This toy soldier's final tour of duty is ushering in the end times.

All good things must come to an end. And other things end, too - like this job. I had made a promise to myself that I would no longer be a toy soldier by the time I turned 25, and my July birthday looms. Farewell, FAO. I will miss my employee discount.

My front-page appearance in The Wall Street Journal is ushering in the end times.

Some of you may be aware of my recent publicity coup. If not, you need to adjust your radar. My moving and shaking should be noted in everyone's buzzworthy list.

Here it is, ladies and gentlemen, the front page of The Wall Street Journal from Friday the 15th, December 2006:


That's right. Your favorite toy soldier has managed to catapult, in a remarkably short amount of time, to the very front of America's most trusted business daily. I'm included in the above-headline teaser, sandwiched between a piece about NASD CEO Mary Schapiro and a feature on the new "jetrosexual" trend (i.e., cheap custom-tailoring from Asia). Needless to say I'm the biggest draw. Mary Schapirwho? And jetrosexual? No one reads about fashion from the WSJ. The millions of sleepy commuters, mid-level managers, and alcoholic business executives come to its off-white pages to steal a glimpse of a handsome young man outfitted in the brilliant red, black, and gold of the FAO toy soldier. Did anyone need their $17 cup of coffee to wake-up that glorious morning?

In addition, an even larger picture ran alongside the story in the Marketplace section:


Oh my. The whole situation is more than slightly ridiculous. I am after all in a toy soldier outfit, lest you forget. My debut into the stratosphere of national print media required me looking like the silliest little soul in five boroughs. (Strike that. Yesterday I passed a woman dressed as a toilet dancing outside of Charmin's public restrooms in Time Square. I'd sure like to read her blog.) And yet I appear so completely overjoyed to be working at FAO and having my picture taken. Clearly there is no place I'd rather be and nothing else I'd rather be wearing. But I couldn't even get a name credit in the caption, even though the photographer wrote it down on his ruled pad of paper along with how long I had been working at the store (2 months) and what my position was actually called (toy soldier).

Read it again, and you'll discover just who is named: Ed Schumlts, FAO Schwarz CEO (understandable since the piece is about him), and Otto, stuffed monkey. What? Do you see what's happening? The damn monkey is trying to muscle in on my big moment! Not satisfied with tattooing his name on his plush, squeezable foot, Otto wrangled the inclusion of his own, separate picture into the story and an actual boldface credit in the caption. What a publicity whore!

Next thing we know, Otto will be flashing his junk to the paparazzi as he drunkenly steps out of a zippy little Beemer driven by Wilmer Valderrama.

So I must be vigilant and watchful. The cheap, white cotton gloves are coming off. I will fight for the publicity that is rightfully mine. No longer will I simply be known as "toy soldier"! No longer will I be relegated to a two-second video clip playing as part of a background loop during an FAO piece on CNBC! No longer will the picture I pose for with American Idol judge Randy Jackson and family never run in the NY Post like the photographer said it would! And, most importantly, no longer will Otto undermine my ascent to the top! Brace yourself, readers. Tonight the downy-soft stuffing of one hundred Ottos will cover the floor of FAO's flagship store, and one hundred Otto-emblazoned feet will rest on the keys of that famous piano, never again to dance to upbeat renditions of "Chopsticks" and "Heart and Soul." Tonight, Otto, you have become Public Enemy #1!

PUBLIC ENEMY #1

(And so what if this post is focused overtly on myself, exactly what I promised you last time it wouldn't be. If you want to read a blog that's not in some manner about me, write your own, and I won't read that. Oh, by the way, I was never a Girl Scout. Ha!)

Readers' comments are ushering in the end times.

Dear readers,

You are glorious, often lithesome, and most definitely, when a conscious effort is made, cut an imposing figure. Thank you so much for your contribution thus far. Of course it's all worthless - a sad, shrugging-of-shoulders acceptance of the inevitable. An avoidance of the real question at hand. What can be done to maintain the tenuous harmony of the earth? Will it help if I choose paper instead of plastic? Should I save the seal pups or club them to death? Must I fashionably convert to something fashionable or remain refreshingly true to my down-home roots? Regarding this dilemma, for advice apt and true, still I wait.

To address the misguided but treasured comments deposited here after my last post:

Ashley,
I haven’t reenacted anything from Big. I have danced in the hip-hop style to current radio hits while working a lavish in-store bar mitzvah…outfitted in my toy soldier uniform. So, sadly, there is far too much video of me “dropping it like it’s hot” when it was actually very, very hot inside the woolen costume and furry “bearskin cap.” Without a doubt this will resurface to bite me in the ass, perhaps as early as later on today.

Paula,
Your commitment to my immortalization is endearing. However, it doesn’t compare to the brick by brick, floorboard by floorboard reproduction of the auditorium at Dalhart Junior High School undertaken by my mother to commemorate my stint as MC for a very special 8th grade voice recital, during which I sang Streisand’s “People” and “Memory” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s much-loved, much-maligned Cats.

