TODAY I have been particularly candid. I have expressed candid thoughts about the Right to Life movement and the new high-energy Golf Classics and the way some books which don’t really have that much literary merit are sold to paperback houses for huge figures. I have expressed candid thoughts about the fact that the Academy Awards seem to have lost a lot of their meaning (especially with the way they stop the awards during the television commercials), and the fact that Helen Hayes probably isn’t the First Lady of the American Theatre anymore (although she probably is still the First Lady of the American Charitable Endorsement), and the fact that my environment at the Keowa Motel, where I live, has a damp and stagnant side to it that is evocative of small-time crime and emotional disaffection. Also, I have issued a no-holds-barred report on my last remaining friend, Bob Mern, which will almost certainly cost me his friendship but which will, I am sure, confirm my reputation with the public at large as a man of candor.
Let’s go right to the report on Bob. I have always felt that to keep the trust of the public it was necessary for me to be ruthlessly candid in matters touching on my private life and those closest to me. In the past, as the record will show, I have been almost brutal in my statements about my wife, but since our divorce opportunities for frankness in this area have lessened. I continue to have many forthright things to say about her syndicated television program, Jean Stapleton Duff … In Touch (which has been devoted, this week, to the Right to Life movement, the new high-energy Golf Classics, and the California-style casual mode in outdoor entertaining, which is another subject about which I have had candid thoughts), but that isn’t the same thing. When it comes to my personal life my most candid announcements now have to do with my friend Bob Mern. The fact is that I have had to lower Bob’s rating twice in the last six months. Bob began the year with a “BAA” rating (“Secure Investment–Minimum Risk”), but after a really bad first quarter during which he was almost always completely drunk, during which he passed out six different times on my bathroom floor, during which he failed to pass his driving test, and during which he was unbelievably boring, I lowered his rating to a “B” (“Some Risk”). And now, after a second quarter during which he tried to pull a really obvious aggressive-dependence number on me (making me bring him his beer on account of his limp, etc., etc., etc.), I have released a statement announcing that I will not rate him at all. Bob will have a little bit of a rough time as a result, and I will have to watch TV by myself, but I have done the honest thing. Because I have done and said the honest thing time after time there has arisen among the public (among the public that reads the rotogravures, among the public that buys cologne, among the public in chronic pain) a deep trust in my word. I live nourished by public confidence. This confidence has reference to me as a public figure, as an artist (I am Jack Duff, and I am the founder of the Jack Duff Dance Experience), and as a human being. Even on those days I spend in bed, even on those days I spend lying on the floor, even on those days when I eschew all muscular movement, I find that I continue to be wrapped in a pervasive health—the physical manifestation of public faith in my candor.
When I speak of “the public,” I do not include so-called Important Men. It annoys Important Men that I am straightforward in my speech, because it shows them up. It galls Important Men that I don’t promise special treats I can’t deliver, for instance. Certain men of influence promise Aerial Tramways. I say forget Aerial Tramways. Other men encourage the anticipation of People Movers. I say forget People Movers. There will be weeping in the streets (I say), and increased incidence of interregional discourtesy, but no People Movers. In fact, the report I’m working on right now says that we are not likely to have reliable high-speed elevators for very much longer. My report says candidly that some of the fabulous new high-speed elevators we are installing are going to be involved in heart-wrenching mishaps, leading to an investigation, leading to new ordinances, leading to new safety-amenity parameters that will make it economically unfeasible for the high-speed-elevator manufacturers to continue in their work. In my report I foresee a generation of painful, inefficient, low-speed elevators manufactured in Asia, and then stairs. No one has to take my word for it. Private-school girls in good buildings, for instance, are free to do as they please. It is my opinion, however, that private-school girls who ignore my warning will find themselves dragging their party frocks up twenty-six floors of fire stairs; it is my opinion that they will arrive late (and tired) at the Junior Gaiety Dances; it is my opinion that no one will agree to attend the after-parties given by private-school girls who ignore my warning. I don’t mean to be severe, but those girls ought to watch their step.
IT is important, I feel, not to project a negative tone. There must be, always, a constructive side to candor. It is this constructive aspect that I seek to promote. I now urge the public to stress what I call the Achievable Goals. Achievable Goals—so simple an idea! I believe that through an emphasis on the achievable we can break the cycle of failure-fantasy-failure around which our national life has tended to carom, and regain a sense of purpose and control. So many goals are achievable that it seems perverse to stress goals whose realization is in doubt. I have some Achievable Goals to suggest. I suggest, for instance, that we set out now to increase our dependence on imported oil. This goal can be achieved almost immediately. It would be exhilarating, I think, to achieve, almost immediately, a goal with such important long-term implications.
To move on to the crucial housing field, where we have experienced setback after unpleasant setback, I suggest that we seek to increase the stock of substandard housing. I suggest here a Model Cities approach which could seek to dispel the pervasive air of failure engendered by the “real” Model Cities program, in which so many hopes were dashed. If a Model Cities approach were adopted we could draw up an elaborate plan in which we could set out specific figures denoting the amount by which we intended to increase the stock of substandard housing in Year One, in Year Two, etc., etc. Other Achievable Goals programs in the model district might seek to increase the use of drugs, and so on.
In the area of Social Engineering, I suggest that we increase the amount of violence on television. I suggest that we set up programs to increase the number of aimless people who loathe their elders, and I suggest that, whatever the cost, we guarantee to every Senior American the right to a drab old age. Sometimes (as now), when I think of just how much we could do, I get a little overexcited and I have to sit down for a minute and have a drink and smoke a cigarette.
Now I set for myself only those goals that I know to be completely achievable. I forgo all fantasy. In the coming quarter, I plan to increase the number of molds on the wall of my sleeping space; to increase the number of apéritifs I have before dinner; and of course I plan to increase my dependence on imported oil, which, since it is a broad national goal, I don’t really count. The results, I know, will be very gratifying. Sometimes, however, my candor and consistency are so overwhelming that I have to sit down and have a drink and smoke a cigarette. I have such a large amount of public trust now that in some ways it is almost too much. I don’t want to cut myself off from simple human experience, after all. I don’t want to surrender my warm human qualities. The public doesn’t want that, surely. So I have decided to relent in the case of my friend Bob Mern. I think the public will understand. I’d like Bob to come over and watch Starsky & Hutch with me. I will raise Bob’s rating back to a “B” (“Some Risk”). I will suppress this quarter’s report and send him a notice that his rating is “B.” I wonder if he will call me back. If he doesn’t, it will be a triumph, in a way, since it is a goal of mine to receive thirty-two percent fewer phone calls this quarter than last.
1977