I Still Have It. . . I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It
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I have a friend who has recently become immensely famous because he is an excellent actor in a very good television show. He is no longer able to open the curtains to his bedroom because of telescopic camera lenses aimed through his windows that can photograph him at any time. His personal life is public speculation in the tabloids, and the majority of the information contained therein is incorrect. A modest amount of media attention is undeniably fun, but as Princess Diana discovered, when you can’t turn it off, it can turn deadly.
Let’s talk about the camera phone. Not only is it unnecessary, I’ve never seen a picture of myself on a camera phone where I didn’t resemble a German shepherd. Web sites that show photos of celebrities in compromising situations and, even worse, coming home from the dentist are the newspapers of today. These sites are so ubiquitous that the gossipers themselves are now fodder for gossip. They have gossiped so well they are now famous.
Andy Warhol once said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” Rita says, “Make that ten.” Becoming a television star is now no longer limited to people who have honed their craft and studied for years. Television stars now include people who can stand on a post for hours while holding a dead fish in their mouth.
Even vanity takes a backseat to the opportunity to be on television. Footage of both women and men undergoing plastic surgery proliferates on cable. I cannot remember an evening when I’ve flipped through channels and haven’t seen at least one comatose person having their skin severed with a scalpel by a shower-capped, white-toothed, fame-seeking surgeon. I understand that many of the patients on these shows receive their enhancements for free, but I still think the results might be better had the surgeon not been concerned with operating while showing his good side.
Here’s the crux of the problem. It’s a noisy culture. The people who are prepared to shout get heard, even if they don’t have much to say. The horrific Virginia Tech murders were carried out by a deranged, disenfranchised psychopath who mailed pictures of himself to the media in an effort to be noticed. Osama bin Laden seems to release his videotapes when he feels he’s not being sufficiently talked about. Suicide bombers expect to be posthumously revered. I guess this warped quest to be noticed has always been part of the human condition. After all, John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln almost 150 years ago…but at least John Wilkes Booth was wearing underwear.
Working hard and achieving something isn’t easy, but it’s what self-respect is all about. To misquote Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The only thing we have to fear is fame for fame’s sake.”
* * *
I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a kid. My parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good shape. This one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One kid would sit on him, and the rest of us would drag him around in a circle.
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CNNNMSNBCCNBCFOXNEWSNETWORKHEADLINENEWSLOCALANDNATIONALNEWS
THERE ARE TOO MANY NEWS OUTLETS AND NOT enough news to go around. I force my eyelids open each morning, search for the remote control in the bed, flick on one of the pastel morning shows, and hear the top stories of the day read to me by a perky but not too perky woman who is not too young and yet not too old. If I go newsless for the next ten hours and invite one of the three network anchors into my living room at six o’clock that evening, I’m more often than not given the same news I listened to for five minutes at eight in the morning, except now it’s stretched over twenty-two minutes plus commercials. (I’ve also noticed that the commercials on the evening newscasts are predominately stomach-related. The news is now so upsetting, drug companies have figured out a way to profit from it.)
The networks are obviously at a disadvantage in this age of immediate information. They are in the delicate position of having to create news that is unique to them. Brian Williams has begun to run stories on people in small towns who whittle, and Katie Couric has introduced the dangerous concept of interactive news.
“Send me a story you’d like to see on the news,” she purred one night into the filtered lens. “I’d like to hear it.”
Well, I wouldn’t. Maybe that’s just me, but I like my news to be newsworthy. I like for a story to be so important that reporters feel the need to report it. If I sent in a news story, it might go something like this: “Today I tried a recipe I’ve never tried before. When a recipe states that dough will not stick to the pan even if you don’t grease it beforehand, don’t believe it.”
At least the evening anchors only have to recite the news once a day. The anchors I feel most sympathy for are the teams on Headline News. Repeating the exact same stories over and over and trying to keep them sounding as if it is the first time they’re being read has to be harder than Madonna trying to pretend to be a virgin.
It would be unfair not to note that the fifteen-minute summary of events from around the world is very handy for those of us exercising on a treadmill. I, however, walk for twenty minutes, so I still have to endure five minutes of repetition. The additional information located at the bottom of the screen helps a tad. If I’ve already heard the disaster du jour, I can always catch up on vital information like last night’s scores from the WNBA or the temperature in Anchorage. Other, similar networks employ crawls on the bottom of the screen, which as a rule I attempt to avoid. My eyes tire of the side-to-side motion and I worry that they may wander back and forth involuntarily during the course of a day, causing me to appear shifty.
I am in my best shape during a celebrity murder trial. I can extend my twenty minutes of treadmill to an hour with the aid of an interesting cross-examination. Recently, judges have been ruling against cameras being permitted in the courtroom…something about a circus-like atmosphere, using people’s misfortune for entertainment, judicial interference, blah blah blah. Do they not care about the state of my inner thighs? Have they no conception of the benefits to my buttocks? If I sent pictures of me before the O.J. trial and then after, they might reconsider.
