Palmer & Gaiman
That’s a PERK!
My inbox is blowing up with the sour grapes people complaining that Amanda Palmer owes her success to her “millionaire” husband Neil Gaiman. As if she courted him from infancy and rode his coattails to notoriety and riches.
To quote a Who song you probably don’t know, and should, “it don’t really happen that way at all.”
Where should I focus first? Amanda or the hoi polloi?
Let’s start with Amanda. She was clueless as to Gaiman for most of her career. It was only by establishing a beachhead that she was able to connect with him. Yes, I hate to disillusion you, but fame/success begets relationships. Hell, that’s why many people do it. Like the classic rockers. Just ask ’em. They all did it to get LAID! No one would pay attention to them, being shy art guys. Show me a famous rocker who was popular in high school and I’ll tell you you’ve found the exception. By being “Amanda Palmer,” Amanda could bed and wed Gaiman. And if she was really in it for the money, why stop with Gaiman? Go for Lloyd Blankfein, a banker, someone who is truly rich! Then again, artists connect with artists, they’re like-minded. Kind of like rock stars connect with models… The lifestyle’s the same. Work intermittently but hard when you do and party all hours of the night. People with 9-5 jobs aren’t attracted to rock stars. Because they tend to be irresponsible and narcissi
stic. Unreliable. With poor financial habits to boot.
As for the complainers/naysayers…
I just hope you have some success. Then people you don’t know will come out of the woodwork to tell you how it really is, what you’re really like even though they’ve never met you, never mind really know you. They’re just pissed you’re where they are not.
Yeah, like Neil Gaiman wrote a big check for Amanda Palmer’s Kickstarter project. Why? Kickstarter takes a percentage and she’d already blown past her goal.
But the truth never interfered with these pricks’ perspective. They see you up where they want to be and figure you had an edge, or are lucky. That they deserve to be where you are. Even though they’re marginally talented and unwilling to do the work.
Wanna be rich and famous?
Then give up your personal life. Not only to the audience, but to yourself. You’re too busy working all the time. You’ve got little time for TV, little time for relationships. You’re sacrificing all for your art. Burning the candle on both ends. You know why rock stars O.D? Because they take drugs to cope with the hideous life of a creator on the road. Just try to fall asleep after giving it your all at the arena. Busing around the world with people you’ve spent years in close contact with who you may not even like, whose habits gross you out.
And misinformation rules.
Do you know that I bullied Taylor Swift in high school?
Yup, it’s there EVERY DAY in my Twitter feed. Dozens of retweets at a time. Spreading the falsehood. Hell, I’m decades older than she is. A modicum of online research could yield this fact. But no, people would rather complain than deal with the truth. Because it’s too much effort and they don’t want to look in the mirror and face themselves and their oftentimes miserable little lives.
That’s what an artist does best. Give you respite from your horrible life. Hell life can be horrible even if you are rich and famous. Which is why all those bankers are music fans. They want to be touched, they want to be changed.
As for those e-mailing that all this discussion is not about Ms. Palmer’s music, IT WASN’T MADE FOR YOU! Palmer didn’t work the mainstream media machine, it came to her. And ultimately turned its back on her, with the backup musician kerfuffle.
And her fanbase didn’t care. The only people complaining they weren’t getting paid were union members and those who never listened to her music. It’s like having your party crashed by your parents, complete with invective against your lifestyle, because it’s different from theirs.
No one likes negative comments.
But if you raise your head above water, you’re gonna get ’em, oftentimes from weasels hiding under the cover of anonymity. Trying to bring you down. Telling you you’re too fat, too untalented, too ugly, too connected to be where you are. But isn’t it interesting that you’re on top and they’re on the bottom.
I’ve got just one piece of advice re the haters…
IGNORE THEM!
P.S. That Who song is “Naked Eye.” The definitive take is from their ’74 album “Odds & Sods,” check it out, it’ll be the best five minutes you spend today.
