Celebricide

We were sitting in the coffee shop- that one right by the University- you know the one. The Smiths and Bob Marley were on shuffle over the crap speakers.
Smoking and drinking coffee. I doodled on the pages of a free weekly- right on that page about that band of 20 year olds- they are the next big thing, Have you heard of them yet? They’ve apparently managed to produce an album that sounds like a few other things you’ve heard (or should have heard by now, if you through the lines) except they’ve mixed them together in a clever way – Voila!
All three of us have big plans too, so you can’t hate too much, I guess.. Two of us would love to make music for a living. I’d like to make comics and ‘comic art’. Would I turn down a write-up in the hipster weekly? No, of course not.
We’d all three spent the last two days with family. Thanksgiving. I can only speak for myself when I say that there is nothing as depressing as spending extended amounts of time in the suburbs with people whom you share no common interests. They seem to share the exact same worldview, of course. While they spoke of an upcoming wedding, I imagined a neon light flickering in an office hallway. They talked about Oprah and I became too aware of the whir of the tiny motor in the refrigerator. I had sweaty palms and that sweater I’d never wear in the city trapped the heat.
There are certain rules in this all too common setting. The cardinal one has to do with never, under any circumstances, challenging the opinions and beliefs of anybody else.
Yeah, you love them but do you like them? Why do I feel like a teenager? I wanted to run away and drink shitty beer and have sex with an average looking girl. I wanted to be filthy.
It’s a valuable experience, I think. It made me think I was full of a certain brand of shit and they were full of another.
So the coffee shop was heaven, comparatively speaking.
We talked about music that we liked. This one album cover has awesome artwork on it. A movie that will be out soon is going to be great. Do you think this one musician is a genius, or no?
We talked about a mutual friend. He has big plans too - Plans that include, among other things, becoming a celebrity. Wait, wait, a rich celebrity- or does that go without saying?
"He certainly is deeply in love with himself." I said with an eye roll and a sigh.
" But don't you kind of have to be?"
“ What could be wrong with that?”
“Well, I mean.., yeah, I don’t know..”
I was sort of taken aback – I assumed these guys would give me an eye roll right back- ‘ Yeah, what bullshit’ they’d say. We’d be in the same camp. Bullshit vs. Us.

I scanned the page I was doodling on. I was drawing some kind of animal made of tires- not unlike the Michelin man. The tire animal was holding a hammer while flaming skulls flew around his head, menacingly.
It was okay, but I'd never publish something like that. I scanned the room – I wonder what all of these kids would think about my drawing if they saw it? Would it make any sense to them at all?
Or have we been narrowcasted so far into our own corners that we don’t even speak the same language? Or have I? Would I want these people to like it? Does this drawing make any sense to me?
For all I know these kids are just as talented and smart as us three at the table. Why wouldn’t they be? Do they love themselves so much too? How could we possibly take seriously our big plans, when all these kids no doubt share similar delusions?

“ But there is a huge difference between narcissism and a healthy self-image, I think.
I mean, it isn’t like if you aren’t in love with yourself, you somehow loathe yourself.
Doesn’t being so in love with yourself imply that you put yourself on a pedestal, above all others? – Don’t tell me that you love these people as much as yourself, either. You’d be lying”
I immediately felt kind of stupid for using such trite, pop-psychology language. ‘ Healthy self –image’?
..Idiot..
“Yeah, but no one else is going to give a shit about you unless you have the confidence to put yourself out there, to love yourself enough to convince people that they should too.”
“ Is that honest though? I –“
“-Who cares!?”

Is it all a game? How do you win? Who sets the agenda?
Are all those faceless corporate phantoms that pull our strings (-according to those bearded academics on NPR (the ones whose breath you know stinks real bad))- trying to convince us to be narcissists?
‘Go ahead, buy it! - You deserve it. You can be anything you want! This item will prove to the world that you are what you want to be! You don’t want to be like them, do you?
Maybe, if you play it just right, you’ll have something to sell’
I want someone to blame, but I play the same game as those kids in the City Pages.

Another round of cigarettes. We all seem to be smoking at the same rate. Who lit theirs first?
“ Honestly guys- do you really think He could make it? Do you think any of us, for that matter, will really achieve all that we’d like to?”
“ Well, why not try? What else are we going to do?” - The other agreed with a “Yeah”.
“It’s not like us three are trying to get on The Real World or anything” He continued.
“ –We’re trying to make good stuff, stuff that we’d like to have.”
Yeah, we only want cool people to admire us..
“What else are you going to do, Luke? Get an office job?”
I don’t know. What is the alternative? Maybe they are right. Is it this or Oprah? This or a buzzing refrigerator and an office job and a Cosby sweater? Why should it be?
‘It doesn’t have to be like that’ I repeat to myself.

“ But what is the ultimate point of any of this garbage? – Don’t tell me it’s all about a love for the art form. You can love it and not have to do it..”
“ The point is, I don’t know what else to do.”
“ Me neither.”
They were done with this conversation, I could tell. We’d move on to subtly fishing for encouragement- back to the mutual appreciation club we’d enjoyed before my lapse into reality.
I scanned the room once again. How many of them are would-be celebrities?
Maybe I can write about this later, I thought. Maybe those who speak exactly the same language will read it and maybe they will like it.
“Are we all really that lonely?”
“What?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”