

The below was originally written in December 2005,
\nnot long after I had visited New York. It was then
\ntwenty five years since Johns passing, now, here we
\nare, forty years since the nightmare of 1980. Very
\nlittle has changed about how I feel, and my perspective
\non what happened. I’m still no closer to resolving, or
\ncoming to terms with that loss. <\/p>\n

Tho I have suffered many awful losses in the years since 1980,
\nsomehow John’s loss hurts greater than most others. It truly
\ntook the shine off the world, showed us that something as joyous,
\nenriching and challenging as an artist, performer and poet, can be
\nsilenced by violence. Violence that could be minimized if not for
\nhumanities greed and arrogance. It was a dirty, senseless act, and it
\ntarnished the hopes, and innocence, of countless millions of people.
\nI think it struck me as especially cruel, as it was Johns music, along
\nwith the other Beatles, that kept me afloat, gave me an escape, from a
\nvery troubled childhood. <\/p>\n

That is why, John’s is the one death I cannot reconcile, because it
\nwas so senseless. <\/p>\n

With time comes a greater sense of poignancy. The Annie
\nLeibovitz photos from that day illustrate this most
\npowerfully. Gazing at the photo of John sitting in the
\nwindow, I was recently struck that the sun had set, it
\nwas now dusk. John would never see daylight again, that
\nhit me like a punch to the stomach.<\/p>\n

What an unimaginable loss. I’m forever thankful for the
\ntime John was with us. <\/p>\n

Today, in Australia . .<\/strong><\/p>\n

December the 9th at 2.50pm marks
\nthe twenty fifth anniversary of John Lennon being
\ntaken from us.<\/p>\n

So far most of what I have read has been from fans in
\nthe U.S and the U.K, but with the time differences, it
\nwas 2.50pm on the afternoon of December 9 that the
\nhorror unfolded down here in Australia. We had a
\ndifferent perspective here than many others around the
\nworld, as we didn\u2019t wake to the news, we watched it
\nunfold.<\/p>\n

Today has really stopped me in my tracks, 25 years
\nhave passed, I was only fifteen, I didn\u2019t know death,
\nI didn\u2019t know shock, I was still pretty much innocent
\n.. in the blink of an eye all that was to change.<\/p>\n

By August of 1980 I had been a Beatle fan for five
\nyears, in 1975 I was fan-ish enough to beg my brother
\nto take me to see Wings in concert, he didn\u2019t, and I
\nsobbed like a .. well, ten year old.<\/p>\n

During the years 1975 through to mid 1980, John had
\npretty much retired. I didn\u2019t \u2018know\u2019 him whilst he was
\nactive and recording, I remember seeing the photo of
\nYoko and he in our local paper that was taken in
\nFebruary 1980 in Palm beach, wow, a John sighting! A few
\nweeks later Rolling Stone ran another photo of John in
\nPalm beach, this time he was standing alone on the
\nboardwalk (must find that picture some day) by this
\nstage I was collecting, and clipping everything about
\nthe Beatles.<\/p>\n

In August came the news that John was recording again,
\nI was SO excited!, I had a new Beatle to follow! Again
\nour local paper the Illawarra Mercury ran a photo of
\nJohn and Yoko arriving at the studio, it was real, it
\nwas true, it was happening! John really was going to
\nbe recording again, and by fifteen, I was old enough to
\nappreciate this. <\/p>\n

\"Sydney<\/a><\/p>\n

I started collecting every bit of
\nnews that filtered down to us, mainly from our Aussie
\nmusic magazine \u2018Juke\u2019, which I bought without fail
\neach week. Another magazine which I can’t recall the
\nname of, also had regular updates on John\u2019s return, I
\ndo remember Gil Tucker from \u2018Cop Shop\u2019 was on the
\ncover of this newspaper like magazine. This was all pre
\nInternet, so one had to hunt down news, scour papers and
\nmagazines for the smallest bit of news. Each new find would
\nbe read over and over, then cut out, and added to scrap books.<\/p>\n

\"Nov<\/a><\/p>\n

Tv Week ran a one page story in November, it had
\na cool photo of Yoko and he standing outside the Hit
\nFactory studio in New York. <\/p>\n

\"TV<\/a><\/p>\n

One night in November I was lying on my bed listening
\nto my prized National radio cassette player, when the
\nannouncer said, \u201cComing up next we premiere John
\nLennon\u2019s new single \u2018(Just like) Starting Over\u2019\u201d gulp!! The
\nexcitement!, my first time ever hearing a new John
\nLennon song on the radio. The DJ played the song, and I
\ndon\u2019t remember what I thought of it on first listen,
\nbut I remember singing it over and over all night, just
\ntrying to remember it. Of course it turned into a
\ncompletely different song.<\/p>\n

