FAKE IT TILL YOU BREAK IT: ONE MAN’S JOURNEY FROM ZERO TO HERO AND ALL THE WAY BACK AND THEN SOME Chapter 1
I knew my buddy Mike was going to become famous sooner or later. As his agent I hoped it would be sooner, but as his friend I hoped it would be later. Friendship is a strange beast. I would envisage Mike becoming famous by association, just as a friend of mine. I would toss some fame his way, much like you toss that last rotten piece of chicken to your dog. It wasn’t very clear how I would achieve fame and success in this scenario of mine, given that at the ripe old age of 27 I was yet to establish the exact whereabouts of my talent. However, when informed of this, Mike pointed out that dogs don’t necessarily eat rotten chicken, which goes to show just how solid our friendship is. Or that Mike can’t really figure out what the most important part of the message is.
Either way, when I saw the TV crew right next to our building, I knew that the day for Mike’s rise to fame had come. Sure, there was a car there, and a distressed driver of said car, and the bicyclist on the ground was barely breathing, but that wasn’t the most important part of the message I received from the universe in that instance. The message I received was loud and clear – the message was ‘Showtime!’
A TV Reporter (young woman in her twenties, who looked disappointed by the insignificance of the accident she was sent to cover) approached me followed by a cameraman (gentleman of a very unclear age, who looked disappointed by everything that the Universe had provided him with thus far). I began to theorise that they met at Disappointeds Anonymous, but the woman didn’t allow this theory to fully crystallise, as she propelled the microphone in my general direction and started talking at me before I had had any chance to gather my thoughts.
The expression ‘to gather one’s thoughts’ is a curious one. It implies that there are millions of these thoughts just running around in your head, and then you round them up – you get an army whistle of some kind, and you blow it many times, and the thoughts finally gather round. They stand in line, talking amongst themselves, ready to be called into action. However, it would appear that either my whistle was broken, or this is not a very workable metaphor, as I can’t really gather up more that one thought at a time. The thought in question usually comes well after the fact, and it’s the good old trusty ‘what the bleep just happened?’ Other all-time favourites are the perpetual ‘wow!’, ‘why did you just say that?’, and ‘really?’ following most of the sentences that come out of my mouth.
Of course, the TV people didn’t know that, as TV people’s knowledge of this world is limited. With that in mind, the TV woman rather naively opened with ‘Coming to you live, we are here on the scene of a major car accident with one of the witnesses. What can you tell us about this?’ I could tell her absolutely nothing about this, but then again knowing nothing about what’s happening right under their nose is a prerequisite in their profession (ba-doom-tss!). So I started with the rather obvious ‘Well, here’s a car, and here’s a dude on the ground, so it must’ve hit him pretty good.’ I looked directly into the camera with a look of concern. The cameraman managed to misinterpret my look of compassion and empathy for the victim, and motioned to me that the camera was indeed on, as this was what he perceived my concern to be about. I regrouped and now that everybody was up-to-speed with the proceedings, editorialised the whole thing with ‘Does anybody really care? Probably not.’ The cameraman nodded his head in agreement and unnecessarily re-confirmed yet again that the camera was still on.
Following this I got a lot more excited as I was coming to the significantly more important part – ‘But what is absolutely remarkable is that the next big star of Australian film and television lives in this very building. His name is Mike Davids and he is amazingly awesome! And I know talent! He’s the next Lindsay Lohan, would you believe?’ The TV woman didn’t look like she would believe, but I was on a roll – ‘Mark my words! Or rather ‘Mike my words’. Because his name is Mike!’ My microphone was then switched off as I tried to throw to an imaginary weather guy who I christened Derek for no apparent reason. Derek had the weather for the folks at home. The weather was okay.
Of course, this segment made it onto the air (except for the Derek bit). I don’t really know why. I think because everybody was ‘just doing their job’, which in layman’s terms means ‘nobody gave a flying truck’. A somewhat astute observer of human beings may see leagues of office drones staring into space, nine to five, Monday to Friday, fifty two weeks a year minus four weeks of Annual Leave and two weeks Sick Leave, all of them sick exactly ten days a year without fail. But despite that, ultimately we like to think that some people do care. These TV people clearly didn’t.
Mike (the aforementioned next big star of Australian film and television) was rather surprised by the TV mention, as well as being compared to Lindsay Lohan. This transgender comparison didn’t quite compute for him. He could’ve still been preoccupied with the chicken and dog metaphor. I explained to him that it’s always good to drop a famous name in there, as it creates a link in the audience’s collective mind. I followed up this profound (yet made-up and meaningless) explanation by saying ‘Mike Davids – next Lindsay Lohan; Lindsay Lohan – previous Mike Davids’ a couple of times and further requested that he ‘mikes my words’ as this could easily become his catchphrase, and we all know how a successful catchphrase can elevate a person of no apparent standing into a stratosphere of superstardom.
The pragmatist in Mike wondered if this had got him any more work yet. I used one of my favourite ways of saying ‘no’ by saying: ‘no, not as such’, as this left a possibility that this ‘no’ was somehow a ‘yes’ in disguise. Mike missed that particular subtlety, but found another by suggesting that all of the work available for actors of any gender did indeed go to one Lindsay Lohan.
This hit a bit too close to home for me as I couldn’t tell Mike the latest on Ms Lohan, for the powers that be had banned me from her Facebook page for referring to her as the previous Mike Davids a few too many times. My saving grace here was that our home phone was flashing – indicating that somebody left us a voicemail. ‘This insolence in front of the whole nation might’ve actually achieved something,’ I said triumphantly, ‘this could easily be some big shot Hollywood director requesting your services’. There were a number of problems with that train of thought (for one, our phone number was unlisted), but we chose to ignore them as it is human nature to ignore whatever facts get in the way of one’s chosen delusions.
I pressed the button on the phone. ‘Hello… Hello?!… Crap!’ said the male voice angrily. This was probably the most enthusiastic response we’d received for Mike’s work thus far. I suggested Mike calls the man back as it is very important for any actor (doubly so for one of the unemployed variety) to constantly put their good name and good self out there. When Mike queried where this mysterious ‘out there’ was, I pointed upwards and a little bit to the left, and we stared in that direction for a while. ‘Out there’ looked very friendly, inviting even, if we were to disregard the spider web and a few dead insects we eventually focussed upon. ‘We have no money for the cleaning lady,’ said Mike bringing us back to reality. ‘I might need to get a job,’ he added hinting just how bleak this reality thing had now become.
It was apparent that Mike’s dream of becoming an actor had recently begun to crumble. ‘Crumble’ is a surprisingly positive word, if you choose to look at it in a retrospective way – it implies that there was something there to begin with and now it’s crumbling, but it might just not collapse completely. Did I give the impression there was something there to begin with? Actually, the word ‘crumble’ is a bit too positive for our case – Mike’s dream of becoming an actor just wasn’t working out at all at that point in time.
Dear Mr. Partsi,
Thank you for sending through the first Chapter of your Book.
What specific mental affliction are you suffering from Mr. Partsi, if you don’t mind me asking?
This is an accounting firm; why would we be possibly interested in publishing your ‘humorous fiction novel’?
Best regards,
Eric Schmidt
Head Accountant
Schmidt, Schmidt, Schmidt and, surprisingly, Candelabrum
P.S. I personally found the beginning of your novel quite entertaining – I particularly liked that you mentioned Ms Lindsay Lohan. I think about her a lot. She is swell.
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