Journal of a fame addict

[Music]

i’m harry and i’m an applausaholic

wow i just told you i have a

pathological relationship with the thing

you just gave me shame on you

thank you for your support though i

guess i’ve been in recovery for the

better part of a year now this is my

first time on stage in 10 months and 13

days

apparently everyone except you all got

the memo but the world’s in timeout

right now

so i’ve been relegated to the house you

know unneglecting all the things in life

they gradually become neglected from

playing

hundreds and hundreds of shows over the

last 10 years you know tidy up the

basement

fix the leaky faucet introduce yourself

to your children

you go outside you look at the roof you

go wow that’s disgusting and on the

brink of caving in i should clean that

sometime

not today though you go back inside

maybe papa orangina

point being in the process of this

year-long spring cleaning

i discovered my old journals so i took a

long day

i got nowhere to be i popped one open

and what i found hit me square in the

teeth so hard

it felt so profoundly universal to the

human experience that

i wanted to put this to you all right it

goes dear journal

i’ve been thinking of waxing my unibrow

maybe then the ladies will

hang on that’s the wrong page it’s this

one

embarrassing dear journal tonight i

played madison square garden

it looked exactly like i’d always

dreamed it would the ocean of people

from the front to the rafters

the sweat all over the drums and the

bloody hands and the flame columns

i did it i got exactly what i wanted

so should i feel relieved right now

because if anything i’m feeling a little

empty a little nervous about what’s

expected of me next send help

p.s clean the roof you disgust me

all right so that journal entry is three

years old i forgot i’d written it

but reading it put me in this trance

like this if we don’t observe our past

we’re doomed to repeat it kind of trance

so i went down the rabbit hole on these

journals trying to trace how it all got

to this point

and i want to show you what i found

because i wonder if you will recognize

some version of yourself and what i

crawled out with when i got to the other

side

can you dig it

sweet you’re sweet okay i’ll do it

dear journal it’s halloween and

i’m grounded

this is the third year in a row i can

see my friends out the window right

there

dressed up getting candy because they

didn’t fail the english midterm

i wonder what it’s like to not be dumb

that’s what it said and i cringe at it

for two reasons one

no wonder you failed the english midterm

there’s a run on sentence right in the

middle of your diary there dude

but two if the worst thing that ever

happened to you is you didn’t get to go

trick-or-treating well then

you didn’t have real problems in

childhood and i got to own up to that

but my point is that even from age 11 i

could see that life is a contest

i grew up in this house built on

accomplishment like from the second we

know our own names

we’re developing our sense of self in

this economy that stamps a

number on each of our brains and then

post that number

on these leaderboards in the front foyer

of the school where by definition

half of us are bringing up the rear i

could still see it as like one of those

felt letter boards maybe you had one too

it’s like livingston 4.0

strauss 4.0 hutchings 3.95 what a loser

he should have studied more

myrie 3.9 full disclosure that’s not me

i had a smarter older brother but h my

2.1 sweet they technically can’t make me

do sixth grade a third time

hit it

sweet uh no that’s a sincere fact i

passed sixth grade the second time with

incredible

adequacy so got it i’m fresh out of the

womb

life is this competition i’m no good at

but maybe you’re in your 20s 30s 40s and

you feel the same way

like you achieve you get candy and

happiness

you don’t achieve you sit your ass at

home and watch the world pass you by

through the window

but listen i’m not just going to whine

about it without offering a solution

i got invited here because i found my

way out of this pickle and they asked me

to share my answer with you

and i knew this was an auspicious

opportunity so i vowed to approach it

with that same academic vigor i

channeled that second time through sixth

grade

so yesterday i awoke at 3 p.m and began

i dusted off the old journals and

here’s my journey out all right 2001.

dear journal

i turned 13 today we went and got a drum

set

i figured out a beat i can’t stop

playing it 2002

dear journal sorry i haven’t written in

a while i can’t remember what i did with

all my time before the drums

you know if book reports were as easy as

playing drum beats i’d be king of the

world right now

2003 dear journal i am happy

all that exists in the world are my

hands and the drums underneath them

and stroke for stroke they give back to

me what i give to them

2004 dear journal school is poison

it’s a sport they’re pitting us against

each other they sent this letter home

saying

i’m four weeks behind on homework i

don’t care anymore

my teachers don’t like me i don’t like

them you know what the second i’m old

enough me and my drums are just going to

move into a cardboard box away from all

this crap

2005 dear journal saturday night we

played haley’s house party

strangers are high-fiving me in the

hallways

am i winning at life

2006 dear journal i made the grave

mistake of shaving my unibrow

and now it’s growing back with a

vengeance wrong page

again that’s embarrassing edit that part

out

all right four years later this is 2009.

