Eight Things

Scott K. has called me out and with nothing better to write, I'll shall accept the challenge. With that in mind, however, it's unlikely that anyone reading this journal over the past six years has any lingering questions about what makes up the biological organism that is me.

But let's give it a shot.

1) I've been on TV four times. Once, I won a contest on the Denver FOX affiliate when FOX was relatively new. It was when Godzilla 1985 was coming out and there was a "Guess who's coming to FOX" contest. The "hints" they gave were trailers from the movie, trailers my friend and I had seen on the new movie trailer channel on cable. I couldn't understand why it was so hard, so I entered and won. I got to accept a giant inflatable Godzilla in a commercial. The other time was me protesting the Gulf War and a news crew caught up with some of us as we were putting yellow ribbons on trees downtown. The third time was when I was with an acting touring company in college that went to area schools and promoted some message of courage. We were only a local morning newscast. Fourth time was when I was working as a news reader in Houston and a local news crew came to interview the owners during the .com boom. I was shown for just a second sounding important.

2) I was in an A Capella group in college called "Travel By Train." It was 8 guys from the choral music group. We practiced in stairwells when the choir room was booked. We had a few gigs around town, but nothing major. At one point we recorded a song in the school music lab. We sounded pretty good. The name came from the sign over the Market Street Station downtown.

3) When I finally stopped going to college, I had 96 credit hours; more than enough to graduate with most degress. But because I had switched majors three times and my current major was Illustration, I didn't have enough to graduate.

4) There is apparently no other person named Ben Rollman that exists on the internet. If you put in "ben rollman" into google, it should come up with 16 pages. Every link has to do with a site I've run, a message I've written or a comment about a project in which I've been involved. The only one I can't figure out is this one that from what I can tell has nothing to do with me.

5) I do not have contacts because I can't stand things touching my eyes. When I need eye drops - and they'd have to be medically mandated - someone usually has to hold my arms down and pry my eyes open. Either that or drop it in my tear duct and just let it roll around.

6) The only bone I've ever broken is my jaw and I have a metal plate in there now. It doesn't set off alarms, thought.

7) Though I wanted to go into the Air Force when I was a kid, I was the only one out of my group of buddies at the end of high school who didn't go into the service. Two went into the Navy, one to the Army and one to the Air force.

8) I worked at McDonald's for the length of the orientation video. I was there because my friend Lewis was trying to get a job, so I applied too. It was on the other side of town and when they called me the next morning at 6am to see if I could come in and cover for someone I quit. I made $6.13.

I personally don't know any other active online writers, but if you read this, consider yourself called out. Just shoot me a link to it so I can become a new fan of whatever journal or blog you're writing.

Carry on.