In the fall of 2002 I lived in the Bronx. One day a week I commuted to Jersey to attend classes at Brookdale, home of the Jersey Blues (how "apropo" as they would say!) I squeezed all of my classes into one day to cut down on commuting costs.

I was not talking to my mother at that time either, so I would stay the night with my Dad before heading back home to New York the next morning.

My Dad lived in the Atlantic Manor apartments, a dreary apartment complex. This place was desolate beyond anything Sam Shepherd could imagine. 70s-style. The walls and hard brillo carpeting was a dingy yellow.

Our neighbor was a middle-aged bearded buffoon with a mullet. He dressed in a suit and tie to go to a cubicle job. He looked like the "Cowbell" guy from that Will Ferrell SNL skit.

One warm, humid Spring morning in early 2003 mullet-man was up at 6am, jamming on his electric guitar. Cliche as could be, he pounded out the opening riff of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" over and over again.

In moments like that I know why I've always wanted to be famous. I've always wanted to be a movie star or a famous foul-mouthed comedian; a screenwriter or director; shit: I even auditioned for RYAN SEACREST's job! I'm not making this up! Now - let's face it - I am trying to earn at least a modicum of fame as a writer (the great thing about being a writer is that I can have fame AND anonymity.)

I was worse when I was younger. When I was a kid I would have learned to dunk a basketball or hit a baseball to be famous. I would have killed people to be famous.

Why did I want mega-fame when I was younger and why do I still want a modicum of fame now?
Well, I suppose I was always afraid of ending up like the mulleted buffoon: working a cubicle job, living in a dreary, dead-end complex, occasionally having an overnight visit from a female friend. My entire life I have always been afraid of that sort of "Nowhereism". Mulletman's brand of "Nowhereism" was a rather common kind and, to me, the most frightening. Fame would give me the only safeguard against "Nowhereism" and the only grip I have ever had on anything!

Now I know how pathological it is to yearn to be a public figure, fit for consumption. For the first time I am learning to fully appreciate the WORK. And if I can get just a modicum of fame, then what the hell?