Fifteen Seconds

"In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."

Andy Warhol

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 60s and 70s, you got used to seeing movie stars in daily life, at the grocery store, the doctor’s office, or as neighbors. Usually, they behaved just like anyone else, but sometimes they clearly didn’t want to be recognized.

When I was about twenty-two, my cousin John was a contractor working for a large construction company redesigning the shopping section at Universal City. John called me to say they were changing out some wood fencing. The old fencing was clean redwood board, about a foot wide and eight feet high. There were hundreds of boards that would be thrown out the next day, but John’s boss said I could have them if I came to get them.

John knew I’d been looking for some fencing material to run down both sides of the property I lived on with my sister, Mary Ellen, in a house our parents owned. The property was over an acre in size and served as a small farm for the horses, chickens, and goats Mary Ellen kept.

So, I hopped in my truck, wearing a t-shirt, jeans, a bomber jacket, and Ray-Ban sunglasses, and drove over to Universal City. John had left my name at a side gate, and the guard let me into the back lot of Universal Studios.

I parked and began walking up a narrow road toward where John and his crew were working. I was the only one on the road as a packed four-car-long tour bus came over a rise and down the road toward me.

All the Frazees are pranksters, and suddenly I became inspired. I turned slightly away from the people on the tour bus, pretending I didn’t want them to get a good look at me. The bus passed with cameras following me and clicking away.

I had been on that tour bus when I was thirteen and really wanted to see someone famous, so in a way, I was helping out these fellow tourists. Perhaps when they looked at the photos later, they thought, “I don’t know who this is, but I know it’s someone.”

And they’d be right! I had my fifteen seconds of fame, though it may have been only ten.

The bonus, of course, was that I had wanted that fencing for quite a while, and the universe — or rather, Universal City — delivered it in a big way.

Well, I did have to go and pick it up.

-Hank

"Fifteen Seconds," from The Saturday Morning Post at hankfrazee.com