I know this guy!!


(bigger version: page 1 |page 2)

Living in Southern California means I've crossed paths with famous people a few times. I met Mary Steenburgen, and tried on hats at her and Ted Dansen's house. I saw Juliette Lewis' band when they played a show at my dorm. I've be to concerts that Weird Al and some guy from The OC were also in the audience. Arnold Swartzenegger's helicoppter landed on my school's football field. One of my teachers was the guy in charge of "Step by Step/" I had dinner with the director of Saturday Night Fever once. For a boy from a backwater Oregon pueblo, it's kind of cool to be able to list this stuff, but none of it is half as interesting or exciting as it might sound. Celebrities have never been that important to me. Most of them are just normal people, only richer, and any excitment I found in having brushes with came from knowing that someone somewhere would probably be impressed. I myself was never that impressed until last night when I learned that the above lad from a late '97 ad for the video game Sonic Jam was my new friend David Clinton III, who is in my extremely small CrossWalk small group. He briefly mentioned having done some ad work when he was in high school, this particular ad being his biggest gig.
Although not nearly as pierced or as hardcore in real life as he looks in the picture, and much to my dismay, not even a big Sonic the Hedgehog fan, David Clinton III (who actually is now a manager of a real estate investment office, and though a year younger than me, far more grown up), is now my hero, for the simple fact that in the process of doing that ad for Sega, he must have at some point come across the REAL Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest being in the universe, and the star of the very best video game ever made ever. I wear red shoes in honor of Sonic's own speedy, scarlet sneakers, and every time I see them, my self-esteem gets a power boost.
And if David knows Sonic, then I am only one degree removed from Sonic myself. Perhaps one day he'll introduce us.