WHACK THE DALAI LAMA
All
the rich kids on the MTV
Whack
the Dalai Lama
Are
saying buy my records and Tibet goes free
Whack
the Dalai Lama
Whack-whack!
whack-whack! whack-whack!
Whack
the Dalai Lama
--"Whack
The Dalai Lama" by The Dickies from the album "All This and Puppet
Stew"
(full
lyric here)
Apparently some readers were irked by the
comments I made about the Dalai Lama last time around. The consensus among these
folks seems to be that I am obviously jealous of the Dalai Lama's fame.
I'm not jealous of the Dalai Lama's fame. In
fact, one of my great worries in writing a book is that I could end up famous
and therefore irrelevant. In fact, I don't really hold any opinions at all
about my man Dalai. I've never read his books or paid much attention to him on
TV. All I really know is he's the leader of Tibet (which I completely agree
should not be under Chinese control) and that he's supposed to be the reincarnation
of the previous Dalai Lama. If he actually believes that he might want to see
this e-mail I got from these guys in Nigeria who say they want to deposit 28
million dollars in my bank account. But I get the impression he's smart enough
to take that kind of thing with a grain of salt. As famous guru-type guys go he
seems OK. Not that I put a whole lot of stock in famous guru-type guys...
The issue I was trying to address has nothing
at all to do with the Dalai Lama. It was about the power of fame and celebrity.
Why do people go to big gatherings like
concerts or baseball games or speeches by famous guru-type guys anyway? It's
always 5% or less about the music or the game or the speech and 95% about just
being there, hanging out with all those people. It's about being able to say
you were there when Jack and Meg played that Ledbelly song (even if you don't
know who Ledbelly was), or when your team scored the big home run (even if you
were out buying a hot dog at the time), or when your fave guru dude said a whole
bunch of really trippy stuff that seemed like it made a lot of sense (even if
you can't remember any of it).
There comes a point where fame starts to
accrue upon itself, where things are famous simply because they're famous. I
happen to think The Beatles are freakin' awesome. But at this point it hardly
matters. People who've never really listened to a single note they played want
Paul McCartney's autograph of a lock of his hair. It doesn't matter a bit why
he's famous. The fact that he's famous is enough in and of itself.
Here's how fame works.
Whenever I eat my lunch in the park near my
office there are always pigeons around. Sometimes when I sit down a couple of
them will come over to my bench thinking they just might get a hand-out. Often,
even if I don't give them anything, other pigeons will notice these guys and
come around as well. Before you know it there's a couple dozen pigeons hanging
out around my bench.
pigeons have been programmed by evolution to
do this, and it makes perfect sense. If there's something good for one pigeon
over by my bench, the others figure since they're pigeons too whatever's got
those pigeons excited is probably good for them as well. All animals do this
and human beings are no different. This is why we react to things that are
famous. 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong was the title of one of The King's early albums, a
brilliant marketing move playing upon just this fact.
But pigeons can be just as attracted to
poison as they can to bread-crumbs if the poison tastes good. Humans are no
different. If 50,000,000 Elvis fans can't be wrong, what about 50,000,000
Nazis?
Celebrity is a tricky thing. On the one hand,
you can't get really famous without providing something that at least seems
like it might be good -- even if it's tasty poison. And, as I wrote in my book,
I've noticed that a lot of famous people have a certain admirable degree of
balance in whatever particular thing they do that made them famous. Artists,
even those who aren't famous, tend to be balanced while creating their art.
Unfortunately, it's rare that an artist carries that balance into the rest of
his or her life.
When someone becomes famous not for being
artistic, but for being "spiritual" there's a greater danger. This is
why I'd be far happier for people to buy my book because they think it's
entertaining or funny than to buy it because they think it contains The Answer.
It doesn't. No book does. I'm a bit distressed that when I check Amazon under
the "People who bought this book also bought" category all the books
associated with mine are dodgy "spiritual" books. I'd rather see MAD
magazine reprints or books about great flying saucer movies of the Fifties
there. At any rate, I know there
are a Hell of a lot more laughs in my book than there are in any of the Dalai
Lama's.
Spiritual fame is an extraordinarily
dangerous thing. There's really no limit to the things people will do if they
think they're taking orders from someone with connections to God. Buddhist
authorities, and here I include myself, are no more immune to this than any
other religious authorities. Most folks' understanding of Buddhism is so
unclear that the word "Buddha" is just another name for the Supreme
Authority Figure in the Sky Whose Will Must Be Obeyed. This doesn't only apply
to Westerners. Popular Buddhism throughout Asia is even worse than popular
Buddhism in the West. People who make use of this fact, no matter what ends
they're pursuing, are doing a terrible disservice to those who follow them.
Belief in power is a way of deferring
responsibility for your own life. You give your chosen authority figure total
control and allow him to choose for you what's right and what's wrong. You must
never allow anyone else to choose for you what's right and what's wrong or
you're lost forever.
Me, I pray to God I never become a spiritual
celebrity.