Hiding from Michael Jackson

You can run into anyone, anywhere, anytime, even an international pop star… so try to look presentable and have self-confidence

Charlotte Laws, Michael Jackson, Brooke Shields

Have you ever looked so scruffy that you want to crawl under a rug? Has your hair ever been so frizzy that strangers ask if you’ve been electrocuted by a toaster oven? Has your face ever been so puffy that it seems like you’ve ingested a tub of grease, a ten-foot-tall Tater Tot, or a salt mine?  

This was me on a particularly embarrassing day in the 1980s when I was in my 20s. I had errands to complete and little time. I was wearing frayed gym shorts and a blouse that looked like it had been through World Wars I and II as well as Custer’s Last Stand. Frankly, I looked like a bag lady minus the lady. I resembled a bag.

I needed to pick up photos from a local camera shop. My plan was to dash in, grab my pictures, and scamper back to my car before anyone could shout, “What’s the Loch Ness Monster doing in LA?”     

I was alone at the camera shop counter; the clerk had gone into the back to retrieve my merchandise. All of the sudden, pop star Michael Jackson entered, wearing a flashy satin shirt and black pants. He was accompanied by two other fellows who seemed like bodyguards. I was in shock and unsure what to do.

I tried to ignore Jackson and his cohorts because of my appearance. I was unsure whether they’d had breakfast and didn’t want them to regurgitate their Cap’n Crunch. But Jackson was not having any of my evasive nonsense and tried to strike up a conversation. Perhaps he was baffled as to why anyone would so willfully ignore him since he was an icon at the height of his fame. Perhaps he hoped to ease my discomfort. Perhaps he just needed a friend.

He stood on my right. I quickly turn my head to the left. Then he moved to my left. I whipped my head back to the right. He leaned around several times hoping to be acknowledged and finally spoke. “Hi,” he said in a meek voice.

With my face still turned, I mumbled, “Hi.”

He seemed to be searching for something to say. “You look like this girl.” He pointed at one of the many photographs displayed under a glass countertop.

I shifted my eyes ever so slightly so I could see the picture. No disrespect, but this woman was over forty and looked like Pee Wee Herman in a wig.   

“Are you her?” he asked softly.

“No,” I exclaimed, still hiding my face. “And I don’t really look like this. I look terrible today.”

The clerk appeared with my package of snapshots, which I tore open at breakneck speed. I whisked out a picture of myself in which I was dressed to the nines. “This is what I really look like.” I offered it to Jackson, while still concealing my face. He studied the photo.

“This doesn’t look like you,” he replied in an innocent voice and again pointed at the girl under the glass countertop. “You look like her.” He clearly meant no harm and probably didn’t think she looked like Phil Spector during his mugshot.      

“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Jackson.” I finally revealed my face, smiled, and bolted to my car.

This embarrassing incident taught me one thing: you can run into anyone, anywhere, anytime. And these chance meetings can be beneficial, a stepping stone to achieving your dreams. The person you bump into might be an old friend with whom you hope to reconnect, a cute guy that you want to date, or a famous person that you’d like to befriend. It might be a politician who holds the key to important legislation, an executive who might give you a job, or a fat cat who could donate to your favorite cause.

I have learned another thing. Looking like a tattered Boo Berry can hinder your goals, especially when it kills self-confidence.   
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Originally published in the MJ World Network - Oct. 9, 2019

Kirkus Reviews: Undercover Debutante by Charlotte Laws

Following is a book review by Kirkus...

Laws’ memoir focuses on the wild and varied situations she finds herself in while seeking her biological parents.

Undercover Debutante by Charlotte Laws

As the adopted child of an upper-class family in Atlanta, Laws (Devil in the Basement, 2018, etc.) had always felt like a “B-flat while [her] peers…had been C-sharps.” Laws’ demanding father dismissed everything that wasn’t money, and her distant mother’s suicide attempt left her in a vegetative state. The author’s quirky worldview and dark sense of humor were always at odds with her rigid, depressing childhood environment. Fleeing west as soon as she could, she moved from Las Vegas to Los Angeles. She worked as a bodyguard, a backup singer for an Elvis imitator, a maid, and a live-in caretaker in a mobile home. She encountered some of the strangest characters the West Coast had to offer along the way and found herself in a few genuinely harrowing situations that she recounts in riveting detail. In leveraging her greatest skill as a party crasher, Laws got a handle on the sprawling metropolis of LA and found pieces to the puzzle of her past. When she eventually met her biological father and heard the story of her birth, she mused to herself that, “Even as a zygote, I was on track to be a TV movie.” Questions of family and heritage come into play with each new profession and zany escapade as Laws writes of single motherhood and struggling to make it in the city of Angels. Like David Sedaris’ wry personal essays, Laws’ chapters feel like self-contained short stories that mine any given situation for personal confessions and comical observations. She does tend to veer off course, and some editing of the more tangential episodes would have made for a tighter exploration of the pitch-black comedy that is Laws’ family history. But even when the memoir strays from the primary storyline into tales of sex dungeons, glitzy celebrity parties, or dating service mishaps, Laws punctuates every moment with an extraordinary sense of comedic timing and a sharp eye for twisted details.

Turns bleak family secrets and struggles into one hilarious, witty joy ride after another.

See review on Kirkus website.

Veganism and My Food Fight with Milton Berle

Remembering my bizarre lunch with the foul-mouthed, meat-loving Uncle Miltie whom—to everyone's surprise—later became a vegetarian. 

