American Idol

I had my shot. I did. The year was 1978 and Grease was playing in the theaters. My friend Doots and I had seen it at least fourteen times (That is a Freyism but what can I say? In my mind it was no less than fourteen times). We sat for hours next to the record player listening to the soundtrack, opening up the cover to stare at the photos inside, wishing we were Sandy dancing in Danny’s arms at the carnival. We hated Rizzo with a passion except for her solo Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee. We belted out the words “Hey, fungu, I’m Sandra Dee!” without ever realizing their meaning. We belted out all of the words and committed ourselves to imitating the casts every move. Skipping around the living room singing Summer Nights as if we were right there eating lunch outside Rydell High.

Sure that our talent should be shared with the world, we decided to put on Grease LIVE for our apartment complex. Doots was older and therefore trumped me when it came to picking her character. She had long blond hair (like Sandy). My mother kept my hair in a sort of dirty blond mushroom so it would be easier to grease back (like Danny). Eventually, I agreed to my role in the show but not before some very heated arguments.

What to wear? I wore jeans, rolled up at the ankle, a short sleeve t-shirt that I rolled up very Danny-like to show off my biceps and my father’s jacket. In my mind I was a T-Bird. In reality I was a scrawny, greased down mushroom hair, girl trying my best to look like a badass and failing miserably. Doots wore an outfit as close to Sandy’s dirty girl, hood outfit as we could find. I had these dress up shoes that used to be my aunt’s that I begrudgingly let her wear for the performance. The had a solid cork heal with two read cloth straps that crisscrossed each other on the top of the foot. Sexy, disco shoes!

Where to set up the stage? You know what they say, location, location, location. We decided the grassy yard adjacent to the pool would probably afford us the largest audience as people could watch from their lounge chairs through the iron metal fence. The upside. If they ran they would need to leave the pool area. Poor unsuspecting souls just wanted a tan.

Sadly the show closed after only one performance but I would bet if you asked anyone who lived in Tiger Plaza back then that happened to be walking their dog, or attempting to get some peace and quiet by the pool, they would tell you that we rocked. We were karaoke when karaoke wasn’t cool. Oh, how I miss that lack of embarrassment. These days it takes me three glasses of wine to sing You’re the Reason God Made Oklahoma before a room full of geriatrics at the neighborhood steak house.