Elvis - morality/artistry

Pretty self-explanatory
johnfoyle
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Elvis - morality/artistry

Post by johnfoyle »

Maybe I`ve had a few glasses of wine too many this
evening but these two quotes just keep batting around
my brain -


http://argument.independent.co.uk/regul ... ory=449454

Thomas Sutcliffe writes -

Just five pages into Robert Hughes' new biography of
Goya, the reader will come across this sentence:
"Artists are rarely moral heroes and should not be
expected to be, any more than plumbers or dog-breeders
are." This is fairly characteristic Hughes stuff - it
carries the suggestion, both exhilarating and mildly
comic, that there's nothing he'd like more than to
have a bit of a ruck with you.
------------------------------------------------------

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 85,00.html

So just who does Costello think he is? “I’m an artist.
That’s what I do and it makes you selfish and
self-absorbed and I have absolutely no embarrassment
about that. People say I’m self-indulgent. Well of
course. That’s because I’m an artist.”

Anyone else have thoughts on the this?
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LessThanZero
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Post by LessThanZero »

JF, Elvis wasn't too happy when Bruce wrote his self-absorbed book. Maybe he's saying Bruce isn't an artist?
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Post by bobster »

I think he's talking more about his professional life more than his personal life. (The "selfishness" refers to those who've been tasking him to task for not being political this time around.)

Personally, "self-indulgent" is just a lazy way of saying you don't like something that seems autobiographical or adventurous and its pretty much without meaning.
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Post by PlaythingOrPet »

It's not morals, being selfish is survival of the fittest -- pure evolution. Then again ethical egoism is a moral theory, isn't it? :?. Elvis says he's "selfish", "self-absorbed" and "self-indulgent". Of course he is! He doesn't give a shit about what is deemed to be "right" and "wrong" in his line of work, he's always acting in his own interest. My brother-in-law is a moral philosopher at Reading Uni - he'd know what it's all about :lol: .
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Post by lapinsjolis »

There is no excuse for cruelty on any level. If you have the advantage of talent and intellect there is an added responsibility to self and others. But human frailty is the curse of us all and we fail but we should never give in or make it a path we take. I suppose having your weaknesses on display tends to make you defiant and indignant. I hope self-absorption and self-preservation aren't getting mixed up but perhaps that's the trouble.
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Post by bambooneedle »

Allow me to be 'self-indulgent' and ponder artistry etc...


Selfish...

"selfish and self-absorbed' needn't necessarily mean someone else's unhappiness... even if it's an all-encompassing attitude (towards a life and work). And it might not be chronic...

"I'm an artist" and artistry...

An assertion of self-confidence (by EC). It would be hard to do if the assertion is generally easily 'contradicted' by a lot of opposing opinion. So he's staking a claim, engaging in some self promotion in defiance of the uninformed and anyone else who can't really say he's not.


Self-Indulgence...

An 'artist' can turn their 'self-indulgence' into 'something' (of value), and therefore justify it to themselves. And were each are the judge of what is an 'artist', or 'something', and of what type of self-indulgence.

Robert Hughes wrote:"Artists are rarely moral heroes and should not be expected to be, any more than plumbers or dog-breeders are."
At the end of the day artists do what they do predominantly for themselves... not excluding allowing for illusions to the contrary; 'hero' may be projected on to them, same as it might be on a plumber or on anyone else. Those expectations belong to someone else...
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Post by lapinsjolis »

You must concur that temptations are increased with talent and/or celebrity. Everyone has a responsibility to behave and consider others but it's heightened when you have a louder voice because of fame. Some celebrities are very dim and yet we, bidden and unbidden, hear their views on every subject.

I would love moral excellence from everyone most of all from myself. Everyone has something to admire and there is heroism in most but perfection is rare and virtue little valued in any age. Sadly not everyone has the sense to be able to think for themselves and look to people who have no other quality or advantage than fame.
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Post by bambooneedle »

Hi LJ. Are you saying that artists should try to be moral exemplars?
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Post by lapinsjolis »

Hello Bambooneedle. Off topic : When an Australian comments on 'your glow' is it a good thing?

