Saint Michael Stipe And The Teleprompter

If you’ve ready this journal for a while, you know that one of my favorite bands is REM, and I greatly admire and have a bit of a Non-Sexual Male Hetero Crush on the lead singer and songwriter, Michael Stipe.

When thinking about this entry, I was trying to narrow down why I have this admiration for Stipe as a creative artist, and I think it is because of his unique individuality.

Like Bowie before him, Stipe seems to reinvent himself with every album or tour, always growing, always exploring, always stretching the boundaries of what he’s comfortable with and where his muse(s) seem to be taking him.

I think I admire this because I’m so, well, boring.

As much as I would like to be a chameleon, like a Stipe or Bowie, I really just can’t muster up enough personal courage or artistic integrity to do it.
It doesn’t have anything to do with my looks, or my innate talent.

My problem is that I don’t have the guts to step out on the ledge.
I don’t have the fortitude to really stretch myself, really jump, and, knowing that I will be caught, see what I am really capable of.
I’m afraid to fly.
I’m afraid to risk.
And that hurts.
A lot.

And I can plainly see that this extends over into my personal life. I’m afraid to take the risk of opening my heart to a woman. I’m scared to death to take on the responsibility of being a father.

When you’re that afraid, you aren’t living, you’re merely waiting to die.

Yeah, I stole that from “The Shawshank Redemption”.

I don’t want to wait to die. Hell, due to some family medical emergencies recently, I don’t even want to have a close call with death.

I want to live.
I want to love.
I want to explore.
I want to stretch each and every comfort zone I have until it is near unrecognizable.

I don’t want to be a completely different person – I don’t plan on creating some sort of evil twin or alter ego, a la Ziggy Stardust, but I want to become completely myself.

I want to tap every reservoir of creativity I have.
I want to step outside the self imposed cell and throw away the key.

And that’s going to take some major bravery and some major craziness.

I hope for the opportunity, and I pray for the courage.
I hope you’ll stay tuned for the journey and enjoy the stories.

Another interesting side note, regarding Michael Stipe and REM.

I bought the new “REM Live” double CD and DVD about a week ago. I ran into Target, bought it, scurried home, screeched to a halt in my driveway, threw the DVD into the player and started watching.

It is, of course, wonderful.
I haven’t seen REM in an official concert since 1985, their tour for “Reckoning”; when Stipe, hiding behind his wild hair, would mumble into the microphone and Buck and Mills would spin around the stage like Dervishes, occasionally adding sweet harmony to the lyrics.

But now it’s 2007, over twenty years have passed and things have changed a bit.
The stage is bigger, the crowds larger, the tickets more expensive. Stipe has shaved his head and Peter and Mike tend to stay a bit more stationary, but the magic is still there. The DVD is a treat for any REM or live music fan.

I was sitting on the couch, singing along with my favorite songs, and then I saw it.
At Stipe’s feet, it was dark but surrounded by the glow thrown by the screen.

On the screen, scrolling words.
Lyrics.

Michael Stipe was using a teleprompter.

I was crushed.

Now I know that everyone uses one, and it’s probably there more as a “Read Here In Case of Lyrical Memory Loss” kind of thing, but I was still kind of heartbroken.

And then I decided to figure out why.

Here’s a few of my thoughts on the matter:

There should be no pedestals, only admiration. Too often, we put musicians, athletes, writers, actors – anyone we deem ‘creative’ up on a pedestal. And then we also have made it an equally deviant practice of knocking them off that pedestal as quickly as we put them up there.
I would say that they should not be up there to begin with. To place them up there would be to put them above you, as if they were some magically gifted creator, divinely touched by God or Spirit, given something that you do not have.

This is wrong.
You are a creative genius, whether you realize it or not. We are all creative, we are all capable of great work. It may not be music, it may not be writing, it may not be film. But it might be a million other things. Web design. Customer service. Cooking. Healing.
We are all necessary in this great dance. We all have our parts to play and we are all equally important. Perhaps it is others – the media, the marketers, the salespeople – who have encouraged this idea of a pedestal, when in fact, each of us are equal, each of us is valuable, each of us is necessary. Creativity is not limited to the artist.

Realize that we are all human. This riffs off number one above, but bears repeating. No one is better than any of us. We all have the unique gifts given to us at birth. It is part of our journey to discover those gifts and it is the whole of our journey to use them to benefit others. Michael Stipe and the rest of the band realized that they wanted to sing songs and play shows.
They set about doing so.
It is the marketers, the record labels, the so-called critics, who encouraged us to dust off the imaginary pedestals and place them upon it, when actually, all Stipe and company wanted us to do was listen. And enjoy.

Enjoy the illusion, but realize that it is exactly that. Of course it was ridiculous of me to imagine that Stipe, having written hundreds of songs for a dozen or so albums, would have each and everyone word, every lyric, every song, etched into his memory, available via instant recall, on a moment’s notice, to sing for us and 50,000 of our closest friends at a nearby stadium.

But I did think that, and I was disappointed, due to the above fallacies that I’d fallen for.
Using a teleprompter isn’t a crime.
The crime is all between my ears.
I placed that burden and label of ‘creative genius’ on Stipe, and it is up to me to remove it.
Remove the burden and the machine becomes just that – another piece of equipment on the stage. No more threatening than a microphone. No more of a betrayal than an amplifier.

Once I bring Stipe back to earth, remove him from that pedestal of my own creation, and allow him to be fully human, fully flawed, fully alive, do I regain the pure, natural enjoyment from hearing a man sing his own individual and unique song.

Find your own song.
Sing it loud.
Share it with others.
And don’t be afraid to ask for help, even if it is a teleprompter.