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Celebrity Death and Artist Appreciation
14 years ago
I should be working on Voodoo Walrus and commission art. Instead I need to pick a bone that’s lodged itself in my mind. A little earlier today, the news started filtering down through the web-o-inter-tron-o-tube-net that Amy Winehouse is dead. I know this because of The Twitter. People began tweeting or retweeting other tweets about it and adding things like “Such a shame”, “So much talent gone”, and so on. Basically saying the death is sad and terrible not only for its occurrence but for it robbing us of a talent person as well.
My reaction: So what? Not because I don’t think life and artists should be valued. But because I’ve been given no evidence that Amy Winehouse was some great talent. And therein lies the problem. Where were all these people while she was alive to say how talented she was and how others should listen to her music? Hm? Cause some of these people are people I’ve been following for a good long while now and I’ve never seen them say anything about how people should check out Winehouse’s work. Never made any mention of her save for when she was in rehab or struggling with drugs or whatever. That’s all I know about the woman. She had drug problems, she was in rehab for them, and she made a song called Rehab that every time it came on the radio I thought it was a commercial instead of a song and then realized it was a song when a minute passed and it was still playing.
So what’s the point I’m getting at? That’s she wasn’t a good artist? Hell no. That its good she’s dead? Fuck no! What’s wrong with you? What I’m getting at is people need to stop this bullshit of waiting until talented people are dead to say how much they love them and their work. Celebrate and share the artists who love while the artists still live so that maybe they can see the impact of who they’ve touched! Stop just sitting there and mindlessly consuming what they produce. Find a way to either tell them what you thought of it, how much you enjoyed, how it touched you, and/or how wonderful you think they are. Alternatively, if you can’t find a way to communicate any of that with them, then tell your friends about them. Utilize the twitter or the facebook to link to something they did that you particularly liked
Celebrate, embrace, and talk about the works and thoughts of artists. Not their problems, their relationships, their fuck ups, or their death. I can tell you this flat out AS an artist. I want people talking about what I’ve drawn, written, or performed in. I DON’T want them talking about how I had a fling with an androgynous cybergoth in the office of a Wawa back in ‘07 and how it got on the security tapes. Or how drunk I got in a pirate bar in Silver Springs, or how I nearly got shot in the knee for making fun of Russian mobsters back in ‘05.
Hate on Lennon for getting together with Yoko and then grieve over him for generations. Tear Jackson apart for everything under the sun except for his music for years and then lament his death and pay tons of money to see a movie concerning an aborted tour he was prepping. Say nothing about Winehouse except drug related jokes and references and then tell people she was so great and talented and how terrible a tragedy it is.
See a pattern? Disrupt the pattern.
Warren Ellis, David Bowie, Jhonen Vasquez, Amanda Palmer, Grant Morrison, Nic Cage. I love you all. You bring wonderful books, music, writing, prose, speeches, ideas, and performances into my life. And you’re just a small sampling of people I absolutely adore and think more people should celebrate what you do. Whenever possible, I try to mention you in various ways to people I know and people who will listen.
Don’t mourn an artist’s death. Celebrate the works they crafted that will make you miss them. Share said works with others so as they won’t be forgotten. You’re doing a great disservice to the artist you miss if all you do is say “Its a tragedy!” and link to an article about their death. Focus on creativity of their lives, overlook the tragedy of their death, make the world a slightly happier place in dark times.
My reaction: So what? Not because I don’t think life and artists should be valued. But because I’ve been given no evidence that Amy Winehouse was some great talent. And therein lies the problem. Where were all these people while she was alive to say how talented she was and how others should listen to her music? Hm? Cause some of these people are people I’ve been following for a good long while now and I’ve never seen them say anything about how people should check out Winehouse’s work. Never made any mention of her save for when she was in rehab or struggling with drugs or whatever. That’s all I know about the woman. She had drug problems, she was in rehab for them, and she made a song called Rehab that every time it came on the radio I thought it was a commercial instead of a song and then realized it was a song when a minute passed and it was still playing.