Artists are whatever they wish. All I ask is that they are honest about their impact and don't simply say they aren't role models as if that casts off responsibilty. To blame creativity for amoral or boorish behavior is very silly. I wish they lived up to the highest standards they'd get in less trouble and maybe the checkouts at the grocery stores would have decent magazines.
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A rope leash
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Asshole artists

Post by A rope leash »

If I may...

When Elvis says he's an "artist", he's saying that he is a professional "artist", as opposed to some hack poet such as myself, who might say he's an artist and might well be an artist, but really he climbs a ladder most of the time, and is known for that. Since this is the case, Elvis is a certain sort of artist that is highly celebrated, and his selfishness and self-indulgence are part of the trap, expected even, if only as a consequence of an accquired narcicism.

As far as "artist" being role models, I'd say there are few who fit the bill. That is, if you're looking for a clean-living role model. It's the whole Johnny Cash good-bad thing, that sends the artist out looking for trouble as fodder for future works. Thus, we have artists involved in all sorts of debauchery, and frequently these are escapades of the sex and drug nature, leading to broken relationships and perhaps addictions that enhance or taint the artists work, depending on the perception.

Sometimes, these self-indulgent and self-destructive inclinations are set upon with deliberate intent, my favorite case being that of Lucinda Williams, who sings and writes as if she has had a hard life of emotional heartache, but she is actually the daughter of a college professor who had every opportunity to be successful and stable, but lowered herself down to experience the immoral side of life in order to be able to compose in an educated way.

In the end, their art is their redemption. They can say, "Yes, I was hell-bent on destroying my powers of concentration, but look at what I created from it!"

I say that all the time.

In an amateurish way.

Now, name 5ive artist of any kind that lead lives of a relatively moral nature.
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lapinsjolis
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Post by lapinsjolis »

Guido di Pietro
Flannery O' Connor
Alec Guinness
C.S. Lewis
G.K. Chesterton
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Post by bobster »

/That last part is easy.

But first my brief (I hope) take on the matter. I basically agree with the Hughes quote. I.e., being an artist really should have np bearing on personal morality -- but with the qualifier that just being a human being should have an enormous bearing on it.

Yes, fame does bring temptations. No doubt the relatively huge numbers of celebrity divorces is partly due to the fact that it's not exactly easy for the human male to walk away from the sort of offers that -- fortunately for the stability of most marriages -- usually just don't happen outside the pages of Penthouse forum, etc. Even if they're able to withstand that temptation, there's always the thought that, if the current relationship isn't working, finding a new one won't be too difficult.

There's also the temptation that comes with power, being an employer, etc. that people like Elvis must face on a pretty daily basis.

Still, there are many full fledged (at least in my opinions) artists who are, by most/all accounts more than decent people. In the next post, I'm going to list as many as I can think, maybe later we can think about what similarities they may share. Now, this does not mean they're plaster saints or perfect, just that on the whole they've left or are leaving this world a better place than they found it -- NOT counting they're creative contributions.
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A rope leash
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High celebrity

Post by A rope leash »

Yes, there are many artists who have led moral lives. William Blake comes to mind, if you take a religious life as a moral one, and anyway he lived many years ago. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a highly celebrated pop star that fits the category. Uh, hmmm...Pat Boone?

Money and fame are corrupting influences, but, on the other hand, not experiencing the raw side of life when the opportunity presents itself means that that part of life will never be lived, and therefore cannot be fashioned into art. It must be hard enough for an elite, wealthy rock and roll musican to be treated seriously as an artist. Has Elvis ever REALLY suffered? Perhaps his talent is in feeling the pain of others.

Hey, isn't Mel Gibson some kind of bishop or something?
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Post by bobster »

By the way, forgot to say hi to my old pal Lapinsjolie! Good to hear your moral musings!

Okay, here's the list.

