Silly JD Trivia
Karen A. Van Hoek
Excuse me if this has been discussed before (I'm pretty new here), but I
remember that when I was a teenager, 16 Magazine or TeenBeat or some such
wrote that John liked to mow his lawn in the nude. Was this true? I
haven't seen that mentioned anywhere more recently. I was a little
surprised when I read in "Take Me Home" that he'd lost a couple of toes in
an accident with a lawnmower -- I wouldn't think he'd want to mow the lawn
in the nude if he'd already been traumatized like that. But the article
way back then had what purported to be a direct quote from him about it.
It was 25 years ago, but it's not the kind of thing you forget :)
Karen
KJ
I used to have a copy of the interview, but burned my scrapbook in a little
goodbye ceremony on 10/12/98.
KJ
Karen A. Van Hoek <k...@login.itd.umich.edu> wrote in message
news:YsYY4.889$xJ2....@news.itd.umich.edu...
Rosemary Good
Doggone---it's at a time like this that I'm missing Christine Moon! She'd
have the answer for sure. And I sure hope that she's having a great time
rafting down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon. Can't wait to hear
about it.
Rosemary
rang...@hotmail.com
I
> remember that when I was a teenager, 16 Magazine or TeenBeat or some
such
> wrote that John liked to mow his lawn in the nude. Was this true?
Here is the article from TV guide. Got it from another JD fan - thanks,
Ann.
Shalom - Peace
Joan
Subject: TV Guide Article
The Fantasy of Henry John Deutschendorf...becomes the
reality of John Denver
by JR Young
TV Guide November 30, 1974
He is a seller of dreams. John Denver is the original
purveyor of the Rocky
Mountain High, a man who makes the impossible seem
possible, the laughing,
fair-haired fellow whose songs celebrate sunny
smog-free days, long walks in
the wilds, the love of a fine woman, the simple life.
Escape! That's the
John Denver Traveling Extravaganza and Elixer of Life.
Cures all human
ills. No wonder hardened cynics loathe him, and no
wonder John's people
love him. John makes fantasies work. Theirs and his.
Especially his.
"I'll tell ya," John said as he said cross-legged on a
thick carpet in Los
Angeles recently, "this right here is a fantasy. This
conversation and
everything else that's going on in LA for me this week
is a fantasy from 10
years ago when I was sitting on a life-guard tower in
Long Beach,
California, and ached to sing to people. I dreamed
about it. I wanted to
do what I felt I could do, doo it so well that there
would be more people
than we could handle. And I'll tell you how hard I
dreamed. I dreamed just
hard enough to make it real. Now it is, and I love
it."
Indeed he should. Because John Denver is a very hot
property these days.
Four of his latest albums have "gone platinum" (one
million-plus albums
sold); his last TV special was nominated for an Emmy;
he has signed a
multi-program contract with ABC-TV; he's been deluged
with film scripts; and
he's constantly on the road singing his songs. His
special "A Family Event"
will be on ABC Dec 1.
Henry John Deutschendorf grew up in an Air Force family
that traveled the
country. As a kid, he was small and shy. He couldn't
throw a football or
sweet-talk the cuties, so he took to carrying a guitar
on his bakc through
the school halls, and waited for the classic line, "Oh
can you play?" When
people actually asked, John learned to play. Then he
took up singing.
Enough so, in fact, that he eventually packed up his
gear, and moved West to
join the waning well-scrubbed folk scene. In 1965,
John replaced Chad
Mitchell in the Mitchell Trio, a "wry and irreverent"
campus attraction.
When that folk idiom faded, the group called it quits
and John went out on
the road alone, performing at colleges.
"He was out singing his songs to the people," Jerry
Weintraub, John's
manager, says of those days. "John wasn't selling any
records, and being
out there was the only way he could get his message
across. It was like a
grass roots campaign. We went to the people first, and
the people said,
'You're great!' John was selling out in Texas, Iowa,
St. Louis and Kansas
City before anyone in New York knew who he was."
Yes, but what about all this Colorado good-guy stuff?
Is is just so much image?
"Image?" Weintraub snorted. He was incredulous at such
a notion, as if it
were obscene. "What do you mean, image? The image is
John! You can't
build a false image and make it last. To sell the
number of records that
John has and to expose himself on TV, it has to be
real. It can't be a
hoax." He shook his head. "Listen, I've been there.
