Sunday, August 7, 2011

Kevin Spacey and Playboy Magazine

I read a Playboy interview with Kevin Spacey about 100 hundred years ago. Actually I think it was 1999. In it he talks briefly about his father. His father wanted to be a journalist but never made it, and ended up writing technical manuals, which is very boring stuff. Spacey said his dad spent  a lot of time in his room writing creatively because he was a creative writer at heart. He was never published and apparently never tried; he said he felt his writing wasn't good enough. Spacey said he has boxes of his father's stuff.
Those comments really hit home because I could see my sons saying that about me after I begin tormenting them from beyond the grave. At the time I read it, I was exchanging a series of E-mails with Gary in Sweden, one of my top five buddies who married his Swedish sweetheart and eventually abandoned me to move to Sweden. He has been there for quite a while now; speaks the language fluently and has raised three kids who speak Swedish AND English. I have a great deal of respect for him.
We are both insane and the E-mails are funny and creative; he has saved them all and Carol says we should publish them, and she is probably right.
My point is, at the time I wasn't really working hard at writing, I was dreaming about it with a close friend. I have since written 45 million words and recently begun trying to peddle those words in a more committed way. So Spacey's memories of his father hit home now even more than they did in 1999.
But at the ripe old age of 57 the odds are hugely against me making any kind of serious coin with the magic of my words. You can't get published if you are unknown and you can't get known if you aren't published. And even if someone showed an interest in my writing they would want to know about my background. As soon as they met me they would think "the guy is 57 years old with grey hair IN A PONYTAIL, with a beer belly, an ex-accountant (kind of sounds like a recovering alcoholic) who is currently working part time in a bar and a liquor store. How the hell are we going to sell this guy?" A creative type would recognize this as a great story, but in today's corporate dominated world you can't count on dealing with creative types. "Besides he would come across as dumpy and over the hill on Letterman."
The good part of my brain believes that all this effort and talent (?) will lead somewhere. I am a good writer, but there are a million good writers out there in central NH alone who are making a living as cab drivers, hookers, drug peddlers, junior accountants and part time NHSLC employees. The bad part of my brain accepts that this is a dream and will end up in boxes after I end up in a box. I take some comfort in knowing that my words are out there in various websites; I will at the very least leave that behind, which is more than most people can say.
I am not giving up. Not even close. I will keep on writing and submitting until somebody finally says "For christ sake, this is the 3,477th poem this guy has submitted to us. Publish the damn thing and maybe it will satisfy his ego and shut him up." Little do they know............................
A couple of asides. I like Kevin Spacey as an actor. I have enjoyed him in many cool movies. Except The Usual Suspects. I hated that movie and to this day I'm still trying to figure out who the hell Keyser Soze was. You want a kick, Netflix yourself Glengarry Glen Ross. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey. It is a great critique of the sales world and corporate america, and the language pissed my mother off so much she walked out of the theatre and forced my father to do the same. I don't know if Tony ever got to see the whole thing; I hope so - it was his kind of movie.
Anyway I love Spacey as an actor, but in interviews he comes off as a bit pretentious. Maybe I am intimidated by his intelligence. I'm not sure I could enjoy a beer with him which, of course, is the ultimate test of a man's character.
Playboy. I subscribed for many years. The pictures were great, but I loved the interviews, the fiction and the overall aura of class the magazine and its advertisers exuded. I aspired to that lifestyle; expensive clothes, fine dining, fast cars and financial independence. They interviewed intelligent, controversial and interesting people, and the writers featured in the magazine were superb. Ultimately I could not handle the juvenile comments found underneath the pictures of the naked ladies. That attitude undermined the class and intelligence of the magazine. And maybe I recognized the distinct possibility that I will never achieve that lifestyle, and felt tortured to have it in my hands once a month.
That's it. I'm done. It's Sunday and we're going to visit two special people with whom we can actively pursue the sweet release of laughter, which comes easily every time we get together. Very special stuff.

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