i will probably never be a rock star. (7)
Posted 25 February, 2004 in that is f'ed up.
after twenty-eight years on this planet, i have finally come to the realization that i will probably never be a rock star.
i know this sounds strange, but somewhere in the back of my mind, ever since i was little, i’ve sort of assumed i was going to be special. no, not special-ed. like, famous, for doing something creative.
maybe it was my upbringing. my father’s a television director. he sheltered his family from most of the silliness that comes along with large amounts of money and a show on the tube every sunday. but i always knew he was “someone,” that he’d excelled in his field, and i somehow assumed this was to be my path too. my parents also told me i was wonderful/talented/smart over and over again, as i’m sure most (loving) parents do tell their kids. they always told me i could do whatever i wanted to do, as long as, according to my mom, “it doesn’t make a noise or a mess.” so maybe i got my sense of rock-star entitlement from my environment when i was growing up.
maybe it was the media. yes! let’s blame everything on the media! seriously, though, as a teenager growing up in los angeles, the mecca of all that is shallow, stardom seems a lot closer, especially when you can bump into it at your local gas station or restaurant.
as the years have gone by, and i’ve settled into my new role as TV Show Grunt, i have slowly come to notice that famous people are now younger than me. i’m five years older than britney spears. new british football stars are sometimes ten years younger than me. the window is slowly closing. soon it will be locked.
also, as the years have gone by, i’ve slowly realized that i don’t want all the nonsense that comes with being vastly successful in the entertainment industry. my parents pulled it off remarkably well, and managed to stop their four kids from being tainted by it. other people i know have made a royal fucking disaster of it. i want to raise my own children, not give them to a nanny every day. i want to clean my own house and make my own food. i don’t want to have to miss my kid’s soccer game because i’m at a meeting, blowing hard with other blowhards. sure, maybe i won’t be powerful enough to get my kid free passes to see hilary duff in concert. but at least i’ll *be* with my kid.
the part that troubles me, though, is being normal. all my life i’ve had it drummed into my head that being normal is boring/lazy/wrong. all the movies i’ve watched are about people doing extraordinary things. all the songs i’ve heard are about standing up to the Man and doing your own thing. no-one ever talks about coming home from work, petting your cat, putting your feet up and thinking about what’s for dinner. no-one ever wrote a song about poopy diapers and PTA meetings.
so settling down into being just another member of the population… it bothers me. i’ve gone through hundreds of thousands of dollars of education for this? to clean my house, change diapers, drive my kids to ballet class? shouldn’t i be out changing the world? who’ll remember me after my kids and grandkids and great-grandkids have died?
on the other hand, being normal is about as subversive as it gets these days. there are so many people out there trying to shock everyone, and most of it is just boring. a house, two or three kids, and a mindless job is a perfect way for a freak to go incognito.
i’m still wrestling with this issue. i wish i could write a nice conclusion, but i can’t. i have a feeling i’ll be dealing with it for many years to come. it seems like modern life’s just set up this way. to quote the lovely tyler durden:
“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”