John Lennon could be cruel, Yoko Ono called daily at 4 a.m. and other secrets from one of their closest confidants
John Lennon once allowed Los Angeles-based radio DJ Elliot Mintz to preview his new album – a move aimed at boosting his career.“Some Time in New York City” was the hotly anticipated collaboration between Lennon and Yoko Ono set for release in 1972, less than two years after The Beatles had split.When Mintz got the early copy, the songs were not even printed on the sleeve or label, but he was champing at the bit to be the first to play it.Shockingly, the gift wound up costing him his job, which, in turn, launched him on a wild ride no one could have predicted.As explained in his new memoir, “We All Shine On: John, Yoko, and Me” (Dutton, out today), the record’s opening cut is “Woman is the N—-r of the World,” a song where the N-word is featured prominently.Mintz’s bosses at the station were unimpressed and promptly canned him.He told as much to Lennon and Ono.
“They found the story amusing,” Mintz told The Post.“Then, John asked what I was going to do.
I told them I guess I’ll be looking for a job.And he said, ‘Well, tomorrow, we’re heading off to San Francisco.
Why don’t you join us?’” Mintz said yes – the trip was for Lennon and Ono to see an herbal specialist who would mysteriously help Ono to conceive a child – and this began an unconventional friendship. “They were in the process of kicking methadone habits,” said Mintz, now 79.“The two of them occasionally took heroin … and they found themselves in a spiral.
They never shot [injected] anything.They snorted it.
It led to them seeking help, they got methadone and became hooked on that drug.”Mintz, arguably, became hooked on Lennon and Ono. And, perhaps, they did on him too.John and Yoko sent Mintz a collage that doubled as a birthday card in the early 1970s, they had him join in on a trip to Japan (where Mintz ate turtle soup out of the turtle’s shell) and he hung out in New York recording studio the Hit Factory with the couple as they recorded “...