THE SWEET TASTE OF FAME

New York City still seems to attract people in search of fame and fortune, although many argue that Hollywood is really the true mecca for being discovered. New York seems to have recently become more of a playground for the rich, especially the new rich who are generating code, creating apps and exploring new ways to connect through smart media.

So maybe Sam Osbourne ought to be going to Hollywood, because he was certainly not a media developer. Sure, he had a smartphone, but that's nothing to write home about. Sam was simply a good looking dude from New Mexico. He would probably be discovered in Hollywood at the drop of a hat. Going  to New York would be much more of a challenge. There was still some mystery about New York. New York was like a magic potion that drew you to be a part of it.

Sam Osbourne was 6'7" and a lady killer. What's more, he could sing circles around any leading man on Broadway. He was a natural. At least that's what he and his friends thought in Santa Fe. He had played in musicals, even an opera or two while in Santa Fe, not always the lead, but he was very popular on and offstage. He was at every party. Inviting him insured the party's success.

Everyone urged Sam to go to New York.They were certain he would become famous. His high school drama teacher encouraged him, and the director of his choir had commented that Sam was the best prospect for success in New York since Dennis Hopper or Val Kilmer...or even Adrian Grenier.

With such endorsements, Sam began to believe he would be making a big mistake if he didn't go to New York. The truth is that such success always came easily for Sam. He really didn't need to make an effort.  He was always the captain of his teams in school. He was voted most popular senior on his high school website, and the most likely to succeed.

Almost the moment Sam joined FaceBook he had more than 1500 friends and he was constantly flooded with requests. People followed him on Twitter, and his popularity grew seemingly with each advance of social media. He was an instant hit on Instagram. He enjoyed the Fame generated by the social media. This modest taste of Fame whetted his appetite. There was something about becoming famous that was delicious, like some exotic elixir that became habit forming. Now he wanted Fame so bad he could taste it.

You have probably surmised that Sam didn't go to college. Sam thought college would be a waste of time. Maybe he should have gone to Hollywood he thought. Look at what happened to Tom Cruise fresh out of high school in New Jersey. He went to Hollywood and became a super star. Almost overnight. Tom Cruise had it right. College was for losers.

Sam Osbourne posted on FaceBook that he was going to New York. He received hundreds of comments. There was advice on some people to see. But Sam was way ahead of his followers. He had already looked up top agents in New York City and sent them his resume and headshot, with a link to his website.

Sam had such an impressive website, he was surprised that he hadn't received offers and propositions from that.  Well, actually he did have a few propositions, and he had some mind blowing encounters with a few women who had something in mind other than show business.

Finally, Sam announced on FaceBook and in his messages and Twitters that he would be staying at the New York Marriott Marquis in the heart of Times Square, on Broadway. He was arriving that Sunday. He sent out his Cell number to the many contacts.

Sam booked Southwest Airlines direct to LaGuardia. He wouldn't be wasting time at JFK with all those international travelers trying to get a cab. He'd land directly in the city that never sleeps. The flight was four hours and one minute.

The cab to the hotel was exciting. Sam relished the skyline and felt a nervous anticipation as he approached Times Square. The taxi pulled into the receiving area for the Marquis hotel. Sam collected his bag (he travelled light) and checked in. From his suite on the 47th floor he could look out the window at the east side and also look down below to Times Square and Broadway.

He thought to himself: it doesn't get any better than this. It had been all so effortless. He wondered why he hadn't come sooner. It was Sunday evening and he went downstairs and walked around Broadway and the side streets with all the glittering theatres. There was the feeling of Autumn in the air, and Sam could almost taste how delicious it would be to enjoy the NYC feast of fame. He took selfies in front of the Broadway theaters, in Times Square, the Great White Way... His FaceBook became the personification of the excitement of Broadway, and there was Sam, in the middle of the milieu.

At last, he thought, I'm finally home where I ought to be. As he returned to the hotel, he checked at the desk. There were no messages. This didn't bother Sam. After all it was Sunday.

It is somewhat puzzling and a mystery as to what happened the rest of the week on the 47th floor of the Marquis Hotel.  Sam sat by the hotel telephone, and also made sure the battery was charged on his smartphone.  He checked his messages and texts. He checked his website.

