Inadequacy
Sharing that stuff with you kind of fucked me up. Sticking my hands back in there, doing this emotional time travel with you. Looking at those situations again, reading those comments again. Hey, I should be past that, right? What’s my problem. Why am I writing this fucking book? I should just stop now. Just trash it. Fuck it. Throw it out and just get back to my REAL life where I’ve forgotten about all those awkward, uncomfortable, confusing events that were generated in the backside of Fame. See? I don’t feel this way still. Post-Fame. God, that’s the meat of it.
Why am I writing this fucking book? Look, I didn’t plan to come here to rip myself open and show you all. That wasn’t my first plan. To make a bunch of gaping wounds and lay myself on a metal table and let you and your cadaver classmates poke around, tour my hills and valleys, my outside and insides, stick your metal tools in my wounds and marvel at the layers of emotional diversity, like sediment layers in the rocks lining the Colorado River. I planned to COME HERE TO TELL YOU a thing or two. Yeah, that was the plan. I’d gathered some really great, insightful, genius even, information, fucking wisdom, about FAME.
Who better to tell you than me, someone who has lived the whole life cycle of Fame and is fully aware of it, fully aware and able to analyze myself throughout the process. Goddamn special. All these theories. My Chutes and Ladders Theory, my “perception of balance” Seesaw Theory. Other theories, the theories from sociologists. “The Five Features of Reality.” Oh, I had a whole plan to just expose you to that, I had pages and pages written, explaining that. “Mimetic desire.” Had a few pages written explaining that. Thanks to Mary-Louise Parker for that one. Fuck, I had a whole book, you know, of just that stuff. A real arms-length dissertation. I was halfway through. I’d written half a book already that was academic and explained all these sociological theories. Half a book already. Not this emotional river. This wasn’t the plan.
But, I’m here now, in this raw version instead. Here with you in the bottom of this well, where the river pulled our rowboat. Just talking about my shit. Fuck. This is not what I wanted to do. I should just throw this out. Just stop. But, why was I writing this book? I volunteered, stepped down into this black square hole, into feeling this way I felt years ago, to show you. I don’t feel this way now. I think I told you. I’m happy with my life. I’m doing things I’ve always wanted to do, I’m the type of person I’ve always wanted to be. I have a great family and friends. I live with privilege. My most treasured possession is my privileged mind. Privileged, meaning free of the fear that used to live there. OK. I’m totally happy. So, what’s the big fucking deal? Why did sticking my hands and arms and part of my body into the acid soup before, to get good quotes for us, fuck me up? Here. It took me into that dark section. It was all those quotes, a treasure trail right into that dark section of feelings, that black square hole of FUCKING INADEQUACY.
Look, here’s the worst thing that Fame does to you. You have it, it’s great. Nothing like it, but when it slips and descends out of your life, to whatever degree, you are viciously, I mean tear-at-your-flesh attacked, with inadequacy. See, N O T H I N G you do after you’ve been that famous is E V E R going to be good, or right, or applause-worthy, or impressive, or even fucking noteworthy. Your obituary will STILL, no matter what you’ve done after that great “achievement” of Fame, will still just list that pinnacle of “accomplishment,” to the exclusion of almost everything else you have ever done in your life. And right there, you see, nobody wants to know about anything else, unless it meets that high level of attention. And with that kind of perspective, of course, the attitude is that you are an utter and dismal failure because you never attained that particular level of Fame again. That’s ridiculous. I mean, here we are, rational people, and we agree that that’s ridiculous. “Whatever happened to . . .” and all that. Ridiculous.
I can hear them, “Oh, boo-hoo. You reached the heights of Fame and fortune and now you feel bad, you feel attacked, victimized, even. Is that it? You poor little rich baby.” OK. Yeah, yeah. First of all, just because someone’s name is known, it doesn’t at all mean they’re rolling in cash. That’s a fantasy. It’s not reality.
