Laura Meets Jeffrey

by Jeffrey Michelson

  I’m going to meet John and Yoko and I should just be normal?

  At the elegant Pierre we are escorted by security to John and Yoko’s suite and are greeted by the ever lovely May Pang, John and Yoko’s assistant (who becomes even more prominent in John’s life later.) May is a buddy I know from the Apple office. She’s twenty-one; smart, slinky, tall and I have a moderate crush on her. She lessens my anxiety a notch with her smile.

  Steckler and I walk in and John and Yoko are sitting on the floor with a blank piece of paper the size of a New York Times page. I think to myself, “Holy Shit! That’s actually John and Yoko!”

  A few other people are milling around the suite, which is the most magnificent hotel room I’ve ever seen. Huge. Really high ceilings. Opulent lighting, opulence everywhere.

  John and Yoko are working furiously and never look up to greet us. Steckler motions with his head for me to get involved and I move in closer and concentrate on the design developing on the blank page in front of me as John and Yoko arrange various cut up pieces of type and photos and the Crawdaddy cover with them on it. After five minutes John sits back and says, “There! That’s right. It’s all done.” Steckler pokes me in the ribs. He wants my opinion and without a second thought I spew, “No. You’re wrong.”

  The room goes silent.

  Before I can even contemplate whether one of the huge windows would break and allow me to defenestrate myself, John smiles, looks at me, and says, “Really? Show me.”

  Steckler, who I hear snickering jabs me again to keep going. I get down on the floor and rearrange the pieces and cut up bigger pieces of type and in about ten minutes I put together a better, more dynamic design. I hope.

  Yoko says nothing, gets up and walks over to talk with Steckler. John is still on the floor next to me, watching. I’ve suspended breathing. John turns to me and, sounding just like a Beatle from Liverpool, says, “You’re right. That’s morch betta.”

  He then sticks out his hand and with an easy casualness, and just in case I was the one person in the western hemisphere who happened to not know who he was, says, “I’m John, I’m glad to finally meet you. I loved the ads you did for ‘Imagine’ and ‘Fly.’” He points and says, “This is my wife Yoko.” We nod at each other.

  This is too hallucinogenic for me. It would be more likely for me to awake from this dream sequence than not. This is what pinching yourself was invented for.

  I introduce myself and take just a moment too long to stop shaking his hand. John gets up and asks if I want anything to drink; looking up from the floor I ask for a Coke.

  Then John Lennon is standing right there next to me as Steckler comes over to chat with him and look at what we’ve created. John Lennon is standing next to me. John Lennon is wearing moccasins. John Lennon’s feet are only inches away from mine. My dormant Beatlemania grabs hold of my central nervous system and it occurs to me—that’s a Beatle Foot! And there are two of them. REAL ACTUAL BEATLE FEET!!

  May, smiling at me knowing I’d get more of a thrill if John Lennon hands me the Coke than if she does, gives him both cans and he hands me one. I don’t know if I should open it or keep it as a souvenir. Thirst rules. I vow to take the empty home, but in the scramble to complete the ad, the can gets left behind.

  John Lennon sits down on the floor again right next to me. (“God,” I’m thinking, “I hope I’m not sweating!”) Yoko, who is sweeter than I expect, joins us on the floor. The three of us edit the quotes they want to use from the Crawdaddy article, and make a few fine-detail design decisions together. I become self-conscious when I look at John eye-to-eye and make sure to turn away quickly to avoid staring. When we’re done, I’m off and running with another handshake with John Lennon—two in one day!—and a quick goodbye.

  These were the days before computers and Quark and Illustrator, back when you had cold-type galleys, rubber cement, Photostats and Exacto knives. What would take one person two hours to do on a computer today took six people in three separate businesses at least two days, with lots of drop-offs and deliveries by me or messengers.

  But John wants it submitted to the New York Times that afternoon. Steckler gives me permission to spend whatever is needed to complete the task. It’s amazing what the twin engines of “JOHN-&-YOKO-NEED-IT” and “MONEY-IS-NO-OBJECT” can accomplish. In only five hours I produce finished artwork ready for reproduction. I never stop moving and two messengers don’t either. I submit the ad to the Times. They want the money up front because, Apple or not, they don’t have an account and any new business is COD.

