THIS MUCH IS TRUE

I'm a pretty average Joe.  

Nothing about me stands out in any way, so I tend to always look familiar to people.  I get a lot of "... you know, you look just like a friend of someone I use to know."  And "I've seen you somewhere, haven't I?  Where do you work?"  

It's my devilishly average looks that always gets me the photo prize, because while I'm oddly familiar to most people, I am horribly non-photogenic to a point where it could conceivably be considered a disability.  

I'm constantly at a disadvantage when there's a camera present because moments before the image is stolen, my face seizes and locks into an inhuman form.  That's why I always see my picture popping up in newspapers and online, it's a novelty.  I'm always at the forefront of a picture being snapped after having just bitten into a scalding slice of pizza that I'm automatically rejecting from my mouth. Or I'm wearing a hat that is a little too big for my head and my ears are sticking out, and the photo is snatched from reality just as I've taken a lazy drink of water rendering my lips glossy and slick, inevitably freezing me in time looking as if I have Down Syndrome.  I've graced the cover of RedEye being fed ice cream by an unnamed hand and looking as if I have extreme Cerebral Palsy.  I've been interviewed on TV under harsh lights in a loud ambiance, where off camera bangs and hoots caused me to flinch and whip my head around mid word, so the word I was speaking came out more of a sound that went whoop!   I knew what the interview was about, but the channel flippers who saw the interview that knew me were quick to point out that for a moment they thought the news was doing a story about people with tourette's.  To make matters worse, afterwords I was asked to sit on a chair behind the news reporter and told to smile big and wave excitedly when the light went on while the reporter introduced the next story.  It seemed simple enough. It was later that I discovered that the following story was about The Special Olympics, making me the body double for the severely retarded Olympic hopeful, up next. 

Most recently I was online, the forefront subject in a snapshot during an afternoon gallery opening this past June.

Every year in late July,  a place in California called Gilroy is host to the largest garlic festival in the country.  I know this because several years ago a friend of mine attended this festival and was thoughtful enough to bring me back a tee shirt.  I never really wear the tee shirt unless I'm completely out of other clean shirts, but I'll admit that it has been in my second string rotation on and off for the better part of a decade.  It isn't that don't wear it because it has a large clove of dancing garlic or anything like that, I just don't like that people always want to comment on it.  I don't like garlic people.

Garlic, you see, is one of those cult things that some people are drawn to and love beyond description, reveling in the fact that they LOVE garlic.  One might even say that garlic is the bacon of vegetables.  I do not share in this sentiment.  I have nothing against garlic, but I don't really want to invite conversation on the subject. 

On this heated June afternoon my garlic festival tee shirt had made it into circulation once again.  I remember thinking that it's an afternoon reception, how dressy could this event be?  After all, the show was dedicated to recent grads and undergrads of the Art Institute painting program - hopefuls to watch in the years to come.  I didn't expect a 2pm opening to be flashy, and I suppose on some level I wasn't wrong.  

The gallery was filled with the usual SAIC types -  dark rimmed glasses, black skinny pants, and an overwhelming feeling that a large portion of the room was going to attend a TOTALLY 80's theme party later that evening.  All the featured artists dressed the way they're presumably taught in art school to dress - in that look at me ... HEY what are you looking at? - sort of way, so spectators know they're artists without having to ask.  Parents were dressed business casual, the way all parents dress when they want to show support for their art school graduate children (whom they secretly had hoped would one day become President).  Buyers dressed in ties, and gallery hosts dressed in expensive looking print button down shirts, black slacks with creases like razor blades, and leather shoes that reflected the sun outside.

The photo online of the event shows all these different people, melding together on a Saturday afternoon in a highly regarded art gallery, and in front of it all is me.  Me, in my flip-flops and cut off shorts, standing  apparently closest to the photographer, almost intentionally to show that I'm the token juxtaposed character. The atypical oddball. The sunburned tourist standing on the shore of creativity.  Me, with my expression that looks as if I'm boringly trying to find the right answer to a rorschach test.  Me, looking as if I've suddenly becoming aware of the effects of a full breakfast three bran muffins and a pot of strong black coffee; standing there for the online world to see, clumsily riding a the crest of an art wave in a tee shirt that reads: SNIFF THIS.

The other night I attended a reading series entitled: THIS MUCH IS TRUE, where the writers read what amounts to essentially a snapshot of their lives.  Memories,  frozen in the mind of an individual as a photo of an event, a place, or an awkward moment time.  

I listened to readings about becoming a college dropout, and finding both work and identity in the fallout.  A story about finding the hero right under your nose, while preparing to abandon a ship in the middle of the night that might, or might, not be sinking.  A story about remorse and lessons learned, when people naturally hit the trigger needed to ignite an explosive outburst. And two very different stories about moments of restraint when you realize that your life is no longer yours, but rather has happily been traded for the unconditional love of a child.

Each of these stories - these pictures of the frozen moments of  a strangers life - were told in only a few pages, thus proving that a picture truly is worth a thousand words.  And it started me thinking about the pictures of me.  What story would my pictures tell?

What I realized, after thinking about it for a while, was that during the THIS MUCH IS TRUE reading, the writers weren't talking so much about themselves in their stories, they were talking about other people.  The writers weren't the focal point of the snapshot, they were off to the side somewhere and really what these stories were about was how others perceived them,  and how they were affected by a view of themselves through someone else's eyes.  

If you ever get the chance to attend a THIS MUCH IS TRUE series, I highly recommend it.  I know I'll be there.  There's no better way to reflect on your own life than through the mirror that the readers hold up to themselves for your entertainment.  And should you see me there, feel free to say "hi" and buy me a drink.  I'm usually sitting in a corner, sipping on a whiskey and trying not to be noticed.  You'll know me because I'm the one who looks vaguely familiar ... or mildly retarded.  It depends on your snapshot of the moment.