It's hard to be me. Lingering stares as eyes touch on my perfectly proportioned face and tan, chiseled body. Packages of Swiss chocolate arriving daily at my door from French toe models and cougar Spanish profesoras. Constantly forced to elbow past throngs of autograph seekers, adjusting custom-fitted sunglasses as my guttural, condescending laughs echo through the bitter autumn air...
Alas, I can only feel for those wide-eyed sycophants of mine, wearing Polo button-downs and khaki pants as if they were the ones who drank a chalice of musty Cabernet on Ralph's 70-foot schooner. It's not every day that peasant folk get to be in the midst of a celebrity, let alone somebody who has whipped up world class foie gras and harvested fresh caviar with the delightful Wolfgang Puck, the godfather of the Thai orphan I adopted. Sipping premium vodka with Russian tsars and flamingo smugglers while Anna Kournikova massaged my temples ... Oh, what great fun it is to reminisce! Thankfully, though, I'm not one to drop names. Read George's column for that.
And by George, I mean Clooney.
Speaking of, I'm tired of those other celebrities that live to be photographed. Like Clooney with his Darfur speeches - is it irony or fate that someone so starved for attention went to Africa to provide aid? Where was the camera crew when I delivered 1,000 yoga mats to a Zimbabwean village? Where were Paris and Nicole when I braved the harsh reality of an Indian rainforest ... luxury sauna? Where was Entertainment Tonight when I visited that Aboriginal mystic for a prophecy and instead ended up getting some ridiculously boring tour of his outhouse? Even when you're ridiculously rich and famous, it's hard to get any respect.
How was I to know Zimbabweans don't like to awaken their kapalabhati?
Every once in a while, I'll stand in the middle of the pomegranate orchard at the edge of my sprawling private complex and gaze out upon the sparkling man-made ocean I had built by that troop of legless refugees, wondering about what I had done to deserve such an unthinkable life. It's the one place I can really find inner peace, away from the ivory-encrusted marble palace, the narwhal petting zoo, the woodcarving arena, the anti-gravity teepee, the laser tag planetarium and, of the course, the charming guest house that Mr. Spielberg likes to rent out during the summertime. Usually I think about the rush of winning my fortune betting on that fateful round of toothpick darts back in the summer of '73, and sometimes about whether those poor, unfortunate immigrants with no legs have made any progress swimming across the ocean that they helped construct.
If I have a flaw, it's that I care too much.
Just remember this next time I breeze by you without so much as a disdainful glare or carefully aimed snot rocket. It's in your own best interest, after all. Attention from such a star would go straight to your head.
And take it from me. Your head is big enough.
David's column runs biweekly Fridays. He can be reached at d.replogle@cavalierdaily.com.
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