Medallion Status Read online

  We ran from the fireworks to the actual pool by the actual mansion. It was fall, and wisps of steam were rising from the surface of the heated water. The Beautiful Oboist told me why she started playing the oboe. She worried she had chosen it just because it looked nice.

  Now, I never played the oboe in high school. I had been a clarinet player—just a simple, single-reed guy. But I had enough general experience with feeling like an impostor that I could reassure her.

  “No,” I told her. “It’s more than that.”

  I explained that when she chose the oboe, she had invented herself. That didn’t make her an impostor. That made her brave. And we took our champagne flutes and sat down in patio chairs under the stars, and I did not spill my champagne or fall off my patio chair while doing so. I felt like I was doing a really good job at acting. When I was done, I drove myself home and had a tuna sandwich at 5 a.m. and slept well.

  Then a few days after we finished filming, I received the script for my second episode. It turned out that my character, at least, was an impostor, and all the wise life advice I had offered the Beautiful Oboist in the previous episode was part of a deception. It turned out I was just trying to trick this young woman into having sex with me. In the next episode, I would come to her apartment under the premise of taking an oboe lesson. I would bring an expensive oboe with golden keys to learn on. I would honk out a few notes and then I would excuse myself to use the bathroom. But instead of using the bathroom, I would, unnervingly, start taking a shower. Then the Beautiful Oboist would discover me in her bed, completely nude, except for the oboe. Welcome back, mustache creep.

  One consolation for playing all these monsters was the swag. I had collected a small hoard of swag: gifts, branded with shows’ names, usually handed out to the cast at the end of production. There was my Bored to Death season 3 Patagonia rain jacket. My Delocated series finale gray hoodie. My HankCo. winter hat from The Venture Bros. I got my Daily Show: Indecision 2010 zippy sweatshirt at the massive rally Jon Stewart held on the Washington Mall that year. I wasn’t asked to go onstage at that event, but I did get to wear my zippy backstage while watching Kareem Abdul-Jabbar try to get out of a conversation with Tony Bennett, and then later while staying up all night with Adam Savage of MythBusters. Me and zippy, we could drop a lot of names, let me tell you.

  There were other kinds of swag, stuff that I got for free just for being alive and a somewhat famous person. For two years, I did some voice-over work at the Emmys. When the winners were announced, I would read arguably funny fake facts about them until they reached the stage. It was nerve-racking. I had a big metal box in front of me with a single red button, and when I pressed it, I would speak live to millions of people. I don’t know why they trusted me to push this button, but they rewarded me for not just saying a bunch of swear words by inviting me to the gifting lounge.

  The gifting lounge was a windowless room in the basement of the theater, lined with black velvet curtains and a circular buffet of swag. I could walk around the room and take whatever I wanted. There was a high-end denim station and a luxury perfume station and a station full of shiny ugly wristwatches. The hope was actual celebrities would take these products and be photographed using and wearing them. There were also weird things that no one wanted like coffee pods and hair conditioner. It was a little like a secret celebrities-only Walgreens. They assigned you a pretty young woman to carry your bag for you, which was gross. But that’s where I got the one pair of jeans that I’ve ever looked good in, as well as a pair of bespoke Italian shoes. I had to wait to have my feet measured for the shoes because they were measuring John Lithgow’s feet first. John Lithgow saw me waiting and said, “It’s John Hodgman!” and I was so happy.

  I still have those shoes and jeans, and I even still have my original item of swag, aka Swag Zero: the Daily Show holiday party gift from 2006. It was the first year I was on the show, or anything ever, for that matter. It’s a black Patagonia jacket. It has the old Daily Show with Jon Stewart logo on the front and the old 1990s Comedy Central logo on the sleeve. Now it is frayed and worn-out. Some days I think about putting it on and going down to the new Daily Show with Trevor Noah to walk up and down the audience line and see if I can get people to take pictures with me, like one of those shabby, cockeyed fake Elmos in Times Square.

