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Celeb Endorsements

The Source

I’ve never understood celebrity endorsements. Whether it’s an ad for President or promo for Polident, I just don’t see why a person’s ability to hit a baseball or sing a song should entice me to buy whatever they’re touting. Okay, I’ve not met that many real celebrities, but from my puny experience at rubbing shoulders with the stars they don’t seem to be experts on anything except their own career. I was herding my students through the Los Angeles airport heading home from Australia when somebody shouted “There he is!” In Los Angeles, “he” could be anybody, but I turned to find Arnold HYPERLINK "http://gov.ca.gov/press-release/15551/" Schwarzenegger standing at a coffee kiosk. This was the Schwarzenegger that everyone liked, back in his post-Terminator pre-governor days. As my kids rushed over to get the strongman’s signature on their flight bags, I was struck by how short the guy is. Six foot tops. They must film him from a upward angle when he’s killing people. As my Triopia-Jacksonville congregation chatted up the actor I noticed that he didn’t seem especially intellectual. In fact, he mostly grunted and smiled. Maybe even Conan the Barbarian can have a bad day, but I certainly wouldn’t cast my vote or buy a car based on what the guy was telling us about himself. Airports seem to be the prime place for commoners like us to catch a glimpse of stars like them. I once sat and talked with Joe Garagiola in the St. Louis airport. He was past his baseball days and was then a regular on The Today Show. We talked about his St. Louis roots, his new TV career, and the quality of airport food. A genuinely nice guy, but if he told me to buy a Toyota I’d still take a test drive. I’ve used the restroom facilities beside Sugar Ray Leonard, William Warfield and Marlin Perkins (on different occasions) but none of them shared any political insights …it’s not a place where men do much chatting. I once shook President Obama’s hand and although I admire the man, I question his impartiality in picking the next senate candidate. Probably my longest time spent with a “star” was one night preparing to go onstage with my teen rock band. We were fronting for Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Let’s just say that old Sam was a star for as long as Woolly Bully carried him along, but that night he was into another galaxy. I was a farm boy from Perry so I wasn’t sure what “high” meant, but Sam was cruising out there somewhere beyond the Milky Way. He’d take a puff of his funny-smelling cigarette and marvel and how a Purple Martin could eat 2000 mosquitoes a day. I liked his music but I didn’t ask him about what brand of pop to drink. Probably the smartest celeb I’ve ever talked to is the actor Jonathan Pryce (Juan Peron in Evita, Governor Weatherby Swan in The Pirates of the Caribbean). He and his family sat right ahead of me on a London-New York flight and the guy was just delightful. I’d just seen him onstage the night before in Miss Saigon and he was flying to New York to make his Infinity auto commercials. Again, a sweet spirit but hardly someone I’d go to when choosing tennis shoes. Without doubt the most interesting big name I’ve “known” is Fred Rogers of Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. As I’ve recounted in this column, I was the bagpiper for MacMurray’s commencement when they asked Rogers to address the graduating seniors. Confronted with a crush of local media in the Mac library, the officials shoved Mr. Rogers into a long closet to escape the hoards of microphones and somehow I got pushed into the closet with Mr. Rogers. Yes, you read that correctly. I learned that Fred’s grandfather’s name was Fred McFeely, he learned to play piano at age five, had forty honorary degrees, and was an ordained Presbyterian minister. What impressed me most…and what most readily impresses me about anyone, rock star or rug rat, is that he was much more interested in asking about me than talking about himself. Mr. Rogers leads the pack of the famous shoulders I’ve rubbed but even Fred doesn’t have much influence on my vote or my checkbook. I just don’t see what someone else’s stardom has to do with my decisions. It’s not that I don’t value the opinions of others, but my “others” seem to have a more local origin. I’ve never met a politician, movie star, or athlete with the good sense of a retired doctor living in Jacksonville, the patriarch of a seed corn company in Arenzville, a little old saint who lives in the Soldiers Home in Quincy, and a 90-year-old father in Perry. It pays to shop local.