Watching Regis Philbin interact with us, and with the contestants, reminded me of a book I read in college about a guy named Mel Lyman. Mel Lyman was sort of like Charles Manson, except that his cult never killed anybody. He would bring people into his mansion, then dose them with LSD and induce a bad trip. Then, when they were really freaking out, he would put on some soothing music and give them this cult rap of his.

How I Ended Up at a Taping of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire by Jason Grote The first time I ever referred to my biological father as just my father was last year. October 2000, to be precise. I was yelling at a production assistant on the set of a popular television show at the time. I didn't even know who my father was until 1995. I was 24. He tracked me down using some elaborate scheme involving his sister, his sister's police officer boyfriend, and a database of registered New Jersey social workers. All I knew about him was what my mother had told me, and she didn't seem to know much either. She told me that he was on the track team and that he was annoying. If she knew any more than that she wasn't about to tell me. I had a few fantasies about him. Usually they involved him being very wealthy. I would show up on his doorstep one day, filled with righteous anger. Sometimes he would panic, take out his checkbook and ask how much it would cost for me to go away; other times he would embrace me warmly and invite me into his palatial home. I also had another fantasy that was really more of an anxiety: that I would someday find my soul mate and she would turn out to be my sister, like in the Sam Shepard play "A Lie of the Mind". 1995 was a rough year for me. My girlfriend and I had been arrested for possession of marijuana somewhere in rural Maryland and we were terrified that we were going to go to jail. I was staying at her place while I looked for an apartment. My parents were also moving at the same time, and they told me that if I wanted to keep my 1983 Plymouth Horizon, which had been sitting in their driveway unused for two years, I had better to learn to drive it. So my girlfriend was also teaching me to drive. Also, we were both broke and working multiple jobs. We weren't very happy. In fact, sometimes I wonder why she didn't try to kill me. It was as if I had been hit with my entire adult life in one sudden burst, having successfully evaded it for years. The same seemed to be true of Stannous. That is my father's name, or at least his current name. Stannous Flouride. At my mother's request, all of his initial communiquÈs were sent to her first, then through her to me. But because of my parents' and my dual moves, I got the first few months of my father's correspondence in one big envelope. It had accumulated. I was parked in my poor, sad car on Boulevard East in Weehawken, New Jersey, around the corner from my new apartment, when I read the letters. They were elaborately and painstakingly constructed, consisting of homemade envelopes bearing his new name in logo form; photocopied photo collages; a letter written entirely in gold pen on a transparency, another in silver pen on black paper, yet another in hot pink on purple; pictures of people I had never known and would never know. His handwriting was tiny and obsessively neat, in all caps, like a draftsman's. His creative use of paper rendered many of his letters unreadable. 1995 had, as it turned out, been even worse for him than it had been for me. The letters did not bear glad tidings. "IT WAS ONLY AFTER MY FOURTH AND MOST SERIOUS SUICIDE ATTEMPT THAT I THOUGHT IT IMPERATIVE TO FIND YOU AND WARN JASON OF HIS GENETIC LEGACY," read the top letter, which was actually intended for my mother. Uh-oh, I thought. "I AM BI-POLAR, HAVE BEEN SINCE TODDLER-HOOD. I HAVE BEEN HOSPITALIZED FOUR TIMES AND JAILED ONCE BECAUSE OF IT. I WAS AN IV ADDICT ON HEROIN, SPEED AND COCAINE. MY FAMILY HAS A HISTORY OF DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE. BOTH PARENTS DIED OF CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE AND SUFFERED FROM HYPERTENSION AND ALCOHOLISM." On the back of the letter was a copy of a ledger page detailing his expenses with the note, "I'M TRYING FOR SSI BUT IT LOOKS LIKE I'LL BE REFUSED AND END UP HOMELESS." I dropped the letter onto the passenger seat and rooted through the rest of the collection, hoping to find something a little more hopeful. It only got weirder. As it turned out, I did have a sister I didn't know, and she was beautiful, but she was six and she lived in Venezuela. That was the extent of the good news. The letters read like a freak According to the letters, he had been gang-raped in prison; he fell in with members of the Weather Underground in the early 70's and ended up throwing Molotov cocktails at an embassy; he was drafted into the Army and sent to Texas; he had been a stripper in Albuquerque; and