  One night a while ago I had to walk to perform in a comedy show in Brooklyn. It was very cold out. I didn’t have a proper winter jacket for some reason, so I layered up. I piled on so many sweatshirts and zippies and windbreakers that I couldn’t move my arms correctly. It was ridiculous, but it felt great for some reason. It felt so great that I wore the outfit onstage, and that’s when I realized why it felt so great: it was all swag. I was covered in it, encased in layer after layer of soft, protective minor fame. All those shows were over for me then, or would be soon.

  Being famous is, in part, about getting things for free. (Actually: it’s mostly this.) But acting, I had begun to learn, is about giving. It’s about surrendering the habits and poses that protect you and becoming vulnerable: to the moment, your own emotions, and unpleasant truths. As I read the script that contained my oboe lesson and my failed seduction, I realized that I might have been invited to the beautiful party for a moment, but now that illusion was to be stripped away, along with all my clothes. And suddenly, for a reason I couldn’t articulate yet, it didn’t feel depressing or humiliating. It felt cleansing.

  As my nude scene approached, there were a lot of conversations and paperwork. They presented me with a Nude Rider to my contract. It specified exactly what parts of my disgusting body and my shame would be revealed. “The nudity required is restricted to rear nudity,” said the Nude Rider. “No genitalia, pubic hair, or anus, and no other nudity may be photographed.”

  Strangely, the Nude Rider was worded as though I had written it myself, as in: “For clarity, there will be the perception of full-frontal nudity, but I will be wearing [a] nudity belt to cover my genitalia with an oboe placed over the top.” This is not a promise I had ever imagined making before, and if I were not married, it would be my go-to pickup line for the rest of my life.

  We shot for two days in the Beautiful Oboist’s apartment before my nude scene. The director of this episode, who was also the writer, was very kind. He took me aside for long conversations. He explained that only a few people would be on set for my scene, and if there was anyone I didn’t want to be there, I should just say so. He said a person of my choosing would be standing by constantly with a thick terry-cloth robe to swoop in between takes to cover my disgusting body. He explained that everything would be arranged for my emotional comfort.

  This was an alien concept to me, and especially now I wanted to say, Why? Why do I deserve emotional comfort? I have been in the presence of actual telegenic people. I have stood in a Hollywood hotel lobby and felt the air warp behind me, some uncanny electricity that forced my body to turn and see Keira Knightley, just walking down a staircase. I had never thought much about Keira Knightley before, but when someone’s in-person beauty projects so much energy that you don’t even need to see it for it to make you turn your head, to lose your breath and bearings, that’s when you understand that Keira Knightley belongs on a screen, and you do not.

  I know what my face looks like now, and I know from my mirror at home what my bare body looks like, and I know that the lens will only flatten and fatten both of those things. I’m Hitler in the streets and a third-stage Guild Navigator in the sheets (look it up). So don’t worry about my emotional comfort. This is going to be traumatic for everyone.

  “I’ll be fine,” I told the director. “It will be great.”

  The Nude Rider specified that I would be provided a “nudity belt.” The evening before my scene, I was offered a selection of Caucasian-flesh-colored privacy garments to cover my various areas. I was told no one had ever used them before, which was reassuring, as they all involved a lot of intim
ate nestling around and into very private curves and crevices. Some belts were more elaborate than others. One involved an array of clear rubber bands delicately linking two tan spandex panels. One was essentially just a Caucasian sock.

  I tried them on in my trailer. They were all ridiculous. First, because even the “Caucasian” flesh color of these appliances was one thousand times more bronzed and healthy seeming than my bluish, skim-milky pallor. Second, they were unnecessary. “Let’s not use any of these dumb underwears,” I suggested to the director. “Why don’t I just be naked? Why don’t we invite everyone to set? Let them and the world see me as the whole nude monster that I am?”

  The director said no thank you.

  So on the day of my nude scene, I removed all my clothes and put on the sock. I put on my comfy robe and waited for everyone to be ready to shoot. It was the last setup of the evening, the martini shot, and it was late at night when I was told it was time. I closed Twitter and shook off my nerves and my robe. I climbed onto the young woman’s bed and arranged my oboe and my smile. My smile was genuine. I was ready for my close-up. And that is how I am waiting for you, too, now. I have nothing to hide from you, because, as I said before, I can trust you.

