Robert Rosen

 

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

As Robert Rosen's wife, I've sometimes felt as if I were also living with the spirit of John Lennon. This has been mostly good, but I once told a journalist in Mexico City that there had been times when I never wanted to hear the words "John Lennon" again. (I imagine anyone who's lived with a biographer can relate.) That was long ago, and since then Bob's connection with Lennon has become a beautiful, if intricate, part of the fabric of our life together. Last January we both took part in an event in Seville centered on Bob's book Nowhere Man. I'm a singer-songwriter and aside from doing a few original songs, I performed "I'm Losing You," "You Can't Do That," and "Now and Then," which had just come out a couple of months before.

The phrase "now and then" also figures into a song I wrote and recently released as a digital single. "Mild December" was partly inspired by last Christmas evening, which Bob and I spent with our friend Michael Medeiros, aka "Mike Tree," as Lennon called him when he was John's gardener. After dinner, we settled into Michael's cozy living room to listen to music and talk. Lennon seemed to hover over us that night, and when I looked up the weather for December 1980, I saw that it was mild then too.

 

The recording was produced by Adam Tilzer, with Danny Bradley on drums, and mastered by Nick Miller. You can read the lyrics below:

 

Mild December

 

It was a mild December

When we had our Christmas meal 

Spicy puttanesca

Red wine for the reveal

 

You played a tape just for me 

I heard the stops and starts

Then we went out on the fire escape

Those geraniums had heart

 

And you said you were unwanted

But you screamed that all away

Then you strutted with a puffed-up chest

To a Central Park West subway

 

And now you've got an aerie

A nest that's rent controlled

I walked up all those steps for you

Just wishing for some snow

 

And I played a mix of my new song

You said I got it kinda wrong

But I won't go that low for you, my friend 

I read the writing on your wall

But honey I can take a fall

Progress not perfection I agree

 

And then you bit into a gummy

Said you just had one a day

But you would eat that whole damn bag

Just to make those memories fade

 

'Cause that girl was gonna kill you

You found her gun and split in two

One part floated near her bed

She'd used her best voodoo

 

And you said you liked Folk City

When you were oh so young

You drank a lot in Gerdes' place

Now it's got you on the run

 

Well, you are such a gentle man

But the whiskey made you mean

Lashing out at those you love

Yeah, I've heard about that scene

 

And I played a mix of my new song

You said I got it kinda wrong

But I won't go that low for you, my friend 

I read the writing on your wall

But honey you can take a fall

You didn't need that four bucks anyway

 

You got snakebit in the desert

You hear the rattle in your ear

You think my song is fiction 

We can go with that, my dear

 

Still you took care of her jade tree

Its leaves like blades could cut 

But money showered in its wake

Or that's the scuttlebutt

 

I played CBGB's

When I was oh so young

I wanted more from Hilly's place

But still I had my fun

 

And it was a mild December

When he stepped from his car 

I lose you now and then, it seems

But you never go too far

 

Can we ever really change

So many cells to rearrange

I walked up those steep steps for you

Just the way he did before everything blew

 

It was a mild December

It was a mild December

It was a mild December

It was a mild December

It was a mild December

It was a mild December

(An updated version of this article appears in The Village Voice.)

 

In March 1977, Michael Barbosa Medeiros, a freelance houseplant doctor, was at a party chatting with John Green, a professional tarot-card reader, also known as "Charlie Swan." Green told Medeiros about a possible job opening. A few days later he called Medeiros with the details: Go to apartment 72 in the Dakota, on West 72nd Street, in New York City.

 

Medeiros waited outside the apartment, puzzled by a brass plaque on the door that said "Nutopian Embassy." He'd never heard of that country. The door opened and a pony-tailed man holding a baby and dressed in cut-off jeans greeted Medeiros. "Hi, I'm John," he said. "You must be the tree man." He led Medeiros through a sprawling apartment to a sunny room with a few plants and trees. Then the man spoke at length about wanting to fill the room with more greenery. Medeiros recognized the voice. His potential employer was John Lennon. Though he found the ex-Beatle unpretentious and down to earth, he was stunned and awed to be in his presence. Later that day he met with Yoko Ono. She hired him.

 

Thus began Medeiros's stint as John and Yoko's houseplant doctor. Yoko soon gave him the additional responsibility of personal assistant.