* * *
Moon Zappa told me about the time she made an enormous effort to get as far away as possible from Fame and the machine that supports it. The temperature-taking, the accusation of inadequacy. She joined a cult. She had to join a cult to get away from Fame. She wanted to think about bigger things: mortality, human existence, things like that. But, she couldn’t get away from it. The guru, the guru of the cult she joined, the cult she was in for six years or so, the guru had a Fame-based hierarchy too. The more famous you were, the better seat you got at the guru’s appearances. I mean, c’mon. What the fuck. Supposed to be about spiritual enlightenment, soul-searching here. All Moon wanted was some kind of pure, real experience, and there in front of her were people more famous being seated closer to the guru. There she was getting her Fame temperature taken every time. Shit. Cannot get away from it.
What if you’re married to it, to the Fame? You’re not even being asked to measure up to some “pinnacle of experience” in your own life. You’re being asked to live up to the pinnacle of human experience in your spouse’s live. You’ve already got your own successes, your own professional successes, but people are pitying you, coming up to you and pitying you, always suggesting some inadequacy.
One wife of a famous performer told me it’s as if people are always saying, “Your husband’s doing so great. So, what are you planning to do?” This woman, with her own professional and personal successes, being pitied. “We just really want to see you do well, honey. We know he’s doing great, but what about you?”
This inadequacy is this insinuation that the further you get from that “pinnacle of acclaim,” that apex of Fame, the further you get from being perceived as a “success.” A success. As if success is Fame and nothing else. Society has placed Fame on the high shelf. The summit of human existence. The ultimate achievement.
“Oh, you’re famous, so you must have money, family, friends, invitations, career, accolades, everyone loves you, gives you things. It must be true.” Fame. It would be nice if there were an all-inclusive package like that. One “achievement” bundled together with all that.
And you’ve heard it before, from famous people, “It’s not all that. It’s not what you think.” But, we don’t want to believe that. No. We don’t want that to be true, that it’s “not all that.” We want to believe that there is a lottery ticket, an everything-could-change-in-this-instant-and-all-my-dreams-will-come-true kind of lottery ticket out there. Maybe it makes someone’s today go better, faster, believing that everything could change in a snap and they could be famous and get that “whole bundle”: the friends, the family, the love, the money, the career, the opportunities, the parties, the limousines, the champagne-being-carelessly-wastefully-who-gives-a-shit-poured-over-your-head. The free-wheelin’, free and easy and excitedly WOW. That lottery ticket, that chance. That “big break.” That cure-all. It’s like that HAS to be true in order to get through the day.
Sure, some of it’s true, that “bundle of stuff.” You do get a version of that bundle with the Fame, but in pieces, in chunks, not all the time, in hunks. And then not. Then it’s pulled away, and all that. Yes, sure. That’s why we hold that Chutes and Ladders structure, so we can have the possibility for even a perforated version of Fame and what we think it will bring us. Even a perforated version.
The trouble is the extent to which we have built a support for Fame and have therefore held Fame as THE GREATEST—we’ve put it up there—THE GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT A HUMAN BEING CAN EVER ATTAIN. So, you’re famous. Wasn’t looking for it, had it poured on, sprayed on. And then it slides, starts to descend, and you are seen as trash, as an irresponsible person, a waste.
“You ungrateful little mole. You let it go?! What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you let it go? You HAD it! You hit the square and climbed the ladder. Holy shit, right to the motherfuckin’ top! You had it and you trashed it. You ridiculous waste of time, effort, attention. We bought into you! We invested in you, watched you, purchased the same clothes, watched your interviews, looked at your photos. And you squandered it. You wasted it. Why didn’t you water it? Keep it up? A little maintenance, is that so hard? Too much? Fuck, you had it right there in your hand. Oh God. You blew it. We are disgusted. We have nothing but disdain for you.”
* * *
So, yes. “What are you working on?” from every stranger.
“What are you working on?”
And later, “Are you still acting?”
Pitying.
“I saw that you squandered your Fame, didn’t keep it up, didn’t maintain it. And my neighbors turned their backs on you, but not me. I’m here and I feel so sad for you.” So pitying. “But, I’m here for you, so let me know, are you still even acting?”
