STARTING OVER: May Pang confirmed that she plans to rewrite "Loving John," her 1983 memoir about her life with Lennon. "I am going to do a complete rewrite on 'Loving John,' she told us. "The new book will be closer to what I had originally envisioned." Asked when the book might be ready, she said, "I don't have any set dates as I am going through my notes from those years."
COMING NEXT YEAR: We've learned that "Beatles Memorabilia: The Julian Lennon Collection," which we reviewed here, won't be issued in the U.S. until next year. Until then, you can get it directly through Amazon.co.uk.
Q LENNON ISSUE: The UK Guardian reports Q magazine will feature a special tribute to John Lennon's birthday with comments from Paul McCartney and others in the November issue which goes on sale Thursday. The magazine will feature four different versions with four photos, two unpublished with one of them taken by Yoko Ono.
BEATLES ON "MAD MEN": Sunday night's episode of "Mad Men" included a reference to the Beatles at Shea Stadium.
WALL OF FAME: John Kiesewetter has an interesting blog about how the scrawlings of Beatle fans in the '60s on the old WSAI-AM building will be preserved by the city. The writings say things like "I love the Beatles" and "Kathy Loves George Harrison" and "I love the Beatles, esp. Paul." More details are coming Monday, according to Kiesewetter.
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Comments
Regarding Julian Lennon's "Beatles Memorabilia" book. You certainly CAN get it via Amazon.com here in the US. I purchased mine last Sunday and received it in the mail 5 days later. The book is stunning!
Pattie: Yes, you can but you'll probably pay more than you would through Amazon.co.uk, which is why I wrote it like that.
Well, the US dollar is doing a bit better now, but with shipping to the US, it would probably come out about the same. Thanks, Steve!
I agree, a lot of times even if the book is pricier in the US, you save on the shipping. Many Amazon US items will ship to the US free if the order is over $25. You won't get that deal on Amazon UK, the shipping is more cause it's overseas.
If May is doing a complete rewrite of Loving John...um isn't that a whole new book?
How many times is May going to rewrite her book?
In Loving John it was all beatings and drunken rages.
In Instematic Karma it was all "look how happy he is"
Now she is going to RE WRITE again? What is she pushing this time?
And how many different versions of this story will she write? Every time she does this she loses credibility. Each time it is a different story. It's almost like she is obsessed with the world knowing she was there. WE KNOW ALREADY. We don't care anymore. She is inflating her place in Lennon history. She was a girlfriend, nothing more. Not a wife, and 18 months is really not a very long time.
However you choose to demean May Pang's relationship with Lennon, she still spent 18 months with him during a key period in his solo career. She was there, as his secretary, lover and muse. Was Pang merely a girlfriend? Just a mistress? Peter Doggett notes in 'You Never Give Me Your Money' that in early 1975, John and May had plans to buy a cottage in Montauk when Yoko lured Lennon back to the Dakota.
Do you find it objectionable that Cynthia Lennon (who wrote 'A Twist of Lennon' in 1978) wrote a second expanded book about her time with John in 2005? Are her recountings of beatings and drunken rages more acceptable to you because she was married to him?
Yoko Ono has spent years trying to *deflate* May's place in Lennon history. You might not care anymore, Walrusbuddy, but I certainly do.
Michael,
Since Yoko as wife arranged May as mistress,Yoko can present her anyway she wants to whether we agree with it or not. John did not go out and hand pick May. Yoko arranged the whole thing and John went along with it.
I think all three women exploited John and do not agree with any of them constantly trying to prove their worth to the world. Nobody needs to write two or three books to tell the same tired stories over and over again.
But she seems hell bent on wasting her time doing it.
Sure, she seems hellbent on doing it. It's either because she needs money or she genuinely wants to get out the true story of John's Lost Weekend. Not perhaps to further her own fame, but because she feels it deserves to be told. Who the hell knows why she's doing it except for her? People write the same old tired shit over and over again; that's life.
Ruth,
May has been "setting the record straight" with every book she writes. Unfortunately every time she does it is a different story. First book, he is miserable, second book he is happy, is the third book going to say he was bored?
I know I am.
Walrusbuddy, she was there. You weren't.
Yes Steve, she was there, but she seems to change her story with every book or revise she does. I mean what's up with that? She got her 18 months of fame.
If you do your research you'll discover that May Pang had a co author for her book "Loving John". May has admitted in many interviews that this co author, and the publisher, exploited her inexperience in that business and conspired against her to put out the book they wanted, not the one she wrote. Sadly, she lost control of the project early on. Both the publisher and co author insisted on dramatically cutting down the original manuscript so as to leave only the sexual and sensational aspects of her story. They also would not allow interviews with the dozens of others who were eyewitnesses to May's story, which would have added enormous credibility to her version of events.
Consequently, the book was, and is, dismissed as nothing but a sensationalistic "tell all".
May has said in interviews that she's regretted "Loving John" since it came out and wanted to tell the true story of their time together. "Instamatic Karma" was the beginning of this process--pictures to let people see how John really was during that time; pictures that would help to erase the drunken bum image people had of him, an image that she, sadly, had helped to create with her first book.
On a recent radio show May said that her new book will be the story that she originally wanted to tell, which was an insider's look at John's creative process as he wrote and recorded the most successful songs of his solo career. She and the others who were there have much to tell about that most important time in his life, when he was clearly at his creative best.