  The on-the-spot payment is arranged with Apple’s bookkeeping, which means I also get paid my commission that same day. What a package deal!

  That evening Andrea and I went to the usual kind of social gathering we attended during the early 1970s—an orgy. The next day when a friend asks how I am doing, I tell him that yesterday was one of the best days of my life. I got to meet and work with John Lennon, I went to a great orgy and I made and collected money. (I made $669, which was 7.5 percent of the cost of the ad, which was $8,920.)

  The next time that combination of events came up I just told my friend, “John Lennon/Orgy/Money” and to this day, I still think of truly great days, even those without John Lennon or an orgy, or even money, as John Lennon/Orgy/Money days.

  Although I was flattered to be needed so much in the middle of my first vacation while at Apple, it was less exciting being called back the second time; and by the third time my vacation was interrupted, it was a pain in the ass. In the little over three and a half years I serviced Apple, I never had a single uninterrupted vacation.

  On the plus side of the balance sheet was Beatle Dope. I never smoked with John, and he never gave me a joint directly but through others who had more intimate contact with him and his stash, I ended up with bits and samples of whatever he was smoking. I had my first ever hair-straightening top-of-your-head-comes-off hash oil, and grass that was the best available in the world at that moment. Who on earth is going to sell or give second-grade weed to a Beatle?

  Another plus was that John Lennon was funny. Laugh out loud funny. He did shtick, with lots of voices and accents, especially various American accents including Southerners and middle-aged Jewish women from Queens. And although he had his tantrum moments—one of which I watched but since it wasn’t my fuck-up, I wasn’t the focus of his bite—he was generally kind and thoughtful and at least he remembered my name.

  Unlike Yoko.

  Yoko had worked with me maybe four or five times but never remembered my name. These people were my bread and butter but Yoko’s forgetfulness annoyed me. I never mentioned it until one day I felt so humiliated that I either had to say something to her or swallow a foul taste so rancid I knew I was one step closer to kissing cancer on the asshole.

  The Ono-Lennons were then living on Bank Street in the West Village only a few blocks from where Andrea and I lived on Tenth Street. Walking over to their big basement flat I used to think, “Can you imagine? Having to go to John Lennon’s apartment!” Like it’s work and I have no choice! I was amused by the irony dealt to me by fate.

  One brilliant spring day I was on my way to their flat just dying to run into someone I knew. No such luck.

  I got to their place and May Pang let me in. I sat down at the kitchen table and waited. Waiting was another annoying regularity. After fifteen minutes John walked by and said, “Hello, Jeffrey. Would you like some granola?”

  “Yes, I’d love some.”

  “Help yourself,” he said as he took out a bowl, milk and a box of granola for me.

  John had offered me granola as soon as he saw me ever since our second meeting when he gave me some of his specially made granola and I glommed down two bowls of it. It was the best granola I ever had and I told him (and I was straight, for I would never go to their place or Apple’s office stoned—this was business). Even once when we ran into each other on the street he asked me if I wanted some granola.

  John grabbe
d a chocolate brownie and a chunk of chocolate. He was a fiend for anything chocolate and was working his way though a giant five-pound Hershey bar. He headed back to the bedroom and said he and Yoko would be out in a minute. We were meeting to go over the artwork for the ad campaign for David Peel’s “The Pope Smokes Dope,” an album John was producing.

  I was eating granola when Yoko came running out annoyed and excited, pointed to me and asked, “Are you the washing machine repairman?”

  “No. Sorry, Yoko.”

  She zipped back into the bedroom.

  John and Yoko came out about thirty minutes later. During our meeting the real washing machine repairman showed up. I was focused on the work and Yoko’s insult was fading. Then John quickly stood up to answer the phone. It hit me. I had to say something.

  “Yoko, I love working for you and John and you people are not only my heroes, but how I make much of my living and you are great clients and I only have one request.”