Another question I have concerns the female news anchors on Headline News. Why are they all beginning to look like models? Where are they finding newswomen these days? Playboy? I have nothing against beautiful women getting jobs, but shouldn’t the networks at least throw a few hours of broadcasting, if only in the middle of the night, to a woman with a high forehead and a big nose?
The more attractive a woman reporter is on CNN, the more time she gets to spend indoors. If you’re over forty and have a double chin, chances are you’re filming your report wearing a parka and freezing on the White House lawn or wearing a flak jacket down in a spider hole in Iraq. If you’re over fifty and still in front of the cameras, you’d better be blonder than angel food cake and thinner than angel hair pasta. I love Judy Woodruff and Lesley Stahl, but I think the last time they ate something the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan.
“Breaking News” is a graphic that is currently being greatly overused on television to command our attention. The last time I saw it flashed on my TV screen it turned out that someone in a kitchen in Iowa had broken something. My suggestion to keep news fresh is radical but just might be entertaining. Instead of a “Breaking News” graphic, how about a “Made-Up News” graphic? It would keep the Headline News anchors from excruciating repetition and give networks stories that nobody else has.
“Hi, this is Katherine McKennedy and here are today’s headlines…Tony Danza announces he is running for president of the United States…Bill Gates goes bankrupt…and Osama bin Laden marries Jennifer Lopez in a drive-through chapel in Vegas. More after these messages.”
I don’t know about you, but I’m staying tuned.
* * *
I’m an only child, which means I was very overprotected. My tricycle had seven wheels. And a driver.
* * *
And Away It Went
IN AN EFFORT TO TAKE A MENTAL VACATION FROM everyday annoyances, Martin and I decided we wanted a hobby. Did we choose something sensible, like stamp collecting?
Or maybe something tranquil, like canasta? Was it something fun, like wine tasting? Oh, no. We decided to take up the greatest cash-losing hobby of all time…horse racing.
It wasn’t as arbitrary as it sounds. Martin’s father had worked in racing in England, so Martin had practically grown up on racecourses. It would be a thrill not only for him but for his parents to be actually standing in the winner’s circle alongside a victorious horse instead of standing on the sidelines.
We had no idea how to go about buying a racehorse. I was no help. I suggested a used-horse lot but couldn’t find any listings in the yellow pages. One day Martin arrived at home with a horse racing magazine. He’d had an idea. We didn’t really want to spend a great deal of money on something that risky, so instead of buying all of a cheap racehorse, why not buy part of an expensive one? There was an ad in the back of Horsing Around that listed the number for a horse syndicate contact. Martin wasted no time in setting up a meeting.
I grew a little suspicious when we were told to meet our contact in a parking lot behind a drugstore.
“Rita, I grew up on racecourses. These guys are all a little shifty. This is the way they operate.”
On a crisp Sunday morning we parked our car behind Rite-Aid and watched for a cranberry Camaro. Five minutes later it appeared and parked next to us. A wiry man in his fifties exited the car. He was wearing a lint-covered navy blue blazer and an insincere smile. He extended his hand.
“Hi, Marty, Rita. I’m Benny. Nice to meet ya.”
We had our horse meeting in the front seat of his car. Benny had an overseas connection and together he and the connection were importing racehorses to America from New Zealand. For some reason, certain New Zealand horses could enter less competitive races in the United States than they could at home. The system was complicated but legal. Benny showed us photos of a beautiful horse waiting to be transported.
“This horse is a proven winner. I have three investors, and I just need one more to finalize the sale.”
Martin and I discussed the pros and cons of the situation and decided that this would be the cheapest way to get horse racing out of our system. We would write the check, have some fun, and lose some money. End of hobby.
I forget the actual name of the horse, so I’ll call her Anorexic Annie. Annie was not a good traveler. She arrived in America dehydrated and jet-lagged. The flight from New Zealand to Los Angeles is fifteen hours long; I’d have hated to be the person sitting next to her.
Martin and I visited Annie regularly and brought her carrots and flowers. She ate both. When she was finally well enough to race, I have to admit it was exciting. Martin and I went backstage to where the horses prepare and visited Annie in her dressing stable. We watched her walk around the ring and compared her against her competition. She was looking good.
The race was over in a matter of minutes, and the results were the worst of both worlds. Annie hadn’t won or lost. She had come in third in a close race. Not only had she come in third, she had incurred a slight injury. A small crack had appeared in her left front hoof.
We couldn’t give up on Annie because she had potential. She had only been beaten by a length and a half. All we had to do was heal a small crack in her hoof. How hard could that be? We found out when the medical bills began to arrive. I was never present when the acupuncture was administered, but I can only imagine the needles being stuck into Annie’s hoof as she was asked, “Do you feel this? How about this?” We also received bills for massage and hydrotherapy. I was expecting one for psychiatry, but luckily it never arrived.
Annie was never fit enough to race again, but we had won a little bit of money (not enough to cover our investment) and had some fun. Soon Benny had another horse ready to get on the plane. This one was even better.
