Michael Thomas Ford - Its Not Mean If Its True: More Trials from My Queer Life

I ought to be famous. I say this because my name has appeared in an issue of Entertainment Weekly . Harrison Ford is on the cover, and I am on page 118. I have the clipping to prove it.

Never mind that not one of my many friends who eagerly devour the magazine each week even noticed my mention, and that I only found out about it when one of the guys at the gym said, Someone with the same name as yours is in the new Entertainment Weekly . Isnt that weird? Forget for a moment that there is only one sentence about me. Ignore the fact that the only reason Im there at all is because I put Alec Baldwins name in the title of one of my books and someone thought it would be amusing to point this out. These things are not important. Whats important is that I am in Entertainment Weekly , right there in the same paragraph with Al Franken. I think that entitles me to something.

I have always loved those stories in which some small incident starts a chain of events that results in fantastic good luck for someone. You know, like when you hear an actor talking about how only six months ago he was living in squalor and licking the stains on the couch because he couldnt afford food, but then some director happened to catch a commercial he made for shaving cream and decided to cast him in the biggest movie of the summer, launching him into superstardom. Or when some television mogul on a cross-country flight needs something to pass the time and reads a really great novel by this writer hes never heard of but whose book he picked up because it was the first thing he saw at the newsstand, then likes it so much he calls the writer to see if maybe hed like to try writing a sit-com, ending that writers worries about paying rent.

These are very nice stories. Unfortunately, they do not happen nearly as often as one would like, especially if you are one of the struggling actors or writers waiting for one of these life-changing phone calls. It is all well and good to believe that, just when you are on the brink of running out of money and becoming homeless, the manuscript you sent out a year ago and forgot about will be bought for a million dollars by someone who has just plucked it from the pile on his desk. In my experience, however, what is more likely to happen is that while youre waiting for the phone call that will change your life, your agent will send you an e-mail informing you that she has just returned from a meeting at which it was decided that no one likes you and you should die.

Still, I try to remain optimistic. So when I discovered my name in Entertainment Weekly , I was fully prepared for the phone to start ringing off the hook with offers from people in Hollywood. I didnt know what kind of offers, exactly, but I had ideas. I thought surely they would find the title of my book so hysterical that they would beg me to turn my talents to the screen, big or small, I didnt care which one. After all, Id always been told that agents and executives scan the pages of such magazines looking for previously unknown talent to exploit. Surely at least one would see my mention and decide he had to have me.

Well, this did not happen. During the first couple of days after the issue hit the stands, I barely left the house. I knew that if I did I would miss a call from Steven Spielberg or the producers of Will & Grace begging me to lend my talents to their latest endeavors. I blamed their silence on the fact that I was on page 118 and they probably hadnt gotten that far yet, being busy with other matters like deciding where to take me to lunch once they found me. I fantasized about what I would do with all the money they were certain to offer (get the dog a new hip and me a haircut), and I checked the phone often to make sure it was working properly.

When the next week rolled around and the Harrison Ford issue was replaced with the Jennifer Lopez issue, I started to worry. Everyone knows that last weeks news is ancient history in Tinseltown, and now I was competing with a whole new crop of would-be stars. I opened the magazine and flipped through it anxiously to see what I was up against. Then I saw it. There on page 34, a whole eighty-four pages before my mention had appeared, I found an article about some nineteen-year-old college student who had been paid nearly a million dollars for his first novel, which some studio exec on a cross-country flight happened to read and decide to make into a movie for that oh-so-desirable eighteen-to-twenty-four market.

I handled this as well as could be expected. I took out the clipping with my name in it and stared at it while stifling the wracking sobs that longed to break forth from my throat. Maybe, I tried to convince myself, it was enough just to be mentioned. Isnt that what the people who lose at the Oscars always say while they smile and reach for the Prozac in their handbags? But in my heart I knew it wasnt. Id gotten so close. I was in the same issue with Harrison Ford. But it was the wrong Ford on the cover. I wanted it to be me up front and him on page 118.

Maybe I wouldnt want fame so badly if I hadnt already had a little taste of it. A few years ago I wrote a number of young adult novels based on a sort-of successful television series. There happen to be quite a lot of children on my block, and some of them read these books and realized I was the person who wrote them. From that moment on I became the Writer Guy. Every time I took my dog, Roger, for a walk, a little group of ten year olds would cluster around and ask if they could pet him. Afterward, theyd run off looking at their hands as if theyd never wash them again. Sometimes they would drag their little friends home with them and point me out when I walked past. There goes the Writer Guy, theyd say, and their friends would stare at me with the same awe they reserved for the Backstreet Boys. I found out later that one enterprising little girl was giving her schoolmates tours of my front porch for a quarter a head.

I know, groupies who dont come up to your waist and have no disposable income are hardly something to get excited about. But it was fun being the Writer Guy for a while, at least until the kids started asking why my books werent as popular as the Goosebumps and Animorphs series, at which point I started walking the dog on a different route.

And at least the kids were excited about seeing a real live writer. Adults couldnt care less. Only twice have I been recognized in public because of my books for adults or from my newspaper columns. Once was at a bookstore, where a man charged over to me and said, I know you. Youre that guy who signed my book. It took a minute for him to remember which guy and which book, but eventually he did, at which point he smiled and said, You have a nice signature. Just what every writer in search of fame wants to hear.

The second time my writing brought me a fleeting moment of celebrity was at the gym, where I was standing in the locker room after having just run five miles on the treadmill. I was contemplating the thrill of a post-workout shower when I had the strange sensation that someone behind me was staring at mevery hard. I turned around and discovered a man gazing with great concentration at my butt.