Thursday, June 15, 2006
Blast From the Past
Earlier this morning, a friend of mine from Milwaukee sent me an email, with a link to an article about a former child star, whose life hasn't exactly turned out as he had planned. He's made some big mistakes, but unlike some other actors out there, he's at least taking an ingenious and (assuming he isn't breaking copyright laws) a legal approach to fixing his problems.
The article was in Milwaukee's newspaper, which I believe you have to subscribe to, if you want to read it, so I'll just summarize: 29-year-old Dustin Diamond, also known as that annoying goofball Screech from NBC's Saved By the Bell, is going to lose his house soon, if he can't find a way to pay for all of it at once--to the tune of $250,000. He doesn't have a regular mortgage loan. He has some arrangement called a land contract, which is an agreement between the landowner and buyer. The buyer makes a hefty payment and then smaller, regular payments afterwards until the house is paid for. But something went wrong, financially speaking, and Diamond's house is currently in the foreclosure process.
So Diamond, still an actor, came up with a Hail Mary pass, though, that might save him. It's something very entrepreneurial, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise, given that many performers become entrepreneurs, and a lot of entrepreneurs have actor-like qualities. Diamond has set up a web site, telling of his plight and from which he's selling T-shirts for $15 each, hoping in the next few weeks to earn $250,000. The shirt shows his picture, and the back of the shirt reads, "I paid $15 to save Screech's House." Only it doesn't quite say that. Because he's nervous about infringing on a copyrighted character, it actually read, "I paid $15 to Save Screeech's House." Note the extra "e."
For me, it was kind of a jolt to read the article. I don't know the guy personally, but I did talk to him once, over the telephone. A million years ago, when I was at my second magazine job, as an associate editor for a teen entertainment magazine, I interviewed Dustin Diamond on the telephone. It was my first celebrity interview ever, and I was excited, although my editor tempered my enthusiasm by telling me that he was giving me the assignment, because if I screwed this up, it really didn't matter. "And, hey, when you interview him, ask him about all of his co-stars. That's really what we want this interview for." Poor Screech, and as a consequence, Dustin Diamond. He never got much respect.
But no matter how desperate his situation, and how self-inflicted his problems are--he could only do the land contract because his credit has been reeking ever since a bankruptcy a few years ago, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel--I have to respect what he's doing. He's taking a crisis, and he's trying to resolve it by using all of his resources available--a little fame, some marketing skills and a lot of humility. Isn't that the American way?
His web site is www.getdshirts.com, for anyone who is interested in checking it out, though I'd check it out soon, since it sounds like he has a matter of weeks left. He won't get my $15--we freelance writers aren't exactly rolling in money, and as a parent of two, I think my priorities should be with diapers or food or something else right now. And while I'm not sure how many people out there are really clamoring for a Dustin Diamond T-shirt, I wish the man well. And maybe this marketing gimmick will even help his career, inspiring a casting agent to hire him in a cameo part, or somehow causing another Saved By the Bell reunion movie to be filmed. But if he ever decides to finally depart the stage, I have a feeling he may just do okay working for some publicity firm.
The article was in Milwaukee's newspaper, which I believe you have to subscribe to, if you want to read it, so I'll just summarize: 29-year-old Dustin Diamond, also known as that annoying goofball Screech from NBC's Saved By the Bell, is going to lose his house soon, if he can't find a way to pay for all of it at once--to the tune of $250,000. He doesn't have a regular mortgage loan. He has some arrangement called a land contract, which is an agreement between the landowner and buyer. The buyer makes a hefty payment and then smaller, regular payments afterwards until the house is paid for. But something went wrong, financially speaking, and Diamond's house is currently in the foreclosure process.
So Diamond, still an actor, came up with a Hail Mary pass, though, that might save him. It's something very entrepreneurial, which I suppose shouldn't be a surprise, given that many performers become entrepreneurs, and a lot of entrepreneurs have actor-like qualities. Diamond has set up a web site, telling of his plight and from which he's selling T-shirts for $15 each, hoping in the next few weeks to earn $250,000. The shirt shows his picture, and the back of the shirt reads, "I paid $15 to save Screech's House." Only it doesn't quite say that. Because he's nervous about infringing on a copyrighted character, it actually read, "I paid $15 to Save Screeech's House." Note the extra "e."
For me, it was kind of a jolt to read the article. I don't know the guy personally, but I did talk to him once, over the telephone. A million years ago, when I was at my second magazine job, as an associate editor for a teen entertainment magazine, I interviewed Dustin Diamond on the telephone. It was my first celebrity interview ever, and I was excited, although my editor tempered my enthusiasm by telling me that he was giving me the assignment, because if I screwed this up, it really didn't matter. "And, hey, when you interview him, ask him about all of his co-stars. That's really what we want this interview for." Poor Screech, and as a consequence, Dustin Diamond. He never got much respect.
But no matter how desperate his situation, and how self-inflicted his problems are--he could only do the land contract because his credit has been reeking ever since a bankruptcy a few years ago, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel--I have to respect what he's doing. He's taking a crisis, and he's trying to resolve it by using all of his resources available--a little fame, some marketing skills and a lot of humility. Isn't that the American way?
His web site is www.getdshirts.com, for anyone who is interested in checking it out, though I'd check it out soon, since it sounds like he has a matter of weeks left. He won't get my $15--we freelance writers aren't exactly rolling in money, and as a parent of two, I think my priorities should be with diapers or food or something else right now. And while I'm not sure how many people out there are really clamoring for a Dustin Diamond T-shirt, I wish the man well. And maybe this marketing gimmick will even help his career, inspiring a casting agent to hire him in a cameo part, or somehow causing another Saved By the Bell reunion movie to be filmed. But if he ever decides to finally depart the stage, I have a feeling he may just do okay working for some publicity firm.
# posted by Geoff Williams : 10:20 PM
