#Mike Tree

[thewalrusespublicist]

Mike Tree's Adventures in Nutopia #2 : A HR Car-Crash in Slow Motion, aka Dealings with Yoko

This is the second of a three part series of a write up of the Mike Tree SATB interview. Part one is linked here. This second one is about Mike and Yoko's relationship and his observations of Yoko during his employment. I was going to do John next but getting the quotes have been more fiddly and honestly that dynamic is way less bizarre than what was going on here:

This is hands down the weirdest relationship discussed in the interview. It's pretty clear that Mike neither liked nor trusted Yoko. He considers her a 'chess master':

Yoko kind of treated people and treated life like a grand master chess player. She didn't play chess, but she was always plotting, if I do this, maybe I lose a pawn or a piece here, and then I can gain something elsewhere or trap someone else elsewhere. I wasn't really aware of this when I was working there.

SATB: 277: "Mike Tree" in Nutopia with Michael Meideros, 2024

He believes things like her relationship with Sam Green as part of a psychological game she was playing. The caveat to all this is that he somehow figured this out later, meaning he could very well be projecting what other people have told him onto his own memories and thereby rightly or wrongly colouring them in a different light.

Part of the reason for his mistrust is that he fully believes Yoko was coming on to him and trying to turn him into her version of May Pang:

Mike Tree: When in the mornings when I would meet Yoko, she was clearly used a vernacular hitting on me. I thought there was some sort of teasing going on, sexual teasing, which made me very uncomfortable. Rodriguez: Mm-hmm, like a flirtation? Yes, a flirtation. In the mornings at seven a.m. she would usually be wearing a very thin white gown, nightgown, hair loose about her shoulders and barefoot. Uh-huh. And this was very seductive. Yeah. I couldn't quite compute what was going on because I was just the tree man, as John called me.

Mike Tree: “In fact, one time I was in the bedroom looking after her Ming tree, or the Ming tree, and she came sweeping into the bedroom and bounced onto the bed with a giggle. Which made me very uncomfortable. I said nothing and left the room, just very shy.

SATB: 277: "Mike Tree" in Nutopia with Michael Meideros, 2024

It's really hard to tell what the hell is going on. Is it poor boundaries, is she just having a slight tease or is she actually hitting on him? Is it potentially also Mike being attracted her and projecting it back on to Yoko?

None of this is helped by John telling Mike that Yoko was in love with him and that he should talk to her more.

Mike Tree: Anyway, after she left the room, he says to me, you know, Yoko is in love with you. I was dumbfounded. Yoko is in love with you. He said, yeah, she always talks about you, Michael this, Michael that. Why don't you talk with her more? And I told him, John, I talked to her, but she always says, you know, I can't be on all the time. I'm busy or something like that.

SATB: 277: "Mike Tree" in Nutopia with Michael Meideros, 2024

Honestly I don't know why John is so chill about it considering his past paranoia. Thinking about how he is talking with May again, have they both agreed to have people on the side? Or maybe he's just joking and more means that Yoko likes him and that they should talk more (I lean the latter from his POV).

TBF mike is not the most loyal employee with the May Pang situation and Yoko seems to distance herself when he turns down the assistant role so it seems the situation was a bit more complex than the calculating seductress and the hapless tree man.

Outside of their weird little thing, there are more details about Yoko in the 70s that back up other reports. Yoko is back on heroin in the late 70s

“I'm not sure what exactly. But around that period, she started using heroin, snorting it. I can't say I saw her do it, but I certainly saw the effects. Her interior decorator, Sam Green, his assistant would bring Yoko in the mornings heroin, which she would then snort. I saw her in the apartment where she was very talkative and very friendly and smiling and it's like how unusual and realized that she was high. Occasionally, she would bump into the kitchen table or she would chain smoke cigarettes, but she would drop one cigarette on the floor and then start smoking another.

SATB: 277: "Mike Tree" in Nutopia with Michael Meideros, 2024

Bizarrely it's Sam Green who also brings someone to help get her off heroin when he realises shes addicted. What a thoughtful guy.

It's not a insider story of the Dakota era if we don't have another incident of Paul getting blocked from the place:

Mike Tree: It was maybe like five o'clock in the evening and I was going to go home, but I was finding every excuse to stay there. The concierge called up. Again, I don't know the exact conversation because I didn't hear it. I just heard Yoko saying, no, he can't come up now. I thought that was pretty cold. Rodriguez: This was Paul waiting to be admitted up to the Lennon apartment and Yoko shutting him down? Mike Tree: Correct.