Veganism is no longer a Mona Lisa wearing googly glasses and a bikini. In other words, it is no longer ridiculed, deemed un-American, or held in contempt—at least not by the vast majority of the country. It is a lifestyle choice that has become popular, partly due to celebrities (Bill Clinton, Zac Efron, Beyoncé, and Natalie Portman, among others) who tout its merits and partly due to animal activists who point out the suffering that nonhuman animals endure on factory farms. The diet is also praised by top athletes who say it helps with their game, by health professionals who claim it reduces disease, and by environmentalists who argue that embracing it is the only way to avert a full-blown climate disaster.   

These role-models ignite change. They motivate others via their words and personal behavior—something that has been my mission as well for almost 40 years (first as a vegetarian and later as a vegan). It has not always been easy. By declining to eat meat, I have experienced the full gamut of human craziness, mainly back in the 1980s and 1990s. I have been hated, taunted, belittled, nagged, lectured, and even bullied. But my experience dining with comedian Milton Berle at the Friars Club in the early 1980s was perhaps the most unusual. Following is what happened, as excerpted from my 2019 memoir, Undercover Debutante. I had been invited to lunch by Milton’s son, Bill, who was a friend from college.    

The 18,945-square-foot Friars Club looked like a windowless, grand yacht. It was anchored on Santa Monica Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Milton and other old-time celebrities had started the private show business club in 1947. They frequented the venue for lunch and events. The ceiling was shaped like a rolling wave, and the dining room was a spacious cabin at the stern of the mighty structure. 

The three of us were seated at Milton’s private table in the center of the room, and that is where I met the famous comic, who wore a blazer and gray slacks and treated me as if I were a deck chair rather than a person. By the end of the meal, it felt like I had been thrown overboard or walked the plank. 

“I fucked Nancy Reagan, Lucille Ball, Rita Hayworth, and Marilyn Monroe,” Milton bragged as if trying to impress me or somehow be funny. 

“Nice … to meet you,” I stammered, truly disgusted by the vile and misogynistic language. The man totally lacked class, and although I had rejected much of my Atlanta upbringing, I was unimpressed with people who cursed a lot or made an effort to be offensive. The comedian brought out the “debutante” in me. 

“I bet you’ve heard about my dick.” Milton slid into a monologue about his gigantic penis and then segued into kinky details about recent sexual exploits with women whom he clearly did not respect. I felt sorry for Milton’s wife and glanced at Bill. He looked embarrassed. 

“She gave me head and I ate her snatch. … Me and that broad. We shtupped for three hours …” Milton suddenly noticed a patron on the other side of the room. “Oh, I gotta give that cocksucker a cigar.” He jumped from the table for one of his many flits to converse with diners on the other side of the room.  

The menu was predetermined. A waiter appeared with a tray of dishes, which prompted Milton to dock himself at our table for a bite. “I’m a vegetarian. No meat, please,” I told the waiter as he spooned portions of food onto our plates. 

“No. Give her some of that,” Milton said, pointing to a beef dish. The waiter seemed torn but ultimately decided to obey Milton. 

“No, no,” I pleaded. “No meat, please.” 

“Give it to her.” Milton motioned again at the beef dish. “And give her some of that chicken, too.” The waiter flashed an apologetic look but did as Milton commanded. My pleas had been firm, but the comedian did not care. He seemed to be on an ego trip or think he was at war with me. I had lost the battle of the Friars Club lunch, and my plate was contaminated. My innocent peas and crisp salad had lost the battle as well. Meat sauce oozed onto them, encroaching upon their purity and deliciousness. Tiny chunks from terrorized chickens tainted my once-pristine rice. Bill looked ashamed but stayed silent. It was as if he knew from experience that he could not confront his dad. I ate nothing for lunch, but Milton—still obsessing over sex stories—failed to notice. 

“I hate your dad,” I told Bill at the end of lunch. Bill replied, “I know,” as if this sentiment had been expressed as often as Milton’s vulgarities. 

At some point following the combative lunch, Milton ironically stopped eating meat and even went so far as to attribute his long life to a vegetarian diet. (He died at age 93.) Although some say he quit consuming flesh because of his conversion to Christian Science, a show business insider offered me a different story. “Milton became a vegetarian because of people like you. He was influenced by those who came into his life.”  

Although I don’t think I influenced him more than any other deck chair on the Titanic, I do think the “cumulative impact” theory holds water. It is possible that as more and more vegetarians entered his life and set a good example, he began to rethink his habits and seek change. 

If Milton can change, we can all change; and the time has never been better. The Economist calls this year—2019—the year of the vegan. Although veganism was once ignored by mainstream media, today it is discussed. Although it used to be the target of condescension by the meat and dairy industries, now many in these increasingly profit-challenged fields are scrambling to stay relevant by inventing their own meatless and dairy-free alternatives. In the past few years, there has been a 600 percent increase in the US by those who identify as vegan; this has prompted restaurants and grocery stores to provide more plant-based options.   

Climate change—arguably the most pressing issue of the century—has done much to propel veganism into the spotlight. According to experts, meat and dairy intake in the US must be abolished or significantly reduced to avert catastrophe. The journal Science states that eliminating meat is the single most effective action that an individual can take to fight global warming. 

We must all be role models for the sake of the planet, for the sake of nonhuman animals, and for the sake of ourselves. Let the food fight begin. 

Published in Medium and in A Vegan Life on July 25, 2019

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Charlotte Laws, Ph.D. is a BBC TV pundit, a former California politician, and the author of the award-winning memoir, Undercover Debutante, which comes on the market in August 2019. You can follow her on Twitter @CharlotteLaws