On the day I was born every teenager in America, if not the world, was in tears. While my young parents celebrated my arrival and the sweet procession of life cocooned as they were within the sterile walls of a New York hospital; on the opposite coast, time had come to a standstill.
James Dean, the sensational teen idol, actor, edge walker and star in the movie classic, Rebel Without A Cause, was dead; killed in a head-on collision on a West coast highway while driving his sports car to a race in a nearby town.
Whether it was by fate or by a divine design agreed upon in some preexistent state of stardust and goodwill, it makes little difference. All I know is that I stumbled into this world swaddled in the dual but contrary emotional vestments of grace and grief. On the day Jimmy's lights went out, mine turned on; and the mantle had been passed. I would live my life as a rebel.
Knowing that such a massive terrestrial star burned away on the very day my own first breath ignited has stayed with me as an abiding curiosity; particularly since throughout my life I have repeatedly been given the same startling astrological assessment from notable cosmic prognosticators and psychics from sea to oil-laden sea: "You were born to be a star!"
Huh? Come again? There must be some mistake. I am many things: a rebel, an altruist, an artist, a seeker, a philosopher and a flake; but never a star. The only thing I have ever been first at in my entire life was being the firstborn child of my parents and whatever cosmic or conjugal convergence was behind that landing, I'd rather not speculate.
In fact, I might even go as far as to say that I am an UNstar. If I could disappear, I would. Rebels are noted non-participants.
I doubt James Dean shared those sentiments. He wanted to be seen and lauded. Ironically, his star burned most brightly when he was lost in celluloid brooding; whereas I brood heavily in real life, but only when no one is looking.
When I have an audience of any number I play to them. I shine. But my luminescence is a mechanism for survival in a world whose game holds little appeal for me; it comes because I want to get out of here leaving as little collateral damage as possible in my wake, and the only way I can reason to accomplish this is to make everyone in my wake happy.
But I don't want to be a star.
Of course, all this makes me an even more steadfast believer in the existence of a parallel universe, or multiples of them. If there are varying and infinite degrees of expression, than it stands to reason I might well be famous in some neighboring dimension. Probably the same one in which James Dean had decided instead on that fateful day to ride the bus to the races and is now a withered thespian in television ads for Dentu Creme and Medicare.
However, I was relieved to learn that James had died just after I had drawn my first breath. I'd hate to think that I'd deposed a legitimate star and then failed in my fated quest to fill the void after his passing.
But whose to say that the standards of success and stardom need follow the worldly definitions? I would be fine remaining in obscurity while letting my art and my words reach a high level of worldly recognition.
The spark that shines brightest is within me, not about me; and I have a profound need to unload it and to move on. In light of that, I just keep smiling and producing.
No one is going to accuse me of being a star without a cause.
I merely want my bows to be taken at the conclusion of this life in that paradisaical plane we go to after a job well done.
I'm sure its on the map; just inside the eleventh dimension and a little east of Eden.
