1981LA Triumph Tour -Jacksons Can you feel it

Randy Jackson sings first, one of his few turns out front, but everybody is waiting for that moment. His part. And when it comes, the crowd soars.

Never owned a sparkly glove, though I knew more than a couple of kids who did.

I had a Michael Jackson jacket.  There were two kinds available, but mine was the relatively less expensive one.  The “real” jacket had actual metal mesh on the shoulders, but this one just had plastic imprinted to look vaguely metallic.  It still had all the zippers, though.  And it was black, not red.

For some reason, my Mom acquiesced to my asking and paid far too much at the Merry Go Round in Eastgate Mall.  It wasn’t an easy fashion statement to make in my hometown, certainly.  So I wore it for maybe a month, maybe less. After I retired the jacket to my closet, I never saw it again.  Maybe it ended up in a church yard sale.  But it was mine for awhile.

I’ve said so often that the 80s were hard on adults, but they were brilliant for little kids.  And as I posted a little over a year ago, Michael Jackson’s Thriller was an integral part of that brilliance, at least for me.  I was ten when the album came out, though I might’ve been eleven by the time I had my very own album.  Vinyl, of course.  (I wouldn’t have a cassette deck of any kind until 1983.)  I’d play it on this white plastic turntable from Sears.  It had two detachable black speakers, but to call it stereophonic is probably a stretch.

My parents were so patient with their strange little boy.  While I had other kiddie albums, Thriller was the first “real” record I owned.  And I played it all the time.  Over and over. 

I have so much love and appreciation for just about every note and beat and line from Thriller and Off The Wall … and even the Triumph album he did with his brothers in 1981, just before his career and life went supernova.  Everything since just hasn’t affected me in the same way, BAD included, though I do have a certain fondness for 1992’s “Remember The Time.”  No, the irony of this is not lost on me.

The simple fact is that I’ve missed Michael Jackson for a very long time. 

What makes today different is I’ve a greater hope that perhaps his music can be relieved of the burden of so many tabloid moments, too many scandals, manufactured and actual.  A celebrity’s death always pulls admirers out of the woodwork, people to say they’ve always been a fan, never-say-die.  So I take these many outpourings of grief with several grains of salt.  But this is one time where the art of an artist deserves consideration apart from the artist himself.  Just as Rich from FourFour says about the “Scotchguarded perfection” of Jackson’s hits, so I believe about each of his incarnations. He chose to reinvent himself, either to satisfy his fans or to fill a personal void. And he did so more and more drastically each time.

I’ve never understood the latter day Jackson, mask-faced, gaunt and sometimes veiled, but I’ll always be a fan of that smiling young man in a tux on the Off The Wall cover.

That’s the Michael Jackson I choose to remember.

I worked for Waldenbooks when I was in college. My store was one of two such franchises in Hamilton Place Mall, the first two-story mall built in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The upstairs store was closer to the food court, which might’ve been why we experienced more teenager traffic than the downstairs store. More teenagers means regular patrolling the Erotica section, disheartening requests for Cliff Notes from late-coming summer readers, and — best of all — very special Special Orders. These very special Special Orders were always for one of three books. None of these books were regularly stocked, though only one of the three defied categorization entirely. These books were, in increasing order of awesome: The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, The Anarchist’s Cookbook and … The Necronomicon.

The placing of the Special Order always went the same way. A Creepy Kid would step into the store with a determined look, avoiding the eyes of anyone working behind the counter. He’d go through the store from section to section. Science Fiction? Gaming? Religion? Occult? New Age? But what he wanted was not to be found, not without speaking to somebody with a Waldenbooks badge. And so, Creepy Kid would wait until there were no paying customers near the counter, then he’d make his approach.

“Hey.”

“Yes. Help you find something?”

“Yeah. Um …”

“Looking for some Cliff Notes?”

“What? No. No. Do you … You guys carry …”

At this point, I’d lean a bit over the counter, knowing what I was about to hear.

“… The Necronomicon?” Said at a whisper, like the password to a speakeasy.

“You sure? Well, alright then. If you’re sure. I’ll have to … Special Order it.”

Normally, these special orders would never be completed. I’d get to the part where I needed a phone number, and that would be that. As this was the early 90s, teenagers just didn’t have cellular phones. And even a phone of your own at home was rare. So I wouldn’t get a phone number, and they’d walk away disappointed. But sometimes, a Creepy Kid would be brave enough to hand over the digits. Special orders didn’t require any pre-payment, so with all the information we needed to submit the order, the request would be sent to Ingram. Five to seven days later, the Necronomicon … or The Satanic Bible … would arrive in our store. And as we would for any other special order, we called the customer to let them know.

