For reasons I can’t begin to comprehend, many well-intentioned, meddling individuals insist on asking me what I would do if I didn’t work in advertising. I believe humility is almost as important as preserving one’s inner confidence in a Lenin-like tomb, pumping it up daily with whatever is at your disposal and encasing it in a protective barrier that blocks out any unwanted comments.
Like an interviewee who leans in ever closer, McMahon style, to the interviewer, pressing nose tip to nose tip, upon receiving a unreasonably hostile question, I might way that it’s not what I would do as much as it is who I’d be.
I believe I would be the next Vonnegut, but without the urge to doodle. I contend I’d be the next O’Rourke, but with no conception of politics. I think I’d be the next Angell, but with an appreciation for something besides baseball. I know I’d be the next McPhee, but with a focus on incompetence instead of rarefied expertise. I imagine I’d be the next Mencken, but without ever feeling the urge to live in Baltimore. I feel like I’d be the next Plimpton, but with enough intelligence to stay in the stands, a safe distance from batted balls and battered humiliation. I might be the next Hamill, but without the column space. I could be the next Breslin, but without the paunch. I assume I’d be the next Keillor, but without access to a live audience. I presume I’d be the next Hitchens, but with no urge to participate in the circus that is cable news. I suppose I’d be the next Twain, but with a commitment to use my birth name in print.
At least that’s what I say when asked. Most people stop listening somewhere around Plimpton.
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