If you could switch lives with a famous person for a week, who would it be and why?
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It’s not an agenda item for me. And it never was. The reason why is pretty basic. At one point in my life, I got exposed to lots of the intimate lives of the rich and famous in an unusual manner. Top Speed Messenger Service in Downtown Manhattan.
Readers of this blog may recall that I spent time as a Greenwich Village coffeehouse performer. At my level, it did not pay too well. Sometimes I was flush, and other times I was scrambling for rent. My roommate suggested a job as a messenger boy. Remember, back in those prehistoric days of the early ’60s, there was no email, faxes, or lots of the fast stuff everyone takes for granted. In Manhattan, lots of stuff moved on foot, by taxi, and even by public transportation with the messenger boy. It probably still does.
Forget about step counters. I’d race around Midtown, the Financial District, the Village, the Garment District, and Uptown dozens of times a day. Small packages, but mostly envelopes of all sizes. Legal documents, confidential stuff, and stuff that I don’t care to speculate on were moved this way. Often right after arrival, it was, “Please wait for a reply.” Remuneration was the scant minimum wage of the sixties, and you depended upon the generosity of the clients to make up the difference. To me it was the necessary evil that allowed me to live “the Life” down in the Village.
You delivered to the famous, the infamous, and the ordinary. Lots of performers and entertainers. I rarely got out of Lenny Bruce’s digs promptly because he wanted to try material out on you. It was very unprofessional, and it was forbidden to ask for autographs. One of the few members of my family that I was still on talking terms with almost kicked me out of his house when I revealed that I’d met Eartha Kitt and not asked for her autograph.
Those were the good parts of the job.
The not-so-good parts were watching famous people be people; shoot up, berate family and servants, or be falling down drunk before going on stage. Seeing what you saw just could not be unseen, and some famous brands suffered permanent staining.
Remember, you were just the messenger boy. You were waiting for a reply to be sent back and were like a piece of wallpaper. You’ve probably heard the truism that the rich and famous are just people underneath the glamour. It’s true. Very often they carried on as if you were not there.
So the answer to whose life I might wish to step into for a week is no one’s. I’d rather have an opportunity to improve my own life.
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Amen, Lou!
Agreed wholeheartedly! What an unnecessary headache it would be. My own simple life is complicated enough.
It sounds like a cool job until you realize, no it’s not. Good one. Lous.
Lou! I meant Lou! Where in the heck did that ‘s’ come from?! So sorry.
Agreed. Seemed like a nonsense prompt again today.
They are not trying too hard these days.
I kinda get the feeling that this was one of their “projects”, once, and when they had a stock of few hundred questions, they moved onto something else and just put the questions into a continuous loop.
And that thinking of a few hundred questions, all at once, was too tall an order for them!
Yes, but with a twist. They set an AI routine to propose slight variations on them, but it wasn’t a very good program, so they all started sounding the same.
Most of these prompts are de-motivating. This is one of them. As for that, I AM famous. Ask Bear and Teddy, wait a minute, “Our human takes us on walks and we let her feed us.” Wait a minute… OK never mind.
It’s a challenge to twist, spindle, and mutilate them into something entirely different, but one does wonder what they are slipping into the watercolor at Prompt Central.
I hear you, I am happy being myself. Messenger services is right up there with switchboard operators. Geez, the stuff they heard!