- Well, it looks like this TV thing might not work out. So far we’ve been called “icky,” “obnoxious,” “wonky,” “stodgy,” “strange,” “too polite,” “lackluster,” “just vapid,” “confused,” “utterly lost,” “fluffy,” “wretchedly unwatchable,” “unbearable,” “self-important noise,” “an unalloyed disappointment,” “a queezy whiff of sulfur,” “dead-on-arrival” and “annoying in a narcissistic kind of way.” Listen, I’m not dumb. In fact, I’m all too self-aware. And I can confirm to you that all of these criticisms are true. I took a gamble. I put myself out there. I floundered and failed. It didn’t help that they shackled me with Kathleen and her pearls. We’ll be off the air in three months. And when that happens, it’ll be time once again for me to move on. The question is, in what industry can I put my stodgy, vapid, wonky narcissism to best use?
- I’ve been reading a great book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It’s very lyrical and romantic. The title is Memoirs of My Melancholy Whores. That could be one way for me to go. Narcissism is an asset to the novelist, and literature thrives on stories of falls from grace. Let me try out some opening lines: “He had everything, but he wanted too much.” No, too bland, kind of a cliché. “Someone must have slandered Eliot S., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was forced to resign the office of governor.” Accurate, but a little self-pitying. I should go straight to the action: “He walked out of the courthouse and three blocks north to the hotel, where she was waiting in the lobby, and only 10 minutes later they were on the 30th floor, there were 10 $100 bills in her purse, and he was wearing nothing but his thin black socks.” This is exhausting. I need to do something easier.
- Conceptual art. There, I said it. I need to find an industry with high profit margins, low expectations in terms of time and effort and where the values system is the opposite of mainstream society. Ugliness, boredom, degeneracy, dishonesty, hypocrisy, inauthenticity–I had thought that these were the currency of television but ultimately even cable–cable!–is too wholesome for my tediously recursive self-involvement. After three months, we’ll have 90 hours of Parker Spitzer to run on a loop continuously as a video installation. I’ll bring that to P.S.1. For my next “project,” I’ll take copies of the “Client 9” indictment and wallpaper a space in Brooklyn with them. By that point, I’ll need to take my work in a really transgressive direction, something along the lines of performance art. Maybe I can enlist Ashley. She always works for the right price. A Chelsea loft space, Ashley, a bed, some mood music, me in my socks. This idea is good, but it’s risky. I need a backup.
- I’m a good manager. I’m detail-oriented. I’m aggressive. I know about markets. I know all the loopholes, and how to slip through them. What I need to do is find a market that’s really free, a market where I can be me. I’m flamboyant, and I love women, love them. I need to relocate to a place where that’s O.K. Where disgrace is a credential. Where risk takers are the big winners. I’m tired of these pinstriped suits. I want to wear leather and gold. I’m tired of being pilloried by prudes. I want to go where pleasure brings you profit, not shame. This is my destiny. I’m moving to Vegas. I was born to be a pimp.