I'm not talking ordinary good, there are tons of folks who are probably very nice and doing lots of good things I don't know about. These are the just ones who are, while not neccessarily saints, are sort of super-mensches who overall seem to be leaving this world a better place than they left it. Also, not all of them are neccessarily great artists

And, yes, cartoonists and left-leaners seem to be over-represented, for some reason....

Charles Schulz
Will Eisner
Susan Sarandon
Tom Hanks
Alfre Wodard
Sergio Aragones
Johny Cash
Dolly Parton
Martin Sheen
Cameron Crowe
Curtis Hanson
Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner (being neurotic is not a disqualifier!)
David Lynch
Nicholas Roeg
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Post by lapinsjolis »

OLD friend?!? RATS! You turn 30 and lose all your girlish charm. Hi to you Bobster.

The request was five but I can come up with more if the situation becomes dire. Why some of my favorite poetry comes from plaster saints that suffered! Instead I'll put my two cents in about 'North' and leave the moral lists to you capable board members:

A modern master in old fashioned clothes, brilliant. I thought it would be perfect seduction music. I'm doubting it after reading A Rope Leash's assessment where the 'North'+ a bed=a nap.

Great record in my opinion, glad to spend some time with some of those who feel the same. I live in in an Elvis wilderness! :(
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A rope leash
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Northenol

Post by A rope leash »

North is like a cloud, a soft, gorgeously painted cloud, that slowly comes closer, and hovers above like a holy apparition, gleaming, soothing, cuddling - mesmerising you as it wraps itself about your every crevice, and gasses you!
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Re: Northenol

Post by SweetPear »

A rope leash wrote:North is like a cloud, a soft, gorgeously painted cloud, that slowly comes closer, and hovers above like a holy apparition, gleaming, soothing, cuddling - mesmerising you as it wraps itself about your every crevice, and gasses you!
Oh Rope, I like that! I do believe you've captured the true essence of North.
:D
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Post by SweetPear »

bobster wrote: But first my brief (I hope) take on the matter. I basically agree with the Hughes quote. i.e., being an artist really should have no bearing on personal morality -- but with the qualifier that just being a human being should have an enormous bearing on it.
Yes, fame does bring temptations.....There's also the temptation that comes with power, being an employer, etc. that people like Elvis must face on a pretty daily basis.
Still, there are many full fledged (at least in my opinions) artists who are, by most/all accounts more than decent people..... Now, this does not mean they're plaster saints or perfect, just that on the whole they've left or are leaving this world a better place than they found it -- NOT counting they're creative contributions.
I agree with Bobsters comments here (I did edit them a bit but did not change the content, only deleted some sentences) and would add that "suffering" whether self-induced or otherwise, is no excuse for casting off responsibility or being morally corrupt. Somehow alot of artists feel that they must have "experienced" a certain level of existance to have any credibility as a "true" artist, which unfortunately, seems to include alot of morally questionable and self-indulgent behavior. It may possibly be that for one to sincerely "understand" something from another veiwpoint, that one must immerse ones self in that situation, but I don't necessarily believe that to be true. There are plenty of artists who have come from such places without deliberately seeking them out (poverty) or artificially inducing them (drug use), and have been able to draw from those experiences. So I don't believe that appearing " selfish and self-absorbed have to mean someone else's unhappiness."
I'm sure there are many who feel that their creativity depends upon as many experiences as possible and will sacrifice anyone or anything in the process truely believing that "in the end their art is their redemption." That is a total excuse!
Ultimately, I think artists do what they do to please themselves (unless you're Brittney Spears!) and whether intended or welcomed, they are put on a pedestal. Should that excuse them from being human? No.
But it is one of the traps/sacrifices of fame which I'm sure is not easily dealt with. But it's also not an excuse.
I'm not angry anymore....
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Post by bambooneedle »

lapinsjolis wrote:Hello Bambooneedle. Off topic : When an Australian comments on 'your glow' is it a good thing?
As I've heard it used, it could mean either that someone is radiant or, euphemistically, that someone is sweating a lot, "Oh, look at her, she's starting to glow!"