“Hello?”

The voice on the line was hardly ever the Creepy Kid, but usually their mom.

“Yes, hello. This is Thomas with Waldenbooks … yes, the one in the Mall. Right.”

“Oh, okay. How do you do?”

“I’m great. And I’m calling to let … um … Billy? Yes, Billy. If you could let Billy know that his special order of copy of The Satanic Bible has arrived.”

A pause.

“The Satanic what?!?”

“The Satanic Bible. By Anton Lavey. Oh, and we have his Necronomicon as well. A book that collects the …”

“I’m sorry. I have to go and … speak … to Billy. Thank you … very much.”

“Okay. Have a good day!”

While I was there, not a single Special Order’d Necronomicon or Satanic Bible was picked up by any Creepy Kid.

Like I said before, I followed a decent manager from a fast food job to a somewhat slower food job. The Pizza Hut was about a half a mile from the Burger King, situated right on the busy intersection of Highway 27 and Battlefield Parkway. (Practically every street in my hometown refers to the nearby Chickamauga National Battlefield, the Parkway being only the most obvious.) Next door to the Pizza Hut was a Wendy’s. It’s still there. The building that housed the Pizza Hut remains as well, but it is now a Mexican restaurant.

Waiting at the Hut was better than working for the King for a number of reasons. For one, the pizza business involves a lot less grease. For another, there were far fewer dreaded tasks at closing. Give me a half-hour of vacuuming the floor or stretching cling film over the salad bar leftovers any day. Better that than scraping thawed-then-refrozen meat bits from the bottom of a burger cooler.

On afternoons when the Hut wasn’t so busy, we of the wait staff had only to keep the wait station relatively clean, make sure there were always bread sticks in the warmer and marinara in the heated dispenser. We were allowed the luxury of munching on the occasional chunk o’ bread stick when the convenient opportunity presented. And when lunch time rolled around, a waiter was entitled to a free Personal Pan Pizza of their own making. This meant that you could walk your own unbaked crust down the prep line in the kitchen, pile on whatever ingredients worked and place said crust onto the oven conveyor thing.

Oh, yes. My second job had that in common with the first. Food cooked while journeying through a gigantic, stainless steel box. Only the Pizza Hut oven was about three times the size of the BK broiler.

An interesting bit of trivia. Do you remember the Pizza Hut Priazzo? That was the big, new dish when I worked there. It was a pizza pie, literally. Crust like a pie shell, filled with ingredients and cheese, then another sheet of dough blanketed over that. And to solve the problem of how to ensure that all of those inner bits were cooked, the cooks would take this thing that looked like a spiraling cast iron comb and stick the teeth into the top layer of dough. This would conduct the heat into the Priazzo and give it this signature pattern when removed at the end. Neat, eh?

The only problem with the free Personal Pan Lunch was that I was a soft drink snob. Actually, I still am. Pizza Hut was a Pepsico property and as such they served only Pepsi products. So I would bake my Personal Pan, then walk next door to Wendy’s, where I would order a large Coca-Cola to wash it down. To split the difference, I would sit on the parking lot curb between the two to have my meal.

I made decent enough tips for kid in high school. Then as now, you had to enter your tips into the computer at the end of your shift. In theory, the sum of our rather paltry hourly pay ($2.10, I think) plus the hourly average of our tips would pass minimum wage muster. And as reported, it did. Barely. As actual, I don’t think anyone ever reported all of their tip take.

The tables you wanted to take for tips were the worst to clean up. Softball and baseball teams. Coaches would pay, which would be an accounting nightmare. But as everyone gathered up to leave, the adults would never confer to determine just who would leave a cash tip. Often, you’d end up with duplicate tips from any coach or assistant coach who felt the least bit obligated.

Some tips were just odd. An aspiring gospel singer came in for lunch with her grandmother. A teenager most likely in junior high, she left me her demo tape. Can’t remember if I listened to it or not. Her name? Britney Spears.

(No.)

Here’s the weirdest story. One night late in the summer, I served a couple at a table. Dark-haired, both of them, I would guess they were Cuban by way of Florida. Actually, I’ll just come out and say what I thought at the time. The guy looked like Tony Montana. And he called his knife and fork his “little friends.”

(No. He didn’t.)

