In Cognito

Have you ever seen Tom Cruise slying around town, trying not to be recognized? Well, if you live in one of the piss-poor excuses for a town that aren't Los Angeles or New York City, it's not likely you have. But if you do live in the regular world I do, you probably have. The sunglasses, the hat—it's all a disguise. There's a very attractive celebrity under that stuff!

Because celebrities are often actors or performers in some way, they have an innate ability to disguise themselves. You can't teach that kind of stuff, and it's good we already know it because no one does teach it. Celebrities know that putting on a hat shields the hair area and the forehead from being recognized—and the sunglasses? They expertly hide the eye area, which is important place to be seen so a celebrity can be recognized for their famous features. If you ever see a celebrity in a movie—and you probably will—wearing glasses or something, you'll notice they'll always take them off so the audience can say, "Hey! It's (so and so)!"

The reason for this is that normal non-celebrity people cannot see a celebrity in real life without storming them like a rampaging rhino. That's dangerous enough, and if there's more than one it can cause a riot. How would you like to be standing there, famous and all, and all of a sudden be swarmed by a couple hundred ravenous fans? Well, it's not gonna happen to you. But for celebrities, it sure sucks. That's why they wear the stuff they do.

For you novices out there, I'll give you some quick tips for going "in cognito," as we celebrities call it: The hair and eye areas need to be disguised. I've seen some celebrities disguise themselves with facial hair, and if you're as famous as J-Lo it's a good idea. But really it's a mistake to spend a lot of time and risk doing yourself permanent facial damage just to cover your chin and nasal ridge. Unless you're really famous for your chin, like Jay Leno or Popeye, it's not going to make a difference. Hair and eye areas. I repeat: Hair and eye areas.

I remember one time, this should tell you how fantastic an in-cognito artist I am: I was being followed into a grocery store once by a lunatic fan/bill collector. There's not a hat in the store, and all the sunglasses are sold out. Anybody else would've panicked and signed the autographs/summons papers. Not Clarissa Coleman. I made a quick disguise out of a box of Kellogg's Cornflakes and some Fruit Rollups—I literally had to eat the eyeholes out of my "glasses," and I was picking cornflakes out of my hair for hours. But I sure as hell got out of that store without signing anything. An expert? If I can say so modestly, fuck yeah.

If you're wondering what all this has to do with anything, it should be obvious by now: Since I'm no longer going to be using these skills on a regular basis as a big-time celebrity (having walked away, by choice, from the spotlight) I decided I would pass these skills onto tomorrow's generation of stars. For a price, of course, I'm not some good-hearted Gandhi giving it away for free.

The classes will be $30 a day, or $60 per hour. This is all based on how much money I think you'll spend on it. And don't go asking for acting lessons, because I've been ordered by a judge not to teach any more acting classes for money—apparently it constitutes fraud in this state. So all you get is the disguise lessons. It's just like the old expression goes—if you're going to act the part, dress the part first.

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