Citizen Spector

So yes, the Spector book, (see previous post) has triggered all kinds of thought-trains.  I guess that means it's a good read.


1. Boy Wonder Spector lamenting his lost innocence sits all alone in a castle-like mansion watching "Citizen Kane" over and over.  The movie is about  Boy Wonder Kane, a lonely man who ends up in a castle-like mansion lamenting his lost "innocence."


2. Why is it that all that "Sunshine Pop" and exuberant rock & roll was created by such unhappy and tortured personalities?  Think Spector, Brian Wilson, John Lennon.  All very sensitive people, all very much haunted by loss and pain.  All of them were able to become rich and famous by channeling their angst into joyous 3 minute pop masterpieces devoted to love, surfing and cars.  Pop myths all.


3. David Lynch already tackled the Spector character.  See Lynch's Mulholland Drive.  Remember the Small Man (Midget? Dwarf? Little Person?) in a room, calling the shots, issuing orders?  That's the essence of Spector.  A small man, all alone in the control room, calling the shots.  A little man, pretending to be a big man.


4. Another American Weirdo.  What is it about wealth and fame?  And isolation?  Think Michael Jackson, Howard Hughes, Elvis Presley.  Spector too.  Disturbed, creative individuals who were able to turn their eccentricities into a way of life.  Maybe what drives these people to succeed is also their fatal flaw. Supremely unhappy people, inflating their egos to mammoth proportions, but ultimately lonely, insecure and paranoid.  They live in a false world distorted by their own ego worship.


5. Guns and alcohol - they don't mix.  Spector's fascination with guns spanned decades.  He strapped on a gun to make himself bigger, more powerful, intimidating.  It was his sense of powerlessness, his insecurity, his powerlessness that drove him to a false and fatal bravado.


6. It's always easier to see someone else's flaws and problems.  Much clearer from a distance.  Maybe it's instructive and cathartic.  And you do recognize some of your own character issues in the lives of others.  Maybe that's one of the joys of reading biographies.


7.  Spector did finally become a cartoon character.  Ridiculous, absurd.  Tragic too.  What an American story.  You wouldn't believe it if it was fiction.


8. Spector did produce some amazing records.  My favorite post-Beatles, ex-Beatles records in this order:
John Lennon's Plasitc Ono Band, George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, John Lennon's Imagine.