So what’s the point I’m getting at? That’s she wasn’t a good artist? Hell no. That its good she’s dead? Fuck no! What’s wrong with you? What I’m getting at is people need to stop this bullshit of waiting until talented people are dead to say how much they love them and their work. Celebrate and share the artists who love while the artists still live so that maybe they can see the impact of who they’ve touched! Stop just sitting there and mindlessly consuming what they produce. Find a way to either tell them what you thought of it, how much you enjoyed, how it touched you, and/or how wonderful you think they are. Alternatively, if you can’t find a way to communicate any of that with them, then tell your friends about them. Utilize the twitter or the facebook to link to something they did that you particularly liked
Celebrate, embrace, and talk about the works and thoughts of artists. Not their problems, their relationships, their fuck ups, or their death. I can tell you this flat out AS an artist. I want people talking about what I’ve drawn, written, or performed in. I DON’T want them talking about how I had a fling with an androgynous cybergoth in the office of a Wawa back in ‘07 and how it got on the security tapes. Or how drunk I got in a pirate bar in Silver Springs, or how I nearly got shot in the knee for making fun of Russian mobsters back in ‘05.
Hate on Lennon for getting together with Yoko and then grieve over him for generations. Tear Jackson apart for everything under the sun except for his music for years and then lament his death and pay tons of money to see a movie concerning an aborted tour he was prepping. Say nothing about Winehouse except drug related jokes and references and then tell people she was so great and talented and how terrible a tragedy it is.
See a pattern? Disrupt the pattern.
Warren Ellis, David Bowie, Jhonen Vasquez, Amanda Palmer, Grant Morrison, Nic Cage. I love you all. You bring wonderful books, music, writing, prose, speeches, ideas, and performances into my life. And you’re just a small sampling of people I absolutely adore and think more people should celebrate what you do. Whenever possible, I try to mention you in various ways to people I know and people who will listen.
Don’t mourn an artist’s death. Celebrate the works they crafted that will make you miss them. Share said works with others so as they won’t be forgotten. You’re doing a great disservice to the artist you miss if all you do is say “Its a tragedy!” and link to an article about their death. Focus on creativity of their lives, overlook the tragedy of their death, make the world a slightly happier place in dark times.
And before anyone with less than a braincell links me to a wiki article, yes I know who she was.
I said around the time of Mickey Jay's death, who conveniently enough for me as a columnist, died on the same day as Farrah Fawcett, about how the death of a past wonder is eclipsed by the death of a living legend. Many of Jacko's most loyal fans will still admit his older work was better, and that he'd faded in recent times not least due to the crippling court appearances.
Other than in Hollywood movies, there aren't that many current megastars any more. It's an era of flash-in-the-pan iTunes one-hit-wonders who have a massive parade of fame for a few months then disappear again, like Justin Bieber and... err, Amy Winehouse.
Of course I am talking about terms of fame here, not actual talent.
The thing about an artist dying at a young age, no matter what other problems surround their personal lives, is that no more work can come streaming from them. Future decades of their unique spin on their artistic niche is gone. There can be no more re-vitalization periods, all that potential is gone forever. It's especially hard when it's an iconic singer who has been on the cover of magazines (yeah, tabloids, whatever) because the way we're hard-wired, we (some of us) intimiately know that person's voice... we've carried it in our heads much like we might carry a friend's voice... and you pair that up with the familiarity of their faces from over-saturated tabloids and the way you're hard-wired makes it a more personal loss than some faceless person whose voice you've never heard or can't quite conjure.
I know as a musician, it might be a matter of envy that people spend so much time focused on a dead person's work, because you feel as though you can never reach that pinnacle of achievement through recognition while alive. It's sad but true... most artists experience a big post-mortem surge of sales during the mourning period, and you can bet your ass in the next few months there'll be at least half a dozen Amy Winehouse biographies coming out of the woodwork.
Oh, and the reason why people are now saying how much of a talented singer, etc. Amy Winehouse was can be traced back to this little Latin phrase... De mortuis nil nisi bonum. Let nothing be said of the dead but what is good. (Void where prohibited, subject to certain exceptions).
Whew. Alright! Thanks for letting me use your journal to get this off my chest. :) And did you read my note?