John Lennon was human and he had his faults. Just like any of us. Heroes have clay feet. Nevertheless

John Lennon was human and he had his faults. Just like any of us. Heroes have clay feet. Nevertheless,

he also made a huge impact on our culture. As he said in his song Imagine, "you may say I'm a dreamer,

but I'm not the only one". So very true. His music and his message continue on in his sons, wife,

friends and fans. Another line from one of his songs, a favorite of mine from Watching the Wheels (From

the album Double Fantasy, the record he'd just put out shortly before his tragic death) speaks volumes

to me as a personal historian.

Ah, people asking questions lost in confusion

Well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions

Well they shake their heads and they look at me as if I've lost my mind

I tell them there's no hurry

I'm just sitting here doing time

CM: How did it feel to reinvent these stories using modern characters with

so much baggage?

BG: Liberating and terrifying and comical and grave. And I know for a fact

that how it feels for me is not how it will feel for some readers. The

characters, the celebrities, have baggage, but they’re also oddly

empty. Or rather, they have baggage only because we put it there,

because we as a society spend so much time and energy worrying about

why Kim Kardashian is doing so many nude magazine covers (I’m guessing

it’s because she needs attention and has a great body, probably in

that order) or whether Oprah’s straight or why Alec Baldwin yelled at

his daughter in a private phone call.