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Secret of My Success

from Lavatory by Sam Pocker

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What sells this song is IMO entirely the work of David Foster. You can hear his work like "St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion)", Peter Cetera's "Glory Of Love", and because everything we do these days is one serendipitous cycle of ridiculousness, he did a duet with Olivia Newton John titled "The Best of Me".

I live entirely for the "Na Na Na's" at the end of the song.

What I think of when I hear the song is completely different.

I think of sitting in the screen that was in the rear left corner of the lobby at Movieland in Yonkers, New York when I was 10 years old and watching Michael J. Fox who I totally idolized at that age, as he basically stared in a propaganda film for what became corporate American culture.

Like I can still visualize how life changing it was when the end credits rolled and how badly I wanted to grow up and work in an office by the end of the film. There wasn't much business taking place, it just seemed like this street-smart guy had outwitted a culture that didn't accept him. I didn't have any of the necessary information at that age to process what a stupid concept any of it was.

A couple of years later I would be sitting in the United Artists' theater in Mamaroneck, New York in the screen that was downstairs and to the right having a similar life-changing experience watching "My Blue Heaven", a film that I didn't realize was made by the same director Herbert Ross.

Herbert Ross then went on to produce (but not direct) a third film which had a major impact on my life at a young age, "Soapdish". I still watch "Soapdish" and "My Blue Heaven" at least once a year.

What was it about his directorial style that was so powerful to me? As I learned later it was that he wasn't a director, he was a classically trained choreographer. When you know that and you go back and watch the films you realize they are musicals without musical numbers. "My Blue Heaven" has two incredible dance numbers featuring actors who are not dancers. The subplot of Rick Moranis' character learning how to dance must have been a huge draw for Ross to work on the film.

"The Secret of My Success" is a different story. Sometimes when I see it again (once every three or four years) I think "What a piece of crap this movie is, I was such a stupid kid." Other times I watch it and recapture the little things that drew me to it. The scenes when MJF is navigating his way through the office buildings are impeccably blocked. They create a certain subconscious flow to a script that was basically multiplex drivel. Watching expository shots of Manhattan in the throws of the peak-Koch years and laying the groundwork for Dinkins is a source of neverending morbid curiosity. I know how the plot is going to turn out and I can't jump through the screen and tell people to stop what they are doing.

To this day I can't pass the corner of 6th and 21st and picture the scene where MJF and Helen Slater's characters go out to dinner. When I went to Parsons I would pass it every day and just feel like this little part of my ten-year-old self's dream of living in the city and having that lifestyle were coming true.

I can still visualize the ridiculous way that the fluorescent lights visible in the exterior shots of the restaurant are hung and sometimes still dream about having lights hung that way in some industrial loft that I've turned into an apartment in a low-rent decrepit neighborhood in Manhattan that somehow has never been discovered.

Sometimes when I watch the film I still wonder what happened to my dreams of winning over a Helen Slateresque woman with my intellect and my ability to wear sneakers to the Metropolitan Opera House. I dream about limousines and car phones. I dream about the Staten Island ferry without a single tourist on it. Then reality comes crashing down on me and I remember I'm just some fat middle-aged guy sitting on the couch wondering what the hell happened to my life. Sigmund Freud considered a fantasy life to be a defense mechanism.

Anyway I went to see Night Ranger at BB King's a few years ago and they didn't play this song. I was annoyed.

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from Lavatory, released March 2, 2018
By Jack Blades, David Foster, Tom Keane, and Michael Landau
Copyright See No Evil Music O/B/O Five Storks Music, Figs D. Music Obo Rough Play Music, Figs. D Music, Inc., Peermusic Iii Ltd, And Songs Of Universal, Inc.

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Sam Pocker Los Angeles, California

Sam Pocker is an award-winning author, filmmaker, and musician. Pocker’s songwriting catalog covers over 8 albums worth of material, released by his bands The Pretty Colors, The Pregnant Vegans, and The Agoura Hills PTA. His most recent book “Where Do Incorrect Ideas Come From?” was released in January 2020. ... more

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