Who the Heck is Jonathan Benya, Anyways?

I was recently tagged to write a personal bio, also known as a MeMe, on Activerain.com, and I thought it would be nice to post the MeMe here as well.  If you’re not interested in hearing how I came to be a Realtor, this would be a good post to pass on.  If you’d like to hear an interesting, anecdotal tale, then read on!

The World According to MeMe

OOH BOY, Have I been putting this one off!  Up until recently, I had NO IDEA
what a MeMe was!  It was all some strange foreign lingo to me, just
another part of the complicated activerain blogosphere that I didn’t
comprehend.  I chose to ignore MeMe’s, judging that there is a finite
amount of information that I can take in, and the whole concept of
blogging has been a phenomenal challenge thus far;  I didn’t NEED to know, right?

Well, Rick Tourgee has proven me wrong!  Now that:

1: I know what a MeMe is; and

2: I’ve officially been MeMe’d,

it’s time to sit down and write one! So sit down, grab a “cup of joe”, and I’ll do my best to muddle through this!
To start, I’m 27 years old (as of March 23rd), and I’ve been a licensed
Realtor for just over a year.  My mother has been a Realtor for over a
decade, and I worked off and on as her assistant for quite some time,
until I decided to strike out on my own.  Not terribly interesting in
and of itself, but the path that led me here has been a wild one!
What you probably don’t know about me is that I started working at age
5!?!  Jackie Cougan laws aside, I was a child actor.  You name it, I
did it.  3 years at Ford’s Theatre (where Honest Abe bit the bullet, so to speak) playing Tiny Tim, A stint as the national face ofKix Cereal, The voice of ToysRUs.com,
Movie roles playing alongside people like Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy
were just another day at the office to me, and I wasn’t even 12 years
old!

I played Johnny Depp’s nephew in Cry-Baby(little kid in the leather jacket, that’s what everyone seems to remember), Albert Brook’s son in Broadcast News, rubbed shoulders with John Lithgow in The Pelican Brief,
and, in short, worked on too many films to count!  By the time I hit
high school, I had already built a lifetime of experiences in the
entertainment industry, spending more time with private tutors than I
did in a real classroom.

The kicker to it all was that I
didn’t watch much TV, especially when it came to my own films, and for
some reason I woke up one morning and realized that I wanted a normal
childhood.  I walked away from the business, and proceeded to live a
normal life, public high school, school sports, drama club, straight
A’s, yadda yadda yadda.  It was during high school that I assisted my
mother in her real estate business, and little did I know that all
roads lead to Rome, so to speak.
I took a scholarship to study design and technology, and the next thing
I knew I was working on building audio rigs for Broadway shows and Rock
Concerts.  Ever hear of a roadie?  That was sort of what I did, I was a
well educated, nerdy roadie!  I worked on everything from small beer
garden stages to big tours for people like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Presidential Inaugurations, Broadway shows like Spamalot, The Lion King, Fosse, you name it!
I did this while I was still trying to get my degree, and within a
month of my college graduation everything changed!  I was involved in
an industrial accident at work, had my fingers broken in 23 places, had
my head split open, and I ended up with reconstructive surgery on both
of my hands and a few new pieces of shiny metal inserted to help put me
back together.

I took it as a sign,
more than anything else.  I couldn’t be too angry about it, the
accident should have killed me, and I was still breathing!  Being
incapacitated(months of not being able to use my hands AT ALL, followed
by lots of rehab) gave me a very good reason to consider a new
profession.  I knew real estate having helped my mother years ago, and
I had a great background in being a “personality”, so it seemed like a
good fit!

It was one of the best things I could have ever
done!  The market is tough, and I love the challenge!  It’s great that
I get to be closer to home, and because I work with family I actually
get to see them once in awhile!

AAAANNDD…. SCENE!
I think that’s the best cliff notes version of a MeMe,  the next step
is to identify the next target, correct?   I’m targeting Melissa Stewart at Century 21 Battlefield in King George, VA!