focus becomes winning the legal case. If bad, but
not illegal, behavior is at issue, I have to figure
out if that behavior will be tolerated or rejected by
people who matter. If the bad behavior is acceptable
– as it often is with celebrities – there's
not much to do. If the behavior is unacceptable, I try
to determine the best road to repentance. An apology?
A vanishing act? A comeback?
Q.
What makes your narrative voice as a novelist unique?
A.
I don't write as an objective journalist, but rather
as someone who has spent a career on the inside of celebrity
and corporate meltdowns – with all of the baggage
and bias this implies. The media tend to see these well-oiled
"dream teams," but from the cockpit of the
crisis, there is only chaos and desperation. Sometimes
audacious strategies are used to draw attention away
from core allegations, but the tactical drama pales
in comparison to how the star and his handlers come
to grips with the reality that the jig is up. On one
hand, you want to dislike the players, but on the other
hand, there is something very sad about the death of
a delusion. I try to convey this in all of its absurdity.
Q.
Tell us something about the psychodrama at work in celebrity
flameouts?
A.
The celebrity no longer links his fame with a talent,
like singing or acting. He comes to see himself as a
star intrinsically, not as a performer or service-provider.
The further he moves away from the basic skills that
made him famous, the more trouble he gets himself into.
He is isolated. Whoever tells him the biggest lie, the
one that confirms his belief that he's exempt from the
laws of gravity, wins. The handlers aren't as concerned
about the star's welfare as much as they are maintaining
their proximity to the star, which requires deceit.
Human behavior expands in the direction of what people
can get away with. Most of us have barriers and boundaries,
constraints to keep us in line. When a star has a dark
impulse, not only are there no barriers to prevent him
from acting on that impulse, people will be lined up
for blocks to provide him with the forbidden object.
Q.
You reject the notion that celebrities are self-destructive.
Why?
A.
Celebrities may be self-destructive in terms of the
end result, but I've seen no evidence that they're trying
to punish themselves for their success, which is the
cliché. Their appetites simply expand and they
are ruined by excess and a sense of invincibility and
entitlement. John Belushi didn't want to kill himself,
he just had a weakness for drugs. Most of us would not
have that weakness indulged because there are things
that stand in the way – family, limited finances,
limited access to the bad indulgence. Because of who
Belushi was, for every one person who said "be
careful" there were fifty sycophants who'd get
him what he wanted.
Q.
There's a storyline in Turnpike Flameout about a beautiful
au pair who goes missing. What's our fascination with
what you call "lost girls?"
A.
I'm interested in how the culture can be turned on its
head by a lost girl. There is something so powerful
about the archetype of the damsel in distress that it
overpowers wars or earthquakes or anything else that's
in the news. It's fashionable to criticize this, to
ask where are our priorities? But we already have the
answer: We are worried about the personal dramas of
attractive people because we can play out the plot in
our minds. We are hardwired to process little human
escapades, but there isn't a damned thing we can do
about a tsunami on the other side of the world, and
we know it.
Q.
Who is Turnpike Bobby Chin based upon?
A.
He's based upon every celebrity who confuses random
good fortune with permanent destiny. I base my characters
on cultural phenomena, not real people.
Q.
There's been a lot of talk lately about Tom Cruise's
antics. Is this a flameout?
A.
Not yet, but it sure is a midlife crisis. This is a
guy who has been as big as the Beatles since he was
in his teens. His fame is very much anchored in his
youth. It's all he knows. Jumping up and down on couches
about a hot young girl is an adolescent move. I'm the
same age as he is so I understand the overwhelming drive
men have to try to extend their lives by lurching backward.
Unlike Turnpike Bobby Chin, however, I think that Cruise
has an enduring talent and that he'll find his footing
as Redford and Newman did before him.
Q.
Is the kind of disinformation campaign by a media "guru"
that you portray really possible?
A.
Rarely, but the public believes it's commonplace, and
that's what I'm tweaking. We have a strange history
of worshipping gurus who claim to have answers, "ways".
With all the hucksterism this country has known, we
should have a more sophisticated sense of causality,
but we don't. The latest snake oil salesman is the "spin
doctor," who leads clients to believe he's got
a way to control external elements. Everybody has an
investment in the spin doctor: The spinner himself is
hustling for clients; the client wants to believe they've
brought on a miracle worker; the public demands that
its theory of black magic be upheld; and the media like
to traffic in shamans who purport to explain our world
to us. If you hate President Bush, you'll be inclined
to believe that Karl Rove is the omnipotent devil. If
you hated Bill Clinton, you may think he got away with
things because James Carville was the evil puppeteer.
These are very sharp guys, but it's astonishing how
much power we ascribe to them. In reality, a guru is
just a strategist whose counsel collided with events
that were already proceeding in his direction.
© Copyright 2006 Eric Dezenhall. All Rights Reserved.
