You Said Irony Was The Shackles Of Youth
If I could assume credit for making one movie, I think it would be Lost in Translation. I've never actually seen that movie and I've heard very mixed things about it even though it was beloved by critics, so it's not about having my named attached to a sure-fire high-quality product. It would be more about being Sofia Coppolla. She had a lot to answer for after she single-handedly ruined The Godfather, Part III, so having something to her/my credit that (for better or worse) established a reputation based on ability other than a lack of screen chemistry with Andy Garcia would be a huge, huge relief. And then past that, right now she/I would be in a great position to do just about whatever she/I wanted, reveling in that insane sort of carte blanche that artists get when the thing they did last time was almost universally praised within industry circles. Plus there'd be no pressure because if she/I failed on the next thing, we could always retreat to our solid, solid fall-back position of being the offspring of someone who has a shitload of money. And I would have gotten to hang out with Bill Murray in Tokyo for a couple of months.

If I could assume credit for having written one book, I think it would have to be The Da Vinci Code. Now this one I have experienced first hand. I really, really hated it. It's the longest fiction book I've ever read that has no characters in it whatsoever. There are people with names and jobs and hands to hold things and feet to run away from giant albinos with, but they never threaten to break out into something as complicated as personalities in any of the book's 100+ chapters. The reason I would have chosen this one is because a) I will have written an international best-seller apparently without having tried very hard and b) the person in my life with a shitload of money would be me. Then I could finally build my house out of gold with stained-glass windows made out of cut gems, two giant marble fountains (one for chocolate milk, one for champagne) and a dog. Not one of those cheap humane society mongrels either, I mean a purebreed dog. It doesn't matter really which kind of dog; the point would be that I would have so much money that I would have time to give a shit who my dog's parents were. That's rich.

If I could assume credit for having written/performed/recorded one song, I think it would be "Star 69" by REM. I would want that one because it's just the right mix of poppy verse-chorus-verse easy-going-ness while still all crunchy guitar-driven up-tempo. That's the commercial side. On the artistic-credibility side, I would be very happy with the fact that nobody in the world knows what the words to the song are because they're all Michael Stipe mumbly gibberish brought to vivid life in his inimitable underwater mush-mouth style. See, because nobody respects you in the music business unless a certain segment of the population has no fucking idea what you're talking about. That way people can fill in their own meanings and interpretations, ironically making a wall of incomprehensible sound and noise "accessible" to a mainstream audience. Plus I just wanted to mention it because Monster is a really good album that people don't talk about enough. And no, not because it happened to be the last thing I listened to yesterday.

If I were an 11-year-old girl, I would make a lot more lists just like this one.

I have big dreams. I want fame. But fame costs. And right here is where I start paying... in other people's sweat.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.5


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 9:35 AM