This reviewer left such a thoughtful review, I feel they understood my objective.
My book, "Craving Normal," available on Amazon.
Tag: 1980s
I thought of my next book’s title: “How to Become Broke and Influence Nobody.” Yep, last night while making dinner (okay, heating up leftover chili cheese fries), I realized I’ve had so many crappy jobs, all while making absolutely no money, I could fill an entire book.
I’ve been an awful waitress (After spilling a tray of filled beer mugs on customers, they returned another night wearing yellow raincoats), a bad showroom model (I accidentally insulted a designer), a terrible receptionist… a not-so-great aerobics instructor.
Well, here’s an excerpt from my book, Craving Normal.
While working as a movie extra, I got a second job as an aerobics instructor. I figured, why not get paid and get in shape? But I could only bounce my way to a tighter butt and shin splints at minimum wage for so long.
A few months after working at Holiday Spa in Torrance, I called in to let my manager know my car overheated and broke down. Since I was living in Hollywood—nearly an hour drive away from work—I wouldn’t be able to make it that day without a car. That’s the way I figured it, anyway. But my manager “helped me out.” She said, “No problem. Kimmy lives in your area and can pick you up on her way to work.”
I yelped a fake, “Great,” and shuffled off to get ready for Kimmy, a cute blonde aerobics instructor, to pick me up.
Wearing my aerobics outfit—nothing more than a tiny shirt, tights under black French-cut bikini bottoms, big, poufy socks, and white bouncy shoes—I waited on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. Kimmy pulled up to the curb, and I jumped in. Right away, we bonded. Not only were we both out in public wearing little clothing, but after talking, we learned we were both burned out from being bubbly every work day. We agreed we were tired of cheering people on to tighter thighs. “Come on, ladies! One, two, three, four, keep it up—just a little more! Five, six, seven, eight. Keep going. Doing great!”
We drove through the palm tree-lined streets and headed south toward the Torrance Holiday Spa via PCH, parallel to the ocean. It was a stunning summer day. As we passed the sparkling blue water of the Pacific and tanned guys carrying their surfboards, Kimmy said, “Wow, the sky’s so blue. Beautiful day.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, looking toward the beach and the tanned guys, “and . . . so hot.”
We looked at each other. I knew what she was thinking. She knew what I was thinking. The beach was way too tempting. Kimmy stopped at a pay phone and called in to the spa. “You won’t believe our luck. My darn car overheated. Can you believe it?”
Somehow, I don’t think they did.
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While reading former Rolling Stone magazine writer Jancee Dunn’s book, But Enough About Me, she mentioned Scritti Politti playing on her date’s car radio. I put down my book and went to remind myself of Scritti Politti’s songs. Below the video of “Perfect Way,” a guy commented, “Hot Tub Time Machine brought me here.” So that’s why I watched Hot Tub Machine, last night.
Goofy as it is, the movie Hot Tub Time Machine got me thinking about things I did in the past that changed my destiny, resulting in my present day life. Many of those moments were silly. I began thinking: What if I didn’t do (fill in the blank)? Would I be where I am today?
One of my “What ifs” involved John Cusack, in 1987. In Hot Tub Time Machine, John Cusack gets blasted back to 1986.
So, without any explanation, here are some of my sillier what ifs. To find out what they mean you’ll have to read my book Craving Normal and the chapter, “What the Hell Just Happened?”
*What if I never annoyed John Cusack as we sat together in a red booth at Damiano’s Pizza on Fairfax?
*What if my roommate’s boyfriend didn’t eat all my kung pao shrimp?
*What if I never became an aerobics instructor?
*What if I allowed that car thief to move into my Reseda apartment?
Answer: Nothing about my life would be the same.
Little did I know my goofy antics with John Cusack in that red booth at Damiano’s Pizza changed what I would do that following week, which brought me where I am today. That pizza booth was my destiny-changing time machine, catapulting me to the future.
King Cotton, doing Roscoe’s wrap from John Cusack’s movie “Tapeheads,” then set my future into an entirely different direction.
What silly, seemingly inconsequential, moments changed the path to your future?
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*An Imaginary letter I wrote to our Tree Audio client (we design and hand-build tube recording consoles), Pete Townshend of The Who, about My Generation.
