"Messing With A Mystery"

Ken Levine, of bykenlevine renown, has graciously invited me to appear on one of his upcoming podcasts. 

Which is flattering.

And exciting.

And, I believe, there is a free lunch involved.

So it’s good.

Except that I am viscerally reluctant to talk about what I do.

Which is a problem, because what else would he want me to do on his podcast?

Sing?

That would be great.  But seemingly unlikely.

Here’s a secret.  I may have mentioned it before.  Which makes it no less of a secret, only a frequently repeated secret.  Of course, if I frequently repeat it, how much of a secret can it actually be?

Thank you for taking that little trip to nowhere with me.

Here’s the thing.

Most of the time, I have little to no idea what I am doing here, by which I do not mean what I am doing on this planet, which is also a mystery, I mean what I am doing in this particular exercise, though the opaqueness speaks equally to writing in general.    

Five days a week, I write blog posts.  And – no false modesty – I truly do not know where they are coming from.  Or how they evolve into publishable posts.  Yes, there is some “experienced writing ability” involved.  But mostly, the process happens mysteriously without me.

Here’s the thing.

I have a pile of jotted-down “notions” messily stacked on top of my (newly invigorating “Stand-Up”) desk.  Some of them work out.  Others, I eventually throw away, with an exasperated, “What exactly was I thinking when I scribbled these notes?”

Many ideas just sit there, sometimes for months, suffering the precarious limbo between “Top of my (‘Stand-Up’) desk” and the wastebasket.  With these, though I am unclear on how to successfully execute them, I maintain a “McCawber”-like hope that something, eventually, will turn up.

The thing is, as with where the original ideas come from, when the way to successfully “lay it out” ultimately materializes, I am entirely clueless as to its generating origin.

I am also amazed.  The most exhilarating thing about writing is surprising yourself, which is realizable only if that surprise is not emanating from you.  At least, not the conscious you, which sits there passively, a passenger, waiting for a bus.

I assure you, it’s not me – at least not entirely me – doing this stuff.

Who exactly is my “collaborator”?

I have no idea.

But whoever it is,

Thank you.

The thing is – a third time, though I would have to go back and count and I don’t feel like it –

Since what I regularly receive from “outside” bears similarities to a gift, like with the head honcho “Coffisto” who inexplicably gives me “VIP Treatment” at Groundwork Coffee Emporium – today, for no apparent reason, he knocked seventy-five cents off my “Venice Blend ‘Pour-Over’” – I have no fathomable understanding of how it started, and no control over an abrupt “Cut-off.”

As such, I feel, generically, out of control.

Since “It’s not (essentially) me, it’s “Them” – and I want to continue doing this – I live life, fearful of angrying the beneficent “writing gods.” 

I inadvertently take undue credit, and it’s, like,

“You think it’s you?  Well watch this!”

And it’s blogatorial “Game Over.” 

Possibly forever.

My “protective position”, therefore, is to let things naturally unfold, remaining abstemiously “Shtum” (silent), to the point  where I am leery of telling anyone to check out my blog, worried my egoish “self-promotion” triggers a crippling backlash.

You would think after ten years of blog writing, I would have developed some confidence.  I have confidence.  But only about the past.  When it comes to the future? 

“I would rather not talk about it.”

Leading to the problem…

What am I going to say on the podcast? 

And why risk saying anything at all?

I don’t know, maybe I’m just afraid I am going to be boring.

But, you know… just like I do not know what to write about and how specifically to write about it – until I do – maybe what to say on the podcast will just… miraculously come to me.

Maybe I’ll surprise myself, and say something worthwhile.

I hope so.

The guy’s paying for my lunch.

"Exceptions Can Be Exceptionally Annoying - A Pessimist's Perspective"

Carol Burnett had a recessive chin.  But she was prodigiously talented.

Jimmy Durante had a gigantic schnozolla.   But when he sang, “Fairy tales can come true…” you really felt it could happen to you. 

