Unfixable

It's a hard lesson and often it takes decades to learn but the fact is, not everything is fixable.

If it were up to me, animal abusers, child molesters and rapists would be publicly castrated and then executed on the court house lawns in as lengthy and excruciating painful a manner as we could think of.

If it were up to me, the inventors of shrink wrap plastic and child resistant pill bottles would be staked out atop fire ant mounds and wrapped in yellow fever blankets.

If it were up to me, every greedy, crooked politician would be stripped naked and hanged in a public square. Twice. And it would be televised.

Such are my dreams these days. I've lived too long and am too tired and broken down to be tactful or superficially nice. I do not, as Salvatore Dali famously said, understand voluntary idiocy.

Until now, my friend Michael has always been able to pull a last minute rabbit out of a last minute hat. Somehow, he's always managed to come up with some scheme or new approach and save the day for himself and the agency and I've been constantly amazed at his persistence and optimism and ability to rebound even from the most dire of circumstances. Until now, I thought it was just a matter of time and creative energy but in recent days and weeks, I realize it's far more serious. I've witnessed him wrack his brain for a solution. I've watched him drive himself into a suicidal depression over paying the bills and feeding his dogs. I've listened to his every desperate and impossible idea. I've heard him wonder aloud, what's the point. I lose sleep for worrying about the future. I can't remember ever seeing a man so utterly and completely miserable, without hope and on the very brink of defeat. Things will look brighter in the morning, I tell him, but the words are hollow and we both know it. The plain fact is that what he does is no longer wanted, no longer attractive, no longer relevant. Modeling has become entitled and frivolous, acting is now a do-it-yourself art. Everybody wants to be an instant star but nobody wants to put in the time or do the work. The big modeling conventions of the past are over, the glory days behind us and everybody still hanging on is scrambling for a new approach or fresh revenue source. Mostly we're all out of ideas.

I try to keep in mind that sometimes things fix themselves if we can manage to stop interfering. Meanwhile, we muddle on, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, hoping for a turnaround, a better economy, or a miracle.