Opinions on People Pt. II

This is a public blog. It means that I publish things that I think would be of interest to other people. Sometimes my life is pretty interesting. Other times it is desperately, inconceivably dull. The past two weeks, it has been the latter. I've been going from class, to Ad-Libs, to girlfriend and back, and very little in between. None of this is particularly interesting to the casual observer. So I'm gonna write up a few little paragraphs on my personal heroes.

Thom Yorke. This man is legend. Most of the time, when you really delve into the personal history of an artist, you get these awful glimpses of their very real, very obnoxious personality. Thom Yorke, I imagine, is just a pretty decent guy. Yeah, he's probably a bit prickly. Not the most fun guy to hang out with at a party, I imagine. I'm betting a fun evening for him is spending four hours on moveon.org and then writing a song about his feelings. But I'll be damned if the guy isn't the most uncompromising, virtually ego-less talent around. He's anti-establishment, but without all the Bob Dylan cruelty or the Kurt Cobain self-absorption. He's political without having a Bono-ish, self-aggrandizing messiah complex. He's got no unfortunate past, no illigitemate children to speak of, no addictions: he's just kind of a sad guy from Oxfordshire who really likes making music. And has no other ambitions than to make his music, and to let other people enjoy his music. That's what I love about his. He has no cares but making good, revolutionary art. And no one is quite like him.

Patton Oswalt I would imagine that if Thom Yorke were American and capable of laughing, he'd be Patton Oswalt. Oswalt has the career that I want. He's doing a lot of really great comedy, he stars in sitcoms, is a working screen-writer, and has gotten moderately more famous for being a cartoon rat in a Pixar movie. He's also the funniest comedian around, in my humble opinion. And unlike Will "Kicking and Screaming" Ferrel, or Mike "Cat in the Hat" Myers, he's doing what he wants on his terms, not going for stardom or big paydays. If he wouldn't mind handing his life to me, I'd appreciate it a great deal.

Chris Onstad Who's this guy? Go to www.achewood.com and find out. Here's why I admire him: he's a particularly funny computer programmer from the silicon valley. He makes an ugly-ass website with an ugly-ass cartoon. He sells a few tee-shirts and stickers on the side just to make the site profitable. Slowly but surely, through the STRENGTH OF HIS WRITING ALONE, he develops enough of a fan-base that the comic turns into a full-time job. He's supporting himself and his wife and child in Silicon Valley, which is probably the most expensive place to live that is not on a cloud made of diamonds that were spun in a cotton-candy machine. And the comic is awesome. It's ass-ugly, to be sure, but the characters are so vivid that it doesn't even really matter. At least not to me.

The through-line in all this? I guess it's artists who do subversive, strange work, yet, through the strength of that work alone, manage to support themselves, to varying degrees (really, descending degrees: Thom's a rock star, Patton's a somewhat-well-known stand-up and script-writer, and Chris is making ends meet in a California suburb off a cult-y website). Sound like anything anyone wants to be?