Now hold on. While these things are being asked, OK, early on, when the slipping just starts, you’re acting, sure, you’re auditioning, doing that part of the work/career, but you are not currently on a film or a show. Hell, if you were, chances are you wouldn’t even be in town. If the actor’s in town, at home, they’re not on-location-working-on-a-movie. OK. And you feel this accusation of inactivity with that question, because you have so little control over what people think of you when you’re famous, of what all these strangers, who think they know you, think of you. You immediately know they will walk away from you after, not thinking about the cool show or movie you did last year or the year before, but questioning if you have squandered this Fame they bestowed on you.
* * *
This disappointment and pity isn’t true everywhere. Writer/director Peter Bogdanovich told me that in Europe you are as famous as the best thing you ever did, forever. No disgust that you’re not thrilling them the same way year after year. You reach it, you stay there. But, we’re in America, so let’s get back to it. Some people are approaching you, coming up to you because you are famous, still. They feel an ownership, even, of the Fame. They are checking in to discover its health. And they are not liking what they hear. They will walk away with a seed of disdain that will grow if you don’t get your shit together and pick up the pace on the work front, or get in a relationship with another famous person, or have a scandal or something. And shit, maybe you’re working on other parts of your life right now. Maybe you’re building a family, embarking on personal growth, starting a vineyard, learning about World War II. All valid, wonderful, even necessary things. Accomplishments, even . . . No. They are not. Not if you had once touched that glowing, ephemeral pinnacle of human existence, that Fame. And, oh sweet Jesus, you actually held it in your hand, cradled it, ingested it, walked around with it inside of you, letting it emanate from your body, sparkle and pulse, for all to see. No. If you once had that, then everything else you ever do will be shit, compared.
“Call us when you’ve done something on par with that, with that thing that caused us to spray you with Fame. Call us when you’ve done something that gets all our attention like that again.”
All the while, there is this baffling assumption that you, the famous one, has control over the Fame. You have none. Not by any measure, whatsoever. You don’t. You had no choice about it being sprayed upon you initially and you had no choice regarding its intensity or its duration. You also had no say in the matter when it began slipping, and you have no control over it when it is sliding down the hill. You get no say. But, the public thinks you do. They think you are its master. And you are not. You are a rodeo cowboy strapped onto a bucking bull, your gloved hand (if you had time to get a glove on) shoved under the bridle, bound with strips of dark, worn leather. You are riding it, trying to ride it. You are not the master of Fame.
* * *
Picture a friend winning something at a neighborhood fair. Maybe your state fair. Someone you know, they win. Hey! They stepped right into it. The brass ring! Wow, what a great thing! Totally random. Their name was pulled out of a fishbowl. Totally random. Could have happened to anyone. But you, looking at your friend, you think there’s something special about him now. Something, maybe you feel this unconsciously, something about your friend, you now imagine, something about your friend must have drawn him to be picked out of the fishbowl. Something. He’s special. Now. Your friend. Special. Hey, you too, by association! The town knows now. Next time, you see a next time, that your friend has his name in a fishbowl, a raffle box, a straw hat. Next time your friend’s name is on a piece of paper and in the mix, you expect him to get picked. Some part of you expects it. “Here we go again!” You nudge your neighbor, the woman standing next to you, with a roll of the eyes and a sideways smile on your face. You, sort-of-famous because you know the-guy-who-won-the-big-prize-at-the-state-fair. You smile and mock-roll your eyes at the absurdity of this sure thing, now. This winning result that is bound to happen to your friend again, because it happened to him before, he won before. There must be something magical about him. “He draws these things to him. I know.”
You stand there with your half-smile, arms crossed in front of yourself. Rock back on your heels, maybe. You wait in calm excitement, muted excitement, because your guy, your friend, he draws these things to himself and you, famous-by-association.
But, he is not picked. They do not pick him. They pick that woman on the other side of the room. That woman with the curly hair and the blue sweater, the one over there who works at the grocery store. They picked her.
Your friend now, “Hey, can’t win them all.” He’s fine with it. You don’t have an emotion yet.
“Yeah, you said it.” You clap him on the back. You two start to walk out.
“Better luck next time,” he says.