  “Yes,” she said, trailing the ending of the word the way people do to show mild disbelief or disgust.

  “Yoko, you never remember my name or who I am. I’m Jeffrey Michelson and I’m not the washing machine repairman. I do your advertising and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but it hurts that you don’t remember me.”

  “Well. John and I are so busy and meet so many people.”

  “John remembers my name.”

  “Well. Okay, I’ll try.”

  “Thanks, Yoko. That’s all I ask. It’s Jeffrey Michelson.”

  She repeated it. I’d never heard it said with a Japanese accent.

  * * *

  A few weeks later I was leaving the Hammock Store on Bleeker Street where an informal gathering of local arty types including writers and painters and Warhol superstar Holly Woodlawn would come stoned and hang out on many a late afternoon. We lounged in a variety of Yucatan hammocks and had, if not the most insightful and clever salon in the West Village, then surely the most comfortable.

  As I stepped out the door, I saw John and Yoko across the street. Our eyes met. I waved, John waved and Yoko looked puzzled but I could tell she was trying to remember. I yelled out. “That’s okay, Yoko. It’s me, the washing machine repairman.”

  I don’t know whether John said something to her or she remembered, but finally she said, “Hello, Jeffrey,” and I smiled.

  My strongest recollections about John Lennon are not the often overly long advertising and design meetings but the breaks for bathroom and food. More than once John picked up his guitar and went into the opening riff of “Day Tripper,” which he loved to play. Once he picked up his guitar and did a great flashy loud Elvis imitation—voice, wiggling pelvis, throbbing leg, and all. May Pang, Yoko, a few other assistants and I were rolling in laughter as he exaggerated each move, each note, each Elvisy gesture.

  Another favorite memory was the night Steckler invited me to the Record Factory recording studio to see John, Yoko and Phil Spector mix “Happy Christmas (War is Over).” Andrea came with me and to our surprise when we got there we were escorted into a big studio with lots of other people, old, young, black and white. We were going to be the chorus. We practiced until we all had the melody and timing and then we all sang several takes for the final recording. If you listen closely you can hear me singing “War is over if you want it.”

  My relationships with the other Beatles were limited. I never met Paul and in three and a half years my entire connection with him was earning $18.75 for changing the catalog number on an ad for him.

  I met Ringo a few times and he was as charming and happy-faced as you might imagine. The first time was at Apple’s office on the forty-first floor at 53rd and Broadway. I walked into a meeting room to give something to Allan Steckler, and Apple staffer Paul Mozian, who hung out with Ringo, introduced us. They were all eating lunch and Ringo, a vegetarian, without prompting, offered me half his cheese submarine sandwich.

  George I had a bit more to do with and we met enough times that he remembered my name. I learned two life-altering lessons from George.

  I was sitting in Steckler’s office listening to acetates of the final mix of George’s new solo album, All Things Must Pass. Tears had come to my eyes on side one during “My Sweet Lord.” Most songs blew me away, especially “Wah Wah,” “Isn’t It a Pity,” “What Is Life,” and his cover of “If Not for You.” I was listening to song one side four, “I Dig Love,” and George walked in. It’s a heavy lightweight song with one of Ringo’s best performances. The arrangement is simple, sparse and stunning, my favorite kind. George said hello and asked me, as if my opinion mattered, what I thought of the album. I told him it was brilliant. He asked, “Really?”

  “Yes George, it’s bloody brill,” I replied parodying English slang. I asked, “Don’t you know it’s great? It’s great. Not like I think it’s great, like I know it’s great.”

  “Thanks, Jeffrey. That means much to me.”

  Steckler walked in and I left while they did some business. George left and I went back into Steck’s office. He lit up a Pall Mall and I lit up a Marlboro. It seems alien now but that was what people did then.

  “George is really insecure today,” said Allan. “Beyond normal pre-album release jitters. George feels bad because he had to hire someone to write out the charts so he could copyright the music and the sheet music. He feels bad because he doesn’t know how to read or write music.”

