Discover This!

Here, well into the 50th year of my life, I still harbor the vague hope that I will one day be discovered.

I cling to the aspiration, informed by my days as an aspiring comedy writer in LA (or maybe it was the movie, Barton Fink), that somewhere, some cigar-chomping impresario will run across my ramblings and summon his secretary with a command to get me phone immediately. When I pick up, he’ll bark into the receiver something like, “Kid, I like your stuff,” and offer me a fat contract, guaranteeing this idyllic summer lifestyle for the rest of my days.

There will be 327 action-figures, coffee cups, drug paraphernalia, and eventually, a movie about my life starring Hilary Swank in drag. Best of all, I’ll even get my own Wikipedia entry.

But is this really going to happen? In the words of the Magic Eight Ball: “Don’t Count On It.”

In the first place, if any discovering is going on, it ought to be me doing it. At this point in my development, I should be the one finding and fostering new talent. There’s just not that many bigwigs out there who could seriously call me “kid.” More than likely, they’d be referring to me as “dad.”

Second, I think I’m not really cut out for fame. To be a star, you have to be willing to do lots of things that you don’t really want to—like I can’t imagine that Matt Dillon really looked forward to being on Good Morning America today—and I’m just too curmudgeonly for that.

Finally, suppose it did happen. Suppose, for instance, that you, yourself, are that cigar-chomping bigwig reading these words and summoning your secretary to get me on the phone so you can offer me the guaranteed big bucks. Suppose she is dialing the phone right now.

So, shouldn’t it be ringing?

I told you it wasn’t going to happen.

Is that a brilliant discovery or what?