Burning Whatever Is Idiotic

You probably heard about that guy in Florida who wants to burn the Qur'an on the 9/11.  I'm not really going to comment on that as anyone who knows me also knows what I think about that, but I mention it because it got me thinking about one of those "Ah ha!" moments we all have were we suddenly mapped out a point on our moral compass.

It was back in 1966 when John Lennon's comment about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus hit the US media just before a tour of theirs.  There was the understandable outrage as back in the 60's, people just were supposed to KNOW their place. Especially young kids from Liverpool who were suddenly getting very rich and very influential. They especially should KNOW their place, since they were earning in about a week what the average American earned in a year or two.  (Note: The minimum wage in 1966 was $1.25/hour for a weekly wage of $50.00.  And the Beatles were making 39 cents per record sale.  So to make 50 bucks they only had to sell 128 records. Rubber Soul, which came out in early 1966, sold 1.2 million in just the US alone in the first 9 days after its release. That's a pretty big chunk of the American dream.)

Anyway, I first heard about the record burning while listening to my "pocket" size transistor radio. It was a "pocket" sized radio alright (think in terms of the first cell phones) - as long as I was wearing my Osh-Gosh bib overalls complete with side loop for hanging my hammer my mother once bought me much to my horror, but that's another story. Because that was the first I heard of burning records I asked my good buddy Eddy what was going on and he explained to me about Lennon's remark in some rather prejudicial terms as he was a bit more religious than I  - probably because his home life was a hell of lot worse than mine. More on that also some other time.  Since Eddy was outraged, not wanting to be different I was outraged as well.  We talked briefly about burning our Beatles records as well, but it was an idle threat and we both knew it. We worked too hard delivering newspapers to get the money to buy those albums. Besides, once the Rolling Stones came out with their stuff, I sort of realized that I didn't have to like the group to like their music.

And I wasn't really in a rage. Things like that just didn't get me worked up. I had grown up hearing about how the Nazis burned books and even without understanding the underlying terror, it just seemed so pointless to me. I mean so you burn a book. Big deal.  If it's one I read, I still know what was in it, and it's not like you can't go some place else and get another copy. And while I did think JL's remark as first explained to me was kind of arrogant and egotistical and was a bit disappointing, later that afternoon while delivering The Cleveland Press on my paper route when I actually got to read the Lennon article for myself, I saw that JL was basically correct in what he said.  I won't go into too many details as you can check it out for yourself, but what he said was what what everyone was saying at that time, including TIME itself with it's famous IS GOD DEAD? cover.  It was his opinion that Christianity was decline, and that in terms of current popularity, the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. And guess what? They were.  That's what got everyone so mad. Lennon had dared to say what everyone really knew. So they were going to strike back by burning the Beatles' records.  And that's when I had my "ah ha" moment.

See, Lennon's comment was based on how The Beatles records were selling so much world wide. And here was a group that was going to burn their records. Well, in order to burn a Beatles' record, first you have to buy a Beatles record.  What a joke!  Those who wanted to protest how popular the Beatles were first had to go and help establish their popularity. I think I read in one of the books written about the Beatles, that they themselves appreciated this irony.