Celebrity, Inc.

I sat in the waiting room clutching my portfolio waiting for my name to be called. This is it, my big chance, I thought. All those years of hard work were about to pay off.

“Ethel McDuff”, cried the receptionist, her voice betraying just a hint of contempt. A tall, thin young woman, with a face like a turkey stood up and approached her desk.

“I’m Miss McDuff”, the woman exclaimed, a bit breathlessly.

“What is it you want to be famous for?” the receptionist queried, looking a bit bored.

“Supermodel”, Miss Mcduff answered. “Here’s my portfolio. Also, here’s my sex tape and police reports detailing the terrible abuse I suffered as a child. The sex tape appeared all over the Internet. Her are links to blogs expressing my outrage that something that should have remained private was so shamelessly spread over the web without my permission.”

“Uh huh”, the receptionist responded.

“And, you can see from these police reports what shameful abuse I suffered at the hands of my high school Physics teacher. Why, there’s no question I’m scarred for life. And, my parents divorced when I was seventeen. Surely, coming from a broken home, suffering such abuse and then the final humiliation of having my private moments smeared across the Internet qualify me for celebrity status.”

“Go right into Room 22, Miss Mcduff. Mr. Qwan, our modeling coach is waiting for you.”

I watched her walk out and down the hall; shoulders slouched, head bobbing up and down, her backside sticking out a bit too far. All she could model would be a Thanksgiving day turkey, went through my head. I pictured her covered in feathers, making turkey noises.

“Allen Brown” The sound of my name brought me back to reality.

I grabbed my recordings and sheets of music and approached the desk.

“What do you do?” The receptionist asked, still looking bored.

“I write music, all types of music and I play the violin. I have discs with all thirty of the symphonies I’ve written, each performed by a major symphony orchestra. The last, Symphony Number 30 was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra last year. And here is the Met’s presentation of my opera, “The Minotaur Revisited”. It played to sold out houses for its entire run. Oh, and I have over fifty concertos and I’ve scored three Broadway musicals and Eight movies.”

“How old are you, Mr. Black?”

“Twenty two, and the name is Brown.”

“Any scandal in your life? Were you abused as a child, come from a broken home, suffer a life threatening illness as a teenager from which you miraculously recovered? Have you ever sailed around the world solo in only a dinghy or climbed Mt. Everest without an oxygen tank? Were you a sports star, perhaps you broke your neck playing football and were paralyzed from the neck down and learned to play your violin with only your lips?”

“I’m sorry Ma’am, I haven’t done any of those things. All I’ve done is write and play music, since I was two. See this Concerto, I wrote it when I was three. I did get straight A’s in school and I was the youngest winner of the Vienna Violin Competition.”

“Boring…nothing of any notoriety.”

“Should I make a sex tape?”

“Sex tapes only work for girls unless you make one with another guy and appear victimized, or if you’ve changed your gender. Even then, it’s a hard sell. I’m sorry Mr. Blue, I don’t see anything here that qualifies you to be a celebrity. Have a nice day.”

A bit of an exaggeration; you decide.