!['Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon' by May Pang is shown.]( "'Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon' by May Pang is shown.")
'Instamatic Karma: Photographs of John Lennon' by May Pang is shown.
"When I became his girlfriend, it was different again," she said.
"The guy that I saw, the pictures (in her book), that's the John I knew at home. It wasn't the public John," said Pang.
The time she and Lennon were together is often referred to as the "Lost Weekend," but Pang points out that it was not only an 18-month period, but that during that time Lennon was quite productive, putting out an album and his only number one single as a solo artist and was reunited with his son, Julian.
Despite all the great photos in her book, the one thing not there is a photo of Lennon and Paul McCartney playing music together.
It happened, but "I thought it was just one of those things," Pang admitted.
"They had matured and gone to a different level in their lives," she said. "It was like four brothers who didn't talk to each other but wanted to patch things up. If they wanted to play, which happened as a jam, fine."
The friendship was more important than the music, she thought.
One of the most striking photographs in the book shows Lennon, in Florida, signing the legal papers that disbanded one of the most famous bands in history.
"Here we are, sitting in the Polynesian Village Hotel in Walt Disney World" -- Pang, Julian and Lennon, and a lawyer who'd brought the weighty legal documents down from New York City.
The signing had been scheduled for a week before -- Ringo Starr had signed in London and McCartney and George Harrison signed in New York in a room filled with 35 or so people.
Now, here was Lennon, in a darkening hotel room.
"He's sitting on a bed signing these papers," Pang recalled. "The last signature is his. Basically, he ends the band. He started it, he ends it."
Despite the darkness of the picture, Pang said she believes Lennon had no regrets.
"I think it was time for all of them to move on and I think they knew that," she said.
The lack of legal papers binding them together freed them to do what they wanted.
"There was also a time where John said, 'Do you think I should write with Paul again?'" said Pang.
She and Lennon moved to an apartment with a rooftop view of the East River in New York.
"It was very small. We took the living room and made it our bedroom," she said.
"That bed is still with me today. It's in my guest room. People have come out and said, 'I had a great sleep from that bed.' I don't tell anybody," Pang said.
In a bittersweet irony, not far from Pang's New York home lives the police officer who apprehended and handcuffed Mark David Chapman shortly after Chapman had fatally shot John Lennon in December 1980.
Pang has met with the officer, who told her it was extremely difficult to maintain his professionalism and not hurt Chapman that day.
In retrospect, Pang remains upbeat, even when the subject is Lennon's assassination.
"He doesn't get old. That's the best thing," she said.
http://blog.nj.com/southjerseylife/2008/07/may_pangs_photos_of_lennon_sub.html