he and I were descended from a signer of the Declaration of Independence. I thought he was delusional. I sat in my car, the imposing Manhattan skyline glaring at me to my right, cars whizzing by on my left, a pile of outsider art in my lap. I rested both hands on the steering wheel and thought about my life. Suddenly I had a lot of destiny to escape. At first I became furious. How dare he, I thought. How dare he tell me about my "genetic legacy." After twenty-four years, he had no idea who I was or what I had become. He was nothing like me. I took the letters to a party so I could show them to my friends. We could all have a good laugh about it. "Wow, Jay," said my friend Colleen as she flipped though letters. "He's just like you." I glared at her silently. Everyone else in the room shifted uncomfortably, as if Colleen had only said what the rest of them were thinking. I was never really angry with him for leaving, although as a child I would pretend to be if I could use it to escape punishment. I was angry that he came back. He dispelled my most sacred illusion: that I was an artist, a creative type, and so was exempt from adulthood and unpleasantness. That my noble self-indulgence would lead to a life of fame and fortune, or whatever. I had never really thought it through. I told him I thought he was ridiculous. He responded by having people send me letters of reference. The references were on identical green postcards. Apparently he had stamped and addressed them and then handed them out to people with verbal instructions. Most of them read like they were from people who were just as crazy as he was. One of them was from someone who didn't even seem to know him. She said he just handed her the postcard and asked her to write a note to his estranged son. Sometimes I wonder how many of the postcards are still out there, crumpled in people's pockets, covered with phone numbers, or mailed to my former apartment years too late, mystifying the new tenants. Not long after that, my girlfriend and I finally broke up. I got kicked out of my apartment and moved to Brooklyn. When I moved in I looked through a box of unfiled papers and saw my life unfold before me: unfinished plays, collection notices, and the pile of insane paternal mail. I could see where this was going. I had to do something. I finally met Stan the summer of 1998. My life was finally getting back to normal, and I guess his was too. He was visiting his ex-wife and their daughter, my sister, who were in Manhattan for a week. I was so glad my sister was there. She liked me right away. Her mother did not seem much older than I, an attractive woman who seemed a little overwhelmed. Then, Stannous. He was enormous, a head taller and maybe 50 pounds heavier than I. He wore earrings dangling from both ears and a necklace of Wiccan charms. His hair was thinning on top, long in the back, and dyed blue and green, making his head look sort of like a cartoon picture of the earth. He pulled me into his big stomach with a bear hug. He seemed incapable of any kind of malice. We all went to the Central Park merry-go-round together. We looked like a family unit from a parallel universe where everything had been somehow reversed; my sister and I were the parents, and Stan and his ex-wife were the children. The most recent time I saw him was in October, on the set of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. He sent me an email saying he was going to be on the show, and would I like tickets. Sure, I said. I started to fantasize about him winning a million bucks. To make myself feel better, I covered my greed in leftist drag, thinking I'd a give a fat gift to the defense fund for the people arrested at the Republican Convention, or that I'd put my share in a socially responsible index fund. I thought about getting out of debt. Part of me wanted to blow it all on comic books, which is probably what I really would have done. I wandered across Central Park to the studio on 67th street, a little bubble of money fantasies floating over my head, like a character in an Uncle Scrooge cartoon. I've been to TV tapings before, but had never seen any as controlled as this one. And they're usually pretty controlled. Who Wants to be a Millionaire is designed to be a live event as well as a taped one, sort of an amusement park ride of a TV shoot as well as an actual TV shoot. Everyone was very, very pleasant. Stepford Wife pleasant. Even the security guy was avuncular, asking me if I had any bombs in my jacket as I walked through the metal detector. I told him they were in my other jacket, and he laughed loudly, even though what I said wasn't really that funny. The place was crawling with good-looking young people in headsets and hip business casual gear. There may have been one of them for every five spectators. Every time we moved along, through the hallways and the loading dock, to the backstage