7 Days to Stardom

I know what Howard Stern felt like just before he went on stage dressed as Fartman. "All I'm trying to do is be funny, and I end up feeling like an asshole," Stern said in the 1997 movie "Private Parts." That's how I felt last week as I camped in the Arboretum and asked strangers for hugs.

Day 1 Challenged to make myself famous in one week, I started by scouring Facebook for photos of myself. When I asked a co-worker which photo I should use, she said, "You look like a tool in all of them." For the fliers that were supposed to make me famous, I settled for a picture of me wearing a Grateful Dead T-shirt and holding a can of refried beans. They read "Help this 'no talent ass-clown' become a celebrity in one week. Look for Michael Reschke to be doing ridiculous things around campus and Bloomington to gain celebrity status in seven days. Join the Facebook group: 'Indiana University's Most Famous Person.'" I printed more than a 100 fliers and went to work plastering my mug around campus. I put my face inside bathroom stalls, in bus shelters and on the doors of the main library. They were gone by the next morning. I was pissed because I spent so much time decorating the campus, but I smiled when I thought of the person who had to take down all those fliers.

Day 2 I spent about an hour stapling and taping my fliers to telephone poles and light posts before I turned myself into a walking billboard Monday, Sept. 3. I tied two poster boards together and wrote "No Talent Ass-Clown" on the front, and the back said something about Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I put this makeshift sandwich board on, grabbed more fliers and headed out with my personal paparazzi. I felt sick to my stomach at first, but once I got in the "no-talent-ass-clown" zone I was good. Most of the individuals I approached took a flier and told me they would join my Facebook group except when I went to People's Park. "Don't take my fucking picture," one guy said. He probably didn't have a Facebook account anyway. I headed to the Bluebird for karaoke later that night. I sang "You Shook me all night long" by AC/DC and tried to look like guitarist Angus Young. I wore a Kangol hat, a black tie and a white button-down shirt tucked into a pair of shorts I bought long before I gained my freshman 30. I can only imagine what people thought of me. Karaoke started later than I expected so I had plenty of time to drown the butterflies in my stomach. I left a stack of my fliers on a table while I went to the bathroom. When I came back someone had turned them facedown. I turned them over and a girl at a table next to mine asked me what I was doing. I explained and she ranted about me wasting paper. "I know," I said. "I'm going to environmentalist hell." I tried to get her to join my group, but she didn't appreciate my cause or my joke. My paparazzi took pictures of our discussion, and when she saw this, she made him delete the photos. I could tell my popularity was shooting through the roof. When it came time for my moment in the spotlight, I gave it all I had and pretended no one else was in the room. I stumbled over lines I didn't know and sung the ones I knew too loud. It was fun.

Day 3 The next day in class my instructor asked if anyone had any stories from the weekend. I told the class I was trying to make myself famous, but no one laughed. No one said anything. Tough crowd. I went to the Student Recreational Sports Center to work out that evening and as I was leaving an employee asked me, "Hey aren't you that guy … with the Facebook group?" I had officially become "that guy" by Tuesday. Later that night, I gathered an air mattress, two pillows, a sleeping bag and tent. I carried my stuff to the Arboretum (the grassy area west of the Herman B Wells Library) and set up camp. People walked past, not even paying attention. It took a while for me to fall asleep that night. I had weird dreams when I finally fell asleep. The sprinklers woke me up around 6 a.m.

Day 4 Around 7 a.m., I ran to the library to pee and grab a newspaper. I heard a girl say, "Oh my God, there's a tent right there," just as I laid back down to sleep until about 8:45 a.m. I woke up during Arboretum rush hour, put on my sandwich board and handed out more fliers. I had to come up with a new stunt for the next day. I decided to make a YouTube video similar to the Dave Matthews Band video for "Everyday," in which a guy walks around asking strangers for hugs.

Day 5 I e-mailed administrators to schedule hugs, but Chancellor Ken Gros Louis was the only one who agreed to hug me. For my video, he pretended to give me the advice I needed to get hugs from people. Thank you, chancellor. Later that night, I was eating a stromboli with a friend at Nick's when someone I'd hugged while filming my video came over and asked me for a hug. He and a friend came over to talk about what I was doing. I finally had some fans. My friend and I walked to Upstairs Pub after Nick's. A stranger stopped to ask if I was the guy on the fliers. He said he was a building manager at the Indiana Memorial Union, and after I explained what I was doing, he said I could put my fliers all over the Union. Where was this guy when my fliers were taken down Sunday night?

Days 6 and 7 I spent some time at Upstairs by myself Friday night. It felt good to blend into a crowd instead of fighting to be the center of attention. I go to a school with more than 30,000 students and I only got 292 people to join my Facebook group by the end of the week. I guess passing out fliers, camping in weird places and making a music video won't make you famous. Maybe I should have married a backup dancer, shaved my head and fed my child Coca-Cola in a baby bottle.