Musician’s Notebook

When I heard the Spice Girls were reuniting for a ‘world tour’ (consisting of only eight dates, which is a comfort), I was worried for humanity. I thought that the horrible days of this so-called band’s repetitively blasted crap on the radio were over. And when I heard that they were each getting paid $25 million to cause brain damage, I scoffed even more. Then I heard that these pathetic performers were going to have pitch correctors installed between microphone and speakers for every show - may as well put a bunch of models from a local fashion agency on the stage and let the machines do the work. Wait: they did. Pity they didn’t choose the good looking ones.

The nail in the coffin: each member of the band will be traveling with their own jet. Yup, five stinkin’ jets will be used on this horrid excuse for modern show business. Well, nobody ever heard of a carbon neutral tour, but this on the other hand, is just plain irresponsible.

And let me tell you this: celebrity, no matter how ill-deserved, is no excuse for irresponsibility.

Let me go further: celebrity brings the dire need for responsibility. It is art that creates culture, and that has created the pitiful culture we live in, and the key to rectifying the sordid state of this civilization. So it is artists who must pave the way not only with their works, but the public actions that send clear messages regarding their beliefs and intentions and attitudes regarding the world and the many issues debated herein. Even if you are ignorant enough to doubt the veracity of climate change, five jets is still irresponsible, stupid, and ultimately damaging.

The Spice Girls show themselves for what they are; pathetically unintelligent little beasts who care for nothing more but their creature comforts and snobbishly immature vices. Not quite the shaker of fresh cinnamon finely ground after being collected from eight different exotic countries, but the little tin of cayenne pepper that got lost somewhere in the back of the cupboard in 1986 and now forms one unbreakable mass of terrorist-resistant building grade brick.

Should celebrities be responsible? The answer is, according to every decently honest and respectable source around the world, yes. And if we weed out the celebrities-for-nothing and leave ourselves with the artists, then there is a Code for those artists. Read especially point three of The Code of a Creative Artist and remember that it is far more than a piece of work that must show responsibility, but every word and action that stands behind that work, to give it strength and integrity in a world lacking both.