I feel fortunate having had older brothers, especially their record collections. Earliest memory fixating on John Lennon’s Working Class Hero. That record’s actually called something else but growing up, everyone called it the Working Class Hero record. There was no visible title printed on it, just Lennon and Yoko sitting against a tree. Well, Well Well particularly got under my skin, I was about ten and I liked the way he said “she looked so beautiful I could eat her”. By the time I was a teenager I liked everything except Well Well Well. I didn’t hear it for many years and then sitting in a movie theatre watching The Departed by Martin Scorsese, it came up in the background of a scene. It was an odd choice and pretty amazing. I realized if me and Marty ever shared a taxi we’d have something to talk about. The other day I put on a John Lennon playlist and hearing random selections from his records was wondrous. When God came on, from The Working Class Hero record, I noticed two piano tracks. Previously, I assumed it was just Lennon (and perhaps it is) but even though it is uncomplicated, it seemed like more than two hands. Like certain chords were still ringing when something else was introduced, in the same register. That didn’t make sense unless over dubbed. Too late to ask John or Phil but I looked it up and there on Wikipedia was a link to Lennon’s father Freddie. I never heard of Lennon’s father just his mother, Julia, who had her own song on the White Album and Mimi, the aunt who raised him. Clicking on the link, then the face of 60ish Alfred, John Lennon’s father, just before he died. It was crazy. Such a similar face to the son.
.
People used to recognized me when I was in elementary school. Strangers would ask if I was a brother to this or that Wiseman because they could see the resemblance. I liked how often it happened. I expected it to always happen but it stopped by the time I was a teenager. Over the years, I see it for myself. I can see all my brothers in my face. Sometimes, through me I hear the laugh of this one or the crossness of that one. It stuns me and makes me wonder if I’m completely wrong about being a separate human being even though rational evidence would have it I am a separate human being. Then how is it RonnieGordieHowie are looking back at me in the mirror? My fellow students in the PhD program met online and discussed their different research. One guy is specializing in an area I don’t get. I think it’s about people having friendly relationships with robots, how we adjust to them. I forget his exact words but there is no shortage of people concerned about this thing. I’m not with them because we humans already are mechanical enough. I think whoever believes we already are robots, interests me more than whoever discusses how much more free will we have than the average elevator. I never heard of the robots screaming though. Generally speaking, Lennon is my all time favourite screamer. That’s still the best part of Well Well Well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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