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Unfortunately, Roseanne Barr was also nothing like the sassy, quick-witted TV mother of my childhood. There was plenty of bitterness—she felt that Ellen Degeneres and Will & Grace had unfairly overshadowed her as the pioneer of gay issues on TV, and that anti-socialist misogyny had conspired against her run for president—but she exuded none of the humor or playfulness that she was known for. She was just a grumpy old crank who sounded annoyed that I had called her.Like any myth, it served the myopic function of telling a story, regardless of the facts.
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Though perhaps this is just my unique brand of fandom. Two years ago, I interviewed comedian, podcaster (and my hero of self-loathing) Marc Maron, a man whose career has been built on meeting celebrities and asking them questions. When I asked if he could relate to my experience of finding the human version of my mythical heroes unsettling, he said: "I don't know if it's unsettling so much as settling. If an interview gets to a point where they reveal themselves, you start to see that they are just people. Whatever we build in our head about them, based on the information we have, that's on us. I'm always relieved when I find out that they're real people, because it makes what they do all the more impressive."Sometimes, you begin with a real person and end up with a myth. I was once casual friends with Denver musician Esme Patterson, until she released an album of songs that so fundamentally consumed my thoughts and emotions (note: this was during a pretty epic breakup) that I began to find it difficult to hang out with her. She went from a drinking buddy to an iconic name on the side of an LP, treasured alongside the likes of Jenny Lewis, Marianne Faithfull, Joni Mitchell, and dozens of other female songwriters I like to daydream about.Sometimes, you begin with a real person and end up with a myth.
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This is why I didn't want Tom Robbins' autograph, or save the shot glass I toasted P.T. Anderson with. I didn't want proof that I met these people—I didn't even want to remember that they are actual people.When Belle & Sebastian slowly infected the culture of dial-up internet blogs and Brit-pop tabloids throughout the last half of the 90s, their lack of press photos and disinterest in interviews made for the ideal environment for some myth-making, allowing their growing fanbase to rest whatever attributes they needed on Stuart Murdoch's pale shoulders."A band never perceives itself, you do the perceiving," Murdoch said to me, a little accusatorially, in an interview for Noisey last September. "All we do is get on with it. Back in the 90s, it was the correct and proper thing for us to remain insular, because we were passionate about our music, and if we had entered the media world it would've torn our band apart."It isn't lost on me that this kind of mythologizing can be a little unpleasant for those on the pedestal, especially if they didn't voluntarily climb up there. And it can be just as miserable for those craning their necks to look up at them, particularly if adoration becomes obsession.Don't go trying to meet your heroes. Crossing the streams of the physical and imaginative realms is dumb and greedy. And you miss out on the true value of having a hero: the opportunity to learn about yourself.It isn't lost on me that this kind of mythologizing can be a little unpleasant for those on the pedestal, especially if they didn't voluntarily climb up there.