Thursday, October 10, 2013

Where Am I? ...?

Before you contact me in an attempt to answer that question for me (via E-mail, Twitter, or a blog "Comment"), know this much: I already know the answer as it pertains to me specifically. I have said for literally years (to myself & a bunch of others) that "I live in Butt-Crap, Ohio". [It always reminds me of the years when my sister, my only other sibling, was going to college in Kentucky, & used to say the school was located "in (or near) BFE." At the time, I considered that a guarantee she would eventually meet & marry someone, perhaps largely because they & their family allowed her the ability to get out of the areas of both her college & where we grew up. Now, she is indeed married with her third child on the way, but she lives in the house I spent my first 2 decades in! I admit this is one of the few areas where I find her to be even somewhat "unpredictable".]

Anyway, as I said, I have spent 90% of my life in the same county of the same state, & therefore, obviously the same country. However, that still leaves me to wonder where I am.

For one thing, like many, I had dreams of different potential future occupations when I was growing up. For a few years, I thought of myself as being in a band, the other members of which had the dumbest names. (I prefer to not even think about it all anymore, though I remain sure these details will be publicized by my sister on her Twitter account, if not TV, should I ever become the least bit successful.) I also thought for a stretch that I would become a famous pitcher for the Dodgers, largely based on the "un-hit-ability" of a pitch I believed I created, which I know I then named after myself, but (as far as I know) can myself no longer throw. (For all I know, CC Sabathia, a man I once watched pitch for a local team who now does so for the world-famous Yankees, may in fact have thrown that very same pitch in a game this week, & been paid a ton of money for it!) For at least the past decade, I have been planning on a writing career, one that seems feasible due to my talent in the area & my actual ability to do so from just about anywhere I go... However, as my own Twitter profile admits, I have been "Printed several times, (but) never paid for it", leaving that in what I see as an unidentifiable area between the pre-plan & actual undertaking.

Here's another thing I think I know, however; Whether you are a pitcher like Mr. Sabathia; A singer-songwriter, like Dave Grohl (Grammy-winning member of once Nirvana & now the Foo Fighters, & born in the same hospital as my sister & myself); A movie star (Dad contended for a long time that "Cleveland's own" Halle Berry, since that contention an Oscar-winner, will some day be interested in him); Or anything else, a main aim is either to get out of your home area or to make it famous for better than it currently is. I grew up watching TV (which is not to say that I wasn't doing so 2 hours ago), & got sick of "Ohio" repeatedly & literally serving as a punchline. More-specifically, I am (as I said) from the same area as a Grammy-winner (have literally walked the streets he lived on), & a starter in a recent Super Bowl (Mario Manningham went to the same high school as both my parents), but also the same area as Maurice Clarett (same school as Manningham) & the "Joke Jims". (I think Dad was on a first-name basis with Tressel, & I myself got a signed "form letter" from then-Senator Traficant.)

Even so, I now find myself occupying the same sort of "undefinable area" career-wise as my long-dreamt-of writing career. I was waiting in the hospital to get some bloodwork done earlier this week, which was ordered by a doctor I was seeing the next day (I also enjoy I can write relatively well regardless of my health-level), when I read a review of a play being performed locally. The review was accompanied by a picture including someone I have considered a close friend for years, & one paragraph in particular praised her work in the show. Sounds great; Right? Yeah. I sent her a message on Twitter, telling her, "Congrats!"... And almost-immediately got depressed...

Don't get me wrong; To this very second, I remain happy for my friend. However, what bothers me is simply a law of Physics. (Admittedly, I know little more than what I've seen on "The Big Bang Theory".) For years, I've heard people say, "What goes up must come down," & I'll never doubt it. However, what I see as just-as-obvious & never spoken is what happens previously in most of those cases (whether in actuality or purely hypothetical): "In order to go up, you gotta start down."

For instance, I've spent a ton of time in Ohio hospitals, everything from the local hospital (which seems to have a staffing issue a month) to what I often call "the world-famous Cleveland Clinic". (Actually had a kidney operated on there a few years back!) Every time I am in the ER, located on the Ground Floor, I know being admitted means going up in an elevator. Likewise, when I am released, I know which ever relative picks me up (I am the only unlicensed member of my "family of four"), I know getting to their vehicle means we ride the same car right back down. (It's this I think of when people seem depressed as they speak about getting "the shaft" from their jobs.) This leaves me to wonder why many people, who I'm sure (though not as often) have all had the same hospital experiences as me, don't remember, recall, & ponder both.

For over a decade, I have spent time walking through the local streets. I spend much of this time walking either to or from the local Mall &/or movie theaters. More often than I need think about, I spend much of that time imagining different portions of articles that will eventually be written about me when a local theatre performs a show I, in fact, wrote with the specific intention of premiering it at that same theatre, while in a cast of another show being performed there. I imagine it being written by a man I have admittedly little respect for (him or his opinions on many of the arts), largely because we have a history of online contact regarding articles he has written over the years & things he said in them, etc.

However, I often also consider what might be written later (both about me & the area I come from) when this same script gets performed outside the state of Ohio. In both cases, I have supposed/dreamt/expected something will be said about me "surprisingly emerging from small-town Ohio", or perhaps "coming out of the same area that brought the country Maurice Clarett & Jim Traficant," etc...

Therefore, I find myself mentally, &/or often emotionally, split: If this area is best-known for some of the aforementioned names & their stories, it may indeed be quite a surprise when the multi-genre, multi-platform talent I believe myself to eventually become is "offsprung" from it. However, if we are known more for Catherine Bach (AKA the original "Daisy Duke" on "Dukes of Hazzard") & Austin Pendleton (my Mom has repeatedly worked on a stage named for his mother, and they seem to invite him back for a "celebration" of his family every year, though I mainly know him for "The Muppet Movie" & 1 episode of "The Cosby Show"), then the national audience will never possibly see my work as a rise from that, meaning my future was ruined perhaps before I was ever born!

No comments:

Post a Comment