We went to the airport to greet Bipolar Barry as he exited the plane. He was a big boy and he was beautiful. He was a striking shade of chestnut with a white marking down the front of his long nose that to me looked like a dollar sign. Bipolar Barry arrived in better physical shape than Anorexic Annie but seemed lethargic. After a few days our trainer made the diagnosis that he was depressed. He missed his friends and his hay. He needed to get out and meet other horses. Yes, a horse psychiatry bill was in our future.
Bi-Po eventually got into a better mood, and the first race he was entered in, he won! We were all there and got our picture taken in the winner’s circle. My husband’s parents were present, and they couldn’t have been more chuffed (the English word for “proud”). We had done it. We had defied the odds and had purchased a part of a prizewinning racehorse for a bargain price. I had visions of being interviewed at the Kentucky Derby.
“Did you ever think your horse would win the Derby?” the announcer would ask me.
“I had a feeling he was a winner, but really I owe everything to his psychiatrist,” I would answer.
That evening Martin and I had a discussion about buying out our other racehorse partners. We were cut short by a phone call the next morning.
“Hi, Marty, Rita. Benny here. I want you both on the line for this. I have some bad news.”
“What happened?” I asked. “He didn’t really win? It was a hologram?”
“Is he injured? Can we make him better? Does he need a vacation?” Martin asked.
“He dropped dead.”
“What?” we both screamed into our phone receivers.
“The trainer was walking him in a circle this morning and it appears he had a massive heart attack.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said. “It was the trainer who dropped dead. I thought it was the horse.”
“It was the horse,” Benny stated. “We won’t know officially if it was a heart attack until the autopsy.”
There it was, the final bill for Bipolar Barry—a horsetopsy. The horsetopsy concluded that Barry had had an enlarged heart. I was glad we hadn’t found out about the enlarged heart while he was still alive because I’m sure Benny would have found a veterinarian who performed horse heart transplants. That would have been a bill to remember.
Our horse adventure continued because now we had been in the winner’s circle and we were not going to stop. Like the lottery winner who hits a jackpot and keeps buying tickets, we wanted to experience the rush again, and Benny had a healthy, well-adjusted, normal-hearted horse already on a plane.
Fickle Frank was a winner. The first time he raced he came in second. Then third, then, yes, first. We stood in the winner’s circle once again. We were sick when the trainer told us about his tongue.
“He can’t control it when he races. It’s too long and we have to strap it down. It’s not going to be long before he’s going to bite it and then he’s through. I have a buyer and I think we should sell him while we can still get a good price.”
It was a tough decision, but this would officially put us in the black. I can’t remember, but I think we made about $3,000 on Fickle Frank. It pales in comparison when we found out that Frank had gone on to win many races after the sale. Evidently his new owners had his tongue under control. We stopped paying attention when Frank passed the half-million-dollar mark in winnings. We had finally bought a prize racehorse that couldn’t stop winning, and we no longer owned it.
I don’t know if Benny is still in business, but we finally stopped accepting his calls. I’m sure he has another horse ready to board a plane, but we officially ended that hobby and began a new one—golf. It’s expensive and frustrating, but at least we know that our clubs will never need acupuncture, hydrotherapy, or autopsies. There is, however, a possibility that if we don’t eventually improve, Martin and I will soon need psychiatrists.
* * *
I had the most boring office job in the world. I used to clean the windows on the envelopes.
* * *
And the Gift Basket Goes To…
“A GIFT BASKET WILL BE ARRIVING AT YOUR HOME in approximately half an hour,” the voice on the other end of the phone stated. “Will someone be there to accept it?”
I looked over at my hungry husband, who was ready to overpay for food at our local restaurant just to be fed.
“Can you leave it at the front door?”
“No, there must be someone there to accept it.”
“OK, we’ll wait.”
When I got off the phone, my husband asked, “Wait for what? I’m hungry.”
“We have to wait for the Oscar gift basket.”
“I’m waiting for a gift basket? I’m waiting for old apples in a straw box to be delivered to my door? I don’t think so.”
“It’s only five o’clock. The restaurant doesn’t even open until five-thirty. It’ll be here in less than half an hour. Sit down and have a cracker.”
Thirty minutes in, just when Martin was about to tie me up and throw me into the car, the doorbell rang.
“Oscar gift basket.”
I buzzed it in. I was not ready for what arrived.
It was 2001, and it was the first time I had been asked to write jokes for the Oscars. The whole experience was already overwhelming. I was in a room with Steve Martin and three other writers and we were fashioning Steve’s monologue bit by bit. I had never written jokes for anyone but me, so the experience was more than a little daunting, but not nearly as daunting as the large, dead body covered in a horse blanket being wheeled into our foyer.
“What is this?” I screeched.
“It’s the Oscar gift basket. It’s worth thousands of dollars and weighs sixty pounds,” the deliveryman explained, hinting for a tip.
I gave him twenty dollars. He seemed a little too happy and left. But what did I care? I had the Oscar gift basket.
Suddenly Martin wasn’t so hungry. We removed the horse blanket and stared at what lay beneath.
“I’ll get the scissors,” he said.