Dear Pete Townshend,
As I made and soldered the cables for your Tree Audio recording equipment we just sent off to you, I thought about how I spent my early teen years listening to “My Generation” until I wore down the grooves in my album, while sulking, thinking about how misunderstood I was, how The Who really understood me and my generation, all of us raised in the shadow of the Flower Children with our own issues. Unlike the Woodstock crowd, the media didn’t care much about what my peers and I did or what we thought, didn’t follow our every movement, or put down our every waking moment in documentary film–only stopped to warn us that the free love-era had come to a scary halt with AIDS.
You got me, I thought. Then I realized The Who song was written for YOUR generation, my parents’ generation.
Whatever.
My generation, your generation, my kid’s generation… I think we can all relate to being misunderstood. So thanks for getting my anger. Every time you smashed your guitar, I knew you felt what I felt. Or I liked to think so.
Thanks,
Michele,
Your Tree Audio cable maker
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Here’s an excerpt from my book Craving Normal:
There were days that made me wonder if I was cut out for movies at all, considering background work was hardly a challenge. Though, for me, it often seemed to be. One of those questionable moments happened while working on a television movie of the week called When the Bough Breaks, starring Ted Danson. During a scene filmed in a Studio City bar called Residuals, the director yelled to me, “Hey, you. What’s your name?”
“Michele.”
“Okay, Melissa.”
Actor Richard Masur was sitting at the bar, and in a slow, calm manner, corrected the director. “Her name is Michele, not Melissa.”
“Whatever!” The director continued pointing at me. “I want you to play a cocktail waitress.”
Someone handed me a tray of highball glasses filled with amber-colored drinks and ice.
“Okay,” the director continued. “Ted is going to storm out in a rage, and while he’s leaving, he’ll bump into you.”
I nodded and didn’t move until I heard, “Background! And action!”
Ted Danson stormed my way. Trying to be helpful, I threw a bit of my shoulder in as he swiped me, causing the entire tray of drinks I held to tip and spill all over the front of his shirt.
Dripping wet, Ted apologized to me—not just once, but twice. “Oh wow, I’m sorry. So sorry,” he said, patting me on the back.
But why? It was my fault. My shoulder move caused the accident.
I didn’t say a thing because the director wasn’t pleased. I knew he wouldn’t yell at Ted Danson, but I was sure he would yell at a lowly extra named Melissa.
That damned Melissa. What a klutz!
***
Turns out, Ted Danson is truly a good guy. In retrospect, considering Ted’s drink handling skills, he must’ve pitied me.
(When my singing out loud in markets gets weird. Based on a true story, minus the gabby gossips)
“Hello, Marge. Hello, Susan. Did you two hear what Michele did over in the produce section at the market, just now?”
“Gosh, no. Tell us.”
“Well, that ’80s song, Obsession, was playing over the sound system as she squeezed avocados. So, of course, she sang along…”
“Yes?”
“She sang right out loud, as if she can sing: ‘You are an obsession, you’re my obsession, who do you want me to be, to make you sleep with me.'”
“And?”
“She looked up from the avocados and realized she was standing next to a priest.”
This comment on the Obsession video…hilarious! 
One of my dreams: to have a sandwich named after me. I know–dream big, Michele!
Ian and I were drooling over the potential ingredients of our namesake sandwiches, recently. That’s when I remembered the summer, after high school, when I worked at The Rockaway Beach Deli on Highway 1 in Pacifica (About 10 miles south of San Francisco, on the coast). A man came in and said to me, “Make me any sandwich you want. Your favorite.”
I pulled out one of our freshly baked sourdough rolls, sliced it open, slathered the roll with Russian dressing, topped it with big pieces of our fresh, sweet crab meat, added some diced onions, and big slices of Gruyère cheese. Then I put the open sandwich under the oven broiler until bubbly and browned, and topped it with the Rockaway Beach Deli’s delicious homemade (made there) cole slaw. The guy loved it.
If THAT’s going to be The Michele Sandwich, I might have to add some hot sauce to give it some spice.
I can relate to Jennifer Aniston. Not because of her beauty, fame or wealth. Because I lacked flair–TGI Friday flair.
In order to save money so I could move to LA from the Bay Area, back in the mid-1980s, I worked two jobs while going to school: weekends I worked at Mills Memorial Hospital in San Mateo as a Radiology Assistant, and at night I worked as a waitress (If that’s what you can call screwing up orders, upsetting old women, and shattering glasses) at TGI Friday’s in San Bruno.
