Past
I don't talk that much about my past, not because I'm hiding from it but because "who cares?"
Anyway, a couple of little things cropped up recently, and J kind of took it as "wow, you are really secretive. Why don't you talk about this stuff?" It's silly though. He knows I spent a long time in LA, I dated people, I acted, I lived life.
One of my old friends, K, has cropped up in several national commercials recently, he's also doing work in a small comedy troupe doing improv. I spotted K in a Pizza Hut ad a year ago and pointed him out to J. K posted in FB recently showing the .04 cents he got as royalties for doing some work. My online friends and I joked about that, one of them guessed correctly it was a check from Disney, and there is a bar in LA where you can show your residual check for pennies and get a free beer. When I mentioned this, J wanted to know if I'd done Disney work. Yes I had. He couldn't believe I'd never told him. He wasn't upset he just thought it was remarkable it never came up, that I wasn't proud of it either as something I'd done that was special, or as something that was amusing because it was banal or odd.
I don't bring that stuff up because I find it oddly embarrassing to talk about doing random work that wasn't all that special and I'm afraid of being seen as pretending like it makes me important. Like working for Disney is some sort of reflected glory in an attempt to portray myself as cool. But mostly it doesn't come up because I don't think about it. Also, I do have some jealousy issues, even for friends for whom I am rooting, over having done a bunch of dreck in LA and not having stuck with it.
The other thing that came up was that I dated a LA King hockey player in the mid-90s and met Wayne Gretzky thru him. This player was only with the team for a little while, I just looked it up and it's under 30 games. He shipped off to the midwest the next season, the lower league. It's not much of a story. Meeting Gretzky was just one of those 10 second things in a parking area. Whoopee! I dated the player for a few months on and off. What is there to say? He had these densely muscled hips, that's what I remember best. and the canadian accent.
If that qualifies as a humblebrag, I'm not sure if I want to do that, what is there is brag about?
Anyway, a couple of little things cropped up recently, and J kind of took it as "wow, you are really secretive. Why don't you talk about this stuff?" It's silly though. He knows I spent a long time in LA, I dated people, I acted, I lived life.
One of my old friends, K, has cropped up in several national commercials recently, he's also doing work in a small comedy troupe doing improv. I spotted K in a Pizza Hut ad a year ago and pointed him out to J. K posted in FB recently showing the .04 cents he got as royalties for doing some work. My online friends and I joked about that, one of them guessed correctly it was a check from Disney, and there is a bar in LA where you can show your residual check for pennies and get a free beer. When I mentioned this, J wanted to know if I'd done Disney work. Yes I had. He couldn't believe I'd never told him. He wasn't upset he just thought it was remarkable it never came up, that I wasn't proud of it either as something I'd done that was special, or as something that was amusing because it was banal or odd.
I don't bring that stuff up because I find it oddly embarrassing to talk about doing random work that wasn't all that special and I'm afraid of being seen as pretending like it makes me important. Like working for Disney is some sort of reflected glory in an attempt to portray myself as cool. But mostly it doesn't come up because I don't think about it. Also, I do have some jealousy issues, even for friends for whom I am rooting, over having done a bunch of dreck in LA and not having stuck with it.
The other thing that came up was that I dated a LA King hockey player in the mid-90s and met Wayne Gretzky thru him. This player was only with the team for a little while, I just looked it up and it's under 30 games. He shipped off to the midwest the next season, the lower league. It's not much of a story. Meeting Gretzky was just one of those 10 second things in a parking area. Whoopee! I dated the player for a few months on and off. What is there to say? He had these densely muscled hips, that's what I remember best. and the canadian accent.
If that qualifies as a humblebrag, I'm not sure if I want to do that, what is there is brag about?