YOKO NO-NO!
In my absence from New York City, I have spent many moments over a cold glass of beer reminiscing of the good ol’ days in the big apple. One of my favorites and one that I like share with friends and my mom likes to share with everyone is the most jaw-opening and speechless moment of my life, as of now. As my loyal readers, you must all be aware that the majority of my celebrity sightings occurred during my working hours at Barnes & Noble in the Lincoln Triangle, and this one is no different. However, this is a person I would never expect to encounter in my life nor had the memory to instantly recall her face.
It was a typical Saturday when I was put on a register at BN Music department and on this extremely busy day I was paying little attention to who my customers were. During one moment when the line grew particularly long an average looking Asian women in her 30s came up to my register and unloaded a bunch on items on my counter. I noticed an elderly Asian women with sunglasses behind her acting very aimlessly. The younger Asian women also had unloaded a bunch of merchandise on my co-worker’s counter as he was rigging her up. So this pile of junk in front of me was obviously for the older Asian women not paying attention at all. As I finished ringing the products and was ready to ask for a form of payment, the younger Asian women yelled at the older Asian women and said, “I need your card to pay.” I didn’t care who paid me, and grabbed the card as it was put down on my counter by the younger Asian women. Here was the first shock when I picked up a Black American Express Card, which if you don’t know is called the Centurion card, has a $2,500 annual member fee, and in the U.S. a minimum charge limit of $250,000 per year. Every time I got one of these cards, which was quite often, I internally said, “Holy fucking shit!” And I also made sure to check the name, but most times it was someone I’d never heard of and just a person who had a lot of money. But this time was different, and as I read the name I can only describe my feelings as a weird cocktail of confusion, disbelieve, and surprise. I glanced over at my co-worker, Jarvis, and he mouthed to me what was embedded on the card, YOKO ONO. I looked at my customer, my eyes flashed wide open, I said nothing, and swiped the card.
John and Yoko Ono.
Then, Mrs. Lennon had a slight problem. The magnetic strip on her Black AMEX card was faulty and not working on my register. I swiped multiple times, but had to tell her that her card was not working. I was forced to speak with Yoko Ono, and it felt like I was touching a small part of the world’s history. I don’t even know if my speech was recognizable as English, but Yoko spoke back to me and handed me another card. The women charged with the act of breaking up The Beatles stood right in front of me and smiled. I was embarrassingly star struck. Nobody will ever have a celebrity sighting to top that.
July 19, 2009 at 12:03 am
I think that was a great moment. I have a dilemma now. I don’t know If I would like an encounter with Yoko or to have a black american card. I think that I lean to the card…
August 25, 2009 at 2:01 am
Probably not completely Yoko who broke them up … George Martin played an important role in this as well.
Once I visited the Onos on the occasion of the kid’s birthday … I was invited because someone else couldn’t make it. My first visit to the Dakota apts. Very stately. This tiny Japanese woman kept telling me to eat more lasagna, she had made it and not the caterer. The lasagna was pretty good.
Yoko was the daughter of a man who in the 1950′s was CEO of Japan’s most successful post-war bank. John and Yoko shared an affinity for each other because they both spent their childhoods in bomb shelters on opposite sides of the world during WWII. This was the hook in their relationship, not money, as so many insist, and the impetus for their shared pacificsm.
Yoko moved to NYC in the late 1950s and became a founding member of the “Fluxus” movement (John Cage, Nam June Paik, Merce Cunningham et. al). So she already had the street cred. Still she couldn’t add anything important to John’s post-Beatle output except some very bad noises. She was always present in the studio. I think this is why people resent her so much.
But no doubt, Yoko would have that Centurion Card from Amex whether she married John Lennon or not. She may have inherited a fortune far greater than all the Beatles combined.
Just thought this would be interesting to you.