Heroes + Hyphenates (11.14.07 - 2:49 am)
Posted
in
Johnny Rotten
on
11/16/2007 2:00:00 PM by
Rob Barnett
The new Dylan is here. This one hasn't learned to play guitar, harmonica, bust a rhyme, or carry a tune yet. ("I know what you're thinking.") This one just woke us up - screaming his lungs out.....for baby formula. He + his sister Jessie are about 26 days old this morning. It's getting really hard to count that high on no sleep. But Dylan's primal screams made me think of an old Rotten line: "anger is an energy."
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq7utK6iyV4]
Johnny Rotten was the single most influential co-con of the past ten years. At VH1, we coaxed him out of his ramshackle castle to create + host "Rotten TV." Most of my heroes have an innate sense of how to use anger against all things hypocritical. My heroes all tend to be intense hyphenate-aholics. They can wake + bake up a day that includes aspects of most of the following pursuits all at once:
- a new album
- published writings
- a film (on all formats)
- television
- concert or stage performance
- radio
The truly possessed are now waking up to newfound freedoms in NewMediaLand and adding their own, original webworks to the weekly mix of mass communication.
Most of us mortals would consider just one successful hit song or major motion picture to be a happy ending to a lifelong show business dream.
But the stars I've been chasing for years all seem to be able to cook up a near perfect storm with four or five dishes in the oven at the same time.
What have these hyphenate heroes got - dat we ain't got? How much passion + will power does it take to keep pushing pebbles up a mountain? The mountains are often as slippery as slime. Snake oil rolls down from the peak and covers you in stench and goo. But you keep climbing. You're punk in spirit. You're too smart to be stopped by false hearts. This is a sleepless salute to heroes and hyphenates who refuse to stop entertaining n' communicating:
Johnny Rotten
Harry Shearer
Don Was
David Wain
Andy Milonakis
Jimmy Kimmel
Little Steven
Penn Jillette
Adam Carolla
Howard Stern
Shawn Fanning
Bruce Springsteen
U2
George Harrison
Martin Scorsese
David Byrne
Keith Richards
Mick Jagger
Bob Dylan