It wasn’t video that killed the radio star. It was shitty taste on the part of the average listener.

There was an interview that I read some years ago. I think it was Billy Corgan, but it might have been Marilyn Manson or some other alt-rock media darling.  There was a big discussion of how his music and lyrics were all wrapped up an a heavy sauce of angst and depression — maybe it was fried in a batter of gloom and despair.  I can’t remember for certain.

Regardless, the question was posed as to whether he had considered therapy, or medication, or somesuch, and his answer was an unequivocal “no.”  As he saw it, without the inner mounting turmoil, there was no creative drive for his music, and so his career would be over, and he’d have to go in search of whatever work once-famous rockstars can find, not to mention giving up hope on that once-and-future relationship with Courtney Love.

Of course, it was shortly after this that Smashing Pumpkins broke up, Zwan was met with a resounding clap (yep, just one), and he hooked up with Love at last.  So maybe therapy was something he should have considered, after all.

I used to give strong support to this theory, that creativity is somehow directly tied to a sense of misery of some sort. Just about every rockstar worth a damn has done their best work when high — and everyone knows that drug use is just a way to escape negative feelings.  All the best authors are disturbed and sad.  The best movies come from starving and struggling writers and directors, and once the money starts rushing in, the work starts to suck — helloooooooooo, Mr. Lucas.

And now I’m playing the unscientist, refusing to believe my own theory in spite of new and indisputable evidence.  See, I used to push this theory because I’m bipolar — and hey, if I’m that full of potential misery, then I should at least get fame, fortune, and a shot at an incurable STD out of it.

Point of fact, though, is that some (all) of my best creative work came in times of the heaviest depressions.  Music, screenplays… they were all inspired by being down.  And the stuff that comes out when I’m up and happy and really enjoying life — what little of it that isn’t drowning in a tar-like pool of cheese is just flat, uninspired at best and unintelligble at worst.

Of course, when you’re happy, there are better things to do than work to put your feelings down in some time-trapped format.  Like enjoying life, for instance.  And when you’re down, and really revelling in the feeling of hopelessness, convinced that the sun will never rise again except to shine a spotlight on the misery that is you, what better to do than try and exorcise those demons onto paper or canvas or film?

If you’re faced with the choice of being happy or being creative, which path would you take? Not to say that I’ve found a cure for bipolar disorder, or that everything in my life is peachy keen, or that I even have a real decision to make here. But let’s say — for the sake of wrapping this little piece up neatly — that I had to choose between writing and creating good stories and music for the rest of my life, or being really happy wasting time with CL.  One or the other, no middle ground.

Hell, I’m told old for the music business anyway, and all the writers and filmmakers that I like started losing it the minute they became successful, anyway.