Day: Mar 11

By Paul Ford

2 intervals from 11 Mar 2001 (Beet Gospels)

1:09 pm

I read an interview with Shane McGowan, but with his girlfriend as well, and she said, "I have a fame addiction." And she once had an affair with Van Morrison. Jesus.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,6000,449838,00.html

            In any case, she sympathises with addiction because she
            suffers it herself - she has a mild addiction to food and
            a major addiction to fame, and has had therapy for
            both. But now she plans to cure her fame addiction by
            hiring herself a publicist - she thinks probably Matthew
            Freud - to make her famous so she can get it out of her
            system. 'Because it's one of those things, like with
            heroin - you've got to try it before you can decide that
            you're going to give it up.'

            But doesn't this fame obsession make her relationship with
            Shane a bit suspect? Doesn't he worry that she might leave
            him for someone more famous? 'I've already done
            that. [Apparently she had an affair with Van Morrison.]
            We've been through it, we've had the affairs, we've had
            the breakups, we've had the nervous breakdowns. But with
            me it didn't last - the connection was never strong enough
            with anyone else - so it must be that I actually genuinely
            like him more than anyone else. And also we did meet
            before he was famous.'

What a strange thing, to be compulsed towards fame as a sexual object. And yet, perhaps it's what everyone is doing. Moths to the flame.

All of us want to be rock stars. (True? Not true?) To be important, to be listened to, to be interviewed on subjects of which we are completely ignorant.

Being dishonest about that is foolish, but dealing with the fact that you aren't a rock star forces you to appreciate the exact non-rock-star qualities of yourself.

7:47 pm

I want to re-introduce Octave 6, the first beautiful child born from the machines, into Ftrain. Scott is by far my favorite character, but there are other people in the site, hidden under pseudonyms and aliases.

http://home.ftrain.com/archive_ftraintwo_13.html