High life
Oh no!
Taki
New York Reading my low life' colleague's remarks about how expensive it is to live badly these days, I remembered what Oscar Wilde had to say about money: 'It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating,' said the Irish sage, and how right he was. One person who is definitely adhering to Wilde's epigram is the second most famous widow in the world, Yoko Ono. Ever since Lennon's untimely death Ono has retreated into a million-dollar bereavement. After taking out a full-page advertisement in the New York Times (where else?) and various other papers around America she proceeded to bring out a new single record of her songs with the following words on the jacket: 'Getting this together after what happened was hard. But I know John would not rest his mind if I hadn't. I hope you like it.'
As I don't listen to modern music, or buy records, I am hardly the person to complain. I don't expect anything but a show of venality from record producers, and bad taste from Ono. But I had the misfortune to get stuck in a car with someone who insisted on playing the radio, and the sound I heard was something that reminded me of an incident — long ago — that I shall never forget. It was in the birthplace of duplicity, Greece, and I was coming home from school accompanied by my nanny. Suddenly we heard a macabre howling and saw a Greek torturing a cat. Skinning it alive, in fact. The people did nothing until a policeman arrived, and even he simply issued a reprimand.
Well, I hate to be unpleasant, but the sound I heard coming over the airwaves reminded me of that horrible day. Yoko screeches, howls, and whines, but no one is torturing her, she's simply printing money. Worst of all, the disc jockeys have been playing her record non-stop. At her veil', very best, she sounds like those yululating Arab women at a funeral. At her worst, like that unfortunate little cat. It's enough to drive one back to military marches. The person responsible for the record is a man by the name of David Geffen; and it seems to be selling well. (No wonder JimmY Carter and Ted Kennedy got and will get elected. If you buy Ono, you are liable to buy anything.) What angers me is not that those two are making money — I am sore there are worse people around doing just as well — it is that the public has been conditioned to accept Ono as a legitimate artist in a field her husband helped to define.
If she had any character Ono would staY away from using Lennon's connection, and switch to something else. But, as I have said so many times before, the rich are greedy, and the very rich are greedier still. The greediest of all, however, are the filthy rich who happen to be progressive in their politics. Ono is a radical where politics are concerned. She also prefers to pile up her millions. In a recent interview she said that Lennon told her time and time again that she was a commercial success and not to get kicked around. Poor Mozart. In the eyes cif Geffen and Ono he must really have been a failure.
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