After watching the Academy Awards Ceremony the other night,
I was thinking about what a mixed blessing it must be to be a celebrity.
The adulation and fame do wonders for the ego and yet, once
obtained, is often accompanied by the fear that it can slip away in an instant.
It is great to be recognized everywhere you go until it isn’t.
Until you find you can’t go to the store or the movies or a restaurant without
the hassle of looking the part and being graded on everything from your menu
choice to your tip. And the slightest unpleasant encounter or conversation will
be caught on camera by some of the most obnoxious people in the world.
Celebrity also means if you or your family screw up, even
get a parking ticket, everyone in the world will know about it.
Even the events that are meant to be supreme ego gratifiers
can be difficult. Think about the Oscars. Most of the nominated will be losers
and all the participants will be graded on what they wear, who did their hair
and who they are with. Cameras will zero in at the worst possible moments, and
if you screw up the pronunciation of a name like John Travolta did, the embarrassment
will richochet around the world several times.
The other tough thing about being a celebrity is that even
after your time is past, it remains a part of you. It is like a ticking time
bomb waiting for any misstep to light up the information highway with the news.
You may not be of interest on a daily basis, but the public is always there to
grade you when necessary.
As you age, you can be sure that your epitaph has already
been written by hundreds of blogs and journals, and is ready to be published or
updated based on what the day brings.
It is hard to age well as a celebrity. This is why many try
to fade into anonymity in later years. For some, however, fame is too addictive
and they try to cling to the spotlight even when the glare is too harsh. You
only have to look at the embarrassing efforts of Kim Novak at this year’s
Oscars to see what can happen. A once beautiful woman reduced herself to a
train wreck through the misuse of plastic surgery. Her moment back on the stage
was one of those events where it was painful to watch but too hard to look
away.
All of this is preface to an encounter I had recently on a
plane trip. I sat across the aisle from an individual who had once been a
familiar face to almost everyone in America. He was now a confused old man,
traveling alone and, seemingly, adrift in the world. He was a gentle soul whose
celebrity did not allow him to be just another traveler, but instead emphasized
the distance he had travelled in life.
I wrote the poem Landing
(copyright 2014 Glenn K. Currie) about that encounter.
Landing
The old man’s coffee
cup leaked unnoticed,
Wetting his pants as
he waited to board.
Someone helped him
tighten the lid,
But a trail of drops
continued to mark his passage.
He had misplaced his
ticket,
And sat in the wrong
seat
Until a flight attendant
checked the roster.
He wore dirty white
boots that zipped in front,
And white latex
gloves over swollen hands.
As passengers passed through business class
They smiled and he
smiled back,
Sometimes
complimenting a sweater or hat.
The comments seemed
more a habit;
An obligation rather
than an observation.
In the three hour
flight he neither read nor ate.
He got up once to
abuse a bathroom
That did not
accommodate his size or age.
Everyone on the plane
knew who he was,
But his fame now
seemed a burden.
Cell phones lit up in
baggage claims,
Detailing an old
man’s struggles to fly.
Copyright 2014 Glenn
K. Currie
No comments:
Post a Comment