Fame

You all know Joey Zasa. 

He is, I admit, an important man. 

His picture is on the cover of the New York Times magazine. He gets the Esquire magazine award, for the best-dressed gangster! 

The newspapers praise him, because, he hires Blacks into his family, which shows he has a good heart. 

He, is famous. 

Who knows? 

Maybe one day, he will make all of you, popular. 

ZASA 

It's true. I make more of a, bella figura, that is my nature. But I also want to make a move into, legitimate enterprises. I'd like to get a little pin from the Pope. Sure, I take the Blacks and the Spanish into my family, because, that's America. 

MICHAEL 

And you guarantee, they don't deal drugs in those neighborhoods. 

ZASA 

I don't guarantee that. 

I guarantee I'll kill anybody who does. 

"I realised that I was becoming a celebrity, which was nothing that I ever expected. given that 'Comic-book Writer' was about the most obscure profession in The World when I actually entered the job.

The thing about Fame is that Fame in it's current sense had not really existed before the 20th Century - back in previous eras, even if you were very, very well-known, that would perhaps be amongst a thousand people, if you were The Pope, or something.

In the 20th Century, however, with these massive surges in communication, suddenly a different form of Fame was possible -

And I tend to think that what fame has done is to replace the sea as the element of choice of adventure for Young People. 

If you were a dashing young man in the 19th century you would probably have wanted to run away to Sea, just as in the 20th century you might decide that you want to run away and form a pop band. 

The difference is, that in the 19th century, before running away to sea, you would have had at least some understanding of the element that you were dealing with and would have perhaps, say, learned to swim ... 

The thing is that there is no manual for how to cope with fame. 

So you'll get some, otherwise likeable young person, who has done one good comic book, one good film, one good record, suddenly told that they are a genius, and, who believes it and who runs out laughing and splashing into the billows of celebrity, and whose heroin-sodden corpse is washed up a few weeks later in the shallows of the tabloids.

I never signed up to be a Celebrity, and I very quickly realised that it wasn't something that I was at all comfortable with.

- Alan Moore