Before My Success

I realize that in the past I have railed against celebrity as an empty, soulless pursuit.  I am also aware that I have stated or at the very least implied that an overwhelming percentage of celebrities are no talent hacks undeserving of any attention, let alone a wealth of praise and cash from the collective masses.  However, I may have neglected one tiny niche group within the famous, the truly talented.

Although it may take many years longer for a humble self effacing individual to climb through the ranks of stardom, when they do, these individuals possess staying power and leave a lasting imprint on our culture.  Some famous people in the past have tried to sabotage their ascent to the upper echelon by hiding their talents in some tattered folder, in a weathered desk drawer in a dark lonely corner of their own mind. Yet, against all of the self imposed resistance, the societal need for their unique brand of creativity continues to expose their virtue until the would-be celebrity finally gives in and takes their place among the chosen few.

While I am not claiming to be perfectly summed up by the above paragraph I want to set the record straight before my unavoidable success. You know how it is, once an individual graduates to a certain level, they are thrown into a public relations machine that waters down any strong opinion or crass behavior they might have before it's able to escape for human consumption. Not only this but celebrities are regularly force fed fake life events and fake skills in order to have something to talk about when they are pushed out in front of David Letterman to shill the new big budget thriller.

I don't want any of that ambiguity. I want to jot down a succinct characterization of my life so far while I am still teetering on the precipice of fame.  This way when you see me on television (fuzzy bee mascot costume and all) you can compare the me you know now to the me I will be pretending to be then. Also, when I am awash in buckets of money and adoring fans I'll want something to help remember the meager beginnings of where I started. Without further ado, I bring you my story.

I was spit out into a broken home on the poorest neighborhood in the most violent city in the nation. My mother a crack addicted alcoholic of indiscriminate race and my father, a violent criminal of indiscriminate race conceived me out of wedlock in a Winnebago that had been up on blocks for five years in my grandmothers backyard.

Tragically on the day before my second birthday my father a professional philanderer fell off his skidoo while trying to pull a ski-lee (a wheelie in a snowmobile) in an attempt to show off to one of his extra marital strumpets. When word of my fathers mangled body got back to my mother she doused her sorrows with a bottle of Jim Beam. Unbeknownst to my mother my father had earlier in the day laced the bottle with a lethal dose of anti freeze that once consumed would trigger a heart attack that was natural in appearance. As it turned out my father was growing tired of having to go over to "her place" all the time. In the face of my fathers ritualistic abuse and neglect my mother refused to stray from him and was recorded as saying to friends and passers by up until the day she died: "I married him for his butt, but I stayed with him for the free HBO."

Upon my parents deaths my grandmother took full custody and that is when things really started to change.  Evidently a toddler is still worth a fair penny on the black market which grandma soon found out by pawning me off to some hick in the hills with a barren uterus. The last I heard granny was on a bus to Reno to feed the one arm bandits the loot she inherited from fencing me. Thankfully it didn't take that long for child protective services to reclaim me.  Evidently my "new" parents were involved in some kind of religious cult that was one third pyramid scheme and two thirds EXTREME gun hoarding.

By the time I reached 11 years of age I had bounced in and out of more than 7 foster homes. Many people might have been destroyed if they faced all of these early challenges, I not only endured I felt empowered and creatively driven.

12-14 was my experimental phase. I developed a rap name "Guy Smiley" with which I competed in hugely popular unground rap battles.   But the people judged me for being of indiscriminate race and politely implied that my form of verbal expression was not permitted with the confines of the club.  To add insult to injury the kids at school did not understand the inner me and because of this chose to incessantly comment on the outer me and how it hurt the inner part of their eyes.  But, I did not waiver. My self belief was too strong after all, I was an artist of such a unique complexity how could they possibly be expected to interpret the greatness that was me? I just kept working, day by day, week by week. I filled countless notepads with lyrics and filled hundreds of cassette tapes with my hip hop stylings. 

15-18 was my dark period. My self produced album the one I had been working on for almost 3 months was not picked up by a major label, I was devastated. I lost all hope in humanity for a brief moment and it caused me to spiral into a heroin addiction. After six months of being strung out on the junk I was penniless and sleeping in dumpsters. I stole televisions, car stereos and small kids lunch money just to muster up the cash so I could tune out and ride the dragon. But my desire to create burned inside me. Its pull was so great that it drove me out of the gutter and helped me quit heroin cold turkey.