 

John couldn't remember Michael's last name and began calling him "Mike Tree." At first they rarely spoke and Michael quietly went about his tasks. He built a terrarium. John liked it. Then, apparently intrigued by Michael's silence, John began asking him about his family and upbringing, especially his relationship with his father. He asked if he'd ever wanted to play music.

 

Michael told John that he'd always wanted to play the banjo. John gave him an old banjo that was lying around the Dakota.

 

A bond began to form between the Beatle and the houseplant doctor. Yoko didn't like it and threatened to fire Michael for talking to John, but she didn't.

 

John and Michael were both Libras, which John found significant. Michael was one year older, and John seemed to appreciate having an assistant who was close in age. (Most of the assistants were considerably younger.)

 

Michael's duties expanded to include setting up Yoko's recording equipment and organizing tapes of everything from John Green's daily tarot-card readings to, eventually, the recordings of the Double Fantasy sessions (microphones were left open at all times to capture everything spoken, sung, or played).

 

One day John telephoned Michael at home. He wanted to come by and see the abstract paintings Michael had told him he'd been working on. So John came to Michael's apartment and stayed for about an hour. Michael began to consider John a friend.

 

John was in Bermuda during the summer of 1980, composing songs for Double Fantasy. Michael joined him there. He found a small, disassembled sailboat in a shed on the property. He assembled it. The houseplant doctor and the ex-Beatle went sailing.

 

On December 8, 1980, John was murdered. Michael was one of the people who stood suicide watch over Yoko in the days that followed. In January 1981, she asked Michael, who'd remained freelance, to go on staff. Michael had refused numerous requests to do so, but this time he agreed. He resigned in June 1982, due, in part, to friction with Yoko's new partner, Sam Havadtoy. Yoko accused Michael of stealing the banjo John had given him.

 

Later that month, Michael, who'd never thought of himself as a writer, began jotting down his memories of John on a yellow legal pad—disorganized fragments and anecdotes. "Writing about John helped me grieve for him," he told me. "He was one cool guy. He did not take himself seriously. That somebody could be so wealthy and so smart and accomplished… it didn't mean shit to him. He didn't care."

 

Cover design by Sarah Phelps.

 

It wasn't until 2000, after taking a memoir-writing class, that Michael considered turning his notes into a book. It took him 15 more years to finish it. He called it Barefoot in Nutopia.

 

In May 2016, Jawbone Press, a small British publisher specializing in music books, expressed interest in Barefoot in Nutopia. Negotiations dragged on until finally a contract stipulating a $3,000 advance and publication in 2018 was drafted on November 1. But Jawbone soon backed out of the deal, claiming their distributor said the book wasn't a good fit with Jawbone's format—an odd decision considering books written by former Lennono employees have sold well. (See The Last Days of John Lennon by Fred Seaman, Dakota Days by John Green, and Loving John by May Pang.)

 

More likely, either Jawbone or the distributor had received a threatening letter from Ono's attorneys, who routinely send such letters to anybody planning to bring out an unauthorized or unflattering book. (It should be noted that Ono has never sued a writer for something they've written. It would be almost impossible for a public figure like Ono to win such a suit and the suit would bring more attention to the book in question.)

 

I've detailed the story behind Medeiros's memoir because it raises questions about what really happened with Jawbone Press. After backing out of a contract for a straightforward, uncontroversial memoir about one man's personal relationship with Lennon and Ono, why did Jawbone then acquire Peter Doggett's highly controversial book, Prisoner of Love, based on Doggett's reading of Lennon's stolen diaries? And why did Jawbone then cancel publication of that book just before it was scheduled to go to press?

 

Medeiros thinks Jawbone and Ono are involved in a catch-and-kill or catch-and-delay scheme. Catch and kill, a tactic Donald Trump and the National Enquirer made infamous, involves a media organization buying exclusive rights to a damaging story about a celebrity with the intention of never publishing it.

 

It's also possible that Jawbone is planning to publish Prisoner of Love after Ono's death.

 

Tom Seabrook, managing editor at Jawbone, wouldn't comment on Doggett's book but said that Jawbone neither acquired nor canceled Medeiros's book and reiterated what he told Medeiros's agent in 2016: "We withdrew our interest after consulting with our distributor, who felt the book would be a tough sell for a publisher of our size."