Exactly what EC meant calling himself selfish and self-absorbed, who knows.. And compared to who? It seems like just a line designed to make such a criticism redundant.
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Immorality

Post by A rope leash »

Thank you for the kind words, Sweet P.

As far as writing goes, I do not beleive that one can write sincerely about anything that has not been experienced directly. If one does not participate, then one can only "report" observations as a witness. That begs the question: How does one witness wild sex and drug abuse? The answer is: One normally does not without also participating. While it might be it's own excuse, as it appies to the Rock and Roll genre, it may also be a requirement.

Bobster - I don't see any heavy-hitting rockers on your list. As far as Johnny Cash goes, we all know that he participated. The fact that he eventually repented does not mean it never happened. I also have my doubts that Sarandon and Sheen have led lives of total moral elevation.

Isn't it obvious? If you've never smoked a joint, you don't know shit about it...

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Post by miss buenos aires »

Rope, are you saying that drug use is immoral?
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Post by pip_52 »

They say you can only write about things you know, but it doesnt necessarily mean to "know" things only through direct personal experience. If that was the case, then a lot of certain kinds of books, like history books for example, would never be able to be written. A person can write with knowledge about smoking a joint even if theyve never smoked one, if they talk to enough people who have and do enough other research. It may not be authentic, but if they research it well enough and are a decent writer, they could make it sound authentic, and unless people knew otherwise, they probably wouldnt be able to tell.

Elvis said somewhere (VH1 Storytellers maybe?) that when he wrote the songs for My Aim Is True he had never met anybody with "a ten-inch bamboo cigarette holder and black patent leather gloves," but a year later he had . . .


I was going to nominate Greg Proops as living a "relatively moral" existence . . . but if drug use is immoral, then I guess I wont. Is it?
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Yes

Post by A rope leash »

One can write accurately about something never directly experienced, but not sincerely.

The immorality has to do with seeking pleasures of the flesh, same as extramarital sex or even masturbation. If we aren't talking about traditional religious morality, are we then talking about some sort of universal morality? What would that be? All morality is relative to the individual.

My own compass would say that promiscious sex is not immoral, just undignified. Group sex edges on social degradation, and is probably immoral.

I don't think that drug use is immoral, but I do believe that if a person has an addiction that is causing a threat to others, then they need to do everything they can to knock it off, because continuing as an addict because it is "enjoyable" is a complete moral failure.

I'm talking to you drunkards out there, and to Mama smoking her cigarette.

When a soldier kills, does he go to Hell for it? Killing is an immorality I think we can all agree on...is a soldier innocent?
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Post by firebetty »

he's acting innocent and proud still you know what he's after

how do you judge authenticity?
how do you judge someone elses suffering? pain? sincerity?
do you judge them based on the person's means?
are street kids not considered homeless if they have parents who live in a house- a place to go back to. are they not homeless enough?

isn't there a universality to that crap? isn't that why books are read. records bought. paintings cried for.

rope,
you must not be a fan of the strokes. (that is a joke) or rebel without a cause. or the surreal. isn't the surreal of questionable origin yet sincer?

jesus, i rue the day i relate to winona ryder, but i cannot deny it happend.
in a W magazine from at least a year ago Winona Ryder talks about how crushed she was to find out that everyone else has read Catcher in the Rye, and they all felt like soul mates with Holden Cawfield too.
( gilli, was it you i mention this to you before?). Pain, confusion, and suffering feel down and out and all alone, but they are apart of the human condition. it seems you can't avoid them even if you can a$$ord to.


lj, "I live in in an Elvis wilderness!" is a beauty.
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Post by bobster »

I'm going to try to respond to a few points here, but I'm sorry if I fail to mention just who said what. I'm trying to do this quickly so just to clarify my point.

To whoever sort of doubted my list because a lot (though not all) of the folks on it had obviously partied to the point of egregiousness in their day.

