Toasting Her Bread and Butter

When I was a kid, during the golden age of television, there was a show my mother and teen-age sister were crazy about. It was called “The Continental.” It featured a cornball European gigolo with a skinny mustache and a silk-brocaded smoking jacket who spoke directly to the camera as if he were speaking to one woman. I think he was the basis for Ernie Kovacs’ character Percy Dovetonsils, the bug-eyed writer of bad poems.

“Hello, my darlink, I am ze Continental,” he would say and hold up his wine glass to toast the camera. He was sort of a Julio Iglesias who couldn’t sing or a Bruce Springsteen who couldn’t move. Women loved him.

You see, my darling, it is because of the Continental that I am writing to you. I am your secret admirer, your dream lover, your pen pal. You are my everything. And my bread and butter.

They used to say that talking to yourself was a sign of insanity, but I always knew there’d be money in it.

One day I started talking to myself in public, and--whammo--I had a whole new career as a newspaper columnist.

It was easy at first because I didn’t think anyone was listening. But after a while, I noticed that my friends would begin conversations by saying, “This is off the record, right?”

Then I lost two or three relatives. One objected to a column I wrote about the neighborhood where we grew up. “You made it sound like a bad neighborhood,” she said. (It was a bad neighborhood, I had to point out.)

Slowly, like a car salesman figuring the actual selling price, I began to realize I was not talking to myself. I was talking to readers. And, based on your letters, I began to form a picture of the reader: a right-wing baby-boomer retired-fireman who was supporting Jesse Jackson for President. In short, a typical American.

You sent me letters telling me who you are. One lady wrote that outside of the Bible, she read only my column. Another wrote that I was “a rare voice of social concern in an increasingly selfish world.”

Since I get paid to do this, a more precise characterization might have been: an increasingly selfish voice of social concern. But why quibble? What I loved most were the letters from people pouring their hearts out, telling me their stories. I felt like Miss Lonelyhearts, except the letter writers didn’t want advice or help. They simply wanted to tell. Just like me.

Once I realized that someone was listening I became intimidated. Thinking I had to have a message cramped my style. But writing is really about--dare I say it?--intimacy. You want the same thing I want: an end to loneliness.

It’s odd, but people can feel lonely in the strangest places and situations. I’ve been struck by how alone I feel on crowded city streets, or even at times while surrounded by my ostensibly happy family. And that’s why I started writing. It’s my note in a bottle, my message tied to a balloon, my personals ad. Maybe other people start talking to themselves in public for the same reason--hoping someone will say, “I heard that!”

In some ways, it’s as shabby a stunt as the Continental’s, but the need is there. We both want to be involved, but real people, alive and in person, can be such complicated jerks.

So I thank you for letting my voice in your head. You are too kind. And zat is why I am writing zis for you, my cupcake.