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| Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in The Producers. |
There's a moment, early in Mel Brooks' The Producers (1967), when meek accountant Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder) finds a serious discrepancy while auditing the books of failing Broadway producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel). Max raised $60,000 from his backers for his last flop but only spent $58,000 on the show; the other $2,000 he kept for himself. This is fraud, Leo reminds Max, and could send the producer to prison. Max responds with a soliloquy:
Bloom, look at me. (more forcefully) LOOK AT ME, BLOOM! Bloom, I'm drowning. Other men sail through life. Bialystock has struck a reef. Bloom, I'm going under. I'm being sunk by a society that demands success when all I can offer is failure. Bloom, I'm reaching out to you. Don't send me to prison. (getting very close to Leo's ear) HEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!!!!
I've reached a stage in my life when I can relate to both men in this scene. Like Leo, I go to a dull, unrewarding office job every day. It's how I'm able to pay my rent and my bills and have medical insurance. At night and on the weekends, I pursue various creative enterprises. Unfortunately, like Max, I have largely met with failure. Despite producing a great deal of work over the course of several decades, nothing I have done has reached beyond a very small audience. Sometimes, the only audience is myself.
In recent months, I have felt my concentration slipping and my enthusiasm waning. I can no longer focus on my day job enough to do the work properly, and I generally don't feel like creating anything in my free time either. I sometimes have to force myself to write the blog and produce the podcast, because I feel weirdly obligated to keep doing these things to justify my existence.
My days are miserable now. At work, I'm constantly being scolded and reprimanded for my incompetence. Every email and instant message is a potential life-ruiner. The threat of termination looms over my head every day. This is no joke; I'm in real danger of losing my job. But what would I be losing? A low-paying, utterly meaningless clerical job I despise? What kind of life is this? Like Max Bialystock, I've struck a reef.
I am unmarried and childless, so the only person relying on me is me. I have very few relatives left on this earth and am only in sporadic contact with any of them. Were I to die in my apartment tonight, it would be days or weeks before I was discovered. I am approaching my 50th birthday. Although doctors would probably find thousands of things wrong with me—none of which I could afford to treat—I feel fine, physically. (Mentally? That's another story.) Here's what I want to do: tear down my current life, sell what few possessions I have, and spend my remaining years having some fun and adventure. Or at least doing something more interesting and worthwhile than what I'm doing now. It doesn't matter if I fail. I'm already failing now. I might as well fail in a more exciting way.
The trouble is, I have no clue how to begin a plan like this. I don't know where to go or what to do. I am totally and utterly out of ideas. That's where you come in. I'm drowning. Somebody, somewhere, throw me a life line. My desperate hope is that someone will read this article and respond to it. Please.