Nearly 22 years later on the 8th of December of 1980, the music died for both their generation and my own with the mindless assassination of John Lennon. I grew up with John Lennon first with the Beatles providing the soundtrack for my early childhood and later, Lennon’s solo work became in many ways the anthem of my adolescence.

Born in 1963 the son of two hippie university professors, my childhood was inexplicably interwoven with the music and passion of those four “Mop Tops” from Liverpool, England. However, if the music of the Beatles defined my early childhood, clearly the passion and protests of John Lennon helped mold and shape the years leading into my adulthood.

As a child of the sixties, I was also a child of the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was the first televised, or “Living Room War”, and was a daily part of my childhood. My parents were always interested in both national and foreign affairs and on weeknights they would turn on the evening news and ghastly images of that war would fill the television screen for a few minutes, bringing that horrible war home to us… to me. Unlike the footage of WWII, the film clips were not scrutinized or censored by the government and I would sit in front of our old black and white Imperial Television purchased by my father years before while in college. To this day black and white film footage of Vietnam conveys a stronger sense of the mindlessness of war than the color footage of my generation’s wars. One of the most poignant images of the war came in the midst of the Tet Offensive when a Viet Cong terrorist was captured by South Vietnamese military officials and was summarily executed in the streets of Saigon.

Towards the latter part of the sixties, two events stand out in my mind when thinking about the war. The first was Walter Cronkite’s unprecedented editorial statement on the CBS Evening News on February 27th of 1968 when he declared:

“[I]t seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer’s almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies the invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.”

After watching Cronkite’s broadcast, LBJ was quoted as saying. “That’s it. If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost middle America.”

The second defining event for me began in September of 1969 when, in protest of Great Britain’s support of the Vietnam War, John Lennon returned his MBE (Medal of the British Empire) which had been awarded to the Beatles in 1965 by Queen Elizabeth. If Walter Cronkite had lost the support of “middle America” for the Vietnam War, this protest and subsequent anti-war efforts by John Lennon eventually lost its support from much of the rest of the world.

Over the course of the next few years and to his own peril, John Lennon actively campaigned against the war. Shortly after his marriage to Yoko Ono in 1969 they staged a “Bed-In for Peace” at the Amsterdam Hilton. Later that year at their second “Bed-In” they recorded “Give Peace a Chance” along with several celebrities to include Tommy Smothers, Timothy Leary, Petula Clark, Dick Gregory, and Murray the K. Later in October of 1969 in Washington D.C. a half million Vietnam War protestors sang the song at the Second Vietnam Moratorium.

In 1971 after moving to New York, John and Yoko became friends with Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin who co-founded the Youth International Party, also known as the “Yippies” who staged a series of elaborate anti-war rallies and demonstrations over the course of the next few years along with the support of John and Yoko. The Nixon administration considered him a serious threat to his reelection in 1972 as they believed he could mobilize the youth vote against Nixon as well as donate sizeable sums of money for rallies that would disrupt Nixon’s idea of an orderly America. As a result, in March of 1972 the Immigration and Naturalization Service began a four-year effort to deport Lennon based on his 1968 conviction of drug possession. It was not until 1975, after Richard Nixon’s resignation, that a deportation order was overturned and the next year he was finally given his “green card”.

I think it appropriate this time of year to revisit John and Yoko’s anti-war campaign of late 1969 at which time they rented billboards in eleven cities around the world which read: “WAR IS OVER! (If You Want It) Happy Christmas from John and Yoko“. The cities involved Amsterdam, Athens, Berlin, Helsinki, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome, Tokyo and Toronto. This was followed up in October of 1971 with the recording of “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” and the video you see below. The Harlem Community Choir provides the backup of children’s voices and is credited on the single.

As was noted by Stephen Holden in Rolling Stone Magazine, John Lennon was a man who “personalized the political and politicized the personal, often making the two stances interchangeable but sometimes ripping out the seams altogether.” He went on to write that “John Lennon believed passionately that popular music could and should do more than merely entertain, and by acting out this conviction, he changed the face of rock & roll forever.”

John Lennon is a man who has inspired me for the greater part of four decades and this Christmas I salute his memory while at the same time noting that his words and deeds are every bit as relevant today as they were 31 years ago, “The Day the Music Died”.

Coming or Going

It’s safe to say that Buenos Aires is now well and truly on the map of international tourist destinations. The city has seen an interesting tourism evolution over the past few years, from the early arrival of the hesitant backpackers testing the waters in the days following the economic crisis, to the bargain seekers of the mid 00s through to the international business travellers and luxury tourists you find cruising the streets of Palermo, staying at the likes of Faena and the Sheraton today. With the evolution of the tourist, has come an evolution of Buenos Aires’ offering to tourists. From independent tour guides to the Big Yellow Bus, Citroen 2CVs offering views of BA from the backseat of a vintage car, to more recently, a running tour where you get to see Buenos Aires whilst burning off a few hundred calories en route.

Most recently however, a number of tours that focus on Buenos Aires’ vibrant and ever evolving art scene have sprung up. One of the pioneers being Graffitimundo, a company that makes Buenos Aires unique street art theme accesible to visitors through daily tours around Palermo and Villa Crespo. Another being Juanele an art collective who offer Art Walks around the city

Road Kill

However an even newer kid on the block is Foto Ruta, recently set up by two photographer expats, Foto Ruta claims to offer participants a new perspective on the city, ‘it’s not a tour in it’s traditional form, we don’t drag big groups along the usual tourist trail, it’s a participatory activity that helps tourists, expats and locals experience parts of the city that are a little off the tourist trail, whilst learning a bit about photography.’

The idea goes something like this, each Wednesday and Saturday, Foto Ruta is held in a different barrio / neighborhood. Participants turn up to the elected meeting place (one of Foto Ruta’s favorite local cafes) and receive a briefing on the neighborhood, followed by a crash course in street photography, hosted by professional photographer Joss Mandryk. ‘This part of the day is designed to get their creative juices flowing and begin thinking like a photographer for the afternoon’. Then, in small teams, everyone sets off for an afternoon of exploration using their cameras to capture a series of clues.

Zen and the Art of Cocktails

At the end of the day everyone catches up over a free glass of wine to compare results, and so far, the results have been impressive. ‘People who didn’t think they had a creative bone in their body, are coming back with some great shots, interpreting the clues in their own unique way’. The results are put up on Foto Ruta’s website and Facebook page every week.

Foto Ruta, Graffiti Mundo and the many art tours that are springing up around the city are tours that are a bit out of the ordinary, perhaps because Buenos Aires is a city that’s a bit out of the ordinary. Lacking in famous sights and must do´s that other destinations pride themselves on, it’s a city that demands an alternative approach to match it’s alternative personality.

Foto Ruta costs $100 pesos and takes place in a different barrio every week. To find out more and book email hola@foto-ruta.com