I’m cat-sitting right now, white ham in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and a beer between my thighs. It’s ninety degrees out, I’m still totally heart fucked and writing terribly and erratically, but I’m going to do a little bit of housekeeping before I get into the piece. So first off, I’d like to welcome all the new subscribers! You will likely come to resent me and this newsletter, but I still thank you for taking a chance on me. If you *do* end up liking this, I accept tips.
I’ve been fucking with the idea of occasionally having guest contributors for RC. Some of you will remember the short-lived tête-à-tête series, in which I published unedited conversations between a guest and me. I’d love to revive the concept. If you have something you’d like to discuss, or pitches for a guest column, I’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to send me an e-mail at s.sutterlin@gmail.com (don’t be a weirdo) I will be offering a small honorarium to all guest columnists.
Alright, that’s it!! Love you xoxo
I don’t know why I clicked: the story of everything I end up reading online. I should have known better than to give ol’ culturally tired (and Conde Nast-owned) P*tchfork a look, but in my defense, as a Montreal resident, I am legally required to at least skim any contentious news that might come out about Winn Butler. The power went out as I read what is possibly the funniest quote I’ve read in a long time:
“I had googled her, so I knew she was 18.”
Nice due diligence, Butler. Anyway.
I promise you, sweet Reader, this won’t be about him. That would be going against the point I will be attempting to make here (also, his band blows, and he kind of looks like an old-timey child) Once again, similarly to what I wrote in #16, I am exhausted by our continued inability to look past The Individual. The truth is, I don’t give a fuck about who Winn Butler is, who he was, who trusts him, and who doesn’t. What I do care about is how fame, wealth hoarding, and material success inevitably lead to abuses of all kinds. The sustained denial of the psycho-sexual effects of fame has shifted our focus onto the idea of individual failure. This comforting thought reinforces the myth of agency under capitalism. We’d rather cancel someone than examine the breeding ground from which these abuses emerge. One reason this question is rarely explored is that it challenges the basic concepts and constructs of capitalism. Coveting wealth and fame is the primary raison d’etre of capitalism; it is a pervasive and perverted cope that exists on a spectrum.
Musicians often fall prey to these darker impulses, almost as a rule. Touring extensively and performing in front of a live audience every night will take a toll on anyone. I believe that the extent of that toll and its social ramifications remain deeply unexplored and unexamined. It will continue to be as long as it is profitable. Our perception of fame goes on uninterrupted as we view musicians and bands rising to the level of fame that afford this kind of lifestyle as inherently successful, a benchmark, something to aspire to. There is a darkness in that kind of stage magic that hardly tries to hide itself: the circus animal and the violence that brews in the cage. It is no wonder it ends up befalling whoever is around.
There is something tragic and deformed about the famous musician’s plight — once an artist, now reduced to a performer, the same songs, same lyrics over and over, being applauded by an audience of strangers who are projecting their own lives onto your experience. Loneliness and isolation inherently form in the bourgeois, in the celebrity. Touring heightens this. Every night, a new city, new strangers, an audience, a stage, and everyone has a role. A room full of confused desire clashes with moneyed ambivalence, drugs, and alcohol; there are only a few places this kind of crescendo can lead to.
The position of privilege and power makes the celebrity’s world narrow and too specific to relate to. But unlike the actor, who rarely interacts with his fans daily, the musician performs for the gaggle every night. And so, The Fan becomes part of a buffet, an accessible object of temporary desire, for the interaction between The Artist and The Fan doesn’t require him to step out of his role. Still, it allows him to gain temporary pleasure or release within the prison of fame. Anyone who has been invited backstage or onto a tour bus knows the pathetic nature of these interactions: sloppy and sad. It’s that same energy in the DMs of today, too, the internet only making things lonelier and easier. And so, the broken desire for temporary absolution grows new limbs and teeth. A thirst that can only be temporarily quenched. Fame is hell, and we’re all trying to go there for some reason.
I would hope that it is obvious here that I am not attempting to excuse any of this behavior. I am simply saying that there is an underlying cause to all of it, a source from which evil will inevitably emanate: greed, isolation, and disconnection. I believe that empathy is something we work on every day, that it is through our daily meetings and interactions with different people that we sharpen and define our capacity for empathy. The bourgeois and the celebrity have removed themselves from such opportunities for interaction, and growth. No longer having access to this everyday exercise in affinity is framed as success, an unbothered and pampered state, when in reality, it rots us from the inside.
It doesn’t matter who it is, how they did it, or who they did it to, just that it will continue as long as we maintain and reward this poisonous fame and celebrity worship. Of course, there are always exceptions, like when Canadian legend Dave Foley bought me a whiskey sour and hit on me for a respectful five minutes before taking the hint and walking away like a gentleman. And god, do we love this liberal feel-goodery, these stories of virtuous or down-to-earth celebrities, because they allow for the myth to persist and for us to continue to exist in our little delusions unchallenged another day. But the truth is, when status is acquired in a capitalist society, it eventually comes to replace virtue, integrity, and even basic morality. The void consumes the rich, and they will try to pull you down there with them, if only to have a semblance of intimacy, of connection that they cannot buy.
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