Hats Off to Samuel J.

Like many parents, I had a curious and inquisitive band of children. They didn’t merely stop at the standard questions about planets, mathematics or dinosaurs. They often went off into the murky world of why things were named a certain way. Although I did pride myself on being a virtual fount (really, that is the proper word, not font) of information of weird and wonderful facts, they sometimes had me stymied on certain topics. Which is how I came up with my friend Samuel J.

It started out innocently enough. If the kids asked me, for example, why was a Hula Hoop called a Hula Hoop. Me, being at a loss for an explanation, replied it was named after Samuel J. Hula. To me Samuel J. just sounded right. They seemed to accept this at face value and would continue on with their activities. But after a few times of using Samuel J. Insert-Last-Name-Here, they started to catch on. “My, that is a popular name,” I started to hear. “It seems like every inventor has the same first name and initial.” It was time to elevate my game, so to speak.

One of the kids asked me why ketsup was called ketsup (or catsup depending on your geography). I think I stuttered for a second trying to think of some answer (I now know it is thought to be a derivation of the Chinese word kê-chiap a fish brine) and then started into a story that this product was invented by a Samuel J. Kets, a small town confectionery owner from the midwest of the United States in 1843. During a period of time when he was playing with different concoctions he would label them Kets 1 or Kets Good or whatever popped into his head. One day he labeled a bottle, "Kets - Unlikely Product" which he shortened to UP, as he didn’t like the texture or taste and left it on his work table. Later that day his wife saw it and decided to give it a try and surprisingly, liked it. When Samuel got back to his workshop she asked him to make more of that Kets UP because she really enjoyed it. Hence the name KetsUP. The kids were enthralled with this story. Even my wife, a foodie if there ever was one, put her fork down and said, “Really?” I took and long sip from my wine reveled in my brilliance and then admitted I lied.

This followed the basic law of baffle gab, that if you give more than enough detailed and useless related information, people have a tendency to believe the facts all the more. It has always worked for politicians and I found it also worked in parenting. The challenge I soon faced was the fact that the kids started to use me as some form of perverse entertainment, to see whether I would wilt under their barrage of inquisition. I swear, they would spend their waking hours just trying to think of something I couldn’t relate to my friend Samuel J.

It has been over 10 years now that this little form of white lie has made its presence known in our household and even though the kids have mostly grown and moved out, I do get on occasion to relive my moments. Last Christmas as we were all sitting around the table for dinner and one of them wondered why a charger plate was called that. For those who don’t know, it is a decorative over-sized plate that is placed under your dinner plate. I felt all eyes swivel towards me and facing up to the challenge, I put my fork down and related this story.

“Samuel J. Charger was a much beloved landowner in medieval England when, during the reign of King Edward, the Sloven, it was decreed that an additional tax would be imposed on the citizenry based on the per serving plate of food. Now Charger, who was a true man of the people, felt that this was unfair and to get around this tax imposed by the monarch, he issued to all his people a larger than normal plate to hold more food than the average person could eat thereby letting them eat less meals per day. This soon became known throughout the land as a Charger Plate. The people were thankful for this and even though the tax was soon repealed by the heir to the throne, King Edward II, the Not-so-Slovenly, they honored their land Lord by using a symbolic over-sized plate which was placed under the normal sized plate. Hence, our tradition of using a charger plate for our formal dinners.”

As I finished this story and placed my napkin on my lap, I felt if there was ever a moment to hang up the guns and retire Samuel J., that this would have been it. But who knows? He may make his presence known again. I do hope one day to have one of my grand kids scramble onto my lap and explain to me that the inventor of their crib was a man named Samuel J. Crib. It would make me proud just to hear that.

Michael Jackson

I have to admit that I have never bought a Michael Jackson record in my life. Not a one, not Thriller, not Off The Wall, nothing. Back in the 70's I considered myself a rocker and to those unfamiliar with our motto, it was, “If it ain’t Rock, it ain’t music”. As we moved forward into the late 70's and early 80's, I was kind of adrift when it came to popular music. Disco was a thing that was making my stomach turn at every bar and dance club I went too. Disco babes and dancing queens (both female and male, as it turned out) were not even on my radar. I certainly didn’t have any time for the namby pamby stylings of musical acts such as Peaches and Herb, Donna Summers or God forbid, KC and the Sunshine Band. I rejoiced in teasing one of my best friends who was a fervent Stones fan about the band going disco with Emotional Rescue. I kind of stayed in my own groove and celebrated every time some real music came out. A ray of sunshine in a bleak musical landscape, so to speak.

Tape decks in cars became my outlet for music, I don’t think I tuned in to an AM station for years in a row and only rarely allowed an FM station to be played. My musical life was made up of home made tapes. In fact, the whole musical repertoire of my wedding reception consisted of 90 minute tapes that I made, just to ensure dance music didn’t somehow sneak in.

All of that changed when I first saw the video of Billie Jean on NBC’s Friday Night Videos, our only source of music videos at the time. He took elements from every genre of music and somehow melded them into a cohesive and seductive form of music. It wasn’t Rock, it wasn’t Disco, it wasn’t R&B and it wasn’t Pop, but yet it was somehow all of them, all at once. And he didn’t so much as dance as much as he glided. His movements didn’t seem to be a series of connected routines like John Travolta laid on the world in Saturday Night Fever. He had a more like a natural way to him, like a flowing river. You certainly couldn’t go into a bar and dance like Michael Jackson did, that just wasn’t realistic. But you could go in and pretend you could dance like Michael Jackson and no one would fault you for it.

The hits that followed were more of the same, each seemed to move the entertainment apect of music and videos forward. Even as the number of hits started to fall off, there was still a quality to them. The morphing faces on Black and White were, at the time stunning. It still didn’t prompt me to go out and buy any of his records, that’s just not who I was. But it certainly didn’t stop me from admiring a man who could take such divergent musical styles and history and make them into a musical entity that everyone appeared to enjoy and tap at least their toes to.

The only thing I really can’t forgive him for was introducing the Moonwalk to the rest of the world. It was nothing short of embarrassing to see grown men, usually somewhat overly refreshed, trying to do this step in a crowded bar. Man, I still cringe at the thought and to be honest, I still can't do it.