"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault."
— Henry Kissinger
A few weeks ago, I read a newspaper column or Substack in which a college student confided that he was resigned to the fact that his own life would not be very interesting. (I wish I could remember where I read that so I could properly cite it.)
That struck me as profoundly sad — not that this person was going to have an uninteresting life, but that they believed their life would be uninteresting.
It got me to wondering if this belief arises from our celebrity-crazed culture — in which we find the most mundane activities of the famous to be profoundly interesting simply because they are a celebrity, but the same events in our own lives we dismiss out of hand.
An aging rock star can host his own “reality” show and film a segment where he and his wife go shopping for new drapes, and the next day there are thousands or more people around the country talking about it as if it actually matters — arguing over their choice of colors, of length.
At least the aging rock star is famous for a reason — at some point in his life, he created music that lots of people wanted to listen to.
These days, that sort of accomplishment looms nearly as large as the Apollo Moon missions compared to the resumes of most reality TV “stars” who are famous only because they are on a “reality” show. (I’m looking at you, “Real Housewives of West Poughkeepsie.”)
Over the course of forty-some years of interviewing musicians, politicians, authors, playwrights, actors, etc., I’ve had the good fortune and honor to get one on one time with folks ranging from Dianne Feinstein to Queen Latifah, Frank Sinatra Jr. to Tony Bennett, Pete Wilson to Julio Iglesias, and more.
But those aren’t necessarily the stories that stick with me.
"Things you plan in life usually turn out to be meaningless, things you accumulate without knowing it become your real treasure."
— Thomas Adcock, "Thrown-Away Child"
In February 2007, I was covering the San Diego music scene for a local daily, and had dropped by a local coffee shop that featured live music — often an open mic.
This particular night, a young woman performed a short set of folk music, accompanying her vocals on acoustic guitar. She had one song that really stuck out - “Don’t Fall In Love With Me” — so I struck up a conversation with her after her set.
I discovered that she was assigned to a Marine Corps helicopter squadron, and was shipping out to Iraq in a few weeks’ time.
She issued a self-released six-song EP before deploying. I wrote up a profile on her - and asked her to stay in touch when she came back.
After her return, she dropped me a note, but I don’t think the music bug stuck. I’m not sure what happened to her after her deployment — did she make the Corps a career, have a family?
But I still think of her from time to time when that songs pops up in my iTunes mix.
Another interview subject who has stuck with me is the single mom who moved to Escondido, leased an empty storefront downtown and opened a coffee shop. She later ran for city council, won, served a few terms, and is now mostly out of the public eye raising her children with her husband.
Is her life any less interesting now that she’s not in the news?
“Don't go anywhere with someone who expects you to be interesting all the time.”
— Father Daniel Berrigan
In my experience, every life is interesting — every biography has its dramatic moments. But no life is interesting all the time. We all have our down time — we need it. Time to relax, to reflect, to recharge.
When meeting old friends, our storytelling may gravitate toward the outlandish things we did in our youth — but those of us blessed to live to our 60s and beyond often tell different stories as we get older. My stories now tend to revolve around my children, around being a parent.
Sure, getting drunk the day before college graduation and sliding down a campus hillside with a friend (who tore his hands up trying to slow his descent) is a funny story. But is it nearly as important, as interesting, as watching my kids being born? Or seeing them graduate high school? Or helping my cousins carry our grandmother to her final resting place next to our grandfather?
Much of the world watched in teary-eyed fascination as British royalty buried their grandmother — but every family goes through that. Most of us are allowed to do so out of the glare of the media spotlight — but that doesn’t make our own ceremonial farewells any less heartfelt (although most will be somewhat less ornate).
Over the summer, I read Dwight Eisenhower’s memoir of his time as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during WWII. Not everything he did or wrote about was exactly fascinating: visiting a front-line unit, finding a new HQ in France following D-Day. Taking mandatory rest on orders of Gen. Marshall. Yet I read it because I was curious about how the one man at the top of the Allies’ organization chart did what he did.
As a newspaper reporter, I always believed that every person had an interesting story, and it was my job to help them tell it.
If I could talk to that college student I referred to at the beginning of the article, I would let him know that his life will indeed be interesting — but only if he chooses to view it as such.
Even celebrities’ lives aren’t as action-packed as they want us to believe. The reason we do think their lives are so much more intriguing than ours is that they’re a bit more practiced at emphasizing the highlights, and ignoring the dry stretches.
"I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lamp posts and newspaper stands. There are stories in everything."
— O. Henry (William Sydney Porter)
If we, as with the college student above, are conditioned to think our life is uninteresting if we don’t live lives of high adventure or public drama, then we can miss the unfolding stories that inhabit every human existence.
To recognize the stories in our own lives, we have to be prepared to see them — to experience them as stories as they unfold.
As a recovering journalist, I may, admittedly, be more attuned to seeing stories in daily life.
But I also think it’s a skill anyone can learn.
Perhaps the lack of ability at recognizing the interesting events in our lives is also partially due to the fact that these days so few families, or even couples, gather around an evening meal to catch up with one another — to have parents go around the table and ask each child what happened in their day.
Having to share your day with your parents may have been aggravating for generations of American kids, but it also taught them how to celebrate their ordinary accomplishments.
When I was covering Imperial Beach for the Chula Vista Star-News in the early 1990s, by dint of my position I got to know all the city council members. James “Bud” Harbin was a hard-nosed councilman who would go to the mat for what he thought was best for his small, seaside town. But he was also remarkably open with the local press, and would take the time to talk me through various disputes on the council from his perspective.
At some point, he invited me over to his house — I think we were looking over the next year’s budget, and he was explaining his vote to me.
When I arrived at his modest suburban home, and he invited me in, we were walking down a hall toward the family room when I saw a blinding number of reflections coming out of a spare bedroom.
His kids were grown by then, and his wife had allowed him to convert one of the bedrooms into a trophy room.
And what a collection!
It turns out that while stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton during a hitch in the military, Harbin had taken up drag racing at the nearby Kil-Kare Raceway. He must have been pretty good at it based on the number of overly large trophies he had on display.
It was a side of Mr. Harbin I’d had no idea about. I knew he was active in the Boys & Girls Club in Imperial Beach, and that he was an organizer of the annual Sandcastle Competition there.
But racing legend in my home state of Ohio?
He wasn’t overly impressed with his collection of trophies — I think he said something along the lines of, “Yeah, I raced some.”
He told me the big rival racing team was owned by a Yeager family and he’d always wondered if they were related to the famous Air Force test pilot.
When I met Gen. Yeager a year or two later at an aviation careers teleconference at the KPBS-TV studios, I asked him that question on behalf of Harbin. Yeager said he had no family he knew of in the Dayton area.
Harbin was disappointed by that bit of information when I shared it with him — but seemed to take comfort from the fact that there was one branch of the extended Yeager clan that he was faster than.
-30-
I find myself relying on your essays as a way to remember my goals as a young newspaper reporter.
When I was hired, the managing editor gave me my first and most important lesson I needed to learn.
He told me to listen carefully to the people I interview. They are more important than I.
Being young, my first few straight news stories came back with lots of red ink because I thought my interpretation of the events was the correct story.
Took me about a year worth of "come to Jesus" moments organized by the "ancient" senior editors before I began to be a good reporter of the who, what, when part of any story.
While we are not of the same era Jim, your work always brings back good memories too soon forgotten.
If thank you for bringing much joy to my elder self.
As always a great thought starter. What we do is unimportant. What your student failed to see that importance only arises through connection with others. Even a religious hermit can find importance connecting with his god. You can do anything, good or bad, but until it reaches another, it only exists with you or in you.