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BN: How did you get out here? What was... I mean, all those things you mentioned, but was there like a...

JF: Deciding incident?

BN: Yeah, or like a job, or was there...

JF: At the time, I was, well, let's see, I ended my teaching career and started taking night classes to become a programmer. Because this is in 1981, '82 -- [coughs] excuse me -- when data processing was becoming a big thing, and they needed a lot of COBOL programmers. So I took these night classes and then wound up contacting Ken Shintaku, who was the director at A&M Records, IT Director at A&M Records. So he said, "Yeah, give me a call when you finish your coursework." I was taking this stuff at Computer Learning Center and then after that at UCLA night school. So he said, "Yeah, when you finish up over there, just give me a call." Which I did, and he gave me a programming job, and the school year didn't even end and I left. Felt kind of bad for the kids. But I went back on the last day of school just to hand out these little gifts to the kids, and tell them how I was doing, and then I really thanked them for pushing me out of the classroom. [Laughs] No, I didn't say that. For everything that they taught me. It wasn't wasted time, those six years as a teacher. But wow, was it different being a programmer at A&M Records where I had my own office, it was nice and quiet, I could close the door if I wanted to, and be even quieter, and the focus was just on building these systems that supported the record company. It was a great place to work.

BN: Did you actually meet Herb Alpert?

JF: Yes. They would have an annual Christmas bash for employees and their significant others in the A&M Sound Stage, which used to be the old Charlie Chaplin Studios, and where later Soul Train, I guess, at that time, currently Soul Train was shot. So it was kind of nice. I remember one time we entered in and the place is all dark, which is kind of unusual. And then right overhead, it's almost like he had to duck, were these lasers going back and forth in like a spiderweb design, and there was loud music going, and then they had food stations in the corners of the room, and they had asked the Griffith Park Observatory to do their laser light show. Lasers were, like, wow, this big deal back then. Now you can do it on a little stick pen. So they were doing their laser light show over our heads, and then it's funny because when we moved a few years later, here, I was talking with one of the people at the workplace where I was at. I mentioned, they asked me where I used to work, and I told them about this A&M Records and this laser light show, and they said, "Yeah, the Griffith Park Observatory?" I said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, same thing." They came out to the Shell once. Is it Shell? Or maybe it was Diamond Head crater? Maybe it was Diamond Head crater. And they did their light show during a concert, and because the air is so clear here, it was a big dud. [Laughs] Because no one, they were waiting for it to start, and it was going, and the recorded music was playing, but it was like, nothing's happening because the air is too clean.

BN: You need smog.

JF: Yeah, you need smog and dust and all this other stuff, and it isn't in the air here, so hello. [Laughs]

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.