But what he did say was more interesting. He and his date finished their meal, got up to leave and left an okay tip. But on the way out, he got my attention. I walked over and he asked me, quite vaguely, if I would do him a favor. Through my over-sized glasses — thank you, late ’80s — I’m sure I blinked and gathered enough of my young Methodist courtesy to say, “Excuse me?” He repeated himself. He asked if I had a car and wondered if I could do him a favor, presumably involving said car. I remained polite in my state of subtle Stranger Danger and said something like, “Oh, yeah, well … I’m closing today, sir, so I’m going to be here until at least midnight or so, so you know …” He took this new bit of information in stride, said that he would’ve paid me for my trouble, then just nodded and stepped out the door to his waiting companion.

Anyone care to guess what happen’d around midnight? Just before we closed, Not Tony Montana returned, dateless. This time, he was more insistent, telling me that he really needed to borrow my car. Why? Because he had to go downtown (Chattanooga) to get some things, to (and I quote) “pick up some tools.” If I’d just let him borrow my car, my not-so-prized 1976 Ford Grenada, he would give me $100. If I wanted, he said, I could even come along for the trip.

This time, I managed to channel some of my Dad’s deep well of resolve where bad ideas are concerned. $100 would’ve been a nice bit of change for the 16-year-old me, but there was no way I was going to let anyone drive my car, much less somebody I didn’t know. And I wasn’t about to hop into my own car with someone who just needed to get some “tools.” So eventually, Not Tony Montana left. Disappointed and maybe a little more than pissed off. In his own car.

And yes, I still wonder why he needed my car. Tools? TOOLS?!?

Pizza Hut was my second and last hometown job in good old Fort Oglethorpe. After that, I left for college in Athens.

Athens, Tennessee.

This post was inspired by Rusty’s meme-establishing “Jobs I’ve Had” series, a trend also followed by Garrett and Sara and Nikki!

As it happened, a girl I’d “dated” early in junior high was employed at the local Burger King. You can’t really call it dating if you’re counting on parents and youth ministers for rides. This is one of many reasons why she and I weren’t dating anymore — with or without quotation marks. But she was still mostly friendly, so I asked her if Burger King was hiring. Sure, she said. I just needed to come by and fill out an application. So I did.

I was hired on the spot. I’m positive that it was my charm that won the manager over. That and my pulse. Before the week was out, I was issued a uniform and sent to Redbank for three nights in a row for an experience known as BKU. And yes, the “U” in BKU does stand for “University.” No lie. Three nights of watching videos in the back room of a larger than usual Burger King.

The uniform. Suits and business casual aside, I’ve only had to wear two uniforms in my entire work life. And the first of these two was the worse, by far. Imagine the least breathable polyester ever extruded. Now shape that into an ill-fitting polo shirt in maroon with coordinating pants of the same material. To seal the deal, top off the outfit with the cruel choice of a visor or a mesh-backed trucker hat. The uniform was positively impenetrable as far as any comforting breeze was concerned, and yet it managed to pick up a variety of food smells from any six to eight hour stint in the Burger King kitchen. So did the hat. The miasma of burger, fry, fish sandwich, milkshake and Pepsi combined to form a scent that bore a distinct resemblance to melted plastic. Plastic that had been dipped in grease. And broiled.

Grease really was the word at that place, if you’ll forgive me. It got everywhere and it went with you when you went home. On your skin, in your hair, on your clothes, in your car.

Turns out that a kid from my neighborhood worked at the same Burger King. Michael. A few days after I started working there, I noticed that his Lakeview High class ring looked like no other. The stone was black and had a white streak down the middle. “How’d that happen?,” I asked him. “Fry vat,” he answered.

Turns out, he’d watched the ring slip off his finger and sink right into the bubbling torment of the molten fry vat. Luckily, he didn’t follow his immediate instinct to plunge his hand to retrieve it. Instead, on his next break, he told his manager — now my manager — what had happened. She said that he was welcome to drain the vat that evening after closing, just to see what he could find. The ring, for what its worth, was little the worse for wear. All but the stone, of course, because it used to be blue. An aquamarine, supposedly. Like my class ring. Which I left at home from that lesson on.

My assignment after graduating BKU, suiting up and arriving good-and-early for my first shift? I was given the task of feeding the broiler. Or rather, The Broiler. Respect is due. The BK Broiler — the contraption, not the latter day marketing gimmick-sandwich — is a giant metal box that measures about a meter across, a meter wide and stands on four sturdy legs with a semi-permanent fume vent that is mostly attached to the ceiling. When you drive by a Burger King and catch a whiff, this is what you are smelling. Beneath the box is a rolling deep freeze with a sliding lid. It rolls so that one can push it mostly out of the way under the broiler. Filling the rolling deep freeze are patties of two sizes. You have your frozen normal burgers and then your frozen Whopper burgers. Ever see a Whopper burger before it becomes the primary component in one of the highest calorie sandwiches ever invented? The frozen patty is almost the size of a 45rpm record. Or rather, they were when I was a fresh BKU graduate. So the broiler feeder stands behind the broiler — the “In” side — plucking patties from the deep freeze and placing them on the metal conveyor grill that never stops conveying. With a rather solid clang, the patties start their relatively brief journey through the box. This journey will take them over a small sea of yellow flames, just long enough to send a one-side grilled burger out the … well, I guess the “Out” side, as it were.

