Billy met him for the first time in 1964. Billy drove his Cadillac down a back alley in Ilium, and he found his way blocked by dozens of boys and their bicycles. A meeting was in progress. The boys were harangued by a man in a full beard. He was cowardly and dangerous, and obviously very good at his job. Trout was sixty-two years old back then. He was telling the kids to get off their dead butts and get their daily customers to subscribe to the fucking Sunday edition, too. He said that whoever sold the most Sunday subscriptions during the next two months would get a free trip for himself and his parents to Martha's fucking Vineyard for a week, all expenses paid.
And so on.
One of the newspaper boys was actually a newspaper girl. She was electrified.
Trout's paranoid face was terribly familiar to Billy, who had seen it on the jackets of so many books. But, coming upon that face suddenly in a home-town alley, Billy cold not guess why the face was familiar. Billy thought maybe he had known this cracked messiah in Dresden somewhere. Trout certainly looked like a prisoner of war.
And then the newspaper girl held up her hand. "Mr. Trout--" she said, "if I win, can I take my sister, too?"
"Hell, now," said Kilgore Trout. "You think money grows on trees?"
Kilgore Trout is a disappointment for Billy. Trout comes off as some modern-day Fagin, yelling at his newspaper orphans. He certainly doesn't inspire admiration, except in the gullible children who crave what he promises--a free vacation to Martha's fucking Vineyard. Trout is all about the money.
Sometimes, famous or semi-famous people can be disappointing in person. I've met or seen my fair share of celebrities. I shook Kurt Vonnegut's hand once. Sat in the same room with Sharon Olds and talked with her about poetry. Touched Vincent Price's back. Saw John Cleese eating a hamburger with his wife in Big Sur. Listened to Spike Lee give a speech about racism in the movie business.
My encounters with fame have varied from incredible (Sharon Olds) to pathetic (Bob Seger strolling through a shopping mall in Detroit). Fame is not necessarily a gauge for a person's worth. Some of the most famous people in the world are horrible human beings. (Can I get a "Donald Trump!" on that one?) Yet, our culture thrives on celebrity. There are thousands of Syrians still starving in refugee camps, and yet one of the big news items today is "Selena Gomez Recovering After Kidney Transplant." (Don't get me wrong. I hope Selena does well with her new organ, but there are more important global issues that should be concerning us. Can I get a "global warming!" or "neo-Nazis!" on that one?)
Kilgore Trout really isn't a celebrity. His books are terrible. Billy Pilgrim is probably one of the only members of the Kilgore Trout fan club. Yet, certainly Kilgore Trout (if he really existed and did write 75 science fiction novels) would have his own booth at Comic-Con and a line of people waiting for his autograph. That's the nature of celebrity. It doesn't matter whether a person is a serial killer or a Nobel Prize-winning poet, fame will attract fans.
Of course, the best celebrities are those who use that fame for good things. George Clooney and UNICEF. Bono and his war on hunger and poverty. River Phoenix and his work for animal rights. Celebrity itself is not a bad thing. It's what people do with that celebrity that makes the difference.
When Saint Marty wins the Nobel Prize in Literature this October, he promises to donate a few dollars toward a brain transplant for the current President of the United States.
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