What happens if what you're good at is something you don't want to do?

My friend Mick -- my closest friend of going on 45 years now -- expressed two career goals when we were growing up together in Virginia. He wanted to play center field for the Yankees and barring that, he wanted to be the world's first pregnant man.

Two lofty goals.

Mick wasn't quite as iconoclastic as John Cusack's Lloyd Dobler character in "Say Anything:"

<em>"I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that."</em>

[caption id="attachment_232" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Wizard of Mick?"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/lollipop.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-232" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/lollipop-300x240.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="240" /></a>[/caption]

He didn't want to work in an office, though, and he absolutely did not want to be a teacher. More than once when we were younger, I heard him express the classic line that "those who can't do, teach."

I usually added the Woody Allen line, "And those who can't teach, teach gym."

Well, when Mick was in his mid twenties, he loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. The only problem was that he hadn't found any bubblin' crude to finance the trip.

After sporadic successes trying to become the next Robert Towne or William Goldman, Mick wound up teaching screenwriting at two Southern California community colleges.

By all accounts, he's a great teacher -- on the Mr. Chips level. His students adore him and his classes are usually oversubscribed. On the rate-your-professor sites, he gets almost unanimous praise. He's even someone of a fatherly sex symbol to the