Don DeLillo - Americana

"Then what?"

"Then you took a swing at Chin."

"God."'

"Luckily you just grazed him and before he had a chance to swing back I stepped in between and tried to calm you down."

"What happened then?"

"You got me in the headlock."

"Jesus, Ken."

"You got me in the headlock and I couldn't break it. You had my head twisted up under your armpit and I could hardly breathe."

"I'm really sorry. I just didn't know what I was doing."

"Then I blacked out," he said. "I couldn't break the hold and I just blacked out. When I came to, the bartender was punching you in the ribs to get you to let go of me and old Chin was back on his barstool calmly lighting a cigarette."

"That's incredible."

"The bartender, Frank, kept smashing you in the ribs until you finally let go. I headed straight for the John, bounced off some chairs, got in there, flashed once or twice, threw cold water on my face and then just sat on the floor. When I came out about five minutes later, you were gone. I'm not sure but I think you came in the John for a second and shook my hand. But I'm not sure."

"Ken, I don't know what to say. I'm really sorry."

"You'd be a lot sorrier if Chin Po had ever got his hands on you."

"Why?"

"Frank told me he's a black belt in karate."

"God."

"He'd have broken your windpipe just like that."

"God, I know."

"Fat old Chin. He'd have maimed you for life."

"And I still don't know what happened to the last two or three hours. Jesus God, it's frightening. I'm really sorry, Ken. I'll make it up to you somehow."

But I wasn't sorry. I was, if anything, exhilarated. Wild was husky and compact; he brimmed with strength. And yet he hadn't been able to break the headlock I had put on him.

"Let's forget it," he said. "Look, I've been working hard and drinking kind of heavy and I think I need a vacation. Maybe I'll go dry out somewhere. You said you were going to Arizona or someplace to do a documentary. Maybe I can meet you out there. When are you due on location?"

"Tomorrow," I said, and that was the truth.

I hurried toward the hotel, my pockets full of scraps of paper, index cards, neatly creased sheets, Scotch-taped fragments, throwaways uncrumpled and hand-pressed, what detritus and joy, a grainy day, child of Godard and Coca-Cola.

I asked the desk clerk, an old man this time whose face was purplish with broken blood vessels, if he could turn up a portable TV set somewhere in the building. I needed it for an hour and I was willing to slip a discreetly folded five-dollar bill into the breast pocket of his sturdy mail-order shirt. He came up later carrying the thing, a bulky Motorola, as if it were a wounded man he could not wait to deposit somewhere. I plugged it in, turned the sound down to nothing, then set the Canon Scoopic on the tripod.

Soon Glenn Yost arrived. I thanked him for giving up his lunch break, explaining we had to film in the early afternoon in order to get the right kind of TV show and commercials, and then I asked him to go over the pages I had prepared for him. We would read and record on tape my questions and his answers; he would not appear on camera in this segment. I talked fast so he wouldn't have time for second thoughts.

A game show was on TV, young married contestants and a suavely gliding master of ceremonies; there were frequent commercials, the usual daytime spasms on behalf of detergents and oral hygiene. This is what I filmed for roughly eight minutes, the TV set, having to break twice for reloading, as Glenn and I, off camera, read from the wrinkled scattered script. Glenn spoke in a monotone throughout.

"We're going to talk about test patterns and shadows. Certain forms of darkness. A small corner of the twentieth century."

"I have all the answers."

"And I have the questions," I said. "We begin, simply enough, with a man watching television. Quite possibly he is being driven mad, slowly, in stages, program by program, interruption by interruption. Still, he watches. What is there in that box? Why is he watching?"

"The TV set is a package and it's full of products. Inside are detergents, automobiles, cameras, breakfast cereal, other television sets. Programs are not interrupted by commercials; exactly the reverse is true. A television set is an electronic form of packaging. It's as simple as that. Without the products there's nothing. Educational television's a joke. Who in America would want to watch TV without commercials?"

"How does a successful television commercial affect the viewer?"

"It makes him want to change the way he lives."

"In what way?" I said.

"It moves him from first person consciousness to third person. In this country there is a universal third person, the man we all want to be. Advertising has discovered this man. It uses him to express the possibilities open to the consumer. To consume in America is not to buy; it is to dream. Advertising is the suggestion that the dream of entering the third person singular might possibly be fulfilled."

"How then does a TV commercial differ from a movie? Movies are full of people we want to be."

"Advertising is never bigger than life. It tries not to edge too far over the fantasy line; in fact it often mocks different fantasy themes associated with the movies. Look, there's no reason why you can't fly Eastern to Acapulco and share two solid weeks of sex and adventure with a vacationing typist from Iowa City. But advertising never claims you can do it with Ava Gardner. Only Richard Burton can accomplish that. You can change your image but you can't change the image of the woman you take to bed. Advertising has merchandised this distinction. We have exploited the limitation of dreams. It's our greatest achievement."

"What makes a good advertising man?"

"He knows how to move the merch off the shelves. It's as simple as that. If the advertising business shut down tomorrow, I'd go over to Macy's and get a job selling men's underwear. "

"Let's get back to images. Do the people who create commercials take into account this third person consciousness you've talked about with such persuasiveness and verve?"

"They just make their twenty-second art films. The third person was invented by the consumer, the great armchair dreamer. Advertising discovered the value of the third person but the consumer invented him. The country itself invented him. He came over on the Mayflower. I'm waiting for you to ask me about the anti-image."

"What's that?"

"It's the guerrilla warfare being fought behind the lines of the image. It's a picture of devastating spiritual atrocities. The perfect example of the anti-image in advertising is the slice-of-life commercial. A recognizable scene in a suburban home anywhere in the USA. Some dialogue between dad and junior or between Madge and the members of the bridge club. Problem: Madge is suffering from irregularity. Solution: Drink this stuff and the muses will squat. The rationale behind this kind of advertising is that the consumer will identify with Madge. This is a mistake. The consumer never identifies with the anti-image. He identifies only with the image. The Marlboro man. Frank Gifford and Bobby Hull in their Jantzen bathing suits. Slice-of-life commercials usually deal with the more depressing areas of life-odors, sores, old age, ugliness, pain. Fortunately the image is big enough to absorb the anti-image. Not that I object to the anti-image in principle. It has its possibilities; the time may not be far off when we tire of the dream. But the anti-image is being presented much too literally. The old themes. The stereotyped dialogue. It needs a touch of horror, some mad laughter from the graveyard. One of these days some smart copywriter will perceive the true inner mystery of America and develop an offshoot to the slice-of-life. The slice-of-death."