Standing at the intersection of Sahara and Fort Apache, in dark-blue spandex, red, decal-festooned jacket, Macho Man Randy Savage glasses, unplugged black electric guitar in his hand, hokey red crown atop his head and doing a mixture of the twist, a herky-jerky Crip Walk and tai bo, Larry Johnson is Mr. Happiness. As such, he transcends shtick. For the past three years, Johnson has been entertaining—and sometimes mortifying—up to 350,000 motorists a day with a song-and-prance act that invokes everyone from Metallica to 50 Cent to Gregory Hines. Every day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. he becomes Mr. Happiness, a fashion misfit whose goal is "make everyone smile."
This windy Monday morning finds Mr. Happiness waving like a beauty queen at passing motorists; triple takes and what-the-f--k looks mix with the rampant smiles. During a quick break at a nearby Starbucks, several female fans flirt with Johnson, including one lady who grabs my pen as I'm writing so he can autograph her little black book.
This all seems natural for Johnson: dressing in ridiculous outfits, acting like an, ahem, fool, acquiescing to adoring fans—as natural as a regular 9-to-5 (which he has, by the way, working for a security company). And the 50-year-old ham is the first to admit that he throws people off. "They don't know what to say. They look at me and think, ‘What's this crazy-ass Negro doing? He must be 5150 [cop-speak for crazy].' Once I put on the spandex, I feel like the Three Stooges. ... Hey, I'm an entertainer, baby, what can I say?"
As it turns out, a whole lot.
"What's going on, man? I've been missing your ass," Johnson says as a particularly brusque wind nearly de-crowns him.
I'd driven by for five days straight after work, missing him each time.
"I go to work at 5," he tells me over the phone.
Meeting him at the intersection, I study the man. His face is slightly weathered by wrinkles, and he doesn't maintain eye contact too long. Though skinny, he looks to be in good shape, certainly not far from what he weighed running track in high school and college in Oakland. Underneath the jacket is a T-shirt promoting a car dealership. Underneath the crown, which has dalmatian-spotted fur on the outer lining, is an unkempt 'do-rag. I ask why the mismatched clothing: "Whatever I pull out of the closet, I wear."
I ask whether there's anything bad about being Mr. Happiness. "The early years," he says.
There were frequent middle-finger salutes from motorists. The time a pedestrian sprayed mace for no reason—"it felt like my face was on fire, like 1,000 needles were stabbing me in the eye." The time another pedestrian doused him with hot chocolate. He's dodged flying rocks and hurled epithets—"a lot of people didn't like the fact that I lived in this neighborhood, the Lakes. They're racists, but I didn't care." For awhile, he thought he was the victim of Mr. Happiness profiling. Blame the $190 ticket he got for "dancing too close to the sidewalk," and getting cuffed and having guns pointed at him after cops responded to a bank robbery in the area. These days, his relationship with police is all good. "Ever since I started that doughnut foundation," he chuckles.
If you've never seen Mr. Happiness bust his moves on Sahara and Fort Apache, you may know him from the television show hosted by brash car salesman The Chopper—the black man with guitar and Ralph Furley build—or seen him shaking his moneymaker with Mayor Oscar Goodman in newspaper photos; maybe you've heard him gabbing on local radio stations. And if you still don't know who Mr. Happiness is, a pair of filmmakers plans to change that; they're shooting a documentary about him.
Mr. Happiness, movie star?
Larry Johnson was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to a family that lived for music. By age 3, he'd saunter across the railroad tracks to the white side of Lake Charles with his guitar-playing uncle to "earn money from white folks," dancing while his uncle played. His first paying gig. After the family moved to Oakland, his father, Norman Johnson, became a radio personality ("Stormin Norman") on a San Francisco jazz station. Johnson took his dance act to Pier 39, sometimes earning $2,000 for a weekend's work. By the seventh grade, his career path was set: "I was going to become a Temptation."
While many of his friends went to prison or died in street violence, Johnson used music, performing and sports to stay out of Oakland's rough-and-tumble streets. High school was a time of exploration—going to the University of California, Berkeley, to watch the hippies, hitting up Jimi Hendrix concerts, running to the nearby YMCA when Bruce Lee dropped in to teach martial-arts classes. This left little time for education. "I was illiterate, seriously," he says, seriously. "But I got by because I could memorize things, and I was a good athlete."
Johnson ran track for a year at the College of Alameda, then joined the Army in 1973, where he ran track for the service team, chauffeured military brass and finally learned to read and write. Retiring in 1993, he worked as a mail clerk for Xerox for eight years and the California State Lottery for one year, during which time he began visiting preschools, dressing in outrageous getups—funny hats and his signature spandex—reading and dancing and entertaining students. It was his way of giving back. One day, he says, a young girl saw him and gave him his nickname. "Look Mom, it's Mr. Happiness," he recalls her saying. His character was born. Next stop: Las Vegas.
"I always knew I'd live here," says Johnson, noting his frequent visits with his wife. "I'm a natural here, baby. I entertain more people than Wayne Newton."
Entertaining may be a stretch, but Johnson clearly has some cachet. It seems that more people know him than don't. Radio stations love him. The mayor has danced with him. Spectators even throw a few bucks his way. Mostly $10. Occasionally, a C-note. A bus full of Asian tourists dropped $1,000 on him. "But I don't do this for money, man," he says. "I do it for the people. I want to make them happy. I stay in this neighborhood, and I want to put smiles on the faces of the people here. It's also a way for me to stay in shape. I'm out here rain, snow and shine."
At Starbucks, I ask him to play something, anything. He strums—the sound is off-key—cuts his eyes at me and launches into ... "Old McDonald Had a Farm."
At this, a petite blonde in all pink walks up. "Hey, sweeties," she says, blowing him a kiss. Before she arrived, a man inside the coffee shop gave Johnson the high-five signal, and a Starbucks employee frantically waved like he'd just seen an Olsen twin. There's a coquettish feel to the interaction between Johnson and the autograph hound—not quite a love connection, but not quite pat-on-the-back friendliness, either.
"Next time, I'll give you a hug," he says. "I'm a star, what can I say?"
Some would disagree. Critics say all that strumming, high-kicking and singing (he often tunes his handheld radio to the most popular stations and croons the songs that are playing) makes Johnson appear kooky, delusional, like something out of a Bumfights video. He says some blacks have even called him a minstrel.
"What's embarrassing," Johnson snaps, "isn't what I'm doing but what those brothers who are shooting and killing each other over colors are doing. If I wear red, I get shot. That's some stupid shit."