"Future Shoes" by Michael Finley

I attended a meeting this week -- it was a book publishing session -- at which it was very strongly suggested to me that I hire a full-time publicist.

This expensive thought threw me into an on-and-off tizzy that I have been in, on and off, for the last decade.

The problem is this: no one succeeds in the new economy unless they are a well-known brand. We used to call people who were household words "celebrities." But brand names is what they really are -- and what we (ordinary unfamous folks like you and me) really aren't.

So why does this thought, almost above all other thoughts, make me shudder?

It is because the world is deciding who matters and who doesn’t. Who is heard and who isn’t. Who is allowed to be heard and who isn’t.

A while back I wrote a dog book (unpublished). It was suggested to me that the book would "work" only if it were done in the name of someone well-known and loved. Like, Tom Cruise's dog, or the Pope's.

Later, I found I have a substantial brain tumor inside my head. Astonishingly, I was told that my tumor was of little intrinsic interest -- whereas, if I could transduce the tumor to Tom Cruise, or the Pope, or even to their dogs, then I would have a sellable story.

Hey, I'm willing to give it a try if they are.

It's not just that I can’t beat this thing; none of us can. The sickening, paranoid truth in today's media-driven economy is that if someone is getting to you, chances are they have paid a price to do so. Every story is placed. Every successful book is flogged to the death. Every spontaneous outburst by a politician was market-tested before it broke through to your world. The better the idea seems to you, the more money went into making it seem so.

It makes me sad. I know that fame is shallow, and I know that a meaningful life beats "being known" hands down. But I am a sucker for being known. It is nearly the sweetest feeling I know, and I mourn that, on a societal scale, only a small handful -- movie stars, politicians, sports guys, media figures, and a smattering of criminals -- are admitted to that feast.

Think about this: unless you have thought a thought yourself, on your own, chances are that someone paid money to have it implanted in your head. And they who did the implanting stand to benefit from your thinking it. You are only as likely to hear a new thought as The Matrix is willing to allow you to hear it.

Andy Warhol predicted a happy pop world in which we are all known for 15 minutes. Sweet idea -- but has it happened for you?

The other night, on (celebrity) Charlie Rose's show, he interviewed (celebrity) novelist John Updike. I have always admired Updike for his lively and inquiring mind, and hated him for being our #1 fiction guy. Asked where he liked to publish stories, Updike winced, and said that after The New Yorker, there are only a few markets left, and that The New Yorker itself was changed.

The fame game is so rotten, that even our #1 fiction guy feels hemmed in. What kind of world is this to hand to our kids? What hope do any of them have to write the next great story and find readers?

God, what I would give to be John Updike.

Worst of all, it isn’t anyone's fault. We are a nation of 280 million people. Literacy, despite the Net, is generally declining. Publishing is undergoing an acid bath of change -- we publish 100,000 titles a year to a market that is only able to cope with a handful of successes. So last year's successes -- think of political incumbency here -- have a head start to be this year's successes, which is the very essence of branding. "I know that name."

That's why we like Tony Bennett -- because it's so easy to. No offense, Tony, but you have the emotional range of a banana. But -- we know you.

We don’t need 100 good story writers. We need, at most, five. Everyone else is fodder for the midlist -- consigned to the flames. The same is true for everyone -- 100 good trademark lawyers, 200 anchormen and women, 20 supermodels, 1,000 CEOs. Everyone else is the audience.

Tom Peters, biz guru extraordinaire, says we should all "brand" ourselves -- be special, unique, identifiable, distinctive. But can this market, this society, cope with 280 million distinct selves? Uh uh. The real trick is to be at the head of the line in this branding.

So what are we to do? We can’t all crack the fame game. And while we can technically create a counterculture which forswears famous bigshots, we still whip out our weekly dollar for the National Enquirer. The people on the cover are so interesting, and their stories are so much simpler than ours.

A great writer, an Old Testament Jeremiah, would light up the sky with the injustice of this smiling cruelty. Oh, false generation!

God, what I would give to be Jeremiah.

Note: I forgot that I am doing something that ties directly to this essay: this year I will be a regular panelist on the Peabody Award-nominated PBS program Mental Engineering, which weekly tackles the many ways the media feed us our meaning. Check it out at Mental Engineering!