 

Doggett and Lennono-estate spokesman Elliot Mintz did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Medeiros, meanwhile, made a deal with Diversion Books to publish his memoir, now titled In Lennon's Garden, in May 2020. Though they'd paid him a $6,000 advance, Diversion, after receiving a threatening letter from Ono's attorneys, told Medeiros that they would not honor the original date but would instead publish the book at an unspecified future time. Medeiros asked Diversion to amend the contract to include a new publication date. Diversion refused and Medeiros has since requested the contract be terminated. The publisher has not responded.

 

Mike Tree remains in Limbono.

________

My latest book, Bobby in Naziland (soon to be re-titled A Brooklyn Memoir), is available on Amazon and all other online booksellers, as well as at your local brick-and-mortar bookstore.

 

I invite you to join me on Facebook or follow me on Twitter or my eternally embryonic Instagram.

 

¿CATCH AND KILL, ESTILO ONO?

(Este artículo también aparece en Proceso.) 

 

En marzo de 1977, Michael Barbosa Medeiros, un médico de plantas caseras independiente, estaba en una fiesta charlando con John Green, un lector profesional de cartas del tarot, también conocido como 'Charlie Swan'. Green le contó a Medeiros sobre una posible vacante laboral. Unos días después llamó a Medeiros con los detalles: Vaya al apartamento 72 en el Dakota, en West 72nd Street, en la ciudad de Nueva York.

 

Medeiros aguardaba en el exterior del apartamento, desconcertado por una placa de bronce en la puerta que decía 'Embajada de Nutopia'. Nunca había oído hablar de ese país. La puerta se abrió y un hombre con cola de caballo que sostenía a un bebé y vestido con pantalones cortos recortados saludó a Medeiros. «Hola, soy John», le dijo. «Tú debes ser el hombre árbol». Condujo a Medeiros a través de un amplio apartamento hasta una habitación soleada llena de plantas y árboles. Entonces el hombre habló extensamente y Medeiros reconoció la voz. Su empleador potencial era John Lennon. Aunque encontró al ex Beatle sin pretensiones y con los pies en la tierra, estaba aturdido y asombrado de estar en su presencia. Más tarde ese mismo día se reunió con Yoko Ono. Ella lo contrató.

 

Así comenzó el período de Medeiros como médico de plantas caseras de John y Yoko. Yoko pronto le dio la responsabilidad adicional de desempeñarse como asistente personal.

 

John no podía recordar el apellido de Michael y comenzó a llamarlo 'Mike Tree'. Al principio, rara vez hablaban y Michael se dedicó en silencio a sus tareas. Construyó un terrario. A John le gustó. Luego, aparentemente intrigado por el silencio de Michael, John comenzó a preguntarle sobre su familia y su educación, especialmente acerca de su relación con su padre. Preguntó si alguna vez había querido tocar un instrumento musical.

 

Michael le dijo a John que siempre había querido tocar el banjo. John le dio un viejo banjo que estaba tirado en el interior del Dakota.

 

Comenzó a formarse un vínculo entre el Beatle y el médico de plantas de interior. A Yoko no le gustó y amenazó con despedir a Michael por hablar con John, pero no lo hizo.

 

John y Michael eran ambos Libra, lo que a John le pareció significativo. Michael era un año mayor y John parecía apreciar tener un asistente de edad similar. (La mayoría de los asistentes eran considerablemente más jóvenes.)

 

Los deberes de Michael se ampliaron para incluir la instalación del equipo de grabación de Yoko y la organización de cintas de todo, desde las lecturas diarias de las cartas del tarot de John Green hasta, eventualmente, las grabaciones de las sesiones de Double Fantasy (los micrófonos se dejaron prendidos en todo momento para capturar todo lo hablado, cantado o tocado).

 

Un día, John telefoneó a Michael a su casa. Quería pasar y ver las pinturas abstractas en las que Michael le había dicho que había estado trabajando. Así que John vino al apartamento de Michael y se quedó durante una hora. Michael comenzó a considerar a John como un amigo.

 

John estuvo en las Bermudas durante el verano de 1980, componiendo canciones para Double Fantasy. Michael se unió a él allí. Encontró un pequeño velero desmontado en un cobertizo de la propiedad. Él lo ensambló. El doctor de plantas de interior y el ex Beatle se fueron a navegar.