Steve, dude, chill out man.
No one is is disputing she was there. However she was only there once, not three times.
Peace.
At least someone finally admits that May contributed to the drunken image. No matter how many books she write, or interviews she gives, history will stand as it is. Many witnesses to the drunk miserable sad and unhappy Lennon are not going to change their stories just because May does, Go ahead girl, knock yourself out, write 100 books. The Lost Weekend will always be known as a miserable time for Lennon because HE SAID SO, and Lennon is not here to change his story.
Steve, for a writer I've gotta say you're somewhat naive w/the "she was there, you weren't" line. Just because a person wasn't there doesn't mean they'll write a bad and/or incorrect book, any more than being there means you'll write a good and/or more correct book. As a reporter, you should also know that oftentimes a person who was there isn't necessarily a very good witness.
Walrusbuddy was merely making the point that May's perspective on John seemed to change dramatically from book to book. Which actually seems even odder for someone who "was there." Although the point about her not having control of her first book was good.
It's obvious that both versions are partially true. John was a miserable drunk sometimes. He and May had pleasant times together sometimes. But ultimately, he left the door open for himself by never divorcing Yoko, which tells me he never fully committed to May. Believe me, if you're with a married person, no matter how much they say they love you, if you've been together over a year and they still haven't divorced their partner, it probably isn't going to happen.
And Michael, above, the same Peter Doggett book you mention also quotes John as saying he had only "sort of filled in" with May "so as not to be alone at night." Also saying "I don't want to put May down. She is a nice girl. But she knew what the score was."
My comment stemmed from the fact that a lot of people say things like that with little knowledge of what really happened. We can speculate all we want, but ultimately, unless you're in the middle, you don't know everything that went on.
Anonymous, Lennon's assessement of Pang, a 'nice girl' who 'knew what the score was,' is pure 'Lost Weekend' spin, very likely one of the earliest examples. Would you honestly expect him to have said anything else following his return to Ono, knowing full well that Yoko would be reading it (or even approving it).
There are two camps of thought on John's last years. Yoko's camp professes a simplistic, marketable (and at times revisionist) view of her late husband as peacenik and househusband - baking bread, raising Sean and eschewing music until the period before their great heart play, 'Double Fantasy.' Every year or so, we are invited to enjoy a new Lennon product (CD, DVD, book, stage play, exhibit, etc) with Ono declaring each as something 'John would have wanted, loved, enjoyed, etc.'
I firmly belong in the other camp that understands there was more to Lennon than that, a complex man worth knowing, with May an honest and respectful flag bearer. Before posting this, I reread 'Instamatic Karma' and I didn't note anything in the essays accompanying her pictures that professes a version different from the one she presented in 'Loving John.' Of course the pictures on display present a more upbeat Lennon. Who among us would whip out a camera to preserve a moment when a family member is behaving badly? IK isn't another memoir, it's a colleciton of meritable moments from vacations, studio sessions and pleasant evenings with friends.
Pang has only has ever espoused one version of her time with John, and it's her version, filled with ups and downs, starring an amazing cast of characters. It has not changed dramatically as the anonymous posters in this string would contend. As BeatleBabe has pointed out, 'Loving John' was not the book Pang wanted to publish in 1983. Soon we will have her definitive statement and I'm looking forward to it.
Well not all of Lennon's negative comments on the lost weekend were "spin". Many things John said about wanting to end the relationship with May, he said TO May, before he was in earshot of Yoko or the public. I wonder if anyone has actually read "Loving John". May writes about the times Lennon wanted to end the relationship with her, how he left May alone for a month in LA while he came back to NY with Harry, coincendentally around the same time that Paul intervened and told him if he wanted to get back with Yoko he would have to return to NY and woo her, and the day he left May, she wrote in her book that he was going to see Yoko alone because it "was just between us". Then he stayed. May also wrote in her book that Yoko called her in Sept 74 and told her directly that she was thinking of taking him back. So yes, May DID know the score, the score being that this always was a temporary arrangement. If she believed otherwise then she was young and inexperienced, and considering the she was only 22 and John was only her second boyfriend, she did not understand that she was just being used.
I disagree that May did not want to publish Loving John or that anything in it is false. She published it in 1983 and then republished it again in 1992. If there was anything wrong with it she would not have had it reprinted 10 years later. From what I have read her big beef with it is that it did not include the 100 pages of "creative processes" that they cut from the book and she wants to reinstate that. Of course since she co wrote it with another person she will now have to get his permission as he owns half the copyright.
if she published a book she did not want to publish that is her own fault.
Her having the "goods" the story, the "having been here" she could have vetoed the whole thing . She did not.
Plus her first book states several times that Lennon beat her many times, wanted to end the relatonship many times and gee all of this without Yoko around to hear it.
I will ALWAYS believe Lennon over Pang. He picked the name the "Lost Weekend " because it described how HE felt, not a s a kowtow to Yoko.
I agree, she could have given the money back and had her lawyers pull the book if it was not what she wanted. She could have done a zillion interviews instead, or self published somewhere down the road. She DID have a choice to publish or not publish, but I suspect it had more to do with advance money already spent and what it would have cost her in legal fees to stop the book. If she felt she lost control and didn't want it published she should not have made all those personal appearances to sign the book.
I've heard Pattie Boyd also say the same thing, but I suspect the same thing. She needed the money and made the choice to let them publish the book she lost control of.
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