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Waiting for Mr. Happiness
Two indie filmmakers document a street-corner rascal – and discover more than just a movie subject
By Kevin Capp
Courtesy of Las Vegas CityLife
Original publication date: 05.25.05
On a sunny afternoon in early May, Jason Leinwand mills about in the Blockbuster parking lot on Sahara Avenue and Fort Apache Road. He chews gum as he waits for his filmmaking partner Jason Tang and the subject of their documentary-in-progress to show up.
That subject is Mr. Happiness, a street performer/air-guitar player/assumed-nut-job whose stage is a busy street corner near Summerlin. His audience is a never-ending rush of motorists, bicyclists and other passersby who can count on seeing him at some point during the day. We're supposed to meet him at 1 p.m., but with Mr. Happiness, nothing is guaranteed.
"He's usually here," says Leinwand, surveying the area through mirrored shades. "If he's not here, it means he has to take care of his granddaughter or something."
Besides his wild-man "on-stage" persona, Larry Johnson, a.k.a. Mr. Happiness, plays other roles: husband, father and grandfather. But that's not what Leinwand is interested in -- not today, at least. He's interested in capturing a man who, strange as it may sound, has gone from subject to friend. A man Leinwand hopes to catapult to further prominence -- and maybe get some recognition for himself in the process.
Tang soon appears wearing flip-flops, shorts and a bowling shirt emblazoned with the name of another eccentric, Beach Boys mastermind and '60s burnout Brian Wilson; he bears news of Mr. Happiness' whereabouts. With his long black hair and perpetual smile, Tang is a bit of a character himself. Still, as I soon discover, he's no Mr. Happiness.
"Where'd you find him?" Leinwand says. "At his house?"
"Yeah, he thought it was two o'clock," says Tang. "He doesn't answer his phone."
"We need to get Mr. Happiness a cell phone. It can be like his Bat signal or something," says Leinwand.
A high-pitched whoop! interrupts the conversation.
"Ah," says Leinwand, "there he is."
Marching across Sahara toward the Blockbuster is a man in a neon orange and red Indian headdress. Barking like a puppy who's just been castrated, he carries an electric guitar with just two strings. Mr Happiness has arrived.
Tang hustles over to his car, pops the trunk and pulls out his equipment: headphones, boom mike and a digital camera. It's all he and Leinwand need. Mr. Happiness will take care of the rest.
Leinwand and Tang have been waiting for, interviewing and filming Mr. Happiness for about a month. In many ways, their project was born out of frustration and, as with everything in the movie biz, a healthy dose of luck. Both aspiring filmmakers are juggling other projects -- Leinwand has a script making the rounds in L.A.; Tang picks up work on film shoots in Vegas, most recently with the upcoming Drew Barrymore vehicle Lucky You -- but both say their documentary on Mr. Happiness is, for the moment, their primary focus.
Before he was Mr. Happiness, Johnson was a wannabe gangster in Oakland. He rolled with the older kids in the neighborhood, who used him -- because he was small -- to break into houses. But as he matured, Johnson decided he'd had enough of the criminal life and signed up for the Army, where he remained for over two decades. During this time, he married his wife of 30 years, had a family and, of course, had a good time. Upon retiring from the Army, he moved to Vegas and entered the next stage of his life: The Mr. Happiness stage.
Leinwand and Tang seem nonchalant about the documentary's prospects; Leinwand's fond of shrugging and saying "who knows?" about its future. But when they speak about the time they've spent with Mr. Happiness (they hang out with him even when they're not shooting), and about the other projects they're attempting to push through, I can't help but think Leinwand and Tang hope this thing takes off -- for their and Mr. Happiness' sake.
Mr. Happiness certainly thinks something big's going to result. "We the three amigos," he says. "They're the one's who are gonna put me on the map!"
After meeting through a mutual friend a year ago, Leinwand and Tang began kicking around ideas. Mr. Happiness was at the top of the list -- sort of. "I had talked to Mr. Happiness a bunch of times about doing some little piece on him," says Leinwand. "And he's like, 'Well, the mayor's going to dance with me next week.' And I was like, 'All right, then we're just going to start.' Instead of planning it out, we just kinda went into it and winged the whole thing."
Indeed, when they showed up to shoot Mr. Happiness doing the two-step with Mayor Oscar Goodman, they didn't even have a camera. Luckily, Tang found a guy willing to lend him one -- for a price. "I had a thousand bucks. So I was like, 'Here, take this.'" he says, laughing. "And I had to pay rent the next day. It was either that or my golf clubs."
While shooting Mr. Happiness and the mayor with a borrowed camera, something occurred to Leinwand and Tang: Underneath the dog-barks and headdress, Mr. Happiness was an average, even quiet guy. "That was kind of the interesting thing is that you have this kind of crazy character who's this completely normal guy when he's away from everything," says Leinwand. "The interview with the mayor was set ... so we kind of figured let's attack this from a few different angles."
Given they now had a real film project brewing, Leinwand and Tang developed a plan. They would capture Mr. Happiness on the corner, and Larry Johnson at home. They began interviewing his "audience," both motorists and pedestrians. Then they interviewed his family, including his adult son, who painted a picture of a loving, attentive father. They even decided to invest in camera equipment. All told, they estimate they've invested between $5,000 and $10,000. A modest sum to be sure, but with a subject like Mr. Happiness you don't need that much.
Now that Mr. Happiness has finally appeared on Sahara and Rampart, Leinwand and Tang jump into filmmaker mode. They follow him out to the corner (where he performs three "shifts" a day, seven days a week) and begin their final day of filming. They've amassed 13 hours of footage and already begun the editing process, but they say there are some loose ends that need tying -- though I suspect they're just looking for an excuse to hang out with Mr. Happiness.
It's easy to see why. Encountering Mr. Happiness -- who says he learned from his grandmother the benefits of bringing joy to others' lives (though it's hard to picture this is what she had in mind) -- is like being sucked into a near-manic vortex of positive energy. While Tang hovers around him with a camera and Leinwand asks questions, Mr. Happiness, headdress and all, drops to the concrete, strumming his amp-less electric guitar, his legs flailing in the air, tongue wagging.
"I'm Sitting Bull Jr.," he proclaims, as an onslaught of cars and trucks erupts into honks. "I entertain more than Wayne Newton!"
Though he's been arrested, maced and doused with hot coffee, you'd never know it from the sheer jubilant lunacy of his behavior. At one point, a mom pushing a stroller packed with two babies wheels to a stop on the corner. Well under six feet, Mr. Happiness rushes over to the stroller, and bends down, yelping, "Hey, baby! I love kids!" Most moms would flee as soon as some strange man attempted to kiss their children. But this isn't a stranger; this is Mr. Happiness.
While Leinwand and Tang don't know exactly where their documentary on Mr. Happiness will end up -- on the film festival circuit, on the Sundance Channel, in the dust bin -- they promise the experience of filming Vegas' "mascot" is worth it.
"We're capturing the culture through a cultural icon and everything that goes on around him," says Tang, slipping into the role of guerrilla filmmaker-philosopher. "Now you're actually capturing everything behind this pop culture icon and he actually becomes a cultural icon -- which he legitimately is. Especially in a town such as Vegas, which has so much personality ... that we don't ever get to anything meaningful. Yes, he is here to spread love and joy and he wants to dance on that corner, but this is a man who's been through a lot of life experience to culminate in what he is now."
And Leinwand and Tang hope filmgoers want to share that experience.
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