 

El 8 de diciembre de 1980, John fue asesinado. Michael fue una de las personas que vigiló que Yoko no intentara suicidio en los días siguientes. En enero de 1981, le pidió a Michael, que seguía siendo autónomo, que se incorporara al personal. Michael había rechazado numerosas solicitudes para hacerlo, pero esta vez estuvo de acuerdo. Renunció en junio de 1982, debido, en parte, a fricciones con el nuevo socio de Yoko, Sam Havadtoy. Yoko acusó a Michael de robar el banjo que John le había dado.

 

Más tarde ese mes, Michael, que nunca se había considerado un escritor, comenzó a anotar sus recuerdos de John en un block de notas amarillo: fragmentos desorganizados y anécdotas. «Escribir sobre John me ayudó a expresar mi pena por él», me dijo. «Era un tipo genial. No se tomaba a sí mismo en serio. Que alguien pudiera ser tan rico, tan inteligente y logrado … no significaba una mierda para él. No le importaba». No fue hasta el 2000, después de tomar una clase de escritura de memorias, que Michael consideró convertir sus notas en un libro. Le tomó 15 años más terminarlo. Lo llamó Barefoot In Nutopia (Descalzo en Nutopia).

 

En mayo del 2016, Jawbone Press, una pequeña editorial británica especializada en libros de música, expresó interés en Barefoot in Nutopia. Las negociaciones se prolongaron hasta que finalmente el 1 de noviembre se redactó un contrato que estipulaba un anticipo de $ 3,000 y se pactó la publicación en el 2018. Pero Jawbone pronto se retiró del trato, alegando que su distribuidor dijo que el libro no encajaba bien con el formato de Jawbone, una decisión extraña considerando los libros escritos por ex empleados de Lennono se han vendido bien (basta ver los casos de The Last Days Of John Lennon de Fred Seaman, Dakota Days de John Green y Loving John de May Pang).

 

Lo más probable es que Jawbone o el distribuidor hayan recibido una carta amenazadora de los abogados de Ono, que envían habitualmente cartas de este tipo a cualquiera que planee sacar un libro no autorizado o poco halagador. (Cabe señalar que Ono nunca ha demandado a un escritor por algo que ha escrito. Sería casi imposible que una figura pública como Ono ganara una demanda así y la demanda llamaría más la atención sobre el libro en cuestión.)

 

He detallado la historia detrás de las memorias de Medeiros porque plantea preguntas sobre lo que realmente sucedió con Jawbone Press. Después de cancelar un contrato por unas memorias sencillas y sin controversias sobre la relación personal de un hombre con Lennon y Ono, ¿Por qué Jawbone adquirió el controvertido libro de Peter Doggett, Prisoner of Love, basado en la lectura de Doggett de los diarios robados de Lennon? ¿Y por qué Jawbone canceló la publicación de ese libro justo antes de la fecha prevista para su publicación?

 

Medeiros cree que Jawbone y Ono están involucrados en un plan de 'Catch- and-Kill' (capturar y matar [la historia]) o 'Catch-and-delay' (capturar y retrasar  [publicación de la historia]. 'Catch and Kill' , una táctica que Donald Trump y el National Enquirer hicieron infame, involucra a una organización de medios que compra los derechos exclusivos de una historia dañina sobre una celebridad con la intención de nunca publicarla. También es posible que Jawbone esté planeando publicar Prisoner of Love después de la muerte de Ono.

 

Tom Seabrook, editor gerente de Jawbone, no quiso comentar sobre el libro de Doggett, pero dijo que Jawbone ni adquirió ni canceló el libro de Medeiros y reiteró lo que le señaló al agente de Medeiros en 2016: «Retiramos nuestro interés después de consultar con nuestro distribuidor, quien tuvo la impresión  que el libro sería difícil de vender para una editorial de nuestro tamaño».

 

Doggett y el portavoz de Lennono, Elliot Mintz, no respondieron a las solicitudes de comentarios.

 

Mientras tanto, Medeiros hizo un trato con Diversion Books para publicar sus memorias, ahora tituladas In Lennon's Garden (En el Jardín de Lennon), en mayo del 2020. Aunque le habían pagado un anticipo de $ 6,000, Diversion, después de recibir una carta amenazante de los abogados de Ono, le dijo a Medeiros que ellos no honrarían la fecha original sino que publicarían el libro en un tiempo futuro no especificado. Medeiros pidió a Diversion que modificara el contrato para incluir una nueva fecha de publicación. Este pedido se negó y desde entonces Medeiros solicitó la rescisión del contrato. El editor no ha respondido.