  I’m not really on television anymore. That’s OK. Neither is television, really. I could tell you that in contrast to Vacationland, these stories are about my life and jobs in Hollywood “Workland,” while I was briefly welcome in that country. But there’s no hiding that these really are stories about fame, and especially its dwindling. They are stories about the many different kinds of gifting lounges, private parties, and secret societies I was given entrance to just because I was on television sometimes, and to which I am no longer invited . . . about New York and Los Angeles and the long, dizzying limbo I spent in the air back and forth between them before I was finally grounded, status revoked.

  They are stories of unseemly ease and privilege, of course. Privilege comedy is my beat. But I recalled while waiting in the Beautiful Oboist’s bed that in life, we have only our own disgusting bodies, our own strange and broken selves to offer. We have only our own stories, and it is best when you offer them nakedly. I know better now than some that when you are stripped of what hides you, whether that is fame or status or a thick terry-cloth robe like your dad used to wear, the chill on your bare skin is scary but energizing and, finally, forgiving. When you let people see you and all your junk honestly, it helps them feel seen as well.

  That last part is definitely a metaphor, though. Do not get naked in front of people without their consent. I would not be the first person in comedy to expose himself without asking, so I will ask plainly: Do you want to see me in the nude? That is more of a choice than the TV show offered the Beautiful Oboist (or the viewer, for that matter).

  The Beautiful Oboist had no choice but to discover me in her bedroom. I was propped up on my side in her bed, nude, happy and hopeful. Appropriately, she rejected me, and I accepted that humiliation. In many ways, it prepared me for the greatest humiliation, that of not being on television at all. Perhaps you will reject me, too. But while you decide, welcome. I will wait for you here, hidden only by my golden oboe.

  Chapter Three

  THANK YOU FOR BEING GOLD

  I only fly one airline, and I will refer to it here as Beloved Airlines, because I didn’t want this book to be an advertisement for them. Probably that was a mistake. No one ever says they love an airline, and I bet I could have gotten some sweet sponsored content money for saying so. And anyway, you can find out what airline it is by Googling “MEDALLION STATUS.” At one point, I thought about changing the title of this book to Secret Society, but my publisher felt that Medallion Status was better, and they were right, because specificity is the soul of narrative, and you deserve the specific, sick truth: I will never speak of, never mind fly, another airline, so entrenched am I in the addictive video game that is the Beloved Airlines loyalty program. Now that I think of it, maybe my publisher didn’t want to change the title because they have struck their own side deal with Beloved Airlines. If so, good for them.

  I fly Beloved because I have status with them. Look, they are pretty good at running an airline. They go mostly where I need to, and I like that they fly from JFK to Bangor, Maine. But it was just chance that I happened to get trapped in their particular walled garden of bonus companion tickets and slightly discounted trips and complimentary upgrades that never seem to materialize. For most of my life, I never cared which airline I took, and owed none my loyalty. Friends I knew who traveled a lot for their jobs could not understand what I was doing. One comedian friend of mine got angry at me when he learned I didn’t belong to the Qantas frequent flyer program. “You’re about to fly to Australia!” he said. “Do you know how many miles that is? What are you doing, man!?” Once I offered to fly a musician friend of mine to San Francisco so he could perform a song on a comedy show I was putting together. He asked me if I could make sure to book the ticket on Beloved Airlines. He was already deep in the game. I said sure, whatever. I asked him if he had a frequent flyer number. He recited it to me. He was very passionate about it. “It is the ankle tattoo I will never regret,” he said. This dedication moved me, so I decided to sign up.

  Then I had a couple of heavy travel years for comedy and book tours. I had not noticed that I had been flying Beloved Airlines more than any other. (They weren’t my Beloved yet. That was when they flew under the livery of Emotionally Neutral Airways.) But one day, when I arrived at the top of the jetway for a flight to Minneapolis, the gate agent stopped me after scanning my boarding pass. She smiled and looked me in the eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Hodgman,” she said. “Thank you for being Gold.”