I've seen John in the
mountains. Writing. I've watched an eagle fly by.
And I didn't think I'd
ever see that. Right by my eyes." He made a long
soaring movement with his
arm. "That's the image."
Denver, who had heard the question before, continued.
"I try not to waste
too much time and energy on negative things, so that I
can get everything
out of what is. Like I tell my audiences before each
show. I would like
them to go where the music takes them." He paused to
let that sink in.
"Now, that's a tiny little statement, but it opens up a
space for a lot of
people to let the pictures that music creates come.
"What amazes me is that when the grandparents, the
parents, the teen-agers,
the kids listen to a song like 'Sunshine on My
Shoulders', they all get off.
And you gotta know their pictures are all different.
But whatever each
person out there gets out of a song, then that is the
absolute truth for
that person."
Then you're saying that not only isn't it an image, but
that it isn't even
fantasy?
John laughed at that. "Fantasies are far-out things.
They are nothing more
than pictures you create. If your pictures are
wonderful, then your life is
gonna be wonderful. And if I can create strong enough
fantasies for all
those people through my songs or whatever, then perhaps
they'll direct their
lives toward having more of those good feelings. And
if they do...that's
the way it will be." He smiled in deadly earnest.
"I'm going to make this
a better world to live in. Hide and watch. Or be a
part of it."
ABC wants in on it. Frank Brill, vice president,
variety programs, has been
conducting an "internal campaign" just to make his ABC
colleagues "aware of
John."
"The first time I saw him," Brill says, "what I saw was
the essence of a
performer. As seen through a TV lens. He had all the
right qualities as
both perfomer and individual. He was real. And that's
what constant TV
exposure is built upon. John takes you somewhere sane,
calm, nice. That's
the effect he has on people. And it's not the music.
It's him. It may be
a cliche, but to know him is to love him. If John
started something, I'd
sign up." ABC did just that, and the latest pact is a
long one.
Meanwhile, John goes back home to Colorado to spend his
free time with his
wife Annie, old and close friends, and Colorado itself,
so that, as John
puts it, "I can fill myself up with things to share
with people." To do it,
however, he has had to do certain things, such as post
a large sign near the
front gate (which is at the end of a long, difficult
and posted road across
his fellow Aspenites' private lands) that reads:
PLEASE Don't Bother Us.
You are Not Welcome Here. Thank You! Which is exactly
what John wants it
to say, no matter whose head it wrinkles, because just
to get that far means
you have already gone too far.
"Home is not my work," John says. He shakes his head.
"So many people
come by who want to talk to me. Take a picture.
Whatever. And each one
thinking he's the only one who's taken the time to find
the house. If he
only knew." Example: the doctor and a giant camper
full of teen-agers who
rolled up early one morning, passed all the
no-trespassing signs, stopped
for just a chat, and managed to get a fixed Denver
stare and a flat tire in
John's driveway. "And I ended up helping him fix it.
A doctor, for God's
sake, a man who should know about time." The sentence
trailed off into an
amused but incredulous smile.
The Denver household in Aspen is not a large one, nor
does it sit on
thousands of rocky green pastoral acres. Only seven.
And on one side of
the house is what home is all about. John calls it "my
little yard." It's
there for him to mow, and no one else.
"I have a hand mower," John says, "and I like to go out
on a sunny day when
nobody is around, take all my clothes off and mow my
yard. When I was
growing up, there weren't many yards, and I wasn't into
working them anyway.
But this. This is mine. My yard, right there in the
mountains, and I stand
there, naked, and look around and think, My God, I
live here. Blows my
mind." That's home. That and playing with Annie.
Whether they're in the
wilds, in the yard, or puttering around the house,
"everything we do is
play. That's how it should be."
That, as much as anything, is the image, the fantasy,
the reality that John
projects, that life "up there" is play, that living is
easy, and not only
that, but that you too can find your own Colorado. Not
the Colorado, not
his Colorado but your Colorado.
"What I sing about is what I know. That's where the
music comes from. I'm
not trying to make life anything that it isn't. What
I'm trying to do is
communicate what is so about my life. What I feel.
Every once in a while,
you realize what is so for you, see, and that's what
I'm talking about. You
don't have to go to Colorado to find out what is so for
you. You need to
look inside yourself. Then you find out what the truth
is for you. And the
moment you find out what your truth is, you are on top
of life." He
punctuates that thought with a pristine silence, and
then adds, "The truth
is not what you see. The truth is what you feel about
what you see."