 

'Mike Tree' permanece en el Limbo de Ono [Limbono].

________

Traducción y edición a cargo de Mundo Beatle para TodoBeatles.com, EGB Radio, BFC, Beatles & Solistas: Fans Perú, Club de los Beatles Todos Juntos Ahora y Facebook Fanpages amigas.

 

Robert Rosen es autor del libro Nowhere Man: Los últimos días de John Lennon que se puede adquirir en Amazon tanto en edición en inglés como en español. También está disponible su más reciente libro Bobby In Naziland (que pronto será relanzado con el título A Brooklyn Memoir.

 

When Nigel Williamson interviewed me, in February 2000, he was preparing articles for both Uncut magazine and The Times of London. Though Nowhere Man had been garnering media attention for several months at this point, it was the one-two punch of these widely read British publications that set the book on a lunar trajectory; it would soon land on bestseller lists in the U.S. and U.K.

Fifteen years ago today, on May 27, 2000, this article ran in the Metro section of The Times. It marked a long-awaited turning point in my career, the moment when all the emotion and frustration I'd been carrying with me for 18 years had at last found an outlet. This was one of the first Nowhere Man interviews I'd ever done, and I had a lot to say. Like many newspaper articles published in the early 21st century (or late 20th century, if you want to be technical), "Lennon Juice" is not available online. I’ve reproduced it word-for-word below.

The Times | May 27, 2000
BOOKS
Lennon juice
________________________________

Every fan knows the story of the last chapter of John Lennon’s life. The contented, if eccentric, days he spent in the apartment he and Yoko shared in New York’s Dakota building have become part of rock ’n’ roll legend.

While Yoko looked after business, Lennon was the happy househusband, baking bread and bringing up their son Sean. It was, Ono recalled, interviewed in Metro two years ago, “the happiest time” in their entire relationship.

At least that is the official version. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of Lennon’s death, New York journalist Robert Rosen is telling a far darker tale, an account of Lennon’s Dakota days based loosely on the intimate diaries the former Beatle kept between 1974 and 1980.

There are a series of leather-bound New Yorker desk diaries, in which Lennon recorded his every action, every private thought, every dream, even his every meal. And Rosen is one of the few people alive to have read them.

Sitting over breakfast in an East London café, Rosen admits the book is certain to cause major controversy among Lennon fans. He describes the character who emerges as “a dysfunctional, tormented superstar, disintegrating under the effects of fame and living in a high-rent purgatory of superstition and fear.”

Far from being lived in domestic bliss, Lennon’s last years, waited on by a retinue of servants whose appointments had been vetted by a tarot card reader, were characterized by “boredom and pain punctuated by microseconds of ecstasy,” he says. Rosen details a myriad of slavishly followed obsessions, from numerology to vows of silence to Billy Graham. In this account, Lennon is even responsible for Paul McCartney’s 1980 incarceration for drug possession in Tokyo, having asked Yoko to put a curse on his former partner.

Past biographies have either been uncritical eulogies (Ray Coleman’s 1984 Lennon) or have magnified Lennon’s weaknesses (Albert Goldman’s 1992 Sound Bites), Rosen states. Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon is, he says, simply the truth.

“It’s a three-dimensional portrait of John that’s as honest as I could possibly make it. I hope it tells you what the neurotic experience of being John Lennon was like. It’s a journey through his consciousness, the story of the last years of his life, as seen through his eyes.” But is it? Many, including Ono and Sean Lennon, would probably strongly dispute the accuracy of the portrait and questions Rosen’s powers of accurate recall.

They will point out that the author, by his own admission, has not read the lost diaries since 1982 and that even the notes he made at the time are no longer in his possession. For legal reasons, he is forced to declare in the preface to the book: “I have used no material from the diaries. I have used my memory of Lennon’s diaries as a roadmap to the truth.”

Yet there is no dispute that the lost Lennon journals exist and that for several months in 1981 they were in Rosen’s possession. And he insists his memory is perfect. “I spent 16 hours a day for weeks on end transcribing them, and I realized that I had huge chunks of the diaries memorized. I had worked so hard on them and run them through my typewriter so many times, I had them all in my head.”

