Dan Kamin

“I once told my mother a story about Charlie Chaplin. She repeated it with such vivid detail over the years that you would think she watched his films every day. I helped her learn more about him, but I never imagined that she had never actually seen any of his movies.

A few days ago, I sent her a photo of Chaplin and asked her who he was. She didn't recognize him. "This is an actor," I said. "Have you ever seen any of his films?"

"No," she said.

"Not even the last one? We were watching it together on TV."

"I don't remember that," she said. "I never watch TV with you."

I was stunned. How could someone know so much about a person without ever having seen their work? Am I this good at telling stories? I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.

"Not a single person in the world knows me except for you?" I imagined Chaplin asking me angrily. "Not even your own mother?"

"No," I would answer sadly. "Not even my mother."

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't believe it, everyone knows he was kind of a skeptic.”
― Dan Kamin, Charlie Chaplin's One-Man Show