Thursday, January 12, 2012

Famous in Canada (I think)

June 7, 2011.  Niagara Falls, New York.  A figure in a yellow hat and a white running jacket crosses a bridge into Ontario, Canada.  A sign.  News of a video shoot.  An invitation to participate.  The man in the yellow hat turns it down.  His regrets begin immediately.  The man in the yellow hat makes a u-turn. 

A black man and an accordion player lean against a fence.  The black man begins to sing.  The music begins to play.  Some teenagers begin to hop around.  Bollywood is in the air.  Bollywood is in the man in the yellow hat's genetics.  The man in the yellow hat's limbs begin to move.  There are cameras everywhere. 

Twenty-three days before T: An MBTA Musical and over 5 months from the release of Cambridge Street, the man in the yellow hat makes his mark in Canada in a flash mob tourism video. 

The man can't wait to see himself when the video's done. 

Fast forward.  The 2011 IIFA Awards in Toronto.  Opening.  A video comes into view, projected on a screen and shot from a handheld camera.  In the video, a black man and an accordion player lean against the fence at Niagara Falls.  A familiar song begins.  The black man begins to sing.  Interspersed with some dancing fools on a beach and some celebrities, there is a group of teenagers and moms at Niagara Falls.  And a man in a yellow hat!  See him?


Some of those pixels are my flesh and blood.  I swear. 

$5 to anybody who can send me a clear screenshot of me in the flash mob.  I think the 3 minute mark is your best bet.  I'm somewhere in the back there.  

Aren't I?

Catch up, America.  I'm famous in Canada.  At least, my pixels are.

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