How Are You Supposed to Be in Awe?

questions on fame

I have this anecdote that I love. About three years ago, we went to the opening of a dispensary in Hollywood. We knew one of the owners or whatever. And it was a promising event — a weed dispensary opening on Hollywood Blvd. Like, given the opportunity, you’re not gonna not go to that.

And I was low-key excited because one of the other owners was this A-list rapper. A real-big name. The whole thing just seemed cool and a much-needed break from the daily grind/blessing of child-rearing.

So we go there and he — the A-list rapper — is sitting in one-of-three black Cadillac Escalades and everything smells like weed. And eventually, the doors of the three black Cadillac Escalades swing open and this modern-day court steps onto the sidewalk with the rapper in their center. A courtier whispers into his ear. He turns around, expecting TMZ and of course TMZ is there and he half-nods; takes a huge pull of a cigar (that’s mostly weed) and moves inside. The whole thing is theatrical without being forced. Just downright impressive.

And once inside, he — the A-list rapper — floats about the room without talking to a single person, posing but also not-posing everywhere. He shuffle-dances in one corner by a neon light while a courtier with an unreasonably-large camera photographs him. He — the A-list rapper — lingers for an extra minute on the landing. Sunglasses on and blunt-in-mouth. This is a man who knows that he’s in possession of an image. And who, simultaneously, understands the cultural capital of that image.

There were probably about two-hundred people at this shindig. And at least a quarter of them were trying to be influencers — they were running that game.¹ The whole thing was hilarious. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an aspiring influencer in-the-wild but it’s like a Monty Python sketch. They’re trying to look hot in the strangest way — talking into a camera, sexying-up their eyebrows, making sure their fanny-pack is slung just-so across their chest. And, at the same time, they’re all orbiting the A-list rapper, trying to get close enough to accidentally be photographed beside him. But they can’t — his court keeps boxing them out.

It was pretty clear that he — the A-list rapper — didn’t want to talk to anybody. He simply had to be there. He had to show face. He’s the part-owner of this dispensary. He makes money if it blows up and it blows up if he’s there. And I probably watched him for an hour — I was fascinated with the way he interacted with the world. At one point we all went into the VIP room, and even there, surrounded by only the other owners and his court, even there, he didn’t talk. Just nodded as people talked around him.

And I know this sounds a little weird, but I felt really bad for him. Like, fame clearly sucks. Everybody wanted something from this poor dude. All he’s trying to do is get stoned out of his skull. He didn’t want to be there. It was awful. The whole thing got me thinking about how we interact with fame. And I still think about that a lot, like once or twice a week.

Fast-forward to last week, I went to see Catherine Lacey talk at Skylight Books here in LA. And she hit on this same theme — about how she wrote a book (Biography of X) about this iconic artist because she was fascinated by the way that fame affects people. She made the analogy that, when you’re in love with somebody, they’re kind of like the most famous person in your life.

It was a quirky little comparison — and one that I love and will probably steal — but it also illustrates the larger point: fame does something to a lot of people. Not that we’re all wanna-be influencers or yuppies. Most of us are smart enough to realize that it would really suck to be famous. And yet, fame still affects us. I was once at a fancy-thing and I turned around and saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus and, without thinking about it, I just blurted out holy shit, it’s you!

And I was a bit disappointed in myself — that I still possess this instinct to awe in the face of fame. In my defense, I was confronted with it and it was a momentary thing. But still. Like, I briefly lost my cool there. Why?

The whole thing brings me back to this big question: how are we supposed to interact with fame? I’m not endorsing awe but it doesn’t do any good to dismiss awe-in-the-face-of-fame as silly. Sure, it’s silly, but it’s also widespread. People have been famous for, I don’t know, since the invention of mass media? And we’ve probably gotten better about how we understand fame. And yet every time I’m face-to-face with it, I’m a bit like how am I supposed to act right now?

I find, more frequently than not, I treat famous people as if they have some kind of rare cancer. Like, don’t get too close to them. Don’t point out the elephant in the room. Definitely don’t mention their very public divorce or their new movie. They’re so, so tired of talking about their new movie. Am I supposed to entertain them? No, everybody does that. Am I supposed to ignore them? I don’t know.

This whole how-do-I-act thing was annoying me much more than it should have until the other day, when I bumped into this kind-of C-list actor at one of my favorite bars. We were just sitting outside and watching the ocean and I had an oh, it’s you moment. But whatever, I just wanted to watch the waves. And we accidentally had a few drinks and talked about baseball for an hour. That was it. It wasn’t even obvious — I hope — that I knew who he was. Just the slow turn of the world and two people atop it.

1. Like maybe twenty or thirty of these people had 100k followers on Instagram. I googled most of them. So they weren’t nobodies. But 100k Instagram followers and five dollars will really only buy you a cup of coffee in Los Angeles.