Le maudit Mo D.

maudit artist #14: (by popular demand) miranda july

"Popular demand" meaning Shando. Okay, here goes:

For years, something has nibbled at my ass. It has nibbled with such sharp, deliberate teeth that I often blame it for things as minor as me being irritated by something or someone, all the way up to copping the fuck out at age 24 and getting a masters degree in something that was completely wrong for me. Like many artists, I often spend a lot of time questioning my talent and my abilities. In fact, I spend so much time questioning that I lose a lot of time DOING. And therein my conundrum lies. I know I can write, but how much time to I spend thinking about writing, or rereading stuff I already wrote. I can probably recite the first fifty pages of my novel by rote, just because I've read and rewritten them so many damn times. I have trouble moving forward. I am not a leader. I am a loner, a nitpicker, someone who was all poised to be something when she was a child and has shit to show for it. A perfectionist for perfection's sake. I've been told I have talent, and that's where it ends for me.

I chose Miranda July not because I admire her as an artist. In fact, I don't. I roundly rejected her in my mind and heart eleven years ago, when she was on tour with Calvin J., landed in the middle of my college radio station fiefdom, and spent half an hour annoying the shit out of me with her performance art. She was wearing hotpants and a wig and had the sound system rigged to play guitar distortion on a loop. She then walked through the audience reciting a monologue that I didn't get, or at least didn't want to get. I just wanted to bop around to "Shake a Puddin''" and this bitch was delaying my puddin'-shakes. I had never heard of her before. At the time she had no name cred. So when I happened to say in the car ride back to the Ladycollege that night, "who was that performance artist, omg did she suck or what?" a carload of hipsters turned on me. HOW DARE MO speak ill of this woman was countered by me with HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY RIGHT to critique her? Blah blah fight fight. I think I was deliberately not invited to a few parties after that.

For years, my Miranda July story was used to demonstrate how indie kids are, for the most part, a pack of sheep. Whenever some band I didn't like appeared on the scene, I would use my Miranda Rights: Sheep, I tell you! She sucked! I speak for myself, bitches! and feel vindicated that indie rock fan girldom was something I was just aging out of. I didn't expect to maintain the identity I'd crafted for myself at age 18 into adulthood, and so I sat back and amused myself watching the kiddies dress and behave exactly the same as we did back in the '90s, loving the same bands and never speaking a critical word, lest they be shunned by the pack.

But in the last few years, I have had to admit to myself that something else was at work here. Something that I had to recognize in myself to grow and change, to realize that what I had learned about myself as a kid didn't apply anymore, that if I am to be the published w-r-i-t-e-r that I've been putting off becoming for years then I need to make some friends. Maybe I should have kept my opinionated trap shut eleven years ago. Maybe I should have joined the "wow, she's awesome just because she came in on Calvin's arm, and everything K Recs promotes is damn brilliant! Everything!" bandwagon. But I was a different person then, and that is probably what I would do today. Grit my teeth and join the club.

So, it's only been recently that I have learned that selling yourself and connecting yourself to others is even more important than whatever inbred talent you may have been born with. Miranda didn't get to where she is without some famous hands helping along the way and a bunch of indie rock fans in small college towns coming out and supporting her. And let me just say right now, I do think Miranda is talented, does good work, rocks it, sells it, and has figured out the mathematical equation to making the whole art thing move for her. But every girl, whether she likes it or not, has other girls she compares herself to. I find myself terribly confounded and envious of those with the gift of making connections and making people like them. I have endured a life of so many people reacting badly to me, because of my appearance or my intelligence, that I can barely fathom a life where people think I'm adorable and would be interested in the contents of my brain. It's always seemed to me that the adorable girls win the fucking prize, and I'm not even in the running.

So that's my shit.

I humbly admit that I have a lot to learn from Miranda, and hope that if she or her peeps stumble upon this essay I have written here, that she will forgive me or at least understand where I'm coming from.

So, in sum:
1) I really don't hate Miranda. She's cupcakes in my book and I really do wish her the best.
2) I resent the fact that cuteness and popularity still matter well past high school.
3) You gotta have friends.
4) You gotta just do your shit and not care about cranky, high-IQ-ed, tall, large-nosed bitches and their overblogging during the month of November.
5) Art is awesome, even when you perceive it to be sucky.
6) If you don't have anything nice to say, say it in your blog.

Posted by Zerd at November 29, 2007 12:13 PM