I don’t think Edie really ever understood what we were doing. I don’t think she really grasped the higher purpose. She should have seen that Warhol was her benefactor. That we weren’t making the films for money, we were making them for posterity.
Ondine, Factory Superstar.
What I need, not most of all – for there are a lot of things I need – but let us say one of my concerns is to find a competent, empathetic soul who will fulfill within my life the role of mentor. Where is my Tony Wilson? Where is my Slim Moon? Where is my James Murphy? Where, God forgive me, is my Alan McGee, my Freddie de Mann, my Malcolm McLaren, Albert Grossman, my Brian Epstein? Where is my John Peel? Where is my Terri Hooley? Oh, wait, here he is. Fabulous!
Plato had his symposium, Jesus has his disciples, Bernie Rhodes had the Clash. I want to learn and I want to get better at being an artist. And I want answers. I want someone to explain to me what the title sequence of Bergman’s Persona actually means, how Game Theory relates to late twentieth century Capitalist economy, what the academic world really thinks of Camille Paglia, if it’s ok to listen to The Grateful Dead, whether I should stay in Belfast or move back to London, how to really love a man. Perhaps it is about self -confidence. I want someone to confirm what I already know. But you can’t pursue a mentor, like Courtney Love pursued Rodney Bingenheimer or Julian Cope. No, the mentor must choose you, be so utterly moved by your youth and uninitiated, raw creativity that he volunteers himself to your improvement. He sees in his protégé‘s eager face a purity, that which was once his own, and his benevolent heart is fat with pastoral kindness and the urge to protect, tutor and encourage with the aim first of making a lot of money, and then of jettisoning you both forth into history, your stories forever intertwined in mythic consequence. My preference being the second of the two outcomes, naturally.
Johnny Marr was Morrissey’s mentor. It was he, armed with Rickenbacker and killer quiff, who hunted Steven Morrissey down to the provincial back box bedroom, of which he was, at 24 and unemployed, very much a casualty. Marr made the perpetual wallflower seize his adolescent dream, hew it into glorious reality and become what he really wanted to be. A pop star. It took just under 12 months. Morrissey could never have done this alone.
Morrissey’s co-dependence on Marr. I think about it often. So intense; it is little wonder Morrissey never forgave Marr for leaving the Smiths. Yes, I’m unlovable admitted Morrissey, but if you leave, I won’t function at all, you know that. I’m your responsibility, you brought me here! Morrissey, still damaged by the trauma of severance, will spend the rest of his life trying to get over it. As one who prizes loyalty the utmost of all characteristics in a friend and who can also bear more of grudge than a lonely high-court judge, I can guarantee that despite reports [8] of offers topping 75 million dollars, the Smiths will never, ever re-form.
You have to understand what we’re trying to do here. We’re giving our selves away. It’s philanthropy, if you will. When I meet a rich person, that is, someone richer than I, I expect them to, in material terms, pay for everything. I take a panoptic view, not that I am encroaching upon their goodwill, but that I am a conduit, and through me, they can redress the balance, because surely we all know that the rich feel guilt, especially the white rich, especially the white rich who have come upon their money not through merit, i.e. by contributing to society, being they who are doctors, human rights attorneys perhaps, but those who have cheated the meritocracy and have gotten rich merely through climbing the corporate ladder, middle management, advertising, sugar-puff jobs in the media. Like that scene in Clerks with the anguished guidance councilor looking for the perfect dozen eggs. It is important to one’s mental health to find employment in a job worth doing. If you don’t, you will feel like a fraud, and the money will only make you feel worse. So if I take the rich white money, I spake as Patti Smith once did, this is, after all, The West. I say: I Am An American Artist and I Have No Guilt. I’m just redistributing the wealth. Remember Voltaire: The comfort of the rich depends on endless supply of the poor. If you work for less than you’re worth, and I do, you are giving to them, they owe you. We are The Real Philanthropists. So when it comes to dinner invitations – both literal and metaphorical, because as an artist, you’ll have to ‘deal’ with these people – order the most expensive thing on the menu, even if you aren’t hungry. Then do them the favour of letting them pick up the cheque.
For those of you who recognise Barbara Ehrenreich in the previous paragraph I commend you. She is my imaginary mentor at the moment.