JANUARY 2001
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Table of contents and sample chapters of this book...
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I just got my author's copies of a new book from Financial Times Management (London), MASTERS OF THE WIRED WORLD: Cyberspace Speaks Out.
What's remarkable is that this collection of manifestos about the new age a'dawning contains proclamations by Tony Blair, Al Gore, Charles Handy, Nicholas Negroponte, Arthur C. Clarke, Alvin Toffler ... and me.
To order, click here. Discounted price is $18.87 from Amazon.
Every week I write an essay for my "Future Shoes" subscribers, and after my diagnosis I write one about the conversation I had with my kids about my brain tumor, and what my chances were. Jim, a writer friend in Pittsburgh, liked the piece and suggested I send it to an editor he knew at USA Today. I do that.
"We very much liked your essay," the editor replies to me, by e-mail. "But I'm afraid we have to say no. There are so many people with different ailments, that we have made the editorial decision to feature first-hand accounts of people who are already in the public eye."
In other words, she's saying they only run health stories by celebrities. What a stupid world, I thought, that requires the additional juice of fame to pay attention to a story that is already paying the price of life and death.
The issue of celebrity won't go away. One night I flick on the TV, and Barbara Walters is on. It is the week immediately following her ratings smash interview with Monica Lewinsky. The whole world tuned in to that vapid broadcast, so Walters knows she has to come up with someone good as a follow-up – to show that she made Lewinsky, and not vice versa. It has to be someone glamorous, world-renowned, yet still sympathetic.
Could it be … Elizabeth Taylor?
Could be and is. Madonna and Marilyn and Monica would eat their hearts out to monopolize, as Taylor has, the public eye through six decades of gossip, crisis, Egyptian beehive stardust and violet-eyed humanity.
She is not just a queen of multiple facelifts. She is someone who has actually suffered, quite a great deal, in fact, and she speaks with the authentic vocabulary of suffering. It gives her, out of all the talk-show wanabees queuing up for their moment in the bright lights, street cred. It makes her a person.
And it ain’t just the six divorces. It ain’t just the pills and booze. And it ain’t just from being Michael Jackson’s special friend. It isn’t even from her long association with and support for people suffering from AIDS.
Liz Taylor tells Walters she has a brain tumor, a meningioma like mine. She has had at least one craniotomy. That much has appeared in the papers, and for many readers, that story must sound the death knell for a major star. We folks with meningiomas know it's serious, but not that serious. But for much of the world, a brain tumor is an automatic death sentence.
It would have been a terrific opportunity for Taylor to pause, and explain, through her spokespeople, if necessary, what a meningioma was and what it meant for her.
But she doesn't. And the online brain tumor support group is miffed about this failure.
“Here we have a celebrity of the first magnitude,” wrote Anne. “And a great chance to do some education about brain tumors, and she won't discuss it. Thanks a bunch, Liz.”
“I understand some people from the [American Brain Tumor] Association asked her to speak up about it. Miss Taylor's office informed them that she has decided not to make a big deal about brain tumors, because she’s already so identified with AIDS,” wrote Terry. Terry knows everything, especially about Liz Taylor. “AIDS is so important to her. She doesn’t want that compromised.”
“I disagree,” wrote Marie. “I think it’s all for our consumption. Being a spokesperson for AIDS makes her seem like an angel of show business. Whereas, actually having a brain tumor is a threat to her career. She doesn’t want people to think of her that way. So she bailed out. Either that or Liz, about whom we know virtually everything there is to know, has suddenly become private about her life, for reasons of personal modesty.”
“What is it,” wrote Marty, “that keeps famous people from wanting to acknowledge their brain tumors? Is it a desire for privacy, or fear of scary publicity, or not feeling up to the demands of being a spokesperson?”
“They’re just scared shitless and feeling sick as hell,” Nona wrote. “They see their lives going down the toilet, they’ve been healthy as horses all their lives, and don’t think they have what it takes to reach out and help other people.”
TO BE CONTINUED...
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