Just out., January 19, 2001, Page 35, Image 35

January 19.2001
fell, I’m 35 and I’m still not famous.
I’m certain there’s been a mix-up
in the cosmic paperwork somewhere.
Right now Steven Spielberg is offering
some undeserving no-talent hack a six-figure
option for a screenplay while my undiscovered
genius languishes unnoticed yet another year.
I tell myself I’m a complete, self-actual­
ized person who shouldn’t need mass adula­
tion to boost my fragile ego, but the fact is
ever since I was a kid I imagined I’d be suffi­
ciently well-known to be a regular guest on
various television talk shows. I just knew
deep down I belonged on a couch next to
Merv Griffin cracking jokes with Totie Fields
and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
With each passing year, however, I must
face the cold, hard reality that unless I do
something drastic like pogo-stick my way across
the United States to raise awareness for shaken
baby syndrome, Barbara Walters is not going to
make me cry on national television. My
depression over this fact is compounded by the
sheer dreariness of celebrities who insist on try­
ing to prove they’re just regular people like the
rest of us— a complete and utter waste of fame
as far as I’m concerned.
I just hate those celebrities who, when
asked about their fast track to success, reply all
misty-eyed that they’ve learned what’s really
important is their family. Puh-leeze.
It took getting famous just to learn that?
Anyone who’s had to bring his or her laundry
home knows how important family is.
Just once I’d love to hear a celebrity say to
Walters: “O f course fame is fabulous! Y’know, I
can sleep with just about anyone I want to!”
I’m especially irritated by those filmmakers
who, the moment they can command the best
First, find a date:
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THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING
TO MARC
b y M a rc Acito
tables in Hollywood restaurants, feel com­
pelled to make “important” movies telling
the rest of us how dreary and hard life can
be. Memo to producers: The rest of us
already know how dreary and hard life can
be— we still fly coach.
Nowhere is this truer than with last
year’s best picture, a movie everyone else
loved and I hated, American Beauty, the
theme of which was that if in you’re in the
rat race then you must he a rat. Memo to
the rest of us: Be insulted— that movie was
about us.
Last year, the film’s director, Sam Mendes,
was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. (I read
about it in People magazine.) When I found
out he and I are the same age, I had to go
back into therapy.
Just why do magazines insist on putting a
celebrity’s age right after his or her name, any­
way? Why don’t they put something that’ll
make the rest of us feel better, like their IQs?
But being a complete glutton for punish­
ment, I regularly skip all those other stories—
y’know, the ones about inspiring regular people
who pogo-stick their way across the United
States— and focus my attentions exclusively on
the rich and famous. They really ought to call
the magazine People Who Are Thinner and More
Successful Than You.
*
I suppose that’s why I’m completely addict­
ed to V H l’s Behind the Music and all of its vari­
ous rip-offs. The producers of these shows
understand nothing is better than watching a
celebrity rise to fame and then come crashing
down to make the rest of us feel good about our
drab little lives. Certainly, these shows are
what motivate my lazy ass to the gym— that
and the fact I don’t get them at home.
On a recent trip to the gym, faced with
the prospect of back-to-back episodes of
Where Are They Now? I decided to try out
the new elliptical trainer.
I climbed on, noting that the default
weight setting was 150, which wasn’t unusual
for these cardio machines. (Despite appear­
ances to the contrary, I do exercise regularly
enough to know these things, thank you very
much.) On this particular machine, however,
you only could adjust the weight in 1-pound
increments, which was not only demoralizing
but, in my case, time-consuming.
Likewise, the default age setting was 20,
rising in 1-year increments. I took a certain
amount of solace in the fact that Sir Sam
Mendes had to push the damn button the
same number of times I did.
Then, as I pumped away to the sight of
celebrity after celebrity crashing and burn­
ing, I reached a kind of spiritual epiphany,
and in a startling moment of clarity I sud­
denly made peace with my fameless life. For
in that moment I realized the one distinct
advantage of being a never-was is that I also
can’t he a has-been.
And that, my friends, is The Gospel
According to Marc.
in
M arc A cito hopes someone will send him fan
mail at MarcAcito@home.com.
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