My answer was instantaneous. I want to be Cullen Murphy.
If you haven't read Cullen Murphy, he writes a column every month in the Atlantic Monthly; many of these were just collected into a book titled "Just Curious."
When you read his columns, the first thing you notice is that there's nothing in this world that doesn't interest him.
The second thing you notice is that he goes and finds out about whatever strikes his fancy that day, and gets paid for doing it.
For instance, it occurred to him that there is no place in the world so rinkydink and unassuming that it doesn't have at least one famous person or event associated with it. So he began telephoning libraries and historical societies of randomly selected towns that lie along the 40th parallel, asking them what their towns were famous for. The answers, I assure you, are fascinating. (The town I live in is where Cary Grant died. It does have other things to recommend it.)
When Cullen Murphy first learned that all the decisions of the federal tax courts are printed, he went off to the law library to read them, finding a fascinating slice of modern American social history in the stories of people who felt the tax laws should not strictly speaking apply to them. He also finds in these cases a touching portrayal of indomitable human optimism in the face of heartless, though clear-eyed, tax collectors.
But if I can't be Cullen Murphy, it would be fun to be Michael Moore, the man who made the movie "Roger and Me," and who is currently presiding over the funniest show on television, "TV Nation." He's an unreconstructed populist who grew up in Michigan, surrounded by the lore of the United Auto Workers' valiant struggles against the "suits" at General Motors and Ford. Deeply distrustful of corporate America, he does things like go to various corporate headquarters, challenging the CEO of IBM to prove he can format a diskette, and the CEO of Ford to show he can perform an oil change.
In a country that has mascots for all other sporting events, Michael Moore created Crackers, the corporate crime fighting chicken, who has so far fought against banks who overcharge and corporations who are spewing lead into the environment. Moore has blasted Muzak at the home of Muzak's president,, stationed cars whose car alarms have all gone off simultaneously outside the home of a car alarm manufacturer,and brought garbage trucks at 6 a.m. to the home of a garbage hauling executive. He has had civil war re-enacters re-enact a few other notable battles, such as the fall of Saigon. He has brought peace, love and flowers to the Micigan Militia and the Ku Klux Klan.
Moore attacks the political system, bigotry, and mindless boosterism with equal panache. I admit to a weakness for snarky, smartass adolescents, and Michael Moore is one of the very finest.
But if I can't be Cullen Murphy or Michael Moore, I could handle being Molly Ivins, a delightfully funny, salty old broad with unrepentantly liberal ideals, who looks askance at politicians for a living. (The rest of us have to do it for free in our spare time.)
Molly is a Texan who just never got comfortable working for the New York Times; she knew she had to quit the day her phrase "a man whose beer gut was so big it needed its own zip code" appeared in print as "a gentleman with a protuberant abdomen." So she went back to Texas, to cover the endless follies of the Texas legislature, as well as national politics. Fortunately, she was born with a fine appreciation of absurdity.
If you haven't yet made Molly's acquaintance, I recommend her book "Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?" I guarantee at least giggles, along with a few full-throated chortles.
But--
I like my life. Aside from them, there's hardly anybody I'm seriously jealous of. True, when I find out stuff for other people, I'm following their interests, not my own. But surprisingly often, their interests become my interests, too.
I end up collecting ideas and bits and pieces of information, and they all sort of jumble around in my head. Sometimes it all comes out as theories, and sometimes as jokes and puns. Who knows? Someday, eventually, it all may be useful. Or not. That's okay, too.
Previous Columns: Debut, Week 2, Hard Copy, Word Child, Every Other Inch A Lady, Naming of Books, Progress, maybe (sort of...)
Back to the London Mall