SATB: 277: "Mike Tree" in Nutopia with Michael Meideros, 2024

The more you read the more it becomes clear that the frequency in which Paul saw John was not at all Paul's choice and that makes me incredibly sad.

Mike's reporting of Yoko's treatment of Julian post John's death attempts to be empathetic but is nevertheless critical. Yoko sends him away for the memorial and only meets with him in the presence of an attorney. In Mikes words 'not very nice, but Yoko was grieving as well.' In all honesty I am less sympathetic than Mike if this indeed did happen but Julian and Cynthia never discussed this so I'm not 1000 percent as to whether this is accurate.

Mike confirms Sam Havadtoy rapid move into the Dakota and Yoko going to eat at a restaurant close to the night John died. Both of these however are told far more sympathetically than in Seaman's account as the restaurant thing seems like a distraction from the horror of everything and Havadtoy seemed to be there as a crutch to help Yoko cope by taking charge of things. Far from the unfeeling ice queen from Seaman, everyone in Mike's account are taking it in turns to monitor Yoko on suicide watch.

The big incident at the end with Yoko asking for a lighter and making Mike chase around the room before directing him to a drawer with a gun in it I'll post on it's own as it's ... jesus. You can kind of see both Yoko being in a terrible, paranoid, grieving space when she does it but also why a grieving Mike would be so angry and never trust her again

So overall some confirmations of past stories, some different perspectives on known events and some batshit psychosexual drama! That's the Ballad of Mike and Yoko, next I'll move on to the less interesting albeit still revealing dynamic of Mike and John!

[torchlitinthedesert]

Picking up from @thewalrusespublicist’s post on Mike Tree, Yoko and boundaries/possible flirtation, here’s Pete Shotton talking to Hunter Davies from his time as John and Yoko’s PA:

One day at Kenwood, not long after Yoko had moved in, there was a call from the David Frost programme which I took. I went upstairs, knocked on their bedroom door, and John shouted, ‘Come in.’ John was in a sort of alcove, getting dressed, and I could see him and he could see me.

Yoko was on the bed - naked. I didn’t want to stare at her, did I, lying there naked, when she was my best friend’s girl? So I just fixed my eyes on John, not looking at her, and told John about the message and he said OK, he’d ring them later. Then I closed the door and went out.

Many years later, I happened to be reading John’s last interview, the radio one with Andy Peebles. In it, Yoko says how upset she was when she first met John and his best friend ignored her. She said she came into their room once and just ignored her and talked to John.

John then says, ‘That was just Charlie, we’ve been into all that enough times already.’

I knew that he meant me. He just said Charlie because he knew the interview was going out on the radio. But that hurt me, that did. She hadn’t realised how awkward it had been, seeing her naked. I’d just wanted not to do anything which embarrassed her.

Hunter Davies, The Quarrymen

[paulandjohn]

The memoir ‘Barefoot in Nutopia’ by Michael Meideros, also known as Mike Tree, who was hired in 1977 to work on the indoor gardening at the John and Yoko’s Dakota apartments, has his book blocked from being published too.

@bambi-kinos I agree with everything you wrote lol

Nowhere man: The final days of John Lennon. Robert Rosen

Prisoner of Love: Inside the Dakota with John Lennon. Peter Doggett | Release cancelled in 2021

Lennon in America. Geoffrey Giuliano

[marejadilla]

Mike Worrall, “Sculling the Forest” 1991-1996, oil on panel. B. 1942, Matlock Derbyshire, UK.

[389]

by Mike Nudelman

[huariqueje]

Tree - Mike Piggott , 2023.

American, b. 1963 -

Oil on canvas , 48 x 36 in.

[redlettermediathings]

[lorax-devito]

just watch everyone’s stressing and it’s gonna be a fucking bird or some shit

[shotmrmiller]

love seeing simon with a dapper undercut fade and nice locks on top because all i ever picture while writing him is a simon who took soaps trimmers (he won't spend a dime on clippers) and started from his widows peak til he's a patchy buzzed flaxen mess and calls it a job well done

oh but grooming??? a jungle. forest fire waiting to happen. gotta twist his arm into fixing that asap if he wants any head.

[unusualwhatsits]

Mike coming up to wrap his arms around Will's torso, resting his chin on his shoulder, peppering Will with kisses on his cheek, his neck, his ear, his head, wherever he can reach. Will laughs and tries to shove him off, so in relation Mike starts wrapping his legs around Will to see how much he can carry.