But nothing happened. No one seemed to notice Sam Osbourne had come to the Big Apple. He watched television, and checked the Internet. He sent a few emails, but he received no replies. For the next four days there were no calls, no messages, no offers. Sam sat alone in his room waiting to be discovered.

On Friday, Sam Osbourne checked out of the Marriott Marquis and returned quietly to Santa Fe. His whole affair in the Big Apple left a bad taste in his mouth.

He thought to himself, "Yeah. I shoulda gone to Hollywood."

THE MUSE AND THE MOTORCYCLE

One of Jerome's best friends was Gordon Elliott who was attending Columbia University to pursue a master's degree in American Literature. He was fresh from the University of Texas and had come to New York City to pursue his dream of writing fiction. Academia was a comfortable way of landing in New York where he knew no one.

Gordon actually arrived in New York City before Jerome. When Jerome got to the city he looked for his friend at Columbia. He found Gordon  so excited because he was learning so much from a girl named Rona in his class.

Gordon had noticed Rona, often by herself, always obsessed with her smartphone where she seemed to be constantly texting and reading messages. Rona Cohen had a dark intensity that promised a keen intellect sharpened in the cultural context of her Jewish heritage. She was stunningly beautiful, and so her countenance was a source of obsession and challenge to Gordon who had plans of conquest if he saw an opportunity. Rona was majoring in medieval literature, and married to Irving Cohen who was the wunderkind of the psychoanalytic world.

Gordon was attracted to Rona, petite, sexy, and vividly alive. Gordon was not without attractive qualities to someone like Rona. He was a Texan, strong, masculine, and a diamond in the rough. She could see he was very smart, but he came to New York knowing nothing, having not read the essential literature. He was essentially a blank slate. Rona thought Gordon was an unconscious genius, and she was more the happy to be his muse, to be his Beatrice.

They became lovers and were inseparable, with Rona taking on his education in a crash program of analyzing masterpieces of the world's greatest literature. But Gordon benefitted from an extremely gifted scholar who not only knew the masterpieces he should attend to, but also the critical reviews  and theories that were essential to complete his education.

It was incredibly thrilling to for Gordon who found their bouts in bed awesome and inspiring. Rona was constantly taking selfies of them as a couple and posting them on FaceBook. Some of them were of them together in bed, looking relaxed and reading the Sunday Times. They became an item in the New York gossip circuits. Every moment she was pushing his career, urging him to write.

As Gordon's Muse, Rona had considerable effect. She inspired him to write, to publish. He started to connect with stories in The New Yorker, and in some obscure literary journals where he could experiment with form.

The Cohen couple's best friend was their high school buddy who had become one of the most important celebrities in the entertainment business. You would recognize him instantly, but he has asked to remain anonymous, since his identity would not add anything to this narrative. It is only pertinent because the four of them hung out together: the Celebrity, Irving, Rona, and Gordon. They were known as the Quartet, and pictures of them at various clubs, pubs, and the latest celebrity chef hangouts often appeared in the New York press and the Internet.

Through it all, Rona's husband Irving was calm, reflective, and understanding. He knew Rona had to have her fling, but he knew she would be back. Irving became a good friend of Gordon, and this was a source of wonder for Gordon, who doubted he could be as gracious if Irving was bedding his wife.

As Gordon completed his studies, he accepted a position teaching at the University of Alaska. In the late summer, as August rounded the corner to September, he asked Rona to go to Alaska with him. This was an extremely significant and passionate exchange. She was deeply in love with Gordon, but she still felt a loyalty to her husband Irving.

Gordon sold most of his belongings and raised enough money to buy a motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson Road Glide. He left the showroom and headed for the Cohen Townhouse. Rona had texted him not to come, but he went anyway and parked his cycle at the Cohen doorstep. Rona opened the door and and went down to Gordon. He was quite, strong, and insistent, and in the end, Rona mounted the steps and returned after a few moments with some clothes, some books, lipstick, and a purse. She climbed on the motorcycle behind Gordon and wrapped her arms around him. He handed her a helmet and adjusted his own.

The sound of the Harley Davidson exploding to life on 10th Street in the village shook the windows violently and seemed an assault on the neighborhood. Gordon sat there and reved the engine a few times, each blast rattling the windows and trashcans nearby. He slowly pulled away from the Cohen Townhouse with Rona clinging to him.

Then Rona and Gordon pursued their cross-country adventure toward Alaska and a new future.