You there, still feeling around for the right emotion, not yet finding it. Your friend is fine. He doesn’t care. He knew that the first win was a fluke, like every win, like that. Random. Right piece of paper in the right part of the fishbowl, at the right angle for the right two fingers of the right State Fair Queen to touch, and not just slip past on her way to another folded piece of paper with someone else’s name written on it. No, it ALL had to be right. And now it’s not. Now it just isn’t. Your friend is fine. YOU ARE NOT.
Later, you find the emotion. You are angry. A little angry. A little disappointed. A bit angry and disappointed and, frankly, a little disgusted. You think, maybe not consciously yet, but under the riverbed, you think that your friend really wasn’t trying hard enough. You, somewhat-famous-by-association. Your friend, that sonovabitch, really didn’t try hard enough to draw the win to him again, like he did the first time.
“He fucking . . . He betrayed me. My trust. Is that what I get? For being there? To be embarrassed like that, in front of all those people. Me, somewhat-famous-by-association, rocking back on my heels, almost? Sonovabitch.”
“Better luck next time.” Your friend betrayed you, not a winner, made you look foolish, not a winner. Better cut that shit away from yourself next time. Cut that guy off.
We think this scenario is ridiculous. We would never do that. Sure, maybe not, but some people will feel that way toward the famous. Some will feel it with every famous person who is now a not-so-famous-person-anymore.
“Why do they look like that now? Why don’t we see them anymore? Why haven’t they been in a hit show since then? What happened to them? What have they been up to? Where did they go? Are they still alive?” Not even a Google search before asking.
* * *
OK, look. You’ve got me in that well, I’m there with you. We’re together. You’ve got me in that black well right now, of those years, years ago, where this was raw and open and confusing. “Me Now,” though? They don’t want to Google it? What I’ve been up to? The life I’ve been living, here, out in the open? They don’t know? Maybe they do. I should really draw you a chart. Maybe I will put one in here, for you, before I’m done. The Fame so high, it reached the sky. Family Ties, about 26 million people a week watching us, watching me. Everywhere you go, everyone stops, grabs you even sometimes. Hated that. The touching, the holding of the arm, the stroking of the hair, even. Fuck. Always hated that. So, Fame sky-high. No matter how bad it got, though, I always knew Michael Fox had it worse. It’s true. Fame sky-high. Then me after the show, theater plays, pilot’s license, indie films, scuba certification, self-discovery, performance art, trapeze training, clothing company, acting again (it’s all in the bio), writing, producing, digital media, UCLA freshman, graduating, writing this book, writing/directing/producing film projects. OK, you’re caught up. That’s me. What have I been up to? That’s me.
“The chart will show, ladies and gentlemen, the chart will show a direct inverse correlation between her level of Fame and the degree to which she was/is an interesting person.”
This is funny. You have these two lines. One showing the level of Fame you have and the other showing the degree to which you are an interesting person. For me. Maybe other famous people were more interesting when they were famous and not so much now, I don’t know. For me, I became far more interesting as the Fame receded. I don’t think there’s causation there. Fame didn’t make me less interesting, nor did I become more interesting because the Fame faded. The point I’m making is that while some in the public are watching the Fame trajectory, the line in descent, they are projecting upon me that my entire life is in descent. You see that? They then feel on solid ground, when they, not googling me, not imagining a life that could be happy or satisfying or interesting outside of Fame, away from that pinnacle of human existence, when they ask with a tinge of pity and a tiny edge of angry disappointment, “What happened to her?” They are looking at that line.
They are imagining, “Dear God, what if I had been at that level, had ingested, gobbled, that glowing ember of the highest success of Fame and seen its sparkle, its emanation, reflected back to me in the big, fully dilated, dewy eyes of everyone with whom I came in contact. If I had had that with its bundle of all the good stuff, you know, the money, the everything? And then if I was walking around now, like this, away from that pinnacle . . . Well, I would just want to die.”
