Saturday, November 5, 2016

I’m Thankful For This Award

As a freshman art student at Brigham Young University in Hawaii, I was able to make my way there as a sponsored student of the school. There were no loans available to me so in order to pay my way as much as possible, I would work 20 hours a week at a student job for $4/hour.  The money for room and board was automatically taken out of my pay. If I did not meet the fee then all my money would be taken except $2. Being a foreign student I couldn’t make that up by working off campus so for the next two weeks I would have to sometimes live on a $2 pay check.  I had three meals a day in the cafeteria and a place to sleep in the dorms.  I would use the $2 to make quarters and wash my clothes.

As a poor student you could imagine my excitement when I was one day walking back from the library and saw a flyer on the student notice board that read something like this:

Student Talent Show
Sponsored by ASBYU
1st prize $100
2nd $50
3rd $20

My eyes popped out at the $100. I must have mouthed the words slowly: one hundred dollars!  My blood started pumping and I became so excited, a hundred dollars. I walked away and came back and looked, it was still there. I looked around to see if other people saw it. One hundred dollars, I want that hundred dollars.  Then a doubt crept in, maybe your act won't quite be good enough, $50 or $20 is good too. No, no, no, first prize, a hundred dollars and I can do it!

The reason I was so excited was because I did have an act of sorts-puppets.  My mum introduced them to me and the family when I was a teenager.  My mum said the puppets really came alive when I operated them.  My brother and I would do the odd birthday parties to earn money.  Later when my brother was gone I continued doing it for some events like at shopping malls, even once on New Zealand national TV for a telethon fund raiser. Even though as a student I brought very little belongings with me to Hawaii, I did bring my puppets just in case an occasion called for their use and here it was.
I planned to do two brief acts, a guitar-playing Elvis singing Jail House Rock and a Michael Jackson puppet dancing to Beat it.  My mum put most of the puppets together and I did most of the work on the Michael Jackson puppet.  He was the darker Michael Jackson from the early 80’s. There was some preparation involved, I had to make a sturdy stage barrier to crouch behind and a little drum set for the drummer. My friend Brett, an art student also, was the drummer.

When it came time to do a dry run with no audience, the night before the show, my act went well.  After getting up I could see from the other participants' expressions who saw the act that I had something there, the puppets looked good.  That was one of the drawbacks of being a puppeteer.  You could never see the audience reactions as it was happening and by the end of the performance your arms and shoulders burned from the exertion of having them up for so long.

The night of the performance the place was packed, 350 people in the auditorium as well as people standing along the sides and back.  The organizers saw I had a good act and put me near the end of the line up. I felt sorry for the other performers because there were people there with real talents, dancing, musical instruments and thoughtful songs. I was going to try and upstage them with a glorified sock puppet and some Michael Jackson music and in the end, I did. 

The jovial crowd, mostly BYU-H students, were ready for some fun, a big laugh and a slap on the thigh.  The Jail House Rock song was a good warm up.  They laughed and clapped along to the music. 

Video As it Happened "Jail House Rock" Performance

 Right after that was done I had no time to rest my arm and quickly switched to Michael Jackson. We had it cued so that when the first beat played, a puff of talc (from the ceramics studio) would come up and out of the puff would rise Michael Jackson, his back to the crowd and then slowly turn around.  Everything went off perfect. As I turned him around and started the dance the crowd went absolutely wild. The noise was so loud. If Michael Jackson himself had stepped on stage the roar wouldn’t have been any louder. It was to a fever pitch. People laughed, screamed, and clapped. I could hear it all. It was so loud, in fact, I had a hard time hearing the music. Every now and then I would hear a faint din of a beat that was enough to tell me where I was in the song. I had to concentrate. My arm was really burning at the end but I made it though, carried by the crowd and the rousing reception. 

When the act was over we slipped our stuff behind the curtain stage and moved away.  I tried to look down and have a business like expression as if to say, well got that done.  I looked like that so as to not make the other performers feel bad by seeing me look boastful. When we got to the side, behind a curtain, I let out a big smile, patted my friend on the shoulder and said in almost a whisper, we won!

During the 1980’s Michael Jackson won a lot of Emmy wards.  He would get up there with his high voice and give a gracious speech.  I was ready. When they called my act as the winner, I came out on stage. Everyone got to see the skinny Maori boy behind the puppet.  I came out with the Michael Jackson puppet to give his speech.  They put the mic to my mouth, I turned the little guy to the audience and in my Michael Jackson voice, the puppet spoke; "I’m thankful for this award.  I'm thankful for all the people that supported me and made this possible and ...I...I just want to say thank you....” and he took a little bow.

For the next three days I was famous.  As I walked around campus people would look at me and nudge their friends and look over.  Some would say hey great act.  I didn’t make any actual friends from it, just notoriety from a distance. After three days the fame faded and I was back to regular freshman art student LeRoy. The money lasted a little longer, but not much. What did I do with it?  I gave some to my friend for helping and the rest I spent on art supplies, Pacman and chocolate bars.  

The recording of the live Michael Jackson act did not go well because of the noise and the glare from his mirror glasses.  They taped his glasses black and I did the whole thing again at the BYUH TV studio. They played the performances that week on the campus-wide TV news segment.

I entered a new act and won the next talent show and got more money.  The one after that I didn’t even place and felt that the well was tapped out and never performed in front of a large crowd again.  I could have pursued it but wanted to be an artist, a sculptor, not a performer. Perhaps one of my kids or grandkids will pick up a puppet and carry it on. When I’m out some place and hear the familiar beat of that Michael Jackson song, I see a puff of talc, the crowd goes wild and my little puppet does his thing. 


Video "Beat It" filmed in studio





1 comment:

  1. Leroy, giving your all at everything you attempt, even at a young age. So fun to read. We use to have a monkey/sloth type puppet in Singapore that your brought to life too. Always enjoyed watching you and DeWayne on the dance floor too. So many talents in your family.
    Much love, July and the rest of the Ellis bunch

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