They raced across the George Washington Bridge and headed west on highway 80, Rona clinging to the love of her life as they crossed the Delaware Water Gap and headed west through Pennsylvania with the wind whipping away like a major windstorm. Rona could feel the wind burning her face.

Rona lasted until Chicago. Then she quietly boarded a train and headed back to Irving and her life in New York. Even Muses have their limits.

Gordon continued to Alaska and started living with a sweet young coed from Seattle. She was blonde, friendly, and open. The exact opposite of Rona. Rona went on to become a world renowned scholar of secret societies, and Gordon wrote short stories of life in Alaska. Irving Cohen became the foremost practitioner of integrative healthcare, world renowned for a therapy of the imagination.

The coed from Seattle would always address Gordon by his last name. She invariably called him Elliott. He simply could not persuade her to call him Gordon. As a result, he changed his first name from Gordon to Elliott and became known as Elliott Elliott.

KARLA'S WORLD

Karla was from Kansas, but now she worked at NBC, attached to the newsroom. She loved going to Rockefeller City, and walking around the area on her lunch break, if the weather was nice. She was a good worker and everyone liked her. She knew all the famous newscasters and personalities, and they all knew her. She was even FaceBook friends with some of them. She was on a trajectory to become famous. It was just a matter of time. She already had acquired more than 300 FB friends without trying.

It was September, but summer clung to the air as if it would never let go. She had spent a dull summer. She did't even visit her parents back home. She never talked much about Kansas, but her favorite painting was Wyeth's Christina's World.  She finally saw the original in MOMA. She had seen the painting in an art book her parents owned. It was of a girl crawling and looking longingly across a flat plain at a house in the distance. Karla always assumed it was Kansas. In fact, it was Maine.

This misconception was indicative of an overall perceptive disconnect in Karla's life. Most of her assumptions about life and how to live were based on vague premises that never quite fit reality. She had come to New York to be discovered and become famous.

Karla decided she was an actress, so she hung out at a repertory theatre in the village that was run by a writer who thought he was Tennessee Williams. He would write long, rambling plays based on his growing up in the south. Wannabe actors would pay him to perform in his plays so they could get exposure and experience. Most of Karla's friends came from that crowd. She would get an occasional small role, and tried to speak with a southern accent.

She had a husky voice and great eyes, for which she used too much make-up. Being fresh from the plains, she had been in New York for about a year. She had a Tom Boyish quality, and some of her acquaintances thought she was gay. But Karla liked guys, and she was always on the prowl, except it was a life she kept entirely private.

When first in New York, she drove with her theatre friends to Maine to see a total eclipse. She had her first fresh lobster at a little restaurant on the bay. It arrived freshly boiled with a tiny fork in its claws and was propped up looking at Karla. She didn't know what to do so she started struggling at getting some meat from the lobster. She tried to hold it, but the buttered creature would slip out of her hands as though it was still alive. Finally in frustration she exclaimed, "I'd love to eat ya sweety, but your legs are crossed." Everyone in the restaurant burst into laughter.

Shortly after Karla started working at NBC a certain famous comedian and director was going through relationship problems. Some mutual friends who had met Karla at a party arranged for her to meet him on a blind date at a Chinese Restaurant on the upper west side. They thought she might make a great girl friend. She had a great sense of humor, and they knew she had seen him around the Rockefeller Building because the comedian had been writing for the Tonight Show.

His friends went with him to the restaurant. They arrived a few minutes early and decided to start ordering while they waited for Karla.

Time passed. They decided to go ahead and eat. Thirty minutes later, Karla walks in nonchalantly, without a care. She was dressed to kill, really made up like a doll. She and the comedian were introduced, and he was very sweet to her. He said, "Karla, you must be hungry. Sorry we started without you... here, let me help you catch up with us."

He took some tongs and started piling food on a plate. "You should try these noodles, and here are some dumplings, and chop suey..." He kept piling the food until he could barely hold the plate. "Sorry, we're all outa motzah balls!"

With that, he threw the plate down in front of Karla and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving her and his friends stunned and speechless.

Karla's life was like that. She had skirmishes and near hits with fame. She hung out in the center of New York across the street from Radio City Music Hall, but she was just a few inches too short to be a Rockette.

That was it. Although she often was in the vicinity, she was always falling short of fame, kind of like that girl Christina who was forever crawling across that prairie field toward the house in the distance, but never getting there.