Celebrity Sighting : Me?

After work I went to get some dinner with Doug and Steve. Doug is one of the engineers at Smiley Media, who you will be hearing about soon due to some incredible plans we have set in motion. Steve, as you may remember owns Smiley Media. Jonah joined us later for drinks and fish tacos (for those of us who don’t drink) at Saba, a generically trendy bar downtown. The draw was that its windows look down onto Cedar Street, where the Spasmodics were playing. The Spasmodics are a band who probably deserve some description, but I don’t care enough to go into it.

When we were at Saba, I saw some incredibly hot girls. I know that may not seem noteworthy to a lot of readers, but I don’t see a ton of hot girls on a regular basis for some reason. That should change.

Anyway, we all decided to go back to my place to watch Lost. Steve, Doug, and Jonah took Jonah’s car, and I took mine.

As I stopped at a red light, I noticed that a girl in a pickup truck next to me was staring at me. I was on the phone, but she motioned to roll down the window. I didn’t really know what to make of it. It seemed like she was going to compliment me on my hat, but was it really necessary to do that from car to car?

I put my friend on hold and rolled down my window.

“Hey! I read your blog!” she said.

Whoa! Someone actually recognized me from my blog. How cool is that?! It’s not like I even have a lot of pictures up. I guess it also happened when I went to school, but those were people who had stumbled across the UT Tunnel Story.

The light turned green and she added, “I love your hat!” as I drove off. Hey, my prediction was right.

I need to become a celebrity

I really see no alternative to this. In the pickup community I am a celebrity of sorts. Enough that people know who I am, know my story, and are often times very excited to meet me. I’ve even signed a few books.

Several times I’ve been stopped and asked for autographs because my style of dress is a bit outlandish (thanks, Mystery!).

Rarely a night would go by going out where some group of girls wouldn’t ask to have their picture taken with me.

My little sister tells all of her friends about me and to them I am a celebrity of sorts.

I’m not trying to convince you I’m a celebrity – because I’m clearly far from it, but I have had experiences which give me a feel for being what a celebrity would be like, and I love it.

I was hanging out with one of my very successful friends a couple weeks ago. He told me that I was the first person he’d known who wanted to be famous just for the sake of fame. Not for the money, but just for the experience of being famous. He has no desire to be famous. He asked why I wanted to be famous.

I want to be famous because it’s an option. I can’t imagine dying without doing everything there is to do (besides drugs and drinking), and being famous is one of those things. What a change in perspective it would be. To go from wanting attention to having too much of it.

People say that fame corrupts and is a big hassle. I don’t think it would ever bother me. It opens up doors that may otherwise remain closed. When people in the pickup scene approach me, I don’t blow them off. It’s not that I really want to answer the same questions I’ve asked a million times. It’s that I can put myself in their shoes. I know that the enjoyment they get from hearing me answer the questions is far greater than inconvenience to me, so I answer them. Sometimes I enjoy the conversations too, of course – but a lot of pick up artists have the knee jerk reaction of blowing off the people who want to talk to them.

Also, I think I’m a great influence. I would love to have a soapbox to stand on and show kids that you can be yourself and be liked by everyone and that you can stay away from drugs and drinking and have fun.

Someday I’ll get there. I’ve got a few ideas.