At the time of Lennon’s death at the hands of obsessive fan Mark David Chapman in December 1980, Rosen was a 28-year-old cab driver with a master’s degree in journalism. He had never met the former Beatle, but he did know Fred Seaman, the singer’s personal assistant, from college. “Twenty-four hours after Lennon’s murder, Seaman told me that while they were in Bermuda together that summer, Lennon had asked him to write the true story of his Dakota days,” Rosen recalls. “It was to be the ultimate Lennon biography and he told me, ‘It’s what John wants.’”

Six months later, in May 1981, Seaman delivered Rosen the crown jewels of the Lennon archive—six volumes of stolen personal diaries. The would-be author began transcribing them. “I’d never seen anything like it. He got it all down—every detail, every dream, every conversation, every morsel of food he put in his mouth was recorded in a perpetual stream of consciousness. I thought the story was rock ’n’ roll’s Watergate.”

When he finished, Rosen sent a detailed story based on the diaries to various publishers, including Jann Wenner, the founding editor of Rolling Stone.

Wenner alerted Yoko, who was still unaware that the diaries had been stolen. After a court case they were eventually returned to her and Seaman was convicted of grand larceny. At the same time, Ono also persuaded Rosen to join her payroll and while he was in her employment he handed over 16 of his own notebooks based on the Lennon journals. They remain in Ono’s possession to this day.

Why he has waited so many years to write the book is not entirely clear. There were legal ramifications under American copyright law, further complicated by the fact that the diaries had been stolen. “Legally, I can’t say what I would like to say,” he says. “It took me all these years to put the book together in a form that I was happy with, but I’m not allowed to say it is based upon the journals. It is a work of investigative journalism, intuition and imagination. That’s the line.”

Rosen admits to having feelings of guilt about the book and he has never taken legal steps to recover his own journals from Yoko. “I did something that wasn’t 100 per cent kosher, even though my intentions were entirely honourable. Because the diaries were stolen, I feel that I owe her something. I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel guilt.

“When I met Yoko my heart totally went out to her. But I’ve got a story and I’m a professional journalist. So I’m going to tell it. This is a great story that deserves to be told.”

Ask him if he thinks Lennon ever meant the diaries for public consumption and he hesitates. “I don’t know. I think it was the basis of something he wanted out. I think his diaries were a very early rough draft of what could have been the great memoir.”

What made Lennon such a compelling subject was less his money and fame and more the contradictions within his character, Rosen says. “Every facet of his life was a paradox. Part of him aspired to follow the way—Jesus, Gandhi and whoever. The other part of him just wanted sex and drugs. Part of him wanted a perfect macrobiotic diet. Another part of him wanted chocolate chip cookies.”

Gossip and cheap innuendo or the most complete and honest portrait of Lennon yet written.

Unless Yoko decides to publish the original diaries herself, perhaps we will never really know. But fiction or non-fiction, Nowhere Man is a gripping read that no Lennon fan will be able to resist.

Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon is published by Soft Skull Press on June 1, price £14.99/£11.99.

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Fifteen years ago this month, in the May 2000 issue, Uncut magazine ran as its cover story a 5,000-word excerpt from Nowhere Man: The Final Days of John Lennon. The following interview, conducted by Nigel Williamson in an East London café, served as part of an elaborate introduction to the excerpt. It has never appeared online. Here it is, exactly as it ran in the magazine.

Robert Rosen is a freelance journalist living in New York. He has written for a number of US newspapers and magazines, and studied fiction writing with Joseph Heller and James Toback. He won a Hugo Boss poetry award in 1996

UNCUT: What did John Lennon mean to you personally?

ROBERT ROSEN: I was a fan but not a hardcore fanatic. I bought Sgt Pepper, the White Album and Abbey Road. When they broke up, I didn’t follow their solo careers closely. Then John Lennon moved to New York, which made me sit up and take notice. It’s my town.

What was your initial connection to John and Yoko?

I was at college with a guy called Fred Seaman. In January 1979, he got a job as John’s personal assistant. The very first day on the job, he said to me we should collaborate on a book. He’d call me every day from wherever they were and tell me all the gossip. He also had access to Lennon’s Mercedes and we’d go out in the car and hang out. I was having a total blast. Fred would score dope for John and take a cut and we’d joyride in the Mercedes and smoke John’s best weed.

So what kind of gossip were you hearing?

Fred described this guy who was locked in his bedroom all day raving about Jesus, who was out of his mind and totally dysfunctional. I took notes on everything he told me and that’s all in the book. Then in June 1980, Fred went with John to Bermuda. He claimed that while they were there John had told him that if anything should happen to him, it was Fred’s job to tell the true story of his life.