\"National-Panasonic-Portable-FM-MW-Radio-Cassette-Player\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A week or so later I got Double Fantasy on cassette, I
\ncan’t remember exactly, but I probably brought it from
\nthe \u2018Rock pit\u2019 in Corrimal court, this was our local
\nrecord shop, and they knew I was a Beatle fan, they
\nalways put my name on Beatle posters when they were
\nadvertising a new album. Needless to say, my name went
\non the giant Double Fantasy poster that the store had.
\nI remember holding the cassette in my hands as I sat
\nin the back seat of my parents purple Escort car while
\ndad filled up with petrol, I was just waiting to get
\nhome to play it.<\/p>\n

\"DSCF2912\"<\/a>
\nAbove: My original cassette of Double Fantasy.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

By the second week of December the year was winding
\ndown, in February I would be turning sixteen. I felt
\nso old and mature, at school we were in the second
\nweek of \u2018End of year activities\u2019. This was a cool thing
\nwhere for the last two weeks of school, you got to pick
\nfun subjects and activities, like skating and
\nphotography.<\/p>\n

On December the 9th the world was good, the weather
\nwas warm, and for once school was fun. I spent the day
\nwith my friend Jeff in the darkroom developing a heap
\nof photo’s we had taken in our photography course (I
\nstill have one of these photos in my collection). We
\nhad such a fun day, we had gone on an excursion into
\ntown to David Jones to take some photos the previous
\nday. During lunch, as we walked north past the
\nindustrial arts building, I vividly recall Jeff asking
\nme what I was doing later that day, I told him
\nexcitedly that I was going to dinner at my brothers
\nplace, and his girlfriend Sue was making apricot
\nchicken.<\/p>\n

\"B1B33560-B2E4-484D-B029-FEB409D6B061\"<\/a>
\nAbove photo: Taken in my photography class on December 8th.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I got home from school at about 3.10pm, my sister
\nRhonda was visiting mum, they were talking in the
\nkitchen, dad had just left for afternoon shift and I
\nwent to my room and picked up my National radio
\ncassette player. I walked up to dads \u2018shed\u2019 (garage)
\nthis is where my guitar and drums were kept. Every
\nafternoon I would grab my cassette player, and head
\nstrait for the shed, I would put on a tape, or the
\nradio, and I would play along with whatever was on and
\npractice the drums.<\/p>\n

This afternoon was no different, I
\nsettled in, turned on the radio and started playing, I
\nflicked around the dial to find another song .. wow,
\ncool! A Beatle song, \u2018Love me do\u2019 so I played along to
\nthat. I swept across the dial again, ANOTHER
\nBeatle song \u2018Strawberry fields\u2019. <\/p>\n

When the song ended, so
\ndid my childhood, so did my innocence.<\/p>\n

\u2018In case you haven\u2019t heard already, former Beatle John
\nLennon was shot and killed just a short time ago in
\nNew York city\u2019.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The words of the DJ, I think it was Triple J radio.<\/p>\n

What happened next I can’t explain, I guess it was
\nshock.<\/p>\n

(I have since come to understand, in trauma, it’s
\nreferred to, and known as, ‘Disassociation’).<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/2SM-Dec-19801.mp3<\/a><\/audio>
\nAbove: The radio announcement as I heard it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I picked up
\nthe radio and walked down to the house, but I don\u2019t
\nremember walking, during the short time it took to
\nget to the house, I felt disconnected from my body. I
\nwalked into the kitchen where my sister and mum were
\ntalking, I didn\u2019t say anything, I literally could not
\nspeak. They saw something was terribly wrong, my sister
\nkept saying over and over, \u2018What is it!?\u2019. All I could
\nsay was, \u2018Just listen\u2019. <\/p>\n

I put the radio on the kitchen bench, and soon enough,
\nat the end of another Beatle song, the announcer came
\nback and repeated the words I had heard only minutes
\nbefore, \u2018John Lennon has been shot and killed in New York\u2019.
\nMy sister and mum gasped, then my sister said, \u2018I feel
\nlike a part of me has died\u2019.<\/p>\n

In those few short seconds my childhood, innocence,
\nsense of safety, and hope, was snatched away from me.<\/p>\n

I sunk down into a kitchen chair, the airwaves were
\nflooded with news and John songs. I gathered myself up,
\nand went in my room and found some cassettes. I
\nstarted taping the radio. I guess I thought If I put John
\non tape, then he wasn’t really gone, he was still here. It’s
\na phenomenon I’ve seen repeatedly since, with Princess Diana and
\nother high profile losses and disasters.<\/p>\n

People seem to need something to cling on to, to not let go of.
\nI went and lay down on the lounge room floor, listening, trying
\nto take this in. The phone rang, and it was my sister Dianne, she
\nasked me if I had heard the news about John. In the
\nbackground I could hear my niece Kylie crying, who I
\nknew was crying as much for me, as she was for John.<\/p>\n

