09.14.07 Snapshots

It was years ago, but I still remember the lesson well.  I walked into the venue that day in yesterday’s clothes, my hair more disheveled than usual, sleep in the corners of my eyes.  It was noon.  A volunteer watched me, apparently, eating my lunch at a table by myself, saying nothing to anyone.  Then he wrote on another artist’s messageboard about what he’d seen.  Everything he wrote was true.  I feared it would make me look like a grumpy diva, hurt my bookings and my credibility.

What he didn’t see, couldn’t see, was me barfing all night in a tour bus bathroom.  What he didn’t know was that my medication was made out of heavy barbiturates, prescription strength, that left my brain churning in mud for hours until my stomach settled.

Snapshots are funny things.  Those of us who live in the public to any degree know they can be taken at any moment and passed around and we eventually learn we aren’t in control of the camera and stop spending our time worrying and defending ourselves against them - or we go nuts.  We eventually realize - and it’s freeing - that we don’t really look as bad as we think we do in those pictures.  And we realize protesting the image that’s been cast risks validating and even spreading it further in the end. 

Good lesson for communicators and public-ish figures to learn.  We must, or go mad.  It’s one I still have to be reminded of from time to time, and was yesterday.