Remember That One Time… At Band Camp… ?

I’ve always been grateful that when I was in high school it was still years before YouTube and social media. Before digital cameras and international-transmitting-devices resided in everyone’s pockets, just waiting to capture each immature misdeed. 

And I was one of the prudish ones with little to worry about – such a lily-white goody-two-shoes. My “bad-boy” moments make die-hard virgins come off like Warren Beatty or Wilt Chamberlain!

Even if I had been a little frisky or recklessly wild in youth, at least my era promised there weren’t platforms to vent your teen angst publicly before logic set in.

But the kids today? (And by, “kids” I mean those under say, 39) – how do they stand a chance of creating a presentable adult façade in the future, or now? 

Think of the piles of evidence residing out there on some subterranean server deep in Malaysia, collected on every adult, now 32, who was once an immature teen with access to the web in 2007.

Every drunk tweet sent at age 16 – especially that one to nasty pig-nosed Saundra, when you simultaneously enlightened the world on the proper use of the C-word, because she looked at your man!!

That time you ended up at the party – yes, that one where you didn’t want to be, but Danny was driving – and all kinds-of-things-inappropriate were going on. It wasn’t your scene, but of course!!, there’s freakin’ Cayleigh in the corner with her phone, recording for posterity and you’re front and center, a willing witness to a drug den orgy.

Or that time your soul was in a bad place and you spent two years cyberbullying little Brett with every insecure, spew-of-hate comment.  

That day your 14-year-old girlfriend convinced you to text dick pics to her.

And I thought the poor dears on the Girls Gone Wild VHS series had it bad.

Those of you over, say, age 43, let’s just reflect on all the times in your teens, hell, even your 20s, when you were soooo not smart, soooo un-evolved, partying too much, dating that abusive loser, doing not-you things to gain acceptance, talking shit about best friends, being tipsy and out of control, fully living that slutty phase, losing your way with that fringe group, or posting naïve, idealistically uninformed drivel. Just… so…. young. 

But hooray, seems I made it through unscathed!

Then I remembered the movie I did with that sex doll. 

Ooooooooooooh. 

WAIT, how did I block that out? And why did it just come into my brain last week?

Travel back with me, dear reader, to Cleveland, 1997ish? Your recent-college-graduate adventurer was doing theater, theater, theater everywhere I could. But I wanted to branch out and be a REAL AC-TOR!, and acquire clips, video footage, a reel, credits for film stardom to be the next Paul Rudd and woo Jennifer Aniston in movies! (Look it up, he was already making a splash). 

I have zero clue how I booked this, how it came about. Where did I audition? There are vague memories… of a two-day, weekend shoot… in a hotel… YES!, a hotel!?!. Or maybe some extended-stay conference suite place… downtown… working on some student film or little independent video with this buttoned-up, possible-serial-killer guy, his girlfriend, and his script.  

Again, ZERO recollection of the premise, though I do recall knowing it was deliberately kinky-odd.

And indeed, it was the era of me playing looks-like-ideal-son-in-law-but-he’s-a-creepy-villain roles, all the time.

I was the only actor in this thing, I think, doing a bunch of talking maybe direct to camera, or monologues about love or intimacy or girlfriends? And then the catch, it’s all about this blow-up sex doll that’s… maybe sitting next to me… on the bed? Or on the couch too? That I have a relationship with.

Kind of like a precursor to Lars and the Real Girl with Ryan Gosling. Yet you get ME instead of Ryan Gosling. You’re welcome.

Or was it a mannequin? And does that make it better or worse?

Um… Should I call my lawyer? Is this like my Madonna or Vanessa Williams moment, where skyrocketing celebrity is then derailed and tarnished by nude photos taken once upon a time to pay the rent?!?! (Not that I was paid a cent) Hey, wait a minute, I didn’t even get or see a copy! Is this my Pamela Anderson 15 minutes?

Nah. At least I do remember that I was clothed the entire time. And there was no, um, simulation of any kind going on. It was just me, acting, being creepy, with a sex doll, maybe carrying it around with me. You know, as one does. And after 25 years, I’m just remembering this.

Is this how people who’ve lived real, interesting lives feel? Having a hazy half-memory of possible-parties-attended, endless missteps, inappropriate moments of scandal and bad lovers, worst selves, booze, pills and sex? Who am I, Liza Minnelli? SNL‘s Pete Davidson?!?

I mean… I only shot it those two days… Who knows if it ever saw the light of day? 

Nonetheless, I can now join the cool, modern-day kids with a “tawdry past.” 

Because damn it, somewhere out there, on a hopefully-rotting VHS tape, or some pitch website for ‘90’s wannabe filmmakers, is young cherubic me, being all edgy, acting opposite a sex doll. 

Maybe Paul Rudd has nothing to worry about.