Choices

At work my boss held a viewing of "The Devil Wears Prada" during a staff lunch. Hubby was certain it was gonna be my final day at work since I did make a comparison a while back to the difficult Miranda character and perhaps she was onto me. Either she read my blog or saw the movie and saw the similarities herself - who knows. But anyhow, after the film we chatted about my previous glamor job at Sire Records in New York City and the feeling one had about being caught up in the whirlwind of glamorous parties, free tickets to everything cool and being on every New York City guest list. It was a glorious few years for me too in the late 1970s, early 1980s, when NYC was at its decadent party best. Ms. boss told me she also felt she had a glamor job at the beginning - but I can't see how you can compare being glamourous in academia with the entertainment industry. No way can they be in the same league.

But in the movie, Miranda talks about "choices". You make the choices which get you to where you want to go. Fair enough. I've done that often.

Yesterday morning I was reading the papers about Sean Lennon (son of John for those not in the know) coming to Israel for a Saturday night gig at Hangar 11 in Tel Aviv. In fact, Friday morning, as I was reading the papers at 9:00 am, he was already here and set to do a book signing at the Third Ear record store in Tel Aviv at 1:00 pm. Ahh choices. Should I go? Should I not go? If someone would have been my partner-in-crime and carted me off with them, there would have been no question, but to have to get dressed and maneuver my way through Tel Aviv - not an easy feat for a Jerusalemite - is energy burning.

And you might ask - why would I care so much about seeing a young man, whose music I never heard, who is the son of a legend?

Well, there's history behind all this. Before my glamor job, I spent the summer of 1970 doing my Beatles thing. I was 14 years old and told my folks I wanted to stay home that summer and not go to sleepaway camp. I'm sure they were miserable with my choice being that they had carted me away to summer sleepaway camps since I was 8 years old. And now I was back home and that left them with, well, a teenager to deal with. So much for THEIR summer vacation.

I had been Beatle mad since 1968 and collected everything about them. In the summer of 1970 (or was it 1971?) before John and Yoko moved into the Dakota apartment building, the couple stayed at the Plaza Hotel for a few months. I found out about this through older friends of mine. The girls were about 18 - 21 years old and I had "proven" myself to them when I happened to find out where Paul McCartney was recording the album Ram at CBS recording studios. I had cut school and sauntered over there in the freezing weather to see him walk in and out of the studio and watch him be gruff with his few fans that were there (between 2-6 of them). None of us wanted to bother him with photo-taking and autographs. We felt that if we didn't act like nuisances, he might, well, talk to us, invite us into the studio, have pity on us because we were freezing, etc. None of that did happen, but since I acted like the rest of the girls hanging outside, not taking photographs, not getting autographs, not yelling "OMG IT'S HIM!!!!", I was allowed entry into their exclusive clique. And that meant more to me than getting a useless autograph.

Throughout that year and the next and the next - I would get calls that one of the Beatles (even though they had already broken up by that time) had arrived in New York, with their whereabouts and I would choose whether I'd want to hang around there or not. I remember the fans being too shy to approach any of these guys, but I wasn't. One of the girls handed me a Beatles t-shirt circa 1964 and told me to give it to John. He walked out of his hotel - and I handed him the t-shirt. I told him "I know the Beatles are dead and all that - but you can have the myth". He laughed and gave me a warm 'thank you'. Another friend of mine gave him a Dr. Seuss book which we saw him reading in his limo. We had read his books "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works" and thought his writing was so cleverly written, and similar to Dr. Seuss books in a way, but of course more clever and wittier than Dr. Seuss. Once Yoko had her driver buy us all milkshakes and I, of course, was eternally grateful. She had been in my good books ever since.

In 1975, when Sean was born, one of my closest friends was a nurse at the ICU unit where he was and gave me hourly updates on what was happening and who she saw and how cute the baby was, etc.

So these are some of my memories of my teenage summers in NYC and there are lots more. I had some photos that people had taken through those years (not me - I didn't take the photos - remember - I was trying to act 'cool') and thought of digging them out and giving them to Sean. I didn't think anyone else in Tel Aviv would have given him such a meaningful gift as I would have. My mind started drifting. He's a handsome 31 year old and I thought of bringing with me some of my hot daughters so that he would fall in love with them and stay in Israel. But I chose to take it easy that Friday and just stay put where I was. Had I been younger and had more energy, I might have taken the other choice. But maybe Hubby will chauffer me to Tel Aviv tonight, let me hear what this young whippersnapper of a man sounds like and maybe I'll hand him that envelope of photos of his dad. Maybe. Or maybe not.