David Pellicane, the writer of the essay "My Eleven Minutes of Fame on the Open Mike," worked as a high school English teacher at an American-style school in Damascus, Syria. For most of his life, he had also been an amateur musician in his free time - amateur in every sense of the word. He couldn't play guitar exceptionally well, he had only written a few original songs, and his audience had only ever consisted …showed first 75 words of 759 total…

…showed last 75 words of 759 total…laughed at his jokes, and finally found his musical niche. Although he only took up eleven of his fifteen minutes, he had "sung one of his own songs to a real audience in a town that had a music scene." While his turn on the open mike wasn't quite what he had expected, David had finally performed in front of spectators, and could now cross that off of his life's list of things to do.