Monday, October 11, 2010

One Day to "Private Chefs" Premiere...And the Misquoting Begins

I'm starting to notice that there are certain ways to know you're becoming a "someone."

The first time I was recognized for being on "Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," JMT and I were at a screening of Get Him to the Greek (lordy that movie was unfunny) when a woman walked up to our row. I assumed she just wanted to squeeze past so we moved aside to let her through but instead she just stood there, grinning at me, and announced, "I'm a huge fan."

"Of what?" I asked, genuinely dumbfounded.

"Of you," she replied eagerly.

"Why?" I said, a little shocked.

"Because of the show."

"What show?" I was stuck on stupid.

"Private Chefs of Beverly Hills," she ventured, looking at me warily, like I was playing some sort of game with her.

"Ohhh! Oh! Right! Thank you so much!"

I tried to recover, but she'd already seen how blank I'd been. I was just so shocked, I didn't know how to respond. In my mind, the show is basically high quality home videos and I still can't believe anyone sees them.

But now I'm starting to realize there's bigger picture that I haven't grasped.

Besides getting recognized at the gym or grocery story or at a screening, here are the ways to know you're star is rising:

People who were awful to you in high school send you friend requests on Facebook, you get walked into special seats to events and people start misquoting you.

Last season there was an unfortunate incident with a writer who threw out all kinds of misquotes and falsehoods about me in the hopes of creating a really salacious story. It was hurtful and awful and totally shocking, especially as a fellow writer. Where was this person's journalistic integrity?!?!

Having someone twist your words is violating and upsetting. I've always seen having the chance to interview people and write stories about them as the opportunity to make their audience fall even more in love by given fans a bit of insight into someone celestial and slightly garrisoned.

Anyway, getting off my high horse and not to say that I'm in anyway celestial beyond my choice of tea seasonings, I had another moment where I discovered I'd been totally misquoted, my words twisted to create something much more "newsworthy" even if totally false.

But this time, instead of getting upset, I took it as a badge of honor.

You're not "someone" until the media corrupts your words. Especially when it's Grubstreet (that's big time, yo!).

They pulled a quote I gave to Monsters and Critics and wrote it up as: Private Chefs of Beverly Hills star Sasha Perl-Raver, on her tastes, which she proudly describes as "crapulent."

When in fact, what they were pulling from went exactly like this:

Monsters & Critics: Chefs often secretly eat pedestrian crap on the DL, they just don’t tell anyone their guilty pleasures. What is your secret craptastic food craving, sweet, savory and in-between?

Sasha Perl-Raver: I’m totally proud of my crapulent taste!

Now I'm not exactly thrilled that Grubstreet has me calling anything about myself crapulent, but it's GRUBSTREET! I read them all the time. It's kind of thrilling to know I'm on their radar, even if I'm being ribbed. And, hey, at least they billed me as the "star" of something.

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