Stardom

Make no mistake. I could have been bigger than The Beatles.

Who were in turn, as John Lennon said, bigger than Jesus*.

Way bigger than Bowie, who filled space on albums sometimes just to fill space (on Albums). I wouldn't do that to you. I'm way bigger than that. Like an iceberg, though.

As a kid I would do things; anything; and folk would say, "Hey, you could be doing THAT!", which was by some internal extrapolation, supposed to entice me along a path of their collective choosing, or some shit. In other words; fame.

Oh hey! Bowie did a song about that. Or was that fashion? I forget …

It just kept coming for me. Whatever I did people wanted to applaud, then share, then more applause and you get the picture. I DO NOT WANT THIS***.

Everyone first assumes that others share their values, I suppose. And that's when most people are opening their mouths, speaking; so that's what you get. When was the last time you got a letter along the lines of...

Dear <You>,

When we last spoke, at <whenever event>, I said that maybe you should <insert any damned thing> but I realise now that I was so very wrong.

That's just what *I* would do! I totally respect that you are not me and you should do whatever you damned well like, regardless of how it rubs against my sensibilities.

I'm so sorry. You go!

Or a text. Or call. Or them saying something like that to your actual face?

You may argue; hey! religious types don't admit they are wrong because they totally believe they are right. That's how powerful belief is! Or, Hey! Scientists are always admitting they are wrong and moving with the data. That's how fucking groovy scientists are.

I don't dispute either of these facts, but instead steer you around to this simple reality:

I am not you.

Yes, the whole universe is within a drop of water and DNA continually contains your entirety and beyond and we share those bonds, BUT: I AM NOT YOU.

The lack of decent basic philosophy in "developed world" school is criminal (look it up). I think of all the children who struggle to think, and it brings me to tears. There is a lot to consider this century. You would think they would equip the youth. Nope.

Instead they devote time to Mindfulness bullshit multi-faith appreciation. WTF! You can't appreciate *anything* until you get your head straight. Childhood is about that. THEN you get to dig the diversity4.

I don't practice religion. At least, I don't practice *your* religion. Whatever it is. On this subject I have firm beliefs, built from a lifetime of real experience. But in my parenting I have one goal: Keep them an open mind.

I hope my kids are smarter than me. One DEFINITELY is! Good. They can pick up on where my feeble brain leaves off. But not by my training. I do basics; logic, language, physics, math. I don't mess with advanced topics unless it's a by-product of some natural wonder; of which there are daily many.

Note I say, I "try". My own perspective is woven into every word, so I don't imagine them immune from the me of it. But I hope that when I'm done there's balance. For sure; when I notice myself focusing along a line or veering into propaganda, I make the opportunity to attempt a balancing myself; presenting an opposite view; nomatter how ridiculous.

Everyone fucks up their kids. It's a question of how much and in what way. Good parents try to minimize the damage. Even reverse it, while there's time for quick reversals.

Do you really want to be famous? A good question to ask yourself before you hop along that path.

Even better to be the sort of person who *should* have been famous5. You walk along the street at night and random folks call you out, point at you, hug you, but actually don't know you. So long as there's free booze and Dube and the rest, how can you complain? You also get that with fame. x 10. But are these the most important things to you?

Before diving into anything, it's definitely worth considering *all* the possibilities. Fame sounds good. But few are truly up for it. Riches is great; if you do it ethically and under the radar. In this world absolutely anything is possible for any individual. What you want; there is already a manual. But what do you actually want?

In the dramas in my mind, the eventualities and possibilities of things (with children on-board), I weighed up easy jet travel, scuba-diving, great seats at restaurants, constant adoration from anyone withing six feet, and the rest, with; well, basically what I have right now. And for the totally stupid; I got exactly what I wanted.

Restaurants are okay if you have to, but I much prefer to actually cook. There's always jobs for the kids, which are a hoot; ALSO trains them in cooking; which is 100% essential training. Also(3), I'm one of the world's finest chefs. Fact. Ask anyone who's ever dined with me. Ever. I don't need fame, or a TV show or a book or any of that shit. I just want to see the look on my kid's face when their taste buds kick in. Isn't that enough? If not, something else is lacking.

And I know exactly what it feels like to have thousands of people clapping and screaming and crying at you. It's pretty magical, and crazy addictive. But that doesn't mean I want to do it again and again AND AGAIN. I did it. There's more.

This is a fucking crazy world. You can believe and scheme and make any shit happen. And now it's all digital, well, same but with £B attached.

I remember our IRC chatroom back in the day. We would challenge each other to get to the top of Google. If you took a week, you were basically shit-canned. We created shit that you consider standard. Dicks would drop in for advice, which they got, and now they run multi-billion dollar companies. But they are still dicks. And mostly not happy people. Especially Elon. Word.

Things have changed. You can move millions of people to do a stupid thing in minutes. You can't keep up with tech. Stop trying. Never forget: location. Location. LOCATION. Watch where these dicks are POSITIONING themselves right now. This will give you an idea about where they are going. Hint: it's not in your best interests.

So now I'm thinking it might not have been such a bad idea to be bigger than the beatles. At least then I could have thrown a heavy spike into the works. You see the works, right?

No? Och well. We are most definitely fucked.

Unless what's-her-face, hold it's coming, Katie, Kate something. Wait. One second. Erm. Oh Shit! It's on the tip of my tongue. Price! No Spears! No!Nonono wait. ah. eh. HA! RIGHT! WE ARE FUCKED!!!!!!!

Unless Taylor Swift does something about it.

;o)