Rehab Stories: A.A. Superstar

My acting career
     Has gone into free fall
     The commercials and bit parts
     Have all run dry
My agent
     Isn’t taking     My calls anymore     
And residual checks
     When they finally arrive
Aren’t enough
     To squeeze out a latte     
What’s a has-been never was
     Got to do     
To pull his 
sweet ass
     Out of turnaround?

Now, I’ve heard of a place     Where a man can relax
     Schmooze with the bigwigs     
Make some 
blockbuster     
Hollywood deals
     No, there ain’t no acting class
     With this kind of juice     
This 
ain’t no casting director workshop
     I’m going to
     Willingly hand in
     My Screen Actors Guild 
Card     
For a brand new career
     As an A.A. Superstar

After a brief stint in rehab
     With Lindsay Lohan
     I’m guest speaker
     At a Beverly Hills 
meeting
     Look, Sir Anthony Hopkins
     Over there, it’s Tim Allen
     After the meeting
     At the 
Rock ‘n Roll Denny’s
     Christian Slater asks
     To buy me a coffee     
I hear even Downy, Jr.
Knows who I am
     Looks like I finally made it
     As a big fish     
In a champagne filled bathtub
Look at me now, Ma     
I’m an A.A. Superstar

I hear it’s never to late
     To sleep my way     To the middle     
So I starfuck my way     
Down the 
D list     
I’ve done one of the original
     MTV veejays
     And a chick
     From “Designing Women"
     
There was that time     
In the bathroom
     With that woman from “Star Trek"     
And a night 
bumpin’ uglies
     With Charo     
Now, that may not sound
     Like a whole bunch o’ fun     
But 
them’s the perks of the job
     As an A.A. Superstar

Now I’m working the the circuit
     And selling my tapes     
For $3.99 a pop
     Everyone on the 
west coast     
Can recite from memory     
Every salacious detail     
Of my story
     It does break my 
heart     
That I’ll never play Hamlet
     But I’ll never need
     To set my sights high
     As an A.A. 
Superstar






David Rutter is a Los Angeles based writer of poetry, theater and fiction. He has been published previously by Haggard and Halloo, Subliminal Interiors Magazine and Wilderness House Literary Review. He is not working on a screenplay. He and his wife enjoy traveling to remote parts of the globe.