​​​​​​Because humor is funnier when you know it's true.

Fame is fleeting 

IN 1984, UCLA’s NEW FIGHT SONG Mighty Bruins was unveiled. While this occasion might barely register a blip on the historical time-line, as the song’s proud co-parent, it holds a special place in my heart.

Back on that sunny, oppressively hot September day, I was standing beside award-winning composer Bill Conti, of Rocky fame, as well as hundreds of other movie scores frequently played badly by high school and college marching bands, accepting accolades, signing autographs, and agonizing over those things young prodigies agonize over—like loss of identity.

“I’m just a regular Joe who puts on his Hugh Hefner silk pajama bottoms one leg at a time” and the loss of privacy, “I can’t even go to a trendy Hollywood night club anymore without being hounded by Lindsay Lohan!”

It hasn’t been easy.

But, like all legends, I’ve learned to adapt to the blinding klieg lights of fame.

Actually, the fame part has been sort of elusive. I haven’t really experienced much celebrity since the day the new fight song was unveiled, unless you count that time everyone stopped to watch as I was given a jaywalking ticket in Westwood.

Frankly, I’m a little disillusioned by the whole thing. I mean, I was led to believe my life would somehow be inexorably transformed after collaborating with someone as huge as Bill Conti. Okay, I didn’t technically “collaborate” with Bill Conti in the sense of sitting around the piano at his Malibu mansion putting lyrics together while sipping appletinis. Actually, the whole thing was part of a campaign by the UCLA Alumni Association to find a new fight song for the school. They held a lyric writing contest awarding a $1,000 prize and lifetime alumni membership to the winner. I figured I could use the money—$1,000 is a lot of cabbage for a broke 23-year-old film student. I had nothing to lose but the cost of a sheet of paper, which at the time was something to seriously consider. And so I entered.