He'll claim it's a power move but really he's just clingy.

[thewalrusespublicist]

Mike Tree's Adventures in Nutopia #1 : Astrological Employment Opportunities and (debatable) Job Satisfaction

This is part of a write-up of Mike Tree's SATB podcast episode. I highly recommend listening to it but I'm posting a collection of highlights here if you don't have the time. For those that don't know, Mike was an employee of the Lennon-Onos from late 70s--early 80s. This section is about his uhm, eventful employment in the service of John and Yoko and it's inevitable challenges:

Mike got the job on John Green's recommendation after meeting him at a party and based on his supposed astrological appropriateness. You really feel John Green's overwhelming influence here, it's essentially his call who gets a job and who gets access to the Lennon-Onos (though there was also apparently a japanese directioner who also read the cards)

Mike wasn't just a gardener, he got the job with the eventual idea to moving up to being John's assistant. Mike turned down the assistant role when offered it by Yoko as he wanted to keep his plant business going and didn't want to be 'sucked into their orbit'. He also fundamentally didn't trust Yoko for reasons that will be discussed in another post. He would later go on to become their archivist.

As eventually happened, these extra duties meant a hell of overtime but considering Mike in one anecdote was looking for a reason to stay rather than go home he seemed to like being there at least to hang with John.

The Lennon-Onos were as mentioned elsewhere annoying bosses who would call Mike at odd hours to make him do stuff like get up at 3am or 4am to turn on lights that were actually on timers. Why Yoko was calling him to turn on timed lights is unknown but as we'll go into in a separate post, Mike views it as part of a wider 'power play'.

From Mike's POV he saw the Lennons as leading separate lives to each other. Mike states though he did avoid their private areas and wasn't there all the time in the evenings so maybe he missed their quality time.

Mike does some weird things in the wake of John's death when it comes to May Pang. He puts May through to Sean and Helen and gives May a remembrance tape of John from that then leaks all over the internet. I have no idea why he would put May through to them, maybe to spite Yoko?

The Fight for Employee of the Month

Mike confirms a couple of Fred Seaman's stories! He confirms the John writing 'Helter Skelter' in the stairwell and the Cardenas/funeral story but says that they happened to him instead of Fred which makes a lot more sense. It was also him that met the killer and not Fred. This is intriguing as it suggests that Fred's stories were not outright fabrications but that many could be more second-hand then presented.

According to Mike, Fred and Mike couldn't get on as they were both vying for John's approval so saw each other in competition with each other (what???) and Fred wasn't a team player. He also apparently tried to gatekeep John, potentially on Yoko's behest?

There's a weird moment where Fred searches Mike's bags in Bermuda but it's unclear why.

Mike seemed to have a nice friendly relationship with Miyoko and some of the Japanese staff and often mentions chatting to them. This to me throws up an interesting point, if the japanese staff can speak good English why is Yoko reportedly talking in japanese to them in front of John and thereby cutting him out of conversation? Is it because it's easier for them albeit a little insensitive or is it because she's saying things that she doesen't want John to hear? Likely the former but not good for John's paranoia.

This isn't in this podcast and I can't find the source right now but I recall an anecdote that Mike thought that Elliot Mintz was jealous of him. This is due to photos of John getting stolen from his apartment after Elliot Mintz saw them. Nothing else was stolen. This was suggested to be the estate as it's not the first time someone's place has been burgled and stuff pertaining to John has been taken. If I can't find the source soon though I'll take this bit out.

Stay tuned for more, this interviews a goldmine and there's a lot to unpack. Let's just say that Mike is definitely in the disgruntled employee camp.

[frankieroslipring29]

Hey that's MY 2000s emo boy band album that was there for me during my formative years and permanently changed my brain chemistry that I still listen to 10 years later !!!

[weepingwidar]

Mike Piggott (American, 1963) - Just Resting (2024)

[maglarks]

Family tree lokin’ a bit round today

Anyways imagine being married to your (kinda) niece that would be wild RIGHT DC???

[joshfutturman]

Across the River and Into the Trees (2022)

i fear we aren't ready for another cringefail loser josh hutcherson character. when this film drops in english ill lose my mind. ily jackson.

[dailydccomics]

"the Green is a mirror" this story did one of the best jobs showing the fundamental differences between DC's greenest characters, fanfuckingtastic work Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: Feral Trees #1 by G. Willow Wilson and Mike Perkins