I Almost Dropped the French
Fries
Is it appropriate to use this
shot of Macauley Culkin for this story? No, it is not.
"I SAW JACKSON WITH HAND UP CULKIN'S
SHORTS"So reads
the headline from the
Daily Record, in a thriller of a story by John Fergueson about French
chef Phillip Lemarque, subtitled 'Chef tells of Neverland shock'. Not to be
outdone,
the Mirror goes with "I SAW JACKO'S HAND IN CULKIN'S SHORTS", by Justine
Smith, subtitled 'Chef tells of 3am shock'.
Whatever. This is a sad little story because,
uh, because... Lemarque was a successful chef, dammit, and here he is, doing
short order jobs for Michael Jackson. We looked up his resume on his web
site Besteatz.com, in an
outdated but still extant plug for a seminar the man was giving called 'Guerilla
Warfare to open a successful restaurant'.
Phillip Lemarque has spend 28 years in the restaurant business and owned
four restaurants in the Los Angeles area. Phillip's major venture: "The
Bicycle Shop Cafe," was the in place for over 10 years of its twenty years
in business. Phillip's life long road to a successful career as a
restaurateur will be highlighted by all the pitfalls where one can easily
be trapped.
Hmm, not a word about
his experience at Neverland, although this probably comes up in the pratfall
section of his lecture on the 11 Steps to a Successful Restaurant Venture.
Step 1 is vision, and we already know what the chef saw, from the
aforementioned headlines. Lemarque told the Jackson jury that he was taking
a pre-dawn snack to the boys, who were in the arcade building (that's right,
Neverland has an arcade building), playing a Michael Jackson video
game. Gives a whole new meaning to playing with yourself. We found a review
of the game 'Moonwalker' on
X-Entertainment,
where we learn that the main goal of the game is to rescue kids.
Based on and titled Moonwalker, this game let you do what no one in their
right minds would want to do - actually be Michael Jackson...
You
get special "dance" power-ups & moves, and some zany Michael Jackson music
tracks that play in background, but aside from that, Moonwalker is your
standard action game. Then again, the fact that you play as Michael
Jackson does make it a rather unique experience...but how many gamers
could honestly play this game around their friends?...
Now, I know this is going to sound lude [sic], and it's going to look like
I'm searching for comedy, but it's there, plain as day. When you save one
of the little kids, they absolutely, positively, appear to be giving
Michael oral sex. I'm sorry, but there's no other way to describe it.
Michael's standing next to them pelvis-first while the kid is jiggling
like a Jell-O mold...
Back to Lemarque,
aside from the video game, he told the jury that he saw Jackson holding the
pint-sized 'Home Alone' star up with one hand so that he could reach the
game controls (there are no stools in Neverland) and his other hand in no
man's land. "I can't distinguish what he was doing with his hand," he told
police in 1993, "but it was clearly more than fondling." I don't know,
sounds like he had a pretty good angle on it to me.
But what brought the
chef upon this sordid scene? Let's go to the court transcript, where
Lemarque is being questioned by prosecutor Gordon Auchincloss.
Lemarque: There was a code for Michael, it was Silver Fox,
(Michael was the
'Silver Fox'? We thought this was Barbara Bush's nickname),
and they said he wanted French fries. Michael was playing with Macaulay
Culkin on one of the games ... a Thriller game ... He was holding him with
two hands so the kid could reach and his left hand was inside the pants of
the kid...
Auchincloss: When you saw this what did you do?
Lemarque: I was shocked. I almost dropped the fries and I backed up. I
backed out of the door and went outside and closed the door behind me. But
I realized that I still had to deliver the French fries, so I opened the
door and made a lot of noise to make sure that Michael could hear me
coming in. (Harumph,
cough, cough, bang, crash)
'I
said, 'Michael, your French fries are here,' and he said for me to drop it
on one of the machine tops.'
One can visualize the
embarrassed chef at this point, holding his plate of French fries, thinking
about the successes of his past, and coming to the realization that no
amount of money was enough to work for the Silver Fox.
Even though he did
admit trying to sell his story for half a million. But he decided against
it, because those tabloids are so darn "sleazy". Not like Lemarque, who
operated the web site
Virtual Sin,
which the
Smoking
Gun says he billed as "the most sinful site on the internet." (SG
also offers up a couple examples of Lemarque's cartooning prowess
here).
You can help support
Lemarque by purchasing his e-book, called
'Never
Never Land'. Here's an excerpt:
“To
your left, our two swans, right now they are in prison as you can see.”
A black and a white swan are looking at us from a golden cage on the side
of the road.
“What do you mean in prison,” I ask?
Norma turns around to look at me.
“Well, they poopoo on the white sand of the beach–Michael doesn't like
it.”
I am told that there
are even more exciting revelations inside. The book is only $7.95 (instead
of the $19.95 print version), and if you order now, there are added bonuses
- two of Michael Jackson's favorite recipes, and the name of his favorite
soda.
* Edited still from
'Party Monster',
featuring Macauley Culkin and Seth Green. |
