Cheese

"There was a time in my life I was convinced I could get a job endorsing a product. I was about 15, I think, relatively young, and had enough gusto to think I could do anything. In retrospect I should have tried to promote gusto, that I could've sold, before gusto went out of style back in the late '50s.

I would sit and think for hours on something I could endorse—it was more important to me at the time that I find the right product to endorse rather than spend time thinking of how to break into the celebrity endorsement business. For instance, being a celebrity would have been a nice start.

I wasn't foolish enough to want to sell something too easy to sell nor something too hard. That's why I decided on cheese. Cheese is a mainstay, but some people, at least back in my day, just weren't convinced yet. To them cheese was sort of like mooning God and his naturally-occurring flavors. Of course, those people weren't likely to listen to a sinner like me, all adorned with buttons and shoelaces.

'More cheese for me!' I would say at the dinner table, sitting down with my parents, Stephanie, and Goose. 'Man, what would this meal be without cheese?' I'd ask. Goose would think for a few days and hurt himself trying to answer. 'Cheese is like giving your stomach a friendly headrub!' I'd say. Dad would dwell on that thought and throw up shortly afterwards.

This eventually stopped once I actually tasted cheese. I couldn't even keep a straight face, my smile turned into a grimace instantly. Just not a cheese person. I quickly decided, then and there, that I had to give up my dreams of celebrity endorsement and become a columnist for an Internet site. It was pretty daring at the time, the Internet basically 60 years from being in existence, but it was the easiest way to say whatever I wanted without having to mean it."

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