All my life, ever since I could remember, I've had this feeling. It's a strange, inexplicable feeling that seems so illiogical I'm almost ashamed to admit it...it sounds very egocentrical, stuck up and like I'm so full of myself (which at times, I'll admit, I am)! But the feeling is that I am somebody famous. I am somebody many people in the world will and/or do know; sometimes I've felt like the whole world is watching and sometimes, I swear, I walk down the street and people would look at me and think "there he goes..."; isn't this a strange and silly feeling? But it's true and it's real, it's how I've often felt. In school, all those yars ago, I was always very popular. People who I never knew knew who I was. As a young adult, I always seem to gather people around me, they almost seemed to gravitate towards me. Later, as I became emmersed in my own little wold, the large outside world still seemed to be somehow connected to me...but, at one point, when I was about 20 or so, I remember thinking "I don't want to be famous now, I want to wait."
I thought this because of a couple very significant events that happened that have forever shaped me. The first was when my best friend, Todd, died when we were 17. It deeply affected me and changed the way I looked at life. I thought "if a person can die when they're only 17, they could die anytime at all...therefore, one must live life as if every moment were your last, for it might just be!" This was my mantra, my guiding light throughout much of my adult life. It's a statement, an attitude that has, in many ways, set me free. It has created this intrepid veiw of the life, allowing me to feel free to take chances I may not have otherwise taken...it has inspired me to follow my dreams, where ever they may lead...it given me the liberty to experience some magnificent things and helped me become the person I am today. The other very significant event that helped shape me was the death of John Lennon. When he was killed, at such a young age (he was 40 when he was shot to death by a deranged fan in 1980), it not only reinforced the lesson I learned from Todd's death, it made me think about my own path of glory, my road to riches, my 15 minutes of fame. I looked at his life, and the life of the other Beatles and other people who found fame at a young age and it made me change my mind about my own fame. I saw them, when they were so young, in their 20's, being the darlings of the world and yet they were trapped. They were prisoners in a free world. They could not go anywhere without being recogonized and mobbed. They never had the chance to alk among the world at large, admidst all the people and see the things, feel the feelings that there are in the world. They were trapped and I saw this, understood the pain and suffering of it; I decided it was not for me. When John Lennon was killed I decided I did not want fame like his; look where it got him!
That's when i started running. I took flight from my own destinies and dreams and tried to be as "normal" as I possibly could. I would not want to spend those magical years of my youth being hounded and trapped, being recoginized and held prisoner to my own fame. I wanted to experience the world, experience all of life, free as a bird and gather as much living as I could before it was all over. And, for the most part, I was successful. I went through nearly all of my 20's with nary a notice. People who knew me, knew I wa special in some way and people who didn't know me, just didn't know me. I was enabled to travel the country, to get into things adn then out of them, with only the joy of the experience and nothing more. As I entered my 30's, things became a little more tricky. People started noticing me, my work, my art...I had started to get fans! By the time I started The Split/Apple, I had gained a certain amount of infamey. There were, by then, hundreds of people who knew who I was and I didn't know any of them. That was weird. I also began to make enemies too. This was new. I never made enemies before and now, for reasons beyond my understanding, there were people out there who seemed to hate me! At first I was bothered by it, at first it was disturbing. But then, being an avid believer in The Second Law of Physics (every action has an equal and opposite reaction), I reasons that if there were people who actually HATED me, then most certainly there are those LOVE me too! For the remaining years of my 30's I tried to grapple with this growing amount of infamey...that is, until I was about 36. Then I had to avoid it, for at least a little while longer, I had to escape the notice I was getting and lose myself somehow. I eeded to regroup and re-coup and ready myself better. It was plainly obvious that I would become even more well known, but for what I wasn't too sure. I escaped the critical eye by hiding away here, in The Natural State. I changed my name a little, took a meaningless job in a pathetic resort and tried to function as this typical, normal family man. I also decided, last year around my birthday, that it was time to start writing about my life. It was time to tell the tales I have, to share the experience and let others know the truths I have found. It was the end of the 20th century, it seemed the right thing to do, the right time to do it and I felt ready, at last to face it; I am d'Philip, dreamer of realities.
They say "life begins at 40" and so, here I stand, on the day my 40th year begins, making my life happen. I can afford now to give up the freedoms I have enjoyed, to relenquish the privledge of being unknown to share my experiences with the world. I have been a man running from his fame and now I stop and wait for my fame to catch up to me; and mark my words, by this day next year the hundreds of people who know me will grow to be thousands. So, in the end of this tale, let me simply say, thank you for being my friend now. Before the whole world knows me, before I no longer can tell the real from the unreal. You know me now, while it's still way back when, before I am who I am...you knew me when!
With all that Love is...
d'Philip |
