I was a struggling musician in L.A., looking for a place to practice my accordion without breaking the bank. I had a brilliant idea: why not use the parking garage at the airport? It was spacious, quiet, and had a nice echo effect. Plus, it was free!
So I drove to LAX one night, found a mostly empty level, and started playing some tunes. I felt like I was in a concert hall, except with concrete walls and yellow lines.
I was in the middle of a song when I saw two headlights coming towards me. They were moving slowly, like a predator stalking its prey. I kept playing, hoping they would just pass by. But they didn’t. They stopped right in front of me, and I realized it was a police car.
Uh-oh, I thought. This is it. They’re going to bust me for trespassing or disturbing the peace or something. Maybe they’ll even confiscate my accordion. I braced myself for the worst.
The window rolled down, and the officer on the passenger side said, “How are we all doing tonight?”
I tried to act casual. “Fine,” I said. “I come up here a lot for the echo.”
He nodded, and then asked me a question that caught me off guard.
“Do you take requests?”
I blinked. “Requests?”
He smiled. “Yeah, you know. Songs that we want to hear.”
I was confused. Was this some kind of trick? Were they trying to mess with me? Or were they actually fans of accordion music?
I decided to play along. “Sure,” I said. “For you guys, I would love to play a request.”
He said, “Great. How about ‘Batman’?”
I was surprised again. Batman? Really? He meant the theme song from the new movie that had just come out, right? The one by Danny Elfman, who also played the accordion. I loved that song. It was dark and mysterious and perfect for the squeezebox.
I said, “Okay, sure.” And I started playing it.
But as soon as I did, he shouted over me, “No, no, no! Not that one. The other one. The real one. The one from the TV show!”
Oh, that one. The one that went “Na na na na na na na na Batman!” The one that was cheesy and campy and silly. The one that had nothing to do with the accordion.
I said, “Oh, okay.” And I switched to that one.
But before I could finish it, he shouted again, “Wait! Stop!”
He grabbed the microphone from the dashboard and said,
“One Adam Twelve to base, do you copy?”
“One Adam Twelve we copy, go ahead…”
He held the mic out of the window, pointed at me, and said,
“Go!”
Now I was really confused. What was he doing? Was he broadcasting me to the whole station? Was this some kind of prank?
But I had no choice. I had to go along with it. So I played the Batman theme as loud and as fast as I could.
When I was done, I heard applause coming from not only the police car, but also from the speakers on the dashboard.
The officer said, “Thank you. Thank you very much. You have yourself a good night.” And they drove away into the night.
I was left there alone, with my accordion and my questions.
What just happened? Did they really like my music? Or were they just having fun at my expense?
I guess I’ll never know.
But hey, at least they didn’t arrest me.