Friday, November 05, 2010

All Over NYC

I ran into the makeup artist I worked with in July at church the other day. This was for the print job I did and the first photos went up live on the company website for about a month.

I mentioned to her about the website and she said, "Oh, I just talked to someone about it and the billboards are up all over Penn Station, Grand Central and Times Square."

"What," I said, "I was just there! But I never made it to those places."

Now maybe I'm just paranoid, but because I had to ride subways and trains during the entire stay, I kept thinking people were looking at me. My wife denies anyone even noticed us, however. She's probably a more reliable witness, so I'll defer to her.

The makeup artist also mentioned the billboards are somewhere near Union Square in SF, but I have no idea where you'd look.

It's actually an odd, surreal thing to see yourself in a poster or billboard out in public view. There's no ego or pride in this at all. In fact, it's mostly embarrassment because you never look as good as you hope or think you do. And since it's blown up so big, you see flaws in your face that you never seen before, even after all the Photoshop corrections have been made.


A few years ago, someone spotted huge photos of me all over a bank in a busy part of Boston. She saw my mug smiling at her from hundreds of feet away and the closer she got, the more she laughed. Since she was in my improv class, I'm presuming she was reminded of one of the skits we worked on together.


I don't want to sound bitter here, but I think for being so widely seen, I'm one of the least successful print models ever. I mean, shouldn't I have something to show for all this "fame"? Shouldn't this somehow parlay to my commercial acting career or to something more substantial?


Well, if not, then I'm just gonna have to live with the idea that somewhere out there in the world, at any given time, is my big face, smiling for all the world to see... and I hope you don't find it too offensive to view.

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