Michael,
Please don’t leave any comments on my blog regarding panty-shots. They may shrug at your vulgarity down in Tennessee, but here in NYC we still care a thing or two about genteelness and decency.

Adam,
A very sagacious warning addressing overexposure, albeit a belated one. If only I could have received these words two years ago. That said, the swimsuit issue of Focus on the Family magazine is my favorite. Where else can you find Joyce Meyers, Anne Graham Lotz, and Rick Warren grace the glossy pages in tasteful, Christian-appropriate bathing suits that are not only comfortable and flattering but also do not lead to covetousness because the line and cut of the garment encourage the glorification of the Heavenly Father? Also, a reliable highlight in this annual issue is the unveiling of Ted Haggard’s always-enjoyable line of swimwear and intimate apparel for men.

And remember, a d.a.vid a day keeps the doctor at bay. (If that’s true, then I guess it’s up to me to provide a d.a.vid a day. Is it too early in my career to justify the services of a ghostwriter?)

My newfound celebrity is ushering in the end times.

In my position as a uniformed toy soldier. . . . . .


I really don't even need to finish that sentence. The impact has already been sufficiently felt by the reader. Like a sharp gust of wind against the face or the quick belch which hits the unsuspecting ear with the force of a percussive rimshot. Hell, I give an involuntary reaction to that introductory phrase, and I received warning about it a month ago.

The other day I was standing guard at the 58th Street entrance – waiving to passing cars, saluting contractors in their work vans and chauffeurs in black Lincoln Town Cars, dispensing goodwill in general – when a man and his family drove by in their SUV. The light turned red, so traffic stopped. He rolled down his window. I saluted, smiled, waived. He yelled, "You need to finish college!" I yelled back, "I have a master's degree!" "Then you're a goddamn fool!" And with that, our uplifting dialogue came to an end.

There are some things one doesn't set out to accomplish: memorizing every lyric to The Bodyguard soundtrack, watching VH1's marathon showing of an entire season of America's Next Top Model, buying a John Tesh album. I'm sure being employed as a "character" at any number of theme parks/tourist attractions must be included in this list. Does anyone aspire to don the cumbersome trappings of Donald Duck and wander around the sprawl of Disneyworld, suffering the whims, fetishes, and tantrums of young and old? Although I'd prefer not to stand outside of FAO Schwarz five or six days a week dressed like an English bobby - being told for the 500th time, "Hey! You're not supposed to move!" and responding for the 500th time, "Bitch, you don't know me! Where d'ya get off judging me!" - it's a necessary irritant. I mean, a job is a job, right? Whether you're a CEO or a plain ol' ho. And while I did not move to New York to be a subservient, though widely celebrated, doorman, the pay isn't awful, the hours are flexible, and the customers are for the most part great.

It's all a matter of choosing the tomorrow over today. I mean, I'm always willing to endure the temporary hassle of post-surgery bandages if I'm promised a stunning new nose or set of cheekbones. Good things come to those who wait. Or sometimes they don't, and you just have sadness.

But an amusing aspect of this job and the supposed subject of this post is my status as one of the most photographed people in New York City. Honest. I am something of a minor celebrity, albeit a nameless figure isolated from any individual identity apart from my association with said employer. But nevertheless, a type of celebrity - an unlikely species in the celebrity genus. I appear in memory cards and photo albums across Europe, Asia, Australia, Central and Latin America, and the contiguous United States. Do people actually compile photo albums in the Year of Our Lord Two-Thousand and Six? On average I will have my picture taken 50 to 100 times a day. If it's busy, closer to 200. And we haven't even entered into the holiday season. I hold babies, hug wives (and probably mistresses), pose with countless Flat Stanleys. I salute (right- and left-handed), smile, stiffen, look very stern. I stand next to the genuinely excited, the mocking, the ironic, the unwilling, the crying. Soon I will start popping up in strangers' Christmas cards. A co-worker informed me that I could also make unwished-for showings on the internet with other people's naughty bits superimposed. But this individual is a something of a self-hating drama queen and cannot be relied upon too heavily.

Regardless, here I am being paid to give the appearance of history, to hijack another country’s tradition for profit. But the tourists love it. They, who have actual soldiers guarding actual monarchy in actual castles, will wait their turn to have they’re picture taken with me – a fake soldier in America’s castle, the department store, guarding nothing. In it’s extreme, Europe has Paris; America has Paris Las Vegas with a half scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. But to be fair, we bastardize our own history and landmarks just as frequently (New York-New York Hotel and Casino; the instant nostalgia of any “neighborhood” Applebee’s). It’s this exciting combination of self-consciousness over our own relatively short history and collective greed that has created my current job. So, if being greedy is the American way, at least my enlistment in, what a friend has coined, the Sugar Queen's standing army allows me to be cheerful about the whole mess.

Plus, I get to hear all day long how good I look in uniform.