SALAD

During the late 1980's I lived in Studio City, California, where I was pursuing an acting career. My roommate was also pursuing acting, but long after I left Los Angeles to go back home to San Diego and become a high school English teacher, Sandi went into casting and eventually won an Emmy for her work on the USA cable show "Monk." But just before the end of the decade we shared a two bedroom apartment only a stone's throw from Universal Studios, where she worked as a tour guide, and I worked in the Special Events Department of the Universal (now Gibson) Amphitheater.

Sandi was an enormous fan of Rickie Lee Jones, and it was during this time that Jones released her amazing album Flying Cowboys. Her song, "Satellites" was getting major airplay and it was one of the songs Sandi liked the most on the album. She brought home the compact disc one day--one of the first CDs either of us owned--and she and I both played it day and night.

One week, Rickie Lee Jones was scheduled to be on Saturday Night Live and, as it happened, it was the same night I had some friends over. All of my friends were also in the entertainment industry in some way--musicians, actors, even a few stand-up comedians. We had gone to see a movie and ended up at my apartment afterwards to just hang out for awhile since it was the weekend.

Sandi had looked forward to that show all week long and--even though I wouldn't have admitted this to my friends--so had I. So when that week's SNL host introduced the musical act, my roommate shushed all of us and turned toward the TV to listen. That was all my friends needed, though, as an invitation to start making comments, laughing, and making rude jokes during Rickie Lee Jones' live version of "Satellites." They all kept saying how it sounded like Jones was saying "Salad." Soon after, they were all yelling "Salad" in funny voices at the television, while Jones was singing her heart out, and Sandi my roommate, who was red in the face and fuming, kept inching closer and closer to the television to try to hear it.

I still can't listen to Flying Cowboys without remembering my own "salad" days in Los Angeles, coveting Sandi's Emmy, and craving a bowl full of greens with blue cheese dressing.