{"id":5642,"date":"2015-07-16T16:19:03","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T21:19:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefest.com\/kdstaging2\/?p=5642"},"modified":"2015-07-16T16:19:03","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T21:19:03","slug":"instant-karma-or-instant-nirvana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/instant-karma-or-instant-nirvana\/","title":{"rendered":"Instant Karma or Instant Nirvana"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>What are you waiting for?<\/strong> When will you use\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u201cgood china and crystal\u201d<\/li>\n<li>That lonesome dining room<\/li>\n<li>That special, expensive outfit you\u2019ve been saving<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you waiting for?<\/strong> When will you\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Buy the dream house you\u2019ve always talked about\u2026or at least try to<\/li>\n<li>Go on that vacation the two of you have always planned<\/li>\n<li>Go to <strong>THE FEST FOR BEATLES FANS<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For 31 years, I taught aerobics and for 31 years, people sheepishly said to me, &#8220;I <em>want<\/em> to take your class\u2026and I will, when I lose weight!&#8221; WHAT??? Wasn\u2019t taking my class THE way to lose weight? Wasn\u2019t that what my class was all about? What were they waiting for? I never knew.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For 25 years, my Office Manager at the Independence YMCA in Kansas City told me that she and her husband were going away on a magical two-week cruise. And each year, they postponed\u2026until the day that she found him collapsed on the kitchen floor. Three days later, all hope of a cruise was gone.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For 14 years, my mom said that she wanted to go back to New York City <em>one more time<\/em>. And then a heart attack took away her option.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>What are you waiting for?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Robert Ingersoll once famously said, &#8220;The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>And John Lennon warned us:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\" align=\"center\"><em>Instant Karma&#8217;s gonna get you<br \/>\nGonna knock you right on the head!<br \/>\nYou better get yourself together\u2026<br \/>\nPretty soon you&#8217;re gonna be dead.<br \/>\nWhat in the world you thinking of<br \/>\nLaughing in the face of love?<br \/>\nWhat on earth you tryin&#8217; to do?<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s up to you, yeah <strong>you!!!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Wise man, John.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s the bottom line: In 28 days, Beatles fans from all over the world will be gathering at the Hyatt Regency O\u2019Hare in Chicago\u2019s lovely suburbs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll gather to listen to the lads\u2019 music being broadcast over that elegant hotel\u2019s sound system, to sit by the open fire in the Red Bar and reminisce about our &#8220;Hard Day\u2019s Nights,&#8221; and to sit in the lobby \u2013 all of us singing the old songs to a spur-of-the-moment band of guitars and tambourines.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll shop in the huge Marketplace for t-shirts, bracelets, rare photos, old books, and collectibles. We\u2019ll dance the night away to the sounds of amazing Beatles cover band Liverpool. We\u2019ll sit in on panel with Beatles experts Bruce Spizer, Chuck Gunderson, Kit O\u2019Toole, Al Sussman, Jim Berkenstadt, and Susan Ryan.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ll hear presentations from revered authors Robert Rodriguez, Anthony Robustelli, Lanea Stagg, and Dave Schwensen. And we\u2019ll get our groove on in the exciting new \u201cFABoratory\u201d where Beatles Yoga, creative art projects, and live music is only the beginning of the fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>You could be there.<\/strong> You could go <em>crazy <\/em>at the Saturday or Sunday night concert with Mark Rivera, Billy Kingsley of The Merseybeats, Terry Sylvester of The Hollies, and the ultimate rocker, Mark Hudson!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>You could wear \u201860s clothes and meet the former head of Apple Records, Jack Oliver. You could chat with charming Ivor Davis, who toured with The Beatles in 1964. You could talk face-to-face with the charismatic man who brought The Beatles to America three times, Bob Eubanks. You could grab a Starbucks and watch all the Beatles movies your heart desires or introduce yourself to Ringo Starr&#8217;s photographer Rob Shanahan while you enjoy his amazing photos of Ringo, Paul, and so many others.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Or\u2026 it could be the weekend you clean out the garage and sleep on the sofa to re-runs of &#8220;The Big Bang Theory,&#8221; all the while promising yourself that <em>next year<\/em>, you\u2019ll make The Fest happen.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The choice is yours.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The last thing my mother taught me was this: You may never get another chance. Follow your dreams now. Right now.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Instant Karma or Instant Nirvana? Choose.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0Jude Southerland Kessler is the author of the John Lennon Series:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.johnlennonseries.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.johnlennonseries.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jude is represented by 910 Public Relations &#8212;\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/910PubRel\" target=\"_blank\">@910PubRel<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/910pr?_rdr\" target=\"_blank\">910 Public Relations<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are you waiting for? When will you use\u2026 &nbsp; The \u201cgood china and crystal\u201d That lonesome dining room That special, expensive outfit you\u2019ve been saving &nbsp; What are you waiting for? When will you\u2026 &nbsp; Buy the dream house [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[29,98,117,30],"class_list":["post-5642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-boomer-beatles-blog","tag-beatlefest","tag-jude-southerland-kessler","tag-the-beatles","tag-the-fest-for-beatles-fans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5642"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5645,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5642\/revisions\/5645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}