Excerpt 1:"...When I was a young girl I thought I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. But what happens when a rock star starts to wonder if may it's time to grow up? Maybe I never became a household name, but I have made a living with my music. I've heard my songs on the radio, I've seen myself on TV and in magazines, and I've played in front of tens of thousands of people.
You could say it began when I was on the cover of Spin magazine, or when I first performed on The Tonight Show.
You could say it all started when I signed my first record deal with an independent label, or when I was dropped from Atlantic Records. You could say it started when I canceled a whole string of European shows due to severe depression.
Or you could say it really began in earnest when I set out on yet another cross-country tour of small clubs, a few years back, and came face to face with my inability to play this role any longer; that it took me a whole decades-spanning career in music to realize that maybe I wasn't really cut out for the job of rock star...."
Excerpt 2:
"...The first show on a tour is like kissing someone for the first time. It's a kind of wonderful blur. It happens in a flash of blinding light as if time has no weight or meaning and then suddenly, it's over. After the initial thrilling, terrifying, dive into it, the experience never again has the same intensity. Some of the magic, wired energy slips from your hands - maybe because your nerves have settled - and though you strive to reclaim it every night thereafter, you do settle into a workaday routine of gig after gig...."
Excerpt 3:
"...Freda asked me, 'Hey, Juliana? Do you think I could have one of those sleeping pills?'
I said, "Yeah, of course," unenthusiastically. But then, suddenly worried, I said, "But promise me you won't drink anything with it. I don't want to be responsible fo your death. It says on the bottle, 'Do not drink alcohol with these pills', okay? Look- it says it right here.' And I showed her- I held the bottle out to her, made her read it.
Freda laughed and said, "Okay."
But I wasn't joking. Tonight I felt cursed, doomed, like darkness personified; the darkness that could snuff out even Freda, who was so full of light.
I unzipped my backpack as we got into the elevator and took out my pill container as we rode up. I handed an ambien to Freda just as the doors opened on my floor. I said goodnight and the elevator doors closed behind me and the tears came instantly, even before I could get to my door.
I ran a bath, still crying, and got in the tub, my warm tears mixing with the bathwater.
As long as I've been doing this I have felt this way half the time. It's like God wants to make sure I stay humble, so I can really appreciate the good stuff when it happens. Like maybe all these little depressions and disappointments that come out of nowehere for practically no real reason keep me balanced, in a weird way. All of the joy and wonder need to be tempered with dejection and doubt so I am better able to recognize an be thankful for my good fortune...."
Excerpt 4:
"...When I entered my room, I sat down on the edge of the bed and turned on the TV. It was tuned to the MTV channel. I watched as Guns N' Roses' epic, pain-drenched power ballad 'November Rain' drew to its dramatic conclusion. It ended and then my "My Sister" video came on, identified in the corner of the screen as a 'buzz clip'.
Guns N' Roses and then...me. Me and Guns N' Roses. Back to back. Joined in some kind of surreal union. It seemed so completely unlikely. So bizarre for the two of us- me and G N' R to be lumped together.
I had nothing against Guns and Roses. It was just that me and them seemed so fundamentally, philosophically unlike one another. They were rock icons - the biggest band in the world, in fact ,at the time- and they knew it and believed in their mythology and were working it. All the time. The lived rock & roll, 24/7. They seemed to breathe rock & roll. They ate rock & roll. They probably shat rock & roll. You knew that they knew that rock n' roll stardom was their birthright, that they fuckin' deserved to be rock stars.
As for me, I seemed born not to raise hell but to doubt everything. Had I earned my place on the charts next to G N' R? Did I deserve my current success? Did I fit the role- fill the rock star shoes - like they did? It was open to debate. And I, for one, was decidedly skeptical. I certainly didn't feel like a superstar, or have any sort of clue as to how to act like one.
Guys in bands like G N' R, with their top hats and scarves and tight pants, and swilling Jack Daniels out of the bottle, believed in pop stardom as a way of life from the beginning and were aiming for it as if it were a vlearly marked destination on a map. For me it was always a fanciful dream, an amorphous and somewhat delusional fantasy. So when it actually happened, to me, I couldn't understand it or make sense of it or accept it or believe it or deal with it. It didn't seem real. Or, rather, it seemed too real, and that took some of the shine off of it.
Fantasies are visions of perfection and they serve as escapes from the recurring letdowns and disappointments of reality. They aren't supposed to come to life. When they do, they inevitably lose some of their sparkle in the journey from dream to the here-and-now. That's why people warn, 'Be careful what you wish for.' In a rock and roll fantasy you're better, more beautiful, more interesting, more talented, more desirable, more charismatic. In order to sustain this kind of vision, day-to-day, you have to actively play along and keep the fantasy afloat by deluding yourself, and other, into believing you are as wonderful and dazzling as the ongoing fantasy. There can never be any untidy or unpleasant or uncomfortable moments, moments that are always in reality sprouting up during the lifespan of any long-term situation...."
