It was a Saturday afternoon, sometime in the early 1980s.  I don’t remember what play it was we had been seeing, or which theater on Broadway we were in, but during the intermission at that particular matinee performance, we were all mingling in the lobby, and there he was, standing right next to me, towering over me, a shaggy bear of a man—looking like something the cat might have cradled and then dragged in from the monkeyhouse—the great man himself, Kurt Vonnegut! 

I was still drinking in the power and the glory of the man when I saw two teenage girls coming up to him, shyly but bravely asking him for his autograph.  We all tried not to eavesdrop as the man cleared his throat, paused dramatically, and then spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear.  “I’m sorry,” he said gruffly, looking at his watch, “but I never sign autographs at 3:30 on Saturday afternoons.” 

The champion could have had all of us for breakfast, and he did. The two girls shrank and turned to me in confusion, because I just happened to be standing next to the man.  ”Sir,” they asked me haltingly, trying to cover their embarrassment, not knowing whether or not to ask me for my autograph, ”are you anyone?”

“No,” I mumbled apologetically, fleeing from the scene, back to the safety of my seat inside the theater.  During the entire second act of the play, I thought of all the things I might have said to console the two girls but didn’t, to cut the great man down to size but didn’t; and I hated myself for not being quick-witted enough, for having been in awe of a hero, for wanting the same thing those two girls wanted, the man’s autograph. 

In the introduction to BAGOMBO SNUFF BOX, Kurt Vonnegut lists eight cardinal rules for anyone wishing to write short fiction.  Here’s Rule #6:  “Be a sadist.  No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” 

Perhaps, back in the lobby of that theater in New York, at 3:30 on that particular Saturday afternoon in the early 1980s, Kurt Vonnegut was being deliberately sadistic, leading his young fans into that familiar slaughterhouse, teaching us all a lesson in life, liberty and the pursuit of celebrities.

Years ago, when I was a teenager in Manila, my friends and I saw TEA AND SYMPATHY, a movie based on the play by Robert Anderson, featuring Deborah Kerr as a sympathetic older woman who’s running a dormitory in a boys’ school in New England, and John Kerr as one of the “sensitive” boys in the dorm.  At the end of the movie, because she feels sorry for the boy after he is suspected of having homosexual tendencies, Deborah Kerr goes into the boy’s bedroom and decides to help him disprove what doubts he might have about his own sexuality. She sits on his bed, begins to unbutton her blouse, takes his hands and guides them towards her opened blouse, and utters a line full of enigmatic pauses as the movie ends. 

My friends and I argued heatedly about those enigmatic pauses, so we found a copy of the script.  In the published text of the play on which the movie was based, this is how the line appears:  “Years from now—when you talk about this—and you will—be kind.”  My friends and I continued to argue about the interpretation of those pauses.  Some thought she was gently asking him to forgive her in the future for what she’s doing now:  “Years from now, when you talk about this, at that time, I beg you to please be kind.”  Others thought she was being completely realistic, and that the line ought to be read sardonically:  “Years from now, when you talk about this, and I have no doubt that you WILL talk and boast about this, when this happens, please try to be kind.”

And so, back in 1960, I took it upon myself to write Robert Anderson, care of his publisher in New York, to ask him which of these two interpretation he had intended when he wrote the line.  I never really expected to hear from him but, weeks later—lo and behold!—he wrote me back.  Although I no longer have the letter, even now, I remember how Robert Anderson settled our argument fifty years ago.  “Both interpretations are correct,” he wrote. “If you thought I intended it, then I must have.” 

In the early 1980s, when I actually met Robert Anderson at a function sponsored by the Dramatists Guild in New York, I told him this story.  His eyes lit up and he said, “Yes, I remember that letter from the Philippines.” 

I was astonished.  “You do?  Seriously, you do?” 

“Yes, of course.  It’s not everyday I get such intelligent letters, and from fans so young, in the Philippines!”

Another decade later, when I saw Robert Anderson again, in 1994, at the William Inge Festival in Independence, KS, it was he who came up to me this time, and reminded me about that letter which I had written him all those years ago.  It was kind of him to remember, and it now makes me sad that these sort of memories were being erased from his remarkable mind the last seven years of his life. 

It is my hope that, years from now—when my own time comes, if anyone talks about me—and they will—be kind.

Barack Obama was a professor.  He taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004.  He was depicted by the media as the epitome of “cool” and “hip” on the campaign trail, through the inauguration, and through his first 100 days in the White House. But then, inevitably, the tides turned.  Now the same pundits are saying that Obama is much “too cool” and “aloof.”  Why does he seize every opportunity to give us “teachable moments” as though we’re still in school?  He’s just “too professorial.”

Is there something really intrinsically wrong or untrustworthy about our teachers and professors?  If so, let’s stop sending our kids to school, stop taking out student loans to go to college, stop funding universities and all higher institutions of learning.  We don’t really need a president who is “too professorial” and makes us feel stupid.  What we really want is a folksy leader whom we can chew tobacco and go to church with, hunt abortionists and four-legged animals with, go bowling or balling with, have a beer with.

Now is the time for the Republican Party to inherit the “cool” factor.  They should get “with it” and start wooing all the women and other marginalized voters in this country by bringing back George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in drag.  If “ignorance is bliss,” then who better to lead us in 2012 than faux females like Sarah Palin and Liz Cheney?  Who wouldn’t want to have a drink with these two charming Airheads of State? Well, perhaps not a beer.  Maybe an aperitif, or is that too European, too socialist, too liberal, too elitist, too professorial? Well, then, maybe a Screwdriver.  At least the orange juice will provide some healthy Vitamin C while we’re getting screwed into alcoholic oblivion.