My personal definition of morality really just boils down to the golden rule. In my opinion, sex is only immoral if someone else is being hurt by it. (It may be inadvisable for all kinds of other reasons, but that's a different matter.)

Even group sex -- while not something I've actually come...I mean stumbled...across -- is only a "bad" thing because (the psychologists and logic tell us) it ruins long term relationships and (logic tells us) might up the odds of transmitting the STDs. So, if there's no serious relationship on anyone's part and everyone's doing the right stuff to avoid disease, I'm not sure I can call it immoral in any way other than in a very personal and hard to categorize or religious sense.

And can any of us cast stones upon Cameron Crowe because he was deflowered by three, instead of one, groupie? Should have cast two of them out, even as he was living just about every hetero guys fantasy? Does this make him any less a nice person? (If you're buying into one of the big 3 religions it might make him less "good", but since I don't, I'm not factoring that in here.) Even Arnold's story notorious Gold's Gym tale, while gross and not exactly my idea of a good time, doesn't fit my idea of immorality, assuming it was all consensual.

I put Crowe on the list because he has done lots of good for the movie, not just by making good movies, but by helping Billy Wilder in his final days get before a new audience combined with a pretty sterling reputation around town, had lent his support to a few causes and seems like a genuinely good hearted, down to earth guy who knows he's tremendously lucky and appreciates it. (His wife, Nancy Wilson, of "Heart," has a similar rep. If I heard they got divorced, I'd be crushed!)

As far as drugs go, I think our society has made a tremendous mistake by turning it into a moral issue. A drug is nothing more than a chemical and is neither "good" nor "evil." Of course, there are moral issues involved. (I.e., I think we can all agree it's imoral to sell crack to school kids.) However, as far as personal use is involved, morality is only an issue if what you're doing causes you to hurt others or not live up to your responsibilities.

Johnny Cash is obviously a more extreme case than Cameron Crowe. Sure, he did lots of sinning and certainly hurt some people early on. (Don't know all the details but, as per Sarah Vowell, he and June Carter were both married to other people when they first met.)

In fact, if JC had died younger, he probably wouldn't have been on my list. But the man who I kept reading about in his older years was something of a mountain of integrity and kindness and was involved in all sorts of good causes while being nice to people along the way. I don't believe in judging people (if we judge them at all) by their worst acts -- especially when their main victim was themselves.

But yeah, not many rockers on my list. It's partly lack of knowledge. I'd like to put, say, Nick Lowe, but I just don't know enough one way or the other, except that he seems like the coolest guy on the block. I'm sure there's tons. EC may still yet be a candidate if he does some philanthropy and doesn't go all Woody Allen in his later years. Bruce Springsteen maybe too and I'm sure plenty of others.

The real point of all this is mainly this: there's no excuse for bad behavior and it is perfectly possible to be both a good artist and a good human. (And damn me for not thinking of Paul Newman as another example....)

Also re: whether it's essential to experience things to write about them.

My personal opinion is that the emotional connection to whatever the artist is imaging is FAR more important. Having actually experienced something is probably the easiest way (hence the suggestion to "write what you know") but it's far from the only way.

"Imagination is a powerful deceiver", and art is a form of deception.

I mean, how many murder and crime writers have actually particpated in murder and crime? (A couple, though not neccessarily the best.) How many science fiction writers have been in a spaceship? Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote really fun books about Africa without even bothering to do enough research to find out that there were no tigers there!

Alfred Hitchcock made some of the sexiest movies in film history but claimed to be impotent or asexual for most of his life. (Regardless, it seems clear he wasn't having very much sex and definitely not with his wife after the birth of Pat Hitchcock.) And, if course, as he'd often admit, if he'd ever been near a real murder he would have run for his life.

Whoever he actually was, it's safe to say that Shakespeare was not high royalty, a soldier, a politician, a woman, a Moor, a Jew, a demigod or goddess, etc., yet he created great characters who were all of these and more.

Of course, autobiography finds its way into every genre, but it's rarely as simple as going out and doing things just so you can "create" about them.
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