Michael Seidlinger - The Laughter of Strangers

A person that…

WHAT ARE YOU?

I can’t walk that stage. I can’t sit down next to that desk, smile and grin and laugh with confidence at the talk show’s dry wit.

I can’t…

I haven’t a clue who I am anymore.

THEY ARE LAUGHING

They are always laughing. The talk show on mute, I can still hear their laughter. Something was said. The audience is directed to laugh. These aren’t laughs; these are confirmations of a celebrity’s appeal.

The applause is nothing compared to the expression a laugh brings to the conversation. People put humor before intellect.

Do they want someone to wax intellectual or to tell them a “side-splittingly funny” joke?

I’d want to be honest. I want to be honest with myself.

I would walk that stage, sit in that chair, and tell the wired and tired world that I am lost. Completely lost. I would deviate from the script.

Reason: I’m lost.

Get it?

I would ramble about how you lose yourself in fight to remain relevant to the fans out there. I would ramble about how it’s not the other celebrities that end up stealing the spotlight; it’s you that steals the spotlight from yourself. You think you have it made but then something about you thinks it can be better. You can make it so much better.

Logic:

THERE IS MORE

IT CAN BE BETTER

You fight the fame you’ve acquired. You think:

The spotlight, it could be so much brighter.

So you change “this,” change “that,” you become a dizzying league of your own, versions upon versions of yourself fighting to stay interesting.

Ultimately you can’t keep up the pace without losing a part.

Remember:

I’M LOST

There must be a degree of slack given to someone that’s so completely lost. I would keep talking about how much is lost in the fight to have it made.

And I’m still not sure I ever got it right.

‘James’ is getting it right.

He has already mastered the sweet science and he’s going to end up being the image attached to the insignia, GREATEST OF ALL TIME.

He will be the G.O.A.T., not me.

Willem Floures, yeah he’s that counterpuncher that created a new offshoot of fight psychology where he gets the opponent to fight for him.

There might not even need to be a fight.

He predates “the fight.”

He wins before ever stepping in the ring.

I AM CAUGHT IN THE ROPES

I would ramble for a thousand pages. I would ramble for the entire duration of the interview.

I would derail the entire talk show.

I would be banned from ever returning, my share of the spotlight dimming, limited to anything else but talk shows.

And they’d laugh.

They’d laugh on cue.

They would laugh at me, not at what I’m trying to say.

They would laugh at that too, if they had been listening (they wouldn’t). They would laugh at the train wreck I have become.

In that moment, I wouldn’t fear for myself; I would fear for the favor I’ve lost. I’d hope for the best…that maybe they took my diatribe for a sort of performance, a comedic performance.

I would hope that they found it funny.

DON’T LAUGH

Don’t laugh if it’s at my expense.

You see, I can’t be on these kinds of talk shows. They expect a sort of clever personality that I never had.

I wouldn’t even be invited.

The talk show might as well be the place where people judge the person for what they hope to become.

DON’T LAUGH

I can’t stop watching.

One celebrity trips as she walks to her chair. Even that is as intended. Her ditsy persona is flawless. Off camera she is as serious as me but under those bright lights, she can’t stop laughing and a minute into the interview, when she looks at the camera, I sense that she is looking at me.

DON’T LAUGH

She laughs at the fact that I can’t look away.

We all know what’s about to happen. Yet I can’t look away.

The host rolls his eyes. Not amused.

The audience erupts into applause. They are glad to see her leave.

On mute, I read their mouths. The host is saying:

OUR NEXT GUEST

Like it’s directed at me. For a moment I feel foolish.

This isn’t about me. Why do I keep turning everything into a problem?

Why do I think everything is some subtle attack on my failing celebrity?

DON’T LAUGH

I know it’s stupid. I know it’s really narcissistic but what can a narcissist do to combat the problem? I have no clue. I didn’t used to be this way.

And then right after I think that I get back to the same confused spiraling logic—

HOW WOULD I KNOW?

I don’t remember.

The talk show host looks right at the camera.

Then looks right at me.

Mouths the words:

LET’S

GET

HIM

OUT

HERE

He walks back to his desk as I walk on stage.

OH GOD

Where am I?

Isn’t this the basement?

What?

It’s like I’m here and there. Two places at once.

THE APPLAUSE

I look so out of place. I am not the brand of celebrity that goes on these kinds of shows. I am not about making these kinds of appearances.

I smile and throw a pitiful little jab in the direction of the audience.

This is humiliating.

It isn’t real until the handshake.

Walk over, DON’T trip on the way there, and the host grins in that way that is obviously fake but goes over well with the audience because this is all an act — every moment of it is a gesture of opportunism, nothing else — and he offers the mandatory handshake.

In a mere split second we are shaking hands and it’s too late.

Everything goes downhill from there.

DON’T LAUGH

I’m there but everything is on mute.

I’m here and I’ve lost the remote again.

The putrid stench of X’s dead body blends with the muted terror of the late night talk show into my worst nightmare.

My worst nightmare and I can’t be sure it’s even mine.

The host asks me a question but I’m too nervous to read his mouth, too nervous to be anything but mute.

He looks into the camera like there’s no one there, no one watching, and the reaction he gets makes me sick to my stomach.

There is laughter when I don’t respond.

He blames me for the low ratings.

YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE INVITED ME

I AM NOT WHAT YOU THINK I AM

I MIGHT BE THE REAL IMPOSTER

He says something like “Are you or are you not Willem Floures? The fighter?”

We are losing viewers at a rate of ten per minute.

I can do nothing but apologize.

I AM SORRY

Followed by:

DON’T LAUGH

This is humiliating.

The host asks me, “So you aren’t Willem Floures? The fighter?”

The way he talks down to me doesn’t help calm my nerves. I fight back the urge to punch him in the face. I hate how he can’t separate the person I am from the reason I am on this talk show.

I can’t just be Willem Floures.

I have to be ‘Sugar.’

I can’t own the name without the alias.

Strip away “the fighter” and I’m no closer to being Willem than you.

DON’T LAUGH

But they are. They are laughing.

They are all laughing.

The host furrows his brow, “If you aren’t Willem Floures, the fighter, then who the hell are you?”

It’s the one question I cannot answer and he just asked me. This is why I’m on the show. They want to know why.

Why am I not everything I should be?

Why do I linger around what will only end up making things worse?

Bubbling up from a deep recess of my brain:

YOU SHOULD RETIRE

LET HIM GO

HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE YOU ANYMORE

Talk about myself in the third person, like a mother confronting the source of her son’s bad behavior.