Soon enough we had to go to my brothers for dinner. I
\ndidn\u2019t feel like seeing anyone let alone eating. I
\nremember arriving and being in shock, my brother
\nand his girlfriend Sue were really understanding, Sue in
\nparticular I could sense felt horrible for me, <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t eat that night, and I don\u2019t know that I ever
\nate apricot chicken again. I went and lay down on
\nGlenn and Sue\u2019s bed, and listened to my radio, the
\nsame one that brought me my first hearing of \u2018Starting
\nOver\u2019. I wouldn\u2019t let go of the radio, I clung to it,
\neven when I went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet
\njust to get away from everyone, and it was in
\nthere that I heard \u2018Working class hero\u2019 for the first time. <\/p>\n

Outside in the lounge I overheard my brother say to my
\nsister, \u2018This will be one of the biggest news stories ever\u2019.
\nWhen we got home, I was watching Roger Climpson read
\nthe late news on channel 7. At the end they played the
\nvideo of John singing \u2018Imagine\u2019. At that moment dad
\nwalked in from afternoon shift and said to me, \u2018I see
\nyour mate died\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u2018My mate\u2019, oh how I wish. John was a person who sang
\nand wrote songs, songs that touch my very soul, I
\n\u2018feel\u2019 his music, not everyone can, but I\u2019m one of the
\nlucky ones, every one of his songs sound as fresh
\nto me today, as the first time I heard them. I don\u2019t
\nknow too many other artist who\u2019s music you can say
\nthat about, for me, The Beatles, solo Lennon and McCartney
\nand Brian Wilson.<\/p>\n

One of my main joys in life is collecting everything
\nconnected with John in 1980, the \u2018Double Fantasy\u2019
\nperiod. I love when I find a new photo from this time,
\nthe reason being is the last six months of 1980 was
\nthe only time I \u2018had\u2019 John. He wasn\u2019t working as an
\nartist when I first became a fan. I cling to 1980, the
\nfew memories I have of him whilst he was still alive,
\nbecause I miss him, I miss his music, I miss his
\nwords, I miss the world I had when John was still here,
\nand so was my innocence, and sense of safety.<\/p>\n

I miss the \u2018man\u2019 .. this is something that has only
\nvery recently been made real to me. Only a couple of
\nweeks ago I got to visit New York for the first time,
\nwithin a day I understood why John fought for years to
\nbe allowed to live there. I took a deep breath and got
\non the subway and headed uptown to 72nd street, the
\naddress of the Dakota.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5064\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After all these years of being a fan, John was an image
\nin a magazine, an image in a movie, when I ascended
\nthe subway staircase and found myself standing next to
\nthe Dakota, John became a \u2018person\u2019. Until you stand
\nand walk around where John called home, it\u2019s hard to
\nget a real sense of him. When I walked
\naround to the entrance way to the building, and stood
\nin the spot where John had passed by a thousand times, I
\nreally could imagine John in his
\ncool black cowboy boots, I could picture him walking
\nwith pride with his wife and son in tow, across to
\nCentral Park, scooting around the corner to Cafe La Fortuna
\nfor his coffee, his gangly stride walking
\naround to the west side pharmacy to get his \u2018bits and
\npieces\u2019 on Columbus Avenue. In a word I got a sense of
\nthe \u2018man\u2019.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when the real tragedy of that day in 1980 hit
\nme, he was just a man, a husband, a father and he was
\ntaken from us all so easily and senselessly.<\/p>\n

At 2.50pm today I\u2019m going to be playing Double
\nFantasy, and I\u2019m going to be remembering that short
\ntime I had with John.<\/p>\n

Greg xoxo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An addendum. The below was originally written in December 2005, not long after I had visited New York. It was then twenty five years since Johns passing, now, here we are, forty years since the nightmare of 1980. Very little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,459,306,680,589,501,872,803,360,397,524,873,488,246,458,361,819,226,434,318,310,45,362,537,469,35,468,273,874,587,36,880,875],"class_list":["post-7778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-australia","tag-brisbane","tag-camp","tag-cinema","tag-dining","tag-drugs","tag-elizabeth-street","tag-facebook","tag-fair-day","tag-fashion","tag-feet","tag-flinders-street","tag-food","tag-gay","tag-gold-coast","tag-guys","tag-john-lennon","tag-john-waters","tag-kings-cross","tag-lesbian","tag-mardi-gras","tag-melbourne","tag-men","tag-midsumma","tag-movies","tag-newtown","tag-porn","tag-retro","tag-social-media-influencer","tag-stoner","tag-sydney","tag-the-beatles","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7778"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7800,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7778\/revisions\/7800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tammytingles.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}