There have been a few instances this past month where I’m reminded of people who have “Made It”.  Regardless of whether you like that artist or athlete or actor, the fact remains that if you say “Bend it like…”, you know that person is talking about David Beckham.  If someone says “Yo, Adrian” in a stroke-addled tone, you know it’s a reference to Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Rocky’ character.

The first instance of this that triggered me to write this post happened a few weeks ago.  I saw a rinkside banner ad while watching a hockey game on TV that was at the RBC Center (where the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes play).  It simply said “Manilow. January 20^th.”  First, you don’t see a lot of rinkside ads that are time sensitive.  Most last for a majority of the season.  Second, you don’t even need the guy’s first name.  Even if he’s the butt of jokes for many music fans, the bottom line is the dude has Made It.

It reminds me of an ad for a famous lawyer in Peoria, IL back when I was at Bradley.  Jay Janssen has his own law firm down there and his TV tagline at the end of each commercial was “Janssen. One name says it all.”  Well, maybe for a 30 mile radius, the name “Janssen” means “rich lawyer in the middle of podunk Illinois” but outside that circle, the last name Janssen could mean anyone else.  Famke Janssen is a heckuva lot more famous than Jay.  Jay was never a Bond girl who could crush men to their deaths between her thighs.  The thought of dying between a 60 year old midwestern Swedish man's bony legs is about as unappealing a thought as there can be.  But you can’t put “Janssen. January 20^th” on a billboard without people wondering who it is.  Barry Manilow has no such problem.

The other occurrence where it hit me that “Man, this guy has Made It” was when I was making a quick late night run to the local grocery store.  This was the time where you can see boxes that are in the middle of being unpacked sometimes strewn about the store since the foot traffic isn’t that high.  In this one grocery cart were several opened up boxes that said “Grisham” on the outside.  Nothing else.  Just "Grisham”.  Again, it doesn’t matter whether you like John Grisham’s writing or not but the fact remains that when there are boxes of your books appearing in grocery stores with just your last name on the outside of the box, you have Made It.

We can leave the "Well, you have to sell your soul in order to have Made It by these standards" conversation for another day.