BARON
Iconic artist Andy Warholhad a legendary quote that’s often misinterpreted and I’m not sure I understand it either. He said, in the future, everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes. Of course, it’s not meant to be taken literally, and unless he had a time machine, he wasn’t talking about social media. Warhol died in 1987.
I think he meant fame is an illusion, or maybe it’s fleeting.
Every four years, we tune in from couches across America to cheer the great Olympians with pride in our hearts and tears in our eyes. Two weeks later, when the flame is extinguished, and we return to our regularly scheduled programming, we forget their names.
Think about it if you can. Our addiction to seven-second videos has given us short-term memories. We need phone apps to tell us the name of a song we’ve heard a hundred times and have to google which actor played the supporting role in a movie we just saw last year. My grandpa knew that stuff off the top of his head.
I’m not saying one generation is any better than the next. It’s just different. We’re wired for the time we live in.
Do you know how hard it is to be an actor when people today have the attention span of a gnat? We need to work twice as hard to be remembered. They say musicians are only as good as their latest record, and the same goes for us. If we know our movie’s going to bomb---and believe me, we get that icky feeling halfway through filming---then we need to make another one fast and hope it clears the stench before people only remember us for our worst mistakes.
I swear I don’t give a shit about being famous. It’s always been a means to an end. Celebrity brings power, and power delivers better roles. And the higher your star rises, the greater your choices.
But like everything in life, it comes with a price.
I’ve been doing this job since I was a kid. My mom used to act and pushed me into it when I was eight. But she didn’t make me stay. Once I was in, I fucking loved it. I practiced, watched my heroes, honed my skills, and went to college to study acting. I wanted to be the next Robert De Niro or Daniel Day-Lewis without all that method shit.
With my experience, fan base, and creative team fighting behind the scenes, I was naïve enough to believe there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do. And just when I thought I got what I wanted, I prayed to God to take it all away.
There’s a whole level of fame no one warns you about. Better roles come with awards, and those accolades come with international notoriety that could scare the bejesus out of Satan. Nothing could stop my trajectory--- not even me.
Fame wasn’t fleeting---not more me. As my star grew bigger, my fishbowl grew smaller. Privacy was a thing of the past. Mistakes were dissected, placed under a high-powered microscope then aired on social media for trolls to tear apart.
I have no life. And I have no freedom or privacy to chase one.
But I have hopes, dreams, and a solid plan to change the course of my life.
I’ve got a perfect ray of sunshine that lights up my world and parts the dark clouds of my dreary, meaningless world with her bright smile and beautiful brown eyes. She’s the incarnation of love and the woman I want to spend the next sixty years wooing into my bed.
Sunny Luna has no idea she’s got me wrapped around her pinky, but I wouldn’t mind it if she did. Crazy love makes no room for pride. My feral need to hold her close, feel her sweaty skin on mine, and crawl inside her has reached the threshold of my waning sanity.
I’ve watched her for two years and waited for the right moment to make my move. I always knew it wouldn’t be easy. She’s ten years younger, and I met her when she was a kid. Her older brothers are my closest friends, the only true friends I’ve ever had in this shit industry that’s filled with parasites who only use you for what you can give them.
Sebastian and Seth were different. They’ve been true friends, and I’ve tried to be a good friend to them---even when this job made it almost impossible. Their mom was my personal tutor, and I traveled so much that she homeschooled her sons with me. We grew up together.
But I didn’t grow up with Sunny.
I have fuzzy memories of her as a little girl---frilly dresses, long brown hair, and eyes too big for her sweet face. She was too young to play, and we often treated her like nothing more than a nuisance. Then Sebastian and I went off to college, and Seth left for the Navy. Her parents sent her to private school, and we didn’t see one another for years. By the time our paths crossed again, Sunny was only months past her eighteenth birthday and a completely different girl from the one I remembered.
I’m no stranger to beautiful women. I work with them every day, and over the years, I’ve had mild infatuations that ended almost as soon as they began. But I can honestly say I’ve never been struck by lightning. At least not until my brown-eyed girl walked into my twenty-eighth birthday party wearing a form-fitting bohemian black dress, knee-high boots, and a velvet string around her neck. She reminded me of a short, hot, dark-haired Stevie Nicks. I lost my heart in seconds and then my ability to speak.
She wished me happy birthday, and I stood there in a trance, drooling, lost in another world where she and I were running through meadows declaring our undying love by a babbling brook. I stuttered a few pleasantries I can only hope made sense and made her laugh, but it didn’t last long. Her brother, Sebastian, immediately noticed my fixation and ushered her away, like my penetrating gaze might impregnate her with triplets.
After that day, I knew I had to hide my interest. I knew Seth suspected, and I don’t think he objected, but he’d ultimately side with his brother if Sebastian opposed it.
So, I waited. Watched. Planned in secret---which wasn’t easy since Sebastian worked as my personal assistant. Four months ago, Sunny transferred to NYU, a move she’s wanted to make since last year. She won a coveted fellowship and took the first step to making her dream of becoming an artist come true.
I couldn’t be more proud or terrified.
As much as I wanted to flee to New York and take care of her from the shadows, the only guilty pleasure I have, I couldn’t. I had to bide my time and wait until my final commitments were done.
I had one more release tour. One more press junket in Las Vegas. I placed a bid on a house in New York and informed my management team I planned to take a break for the foreseeable future. As expected, they didn’t take it well, but I was drinking myself into an early grave with Sunny so far away. That wasn’t the kind of man I was meant to be, and I couldn’t let myself sink any further if I wanted to be the husband she deserved. Sunny needs a dependable, thoughtful, caring husband who supports her dreams and helps her raise her babies.
Let me assure you, I am that fucking man. I wasn’t about to let anyone steal her away while I buried my sorrows at the bottom of a bottle.
So, I resolved to do better and put everything in place. I’d make her proud and win her heart. I’d do things right.
But then the shit hit the fan.
The truth set me free, but it cost me my friends.
I won’t let it cost me Sunny.