Stake Your Claim to Celebrity Fame
Many years ago, in the pre-Internet days, friends of mine and I would play a conversational game entitled "Stake Your Claim to Celebrity Fame," in which we'd tell anecdotes about various folks we'd met. The object was to (although we did not know it as such) reduce our Bacon quotient :)
As prior to the late 80s I was 1) shy and 2) a fairly obnoxious punk-rock type, I used to consistently (and occasionally proudly) lose this game, because up to that point, I think maybe my dad had met a few B-List types at the Touchdown Club dinners and gotten their autographs. And, of course, we were in the greater DC Metropolitan area, so political 'celebrities' were around every corner (and sometimes lived down the street).
However, this all changed when I took a high-profile job at a store in the hippest and trendiest part of DC. I had the right haircut, dropped 30 pounds (and mind you, I was not overly large prior to this), and was always impeccably dressed in the closest that I could afford to 'haute couture', and the next thing you know, nobody wanted to play the Celebrity Fame game with me again. It got completely absurd.
After that, my tolerance for name-dropping was low. It has remained low. And it's been a long time since someone tried to play celebrity one-upmanship with me. However, in the service of being obnoxious, someone tried the other day. I attempted to muster a suitable retort, but my Dorothy Parkeresque rapier wit was not with me, and the moment passed.
I finally gave up, because, in the end, it's just as much of a game as it was to my friends and I back in the suburbs in the 80s...except that I no longer care if I win.
As prior to the late 80s I was 1) shy and 2) a fairly obnoxious punk-rock type, I used to consistently (and occasionally proudly) lose this game, because up to that point, I think maybe my dad had met a few B-List types at the Touchdown Club dinners and gotten their autographs. And, of course, we were in the greater DC Metropolitan area, so political 'celebrities' were around every corner (and sometimes lived down the street).
However, this all changed when I took a high-profile job at a store in the hippest and trendiest part of DC. I had the right haircut, dropped 30 pounds (and mind you, I was not overly large prior to this), and was always impeccably dressed in the closest that I could afford to 'haute couture', and the next thing you know, nobody wanted to play the Celebrity Fame game with me again. It got completely absurd.
After that, my tolerance for name-dropping was low. It has remained low. And it's been a long time since someone tried to play celebrity one-upmanship with me. However, in the service of being obnoxious, someone tried the other day. I attempted to muster a suitable retort, but my Dorothy Parkeresque rapier wit was not with me, and the moment passed.
I finally gave up, because, in the end, it's just as much of a game as it was to my friends and I back in the suburbs in the 80s...except that I no longer care if I win.