Something like a decade ago, I discovered imdb.com and RottenTomatoes.com. They have subsequently become a pair of my favorite websites. I must surf to each of these sites 50-100 times per week. One of the key features of both sites is the report on the box office results for each and every week. As has been said so many millions of times, Hollywood movies are big business, and the absolute bottom line is the profit and loss statement. A hit is a movie which produces a 15% rate of internal profit within 12 calendar months of its release. The definition of hit has nothing to do with whether a movie was good, well liked by critics, or awarded by the Academy. It is a 15% pure profit for the studio that made the film.With this in mind, a fellow named Paul Dergarabedian is one of the most frequently consulted experts regarding who is winning and who is losing at the box office. He is the keeper of the public score board. He publishes the results we look for when we want to know who is up and who is down.
What does this have to do with me? I think the two of us played football together at Bullard High School in Fresno California. I think he was part of my class of 1984 at Bullard. He played Wide Receiver, and his brother Matt was the center lined up opposite me in practice. I was the nose tackle in a stupid 5-2 scheme. {Our coaches were idiots.} Matt and Paul were fraternal, not identical, twins. They were very different. Matt was short, barrel chested and strong. Paul was short, slight of build, and extremely quick. Hence one was our center and the other was our Wes Welker slot receiver. It was always hard to believe that they grew in the same womb together.
I think Paul's father, Mr. Dergarabedian, was my High School Economics teacher. I was one of Mr. Dergarabedian's favorites. I was one of the few kids who really got economics and found the subject fascinating. Paul's sister Lori was arguably the prettiest girls in the school. I think she was a year younger, or year older than us, I can't remember which. I don't think she was a member of our specific class. Rumor had it that nobody pursued Lori for a year or two because she was just too damn intimidating. Beauty is adaptive, but only up to a point. If you are too beautiful, guys won't go after you because they think you are out of their league.
There is a movie coming up on that very subject soon...
The problem is that I can't seem to confirm or refute my suspicions. I looked up Paul's biography, but it is very sketchy, mostly focusing on his training at USC and his professional experience. There is nothing about his youth, his hometown, or his extended family.
The Paul in the picture above does not much resemble the Paul I knew at ages 15, 16, 17, and 18, but we all change quite a bit with age. The Paul in the picture above does resemble my economics teacher to some degree. Both Matt & his father were barrel chested big guys with large round faces. The Paul in the picture above has a thinner, more angular face than his dad and his brother. This would be logical given the fact that Paul was the skinny slot receiver in the family. If you thinned Mr. Dergarabedian's face down a bit, the Paul in the picture above would look like him.
As I once mentioned in another post, I never kept up with the comings and goings and doings of my High School Class members. However, it would be nice to catch up with Paul--if this is the Paul I knew--due to the fact that I knew his entire family, we played football together, and he made one hell of an interesting career for himself.
Shout out to Paul: If this thumb nail sketch matches your bio, and you are the Paul I played football with, drop me a note. We'll catch up.