It has come to my attention that I am not a marketing genius. No one has offered me a part on reality TV or the hosting job on a late-night talk show. It’s all quite depressing. Face it, I am a legend in my own mind, but I’m just not getting the press it takes to become a real celebrity. I do understand, I am not as cute as the Kardashians, or as tough as Di Niro. So, what’s a guy like me supposed to do?
Remember when I figure it out, I will be able to help all you other super-talented folks out there who just can’t get a break. I’m talking to all those Facebook people who describe themselves in two careers. You know who you are. All those actress/ restaurant servers, or the comedian/ auto mechanics, and my favorite the film-producer/ outhouse technicians. We all want to be famous without the trouble of actually doing anything productive. How will we all achieve it? I really can’t say, but I have a few suggestions.
The quickest way to celebrity status is to be exceptional at sports. So, look at yourself in a mirror. Do you have the body of a world class athlete? No, I’m not talking about a Sumo wrestler. If you can’t answer “Yes,” without squinting, you’d best give up on this one. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you.
Then there’s starring in a blockbuster movie. The thing is, that’s what everybody’s trying to do. Very crowded field. Besides, for that you’d have to do actual work. I know some weirdos who actually want to do this. But I don’t want to hang around crazy people.
Probably, the most sure fire path to fame is to suffer trauma and then have a ghost-writer document your recovery. And when I say trauma, I mean the serious stuff. Be advised I’m going to talk about some nastiness that educated people only mention in a whisper. One such crisis might be when you’re serving tacos to your friends and you can’t find the can-opener to open the olives. The stress from just thinking about that blows my mind. At least with this one, recovery will be quick. Then again, you might be feeding your cat and the phone rings, causing you to cut yourself on the can lid. This is far worse. Do you go for the Band-Aid first, or the phone, or finish scooping tasty treats into the bowl? And what might happen if that carnivorous animal gets a taste of you? This alone would be worth a couple volumes at least.
Another biggie in the recovery books genre is the Evils of Excess. This has a plus and a minus side. On the plus side, you can do anything to excess. Coffee, doughnuts, listening to NPR, are all hard habits to break. The minus side is a lot of folks have already written about most of them. Fame only comes to the first person who suffered, persevered, lived with the scars, and organized a book tour. You might catch the coat tails and make it as the second, but after that nobody cares.
Aside from being first you also have to survive long enough to hire a publicist. I mean, you could become addicted to Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Peppers. You would be the first, but after the first few you would also have no stomach-lining, esophagus, sinuses, or intestines. Then after twenty-four hours you could say hasta la vista to your colon as well. I’m not saying it can’t be done. I’m just saying, this is some serious misery, and I’m not so sure you could recoup the medical bills within the first printing. But it is you’re choice. Don’t just drop it, because as you know, in this world the greater the pain, the more people interested.
My personal attempt to achieve stardom has less pain but will probably take longer. I plan to tick off Taylor Swift. If successful, I will be in the limelight, and there will be a song written about me in moments. You doubt it will work? Ha ha I say. Just look at Kanye West. He had his own audience, true. But then he insulted Taylor and moved from gangster rapper to presidential consultant in no time. Now, everybody knows him, and many are searching You Tube looking to see the tilted stage Taylor sings about.
Think I’m setting my sights too high? Well I recently saw a printed interview with one of her ex-boyfriends from high school. He annoyed Taylor, they broke up, and now he’s getting rich talking to the press about puppy-love. His only credentials are he went to school. It doesn’t even say if he graduated. Hey, I graduated college. I must be as qualified as him to be a celebrity. I just haven’t pissed off Taylor yet. But I’m working on it.
This kind of thing is all about planning. The first thing I have to do is find something that she hates. This part is easier than you might think. According to scandal sheets T. S. seems to be upset by pretty much everything. I will have to pick something the reporters can get their teeth in as well. I mean, if I said she had no talent I’d be laughed at. Everyone says she has talent. I could say her reputation stinks. But she’s already addressed that issue in a popular tune. I can’t say she’s ugly. Frankly she’s not. Although I don’t think I’d wear such bright-red lipstick, but to each his own. Maybe I’ll say she’s a bad cook. That way, after I make the accusation, she might share some recipes in the angry song she writes kicking me to the curb.
Next, I’ll have to throw out this insult to a whole bunch of people in law enforcement. The news media is always hounding those folks around looking for dirt. I figure it’ll go down this way. I go to a Nashville hospital screaming I got food-poisoning from eating the dinner she cooked. As soon as I mention her name, the reporters and police will question me at length. She’ll deny it, of course, which will get all the tabloids in on the act. The best way to promote anything is to have someone deny it. Seven-thousand articles later and I’ll be so celebrified, Jimmy Kimmel will just have to put me on the show. And then it’s Hollywood, here I come.
The only problem with all this is that I’m not rich yet. In point of fact, I’m living paycheck to paycheck like most people. So, can anyone loan me the price of a ticket to Nashville? I swear I’ll forget about you as soon as I’m famous.