Hello and good morning.  It’s Thursday again, despite all misgivings, and I’m writing my official Thursday-style blog post because I cannot think of anything better to do.  Okay, well, I can think of better things to do—surely there is a functionally limitless number of possible better things—but I am not up to or capable of doing anything better, so here I am.

It would be great if I were writing fiction instead, here in the morning before/on the way to* work.  Then I could feel as if I’m accomplishing something.  Even if nearly no one reads my fiction during my lifetime, there’s always at least a chance that someone will pick it up and it will become beloved after I’m gone.

Heck, Moby Dick didn’t do well in Melville’s lifetime, but it’s now considered one of the great American classics of literature.  Even Khan quoted and paraphrased it in Star Trek II:  The Wrath of Khan.  Not that he’s maybe the best role model (and he is a fictional character) but nevertheless, the book is a classic great enough to have been imagined to live on into the 23^rd century.

I guess this conundrum is part of why authors use agents to try to sell their works to publishers and use publishers to try to sell their works to the general public.  It’s a sensible division of labor, of course, and specialization often improves efficiency.  But who is available to help sell authors to agents at that level?

The way things are set up in our culture—and no, there’s no indication that this was planned by anyone, it just sort of happened emergently—we reward those not necessarily who are the best at doing something, but who are the best at self-promotion.  In other words, we reward those with a tendency toward narcissism, and the results show themselves all too well in our entertainment, in our businesses, and perhaps most horrifically and pathetically, in our politics.

Then, of course, you get gifted artists like Kurt Cobain, who was never really narcissistic as far as I can tell—he said he had wanted just to be in a band in the background, maybe playing rhythm guitar, but was instead the front man of a huge band and almost the face of a genre of music in the nineties.  Having him there made all the other people (and him as well) lots of money, and it brought joy to many fans.  This latter bit is good, of course—more joy, ceteris paribus, is better than less—but it can put a lot of pressure on someone who has negative self-esteem issues.

How many of the premature deaths—by clear suicide as in Cobain’s case or by effective suicide among people like Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, etc.—of successful artists are due to some form of rock star imposter syndrome?

This is not to say that sometimes narcissism, in moderate doses, cannot pay off, for the person and for everyone else.  Mick Jagger probably has a bit of narcissism in him, for instance; I remember him once describing himself as “just another girl on the runway” with a smirk on his face.  He clearly liked/likes attention.  But you don’t get the impression that it’s too pathological in his case, and the world got some great songs out of it.

Then there’s Freddy Mercury, who was certainly a bit of a diva, but popular music was all the better for that fact.  He did, of course, end up cutting his life short, but in a very different way from the Joplins** and Cobains.

Then there is someone like David Bowie, who changed rather constantly across his career and who always seemed just to be who he was, even when he was assuming other identities.  He was just an artist, I think (though he had his own issues with drugs, etc.).  Though, he had a competitive nature, too (his Life on Mars was his “revenge” on the song My Way, for which his proposed lyrics had been rejected).

I think it’s a bit more complicated but similar in the case of Radiohead, though all the attention and touring surrounding OKComputer did apparently nearly drive Thom Yorke to a “nervous breakdown”.  I have my own theories about why this was so hard for him, but I won’t get into them now, because they are very self-referential and, well…narcissistic in a sense.  In other words, I suspect Thom Yorke is in some ways like me and had troubles similar to ones I would have in his exact situation.

Anyway, that’s probably enough BS for today.  My pain is not quite as severe as it was, but my various joints still feel like they are not fully connected, and moving is painful—but sitting still gets painful after a while, too, so it’s not an easy way out.

Hey, you know what?  I thought of an idea.  If anyone out there has the resources and the desire to take in and support an author so he can work full-time writing fiction (and even some nonfiction and possibly some music, since I would have more time), please get in touch.  I can’t honestly say that I’m the tidiest person in the world, but I do my best to keep my untidiness to my own areas.  I am also a decent cook; that’s practically genetic in my case.

I would put you in the dedication to any books and other stories I finish, and of course, if I make it big, you’ll get your share.  If you have promotional skills (or connections), they would be a definite plus.  I am neither spayed nor neutered, of course, but I am woefully, painfully shy and self-effacing, so you don’t have to worry too much about “unwanted litters” and related issues.

Okay, enough silly pseudo-personal-column nonsense.  I am trying to be upbeat and silly**** to distract myself from pain and avoid despair, at least to the degree possible.  It may be true that “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”*****, but despair is still not very much fun.  It can be weirdly freeing—thus the lyric—but it’s not fun.

TTFN

*If you simplify that expression, discounting the spaces, you’re left with bfre/nt²hwayo.  I think I did that correctly.  If anyone catches something I’ve missed, please let me know.

**I remember when I was quite young and first heard of Janis Joplin; I wondered if maybe she was a descendant of Scott Joplin, the great ragtime pianist and composer who gave us such works as The Entertainer and The Maple Leaf Rag.  Yes, that’s the sort of background I had—I knew about ragtime musicians long before I knew about someone like Janice Joplin.  To be honest, I still prefer Scott’s music, and I like the version of Me and Bobby McGee*** sung by Roger Miller way more than I like the one Janis did.

***Of course, the song was written by Chris Christopherson.  He’s one of those songwriters who wrote a lot of songs that other people ended up playing and making famous, rather like Carole King.

****By the way, just because it’s silly doesn’t mean I wouldn’t necessarily jump at an offer in response to my proposal.  I’m silly but not stupid, or at least I’m not stupid in that way.

*****Now that was some good lyric-writing, Mr. Christopherson.  It’s one of the best lines ever in any song.