dear journal

tomorrow’s my audition for the smashing

pumpkins i will obliterate my opposition

with every backbeat i’ll hammer another

nail in the coffin of my drumming

competitors eight years later it’s 2017

now

dear journal the single is less than 100

spins from going number one

i will never want for anything ever

again once this thing hits the top of

the charts

i’ll be a guy who did it and the

scoreboarders who raised me can kiss on

that

all right so a week later that song goes

number one

a month later they sent me the record

made out of gold and by two months later

we’re back to where we began i write

dear journal tonight i played madison

square garden why do i feel empty inside

ps clean your roof and ding

the cycle is complete i discovered

drumming

as this escape canoe from the rat race

life of

justifying my existence through

accomplishment and then i turned that

escape canoe into

yes he had another prison of justifying

my existence through accomplishment

perfectly said give this lady a hand

that was eloquent

i got to admit that for years i didn’t

notice myself abusing the drums this way

because at the intersection of art and

commerce we’re kind of all doing it

and what’s worse is the people who look

up to me are doing it because they see

me doing it

i went on this drum clinic tour last

fall and in q and a i could set my watch

to this question

every night kids who are the future of

this instrument would ask me some

variation of

dude should i quit the drums i feel like

it’s not going well because my peers

have more

instagram followers than i do

like imagine the future of so many

different cool creative disciplines

asking this question

am i worthwhile at skateboarding because

i don’t have loads of youtube

subscribers

well why did you start skating is it for

the applause or is the reward something

else

if it’s an attempt to emulate successful

people well how far fetched is it

starting to sound now when tom brady

the nfl’s all-time winningest

quarterback says why do i have three

super bowl rings and still feel like

there’s something out there for me

what else is there serena williams goes

i can’t become satisfied or else i’ll

relax and that’s how they’ll beat me

taylor swift i give myself five seconds

a day to feel like yes this is happening

then i spend the rest of the day trying

to figure out how to make it last

conan o’brien if applause were a vape

pen blown in my face

the self-esteem i get from it wears off

about as quickly as its bubble gum scent

dissipates into the air jim carrey i

wish everyone could become rich and

famous and do everything they ever

dreamed of so they could see it’s not

the answer people in the comments of

this video

hey the dude giving this talk kind of

looks like jim carrey

my mom leaving the house son clean the

roof that’s disgusting there’s an amazon

jungle

growing up from under the shingles

that is disgusting i’m busy though

the rat maze we live in constantly

signals for us to stock our happiness

and the results

the external rewards we’re given for

what we do that number stamped to each

of our foreheads

pick your poison it’s your position on

the leaderboard in the front of the

school

is your spot on the billboard charts

it’s the dollar bills you stacked up

it’s your friend count on tic tac that’s

your worth if that’s what you decide

but just like all things that are

ultimately out of our control that stuff

comes and goes with the

tide the temperature the flavor of the

day

do you dig what i’m saying like it’s

going to rain your song is going to get

out spun

uncle penny bags is going to out earn

you some genius is going to whoop you in

calculus

and i don’t know where to tell you to

turn when she does if

that’s the sole source of your worth

it’s a volatile recipe a fidgety target

let my wacky journalings of fame

addiction be proof of it all right

so a problem well put is half solved

what now

i’ll leave you on one last journal dear

journal

i haven’t been on stage in so long i’m

starting to feel purposeless

see this never-ending drive to achieve

is making my hands fidget

i got to do something anything

so today i finally cleaned my damn roof

it was actually peaceful and gratifying

see all that exists in the world are my

hands

and the rake underneath them and stroke

for stroke it gives back to me what i

give to it

sounds familiar i thought about my old

drums

those sweet vessels that saved me from

life as a contest

maybe i feel so empty now because i

turned them into a contest too

what if artistic satisfaction comes from

process

not results like what happened to making

things

for the sake of making them i don’t just

mean albums not just vlogs i mean that

birthday greeting you make for your

friend i mean

that extra five minutes you spend

crumpling your dinner napkin

so it looks like a gnarly pokemon

what if we all just decided to reclaim

our joy by finding it in the act

of the craft itself as opposed to the

applause the smooches the number ones

the follows the likes the updos the ah

yes the gpa the dollar bills it brings

what if we you know just make things we

because the world doesn’t need anymore

look i can do this too now do i matter

it needs more here’s a thing i loved

making

worst case scenario nobody sees it but

you did

a thing you like

you know this roof cleaning thing is the

most gratifying work i’ve done in years

and no one will ever even know that i

did it

unless i can somehow use it to extort

applause from the internet

peace thank you you’re sweet