Category: TV

A few crazy “blast from the past” tidbits that I stumbled upon recently:

1) I was a die hard fan of “The Office” on BBC, and as such started watching NBC’s version as soon as it premiered. As skeptical as I was, I grew to love the US version as much as the original. My favorite character? Jim (played by John Krasinski), who is simply hilarious. So, how shocked was I the other day when I found out that I knew him when I was a kid???

Really, I knew his brother Paul, who I played basketball with growing up. (Paul later played hoops for Brown.) It wasn’t, however, until I read that John went to Newton South High School (where I attended Freshman year) that I even came close to making the connection.

2) So, on that same Newton South tip, my Wikipedia research brought up another somewhat famous South Alum — Hollywood director Eli Roth. Growing up, Roth was the bully-ish older brother of my classmate Gabe. I always thought he was a pompous jerk, but that hasn’t stopped him (probably helped, actually) from writing and directing the 2005 horror hit Hostel.

The one tidbit about Roth that I remember was that he and his friends claimed to have handed out vodka at the Boston Marathon. I say “claimed” because I can’t confirm that this story is true, having not been there, but these were a bunch of punk kids, so it is certainly possible. What a dick move!

Speaking of Roth and his friends, the were also responsible for starting the now infamous Newton South “scavenger hunt” in 1990 (my freshman year, btw). As stated on Wikipedia, the school “gained notoriety in 2002 for its “Senior Scavenger Hunt”, a student-organized contest that featured theft, vandalism, and various sexual acts committed by the graduating seniors in exchange for points.” (Of course, thanks to the Smoking Gun you can read the list.)

Roth has written a movie based on this experience that is currently in production.

3) Lastly, a quick shout to Jessica Chaffin, sister of my buddy Johnny.

Perhaps I should take back my statement that “I should be famous.” Instead, if you were the sibling of a friend of mine growing up — you should be famous!