Oh, I’m bringing you back around. The inadequacy. Remember? Why would all this talk remind me of that black square pit, from years ago, of the feeling of inadequacy? Because no poetry writing/reciting; or play performance, off-Broadway or Berkeley Repertory Theatre or Williamstown Theatre; or private pilot’s license; or indie film with great people; or performance art productions; or one-of-a-kind hand-knit and ready-to-wear clothing company; or digital media production creation; or college-attending at 46 for computer science; or book writing; or filmmaking is ever going to hit that Fame mark again. Honestly, I don’t think so. It just won’t. I won’t ever be that famous again. And wanting, striving to hit that mark again is like trying to prove to some hard-to-please parents that you are still as worthy of affection as you were when they seemed to love you the most, when you were a four-year-old towhead. Ain’t going to happen. Not ever. The number of elements that must be aligned for that kind of Fame to happen are remarkable. The right look, the right acting, the right project, the right company, the right network, the right night, the right time, the right era, the right moment in pop culture history, the right tolerance of the performer for that kind of attention—so many things have to coalesce for that kind of Fame to happen. Just bring down your expectations for anyone who’s ever been there. It’s not going to happen for them again.
OK. You win. Yes. Let’s talk about actor John Travolta. The “Fame Unicorn.” Sure. There’s that exception. You’re right. From TV’s Welcome Back, Kotter and that Fame, to Carrie and Saturday Night Fever and Grease (bizarre and unusual at that time to make a transition from TV to film, by the way), to a fall of Fame that landed at the foot of the hill with Look Who’s Talking Now, to the resurrection of Fame with the film Pulp Fiction and then living up there, riding out that plane of Fame now. Highly unusual. Hardly anyone sees that height of Fame and rolls all the way down the hill and then sees that height again. So, yes. There is at least one unicorn. The rest of us either see it once and don’t see that height again or we stay there for a lifetime, which is also unusual. Actors Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt. There are a few. Lifelong, sustained Fame. Small ebbs and flows within that too, sure, but up on a certain plane for a lifetime.
* * *
I mentioned that strange thing the other day to a friend of mine, another person also made famous by a huge hit TV show. I mentioned that strange thing where people want you to hit that point again that causes that same level of Fame to return. That nothing you ever do seems to ever satisfy that request. He reminded me that it’s true for a lot of people. Not just me. For actor Henry Winkler and the cast of Happy Days, it was that. For actors Lisa Kudrow and Matt LeBlanc, et al., it was Friends. For the cast of Star Wars, it was that film, etc. That moment, that perfect combination of the right studio and release date, or the right network and night, the right cast and writing and moment in society where you captured something they needed, something they needed to grab hold of, and you reach a level of Fame and then you’re long held to that standard. Unless something satisfies that “Fame quota,” unless another project elicits that level of Fame again, many are going to hold you to that standard. No matter what, your “biggest success” will have a mention in your obituary, unless you do something of that level again to knock it off the eulogy list.
And so, there’s this crushing disappointment that can set itself up in other people and reflect back at you. It then tries to set itself up in you, yourself. And you have to fight it. You have to list all these things you’ve done, to yourself, and you have to remember that any one of those things would look fine, would look tall, if it was not being held up to this moonwalk, this almost-impossible-to-attain level of Fame you once had. You have to ignore that there will be people who will be amazed that you’re happy and fine without it. It’s a constant feeling of not being seen for who you are. But, you’re used to that, right? When you were very famous, a reality was projected on you of who you were. When Fame fades, the projection morphs and a different, even more presumptuous projection of reality is sprayed onto you.
Oddly, there seems to be an acceptance of a woman, post-Fame, if she falls into certain categories. If she is outside of these categories, the public reacts with confusion, disappointment, and that little edge of anger. The categories are these:
1. The Mom/Housewife. It seems acceptable if a famous woman on the other side of their “peak” becomes a housewife, if she appears to be someone who “gave up her career to tend to her husband and children.” Maybe she occasionally appears in Good Housekeeping magazine when she promotes her cookbook. Feels fine, acceptable.
2. The Polished One. The public is also accepting of a formerly famous woman becoming the wife of a famous or powerful agent/executive/businessman/politician and appears to be consumed with maintaining a highly coiffed look. As some people imagine that her time is committed to hosting charity events and enjoying day spas, they assume that the woman is bitter and resentful that she had to give up whatever career she’d had previously and that she now has no career or vocation at all. Some people get very angry, incidentally, when a woman they assume is playing this particular part actually does get a job, post-marriage. There’s a lot of, “She doesn’t need to work, her husband has money!” or, “She got that job because of her husband!” Stay unemployed and the public will “get what you’re about.”
