Going Hollywood, Part 2

The plot is thickening.  I’m talking really, really thick.  I’m going to be interviewed in LA by Errol Morris.  He’s making a short documentary about cancer survivors that will air as part of the StandUp2Cancer ( http://www.standup2cancer.org/) broadcast on all three networks on September 5. 

As far as I’m concerned, Errol Morris is a god.  He makes stellar documentaries like The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara.  According to the producer I talked with, he thinks I’ll be a “fresh voice.”  A fresh voice?  God, that gets my internal conversations going on overdrive:

1) Errol Morris thinks I’m a fresh voice!

2) Maybe that’s because he hasn’t met you yet.

3) But Errol!  Morris!  He must have sensed something profound in me.  You know, one of those ineffable, unerring instincts about other people.  Errol — as I’m now calling him, since nobody told me I couldn’t — must have very strong ineffable, unerring instincts about other people.  He won an Academy Award, you know.

4) So did Shirley Temple.

5) And I’ve got to figure out what to wear.  According to someone else I talked to, I need to wear something I’ll be comfortable in.  Something “real.”  Something “me.”

6) Yeah, that’s a pretty good description of your wardrobe.  “Real” “you.”  Maybe they can shoot you from the neck up.

7) It’s funny.  The interviews only last 10 or 20 minutes.  Do they realize how slowly Texans talk?

8) Look who’s in the White House, buttercup.  They know we talk slowly.  They also think we think slowly.  One good thing: At least the bar’s been set pretty low.  Subterranean, you might say.  You’ll wow them if you can manage subject-verb agreement.

9) Even if I’m wonderfully successful, I’ll never go Hollywood.

10) Remember your wardrobe, honey.  There’s no way you could go Hollywood.  They’ll ship you back on the first available plane.  You’re coming back on Saturday, right?  And flying coach?

(Copyright 2008 by Ruth Pennebaker)