And in the middle of Broadway, in Chinatown, just past a bunch of hats and gloves dangling on a wire, a few feet past CD’s and knick-knacks and I heart New York sweatshirts, I saw Saddam Hussein.
Let Me Set the Scene
I live in NYC and I never “see” celebrities. They must be around me somewhere–I’ve seen the movie trailers, humming with their generators, on some random street. In Manhattan. In Brooklyn. In the middle of the night. I had a friend who nannied for an aging female actress during some tabloid-fodder of a family tumult. I have friends who’ve sold dog food to Oscar-nominated comedians at pet stores on the upper west side, others who’ve happened to be in the same pastry shop as the false-idol couple of the moment, far from being Radha and Krisna. But I never see these folks, never notice them, save an occasion or two where one stood inches from me in a group, apparently friends or acquaintances of a friend or acquaintance of mine. And at most, I’ve said hello, smiled, made eye contact, acknowledged their humanity, and continued with whatever I’d been doing previously.
I know they are not important, celebrities. They are merely the show dogs. Well groomed, well fed, well taken care of and by ambition, connections, happenstance or some combination of the three, they get to enjoy certain playthings that we mutts seldom do. Good for the show dogs.
But show dogs aren’t important, not really. Not like the folks who create the supply and demand for their play-things, the ones who weave from chimerical fabric the Spectacular circles in which those pampered canines live, a world that we mutts, in turn, consume– in trance. The show dogs don’t got nothin’ on the judges. Or the trainers/controllers. Or the folks who make the leashes. Nosiree. And neither do we.
Unleashed
But the man my eyes tell me I saw was no celebrity–no show dog, unless by demotion. He’d held the leash of an entire nation, by the approval of various powerful leash makers, for 23 years–23 years that saw the leash makers sell him the weapons he used against the Iranians during the Iraq-Iran war, 23 years that saw the leash-makers shake his hand, smile for photos at his place, and then look the other way as he murdered dissidents and used the poisons they sold him to gas the Kurds, who were people like us: mutts. But I suppose that was just good business for the leash makers–after all, he was a favored client. A client, but certainly no show dog, not even at the end. Then again, maybe Zappa wasn’t merely being cynical when he quipped that politics is the entertainment branch of industry.
A Brief, Superficial Intrusion
I was in Chinatown because I’d been asked to do an audition for a beer commercial, the angle of said commercial being that this beer wasn’t about stuffy elites with their high priced meals, faux importance, and chi-chi french restaurants. In other words, as the everyday-grungy joe of the commercial arrived at said pretentious restaurant to inform the maitre ‘d, THIS economy-priced beer wasn’t for show-dogs, no! It was for the common folk, with their salvaged-from-the-bedroom-floor hoodies, and their faded-at-the knees-and-ass jeans, and their modest, working-class or, at least, not-quite-yet-ready-for-corporate budgets. No mention of this watery-shit-in-a-can’s taste of course, not in the entire spot. That would have, of course, implied all the pejorative associations attached to the target market: the low(er) class. And in commercials, like politics, pandering is persuasion.
“Snooty maitre ‘d, your license to sell our shit-in-a-can has been revoked!”
I would get two “goes” at this spot–one as the good-time guy and one as the beer delivery man bringing up the rear, good-time guy’s silent side-kick, the shadow representing the viewers of the commercial, the consumers.
And There We Were
My train had not taken anywhere near as long as I’d expected to get to Chinatown, so all the ritual of the commercial audition lay an hour in the future. I had time and I preferred to use at least some of it away from the casting agency waiting room with its Depression-era job hall atmosphere. So I walked.
And on Broadway, just past a bunch of hats and gloves dangling on a wire, a few feet past CD’s and knick-knacks and I heart New York sweatshirts, I saw Saddam Hussein.
Or someone who looked very much like him. His beard had gone almost entirely white and only a bit of gray remained in his hair, which was disheveled, not greased-back-in-black like in the official photo-ops of his reign. And his gray suit had already lost the benefits of an iron, his white shirt crumpled, its collar wide open as if to say: “Make me care”. Pretty much the look of the man in the trial footage on TV–a tall man, but somehow small, diminished.
