10th
in memorium, a few days late…
“when we got married, we knew our honeymoon was going to be public anyway, so we decided to use it to make a statement. our life is our art. that’s what the bed-in was. we sat in bed and talked to reporters for seven days. it was hilarious. in effect, we were doing a commercial for peace instead of a commercial for war. the reporters were going “un-huh, yea, sure,” but it didn’t matter because our commercial went out irrespective. as i’ve said, everybody puts down t.v. commercials, but they go around singing them.
that’s what i’m saying (still). produce your own dream. if you want to save peru, go save peru. it’s quite possible to do anything, but not if you put it on the leaders and parking meters. don’t expect carter or reagan or john lennon or yoko ono or bob dylan or jesus christ to come do it for you….i can’t wake you up. YOU can wake you up. i can’t cure you. YOU can cure you.
the idea of leadership is a false god. if you want to use the beatles or john and yoko or whoever, people are expecting them to do something for them. that’s not what’s going to happen. but they [the followers] are the ones who didn’t understand any message that came before anyway. and they are the ones that will follow hitler or follow reverend moon or whoever. following is not what it’s all about, but leaving messages of “this is what’s happening to us. hey, what’s happening to you?” we’re sending postcards and letters. that’s what we do. and that’s the difference. do you see?
we can have examples, but leaders is what we DON’T need. it’s the utopian bit again. we’re all members of the conceptual utopia. so let’s not go round and round it: it’s one world, one people, and it’s a statement as well as a wish.”
-from the 1980 Playboy interview