One of the most important lessons I recall from BKU was to always place the burger on the bun with the broiler stripes facing upward. It’s true.

How long was I at Burger King? Maybe five or six months. Our manager left to take on a marginally better job at the local Pizza Hut, so several of us followed suit. I suppose we figured that waiting tables had to be better than breaking down shake machines and scraping salty grease-skin off the fry bin.

And it was. Sort of. But that’s another job. For another post.

This post was inspired by Rusty Tanton’s on-going “Jobs I’ve Had” series, a trend also followed by Garrett “They Call Him Big Papa” Vonk. (Oh, hai! Sara is on board as well!)

Yes. I still have a blog. But I’ve been a touch busy. With this play.

For NFDC’s latest production — All’s Well That Ends Well — I served as the director. I am very proud of this show and its cast. Between weekend performances, we have speed-thrus. Low-key, quick runs through the show from beginning to end. These can often be silly.

On this particular night, I stood in for an excusedly absent actor named Jessica. She plays Diana in All’s Well.

This is how that went.

But at the same time, I couldn’t dismiss it entirely. I left it on my iPod, letting shuffle find tracks on occasion and usually letting them play out. I started to think of it as a friend going through a rough patch. Even with the misplaced emotions, the production values were still incredibly high, so 808s could put on a brave sonic face. Basically, I couldn’t abandon it, but I knew it needed time to itself. Maybe 808s needed therapy?

Then I thought, maybe what poor little 808s needs isn’t therapy, but some good company. 808s needs musical friends. And maybe a new voice to vent some frustrations. So here it is. Borne from my concern about Kanye’s 808s‘ emotional well-being, I give you Wrath of Khanye.

A warning … this is perhaps the most geek-tastic mix I’ve ever done. Put it this way: I love hip-hop, late 70s pop funk, electronic soul, unexpected covers … and sci-fi, Star Trek in particular. All of that is in here. Seriously.

So get your headphones. Download. Let’s go.

Source Tracks (In Order of Appearance):

1. “Heartless” - Kanye West
2. “I Want To Be Your Man” - Zapp & Roger
3. “Heartbreaker (Part I, Part II)” - Zapp & Roger
4. “A View To A Kill” - Hollywood, Mon Amour
5. “I Just Realized (Tom Moulton Mix)” - The Brand New Heavies
6. “Amazing” - Kanye West
7. “No One’s Gonna Love You (Blackbeard Rework)” - Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators
8. “Love Lockdown” - Kanye West
9. “They Were Lyin’” - Ayah
10. “Brave New World” - The Foreign Exchange
11. “Paranoid” - Kanye West
12. “Green Light” - John Legend (featuring Andre 3000)
13. “Say You Will” - Kanye West
14. “Sick” - Sam Sparro
15. “I Can’t Give You Up” - Smoove & Turrell
16. “Welcome to Heartbreak” - Kanye West
17. “Everywhere” - Common (featuring Martina Topley)
18. “That Girl” - Esthero

(And yes, if you ask nicely, I will go back and split the 48-minute mix into tracks.)

I made this.

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Sean Penn in “Milk”* (Focus Features)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”* (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Meryl Streep in “Doubt” (Miramax)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)

Best animated feature film of the year
“WALL-E”* (Walt Disney)

Achievement in art direction
“Changeling” (Universal)

Achievement in cinematography
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)

Achievement in costume design
“Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

Achievement in directing
“Milk”* (Focus Features) Gus Van Sant

Best documentary feature
“Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures)

Best documentary short subject
“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306″

Achievement in film editing
“Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)

Best foreign language film of the year
“The Class” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Achievement in makeup
“The Dark Knight”* (Warner Bros.)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
“WALL-E”* (Walt Disney) Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
“Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)

Best motion picture of the year
“Milk”* (Focus Features)

Best animated short film
“Presto”* (Walt Disney)

Best live action short film
“Spielzeugland (Toyland)”

Achievement in sound editing
“The Dark Knight”* (Warner Bros.)

Achievement in sound mixing
“The Dark Knight”* (Warner Bros.)

Achievement in visual effects
“Iron Man”* (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment)

Adapted screenplay
“Doubt” (Miramax)

Original screenplay
“In Bruges” (Focus Features)