Hey, Fred, don't think anyone here is going to twist your arm about putting any of your work here for public consumption if you're not in the mood. Sorry if we seemed pushy.

I think quite a few people use this forum to "display" themselves, and if it helps them to know there are readers here who will either appreciate their offerings or at least be kind enough not to be utterly rude, then I think it's as good a venue as any.

The whole "fame" thing is so odd. When I was working in theatre in Hawaii, I became a minor celebrity....amongst school children especially. I remember the first time a young child came up to me in a supermarket and smiled and said "Hi" as if he expected me to remember him from the thousands of children I had performed before. It felt wonderful in that I had made an impression on him (I'd written and produced the script, as well as directed it, so I did feel like it was a compliment to my "creation".

It also happened to me with adults, who were much shyer and stared at a distance as they tried to place where they knew me from (I tried my best to look different in every part I ever played in adult theatre) and when someone actually came up and asked for my autograph I laughed out loud and said they couldn't possibly want something so pointless. They became confused, and I became deeply embarrassed.

Fame is utterly different from recognition, I've decided. That I was being paid to do the one thing I loved more than anything else was all that mattered to me, and there were enough times when I performed for free to know that there is indeed a certain sweetness for being compensated monetarily for my work (and years of training). But I always hated that moment when we dropped our characters and went to take our bows. That's not why I did what I did, and I would always be the first out the stage door while my comrades waited and basked in the compliments of their friends and strangers.

My favorite story is that once I saw an interview with a high school student on television and he was talking of how he had seen a play about Shakespeare and it changed how he felt about not only literature but his own future desires. It had become clear that he was speaking about one of my plays that I had been touring in, and I felt such an overwhelming feeling of both pride and gratitude that I realized "This is the payoff"...to affect someone's life.

..xx..e