Every January Jim and I get together to celebrate our birthdays with a steak dinner. We’ve been doing this for so long now that we’ve both forgotten when we started.
Jim and I grew up in Columbia
“You’re becoming a real local celebrity,” Jim throws at me out of nowhere.
My immediate thought was, “Yeah, in my own mind anyway.”
Then I started to think about what he meant and what it means to be a loco celeb. It’s a simple formula really; the more you put yourself out there, the more people know who you are. The more people who know who you are the higher scale of your loco celeb stature.
For example, the high end of HoCo loco celeb hood is populated by guys like Ken Ulman and Allan Kittleman. Both receive a fair amount of exposure in all manner of media from the mainstream press to the social media networks. Still, at that level, I’ll bet they walk into some places in HoCo where people won’t have a clue who they are or why they should care. Loco celeb street cred is earned simply by the probability of recognition in HoCo places. The county exec and the state senator unquestionably have the highest probability of said recognition.
The next level of HoCo loco celeb status is held by people like Liz Bobo and Warren Miller. Though they are known countywide, their strongest probability of recognition lies within their respective districts.
At the low end of the scale perhaps you’ll find the likes of me and maybe somebody like Barbara Russell. Nobody knows who we are but a handful of our enemies and our facebook friends.