“If you’re young… at heart…”

Danny DeVito was short on “Tall.”  Did it inhibit his career?  Not so’s you’d notice.  Peter Dinklage.  A different variety of “Short”, but so what?  That guy’s kickin’ butt!  (Or, at least, upper thigh.)

There was even a guy with my less-than-coordinated “eye thing.”  Jack Elam.  Made a boatload of westerns.  Even guested on an episode of Phyllis I wrote.  Jack Elam did all right.  Florence Henderson did even better.  I ran into her once.  The woman “went on” about “eye stuff.”  I just wanted her to stop talking.

What am I saying with these examples?

You gotta have hope? 

If they can, you can?

Mathematically, that’s true.  But realistically – shunting “mathematically” to the periphery where it belongs –

Can you?

Staying “close to home”…

The odds of becoming a recognized movie star are astronomical.  The odds of succeeding without demonstrable “movie star” attributes…

Is there a word meaning “bigger than astronomical”?  Or do you just throw an “exponentially more” before “astronomical”, denoting a “Planet of Possibility” so far in the distance you’d get there faster flying down rather than up – if that makes sense which it probably doesn’t – and it would still take “Don’t even bother” to get there.

And yet…

Some annoying nuisance went to the moon.

“Hope” says, “It can happen.”  A ray of encouraging sunshine?  Sure.  But also a burdening difficulty, “hope” functioning in both possible directions.

Consider the more-likely-than-not procedural operation:

“It can’t be done.”

Then somebody does it.

Then it’s, “If they can, I can.”

You try to do it, and can’t.

Suddenly, you’re a “Failure.”

Forgetting entirely how near impossible it was to pull off in the first place.

Do you see what that “anomaly” started?  You took a one-in-a-million shot and, though you intellectually know better, you feel like a loser.

There is a reason they call things “exceptions.”  It’s because they are rarely, bordering on never, accomplished.  “Rarely” being the operant instigator. 

If those things never happened, you’d go, “I get it.  You can’t be a movie star if you don’t have a face”, a factual certainty, leading to “comfortable acceptance.” 

But wouldn’t you know it?  They make a movie, “The Man With No Face”, and suddenly,

There’s hope.

“Maybe they’ll do a sequel.  And the original guy won’t be available, or, somehow, his face grows back.”

Really? 

You’re betting the proverbial farm – and your personal happiness – on that?

I once cast a guy in a pilot I wrote who looked exactly like Michael Keaton.  The man took serious encouragement from that remarkable similarity, believing, “If he can, I, who look exactly like him, can too.”

The thing is, he couldn’t.  (I never saw him in anything after my pilot.)  Why?  Because they needed one “Michael Keaton”, and Michael Keaton got there ahead of him.   

I have confined myself to issues of “looks.”  (The generating idea for this post came to me, sitting in a restaurant, watching a woman at a nearby table, clearly a movie star, although I had no idea who she was but I knew she was a movie stars because of her classic “movie star” looks, her impeccably groomed children and her “entitled customer” demeanor, and also because of the way her waitress, a wannabe actress – because all wait-people in Los Angeles are – sitting at the “Carol Burnett” end of the “Looks” continuum, fluttered manically around her, thinking to herself, “Look how close I am”, and I’m thinking, “Look at her, and look at yourself.  Are you truly really that close?”)  (That may be mean, but I thought it merited inclusion.  I mean, I couldn’t get her to refill my water glass.) 

“The Exception Deception” works everywhere.  You believe it doesn’t – a man five-foot-six encounters a six-ten basketball star and it’s like, “Well, that’s that.”  Then they remember that “Muggsy” Bogues, five-foot-three, had a respectable 14-year career in the pros.  And it’s like…

“Hmm.”

No.

“Maybe I can.”

NO!

“But I’m three inches taller than “Muggsy B…”

Noooo!!!!!

So what am I saying?  Don’t try?

I wouldn’t.

………………………………….

And yet I did.  Shocking the world – and myself – by doing okay.

Oh, no. 

I guess I’m one of those terrible “hope givers.”

