In your Facebook
The guy, in his late 60s with gray hair and glasses, was smiling even as he admonished me.
"You're the one who put my name in the newspaper," he said, shaking my hand. "Don't do that again, OK?"
Clearly, he had not taken any pleasure in seeing his name in the paper. We talked for a few more minutes, and then he put on a black ball cap and walked out of the restaurant.
It was unnerving, but also refreshing to meet someone who actually values anonymity. You don't have to do my job to know the world is populated with self-promoters, people who don't just desire notoriety but crave it. Forget about 15 minutes of fame - I meet people all the time who'd happily settle for a fraction of that.
Unfortunately, thanks to the almighty Internet, some of them succeed. Remember Jessica Cutler, the onetime congressional aide who detailed her dexterous sex life on her Washingtonienne blog? She parlayed her tawdry tale into a Playboy pictorial and a deal with HBO. Or how about Lonelygirl15, the precocious YouTube teen who was really a wannabe actress taking part in a carefully constructed hoax?
Then there's Facebook, which slakes people's thirst for attention like nothing else. I have a marginally employed actor buddy in New York whose page has 600 pictures of his ugly mug. And, yes, he's one of those "friends" who finds it necessary to update me on the status of their sprained ankle, their current TV crush, their fondness for Pillsbury cinnamon rolls, their. . . Oh, you know what I mean.
"Warhol was wrong. Everyone will not be famous for 15 minutes," says Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. "But with the Internet, everyone does have an international distribution system, so they have the possibility of becoming famous and of getting the sort of slobbering attention that they find so seductive."
(Thompson should know. If anyone's benefited from our celeb-crazed culture, it is he. Run the good professor's name through Google sometime and see what you get. On stories ranging from Octo-Mom and shirtless Obama to "Mad Men" and Rachel Maddow, Thompson is the media's go-to guy. He's the journalistic equivalent of a viral video.)
Of course, not all of these narcissists are no-talents. Take Bo Burnham, the 18-year-old from Hamilton who started posting satirical ditties online while a student at St. John's Prep in Danvers. The tunes - "My Whole Family. . ." and "Bo Fo Sho" are a couple of favorites - have been viewed by millions on YouTube. According to his mom, who periodically sends out sarcastic e-mails detailing Bo's whereabouts, the kid's working alongside Judd Apatow on the anti-"High School Musical," and has his own half-hour special on Comedy Central March 27.
So what's with that guy in the restaurant? Why so circumspect? In the era of "American Idol," doesn't he know that discretion is not the better part of valor?
I did a little research and found out he's been a boldfaced name in Boston for years - at least two decades before Sanjaya was even born. In certain law enforcement circles, he's easily as notorious as New Kids on the Block, who, incidentally, he helped bankroll back in the day. In his line of work - which my line of work refers to as a racket - there's no benefit to being in the newspaper, even if extortion, fraud, drug dealing, and the rest of it make for great copy. He and his associates are old school. They don't get a thrill from the spotlight, preferring to keep their activities on the QT or risk having to spend the rest of their life on the run.
At least that's the way it used to be. But apparently even the mob's time-honored traditions are coming to an end. One of this guy's closest and most colorful cohorts has caught the eye of Hollywood, which wants to make him the star of a big-budget - and doubtless bloody - biopic a la Henry Hill. And who can resist that, right?
In the meantime, I think I'll look past my press-shy pal the next time we run into each other at Castle Island or some South Boston coffee shop. If he's the rare person who wants to remain in the shadows, hey, who am I to argue? 