crumblygumbly on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/crumblygumbly/art/GagaLennon-Hope-Under-Siege-280151883crumblygumbly

Deviation Actions

crumblygumbly's avatar

GagaLennon: Hope Under Siege

Published:
7.8K Views

Description

KING5 MORNING NEWS TRANSCRIPT 02/15/13

JOYCE TAYLOR, KING5 ANCHOR: ...and today we have a heartwarming story about a little girl with leukemia who went onto twitter and told the world what she said might be her dying wish: for two of the world's biggest musical stars to sing her her favorite song. Despite being hopeful neither she, nor her parents, really thought it would come true--well, they were in for a big surprise. Our correspondent Maria Allenstein with the story.

(Begin Clip)

MARIA (voice over): Today twelve-year-old Carla Avecilla is all smiles, talking excitedly while her mom braids her hair. She is a little girl with a lot of personality, but according to her mother, Adela, if we had come just days ago, we would have found a completely different Carla.

ADELA: She tries to be optimistic, but many days she is very tired and scared. It's hard, and she's so young, so even though she tries to smile, of course things become too much for her sometimes.

MARIA (voice over): Carla was diagnosed with leukemia three years ago at the age of nine, and has spent a lot of her time in the Seattle Children's hospital coping with the disease. The hair that her mother is braiding is a wig, and through these last few years, Carla has been receiving chemotherapy for her leukemia. Recently, however, she got some bad news from the doctor.

CARLA: He said I'd stopped responding to the chemotherapy. (pause) I just didn't know what to do after that.

MARIA: What Carla did do was listen to music, a lot of it. Especially one artist in particular.

CARLA: I love Lady Gaga. (laughs) I love her albums.

MARIA (voice over): Most importantly, her recent release "Unplugging the Machine," the popstar's first acoustic album. Mostly featuring acoustic arrangements of her hits, like Poker face and Born this Way, there are a few brand new songs on the CD. Carla's favorite?

CARLA: Hope Under Siege, featuring John Lennon.

(Play clip of music video)

CARLA (voice over): It just...it said a lot about what I was feeling. About having hope even when people are saying that..that like, there is no hope...or that it's silly to be hopeful...

(end clip)

CARLA: I like it.

MARIA (offscreen): Were you a fan of John Lennon too?

CARLA: (pause) I...didn't really know who he was...?

CARLA'S PARENTS: (laughing off screen)

MARIA (voice over): Despite not being too familiar with John Lennon, the legendary rock musician and writer of Imagine, another song about hope, that didn't stop Carla from imploring to both him and Lady Gaga over their twitters to come visit her and sing her a song. When Carla heard the buzz that both stars would be in Seattle for Gaga's tour, she threw her wish to the wind. Or, rather, the twittersphere.

MARIA (offscreen): Did you think that it would actually happen?

CARLA: Not really...I hoped it would. Because, i couldn't go to Gaga's concert, and I really wanted to see her. So...yeah.

MARIA (offscreen): And then?

CARLA: And then they came.

MARIA (voiceover): Yesterday afternoon, without fanfare and somehow managing to escape the paparazzi, John Lennon, Lady Gaga, and a guitar made their way to Seattle's Children's hospital and to Carla's room.

ADELA: Carla screamed! We were in tears, we couldn't believe what was happening.

PAULA MURPHY, NURSE: We saw them sneaking around with their security, and it was just surreal. I listened to the Beatles all my life, and Lady Gaga is such an icon right now, we were all just shocked. They were all 'please, don't call the press, don't tell her we're here,' and we helped them up to Carla's room.

CARLA: They gave me a little mini-concert. They sang "Hope Under Siege" and...

ADELA (off screen): Imagine.

CARLA: That. it just... I had a lot of hope. I felt better. I'm happy now.

MARIA (voiceover): Gaga and Lennon stayed for a short while after their performance to speak with Carla and find out how she was doing. When asked why they had decided to do it, Lennon said that it was Gaga's idea.

LENNON (on the phone): Well, I was with her at the hotel--she was teaching me how to properly dye my hair or something, I don't know, and we were checking our twitter feeds and she saw the tweet. And she just said, you know, yes, let's do that.

MARIA (on the phone): Did you want to?

LENNON (on the phone): (laughs) I thought she was daft. There's enough...media circus going on, and it just seemed out of the blue, but she convinced me. It was a nice thing to do, I suppose, so I said why not. So we got there, and managed to get away from the press...lots of security, that's one thing I'll give Stef...Gaga, I mean, anyway, we wanted it to be lowkey and not [expletive] the kid up with too many camera men at once, because it wasn't about us. It was about her. So...yeah...we sang some songs, I strummed my guitar a bit, and chatted. she's a nice kid. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. I'm happy she got some hope out of what we did, though, because that's the point.

MARIA (voice over): Paula Murphy, Carla's nurse, snapped a photo of the performance as Lennon and Lady Gaga sang "Hope Under Siege" to a smiling Carla and her still-shocked mother.

PAULA: You can in the photo that John was a little freaked out--he was really uncomfortable a lot of the time they were there, for some reason, but he did stay and sing.

LENNON (on the phone): Believe it or not, I'm not big into hospitals. Avoid them. You hear that, Carla, you are very very lucky, I wouldn'ta done that on my own.

MARIA (Voice over): Lucky indeed--supposedly, Lennon sees doctors very seldomly, and insists on house calls; the last time he had gone to a hospital, he had stayed for months in special care when in 1980 an assailant had nearly killed him outside of his New York home. Well, and, of course, now. And all to make a sick little girl a little happier.

MARIA (off screen): And what are your hopes now?

CARLA: To get better...I'm going to keep hoping for that. Like it says in that song, "when I have nothing, all I have is hope, so I'll fight to keep it." So I'm going to hope.

(end clip)

MARIA: Gaga was busy in rehearsal for tonight's concert, but Lennon says that she was so touched, that she cried when Carla talked to them.

JOYCE: A beautiful story. Thank you, Maria. Next up, Keisha has the weather for us.

...


***

I wrote the actual song for this picture, as well as the blues-track "Trainwreck" from Lennon's imaginary 2012/13 album--I was considering recording and posting them and just went like "nah." Y'all don't need that.

As to John's appearance in this picture, the beard hides the wrinkles, and the hair is a constant dye job. I wanted to have him go for a slightly hipster "want to be young again" look, and there was an original joke in the transcript about how Lennon was looking more like his son Sean every day. Didn't fit the tone, though.

yes, there is a psychological continuity in my head.

Drawn for my Fiance. Good job on getting a job interview, darling. I love you so much.
Image size
2189x1691px 337.38 KB
© 2012 - 2024 crumblygumbly
Comments21
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
eddheadsmosh230's avatar
ugh we need john….