# Fame, a poem

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [October 23, 2000, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032 "2000-10-23T22:19:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032/1 "2000-10-23T22:19:54Z")

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This is the product of a dull afternoon and a little pop history:

If you want to be famous  
and have a name that’s  
known near and far

You’d better take all your talents  
and hawk them at a price that’s  
the most the market will bear.

Once you are wealthy  
people assume you are healthy  
and know secrets beyond their ken.

You’d better fake it  
on your merits you won’t make it  
but with this, you have a good chance.

So write a few books  
fill them with sales hooks  
for your next round of dreck.

As your sales shoot upwards  
scribble, scribble more words  
and continue the wealthmaking trend.

Soon you’ll be noted  
and read in Yale and Oxford  
(all the places you never went).

Yes, you’ll get hits  
from the media blitz  
camped out in front of your door.

Take them quite sullenly  
and complain quite loudly  
how the cameras won’t leave you alone.

Never mind that you want them  
and would surely die without them  
complain far and wide just the same.

If you’re seen as an outsider  
you’ll just get richer  
and can market to sheep-like teens.

Get in a few short movies  
soon, you’ll be on TVs  
hawking your latest incarnation.

Writing was all fun  
but there’s acting to be done  
so ham it up, and steal the show.

The public will love it  
the critics will pan it  
but critics don’t make a career.

Once sequels have been made  
and you’ve been laid  
by a thousand starry-eyed models

you’ll have some accounts  
with money in mounts  
that stretch up to the blueness.

The public will love you  
the IRS will tax you  
and your fans will be dying to meet you.

Avoid a few gunshots  
for they will hurt lots  
and put an end to your rising career.

Say the loony’s forgiven  
but be sure not to sit in  
as he’s sentenced to 25 to life.

So you’re barely alive  
your health’s taken a nosedive  
but you career’s never been better.

You sell retrospectives  
the public has new perspectives  
on work that origninally bombed.

As your wounds heal  
much better you’ll feel  
but your pic will fade from the camera.

Your death would now sell  
but your mind is too well  
to allow you to pull your own trigger.

So to isolation you’re removed  
and your films are all moved  
to midnight crapfest showings.

Your name is now forgotten  
the cash stops rolling in  
except from die-hard fanatics.

So decades you sit there  
and the style of your hair  
is quickly going out of fashion.

But wait, there’s salvation  
from utter stagnation  
on old, forgotten racks.

Soon, you’re a classic  
and people are nostalgic  
as they read you, or watch your films.

Never mind it’s all shit  
that won’t matter one bit  
as people hoard what you sold.

This lasts for decades  
before your image fades  
for good from the mind of the public.

By then, you’ll be dead  
and your books will be read  
as windows onto the past.

They’ll be bought by snobs  
and other show-offs  
looking to showcase money.

Your estate will prosper  
from images on phosphor  
shown on antique TVs.

Your descendents will squander  
all you worked so hard for  
but then, you’ll be past caring.

So we leave you as a body  
you were once such a hotty  
but now, you’re just moldy bones.

I hope your life was enough  
if it wasn’t, that’s tough  
plenty were worse off than you.

So this poem ends here  
but don’t have fear  
I’ll soon write another.

It isn’t the best technically, but I made it funny. How do you all like it?

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**Author:** ![tradesilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tradesilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tradesilicon)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032/2 "2000-10-23T23:24:00Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> How do you all like it?

Hey, this’ll be hot in few years…Can I say ‘I knew you when’?

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**Author:** ![Spider\_Woman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cdc98d/32.png) [@Spider\_Woman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spider_Woman)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2000, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032/3 "2000-10-23T23:45:58Z")

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Very interesting, and probably sadly true for too many. Are you related to Mr. Cynical? Write on!

[Do you do limericks?]

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**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2000, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fame-a-poem/38032/4 "2000-10-24T05:04:22Z")

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I do limericks every so often, but never very good ones. I’ll try to dig a few up (or write a few new ones).