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Regulagal2
Regulagal2
denver liked to mow his lawn in the nude. Cindy
Vickibet
interview on television where he was questioned about the rumor of him not
always wearing clothing and his reply was that clothing wasn't a big deal to
him and his family, that they often played in the yard and went swimming
without clothes.
I am not quoting, as I don't have the tape readily in hand, (it's somewhere
amongst the others, but my labeling is the pits!!) this is just the best of my
recollection.
Vicki
Cheri057
>From: "KJ" <noo...@NOSPAMjvlnet.com>
>Date: Thu, Jun 1, 2000 18:46 EDT
>My best friend that followed John as much as I did (we were the geeks in
>high school that wore his t-shirts to school while everyone else was wearing
>RUSH, or KISS) was "back home" the weekend of 10/12/98 to attend a family
>wedding. It seemed rather appropriate to get together with her, on her
>family's farm, out by the burn pile where we had many campfires and sing
>alongs, and let the physical trappings of John's memory go free. I have all
>the memories inside me still, and I will never lose the love and messages
>that I received from his music; but I felt weighed down by the tangible.
>
>I don't suppose that makes much sense, but it was my way of honoring him.
>
>KJ
It makes PERFECT sense, KJ....and I think it's really *kewl* that you did
this...it's its own type of "prayer" I think....and a personal one.
However...."KISS...RUSH"?? Were they in the 80's?? GoodGawd, I'm feelin'
older by the minute! lOL!
Anyways....I was a "I-Don't-Know" in High School..er..in the 70's....meaning
I TRULY was a friend with everybody...people thought I was a "tough
blonde"...(Can you beleive that???...) but I WOULD beat the heck outta anybody
who was unfairly treating someone else...(Back off KB...I was a
teen).....actually, my intent was good, my actions, immature, to say the least!
So I laffed when you talked about being a "geek"....John was-o-so- popular
back then....and it was OK to like RMH and such...but it was NOT ok to like JD,
because the poor guy was considered a "wimp" by the High School set....very
uncool! I applaud your "JD tee shirt wearing"...what guts! I, on the other
hand,
was a 'closet" JD fan.....couldn't bring myself to declare my love of JD in
front of my peers back then, no way!
Great idea, KJ, with the "burning".....thanx for posting!
Cheri:)
ASLTsmile
don't think my clippings and concert programs will be going anywhere any time
soon. LOL
I never took the time to scrapbook them, but I do have a rather thick manila
envelope stuffed full of little pieces of paper. :)
Peace,
Tricia
>LOL I thought that might shake people up. No regrets - it was actually
>liberating. My sister started that scrap book back in 1972 or somewhere
>around there, and I continued it as her interest waned. So, articles,
>pictures, ticket stubs, concert play lists, etc ...... gone.
>
>My best friend that followed John as much as I did (we were the geeks in
>high school that wore his t-shirts to school while everyone else was wearing
>RUSH, or KISS) was "back home" the weekend of 10/12/98 to attend a family
>wedding. It seemed rather appropriate to get together with her, on her
>family's farm, out by the burn pile where we had many campfires and sing
>alongs, and let the physical trappings of John's memory go free. I have all
>the memories inside me still, and I will never lose the love and messages
>that I received from his music; but I felt weighed down by the tangible.
>
>I don't suppose that makes much sense, but it was my way of honoring him.
>
>KJ
>
>
>ASLTsmile <aslt...@aol.com> wrote in message
>news:20000601151244...@ng-cu1.aol.com...
>> GASP!!!!!! GULP!!!!! HUH???????
>>
>> Any regrets??
>>
>> Peace,
>> Tricia
KJ
KJ
ASLTsmile <aslt...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20000601193856...@ng-cu1.aol.com...
BaxTerr
Thanks so much for posting the entire article! I enjoyed reading all of it!!
Peace to you :-)
Terri
Flyushome
was quoting Annie and appeared in one of the *People* magazine articles. I'll
try to find it.
Pat
aerie
Flyushome wrote in message <20000607144240...@ng-xc1.aol.com>...
Guide in 1974. The 1979 People magazine issue that they're on the cover of
also mentions this, as you correctly say above.
Ann