Every performer is depressed and anxious, right. You want to show people your best stuff and all kinds of love but really, deep inside, you know you're absolutely worthless shit, you're a fake, you're a charlatan.
Sammy Davis Jr said they called him "Speed Racer" because he ate so much amphetamine to counter his stage fright. Barbra Streisand has notoriously bad stage fright.
Note: don't read any assumption Streisand used anything to counter her stage fright. I don't know anything of the kind and haven't the faintest reason to imply it.
Performers always think we're shit. That's why you will often hear me or any guitarist laugh at the end of a song because the thing is, wow, just maybe fooled 'em again! It's not a laugh at the audience but rather a laugh at fate. It's like running in front of a long-haul diesel semi-trailer truck going full bore ... and getting away with it!
If someone else says a performer is shit then the performer will always believe it because that's much more credible than anyone saying you're not shit. Right? You know it's true (larfs).
So the League of Awkward Unicorns has a podcast in which they (apparently) talk about the travails of being a piece of shit and how they manage. (The Guardian: League of Awkward Unicorns: a podcast that mixes mental health with laughter)
(Ed: any guitars?)
Nope. Usually such depressed young ladies turn up at high-school talent contests playing acoustic guitars and singing peace songs ... while inside they know they are utterly worthless shit.
(Ed: are they?)
Of course not (larfs).
(Ed: how about the music?)
It sucked (shrug). Buffy Saint Marie only comes along once in a while, man.
(Ed: did she think she was shit too??)
Prob'ly so, mate.
We're kind of sympathetic to the Mixed-Up Millennials as we recall a long-term ball of confusion but the endemic pre-occupation with self seems symptomatic of "Childhood's End" in which Arthur C. Clarke told of a world-wide autism which presaged, um, bad things.
Note: in the Rockhouse estimation, that may have been his most imaginative work as others were extreme in science but could be like Tom Clancy novels for details whereas "Childhood's End" is much more a matter of concept. I would buy it again if I could find it. Eventually it will turn up as used bookstores are magical like that.
The thought of autism isn't to give any credence to "Vaxxed" because we don't. (Blog: When Middle Class White People Play Doctor ... "Vaxxed")
The autism we observe is software-induced via social networks, etc. Manifestations of it are everywhere with kids perpetually buried in cellphone texting.
(Ed: maybe that's the autism the anti-vaxx people claim?)
Say there, Dagwood, show me anti-vaxx kids who aren't wandering around in social networks or buried in a cellphone and maybe you can make a case. Meanwhile, it's hogwash.
(Ed: the cellphone kids are just conforming to a social norm! All kids do that.)
When the social norm means desocializing the kids, don't look now but that's a social abnorm; it's a contradiction in terms to say something is social when it goes the other direction.
(Ed: you deny the future of virtual communication!)
I observe the fact of antisocial behavior in any direction I care to look. There are endless vistas of outraged demagogues blazing with their rights to do whatever the hell they want no matter how many people get pissed off or hurt by it. A minority of one is enough to start a fire and they willfully do it. Look any direction and do tell me you see something different. If you do, I want to go there because it's sure as hell blazing here.
There are unicorns amid those millennials, tho. We have no idea who they are but we're sure they're out there and we suspect we do know some. It's not a question to ask because unicorns can be flighty like that.
(Ed: because they think they're shit too?)
Righty, right, mate.
(Ed: everyone is bipolar as well?)
You're starting to get it, Doctor Phil.
(Ed: now that you mention it, sometimes I get bummed out and sometimes I get excited.)
Magical, ain't it (larfs).
(Ed: wouldn't it be better to write of the excited part?)
Are you Sylvia Plath?
(Ed: no)
Then, congratulations, you get a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Brother Phil. Ain't no-one yet made a successful film of a bummer unless they seriously did not give a fuck if anyone watched it.
There are movies with tragedies but you learn some Important Shit from them and maybe it's, man, I'm never fookin' doing that. A movie about a bummer is about something you Just Don't Like and, um, question: why the fuck would anyone watch that.
(Ed: is there any point to this at all?)
How does it sound that everyone thinks he or she is a piece of shit. Way down deep, there's that li'l Inner Child that thinks it's an absolutely unrecoverably worthless piece of shit. Deep down you know you're a fraudster, a mountebank, a contemptible hoaxer.
