LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
The Gospel According To Marc |
by Marc Acito |
When You Wish Upon a Star Makes No Difference... at All
Well, I'm 35 and still not famous. I'm certain there's been a mix-up in the cosmic paperwork somewhere. Right now Steven Spielberg is offering some undeserving no-talent hack a six-figure option for a screenplay while my genius languishes unnoticed yet another year. I tell myself that I'm a complete, self-actualized person who shouldn't need mass adulation to boost my fragile ego, but the fact is ever since I was a kid I've always imagined I'd be sufficiently well-known to be a regular guest on various TV talk shows. I just knew deep down that I belonged on a couch next to Merv Griffin cracking jokes with Totie Fields and Zsa Zsa Gabor. With each passing year, however, I must face the cold, hard reality that unless I do something drastic like pogo-stick my way across America to raise awareness for shaken baby syndrome, Barbara Walters is not going to make me cry on national television. My depression over this fact is compounded by the sheer dreariness of celebrities who insist on trying to prove that they're just regular people like the rest of usa complete and utter waste of fame as far as I'm concerned. I just hate those celebrities who, when asked about their fast-track to success, reply all misty-eyed that they've learned that what's really important is family. Puh-leeze. It took getting famous just to learn that? Anyone who's had to bring their laundry home knows how important family is. Just once I'd love to hear a celebrity say to Barbara Walters, "Of course fame is fabulous! Y'know, I can sleep with just about anyone I want to!" I'm especially irritated by those filmmakers who, the moment they can command the best tables in Hollywood restaurants, feel compelled to make "important" films telling the rest of us how dreary and hard life can be. Memo to Hollywood producers: the rest of us already know how dreary and hard life can bewe still fly Coach. Nowhere is this truer than with last year's Best Picture, a movie everyone else loved and I hated, American Beauty, the theme of which was that if in you're in the rat race then you must be a rat. Memo to the rest of us: be insultedthat movie was about us. Last year, the director of the film, Sam Mendes, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. I read about it in People magazine. When I found out he and I are the same age, I had to go back into therapy. Just why do magazines insist on putting a celebrity's age right after his or her name, anyway? Why don't they put something that'll make the rest of us feel better, like their IQs instead? But being a complete glutton for punishment, I regularly skip all those other stories, y'know, the ones about inspiring regular people who pogo-stick their way across America and focus my attentions exclusively on the rich and famous. They really ought to call the magazine People Who Are Thinner and More Successful Than Your Are magazine. I suppose that's why I'm completely addicted to Behind the Music and all of its various rip-offs. The producers of these shows understand that there's nothing like watching a celebrity rise to fame and then come crashing down to make the rest of us feel good about our drab little lives. Certainly, these shows are what motivate my lazy ass to the gym; I don't get VH-1 at home. Recently, faced with the prospect of back-to-back episodes of Where Are They Now? I decided to try out the new elliptical trainer at the gym. I climbed on, noting that the default weight setting was 150, which wasn't unusual for these cardio machines. (Despite appearances to the contrary, I do exercise regularly enough to know these things, thank you very much.) On this particular machine, however, you could only adjust the weight in 1 lb. increments, which was not only demoralizing, but, in my case, time-consuming, too. Likewise, the default age setting was 20, rising in 1-year increments. I took a certain amount of solace in the fact that Sir Sam Mendes had to push the damn button the same number of times I did. Then, as I pumped away to the sight of celebrity after celebrity crashing and burning I reached a kind of spiritual epiphany; and in a startling moment of clarity I suddenly made my peace with my fame-less life. For in that moment I realized that the one distinct advantage of having been a never-was is that I also can't be a has-been. And that, my friends, is The Gospel According to Marc. Marc Acito hopes someone will send him fan mail at MarcAcito@home.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 11, No. 4, May 4, 2001 |