The following story is a work of fiction. Names and details have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and my pension. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. This is not true.
Being famous ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Let me be clear before somebody reads this and thinks, “Who does this jagoff think he is?”
I was never famous-famous. I was the very bottom level of famous.
Barely above the eyewitness-on-the-local-nightly-news kinda famous. Where people look at you and can’t figure out where the Fuck they know you from.
Unless they watched Springer every single day - then I was The Shit!
For eight years, I was the Head of Security for The Jerry Springer Show. Which meant 30 million people a day, all over the world saw me standing behind women pulling each other’s wigs off while a guy named Skeeter explained that he was having sex with his wife’s sister - as she whipped her tits out and danced on the pole.
Couples therapy - with flying chairs.
When you’re on TV during the day and a cop at night, and somebody starts staring at you, there’s always a little uncertainty.
Is it gonna be—
“Hey, you’re that guy from TV.”
Or—
“Hey, MotherFucker, you arrested me!”
I’d smile, throw a head nod, make just enough eye contact, and keep movin’.
Meaning-
I see you. I’m ready. Whatever you’re thinking is not a good idea.
That’s what happened one day when my wife Jes and I went grocery shopping at Mariano’s in Bucktown.
If you’re not from Chicago, Mariano’s is a slightly higher-end grocery store.
Not a full rich-people grocery store.
Not an “I only eat cheese made from a virgin’s goat milk” grocery store.
But nice.
Better selection. Better produce. Better bread. You walk in there and feel like maybe you really could make that Gordon Ramsay, Youtube recipe.
We pull into the parking lot and right away I see the guy collecting carts.
Wearing the Mariano’s vest, doing his job.
I couldn’t diagnose the guy from across the parking lot. He might’ve had some special needs. He might’ve just been one of those colorful Chicago characters you see around.
I didn’t know … Yet.
He saw me, he locked in.
He stopped pushing the carts.
Pointed at me.
“You famous!”
I looked behind me, as you do when you know somebody is talking to you but you’re trying to buy yourself a few seconds.
“Me?”
“You famous!”
“Nope.”
He stared harder.
“Who you?”
“I’m nobody.”
He shook his head.
“You famous. I seens’d you somewhere.”
I knew exactly where - he seens’d me. The Jerry Springer Show.
One hundred percent.
This was exactly the kind of guy who watched Jerry Springer. Not judging him.
It was a very loyal audience.
An unemployed-at-eleven-in-the-morning audience.
And this guy had the look.
He knew me from Springer.
I didn’t want to give it to him.
Doesn’t matter who, it’s usually cool to be recognized, especially in front of your girl.
I had done better stuff, and I wanted it to be from that - but I knew it wasn’t.
There’s something strange about admitting you’re known from the Springer Show. It’s not embarrassing - I’m not embarrassed by it. It was a great job. So much fun. I traveled all over. I made good money. I got to see America at its absolute craziest, five shows a week. Made great friends with the crews. New York was my second home for four years.
But still.
When a stranger in a grocery store parking lot asks where they know you from, “I was Head of Security on Jerry Springer” doesn’t land the same way as, “I cured cancer.”
So when he said, “You famous. I seens’d you somewhere.” - I upgraded myself.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was in Transformers.”
Which was true.
I had small parts in a couple Transformers movies. Not starring. Nobody was buying a ticket saying, “I heard Pete Kelly really brings depth to the police officer role.”
But I was in them.
And Transformers feels more prestigious.
Big movie. Explosions. Michael Bay. Giant talking robots.
A better credit than, “I saved Jerry from stepping in poo-poo when an old lady called Grandma Rap, dropped turds on the stage during her segment.
The cart guy continued staring at me blankly.
Processing.
Maybe he was thinking cartoons. So I cleared it up for him. “Transformers. The movies.”
Then his face lit up.
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Now I know who you is.”
Perfect.
Case closed.
I thanked him for watching. Returned a big high five. And smiled for a selfie with the cart guy.
Jes and I went inside grocery shopping.
-
A week later, Jes went back to the same Mariano’s by herself.
She’s in the parking lot - here comes my guy.
He comes rolling over with the carts and says…
“Ain’t you the Ho with the dude from Transformers?”
Now, there are a lot of ways a woman can be described.
Wife. Partner. Better half.
But in that moment, in that Mariano’s parking lot in Bucktown, Jes was no longer Jes.
She was-
The Ho with the dude from Transformers.
She didn’t get offended.
She laughed.
Because Jes is from Chicago too.
She shook her head and said, “Yeah… I guess I am that Ho.”
“Where he at?”
“He at home,” she replied.
And that was it.
End of conversation.
He turned around and walked away.
Mariano’s vest, collecting carts, confirming the whereabouts of a barely famous Jerry Springer security guy.
They say “fame is fleeting.”
Mine didn’t even make it thru the Mariano’s parking lot.
One day you’re on a billion-dollar movie set.
The next day your wife is being identified in a grocery store parking lot as your Ho.
The funny part is, he had the whole thing backwards.
Because Jes is actually the famous one.
Before she was my wife, Jes had her own little run on TV.
She won the first season on Rock of Love with Bret Michaels.
Which means, technically, in our marriage, I wasn’t just a low level celebrity.
I was celebrity-adjacent.
I am the Husband of the winner of Rock of Love.
The Second Gentleman of daytime dumpster opera.
And I guess I got Bret Michaels sloppy seconds?? WTF??
Together, we were the white-trash power couple of basic cable television.
WCIU the “U” meets the best of VH1.
The Mariano’s cart-man thought Jes was “the Ho with the guy from Transformers.”
But the truth is, he had it backwards.
I was the Man-Ho with the pink-haired chick from Rock of Love.
I’m very happy to be that guy.
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I’ll be posting weekly stories from the streets of Chicago as a former Cop - as Head of Security on The Jerry Springer Show - acting on TV and in Movies, and more insane life experiences. Several I shouldn’t have survived.
What a great story! Maybe you and Jes should do a show together with Vito❤️
I enjoy your storytelling. Keep ‘em coming 🥂
That was a fun read 😂 the cart attendant at the grocery store is hilarious, if you’re from Chicago…. You’ve met that guy.