…………………………………...

Sorry. *

(* Remember, this is a pessimist talking.)

"Another Speech I Never Gave"

I fought hard –though not entirely successfully – to keep presidential politics out of yesterday’s post on “The ‘Reality’ Explosion.”  To live a relatively hopeful life, I try to keep that debacle penned in.  Still, it remains an inescapable presence.  It’s like there’s this festering swamp in your backyard.  You tell yourself, “Don’t look.”  But the “Don’t” registers less powerfully than the “look.”

Yesterday’s post reminded me of the speech I occasionally make in my head, where it can’t get me in trouble.  I am a presidential candidate in 2020, appearing on a televised debate with the current president, about to deliver my closing remarks.  When I am called upon, I momentarily pause, not sure if I really want to ”go there.”

And then I begin.

I don’t know.  I have this stereotype in my head about small-town people living in areas who will probably not vote for me.  (A BEAT)  I just heard half the country go, “You got that right!”

(CHUCKLING GOOD-SPORTINGLY)

Maybe I got it from movies.  Or it’s, like, “Conventional Wisdom.”  And if I am off-base about it, then so be it.

The thing is, I have always believed that, more than the rest of us, small-town people are naturally loaded with…

Common sense.

(GESTURING TO TRUMP)

And then you voted for this guy.

And you are thinking of voting for him again!

(SHAKING HIS HEAD, GOOD-NATUREDLY.  THEN, TURNING SERIOUS.)

Hard facts, okay? 

The country’s becoming more racially diverse and there is no possible going back.  Gay marriage is here to stay.  Reproductive rights, at least to some degree, aren’t going anywhere either.  A hyper-sexualized society?  That one gets to me too, but what are you gonna do?  It’s part of “Free Speech.”  It’s constitutionally protected.

All I can say about these changing times no one can stop, quoting the late conservative Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, with, hopefully, a little greater sensitivity, is

“Get over it.”

Of course, I know it’s not just about that.

Times are tough in the working world.  Jobs are leaving the country.  Automation in the factories.  And you’re paying maybe a bigger price for these modernizing changes than other people. 

(GESTURING TO HIS OPPONENT)  A guy comes from “outside the system.”  He promises to help you.  And you take a shot.

(HEAVING A HEAVY SIGH)

You know the movie Red River?  My favorite western of all time.  John Wayne – a real conservative, who never blamed anyone for anything because real conservatives don't – plays Tom Dunson, a cattle drive trail boss who starts losing his mind because of the pressure, and he begins to act crazy.  Finally, they stop him.  At which point, his longtime compadre, played by Walter Brennan, bravely confronts him, telling him straight to his face,

(IMITATING WALTER BRENNAN, CONVINCINGLY) “You was wrong, Mr. Dunson.  You was wrong.”

  

That’s what I’m saying to you.  Times are tough.  You look for a rescuing champion.  You think you found the right person.

(LOOKING STRAIGHT AT THE CAMERA)

And “You was wrong.”

You’re not voting for me?  Fine.  But make sure it’s for the right reason.  And that turning away won’t cost you any of the benefits you currently enjoy.

I know you already know this, but it was, for some reason, set aside, so – with respect – I am reminding you. 

When the person you elect faces the serious problems of the country and the world, trying to decide the right and decent thing to do, keep in mind:

Character matters.

That’s not my opinion.

It’s just plain common sense.

Thank you.

We now return you to our regular broadcasting.

"The 'Reality' Explosion"

I can explain the origin of the “reality” phenomenon – which extends right up to the White House – in one word:

Tech…

No, wait!  Two words.

Technology and money.

Life Before Technology:

A kid doing hilarious monologues in their bedroom.

Life After Technology:

The podcast:  “Jokes From The Bedroom”, starring a kid you would otherwise never have heard of, who works cheap, or, quite possibly, for nothing.  (It happens.)  That’s where the “money” part comes in.  Not for the hilarious comedian.  But for the delivery systems, bringing them to our grateful attention.

