John Lennon's assistant

With increasing frequency, manuscripts, letters, postcards, doodles of the stars surface.

In general, these are papers that have entered the auction house circuit, companies interested in publicizing their lots and inflating their “historical importance”.

One day is the private contract by which Bob Dylan agrees to pay all the expenses of setting up a house of his own for his then wife, Sara.

Or the invoice for a guitar bought by Hendrix.

Another day, the list of tasks that John Lennon entrusted to Frederic Seaman, his assistant, on May 22, 1980, is released. It has caused much fuss, since it includes detailed instructions for the next visit of the cable television technician, the urgency for locating certain books, the order to always have the tanks of their cars full, the need to buy jam or change the mattress of his son Sean.

When Scotland Yard went hunting rock stars

“The Beatles were like brothers;

the Stones, a company "

The idea is transmitted that Lennon was a divo, incapable of the minimal tasks that any "normal person" would solve.

It is urgent to clarify it.

John might not trust himself: usually personable, he had opened the door to his apartment to intruders who, during his years of silence, had sneaked into the Dakota Building.

Outside, he was more alert: he developed techniques to move through the streets of Manhattan with minimal interference, but he tried to avoid passing stores.

Most annoying matter was that of housework.

The agreement by which Yoko accepted the return of John Lennon to the conjugal bed led to her becoming a "householder", a supposed feminist triumph exemplified by her fleeting dedication to baking bread.

Actually, John had enough employees not to have to try too hard.

Handwritten note from John Lennon with instructions for his assistant, Frederic Seaman.

We have the testimony of his housekeeper, the Galician Rosaura López Lorenzo, who signed a book without malice,

En casa de John Lennon

(Hercules de Ediciones, 2005), where she relativized the musician's culinary skills and his practical sense.

Trivia: Lennon receives a package of marijuana wrapped in a newspaper (don't ask, a custom of the camels there).

He rolls the paper into a ball and flushes it down the toilet.

The pipe clogs and ends up asking for help to a Rosaura more amused than angry.

You are probably familiar with the saying "no one is a hero to his valet," derived from an observation by Montaigne ("few men have been admired by their servants"). Indeed, it usually happens. Besides, Fred Seaman was not to be trusted. Yoko's method of hiring consisted of putting each candidate through an astrological filter and it proved disastrous with Seaman, who secretly sided with what he perceived as abuse from Ono and humiliation inflicted on John. Which does not justify the tricks of the assistant, who tried to trade with the "diaries" of the deceased (actually, telegraphic notes on how his day had gone). Denounced, Seaman promised to return what he had taken from the Dakota. Obviously, he kept material. Everybody does.