Bone In The Fan

My campaign gains legs.

I picked my son up at aftercare this afternoon, and had the following conversation with the woman at the pickup area:

Woman: “Was that you I saw in the paper?”
Me: “Was I in handcuffs? Or was I running for office?”
Woman: “Running for office”
Me: “Yes”

So for the first time, I’ve been recognized in public.  Now, I was the guy in the opening credit sequence and all the bumpers (those goofy little 5 second bits they sometimes play right before a commercial) for the show 8-Track Flashback for years - so I was on VH1 like 13,000,000 times.  No one, not ONE person ever came up to me and asked if I was that sexy man posing as Steve Austin on the TV.

But appear once or twice in the Palm Beach Post and I’m mobbed (o.k., accosted… queried… by one person. Still though…..).

Of course no one is wearing my face on a t-shirt like that horrible David Schwimmer did with Barack Obama’s face on Regis today (just channel flippin’ channels over coffee - don’t get any dopey ideas about my tv habits - I’m more than willing to admit what crappy shows I watch).  Really though, isn’t this whole cult of personality around Obama getting a little creepy?

I KNOW this isn't that dope from Friends: it's some other celebrity sporting an Obama shirt because I couldn't find a screen shot of Schwimmer on Regis. But isn't this shirt kinda ugly? It reminds me of some creepy looking propaganda poster from from the Soviet Union in the 50's. And no, I'm not implying anything - I just saying the shirt is crappy.

The only other time that people asked me about having been in the paper was when I about 17 and arrested for hanging out of the passenger window of my dad’s ‘78 Grand Prix and flipping off another driver that had cut us off (my best friend, who had fucking diplomatic immunity was driving.  Immunity which he immediately and unnecessarily flashed, pissing off the East Hampton cops and in all likelihood resulting in me being cuffed behind my back during the ride to the hoosegow).  I also yelled something along the lines of “ASSHOLE!”  (to the driver, not the cops).  According to the charges, however, I had used the word bitch, and when the judge read that in court I felt it necessary to correct him: “actually your honor, I caller her an asshole.”  He turned red and yelled at me that he’d rather be called a bitch than an asshole. Me, I’m not so sure).

At any rate, that little story rated a monolithic 10 or so column inches in the East Hampton Star - fully embellished to portray me as someone who had verbally abused and threatened an old lady trying to carry her groceries across the street in a cross walk (the editor of the Star at the time despised me, possibly because I had knocked her to the ground when I was about 12 and she had broken her ankle.  It was self defense though: She was wearing a fur hat with ear flaps and angrily charging me because her youngest son had made up a lie about something I had done to him).

So people asked me about that one, too. I guess I just look better in print than I do in polyester.

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