You could say it began when I was on the cover of Spin magazine, or when I first performed on The Tonight Show.
You could say it all started when I signed my first record deal with an independent label, or when I was dropped from Atlantic Records. You could say it started when I canceled a whole string of European shows due to severe depression.
Or you could say it really began in earnest when I set out on yet another cross-country tour of small clubs, a few years back, and came face to face with my inability to play this role any longer; that it took me a whole decades-spanning career in music to realize that maybe I wasn't really cut out for the job of rock star...."
Excerpt 2:
"...The first show on a tour is like kissing someone for the first time. It's a kind of wonderful blur. It happens in a flash of blinding light as if time has no weight or meaning and then suddenly, it's over. After the initial thrilling, terrifying, dive into it, the experience never again has the same intensity. Some of the magic, wired energy slips from your hands - maybe because your nerves have settled - and though you strive to reclaim it every night thereafter, you do settle into a workaday routine of gig after gig...."
Excerpt 3:
"...Freda asked me, 'Hey, Juliana? Do you think I could have one of those sleeping pills?'
I said, "Yeah, of course," unenthusiastically. But then, suddenly worried, I said, "But promise me you won't drink anything with it. I don't want to be responsible fo your death. It says on the bottle, 'Do not drink alcohol with these pills', okay? Look- it says it right here.' And I showed her- I held the bottle out to her, made her read it.
Freda laughed and said, "Okay."
But I wasn't joking. Tonight I felt cursed, doomed, like darkness personified; the darkness that could snuff out even Freda, who was so full of light.
I unzipped my backpack as we got into the elevator and took out my pill container as we rode up. I handed an ambien to Freda just as the doors opened on my floor. I said goodnight and the elevator doors closed behind me and the tears came instantly, even before I could get to my door.
I ran a bath, still crying, and got in the tub, my warm tears mixing with the bathwater.
As long as I've been doing this I have felt this way half the time. It's like God wants to make sure I stay humble, so I can really appreciate the good stuff when it happens. Like maybe all these little depressions and disappointments that come out of nowehere for practically no real reason keep me balanced, in a weird way. All of the joy and wonder need to be tempered with dejection and doubt so I am better able to recognize an be thankful for my good fortune...."
Excerpt 4:
"...When I entered my room, I sat down on the edge of the bed and turned on the TV. It was tuned to the MTV channel. I watched as Guns N' Roses' epic, pain-drenched power ballad 'November Rain' drew to its dramatic conclusion. It ended and then my "My Sister" video came on, identified in the corner of the screen as a 'buzz clip'.
Guns N' Roses and then...me. Me and Guns N' Roses. Back to back. Joined in some kind of surreal union. It seemed so completely unlikely. So bizarre for the two of us- me and G N' R to be lumped together.
I had nothing against Guns and Roses. It was just that me and them seemed so fundamentally, philosophically unlike one another. They were rock icons - the biggest band in the world, in fact ,at the time- and they knew it and believed in their mythology and were working it. All the time. The lived rock & roll, 24/7. They seemed to breathe rock & roll. They ate rock & roll. They probably shat rock & roll. You knew that they knew that rock n' roll stardom was their birthright, that they fuckin' deserved to be rock stars.
As for me, I seemed born not to raise hell but to doubt everything. Had I earned my place on the charts next to G N' R? Did I deserve my current success? Did I fit the role- fill the rock star shoes - like they did? It was open to debate. And I, for one, was decidedly skeptical. I certainly didn't feel like a superstar, or have any sort of clue as to how to act like one.
Guys in bands like G N' R, with their top hats and scarves and tight pants, and swilling Jack Daniels out of the bottle, believed in pop stardom as a way of life from the beginning and were aiming for it as if it were a vlearly marked destination on a map. For me it was always a fanciful dream, an amorphous and somewhat delusional fantasy. So when it actually happened, to me, I couldn't understand it or make sense of it or accept it or believe it or deal with it. It didn't seem real. Or, rather, it seemed too real, and that took some of the shine off of it.
Fantasies are visions of perfection and they serve as escapes from the recurring letdowns and disappointments of reality. They aren't supposed to come to life. When they do, they inevitably lose some of their sparkle in the journey from dream to the here-and-now. That's why people warn, 'Be careful what you wish for.' In a rock and roll fantasy you're better, more beautiful, more interesting, more talented, more desirable, more charismatic. In order to sustain this kind of vision, day-to-day, you have to actively play along and keep the fantasy afloat by deluding yourself, and other, into believing you are as wonderful and dazzling as the ongoing fantasy. There can never be any untidy or unpleasant or uncomfortable moments, moments that are always in reality sprouting up during the lifespan of any long-term situation...."
No comments:
Post a Comment