My America

Let’s stop beating around the bush, I’m famous. Not famous enough to be invited to those parties that Chloë Sevigny gets to go to, where she sits in a corner having her picture taken for obscure magazines. Not that famous, but just famous enough to cause a constant barrage of questions from every idiot behind me getting coffee or in line at the free clinic where I get my shots. They would always like to know, in the loudest of possible ways, why I look familiar to them.

Now, I am asked a lot of stupid questions. A lot of stupid questions. Some typical examples being, “How do I know you?” or, “Dude, what’s your movie?” or, “Hey, you gotta give me an autograph. What’s your name again?” I mean, it’s one thing to get into a good-natured discussion about why Robin Williams is overrated or how Whoopi Goldberg ever got rated in the first place, but come on, to expect me to cite my entire résumé to whatever socially inept systems analyst is standing next to me at the airport urinal is humiliating. Particularly when I offer up the most obvious choices that a TV-pacified loser like that, with all the imagination of a retarded minister with Epstein-Barr syndrome might possibly know, only to hear “Nope, no, that ain’t it.… What else?”

What the fuck’s wrong with you people? You think because I appeared on some mid-level sitcom once, five years ago, that it’s okay to shout at me from across the aisle at a ball-game so that everyone can hear, “Hey, it’s that comedian guy! Hey! Hey! Say the thing you said on that show!” Do you really, truly, really believe that it’s okay to grab me by the arm and hold me in place as I’m about to rent some porn and yell to your friend over in the “Comedy” section, “Holy shit, it’s that guy! Hey Craig! Craig, get over here!” (Craig comes over. He is wearing Ray Bans and a way oversized Triple Five Soul hoodie. His pants have twelve of those dangly straps that look like they are used for S&M tryouts…

Craig: [eyeing me suspiciously] What up?

Dude: It’s that dude!

Craig: Huh?

Me: Alright guys, really.

Dude: The comedian from that thing.

Me: OK, guys.

Dude: [Tightening his grip and staring at my face] Fuck dude, what’s your name again?

At this point, I run off and just steal the porn as they yell across the video place about how I am a “funny motherfucker.”)

But man, there is one question in particular that is the most galling. I have had to answer this same stupid question over and over again. It’s the one that makes no fucking sense and falls into the “You Just Answered Your Own Question” category. It’s this one:

“Hey, are you famous?”

Huh? How the fuck am I supposed to answer that? Am I famous? What does that even mean? The idea of fame is constantly changing. What one could become “famous” for 15 years ago doesn’t even count any more. And the fact that you don’t know my name and aren’t even sure how you know me clearly indicates that I can’t be famous!

So I answer, “No.”

“Naw dawg, you know what I’m about. You’ve been on the TV.”

OK fine, you’ve seen me on your TV box, and that’s good enough for you, but so fucking what? It’s 2002! At this stage in history most people have been on TV. I’m just like that chiropractor on Elimidate, or that Ecuadorian lady on Judge What’s-her-fucks. (For the record, I should state here that for two years, I played “Jasper Muggins” on the UPN sitcom Mad Dash!) but just because you are now one of the eighteen people left in America who hasn’t had his or her fifteen nanoseconds of fame, that doesn’t mean everyone else is “famous.” And especially now with the Internet and its “Girls-Gone-Wild-Mexican-Gets-Raped-by-a-Donkey-Ha-ha-Look-at-That-Jackass” popularity, even retarded children who pee their pants are having their day in the sun.

My point is, let’s leave a little something for the people who really do accomplish something, and I’m not talking about some poor misguided fucker who lived in a tree for a year to protest denuding the forests only to end up dead. No, I’m talking about really doing something with your life. Like serial-killing for decades without getting caught or eating 50 hot dogs in twelve minutes like that Japanese kid did or breaking Houston’s gang-bang record (600 fat, loser porn-addicts? You try doing that without taking your own life the next day!) or simply kidnapping the President.

See what I’m saying? There are clearly different levels to fame. All of the above are now forgotten. So please, the next time you see that chick from the antibacterial squirt-soap commercial and get all excited because she’s “famous,” stop to think of the criminally underappreciated Glenn Hoffstetler. That fucker ate seven (!) hits of acid and had forgotten that his parents were flying in from a trip to Africa and he was supposed to pick them up at San Francisco Airport. And he fucking did it!

Related Links: bobanddavid.com