Greg + You =This

1982. I was riding high on my streak of wins at county fair talent shows; the Dramalogue Critic's Award for my performance of the title character in Michael Ricciardi's epic musical adventure, Skylark, was resting safely in a burglar-proof display at the Smithsonian; my weekends were spent with the freakishly talented Too-Short-For-Prime-Time-Players on stage at the Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip; and if my head weren't already swollen enough, Merv Griffin's talent coordinator had hand-picked me and a few other kids from the show to be featured on the popular talk show. Only one thing stood between me and becoming the world's most insufferable teenager: The Artful God-Damned Dodger. I was committed to the 8th grade choir's stage adaptation of Oliver! and, understudy notwithstanding, the choir director threatened to fail me if I even thought of doing The Merv Griffin Show on opening night. So that was that. While my friends were on stage at the Ivar Theater performing for Miss Miller, I was in the school auditorium sulking with a cockney accent.

While I wished I could have joined them, I was nonetheless excited for my friends when the show aired. They all killed. So well, in fact, that Merv wanted to feature more of the cast on a future episode. I was invited again, and this time I was free. School was out.

Rehearsal was very chill. Merv hung out with the rest of us – me, Martika, Jerry Sharell, Darren Frank and our parents – almost casually leading the rehearsal from the center of the auditorium. He couldn't have been more nice. And more relaxed. I've never seen anyone so relaxed, and it was contagious. Somewhere there are black and white photos my dad took of us hanging with Merv during a break in rehearsal. All of us very... relaxed...

Watching the show from my dressing room, I should have been more nervous as I anticipated my turn to perform solo on national television for the first time. But I think that, scientifically-speaking, it's impossible to be nervous when you're surrounded by so much brown. Even the green room was brown. So was my suit. In fact, the only thing that kept me from completely blending into the set was the fact that my suit wasn't covered in light bulbs.

To this day, my friend Frank Lee Reed calls me "Gregor." You'll get it when you watch the video. I mention it because until the show aired, I had no idea why he'd started calling me that. All I remember is hearing Merv say my name, hitting my mark and hoping my horrible memory didn't rob me of the lyrics to the song while tape was rolling. Everything was fine. I even remembered to raise my arm while holding the last note. Holding a note for a really long time was kinda the thing back then. And if you could raise your arm while doing it, well…

After signing off, Merv can be seen leaning over and saying something to me as the band played us out. It even looks like I'm listening to him. Apparently, I wasn't. Unless he whispered them to someone on his deathbed, his words to me will forever remain a mystery.

Backstage. Having changed out of my brown suit and into my (almost certainly) fashionably unfortunate 1980s street clothes, none other than Ben Vereen, my fellow guest, appeared before me and my parents in the hallway outside the dressing room door. A spotlight popped on and trained itself on Mr. Vereen. Or so it seemed. He raised his right arm, his fingers pointing Gregward, and slowly approached me. His fingertips landed on my throat and he fixed me with a direct and sober stare. "God blessed you. Right. Here." He tapped my throat and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Or so it seemed. The next morning, my voice started to change.

I got exactly one piece of fan mail from a viewer of that episode, which the production company was kind enough to forward to me from their office. A very nice girl from somewhere in the midwest asked if I might be able to tell her the name of the song I sang, so she could buy the sheet music. Allow me to save you a stamp:

Everything (from the motion picture, A Star Is Born) – Lyrics by Rupert Holmes & Paul Williams | Music by Rupert Holmes

Oh, if you pause the video during the last shot, you'll be able to spot my grandmother, my great-grandmother and my aunt Shirley. I'll leave it to you to figure out which ones they are. GO!

Henry Jones calls himself a doctor. And why shouldn’t he? The Lompoc Federal Correctional Complex inmate claims to have been issued a PhD from Kensington University, which could very well be true. It’d be pretty hard to verify, though, considering the diploma mill was dissolved in 2003... for handing out bogus degrees.

When I first met Dr. Henry Jones in 2004, he was introduced as the owner of MIG Records, an independent label that was responsible for producing a whole mess of unlistenable dance and hip hop music. As Chris Hansen reported in his 2010 Dateline segment about him, “...Jones had to pay clubs to let his artists perform, not the other way around.”

My good buddy Marcus Flye had just returned from an MIG funded trip to New York, where he shot footage of RU – a dance music duo comprised of a couple of attractive (if vocally unfit) Russian models – taking meetings and eating expensive dinners with industry bigshots. Marcus brought me into the MIG fold to edit the raw footage into an Electronic Press Kit (EPK) that would be distributed to all interested media outlets. The Doctor had a couple of good reasons to break the act in the US: 1.) Half of the duo, Katia Jones, was his wife, and 2.) MIG Records was funded by fraud victims who believed they were investing in a company called Tri Energy.

After watching and re-watching the footage he shot, I told Marcus I wasn’t going to be able to make much of what little there was. I asked him to set up a shoot so I could interview the girls and get them to reflect and elaborate on the trip and its purpose. The interview took place at the Doctor’s home in Marina del Rey, a tract house that would have been completely unimpressive were it not for Katia’s shiny Ferrari in the driveway.

Marcus and I were joined by our friend Rodney Allen Rippy, who came along to operate camera. Because it was a single camera shoot, I had to conduct the interview twice – so Katia and her partner Ksenia Linkova could each have a close-up; I asked them the same questions, then they each repeated the same stories and only appear to be speaking together.

Their impenetrably thick accents aside, the interview gave me plenty of material I could use as narration and I managed to get them to display a charming side to their personalities. In addition to the interview footage, I created some motion graphics in Adobe After Effects for the title sequence, then set about cutting it all together.

Dr. Jones went bananas over the EPK and wanted to issue a press release immediately. I handed over the final product in good faith and invoiced him later. Surely a wealthy philanthopist, music video director and diplomat who had allegedly co-chaired several conferences with Nelson Mandela, would cut me a check in short order. Or would he?

Countless phone calls went unreturned and several spontaneous visits to his office were intercepted by flunkies who insisted he was gone for the day. Ultimately, it was my certified letter that appealed to his better senses, or at least his desire to maintain a low profile. As the world would eventually discover, Jones had very good reason to stay off the radar.

Of the $50 million dollars invested in Tri Energy, $21 million went directly to the Doctor and his music and film projects. In 2007, Dr. Henry Jones was arrested in Hong Kong and is serving 20 years in federal prison on charges of securities, mail and wire fraud. Katia and Ksenia appear to have abandoned music altogether and, aside from some racy photos on the internet, seem not to exist beyond 2005.

As for me, I’m in the market for better medical insurance.

Looking Sharp with Merv!

Do You, Dr. Jones?