Monday, February 18, 2013

The Level Of Fame I Want

I look at successful people of certain notoriety, and it has definitely made me realize there is a delicate line of fame that I want to hit. I want a level of fame that gives me certain power to call my own shots. That doesn’t mean I want everyone knocking down my door, with every vampiric agent or rep wanting to sponge off of me, but basically me having the realistic ability to propose my own project, have a company go, “Well, he did these last three projects well, so he’ll probably pull that off, too.” I want a level of fame that, when at a convention meeting one of my idols, I can off-handedly mention one of the projects I worked on, and then they go, “Oh, YOU did that?” which is then followed by a quick exchange of cel numbers, them inviting me to a bar with him or her, and a myriad of other idols of mine happen to all be there, since they all know each other, getting mildly drunk and laughing with them, and all of them remember me as being integral in helping them all have a good time that weekend. I want a level of fame where I can request a fee that would even make Steven Segal stop squinting for a second, but would begrudgingly be honored with little haggling. I want a level of fame where mutually-talented peers will politely approach me at a convention and mention some obscure project even I had forgotten I had worked on, and get a polite handshake and perhaps a quick photo, but still a level low enough that I won’t have a fanatic fan scream and bombard me in a restaurant to sign a body part they will immediately go have tattooed while I have Special Sauce on my face. I wouldn’t mind a level of fame where I can be an “industry voice”, giving feedback, inspiration, and basically giving an interesting, if not humorous point of view to what we all do for a living. It wouldn’t be horrible to have a level of fame where I have a secretary or agent being an intermediary between me and a bunch of time-wasting phone calls, but I wouldn’t want to be so famous that I’d have to hire a person to pretend to be me to write responses to fan mail. I don’t think I’d surprise too many people if I had the kind of fame where I’m on the local channel, getting detained by police for making a scene at a frozen yogurt shop because I’d basically hit my threshold of dealing with stupid people with attitudes for the day, and the zit-faced chinless Goth teen’s emo action of snorting and rolling his eyes at having to redo my order because he put butterscotch instead of fudge on my sundae puts me over the edge and makes me throw a whole container of rainbow sprinkles at his head. I have a kid now, and that’s taught me a level of patience I never knew I’d attain, so probably not gonna happen. I’m just saying none of my immediate relatives would be shocked, if it did. So, I suppose that’s my fame “manifesto.” Time to stop talking about it, and continue to make it happen!