  It took me a moment to process this. I guess I knew at that point that I had inadvertently racked up enough miles to qualify for Beloved Airlines Gold Medallion status. I guess I had noticed that, because of it, I got to board the plane a little earlier. But no one had ever thanked me for being Gold. If you are an only child who craves opportunities to follow arbitrary rules to prove that you deserve affection, then airports are already exciting places to be. But to be thanked just for being, and specifically for being Gold, activated deep, atavistic only-child pleasure centers.

  No. Thank YOU, I wanted to say. Like everyone else in the world, I always thought I was Gold. Or I should say, I hoped I was Gold. I worried a lot that I had tricked myself into thinking I was Gold, but secretly wasn’t. I feared that the world was going to notice this someday and say, WAIT A MINUTE. HE’S NOT GOLD AT ALL! But you see me, don’t you? You see my Gold! It didn’t matter that she had mispronounced my last name the way everyone does (“HAH-duh-guh-man”). She still said “Gold” perfectly, and suddenly, unexpectedly, it was the best thing to ever happen to me.

  After that I started paying attention. I learned that you attain Gold by flying a certain number of miles. But these are not regular miles that you can hoard in the thousands and then redeem for, say, half a one-way flight from LaGuardia to some place no one wants to go to, or to treat yourself to a free single french fry from Seamless. These are special Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQMs). You earn them over the course of a year—and you earn more if you’re flying first class. If you don’t know how many MQMs you have at any moment, you can check on the Beloved Airlines website, where they have a little video game–style health bar of your progress. And you will check, often, because if you make Gold before the end of the year, you are guaranteed Gold for a whole next year. You will have locked in a whole extra year of being Gold. But if you don’t hit Gold by the end of the year, you have to start over. Then you are nothing, and when you board the plane, no one will say anything to you. They won’t even look at you.

  (It’s also possible, if you get close to Gold, that you actually just drop down to Silver Medallion. But that is a garbage Medallion. It is worse than nothing. It is strictly a teasing reminder of what you once held and now have lost. You are rarely thanked f
or being Silver, and if you are, it feels like they are making fun of you.)

  I also learned that as you fly and spend more, you can go on to reach Platinum Medallion, which supposedly offers you slightly quicker access to complimentary upgrades, which I also never seem to get. Plus a gift card. And far beyond that there is Diamond Medallion, which allows you to board first and fly nude with a crossbow while sitting in the pilot’s lap. This is not true, but it is true that Diamond Medallions receive complimentary membership in the Beloved Airlines private airport lounges. Or you can just pay money to get in. Even before I went Gold I had been in a lot of them because of a partnership Beloved Airlines has with my credit card, so I can tell you what these secret rooms are like.

  The Beloved Sky Lounges (not their actual name; still not shilling) are slightly less crowded than the regular waiting areas at the boarding gates, and the chairs are slightly more stylish and comfortable, and they are studded with power outlets. There is art on the walls and a bar offering free soda and beer and medium-shelf liquor brands. In some of the smaller Sky Lounges the bar is simply unmanned: just big bottles of vodka and whiskey that people can glug out for themselves into real-glass glasses, usually around 7 a.m.

  As you know, airports occupy their own country. Let’s settle this once and for all: if you have a stopover at an airport in, say, Phoenix or Berlin, you cannot say you have visited Arizona or Germany. You have only visited AIRPORT, a dimension outside the jurisdiction of not only literal local law, but also most unspoken social contracts about when it is acceptable to sleep in public, wear sweatpants, and drink and drink and drink and drink in the morning. I myself drink a free drink whenever possible, but to my own surprise, I have never succumbed to this morning temptation. Perhaps I fear emitting the same giddy light that I see in the faces of all the other middle-aged moms and dads when they sip their first vodka-sodas and breakfast Sam Adamses in the Sky Lounge, the smiles and shining eyes that say: