Turns Out I’m in a Movie Called “Slutty Summer”

That's me on the bench.

Have you ever Googled your own name? You can sometimes find interesting things about yourself. When I searched my own name online this month, for example, I discovered that I’ve appeared in a movie enticingly titled Slutty Summer.

About three pages into my search, I found it: a link to my name in an actor’s profile on IMDB, the International Movie Data Base.

Huh, that’s weird there’s an actor with my name, spelled exactly like mine, yet I’ve never heard of him, I thought.

I clicked on the link and entered the page. The actor profile had no photos and almost no information, except that this actor had appeared in only one movie: Slutty Summer, a low-budget, independent gay romantic comedy released in 2004.

Suddenly, it started coming back to me. It really was me in that movie!

In the early 21^st century, I was living in Chelsea, which at the time was New York City’s gayest neighborhood. When you live in New York City, it’s not uncommon to see creative people ambling about with cameras of all kinds, working on projects that may not ever see the light of day. One day, as I was exiting a shop on Eighth Avenue, a guy toting a fairly large video camera approached me and said he and his friends were working on a gay romance movie about a guy who was frantically looking for his date, and they needed an extra to sit on a bench.

I think he even said the actor would be disappointed when he looked at me because I wasn’t who he was searching for.

Would I be willing to sit there, look like the wrong guy and sign a release?

Well, it wasn’t the first time I’d said yes to appearing on other people’s creative productions, so I did it. I signed the form and took my place on a bench as the handsome young actor walked past me, casting me a quick look of disappointment.

It wasn’t the first time that that has happened to me, either.

At any rate, I forgot about the movie after that, figuring it may never be made. And I certainly had no idea that the title would be provocative enough to sound like gay porn.

I clicked on the video link and was delighted to see myself in the trailer — although I wished I had dressed a bit better.

The moral of the story, I guess, is that if you’re going to agree to appear in someone else’s movie, be sure to find out if it’s actually released. Maybe ask what the title is, too.

Since I’m getting ready for the release of my memoir this year, my sister says it would be fun to mention my fleeting role in my author bio. It certainly could grab some attention to say that I was in a scandalously titled movie, long before I ever started my memoir, Prepare for Departure: A Travel Writer’s Notes about Life, Death and Frequent Flyer Miles.

Maybe I should have mentioned the movie in my memoir, too. But considering that my book is about life with my mother, how I dealt with her illness and death and how she encouraged me to be a travel addict and travel writer, I’m not so sure if Slutty Summer ties in so easily. That may have to wait for the next tome.