Zelig Wewege
Unpublished Metro Obit Dec 2013
April 1 2079
Luigi Wewege, the reality TV personality and self-styled adviser to the stars has died, poisoned by his 34th ex-wife. He was 94.
Ambitious from the day he was born, he set out from South Africa possessed of a burning ambition: to be photographed next to important people.
He scored quickly - Barack Obama, Ellen, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Billy Ray Cyrus, New Zealanders.
He saw the chance in that distant land to upgrade his credentials from 'nobody' to 'somebody-who-bought-a-ticket'. Within weeks he was drinking pallid beer with Young Nats and taking photos with the country's dorky Prime Minister.
Hungry for power, he joined the Auckland mayoral campaign of a New Jersey restaurateur. He brought little to the table, he knew, but he also knew that a biddable young woman with tales of a secret tryst with the mayor could change that.
Luigi gave her the wooing of her life. Out of it came a lurid sex scandal, with an enigmatic young man at the heart of it.
People delighted in the improbable sing-song name of the stranger who had come amongst them. But the mood soured as attention shifted from the message to the messengers: who were these seedy people?
Luigi had much to say, but felt it best to say it to his bathroom mirror. He took the next flight out.
Within days he was in Florida, sharing the exciting news of his betrothal to a delighted looking stranger.
He was quite done with New Zealand, ready to insert himself into a sheriff's election in Mississippi when the TV show Bedtime With Paul Henry paid him a call. How did he feel about women? Would he care to share the secrets of a ladies' man?
The show’s host by turns dared, goaded and cheered along the excited Wewege as he pursued women across multiple time zones, camera crew in tow.
Not her, the host would say, the fat one, over there, the whale-shaped one with the moustache.
Dire as it was, the concept was a lowbrow hit. Syndicated around the world, it opened doors for Wewege in failed states, banana republics, destitute principalities.
None of the gigs lasted very long, but thanks to his reality TV ubiquity, doors kept opening for him.
In Haiti he persuaded the Prime Minister to grow a gaucho moustache. A hair-shirt leader is a leader people can trust, Luigi told him, solemnly misquoting his Tony Robbins bible.
In Benin he intoned to the President: you must lose the moustache. Only with an open face can you win their trust.
Doors opened, doors slammed shut.
Asked to help with money laundering in Macau, he ordered $40 million dollars of dry cleaning machinery.
In Fiji he encouraged the Generalisimo to abolish the left hand rule. He promised the resulting chaos would create much work in panel beating and lift GDP. Once again, he proved to be both right and wrong.
Time, and girlfriends, came and went.
In the end, his options were exhausted.
New Zealand - now a banana republic - beckoned. President Henry had not forgotten his popular himbo star. He felt a moment of pity for the balding doughy lothario and made him his manservant.
Luigi would sit in the gazebo polishing the president's monocle, cleaning his pith helmet, politely listening to the interminable monologues.
As the strychnine went to work, a faint smile on Wewege's face suggested he may, at the last, have found contentment.