How did Seaman react when John died?

He showed up at my apartment within 24 hours. That’s really when the book begins. Fred knew John’s life wasn’t what people thought it was. The portrait they were painting in the media wasn’t true. He said, “Now’s the time to do the book.”

So at this stage you were going to collaborate on it?

Yes. I had an informal contract drawn up. He started feeding me material—not the diaries at first, but slides, pictures, snapshots. One of the first things he gave me was the Double Fantasy demo tapes.

At what point did you become aware of the diaries?

He gave me the diaries in May 1981 and I was just blown away. He was still saying “This is what John wants.” And I believed that John wanted it all to come out because that’s what I wanted to believe.

How had Seaman acquired the diaries?

They were there and he took them. After John died, he was taking box loads of stuff out of the Dakota every week. But I knew the diaries were the key to John’s consciousness.

So did you transcribe them?

I spent about five months reading and dipping into them, and then I transcribed them. His handwriting was really difficult to read and a lot of it was in code. I spent eight weeks, 16 hours a day, transcribing them. I got inside John’s head and saw the light and the truth as he saw it.

What did you feel when you first read them?

It was profound. He was isolated. If you think becoming rich and famous is going to solve your problems, it isn’t. All it does is exacerbate them. Everything that was wrong before he became a Beatle was magnified. That was the message of the diaries for me.

Did Seaman carry on working for Yoko after John died?

Until one day when he crashed the Mercedes and Yoko fired him. But he said we were still doing the project. Then I took a vacation in Jamaica and when I got back everything connected with the Lennon project was gone. Fred had the keys to my apartment.

So he took the original diaries?

They were kept in a safe deposit box to which we both had the key, so he had those. But I had transcripts and photocopies and he took all that. But then I realized that big sections of the diaries were running through my brain. I had the diaries memorized. I had run them through my typewriter so many times that I literally had them all in my head. So I wrote it all down again.

Then you went to work for Yoko. How did that happen?

I thought I had a story that was rock ’n’ roll’s equivalent of Watergate, so I went to Jan Wenner at Rolling Stone. He checked it out with Yoko. She didn’t even know about the stolen diaries until he told her. He said there was no way he could publish it, but he said he wanted to save my karma. He said the only thing I could do was tell her the story.

So you did?

I had a meeting with the attorneys from the Lennon estate at the Dakota in August 1982. I told them the whole story. They were stunned and astonished and freaked out. There was high-grade paranoia going on. They thought that maybe Fred Seaman had hired Mark Chapman to set this whole thing up. That turned out not to be true, but that was the mind-set they were in. They even thought maybe Fred would try to kill me, so they put me in a New York hotel under an assumed name and I sat there watching TV for several weeks.

So when did you meet Yoko?

I walked out one morning to buy a newspaper and Yoko’s bodyguards were waiting on the corner. They said Yoko needed to talk to me and it was an emergency. I said, “OK, but no lawyers.” I met with her at the Dakota and she asked to read my diaries. She said there was stuff in there that even she didn’t understand. She told me John’s journals were sacred. It was calculated to play on my guilt. I had read the forbidden sacred books.

And she offered to put you on the payroll?

We negotiated a token salary in the bathroom, standing on opposite sides of the toilet. They were very into the metaphor of money being shit. I went back the next day with 16 volumes of my diaries and transcripts. We spent several weeks reading them, everybody picking my brains and putting the story together. She still has them.

Did she also get the original diaries back from Seaman?

They used the information I gave them to have Fred arrested. Which was fine by me, because I was furious at him. He was convicted of grand larceny and got five years probation or something. He’s still out there posting stuff on the web claiming Yoko hired Chapman and nonsense like that.

And Yoko still has the diaries?

As far as I know. There is some suggestion that the 1980 diary might be missing. It could be sitting around in some dusty box in the Dakota.

What does your book tell us about Lennon that we didn’t know before?

It’s a three-dimensional portrait that takes you inside his head. I hope it tells you what it was like to be John Lennon, which was a really neurotic experience. There is a lot more detail about what was going on in his head than has ever appeared before. It is the accumulation of small details, the tone and the perspective.

Have you been hassled by Yoko’s people?

No, but our lawyers are in touch with her lawyers. She wanted to see the manuscript before it was printed, but that was out of the question. I have nothing against Yoko and I’d like nothing more than to be at peace with her.

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