Here, according to what somebody once told me and I took it for the emmis (the truth) is how it originally started, “it” being the reality upheaval that “tsunamied” show business, later expanding to every aspect of our culture.

Fan magazines were having increasing problems getting recognized celebrities to cooperate.  The power was all with the celebrities.  Without their participation, fan magazines would be empty pages, with occasional advertisements. (Although who’d want to appear in a magazine with blank pages?  I guess, crayon manufacturers.   If anyone.)

To succeed, fan magazines needed those recognized celebrities.  (Hopefully, pregnant in a bikini.)  But, for whatever reasons – perhaps they were tired of the attention.  No, not that. – the recognized celebrities began to balk at this promotional merry-go-round.  It got so bad fan magazines were getting rejections from the celebrities’ housekeepers.

“No, he’s home.  He just told me to say ‘No’.”

The recognized celebrities demanded money.  They insisted on content approval.  The reneged on their appointments.

“I forgot.  I have to take my cockatiel for a “fluffing.”

The fan magazine’s feathers were ruffled – you see what I did there? – by the continual abuse.  I can imagine a staff meeting where the magazine’s “Head Honcho” or “Honchetta” arrogantly but not entirely inaccurately bellows, “We made ‘em.  And we can break ‘em!”  

What did they do?  They dispensed with the recognized celebrities – at least the less famous ones – creating a breed of new “recognized celebrities” of their own. *

(* This part is like Wikipedia.  “This entry is incomplete.  Please append any pertinent clarifying information.”)

I don’t know which came first, the fan magazine or the…

Wait. 

Here’s what has irreversibly changed.  There are probably – and always have been – more talented people than we are ever aware of, or there are jobs for.  Before “what’s happening now”, to necessarily “cull the herd”, there were these accredited “Gatekeepers” – based on “Yeeahs in the business” – who, consistent with tried-and-true “Standards of Excellence” – and because they said so – decided determinatively who made it and who didn’t.
     

And frequently, who got to audition in the first place.  That’s how competitive things were.  You almost needed to know someone to receive a  “Sorry, kid.  You don’t have it.”

The eelected “winners” fulfilled their dreams.   The rejected losers retreated to less glamorous fields of endeavor, harboring nagging beliefs the determining “Gatekeepers” were crazy.

Taking a cue from the fan magazines – unless the fan magazines took a cue from them, forgive my ignorance, though it does not stop me from writing about this – the developing cable networks created “celebrities” of their own.

I can imagine a meeting at MTV, brainstorming “inexpensive programming”, where someone casually remarks, “You know what’s really inexpensive?  The real world.”

And just like that, reality television was born.  And people you never heard of became legitimate “Big Shots.”  (Ascending,, sometimes, to the highest office in the land.)

The previous “Standards of Excellence” were abandoned.  As were the venerable “Gatekeepers.”  You didn’t need them anymore.  People were entering through different gates.  (I am not sure what the new “Standards of Excellence” are.  There has to be some “distinguishing process.”  Apparently, the public display or private activities gets you a seat at the table, or so I’ve heard.  But I am not sure what else.)

Wait.

I just thought of a third relevant word relating to the “Reality Revolution.”

(You don’t mind if I’m disorganized, do you?  I think it adds to my stylistical charm.)

The third word is,

Democracy.  (Including, for better or worse, political democracy.)

It’s like they just stopped selling tickets and let everyone into the show.  There are, sadly, still people not making the grade – frustratingly unclear of what grade they were unable to make because, although nobody seems able to accurately define it, it is still not them.  That reality aside, however, more often than before, people are fulfilling their cherished aspirations, sparing them a teeth-gritting reentry to law school.

That’s democracy:

Expanded opportunities.

Less people telling you “Go home.”

Hey, we don’t have to watch.  Or read those fan magazines.   (Except during pedicures.)

Or read this blog, for that matter.

But for some of us – participants and their followers –

It’s just kind of cool that opportunity is there.

(Though it would help to be minimally competent.)