18-21 was my Renaissance period. I wrote a letter to Harvard. I told them that I had learned more on the streets than any school in the world could teach me. I was so convincing that the Dean of admissions had no choice but to grant me entry with a full scholarship. In only 3 years I breezed through a degree partially bolstered by the fact that I wrote 3 plays for the drama department and was quite prolific at producing pro bono art installations on par with anything Michelangelo might have produced. 

21-24 were the pilot years. Hollywood had got word of all of the great plays I was writing for Harvard and flew me out to draft several episodes of upcoming shows. During some of the meetings I was surprised to find out that many of the powerful women on the other side of the table found me to be extremely attractive. As it turned out the physical flaws that the kids judged me for when I was young gave me character, a highly desirable trait in L.A. Before long I was not only writing pilots but starring in them as the main lead. Unfortunately such is my curse, the focus groups were too focused on my stunning good looks that they didn't pay attention to the wry dialog I was writing for my character. Further, those who were able to listen to the dialog stated that coherent and poignant words coming from a face that pretty seemed inauthentic. Sadly, I was cast out of Hollywood for being too good looking. Predictably this lead to... 

24-29 the relapse years.

29-Present day: the blog years.

Ahh..it feels good to get all of that out, now I can finally sit back relax and undertake the upcoming burden of being extremely famous. Thanks for reliving the memories with me. I hope that I can still maintain contact with you, the little people after I get called up to the big leagues.

Integrity

"You know when you make popcorn there are those fluffy white kernels that are fun to eat but there are also those burnt black kernels that don't pop. You know why they don't pop? Because they have integrity." -Marc Maron

I alluded to the idea of integrity in a previous post but today I'd like to assess its true value. Before I dive into uncharted territory let me first say that as a concept I believe in integrity. Doing things wholly/completely by justifiable and ethical means is of course the ideal way to live. However, is it even possible to survive at this stage of our evolution with our integrity intact?

I often hear people say "I'd rather create truly great art that no one sees rather than sell out." This highly ignorant statement assumes that integrity is linked to artistic ability but what if your art sucks either way? Perhaps people don't "understand" your art because it is terrible, not because you are an undiscovered genius buried beneath a blanket of radio gaga. Integrity in many cases is simply used to justify failure and to prop up someone's self esteem rather than uphold a divine code of honor.

You will always be remembered for your least interesting work. In the past a few authors and artists may have had a fighting chance of maintaining their integrity because in order for them to succeed they had to be understood and appreciated. These days the lightning quick response of television and the immediacy of the internet reduce our lives to the lowest common denominator. We seek out stimulus to excite our impulses rather than get drawn in for an emotional experience.

In the past bands were forced to cut singles which were typically different sounding than the rest of the tracks on the CD. The intent of these singles was to get a chorus or riff stuck in your head quickly and infect your body with a desire to purchase an entire CD. Once you got the CD home you/I were supposed to listen to the rest of the tracks and experience "the band." However, back in the 90's it was a common practice of mine to buy a CD and just listen to "the hits." What did this mean for the artist who slaved away at crafting a piece of art? It meant that I didn't care about their inner expression I just identified with the hit making formula of verse/chorus/verse with melody. Today's model is an amplified version of the above model. There is no longer any room for true expression to be buried in the deep tracks of a CD. Everything is constructed with the intent of building a catch phrase, clothing line or scent around it.

Don't be fooled into believing that the people who are "discovered" on American idol are farmhands or dockworkers who work four jobs to help pay for their grandmothers diabetes medication. Almost all of those kids have been plugging away (and failing) at a singing career for years. They have all sold out and signed on to fabricated stories embellished and designed to warm the cockles of your heart so that you will PAY to vote for them. But what about those internet stars who "made it" without advertising? They were quickly absorbed into the machine and were stretched, pushed and pulled to fit a form. Those who did not adhere or those who had a shorter life span were devoured for a few advertising dollars before their lifeless bodies were tossed back into the sea of names.

However, not everyone desires to be famous, surely there is a way to live a normal life with your integrity intact right? False. Acting honorably in a noble world will grant you reverence. However, acting honorably in an easily distracted self serving world will hobble or destroy you. If someone is out for your job, wife or life and they are able to accurately predict how you will act you will be easily taken advantage of. With integrity life is "solitary poor nasty brutish and short."