And it shocked me–in a way that seeing a mere celebrity never could–this, after all, was the image of a tyrant, the walking ghost of an enemy of humanity. How could it be him? His trial was taking place in Iraq. So maybe this was his doppleganger, then. Or one of the dozens of doubles, real or astral, that the droning rumor-tone of TV had informed us he used throughout his reign.
Whoever he was, his presence simply did not compute. After all, we do not so much trust our eyes anymore as we trust what our eyes are conditioned to trust. And why should we trust our eyes anyway? They lie–and are told lies. Instead we believe in that whose mechanics create deception. Our eyes mediated by televisuals and computer screens, washed in the false shabd emanating from the realm of cathode rays and digital signals–that, we trust.
We made eye contact and my mind went blank. And in the next moment, as in a dream, we exchanged a nod. I nodded because I do so mechanically whenever I lock eyes with a stranger in the street–an acknowledgment of mutual existence. Maybe it was the same for him, but I really can’t be certain. I do know that he looked tired, spent, but also as surprised as I did; like an actor suddenly realizing he’s walked into the middle of a scene from a movie he’s not supposed to be in.
“Snooty maitre ‘d, your license to sell our shit-in-a-can has been revoked!”
And A Metaphysical Intrusion
I begin to remember a thought experiment from an epistemology class a long time ago. You see–or you think you see– Bill Clinton in New York. But according to CNN, all the major networks, the radio and the newspapers, he’s supposed to be in Washington, D.C. that day. How do you know that you really know he’s in New York? Perhaps you’ve gone mad–how do you know you haven’t? Maybe you’re eyes just went nuts? And suppose your perfectly sane. Your eyes and their connection to your brain: all functioning properly. How do you prove that your knowledge about Bill Clinton’s presence in New York is true? And if you can’t prove it to anyone other than yourself, did you really know anything at all?
The quick reaction would be, “Well yes, I do know. Don’t be difficult.”
And the reaction to that would be, “I’m not. And do you know, I mean, really?”
And round and round the circle goes–because neither is really the answer. Either/or? Try maybe. Or Yes and: Both. But how can that be?
I don’t know. Words break down, they lie. Better to honor silence.
Two days later, Saddam received his death sentence.
“Snooty Saddam, your license to kill our slaves has been revoked!”
And Here We Are
The man who was or is or wasn’t or isn’t– or both–Saddam, turned, walked and disappeared around a corner. And I stood there. Pointlessly.
Should he have had blood dripping from the sides of his mouth? Should he have let loose with a diabolical cackle, smashed a smoke bomb onto the pavement and disappeared? Hissed and lifted a vampire cape in front of his face? Should his eyes have turned red and started to glow? Should he have announced, “Relax, I’m just an old geezer from Manhattan. Listen to me talk! Believe me?”
When I finally moved my feet with the instinct to follow, it was rather too late. There was nobody on that street, though it had only been half a minute. Perhaps, Saddam(’s doppel) ducked into some unknown cafe with a bunch of ordinary old men. Or perhaps he now sat in a cafe where other deposed dictators, former favored clients, sat around, awaiting their final execution at the hired hands of the leash makers’ proxies. Maybe Milosevic’s ghost was there, and Noriega, and Pinochet–playing gin rummy and farting, no longer allowed the luxuries of murderous prestige, the limelight of the State/Stage.
Show dogs after all.
Postscript
Two days later, Saddam received his death sentence.
And on December 30th, Saddam or his doppel or someone–a human being, despite everything– got hanged.
(And there’s the grainy snuff-film footage on google to prove it.)
I went and did my audition. I didn’t book the job. And I didn’t care in the least.
Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode.
I’ve spent about 4 months over the past two years in NYC and seen more than a few celebrities. Some through work, but more just walking around.
Is there a Seinfeld episode where he sees Saddam Hussein?
Sad to say, I’ve probably seen all of half an episode of Seinfeld in my life and I’ve more or less given up on watching T.V. Mayhaps I’ll look for the episode on dvd, though.