If stealing attention is a crime, Ryan Britt is the smoothest criminal of them all. Britt, a Mesa Community College student transferring to ASU in January, spends his weekends crashing parties with Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits in hand. With great stealth and dexterity, he makes his way to the CD player and pops in his CD. And, in the amount of time it took for Jacko's hair to catch on fire in a Pepsi commercial, Britt has made his own dance floor and gathered his own crowd to watch him moonwalk, spin around, hump the floor and grab his crotch. OWWWWWW! Sometimes he'll stick around to shake hands or talk about his techniques, but other times he moonwalks outta there before you can even say, "Sham-on."
SPM: Don't I know you?
Britt: I'm the King of Pop.
SPM: What's your major?
Britt: I'm transferring to ASU in January, but right now I'm studying secondary education with an emphasis on history.
SPM: As in, the history of pop?
Britt: Or, the history of being bad? Nope, just regular history.
SPM: How did all of this MJ madness begin?
Britt: In high school, I was in speech and debate, and Michael Jackson was sort of our inside joke. We rented Moonwalker for someone's birthday, and I just started dancing around. After that, we had a Michael Jackson party in the summer, and we had a dance off. After that, I just started doing it at parties.
SPM: What are some of your favorite songs?
Britt: "The Way You Make me Feel" is my favorite because the video is hilarious because you can't figure out what the hell is going on. All of these guys are just chasing a girl around in an alley. "Smooth Criminal" is the best as far as improvisation, and in the video you have the lean that is so awesome and his outfit with the suit, and the sweet hat is actually one of the most normal ones he ever wears.
SPM: What about the one where the gangs are fighting, but it's not "Bad"?
Britt: That's "Beat It." Michael won an award from Ronald Reagan for that song being anti-drugs, so he decided to teach real gangsters how to dance and put them in the video.
SPM: Sweet! Why do you enjoy doing it so much?
Britt: It's fun. Nobody dances like Michael Jackson. I always like to spice things up at parties because people want to laugh and have a good time.
SPM: You do a lot of party crashing. Do you ever contribute and throw parties of your own?
Britt: Yeah, I love having theme parties. We had a pirate party at my house a couple of weeks ago, and another time we had one called "The Future."
SPM: Has anyone ever tried to show you up?
Britt: At Club Rio one time, a guy tried to show me up, but he was cool. In all honestly, I just do it to get a kick out of it.
SPM: Do you dance anywhere other than clubs and parties?
Britt: When I worked at Bank of America, I used to dance on my desk. That was a boring job.
I've done the full costume for birthdays.
SPM: Since MJ has, shall we say, metamorphosed, has his new skin color helped you to pull off his look?
Britt: Obviously cause I'm white it allows me to kind of get away with it. One time, my friends and I were thinking of wearing a surgical mask, but we didn't because I don't want to diss on him. He's a freak, but he's a great performer.
SPM: How do you feel when people make fun of Jacko?
Britt: I laugh when people make fun of him, but I don't think he's a child molester.
SPM: Do you have any other favorite performers?
Britt: I love Justin Timberlake because he is the new white Michael. Let's face it. "Rock Your Body" is just a remake of "Rock With You." I like a lot of legit music, but if pop music makes you laugh and makes you want to dance, I'm all for it.
SPM: Do you have followers?
Britt: I guess you could call any of my friends followers. Most of them are from speech and debate. When I worked at Bank of America, I had all of these middle-aged women who thought I was cool. I went to one of their going-away parties downtown in full costume. It was pretty scary.
SPM: So do you think all of this dancing and partying will ever pay off?
Britt: I always joke that if I get hard up for cash I'll go to Casino Arizona and take that guys job. I can't really sing very well, though, so that might be a problem.
SPM: What would you do if you ever met someone like MJ or even JT?
Britt: I would just try to play it off like I was one of them. I met Marilyn Manson because he was in Borders [where I work], and we talked about Lionel Ritchie. If MJ came in, I could probably just talk crap about Paul McCartney or something.
Reach the reporter at joy.hepp@asu.edu.
