Fame Isn't For Everybody

Some people do not want to be rich and famous. Only rich. And they are wise. Fame isn't for everybody. The thing is, though: with certain kinds of fame, you get lots of free stuff.

If you're a famous writer, or Oprah Winfrey or Bill Clinton, publishers are dying to have you say something about one of their books, so they send you free advance copies of all of them. If paparazzi photos of you appear everywhere, you get free T-shirts and watches and sunglasses and shoes and pants and hats and gloves and socks and shoes and belts and swimwear, because the manufacturers are dying to have their products seen round the world being worn by your fabulous self. You repeatedly hear the phrase: "Your money's no good here, Sir or Madam" at restaurants and hotels, because the chance that you'll be seen there is worth much more to them than the bill. You have to worry much less about reservations than most people do, for the same reason.

It depends how you got famous, to some extent. If you're rich and famous because you won a Powerball jackpot and you made no request for privacy, you probably get offered much less free stuff than if you're Bruce Willis or the Pope. I'm not sure what effect there would be if Bruce Willis let it be known than he wanted less free stuff -- or more.

The amount of free stuff a famous person gets no doubt rises and falls no matter how he or she reacts to it. If a celebrity is sad because he or she is no longer the "flavor of the month," I suspect one thing he or she may be sad about is being offered less free stuff.

Early on in the series "Just Shoot Me!" the character played by Laura San Giacomo was a brand-new member of the fashion industry because her Daddy had given her a job writing at the magazine he owned and operated. Because of her new job, and the newly-won influence which came with it, she got some free stuff, including some boots which she loved. But she gave all of the free stuff back because of her "integrity."

I never liked that episode or the message it was sending. Where do I even start? Did she give back the job her Daddy gave her? No! Did she offer to change positions and work her way up from the mailroom or wherever entry-level was at the magazine? No again! Never offered her office back to the guy who got summarily thrown out of it to make room for Daddy's girl...

Anyway. I kept watching the show. I think Laura San Giacomo is really great. And my point is that I'm pretty sure I could receive lots and lots of free stuff and retain my integrity. And if not: I'd still have a lot of free stuff, and, maybe in part because my Daddy never owned and operated a big magazine, I'd like to think I'd still appreciate the free stuff, and never forget about all the people who've never gotten a free Rolex watch or a free pair of really exceptional shoes, and even give some of my free stuff away to people who needed it more because they were neither rich nor famous.

And isn't that what it's all about, really? And isn't that a great message for the kids? Is anyone thinking of the children, here?!

In conclusion, I really, really, really, really want lots and lots of that sweet, sweet, swag. Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless the United States of America!

I Know Nothing About Robert Mapplethorpe's Private Life. (Sure, I've Heard Some Things...)

What good is becoming a rich and famous artist if you can't use that fame to open doors for other artists?

It's a mistake to think that you know about people's lives because you saw a documentary about them. Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures makes it seem that Robert Mapplethorpe was extremely self-centered, to the point of being appalled at the very idea that someone else's artistic career could have been furthered by their association with him.

We don't know about other people's lives. Not through the media, we don't. I got a pang when I noticed in the end credits of The Dark Knight that it was written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan. (Christopher Nolan directed the film, in case you're not up-to-date on extremely-famous movie directors.) I assumed, correctly, that Christopher and Jonathan are brothers. I've learned that they've worked together on several projects. The pang I got when I saw that credit was one of envy. I thought; How wonderful it must be to work with your brother. I know little about the mechanical engineering and corporate executive work my brother does, and he knows doodly-squat about anything to do with the arts or philosophy, and seems determined to stay that way forever.

But I have no way of knowing how wonderful or awful it is to be either one of the Nolan brothers or how pleasant or miserable it is to work with the other one. I know that my own brother and I are not close, that's all I know.

Then last night I watched Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, and learned how Robert Mapplethorpe's younger brother Edward worked for him, developing his photographs, and that when Edward was about to show some pictures of his own, Robert got very upset, talked about Edward "riding his coattails," and talked him into changing his name to Edward Maxey. And how Robert met a young man and made him his lover and model, until others also began to be interested in using him as a model, at which point he quickly went, in Robert's view, from a lover and model to a "hanger-on," and their relationship ended. Robert seemed like a monster, like a very nasty, profoundly ungenerous person.

That's how it looked in the documentary. And that also matches some of the media buzz, during his lifetime and since, about how selfish Robert was. Then again, the brother and the lover/model were both interviewed for the film, while Robert Mapplethorpe has been dead since 1989, and so was unavailable to tell his side of things. If I had known Robert Mapplethorpe, and if I also knew Edward, and this model and other of Robert's models, and some of the artists of various genres who were close to Robert, and if I knew Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, who directed Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, then, perhaps, I would feel qualified to tell you whether the film got Robert Mapplethorpe exactly right, or completely wrong, or somewhere in between. My first thought after having watched the documentary last night was the first sentence in this blog post: "What good is becoming a rich and famous artist if you can't use that fame to open doors for other artists?" My second thought is: for all I know, Robert Mapplethorpe did open many of those doors, and maybe his brother Edward and that model really were just two of the hangers-on.

I don't know. It was just a movie made by people I'd never heard of. Maybe they're exactly right. I don't know.

I'd like to think that when I become rich and famous -- any day now -- I'll use my fame in order to help some deserving talented people who're working in obscurity as I have been up until now. But I don't know what it'll be like to be rich and famous, and I don't know what I'll do when I am. And I don't know what public opinions of my private life will circulate.

So why did I write this blog post? Maybe because even if Robert Mapplethorpe was every bit as much of a big meanie as Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures portrays him to have been (I have no reason to think that Bailey and Barbato are incompetent or devious or duped. None at all.), he still wrote a will dedicating his fortune to creating a foundation which promotes the recognition of photography as an art form and funds AIDS research. And because I find some of his photographs beautiful.

The Awful Truth Slips Out

(Just now someone very kindly mentioned that they were going to bookmark my blog, and this is how I responded)

No! Please! Please! Don't bookmark my blog, I beg of you!

Actually, I'm very pleased when anyone reads my blog -- that's right, even him, over there -- and I'm even more pleased when they become official "followers" of it, and when they make comments on the blog. I want more and more people to do these things, and I want them to link my blog on their blogs, and I want Oprah Winfrey and Charlie Rose to praise my blog on their TV shows and put the URL up on the screen, and I want to become rich and famous and have my blog posts collected into bestselling books, and be a frequent guest on Conan O'Brian and Jimmy Kimmel and I want to hang out with Thomas Pynchon and Salman Rushdie and have a stormy celebrity romance with Chelsea Handler with pictures of us constantly in the tabloids over misleading headlines, and --

Nevermind.

(Well, it's out there now, nothing I can do about it. It's out there, and it's the truth. Especially the part about Chelsea Handler. She's so good-looking, sometimes it almost makes me cry.)