Local Celebrity
Sorry for my notable absence of late. The past few days have been quite a whirlwind of activity. It all started last week at curling. There was a press photographer there during my league night, and he was snapping pictures of my game (which we won 11-2, btw). At the end of our game, he collected our names, then he was off.
This week when I went to the curling club, copies of the newspaper* were posted everywhere. And guess who graced the front page? No, not her. Not him either. It was me. I made the front page, above the fold. Needless to say, I was a bit distracted as we played, thinking of all the fame and fortune that would soon be coming my way (we still did manage to squeak out a 5-4 win).
So in an obvious next step, I went home and hired an agent. We discussed everything from me doing some local car dealership ads to a potential book deal. Though I don't read books and don't really like to write that much, I agreed to leave the window of possibility open only if the focus remains squarely on me.
True to his word, my agent was able to capitalize on the popularity of the photo. He got me some autograph sessions at a local mall, I took some photos with orphaned animals at the local... orphaned animal place (?), and even got interviewed by some local TV stations. In no time at all, businesses were giving me free stuff, rich people were inviting me to events, and so on.
Anyway, things have finally started to calm down, and I'm back to my regular routine. Thanks for bearing with me during my two-day absence.
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* When I say "newspaper," I don't mean the city's major paper**
** When I say "I don't mean the city's major paper," I don't even mean it was one of the smaller suburban papers***
*** Seriously, this paper is small. My celebrity status is very, very localized.
Comments
Seventeen Syllables said:
At least it hasn't gone to your head yet and made you forget us little folk who knew you when...
Nadia said:
An honest to goodness celebrity! *swoon*
Katie said:
But doesn't this Blog make you something of a celebrity? Well I think it does; you're like a blogebrity. I bet the vole has started selling chunks of your lawn on the internet for masses of money.
Radioactive Pulp said:
So... omarphillips.net has a wholly-owned newspaper subsidiary?
I said:
Dr. 17 - It has not yet gone to my head, no. It might not be a bad idea to check back with me in a week or so about this though...
Nadia - In the flesh -- or rather, over the internet.
katie - According to the list at blogebrity.com, I'm nothing. And re: the vole selling lawn chunks, I don't know why I didn't make that connection sooner! We're actually approaching the time of year where my lawn gets the worst of the vole damage, I bet he's sitting in my garage planning it right now!
RaJ - Well yes, but as you might expect, I grace the cover of that rag daily. It's like Oprah and her magazine. I'm on the cover doing various things that I don't do in real life. The paper that brought about my celeb status, however, that has a few more readers. Just a few.
anne arkham said:
I'm seeing an endorsement deal with Nike for curling shoes.
cadiz12 said:
front page/above the fold is golden, no matter what the paper's status is.
are you going to use an autographed copy as bait in the contest for visitor 50,000? b/c that'd be pretty sweet.
jasmine said:
i would die for a copy of that paper!
mail one over, please! i know you probably have 400 copies stashed away at home...
Screaming Buffalo said:
Hey, tight gig man *said with a geeky smile*!
I'm back for a short interval of time before MY next gig. Yeah, I just got back from the District of Columbia where I sat on the floor of the House of Reps. No, not the floor floor, the floor meaning the seats that the Congressmen sit in on the floor where people debate. It was great. I am back for a couple of weeks, then I'm going to my capitol (Lansing)for something else. Sorry for my lack of presence. Thnx I'll be here all week!!
Onj said:
That would totally go to my head. Of course, it’s a well known fact that I have a greatly over inflated ego as is. I rarely need help when it comes to acting like a celebrity.
So now all your comments get a fancy different color background? Is that a direct result of new celebrity status? I’ll bet your agent had something to do with that.
I said:
The new background color is, in fact, at the suggestion of my agent. He felt that in spite of me choosing the URL "omarphillips.net" and the blog name "omarphillips.net," that I was being too humble.
This comment has been brought to you by Omar Phillips of omarphillips.net
Becky said:
geniuses pick the color green. but you didn't pick it. (cheap excuse to paraphrase de niro)
dude. czech cows say "boo". like ghosts. they're scary.
Mable said:
Can we not even have a scanned image of above mentioned newspaper?