(Photos below are from the San Bruno TGI Fridays I worked at, during the same era, taken from this link about TGI Fridays).
What I remember:
*One night a drunk guy, while outside TGI Fridays, took out his penis and rubbed it along the length of the long, front window. For weeks my friends and I would point out the thirty foot, snake-like smear to people. For weeks! How were those windows not washed before then? (Photo #1, window on left is where the penis smear stayed for weeks.)
*We were trained on the menu (basically, stuffed potato skins and fruity cocktails) for two weeks, until we could spew the fried food fare we offered at bullet speed.
*If, while training, we didn’t call out our bar orders correctly (the most time consuming cocktails first, i.e., daiquiris, etc.,), the bartender would pour bottles of booze and mixers directly onto the bar and bark out, “What was that again?” What a waste!
*Before our shifts we would have to line up for inspection. My big-haired manager, Julie, would tap my exposed upper thighs with a ruler. “Your skirts are always too short!”
*People used to make out in the phone booth near the bar. (Photo #2)
*(See photo #3) That last table, farthest away, is where I upset a group of senior women I was serving because I forgot to bring the birthday “girl” some balloons. That’s also the same table a bunch of twenty-something guys sat at for hours one Saturday, while I ran back and forth serving them, running a tab of a couple hundred dollars. They didn’t tip me. Maybe one of them was that birthday girl’s grandson. Pay back!
*Any time glasses shattered, the entire TGIF staff would call out, “Michele!”
*This is where I served a woman and her boyfriend. From the death grip which she held on to her boyfriend’s hand and the sneer she gave me, I don’t think that woman liked me. Plus, she left me a penny tip on her credit card print out. Sweet!
*TGIF is where I was working when my doppelganger, Rita, (a girl from college I was always mixed up with), sat drinking cocktails with her friends, confusing my TGIF waiter friend. Who said to me, “Michele? I thought I saw you in a booth, having drinks?” Nah, as Rita laughed, I wore my silly, stained white and red striped shirt, covered in sticky cocktails and oil from potato skins, trying to act cheery while being absolutely miserable.
After only a few months, I quit and moved to LA.
In the video clip of Jennifer Aniston from “Office Space,” not only can I relate to her flair flare-up (I didn’t wear kooky buttons or suspenders), but I did leave my answering service job this exact same way–middle finger waving.
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Me: You know that Crowded House song, “Mean to Me”?
Ian, my husband: (Staring at his computer) Not sure.
Me: Yeah, you know it. (I begin to sing) “I’m down on my knees… So please don’t be mean to me.”
I think it sounds just like it. I’m sure he’ll nod his head in acknowledgement.
Ian: (Eyes haven’t moved from his computer.) It’s a good thing you can write.
***
Wow, so mean! Ouch. Ah, that’s okay. Ian’s not wrong. And as a musician/songwriter, he’s gotta be honest. Plus, I’ve admitted my lack of singing talent in this previous blog post.
Wow, so mean! Ouch. Ah that’s okay. I’ve admitted in this previous post my lack of singing talent.
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Reading the chapters of my soon-to-be published book, “Craving Normal,” back to back, it’s interesting to me that I used the word apron in three different stories:
- Apron is what my saintly and shocked Grandma wore when she ran out of the kitchen upon hearing eight-year-old me say “Ah hell!” after I landed in Monopoly jail, during a game with my cousins.
- Apron is what I had to sew in order to escape (errr… graduate) high school, after learning I was three credits short, but told I could take a nighttime sewing class. Never finished that apron. But I finished school! Squeaked by with an unfinished apron. Sums up my school years well.
- Apron is what I was handed when the Director asked me to play a cocktail waitress in a movie called “When the Bough Breaks,” right before I spilled the entire tray of drinks on the movie’s star, Ted Danson. It’s also what I took off right after the incident.
Ted Danson, looking very dry, unlike after I spilled drinks on him. Here he is with actor Richard Masur, who kindly corrected the Director who mangled my name. While Googling the Director, Waris Hussein, of “When the Bough Breaks,” (the one who yelled at me, constantly calling me Melissa rather than Michele) I found this photo of him fixing actor Richard Burton’s tie. I guess if you’re Richard Burton the director won’t yell at you and call you by the wrong name. Photo from this link. *Top photo: Here I am thinking I look really hot in an apron, zipper skirt and white pumps. Oh 1980’s, you made me such a fool!