  Two things hit me. If George Harrison, one of the top earners in the music industry was insecure, then there was no hope for me. And probably not for you either. Fuck, he was a Beatle! How much more approval did someone need? Second, if he was that great and still insecure, then insecurity just doesn’t matter. It won’t stop you from being great, so just keep moving forward no matter how scared you are. I can’t say I never had any more insecurity. I have it right now as I’m writing this book. But it doesn’t matter.

  What does matter is putting your best effort into whatever you’re doing. It doesn’t insure greatness but it’s almost always a prerequisite. That was the lesson I learned at Apple. Everybody, Bob Gruen, May Pang, Paul Mozian, and the people I introduced to Apple, Michael Gross, Tina Rossner and Toby Mamis, all gave all they had every day. We left it all on the field and took nothing back to the locker room.

  In addition to charging $15 an hour for design and making 7.5 percent of the ad budget, I would do odd chores for John, Yoko and Allan. I’d research photos, pick up something and courier it if that was the most expedient method and because I lived right around the corner from John and Yoko, I’d be asked to make Xerox copies (nobody had a machine at home in 1971) or find three dozen red balloons or whatever else inspired John and/or Yoko that moment. Allan asked me how much I would charge for doing these odd jobs, figuring it would be less than my design fee. I told him $15 an hour because there were sixty minutes in every hour I worked for him no matter what I did. He laughed and agreed.

  Allan Steckler, who at one point in his life was the Creative Director for the Beatles and the Stones at the same time, set the bar high. One day Allan gave me the assignment to listen to all the tapes kids sent to Apple Records so the Beatles could sign them. There were hundreds of tapes and no one had listened to any of them in years. Allan said it wasn’t right to just throw them out without them being heard. He told me that if I thought the tape was good, he didn’t care about it. If it was GREAT, he still didn’t care about it. If it knocked me out, he’d listen to it for ten seconds. Out of hundreds only three knocked me out and none knocked Allan out.

  My favorite John Lennon/Orgy/Money story of them all happened when John and Yoko appeared on the Dick Cavett Show to plug their new single, “Woman Is the Nigger of the World,” that had created an uproar in both the black and white communities.

  California Congressman Ron Dellums, who is black, wrote a defense of John’s language, “If you define ‘niggers’ as someone whose lifestyle is defined by others, whose opportunities are defined by others, whose role in so
ciety are defined by others, then Good News! You don’t have to be black to be a ‘nigger’ in this society. Most of the people in America are ‘niggers’.”

  I was asked to create a response ad to John’s critics using Dellum’s quote. I set the quote in the largest type possible and covered the entire page with a small attribution at the very bottom.

  That night, I was at a giant orgy on 57th Street with about twenty couples. At 11:30 p.m., I left the designated wall-to-wall mattress orgy room and went into the living room to turn on the TV to the Dick Cavett show. John and Yoko were performing the song with Elephant’s Memory, their back-up band. They’d asked Allan Steckler to be there to mix the sound and I wanted to watch and hear them. With Steckler at the knobs, it was the best live TV sound I ever heard.

  I sat on the carpet real close to the TV and didn’t have the sound up very high. Two naked girls came over during the performance to watch. I was smack in the middle so one sat on one side and one on the other. One of them was lanky with long, wavy reddish brown soft hair. I’d already had her earlier in the evening and really enjoyed myself. She was a moaner with a beautiful melody.

  The other was tiny and adorable, the smallest girl I’d ever seen at an orgy, well under five feet, perfectly proportioned with an ass I could definitely hold in one hand. She might have been a tall midget because she had perfect proportion but I think she was just a small person. I don’t know where the line is drawn.

  She was bubbly, had a high-pitched but not unattractive voice and although I hadn’t yet had her, she’d been a popular attraction. I’d watched her fuck and suck and desired her for the obvious erotic and perverted reasons. Her name was Noreen and the reason I remember was when she first introduced herself I thought she said fluorine and I wondered why anyone would name their baby girl for the ninth element on the Periodic Chart.

  Both said they were Beatles fans and were excited to see John and Yoko on television. After the end of the song during the commercial I told them John and Yoko were my clients. They were very impressed. The little one started stroking my balls.