area, we were escorted by one of them, grinning at as, warming us up, asking us questions and not listening to our answers. Finally we entered the set, walking under the scaffolding beneath the arena. The Millionaire set is exactly the same in real life as it is on TV. It's spooky and futuristic, and sinister, like the villains' ships on Battlestar Galactica. The dramatic music was piped in, and colorful lights swished around the stage. It reminded me of those planetarium light shows with names like Laser Floyd. I was seated in shadow above the contestants, along with all of the enthusiastic tourists and supportive relatives. We were like some sort of incredibly mediocre Star Chamber. I was starting to become tense. There was a moderately funny warm-up act throwing t-shirts at the audience. Like every other TV taping I had been to, the warm-up person was a charismatic and good-looking young African-American man who would use faux-street slang, like "you go girl" and that sort of thing. Eventually, Regis Philbin came out and spoke to us. Watching Regis Philbin interact with us, and with the contestants, reminded me of a book I read in college about a guy named Mel Lyman. Mel Lyman was sort of like Charles Manson, except that his cult never killed anybody. He would bring people into his mansion, then dose them with LSD and induce a bad trip. Then, when they were really freaking out, he would put on some soothing music and give them this cult rap of his. That was what Millionaire reminded me of: the everyman would sit on stage, sweating, already famous and maybe about to be rich. And then, glowing through the grim set and scary music and performance anxiety was REGIS, calm, witty, and gregarious, always knowing exactly what to ask. The whole time I sat there I was wondering how Stannous was going to fit into this whole deal. The fact is he fit in perfectly. I watched the Multinational Entertainment State ingest him whole, dyed hair, checkered past, and all. He became an all-American character right before my eyes, like the eccentric farmer from Kentucky or the wise cabbie from Brooklyn. Only he was the inveterate hippie from San Francisco. Stannous seemed to know the answer to every question: arcane vocabulary words, obscure scientific terms, the history of candy. My heart jumped. I really wanted him to do well. They took a break and more headset clipboard people came out. A nice-looking young woman spoke to Stannous. He squinted into the audience, found me, and pointed. The clipboard woman waved at me. I waved back, wishing I had ducked or something. When they came back from the break, Regis said, "we hear that someone special is here with you today." I became even more tense. But they weren't talking about me. The spotlight flashed on a pretty young woman in the audience with cropped hair and olive skin. I was simultaneously jealous of, proud of, and embarrassed by my father. The game resumed, and Stannous was faced with a question that would have gotten him to the $125,000 mark. The question was: which fast food place is named after its owner? I thought the answer was White Castle, and was thinking "White Castle! White Castle!," sending out mental pictures of the White Castle in my neighborhood. "White Castle," Stannous said. After he lost I got up to go. One of the headset people leapt up at me, bewildered that anyone would even want to leave this wonderful, scientifically designed amusement environment. I ignored him. He started to freak out a little. Looking back, I kind of feel bad for him. "That was my father," I barked at him. "Oh," he said, backing off. That must have explained it. It was the first time I ever referred to Stan as my father. He was just coming around the corner. I don't think he heard me. He won $32,000. He ended up giving me $1,001 of it, telling me to blow it all. I listened to him, though now I kind of wish I hadn't. There was something strange that happened to me when it came in the mail. I felt like something important that had always been missing had suddenly come back, but it was something I never even knew I was missing. Like I had been working on one lung all my life and suddenly went to two. It sounds so crass now. It's just money, money he won on a game show. But still, it touched me. I didn't expect it. I called him and thanked him. I blew most of it on comic books. A New-York-based writer, activist, and theater artist, Jason Grote has had plays produced throughout Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York (including the New York International Fringe Festival). His work has appeared in McSweeney's, Stay Free, the New York Hangover, and Working USA, among other places. He has spoken about guerilla theater at Columbia University and the New School, and essays he has written on the subject will appear in two books coming in 2002, Cultural Resistance and From Act Up to the WTO , both from Verso.