I started thinking about the pastry-like layers of fame when I visited China a few weeks ago and saw basketball player Yao Ming’s face on the side of every barn in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is a couple of thousand miles from Beijing. Ming may be the most famous man alive, it occurred to me. And he doesn’t even play basketball anymore.
The second most famous man in the world may well be the Williams-and-Berklee-College-educated Taiwanese pop star Leehom Wang. In Asia, Wang’s face is inescapable, as he has at various times endorsed McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Lay’s potato chips, and other nutritious delicacies on the world’s most populated continent.
Traveling overseas, one ends up reading high-minded publications such as the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. The FT and IHT can’t seem to choke out an article that doesn’t mention Christine Lagarde, the new head of the International Monetary Fund. Lagarde is truly FT/IHT famous. Her predecessor, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was likewise FT/IHT famous, but then became New York Post/Daily News famous for some libertine behavior in a Manhattan Sofitel.
Back in his native France, I suspect DSK is now Le Nouvel Observateur famous, which probably suits him just fine.
A few weeks ago, I was in an auditorium packed with young people, many of whom had come to see . . . Marc Maron. Who the heck is Marc Maron, I wondered? He’s “podcast famous,’’ I was told. And deservedly so.
I’ve started listening to Maron’s wonderful, rambling interviews, recorded in his Los Angeles garage with famous and less-famous comedians. He recently re-posted his excellent interview with the late Patrice O’Neal, who talks about his jail stint here, and lots more.
My son and I were discussing comedian Demetri Martin the other day.
Me: “He’s black, right?’’
Son: “He’s white, you idiot. You wouldn’t know; he’s Comedy Central famous.’’
