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 POSTED OCTOBER 16, 1998-- SUFFICE IT TO say that Budd Rugg’s first ever nervous breakdown was a doozy, a complete meltdown that found me sobbing and alone in the goat barn at the State Fair, surrounded by giggling little 4H herdsmen and their overweight parents. I had spent a long day making the rounds of the various media booths, being rudely rebuffed by everyone from KFAN’s junior varsity Mark Trail, Frank Pillsbury, to anonymous disc jockeys whose bland attention I had hoped might salvage what was shaping up as a complete self-esteem disaster. The State Fair has traditionally been your once reliable media parasite’s annual version of a trophy hunt, with encounters with boldface media celebrities waiting around every corner. Back in the halcyon days of short pants and maternal hand-holding, plucky Budd would return home from the fair clutching an autograph book brimming with fresh, crisp signatures, every one of them an impossibly bright light in the gray little world of my childhood. How things have changed! These days the big names are displayed like wild animals in glass booths or on platforms or behind barricades, always now fatter than I expected, or less attractive, and as I jockeyed for position in the throngs of people that were gathered around each of the media enclaves, trying desperately to catch even a fleeting glimpse of the real stars, I felt like a would-be presidential assassin. Apparently gone were the days when a star-struck fan might nervously approach Peg Meier for a handshake and an autograph. On the day of my visit the StarTribune’s booth was staffed by apparent volunteers, and I helplessly scanned the faces behind the counter for a familiar name or face. When I inquired of one young woman, "Does Colin Covert ever come out to the fair?" I received only a blank stare of ignorance in return. How could I possibly tell this young woman the full extent of my obsession, how I had created an intense and highly satisfying fantasy world where Colin Covert was a dashing and dangerous secret agent and I his reliable sidekick and trusty personal secretary? I couldn’t, of course, and I was devastated. That day at the fair I had to come to terms with the fact that I had lost my nerve. And there was a disturbing undercurrent to my visit this year as well: I was obsessed with KFAN’s cheeky new dandy, Paul Allen. I care nothing for sports, yet day after day I found myself tuning in to listen to Allen’s brazen and highly-stylized shtick. I was smitten in a most unhealthy way –believe me, I know all the warning signs—and it was all I could do to keep myself from parking outside the KFAN studios and following Allen home. Yet when I saw him at the fair I couldn’t bring myself to approach the KFAN booth for an introduction. I was unable to shake the terrible image I had in my mind: Paul Allen was duct-taped in the backseat of my Gremlin as I drove recklessly, in a sweating panic, along highway 280. It was that image that drove me to my goat barn
breakdown, and later that night I was curled up in a fetal position on a couch in my
mother’s home in Falcon Heights, weeping inconsolably. My dear mother, who has long
felt that I deserve better than to be completely ignored, was expressing the belief that I
might benefit from ‘pastoral counseling.’ "Budd dear," she was saying,
"it’s time for you to face the facts: times have changed. These people [meaning
my media dream friends] will never have the time of day for you. It’s just the sad
truth of the world. They aren’t like you or me. They love only their own reflections
in the mirror, and perhaps, for a few fleeting an On some level, of course, I knew that my mother was right. I knew full well the intense ups and downs of the Love Roller Coaster that is the life of a media parasite, one moment whee-soaring, rushed with adrenaline and elation, the next screeching miserably and trying to gag your stomach back down out of the bottom of your throat. Every ecstatic climb comes with a wrenching plummet, and the plummets were becoming harder and harder to survive. Within a week, with the loving intervention of my mother and an obese lady reverend friend of hers, I was packed off to a tiny ‘care retreat’ in Chester, Iowa, where I spent five weeks talking about Paul Allen, with obsessive digressions that touched on everyone from Kare 11’s Boyd Huppert to Channel 5’s Vineeta Sawkar. The other six members of my ‘group’ were mostly women with philandering husbands and gutter-level self esteem, and between low-fat meals and group sessions that involved a lot of prayer, we watched "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy." My prowess in the former game, I must say, made me something of a celebrity. "THE C_T IS OUT OF THE B_G," would be sitting there on the board and the other members of my group would sit there dumfounded until I blurted, "The Cat is out of the Bag!", earning me a fresh round of astonished applause. The little getaway cost my mother a pretty penny, I’m sure, and I must say that I returned home feeling more rested and stable than I have in quite some time, even if I did ultimately learn that it is impossible for the leopard to change its spots, if you will, a point that was driven home to me emphatically when the doorbell rang one recent Saturday and I looked out my front window to see none other than Jim Klobuchar standing on my front porch! Whatever perspective I may have gained in my five weeks in Chester, Iowa vanished in a millisecond, as I raced into the bathroom to make myself presentable for this completely unexpected guest. By the time I opened the door I had already left a breathless message on my mother’s answering machine –"Jim Klobuchar is at my front door!"—and I was trembling and speechless. There he was, the Minstrel himself, in the flesh, grinning on my doorstep! There was so much I would have loved to say in the moment that passed between us, as he shoved on me a flyer touting his daughter for some public office; I would have loved to have told him that he was the only man, other than possibly Paul Allen, who could make me care about football and mountain climbing and drunk driving. I wish that I had asked for a hug. I wish that I had told him that I loved him. But, alas, I was seized by a terrible and now familiar insecurity, and I can’t now remember saying anything, except perhaps "Thank you," and in an instant he was gone, lumbering off down the block. Nonetheless, that entire day I was walking on air, dancing around my apartment, calling old friends. Jim Klobuchar had been to my house! Budd Rugg was back on the Love Roller Coaster! And the very next morning –a Sunday morning—when I picked up my newspaper and saw that someone had given my beloved Kristin Tillotson a makeover, with bangs! –someone had Florence Hendersoned the adorably insouciant Kris!-- I was plummeting once again, howling at the top of my lungs, rocketing back down a precipitous decline. FINALLY, PLEASE, I beseech you: send any and all media sightings, gossips, slander, innuendo, and speculation to your lonely friend Budd Rugg, care of BuddRugg@cursor.org
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d illusory moments,
whoever it is they crawl on top of each night. Their fans don’t even exist for them.
There’s not a sincere bone left in their bodies. The business sucks all the decency
right out of them."