Thursday, October 05, 2006

George Michael....?

Handy roundup in the Telegraph of all the recent vicissitudes in the career of George Michael, though the writer omits to note that the picture accompanying the article seems to prove that he is morphing slowly into Michael Jackson via one of the villains in Thunderbirds. Quite a witty move. I interviewed Michael many years ago, but I can remember nothing of the occasion but for the chauffeur driven BMW that picked me up from Maida Vale - why? I found out where his house was since they omitted to blindfold me - and the cheap gag I made in the piece about him living 'alone with his hair in its ever changing moods.' Along with Elton John and many others, he is one of those stars whose music does absolutely nothing for me. But an autumnal pity descended as I read this article. The writer asks, "What's up with George Michael?' Doctor Elton, diagnoses a 'deep-rooted unhappiness', so plainly that can't be right. I would say poor George really doesn't know who he is. He looks pathetic in that picture, garlanded with the attributes of his trade - the right, suit, hair, beard etc - but the person is absent, not quite elsewhere, but not there either. The crumbling pop star is one of the standard tales of our time, but seldom has a crumbling been so strange, so prolonged and so pitiful.

7 comments:

  1. Oh and the Telegraph article mentions that he was found by the News of the World snappers "fresh from cavorting in bushes' with 'a ratty-looking, 58-year-old unemployed man." Speaking on behalf of all ratty-looking men in their fifties, I say, so what?

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  2. Oh sure... push your drugged up perverts on us. As if we don't have enough of our own!

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  3. Sorry Tom, er... how about Vegas then?

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  4. The slings and arrows outrageous genius attracts. Referring to George and Elton of course.

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  5. Having read the Telegraph piece it could be argued there's a little reassuring that he is pretty screwed up and not fitting neatly into the happy happy celebrity glove. Perhaps more disturbing are the ones perfectly well-adjusted to the insanity, or at least appearing to be well-adjusted. His music does nothing for me either but there is perhaps a glimmer of the heroic in George. He'd need to do something about the Thunderbird look though.

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  6. Fair and humane point, Andrew. There is nothing quite so insane as a happpy celebrity. It is why they need periodic culling.

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  7. Or failing that, periodic cuddling.

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