I was running the New York office of Playboy, where I had the task of assigning the monthly Playboy Interviews. Meanwhile, Beatlemania scarcely abated, with rumors of a reunion surfacing every other month.

He memorably sowed wild oats, then devoted himself to being a dad and a house husband. In 1980, 10 years after the events in the documentary, after “Imagine” and several solo albums, Lennon had taken five years off. So, here’s what happened … many years ago. ‘What can I do to make it up to you boys?’ asked John In the present, I had to stifle an urge to ask our grown sons if they’d done their homework.Īlso: Good-natured, steady-drumming Ringo, chanting his “Octopus’ Garden,” prickly George, squirming under Paul’s guitar directions, trying out lyrics to his masterpiece, “Something,” as John suggests he use a nonsense phrase until the right one emerges: “Attracts me like a cauliflower.”Īfter watching Paul, annoyed at John’s lateness, create “Get Back” out of thin air, my favorite moment: The camera pans between the two battling Liverpool mates, guitar riffs twanging, finding a difficult chord for “Two of Us,” as the camera zooms in to show John nodding at Paul, grinning, signaling: Good one, that. The series, a soft-focus, nostalgic look back at a family in the ‘60s, had a theme song - of course, a Lennon-McCartney tune. Over 30 years ago, our own fab foursome would assemble once a week to see the only TV show we allowed the boys to watch as kids: The Wonder Years. It was a moment, having both sons under our roof at the same time, another wisp from the past.

Thia does not agree.) She had popcorn ready, and sons Blair, 42, and Tyler, 39, stretched their big, sandaled feet onto our coffee table. (Like any guy, I think it could be bigger. Thia and I settled down for the long watch in our apartment. On a wall niche in our kitchen, Thia has mounted an anniversary gift from our friends Andy and Linda - a warmly-lit neon sign reading, “All You Need is Love.” You can see how for us, the auguries have been crackling like the wild, vivid lightning storms we watch from our balcony above Tampa Bay. It will appear in print a few days after that, on Dec. I’m writing this column on the date that John Lennon died, Dec. It had just arrived on the newsstands when Lennon was killed by a deranged fan in New York City. And years later, in 1980, as the editor in charge of interviews at Playboy magazine, I took part in Lennon’s final interview, his longest ever. We lived for a time in the same rural Connecticut village that Sondheim had lived and died in.

E-40 go hard or go home lyrics