3. The Junkie/Whore. Another “acceptable role” seems to be that of an alcoholic or drug addict. Recovering or active, it doesn’t matter. The public appears to be “very understanding” or at least thrilled that a woman who used to reign from the top of the Fame mountain is now, they assume, stumbling about in the muddy puddles in the darkness of the valley. It really justifies the Seesaw Theory.
4. The “24-Year-Old.” Certain people also very much enjoy a formerly famous woman whom they assume just can’t get past “the loss of her youth” and appears to be desperately trying to recapture it by dressing younger, etc. They really seem to relate to that, somehow. The public is pretty passionate about this option. A woman in this role will receive the most vigorous reactions. There will be a lot of criticism of what the woman is wearing (“Why can’t she dress her age?”), how she styles her hair (“What is she trying to prove?”), and the age of whomever she’s dating (“He’s WAY too young for her”). They are drawn to a desperation they assume of the woman and they then set to attacking everything they once worshipped as her assets. She is accepted and “understood,” regardless of the toxicity of that acceptance.
5. The Plastic Surgery Slave. Her aging face, especially, will be ripped apart (figuratively) until the woman rips her own face apart (literally) with plastic surgery. Maybe it’s “for herself” or maybe it’s to quiet the cacophony of criticism, but either way, it happens. There’s a welcome party when she emerges from the post-op self-exile, when the swelling has dissipated. Some in this welcome party will applaud her, will say she looks great, but the some of the same critics of her aging face pre-surgery will now express disgust and disdain for her post-surgery face. They will talk about her face endlessly. They will create websites exclusively dedicated to examining what they think she has and has not done. They will post photos of her with a smattering of red arrows and circles over parts of her body that they’re sure she’s surgically altered. They will not stop the speculation. But they are strangely accepting of this post-Fame role. They are critical, but not confused. They “understand.”
All these “acceptable roles,” these roles that people assume you will fall into, exclude the involvement in professional work, post-Fame. Pursuing another career seems to confuse the public. Seems to make some people angry. Maybe it upsets the perception of balance, the Seesaw Theory.
“You were famous and then I saw your seesaw move down, but now you’re telling me that while it was moving down, you just jumped off that seesaw to another. And now that new seesaw is rising up, but not in the area of Fame again, but to a part of the sky that is Personal and Creative Satisfaction, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?” It fucks that theory right up.
Some of them, like you, maybe, you can see that seesaw jump as permission, or proof, or inspiration to jump off your own seesaw, when you start to see it fall down. To grab your own pot of popcorn off the stove when the popping starts to slow down, so it doesn’t burn. To leave the party before the lights come on. Jump off your own seesaw onto a new one and see that new one rise up. Maybe some will see that. Like I said, maybe that person is you. But for the most part, for many people, it’s just confounding, this seesaw jump, this refusal to play one of the Five Roles for Post-Fame Women. It makes them a little frustrated that you got out of your box; a little angry that you walked out of your neatly labeled category; a little irritated that with so many things in disarray in their own lives, maybe at least you were well-defined and not in disarray; you were in this box, with this nice label.
“A touchstone for a part in my life, a treasure trail sure to take me back to that part of me I found when you were 24, but goddammit. You’re a disappointment. You jumped out. You’re just as much a disaster as everything else in here, as everything else in my life. You were something else, something I could count on. Even in one of the Five Roles for Post-Fame Women, you would have been a comfort to me; a faded flower pressed between the pages of my heavy book of treasure trail touchstones. You’re no help to me anymore. I’m done with you. I will rip you apart on Twitter now. Every chance I get. You’re not giving me the seesaw perception of balance satisfaction. You jumped seesaws; I don’t know what you’re doing. You’re confusing me. Get away from me. You’re not playing the part. You’re contributing to the disarray I already have in here, in my life. Just go.”