(Ed: so what?)
It seems there are two choices: kick its ass or write about something else.
Sammy Davis Jr said they called him "Speed Racer" because he ate so much amphetamine to counter his stage fright. Barbra Streisand has notoriously bad stage fright.
Note: don't read any assumption Streisand used anything to counter her stage fright. I don't know anything of the kind and haven't the faintest reason to imply it.
Performers always think we're shit. That's why you will often hear me or any guitarist laugh at the end of a song because the thing is, wow, just maybe fooled 'em again! It's not a laugh at the audience but rather a laugh at fate. It's like running in front of a long-haul diesel semi-trailer truck going full bore ... and getting away with it!
If someone else says a performer is shit then the performer will always believe it because that's much more credible than anyone saying you're not shit. Right? You know it's true (larfs).
So the League of Awkward Unicorns has a podcast in which they (apparently) talk about the travails of being a piece of shit and how they manage. (The Guardian: League of Awkward Unicorns: a podcast that mixes mental health with laughter)
(Ed: any guitars?)
Nope. Usually such depressed young ladies turn up at high-school talent contests playing acoustic guitars and singing peace songs ... while inside they know they are utterly worthless shit.
(Ed: are they?)
Of course not (larfs).
(Ed: how about the music?)
It sucked (shrug). Buffy Saint Marie only comes along once in a while, man.
(Ed: did she think she was shit too??)
Prob'ly so, mate.
We're kind of sympathetic to the Mixed-Up Millennials as we recall a long-term ball of confusion but the endemic pre-occupation with self seems symptomatic of "Childhood's End" in which Arthur C. Clarke told of a world-wide autism which presaged, um, bad things.
Note: in the Rockhouse estimation, that may have been his most imaginative work as others were extreme in science but could be like Tom Clancy novels for details whereas "Childhood's End" is much more a matter of concept. I would buy it again if I could find it. Eventually it will turn up as used bookstores are magical like that.
The thought of autism isn't to give any credence to "Vaxxed" because we don't. (Blog: When Middle Class White People Play Doctor ... "Vaxxed")
The autism we observe is software-induced via social networks, etc. Manifestations of it are everywhere with kids perpetually buried in cellphone texting.
(Ed: maybe that's the autism the anti-vaxx people claim?)
Say there, Dagwood, show me anti-vaxx kids who aren't wandering around in social networks or buried in a cellphone and maybe you can make a case. Meanwhile, it's hogwash.
(Ed: the cellphone kids are just conforming to a social norm! All kids do that.)
When the social norm means desocializing the kids, don't look now but that's a social abnorm; it's a contradiction in terms to say something is social when it goes the other direction.
(Ed: you deny the future of virtual communication!)
I observe the fact of antisocial behavior in any direction I care to look. There are endless vistas of outraged demagogues blazing with their rights to do whatever the hell they want no matter how many people get pissed off or hurt by it. A minority of one is enough to start a fire and they willfully do it. Look any direction and do tell me you see something different. If you do, I want to go there because it's sure as hell blazing here.
There are unicorns amid those millennials, tho. We have no idea who they are but we're sure they're out there and we suspect we do know some. It's not a question to ask because unicorns can be flighty like that.
(Ed: because they think they're shit too?)
Righty, right, mate.
(Ed: everyone is bipolar as well?)
You're starting to get it, Doctor Phil.
(Ed: now that you mention it, sometimes I get bummed out and sometimes I get excited.)
Magical, ain't it (larfs).
(Ed: wouldn't it be better to write of the excited part?)
Are you Sylvia Plath?
(Ed: no)
Then, congratulations, you get a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Brother Phil. Ain't no-one yet made a successful film of a bummer unless they seriously did not give a fuck if anyone watched it.
There are movies with tragedies but you learn some Important Shit from them and maybe it's, man, I'm never fookin' doing that. A movie about a bummer is about something you Just Don't Like and, um, question: why the fuck would anyone watch that.
(Ed: is there any point to this at all?)
How does it sound that everyone thinks he or she is a piece of shit. Way down deep, there's that li'l Inner Child that thinks it's an absolutely unrecoverably worthless piece of shit. Deep down you know you're a fraudster, a mountebank, a contemptible hoaxer.
(Ed: so what?)
It seems there are two choices: kick its ass or write about something else.
No comments:
Post a Comment